Ordinary Miracles Read Online Free PDF

together and made me blow my fuse.
    I’d decided to give Bruce and Cait’s behaviour at the dinner party the benefit of the doubt because Bruce was so vehement in his protestations of innocence. Then he forgot my fortieth birthday. I’m sensitive about my birthday. In some weird, unreasonable way, I feel that if people close to me forget it it’s as if they’ve forgotten I was born. I usually play safe and tip them off in advance, but this year I didn’t give Bruce any subtle hints. I decided to put him to the test.
    To make up for his oversight, Bruce suggested that we visit Katie in Galway that weekend. We were going to stay in a nice hotel and have candlelit dinners. But then he cancelled this at the last moment because of some problem with Avril: A Woman’s Story; and he fell fast asleep in bed while I was dolling myself up on Saturday night.
    Saturday night was sex night in our house. We occasionally managed it on other nights as well but, frankly, sex between us had grown rather dutiful. There was a touch of the aerobics class about it.
    So, you can imagine what I felt like when I found Cait Carmody’s fake diamond hair grip in my marriage bed. I was a perfect candidate for Oprah Winfrey.
    When Bruce came home that night I tried to bar his entry to the house. I shouted expletives at him through the letter-box; he remained extremely calm and reasonable, as though one of his actors was throwing a slight tantrum. So, after a while I let him in and told him I wanted him to pack up and leave. Only he said that he wouldn’t. There were tears in his eyes and when I found myself feeling sorry for him I decided I’d leave instead. Bruce’s feelings have always carried considerable weight in our marriage. If I’d stayed any longer I knew I’d end up consoling him because I was heart-broken.
    There was a bleak, unreal feeling about the night I left. A strange kind of hush amidst my histrionics, as if it had just snowed. We should have been talking in Swedish, with sub- titles. The only thing that made me hesitate was Katie. I really, really want Katie to have a happy home. But she’s a sensitive girl. She’d guess something was up if her mother barricaded herself in the attic. And she’s hardly ever home now anyway.
    So I phoned Charlie. I could have phoned Susan but she has a flatmate now, so I’d have had to do all my crying in the sitting-room. Charlie’s house is big. He often said he should find someone to share it.
    At first I found staying at Charlie’s place very strange. That only lasted a week or so, and now I’ve really settled in. I was tempted to start tidying but, thankfully, that feeling also passed. I slop around in old jeans and big borrowed baggy jumpers and avoid answering the phone. I doze a lot and my television viewing includes re-runs of Pets Win Prizes and Baywatch.
    My memory isn’t that great at the moment – for practical things anyway. I find I have to write little notes to myself like ‘wash hair’. I have, however, become a dab hand at lentil soup. I leave Charlie, who’s a vegetarian, to deal with the tofu burgers. Occasionally we cheat and buy Linda McCartney’s vegetarian spaghetti bolognaise. George was my favourite Beatle, but Charlie liked John Lennon.
    It’s great having a shoulder to cry on, but by this stage Charlie’s must be wringing wet. I’m glad he doesn’t get alarmed by my sobbing. Bruce just tended to get exasperated.
    Sometimes I think I’m like Alice in Wonderland and that my tears are going to flood this place, but Charlie says not to worry. He says that, if necessary, we can use his cousin’s canoe which is stored in his garage.
    I know it may sound silly, but one of the upsetting things about being older is that I no longer feel attractive when I cry. When I was younger there was more style to my tears. They had a dramatic, almost hopeful feel to them. I felt sure that if some man saw me – probably someone suave and older – he’d want to make