‘You cheat on me for four years, break a perfectly good desk, and I’m the bitch?’
‘Don’t be funny with me. You terrified her! You stole her diary!’ He holds up Georgie’s stolen diary.
‘Did she ask you to get it back?’ I say.
‘Yes, she fucking did, and her teddy bear, where is it?’
‘I gave it to Nelly. I don’t think it stands a chance.’
‘You’ve made me feel like I’m the bad guy, and I find this fucking list. Your fucking scheming!’ He holds up my ten-point marriage-saving plan. Fortunately, I shred my daily to-do lists or I’d have a huge amount of explaining to do.
‘Everyone needs to plan, darling, or we’d get nowhere. I meanlook at you and Georgie, four years and still fumbling around for five minutes together in a car park.’
‘Because we’re authentic, Lalla. I wouldn’t want things planned. Not like this. Every single thing you do. It’s all worked out, isn’t it? I thought that was really nice of you, but actually it’s just part of your game.’
‘I’m not the most spontaneous person, Stephen. You’ve always known that. We all have our different ways to cope.’
‘This is a script, not a life. Testosterone gel, for fuck’s sake! Getting pregnant just to keep us together. You can’t do that. Nothing’s real. All this time, I’ve struggled with feeling disconnected, and you’re planning our life one bullet point at a time.’
‘Reality is over-rated, don’t you think? I presume that’s why you pretended to be a good husband and father, while betraying the foundations of our relationship?’
‘Is it a surprise I found someone else? You’re actually a fucking robot. I loved you, you know, but you gave me nothing in return. I thought you were just a little on the spectrum, but this is something else!’
‘I gave you everything I had to give. A family. A beautiful wife. Children. A successful marriage.’
‘Successful? I wanted to feel loved.’
‘I’m not your mother, Stephen.’
‘This is why I’ve been so unhappy,’ he says, holding up my plan again.
‘You think I’m manipulative, do you? You have no idea,’ I say.
‘Idea about what?’
‘Do you know why Georgie wants her diary back?’
‘Because it’s her fucking diary, and you broke into her house and stole it while she was asleep,’ he says.
‘Have you read it?’
‘She doesn’t want me to read it.’
‘No, she wouldn’t. It would ruin your little fairy tale.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You’ve been scammed, Stephen, and not by me. I was just trying to save our relationship. That’s what that list is – the last attempt of a betrayed wife to try to be what you want.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘No, Stephen. I was willing to try anything to get you back, but I couldn’t win, not with those two working against me, playing you for a fool.’
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Georgie and your mother planned the whole romance, bullet point by bullet point. It’s all in her diary. How they schemed to get you two together whenever I was pregnant, ill, incapacitated or away. How they drip-fed criticism about me. Don’t you think it uncanny how she had that knack of always being there with her uncomplicated adoration?’
‘That’s not true. That’s bullshit.’
