LIZ MOANS DIARY
In which I wonder if I have forgiven him?
On Monday, David turned up at my lovely house in the Yorkshire Dales, with its sloping lawns down to the pristine river. He was all regretful and sad that he’d upset me. We sat in my beautiful drawing room with its pistachio and gilt top of the range wide screen telly and designer Bayeux Tapestry covered poufs and the British Home Stores chandelier and the genuine faux black vinyl marble floor.. When he came in, he did look twice at the gorgeous new mat I’ve got in front of the homage to an antique reproduction Adams fireplace with its lovely gas pretend logs and fir cones. ‘Is that mat – er – FUR?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘It looks – I dunno – sort of familiar’. Oops. I quickly replied that it was actually soft buttery organic vegan tabby pattern fake fur.
We sat together on the pink Thai silk gold trimmed sofa with Swarovski crystal swags and tassels and texted each other. He texted: ‘I NEVER EVER loved anyone until I met you. I loved you all those years back but I was so overcome by the wondrous sight of pulchritudinous you that I couldn’t tell you how I really felt that night back in 1958 or whenever it was, so I just asked you to look after my racquet and went off to control my raging rampant bestial urges that I wanted to throw you down onto the nylon shag pile of your little flat and roger you frontwards, backwards and sideways … but you were such a lovely innocent girl I couldn’t, just couldn’t, defile you … ‘
Oh, I texted him back immediately: ‘Oh David, David, if only you had. You have no idea how sad I was that evening. Bad enough that my parents never bought me a horse, I had to wear tartan shoes my mother knitted and I only ate half a peanut a day and had bits of me cut off so that I would be beautiful and slim for you…’
David texted me back: ‘Darling … I never knew. By the way, what happened to my racquet? You still got it? I wouldn’t mind it back …’
Reader, I was quite upset by that text. So I replied: ‘Well, if you must know, I TREASURED that racquet. … yes, I loved that racquet … I used to sniff the handle, its leather binding slightly redolent of your sweaty hands with their long fingernails and I used to take it to bed with me as a poor substitute when I yearned for you during the lonely nights, not sure you'd actually want it back now … but forget the bloody racquet, YOU’VE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH YOUR EX!’
He texted me back, fast: ‘I keep telling you – I NEVER loved anyone, anyone at all, including my mother, father, sisters, brothers, Fido the dog, grandma, Aunty Gladys, my ex wife, my kids, all my ex girlfriends. Honestly, I have never ever ever ever known TRUE LOVE until you.’
Me: ‘You sure? Then how come you’re STILL texting that ex girlfriend with whom you messed around in St. Tropez back in the 1980s?’
He replied fast: ‘Don’t you realise, you wonderful, clever, beautiful, thin, goddess of a lady, all these fleeting relationships were just to take my mind off yearning for YOU? I hated, just HATED, every moment in St. Tropez, all that sun and those lovely Pampelonne beaches - Plage Tahiti is amazing, all morning lying on the beach or cavorting together in the Med, her tossing her beautiful long soft hair, smelling so deliciously of Garnier Fructis, her luscious body in her tiny bikini, (not that I noticed, of course, as I was only thinking of, yearning for, YOU)... then lunch: they do fantastic lobster, sardines and steak tartare ... we had lots of fabulous, long long lunches there and afterwards ... back up the beach to the Tahiti Hotel with its air conditioning and huge soft bed and minibar full of champagne for a little 'siesta', mmm ... oh yes... But of course, of course, without you, I didn't enjoy a single moment, might as well have been lying among the dog crap, tar and litter on Southend beach because all the time it was YOU, YOU, I wanted … but you were unobtainable by then, so gorgeous and successful? What hope would a simple, horny handed toiling baker have with such an incandescent star of the British media and at the top of her profession, so loved and admired by all?’
I was bit mollified. But I texted him back: ‘By the way, apparently your ex girlfriend wants your car … Of course, I don’t want the old wreck, because I’ve got my lovely new convertible Mercedes … did I mention that I’ve got a lovely new convertible Mercedes? But anyway, I don’t want her to have your old car either. So there -that’ll teach her.’
He texted back, quick. ‘OK, OK, anything you say … and when she pops that old bow tie through my letterbox, I’ll burn it.’
Reader, I relented. Hmm – I realised that maybe I was being too hard on David. I bared my expensively veneered recently bleached teeth in a loving smile … ‘Darling …’ I texted. ‘I forgive you.’
He smiled back at me and texted: ‘By the way, I’ve got nine more parking tickets. Shall I leave them on the table in the hall? Oh yes, another thing, can’t help noticing - why isn’t Prudence around?’