Read Bookends for Free Online Page A

lasted two years. Two years that gradually wore me down until there was almost nothing left. Two years that shattered my dreams of romance and everlasting love. Two years that taught me never to open myself up again for fear of getting hurt.
    In fact the only good thing to come out of it was the weight loss. Even after he confessed he was married, I continued to believe that he loved her but wasn’t in love with her. I believed that she had happily consented to his wishes to sleep in the spare room and that they hadn’t had sex for two years. I believed that the only reason he was staying was because of the children, but as soon as they started school he would leave.
    I believed this until I found out she was pregnant again. Don’t ask me how I found out – a long and complicated story – but I did, and Martin denied it until he could see I wasn’t buying the lies any more, and then it was over.
    So, as I was saying, the weight loss. I couldn’t eat. Quite literally. Could. Not. Eat. For weeks.
    ‘You know you’re becoming a lollipop,’ Si would say. ‘You have this huge hair and a little sticky body. Please eat this,’ he’d beg, proffering home-made coconut pie with chocolate sauce, or treacle tart, or salmon fishcakes. ‘We’re worried about you.’
    Josh and Lucy would invite me over for dinner and exchange concerned glances when they thought I wasn’t looking, too busy sighing and poking at pastry with my fork.
    Finally Si dragged me up to Bond Street. ‘We might as well take advantage of the fact that you now have hipbones,’ he sighed, pulling me into Ralph Lauren.
    ‘But I’ll never wear this,’ I kept hissing at him, although I had to admit, if I were into clothes and had unlimited finances, I probably would have bought them.
    Eventually we settled on Fenwick, much to Si’s horror, and I bought a couple of size 10 trousers and a tight sweater, just to keep him happy, although I was slightly smug about not having to buy a size 14 for the first time in years.
    ‘You’re a woman,’ Si said in disgust, shaking his head in amazement. ‘You must understand the concept of retail therapy.’
    I wore the trousers for a while, until I started becoming happy again, and soon I was back to my normal size and the trousers were given to my secretary. And since then I haven’t really been involved with anyone.
    There have been a few, but they’ve always been too short. Or too tall. Too handsome. Not handsome enough. Too young. Too old. Too rich. Too poor. Quite frankly these days I prefer a good book.
    ‘What about Brad?’ Si asked me one day.
    ‘Brad who?’ We were sitting at a café in West Hampstead, with Josh and Lucy, and a pile of the Sunday papers. It’s become a bit of a tradition with us now. One o’clock at Dominique’s, every Sunday, for coffee, croissants, scrambled eggs and papers.
    We were all engrossed. I was stuck into the Sunday Times News Review, Josh had the Business section, and Lucy was reading Style. Si had the magazine.
    ‘Brad who? Brad who?’ he said indignantly. ‘There is only one Brad,’ he finally exclaimed, adding, ‘Brad Pitt. That’s who.’ Si held up a picture of said man caught in a paparazzi snap coming out of a restaurant.
    ‘What about him?’ Lucy asked.
    ‘What about him for Cath?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said slowly, as if talking to a child. ‘Because Brad Pitt would dump Jennifer Aniston for a short, plain, mousy…’
    ‘You’re almost blonde,’ Si interrupted. ‘And he loves blondes! Remember Gwynnie.’
    Josh put down his paper and looked at Si, shaking his head. ‘Si, what on earth are we talking about? What is this conversation? Have you gone mad?’
    ‘No. I just meant that Cath finds fault with every man who even goes near her, and he’s completely perfect, but she’d probably find something wrong with him too. Wouldn’t you?’ He looked at me.
    ‘’Course,’ I said, examining the picture before exclaiming very seriously, ‘His