Ordinary Miracles by Grace Wynne-Jones Read Free Book Online

newsagents. Naturally this prompts further strange looks from people who recognise a haunted woman when they see one. Sunny days are easier because then I can wear dark glasses.
    Another pressure is feeling I have to look good all the time so that, if I do meet Cait Carmody, she’ll see instantly that I am a person with a solid sense of my own attractiveness and self-worth. Actually I’m not sure she’d have time to study me too closely, because I might take a swing at her with my handbag. ‘That’s for the “Artichokes Supreme” you bitch!’ I’d screech – because I can’t get over how she could screw my husband and still regularly, and brazenly, sit down at my dinner-table. I can’t quite forgive her for all the hours I spent poring over Nigella Lawson’s recipes trying to do imaginative things with food, while she and Bruce did imaginative things in bed.
    I’m sure they were imaginative, the things she and Bruce did in bed, and, who knows, they may have involved food too. Not artichokes of course – most probably bananas or cream. She’s frequently been cast in sensuous dramas that call for much writhing and moaning, so I know she’s not inhibited. They probably even talked about me sometimes while smugly spooned together.
    Actually, when I think about this, cutting the sleeves off all Bruce’s shirts and pouring paint over his new Volvo do not seem like such bad ideas. When I think about this, I forget the occasional strong temptation to return to my comfortable semi and resume my detached marriage.
    And yet, despite all this, I’m having lunch with Bruce today.
    It’s not lunch so much – it’s more a small act of revenge. Bruce has been ringing up imploring me to meet him ‘anywhere – anytime’, so I’ve chosen this extraordinarily expensive French restaurant and I’m going to order their top wine and most expensive courses. I’ve been there once before with him and some of his colleagues and I didn’t really like it.
    It’s the sort of place where people say ‘Très bien’, ‘Oui’, ‘Formidable’ and ‘Merci’ a lot, and then look frightfully pleased with themselves. Though the Parisian waiters appear most solicitous, you know that on some level their patience is wearing thin.
    There is one thing I like about the place though, and that’s the ladies’ toilet. Toilets were frequently places of refuge for me when I went out with Bruce and his colleagues, and the one in the restaurant we’re going to today is particularly spacious and restful. Even though I was there over a year ago, I can still remember that it contained a number of comfortable upholstered chairs of the simple, trim, expensive variety, and a vase full of exotic flowers. The soaps smelt of lavender, and a large box of tissues in a container covered with raw silk was thoughtfully provided for prolonged bouts of weeping.
    Still, there are some hours to go until lunch, and I’m now sitting in a room on the second floor of a Georgian building near Grafton Street playing with my mouse. My mouse is small and white and attached to a computer. I’ve learned that by moving it around and clicking it I can make the computer do all sorts of interesting things. I’m currently using the paintbox mode and drawing large yellow circles on the screen.
    ‘Please leave your mice alone,’ says our instructor, Mrs Riordan. ‘There will be plenty of time to play with them later.’
    ‘A big egg timer has just appeared on my screen,’ wails a man in a yellow jumper.
    ‘Well just leave it there, Eoin and it will go away,’ says Mrs Riordan. ‘I’ll explain all about the egg timer soon.’
    This two-week course is for adults who want to learn about the latest office software, but it feels a lot like kindergarten. I think it would be fair to say that we have all, in some ways, regressed.
    For example the woman with the bun strays into spreadsheets at every opportunity and then insists she ‘didn’t touch a thing’. And the