Carol’s Column

Sad lament of a dried-out drudge

I WAS shocked.

"You mean you're leaving Arthur to run away with a crayfish diver who plays flamenco, whistles through the gap in his teeth, looks cute in cheesecloth and recites Lorca down the telephone. You're crazy."

I looked at Estelle. Fat and 40 she had to be out of her head.

I mean, imagine leaving Arthur, the pink bathroom, the matching bidet with the foot flusher — the first in this country she'd assured us proudly — and her Japanese water garden for a man 10 years younger.

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Of course Arthur was a little solid. It wasn't his fault that he looked like an inverted baseball bat in his Cyril's Wardrobe outfit that would have looked better on the wardrobe.

Besides, he cheated at cards.

No, I couldn't really blame her.

Estelle smiled as she sipped her decaffeinated coffee.

"Listen, you've got a good thing going. You talk to your husband."

True. Why only yesterday morning I'd shouted "Good morning" as he rushed past me on the way to the shower.

"He talks to you," she added, puffing on her genuine ivory anti-nicotine cigarette holder.

True. He yelled good morning back.

"Your kids adore you, they can't manage without you. You're such a close, well-knit family."

She winked conspiratorially. "Look, I'll probably be back. I want to live a little, have some fun, and most of all I want to shock Arthur into action.

"He takes me for granted. I want him to realise I'm not a dried-up stick of biltong on a pantry shelf. Every woman needs romance in her life and everyone knows, an affair can only improve a marriage."

I tried not to click my upper bridge work with the synthetic-but-almost-as-good-as-the-real-thing-molars against my lower teeth.

I didn't want her to think I was narrow minded or something.

That night I looked at my good thing as he read the paper, listened to the radio and watched TV simultaneously.

"Hi, I'm Carol, your wife," I said to him lovingly.

"Thanks, I'll have it black," he passed the coffee cup.

"Remember me?" he nodded his head. "Uhuh."

"I'm the cute little number in the miniskirt you married 15 years, seven months and 16 days ago."

"Uhuh."

"I think I ate a poisoned hamburger. I feel ill, I'm going to die."

"Uhuh." He turned the page.

"Did you hear me?" I gurgled as I slid to the floor where I lay prone watching him through a half-open eye.

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He didn't even blink. So much for a good thing.

Well, there were always the kids. They needed me, adored me. After all, we were a close-knit family.

Barry breezed by en route to the fridge.

"Hi Ma, bye Ma."

"Hi Barry, why don't we have a cup of coffee and a chat? Tell me about school, what's happening. I haven't spoken to you for the past three years."

"Gee, Ma, sounds great but the guys are waiting on the court. Look, I'll see you tomorrow, or the day after." Zap and he was gone.

One by one, my offspring floated through at breakneck speed, leaving me far behind to pack the school lunches and pick up dirty washing. The adored and needed mother.

It's a sad fact of life, when woman turns 36, the only males who desire her are from five to 15 — and then it's for her baking not her body.

While pulling on my woolly-for-warmth pantie hose, I pondered.

Estelle had something. Every dried-out drudge deserves a little excitement in life.

But how does one actually go about having an affair?

One could advertise in the local bacon and eggs newspaper. "Middle-aged Maid Marion needs dashing, different poetry-reading and sensuously sensational Robin Hood. No chancers."

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Somehow it didn't seem right. It was undignified. It didn't really fit in with school cake sales and lift clubs.

Estelle really had a good thing going for her.

Just then the phone rang.

It was Estelle.

"You'll never guess what's happened. He's deserted me. He's run away with a 21-year-old belly dancer."

"Well, he was much too young for you anyway," I said consolingly.

"Not him, Arthur," she wailed.

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