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course newspaper exclusives and chat shows might be quite lucrative but a career as a distraught wife, though in some ways satisfying, isn’t quite what I’m after.
    The thing is I don’t feel that surprised. Bruce and I have been leading fairly separate lives for quite a while, especially sin c e Katie left for college. And then of course I myself have been having wild sex with Mell Nichols for many years. It’s more a dull ache than a sharp pain really – and Charlie’s been just great. He listens to me until my jaw aches and makes big log fires I can stare into. I wish he’d go out with Susan. He and Susan would really hit it off.
    I still can’t believe I actually did it – actually got up and left Bruce and my home.
    It’s my home I miss. I long with a passion for my walnut cabinet where I put my most precious things. Katie’s first mittens and her tooth fairy teeth are in there. So is the painted stone, and the birthday card she made when she was five. It has a drawing of a cake with candles on the front and says: ‘Hapy burtday Mumy from yor dawter Kate.’ She was a rather precise child. The card was made with great care. She’d ruled lines in pencil to make the words straight and then tried to rub the lines out, only some of the words got rubbed out too. You can tell which words she had to go over because they’re darker and bits of the rubbed out ones still show through.
    I also miss my Dad’s chair, the teapot I decorated with rosebuds at ceramics class, my special mug, my hot-water bottle and…well…I suppose everything really. I’ve always had a rather over-developed sense of nostalgia. It’s even provoked comment on occasion – most recently from one of Bruce’s guests.
    ‘You’re obviously a woman of eclectic tastes, Jasmine,’ he said.
    ‘Really?’ I replied as I tried to remember the difference between eclectic and esoteric and hoped he wasn’t going to say something rude about my boeuf bourguignon. I’d just cooked him dinner.
    We were in the sitting-room and Bruce was in the loo. Since he’d furtively grabbed a copy of the Radio Times on his exit, I knew his return was not imminent.
    The man then stood up and scanned my bulging book shelves. ‘Bruce says most of these books are yours,’ he said. ‘From what I can gather, Jasmine, your interests include fly fishing, English porcelain, the hostelling movement, the natu ral history of the whale, the construction and maintenance of the ketch, bee keeping and art deco – not to mention backpacking in Nepal and the development of the Quaker movement.’
    ‘A lot of those books aren’t mine really,’ I said. It seemed a shame to disabuse him but I’m usually found out when I lie. ‘A lot of those books belonged to people who are gone.’
    ‘Gone? Gone where?’
    ‘Gone. As in passed away. As in released from this mortal coil.’
    ‘Oh, you mean dead?’
    ‘Yes,’ I answered, wishing he didn’t have to be so blunt about it.
    Then Bruce came back and they started to discuss business, while I wondered how to make room for books, and maybe even a life, of my own choosing.
    I’m not very good at loss, you see. When my parents, or an aunt or an uncle died, I was the member of the family – there’s always one – who was more stricken by the large, loaded, black plastic bags than their coffins.
    ‘No! No! That can’t go to charity!’ I’d screech, swooping down on Australian Marsupials: A Field Guide, or that ornament of a desert oasis that made a sandstorm when you shook it.
    I haven’t just confined my nostalgia to books and orna ments. There are piles of other things too, including my parents’ best plates, which I used every day. Those plates can even make scrambled eggs a poignant experience.
    So, given this weight of memories and mementoes, I’m absolutely amazed that I managed to leave my home with just two large suitcases and two canvas holdalls. Fury does indeed concentrate the mind.
    A number of things came