Behaving Badly Read Online Free PDF

whole works.
    ‘It’s a bit galling having to do all these weddings when Nige won’t pop the question,’ she said regretfully, fork poisedin mid-air. ‘I think he will marry me,’ she continued judiciously. She often says that. ‘But I don’t think it’s worth pushing it just now.’
    The fact is, Daisy’s terrified of pushing it. I know this because she’s been with Nigel for five and a half years and we’ve been having the same conversation for three. ‘I mustn’t put him under pressure,’ she said seriously. ‘That’s what the books all say.’
    ‘The books also say that you should be a bit more detached. Don’t be there for him so much. Make him miss you. Be mysterious. Move town if need be. Or even country, God knows.’
    ‘Oooh—that’s a very dangerous game.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because,’ she said, with an air of spurious authority, ‘if I suddenly withdraw, and act all aloof, then he might think I don’t really love him. And that would be disastrous, wouldn’t it?’
    I looked at her. ‘I’m not sure. I think it might do him some good to feel a bit less secure.’
    ‘No, I think it’ll all happen in the fullness of time,’ she added, with a slightly twitchy serenity.
    ‘Hmmm. Well, it’s your life.’
    But I find it odd that Daisy’s so scared of asking Nigel whether or not he intends to marry her, because in other ways she’s incredibly brave. For example, she spends her days off bungee-jumping, hang-gliding, abseiling and rock-climbing—and she did her first solo sky-dive a few weeks ago.
    ‘It would be catastrophic if I forced him to name the day and then he booted me,’ she said sagely. ‘Then what on earth would I do? I’ve invested nearly six years of my life in Nigel and to be quite crude about it I’d like a return. So I don’twant to blow it all at this final—and very delicate—stage by not being quite patient enough.’ I nodded, though, as I say, I’ve heard this line of argument many times before. ‘I want to have kids,’ Daisy went on calmly, ‘and I’m now thirty-three, so if Nigel and I split up—’ she gave a little shudder ‘—it would take me at least two, maybe even three years to get to the same stage with someone else, by which time…’ she poured the egg mixture into a frying pan, ‘…it may well be curtains on the ovary front. And I’d never trap him into marriage,’ she added. ‘Men resent that. I want him to want to marry me.’
    ‘Why shouldn’t he want to marry you?’ I said hotly.
    ‘Oh, he’s just the cautious type.’ Too right. Nigel’s very cautious; he proceeds as slowly as a three-toed sloth. They move so slowly—it would take them a day to cross a football pitch—that they actually grow mould on their fur. Anyway, when it comes to romance, I’m afraid Nigel’s like that. And this dilatoriness is reflected in his hobby—growing bonsai trees. He once won a medal at Chelsea for one of his Japanese maples—he’d been tweaking it for twenty years. To be honest, I’ve never really been able to see what he and Daisy have in common, but she seems to dote on him. But she has a tiny flat in Tooting and he has a large house in Fulham; and she did once admit after a few too many that, yes, it was the ‘security’ which partly appealed. Though why a woman who spends her weekends throwing herself out of aeroplanes should be interested in ‘security’ is way beyond me. But, on the other hand, her father died tragically when she was nine so she’s always been looking for someone ‘steady’ and ‘safe’.
    And Nigel’s certainly that. He’s a City solicitor—a partner in Bloomfields. Solidly competent, rather than effortlessly brilliant, he works incredibly hard; and though I’m sure he’s very fond of Daisy, I guess he can’t see any reason to rush.He’s thirty-nine and has never been married, so what on earth would make him jump now? He hasn’t even asked her to live with him yet. Daisy has jokingly suggested