How to Have an Almost Perfect Marriage Read online

  First impressions are terribly important so it’s vital you strive to make the best one possible by choosing appropriate attire. While I obviously have no idea of the contents of your wardrobe (although if it’s anything like mine it can be anything from the latest haute couture to Primark, depending on who Stephen’s hidden in there) and am therefore not in a position to advise each and every one of you personally, here are his and hers blanket lists of what not to wear.

  Him:

  A blanket.

  A t-shirt with a slogan – at best they can appear juvenile, such as I’m With Stupid, provocative e.g. Ban the Bomb or downright offensive e.g. any of Stephen’s.

  A medallion.

  Flippers.

  An eye patch.

  A false beard.

  Roller skates.

  A tin foil hat.

  Her:

  Anything that might give him the wrong idea. Which could be anything, really – you know what men are like.

  BODY LANGUAGE

  Other than your sartorial appearance, how you behave physically is awfully important. Apart from the basics such as sitting up straight and not picking your nose (or your date’s), there are countless ways you can affect the outcome of your meeting by the correct use of what body language experts call body language.

  Mirroring – this is where someone unconsciously mimics another’s physical movements. It occurs when one person is attracted to another and has the subliminal effect of heightening interest in the mirroree – assuming there is such a word, and if there wasn’t, there is now. It is easy to replicate this natural reaction by simply copying your date’s movements – raising your hand to your face when they raise theirs, crossing your legs when they cross theirs, jumping on the table and removing all your clothes when they remove theirs, etc (although I personally would steer clear of the last one).

  Eye contact – when you make prolonged eye contact with your date, you are showing them that you are attracted to them and interested in what they are saying. This can, of course, be difficult if you’re naturally shy or you’re dating someone like Stephen. I recommend practising at home – stand in front of your bathroom mirror for as long as you can, staring deeply into the reflection of your own eyes until either your vision becomes blurred or the Candyman appears. If either of these occurs, it’s probably best to stop for a little while.

  Using your date’s name – frequent use of your date’s name is a strong verbal signal, reinforcing their importance to you. It also helps if you have a poor memory or you’re a bit of a slut like my dear friend Mrs Norton. When adopting this strategy, it’s vital that you use the correct name and also that you don’t giggle if it’s a particularly silly name.

  Licking your lips provocatively – this can be a very flirtatious act if performed properly. i not, however, it can look like you’re fond of Labrador impressions or you’ve recently been released from a secure psychiatric unit. Either way, I would recommend a fairly robust lipstick (see earlier section – What Not to Wear On a First Date – Him).

  Make ’em laugh – if you really want to impress your date, make her laugh (note, this only applies to men as most men are intimidated by funny women. And sharks). You can do this in all sorts of ways – making witty observations about fellow diners, relating amusing anecdotes about your boss – but it’s important not to go too far. A spinning bow tie or a one-man rendition of The Importance of Being Earnest can be inappropriate in the wrong company.

  ‘Accidental’ touching – this refers to the brief, seemingly accidental touching of your date, such as grazing their arm with yours or your fingers meeting when reaching for the salt cellar, as opposed to touching your date – or indeed yourself – in a more prolonged and vigorous fashion, which instead of awakening their interest can provoke anything from a slap in the face to a tasering.

  Eating – if you’re in a restaurant, your choice of meal is terribly important. Be sure to avoid anything too messy or difficult to eat. It can be very off-putting for your date to have to carry on a conversation whilst ignoring the spinach in your teeth or gravy in your hair. Remember the old adage – a moment on the lips, what seems like a lifetime down your cleavage.

  CONVERSATION

  The real key to a successful first date is conversation. This is how you make that initial emotional contact with someone and turn a virtual stranger into a virtual life partner. Suitable topics of conversation are music, art, films and the weather. Topics of conversation best avoided include phlegm, keyhole surgery, necrophilia and Daniel O’Donnell.

  A good way to show that you are interested in your date is to ask them plenty of questions, although judging the right tone of questioning can be difficult if you’re unused to dating – too light a tone can come across as superficial and dull, too heavy can be off-putting to someone you have only just met. Here are a few examples to give you an idea.

  Too light – What is your favourite colour?

  Just right – What is your favourite film?

  Too heavy – What is your favourite sexual position?

  Too light – Do you have a family?

  Just right – Are you close to your family?

  Too heavy – Have you ever had inappropriate feelings about a member of your immediate family?

  Too light – Do you know where there’s a good greengrocer?

  Just right – Do you know where there’s a good Italian restaurant?

  Too heavy – Do you know where there’s a good registry office?

  Too light – Can you tell the difference between butter and margarine?

  Just right – Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

  Too heavy – Can you help me load this sofa into the back of my windowless van?

  If you follow this advice, your first date should go swimmingly and before you know it, you’ll be exchanging rings and bodily fluids like nobody’s business!

  But before you book the church, there’s one very important thing to consider – your ‘couple name’. This is something that can be overlooked in the romantic whirlwind of courtship but can be crucial to the success of your marriage. For example, my name is Edna, my current husband’s is Stephen and so our couple name is Ednaphen, which sounds like some kind of headache pill – and is therefore highly appropriate. Other examples are Paul and Amanda who when couple-named become Panda, which is fairly cute if you like that kind of thing, and my personal favourite is the combination of Stan and Pam – Spam. But I suggest you proceed very carefully as not all couples are so fortunate. Simon and Phyllis become Siphyllis, which is clearly unacceptable as, apart from anything else, it’s spelled incorrectly. Other couplings best avoided include Peter and Eunice and Felicity and Horatio.

  One final word of caution, dears – no matter how prepared you are, the course of true love doesn’t always run smooth, as the following chapter from my forthcoming best-selling autobiography, Do We Need To Talk About Stephen? (an entirely factual account of events and not in any way a complete fantasy influenced by too many years spent reading romantic novels and watching romantic movies on television while waiting for Stephen to return from the pub/bookies/Costa del Sol) illustrates only too well…

  BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

  It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman must be in want of a husband in possession of a good fortune. Failing that, his own van.

  It all began quite innocently. Every Thursday morning, I took the nine fifteen bus into Spiffing Burberry. I would spend my day nosing blissfully around bookshops, the art gallery and various other establishments, before visiting the cinema, and finally taking tea in the Cuppa Cabana café by the bus station before returning on the six fifty-two to my regular, slightly humdrum life.

  Week after week I followed the exact same schedule until one fateful Thursday. A Thursday that would change my life forever. Or for a while, at least.

  Everything abou
t the day had been just the same as always. I had stepped out of the café and was about to head for the bus station when I felt something in my eye. I reached up in an attempt to remove it but, before my hand touched my face, I felt another slightly larger, slightly more masculine hand grab my own.

  ‘I’m sorry, allow me…’

  I stood frozen to the spot, squinting at the large, blurred figure before me as he gently pulled up my eyelid.

  ‘Trust me,’ he smiled, ‘I’m a doctor,’ and in one swift, clinical movement, removed the offending article.

  ‘Just a piece of grit,’ he said, beaming broadly as he casually flicked it over his shoulder, ‘Easily removed.’

  I blinked and looked him up and down. He was tallish, darkish and fairly ordinary-looking. ‘Thank you,’ I said, shakily. ‘Are you an optician?’

  ‘A chiropodist,’ he grinned, before adding breezily, ‘Well, I must be off – I have a bus to catch. Good day.’

  And he was gone.

  I thought no more of this curious incident during the days that followed, or of the quite tall, fairly dark, reasonably good-looking gentleman involved. It never crossed my mind as I lay awake at night or took my thrice-daily stress-relieving baths.

  When Thursday finally came around again, the matter had entirely slipped from my consciousness. And so it was with complete and utter surprise that I found myself once more blinking furiously on the step of the Cuppa Cabana in front of the very same gentleman.

  ‘I believe you have something in your eye again,’ he said kindly, ‘Allow me…’

  The same thing happened the following Thursday. And the Thursday after that.

  On the fifth Thursday, I was prepared and before he could grasp my eyelid between his manly thumb and forefinger, I recoiled.

  ‘Sir, why do you keep throwing grit in my eye?’ I demanded.

  The gentleman blushed slightly. ‘Forgive a romantic fool for his clumsy attempt to attract a beautiful lady’s attention.’

  ‘No,’ I said, and went home.

  I didn’t go into Spiffing Burberry the next Thursday. Or the next. I was far too busy making cups of tea and taking baths. In truth, the brief encounters of the past weeks had unnerved me somewhat. Who was this irritating, tall, dark, roguishly handsome gentleman who persisted in pursuing me? I wondered whether I ought to inform the police of his behaviour. Instead, however, I resolved to confront him one more time – to tell him to keep his grit to himself and thereby reclaim my precious Thursdays.

  When the day arrived, I followed my usual routine other than in one aspect. For a reason I can’t adequately explain, I bought a cup of coffee rather than my usual tea while waiting for the six fifty-two bus home. Actually, I can adequately explain it – the tea in the Cuppa Cabana’s terrible. The owner, a slightly vague lady by the name of Ivy Manilow, couldn’t make a decent cup of tea if her life depended on it, the poor dear. I don’t know why I’ve been drinking it all these years. Pity, I suppose. But now, something had changed. For some reason I felt different. If only the coffee weren’t dreadful too.

  Having emptied my cup (into a nearby cactus pot) I placed it on the chipped sombrero-shaped saucer, took a deep breath and made for the door. I had rehearsed this moment countless times over the past few days but my hands were still shaking as I opened the café door and stepped outside. I flinched, blinked hard and rubbed my eye. Then slowly, I lowered my hand. And opened my eye. I could see perfectly. It was entirely grit-free. I frowned and looked around. The street was empty. Not a single tall, dark, devastatingly gorgeous gentleman to be seen. I checked my watch. Six forty-eight. The exact same time I always left the Cuppa Cabana. Had I somehow got the day wrong? I popped back into the café to check the calendar behind Miss Manilow’s counter. 1948. Poor dear. But it was definitely Thursday.

  As I travelled home, my mind raced. As did the bus. The lady bus driver seemed to be in a terrible hurry for some reason. Why hadn’t he been there? What could have happened to him? Perhaps he had been involved in some terrible accident or worse still, lost interest? I sighed in spite of myself – I had to admit I missed his suave, sophisticated, grit-flinging charm. If only there were a way to find him, but how? I didn’t even know his name, let alone where to look. In fact, I didn’t know anything about him apart from the fact that he was tall, dark and almost god-like in appearance. Or did I? Wait, I did know something. Something that might just enable me to find him…

  The following Thursday, I took the nine fifteen bus as usual, I nosed around the bookshop as usual and then I did something unusual…

  ‘Next.’

  I stood up gingerly, cast a pained expression in the direction of the receptionist and hobbled towards the door.

  Spiffing Burberry was not a large town. It had just one bookshop, one art gallery, one Latin American-themed cafeteria and, according to the telephone directory, one chiropodist. I paused at the door to read the brass plate. So that was his name! I found myself girlishly imagining his surname after my own name and smiled. Somehow, it just sounded right…Edna Chanderpaul.

  It was with a heavy heart and a bandaged foot that I trudged along the street that Thursday afternoon. Dr Chanderpaul had been awfully nice and had even lanced my persistent verruca but he wasn’t my tall, dark Adonis – not even close. I arrived earlier than usual at the Cuppa Cabana that evening and was forced to wait several minutes before being served while Ivy ‘entertained’ the other patrons with what the barely legible scrawl on the blackboard described as her Magical Mexican Medley. To be fair to the poor dear, she was almost certainly the best, if not the only one-woman mariachi band in the home counties and that club foot and lazy eye of hers couldn’t help.

  When she finally finished and managed to locate the counter, I ordered a hot chocolate. Goodness only knew what was happening to me. It was as if I’d suddenly been awakened to the many wondrous possibilities life had to offer – like I’d been living in some kind of flat, monochrome world and all of a sudden my life was now in glorious technicolor. I sat down on my usual seat next to the door (there was no need to go completely crazy), took a sip from my cup and sighed deeply. It was as bad as the coffee.

  I was on the verge of throwing caution completely to the wind and catching the six twenty-three, when the café door suddenly blew open and a large body pushed past my chair, almost making me miss the cactus pot with my cup. I looked up at the swarthy, crumpled figure leaning on the counter, gruffly demanding a tequila sunrise and lager chaser. Although I was quite certain I had never seen this objectionable-looking character before, there was something unsettlingly familiar about him. Or his back, at least.

  Chiropodist, my foot!

  I sank into my seat, lowered the brim of my hat and peered at the figure from behind the inordinately large laminated menu. Seemingly oblivious to my presence, the gentleman – if you could call him that – knocked down his beer and cocktail in two hearty swigs before belching loudly, wiping his chin with his sleeve and exiting sharply.

  My mind raced. Was this really the same well-spoken chap I had encountered all those Thursday evenings? It didn’t make sense – I had to know more. Without hesitation, I slipped out of the door in pursuit. I was just in time to see his dishevelled figure turn into another building at the end of the street. A few brisk steps took me to its rather dingy front door. Being a lady of considerable refinement, I of course know little of these things but it appeared to be some kind of club – exactly what kind I had no idea. I also have no idea what possessed me at that moment but the next thing I remember doing was pushing open the door and descending a small staircase into a cavern-like room filled with smoke and chatter. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I noticed what looked like a small stage in the corner of the room on which stood a number of tall, slim microphone stands and a set of drums.

  A sudden fear gripped me as I realised this must what young p
eople refer to as a rave. I turned to head back up the stairs but before I reached the first step, the resounding twang of what I could only guess was a guitar filled the room. As if hypnotised by a theatrical illusionist, I turned silently and slowly to see four young mop-headed men standing on the stage. The gentleman I assumed was their lead singer clasped his microphone between long, sturdy fingers and began to sing.

  There was no doubt about it – it was him. My mystery grit-flinger. I should have been shocked. I should have been disgusted. I should have turned and walked right out of there. And yet, there was something about him. Gone was the refined, sophisticated gentleman I had almost come to know and in his stead was something very different. Something raw. Something animalistic. Something dangerous. A shiver ran up my spine. Then down my spine. Then around my hipbone. I was transfixed as he yelled into his microphone and strutted before the audience waving his bare, muscular arms in the air. There was nothing I could do. It was love at seventh sight. I took a seat in a dark corner and just stared. And listened…

  ‘Thank you,……’ he yelled as the rapturous applause that attended their first tune finally died down. ‘And now, a little song I’ve just written about a very special lady.’

  My heart skipped a beat. Could he possibly mean me?

  ‘…A lady who came into my life very recently…on the number nine bus…’

  My heart skipped another beat. He did mean me! I could hardly believe it! I sighed as I gazed at him standing there, so strong and yet so vulnerable, with his bare arms covered in blue tattoos and his fur waistcoat, like a cross between a Smurf and a kitten – he was smitten! I swallowed hard as the first chord struck up and he began to sing…

  ‘I think I’m gonna get off,

  I won’t need to pay, yeah,