The Rules of Life Read Online Free

vulgar! As if we took the marriage seriously enough thus to insult it.
    ‘The sight of the double bed did, I admit, disconcert me. I switched off the television set and waited for Timothy Tovey to come round at eleven for his chilled cream-filled chocolate and his glass of Monbazillac and the pleasure of unbuttoning the dozen small silk buttons that ran down the back of my Thai silk dress. He came on time. He smiled. He did not mention the programme: no doubt he hoped I had not seen it. He was disingenuous. This, more than the sight of the marital double bed, made me angry. I took care not to show it. I murmured and smiled and charmed as usual. Only when he had undone the last button did I slip away from him.
    ‘“You lied to me,” I said. “You and Janice share a double bed.”
    ‘Now remember that Timothy Tovey was trained as a diplomat. “We sleep in a double bed,” he said. “But do we share it? I am not so sure. And since we are also unsure about the very nature of truth I think it unreasonable of you to believe you can define a lie, and therefore define me as a liar.”
    ‘I flung what was left of my wine at him, and the glass hurtled through the air and caught and cracked one of my collection of erotic glass paintings. This one was delicately tender, of lesbians and butterflies sporting in the grass; Lesbos innocent and fragile as it was seen to be in the reign of the young Victoria, from which era the painting originated.
    ‘“Now see what you’ve done,” I wept, and he laughed and held me, and promised to buy me another painting, as if I were a child to be teased, tempted and cajoled. But I was not my father’s child for nothing. I knew that just as a new kitten cannot replace a familiar old tomcat, inasmuch as mere charm and prettiness, instant purrings and rubbings, fall short in the balance against the weight and resonance of a tough shared experience, so a new work of art can never replace one carelessly destroyed. I also knew in my heart that the glass painting hardly counted as art, merely as the curious and decorative; but I would not let Timothy know I knew. A tragedy had occurred. There was to be no consolation.
    ‘“It is a bad omen,” I wept. “The glass is shattered: your lies shattered it. Now you and I will have seven years’ bad luck.”
    ‘“Gabriella,” he pleaded, “be reasonable. You lost your temper and threw a glass at the painting, so it cracked. That’s all.”
    ‘“You are very clear when it comes to describing my actions,” I said, “but very obscure when it comes to your own. Well, you are a diplomat. I suppose it is only to be expected. Go home to your wife and practise your diplomatic skills on her. Lie as much as you like to her, but I’ll have none of it, or you, for seven years.”
    ‘“Darling,” he said, “seven years is for mirrors. This is only a piece of painted glass.” But he was quite pale. He knew what was coming.
    ‘“Five years, then,” I said.
    ‘“Two,” he pleaded, and I settled for three.
    ‘I am a woman of my word. I did not see Timothy Tovey again for three whole years. I would not. I unplugged the telephone and shut my ears against the ringing of the doorbell. Presently I went to Corfu, and lived with Stavros until the three years were up. Timothy Tovey always referred to Stavros as “your Greek waiter” in the same tone of voice in which I would refer to Janice as “your poor wife”. In fact Stavros owned shipping lines and vineyards. Timothy was right in one sense: he was no gentleman—but that’s another story, as a result of which few rules can be formulated, except that the best way of washing linen sheets is in running mountain water. Even though water gushed plentiful and hot-and-cold from gold taps in all of Stavros’s many establishments, I always had the maids go up the hillsides and do the washing in the traditional way, and the drying likewise. Our bed was scented with thyme and honey. Stavros loved it. Alas,