Divas Don't Knit Read Online Free PDF Page A

removal.
    By the time the solicitor calls to confirm that all the money has landed in the right bank accounts it’s nearly three, and we’re on the point of complete hysteria trying to keep the boys from killing each other in an empty house with no telly. They’re still bickering as we drive off, so it’s only me blinking back the tears as Ellen stands waving: she was here on the day we moved in, when we ate fish and chips in the garden and Nick managed to collapse an old deckchair we found in the shed while he was still sitting in it, and we all laughed so much I thought I was going to be sick, or go into labour.
    I was eight months pregnant with Archie, and it was a really hot Easter that year, and we were so excited about the house, even though we couldn’t really afford it, but Nick was adamant we could do it up and make a fortune, which turned out to mean I spent hours balanced up a step ladder and the fortune would disappear into a secret second mortgage. Bastard. I scraped off wallpaper, and spent hours sanding all the floorboards and buying endless Smorgflapp door handles from Ikea, while his main contribution was the occasional glance at a paint chart before he was off on another story; I had to paint the kitchen three different shades of pale yellow before I got it right. And now here we are, the three of us, off to live by the sea and make a new life without him.
    The bickering from the back seat is reaching a whole new level as I join the queue for the traffic lights.
    ‘Stop it now, both of you. I know, let’s sing a song, shall we?’
    I’d put some music on to lessen the tension but Archiesquirted the radio with his water pistol last week. I start singing Ten Green Bottles but there’s a marked silence from the back.
    ‘Are we nearly there yet?’
    ‘No, love, we’ve got to do the motorway first.’
    ‘Yes, Archie, stop being such a baby. It’s ages yet, ages and ages. When will we stop for our picnic, Mummy?’
    Picnic? I don’t remember saying anything about a picnic. ‘It’s much too cold for a picnic, Jack.’
    It may be July, but it’s grey and cold and the forecast is for torrential rain; probably just when George and the boys are unloading all our furniture.
    ‘Eskimos have picnics, and they’re on ice, so it must be cold. They probably have them in their igloos. If there was snow we could make an igloo and it would be great. And anyway you promised.’
    ‘When did I promise?’
    ‘You said we could have picnics. You did. By the sea. At our new house. And I’ve been looking forward to it. All day, I have.’
    ‘Yes, Jack, and we will. We can have a picnic tomorrow, if you like, and play on the beach. But not on the day we move in.’
    He tuts.
    ‘Yes, but you said, you did, and that’s a lie and that’s not very nice you know, Mummy, telling lies.’
    Here we go; he will now recite from his ever-expanding list of Lies My Mother Has Recently Told Me. I think he’s keeping it for when he’s older, probably for some kind of legal action, and even though he can’t remember to bring his packed-lunch bag home from school he has crystal-clear recall of the day I went to the hairdresser and promised to be back in an hour; only to come back three hours later with unscheduled highlights to find Nick had forgotten to give them lunch, andthey were both running on empty and entering the twilight zone, lying on the living-room floor kicking lumps off each other while Nick watched football. I think I’d better try a spot of what I think they call positive behaviour modification in all those Help Me, My Child’s a Total Sod books. In other words, bribery.
    ‘What about if instead of a picnic we stop at a Little Chef and have pancakes? How does that sound?’
    Bingo. They start concentrating on scanning the horizon for red and white signs.
    God, I wish the bloody radio worked.

Chapter Two

Elsie and the Amazing Technicolour Cardigan
    I’m sitting in a Little Chef surrounded by enormous