April's Affections and Intrigues: Love and Mystery Bloom

Never Marry a Politician, November 2014 by Sarah Waights Choc Lit Featuring: Ralph; Emily; Matt 226 pages ISBN: Kindle: B00P9KVWA8 e-Book Add to Wish List Purchase Kindle

"Her marriage must be perfect for the media - but the cracks begin to show."

Never Marry a Politician
Sarah Waights

Reviewed by Clare O'Beara
Posted August 6, 2015

Romance Contemporary

Emily married a man - surnamed Pemilly - which then made her Emily Pemilly without her opinion being asked. The trouble is, she married a politician. This heaped obligations about her head, such as giving up her job or doing saintly work, keeping the children as little angels and gazing adoringly at her husband at all times, especially in front of cameras. No wonder she reaches the end of her tether and advises us to NEVER MARRY A POLITICIAN.

Once Emily was a promising journalist. Now, a friend warns that she can look forward to forty-six years of jumble sales and constituency clinics. I saw immediate similarities to THE RECTOR'S WIFE, a classic amusing women's read by Joanna Trollope. The wife of the social figure has to be a saint with no needs or identity of her own, beyond those is prescribed for her by establishment figures. How much would you have to love this man?

The glamour of Westminster and Ralph's rise within the opposition party to shadow Home Secretary took over both their lives shortly after they married. But with an election looming, there is a real probability that Ralph could get a ministerial seat in the elected government, and Emily is under orders to be a perfect wife. A spanner in the works arrives with journalist Matt Morley, an old flame of Emily's, being assigned to write up her family life for a national newspaper. Annoyed, Emily decides to impress Matt, just to show him that she hasn't faded into some poor shadow of her own self. But Matt knows a secret she's hidden for over a decade. Can she persuade him to stay quiet? And what if the uncompromising journalist comes up with some dirt on Ralph?

I had a good time reading this tale, which veers swiftly from housewife hell to parliamentary politics and back again. There's a tremendous and varied cast of supporting characters. Ralph is starting to come across as self- serving, now he has a chance to be in real power. If I were his wife I'd be surprised to be asked to choose some silk underwear as a gift for his secretary, wouldn't you? But Ralph won't do anything that would jeopardise his chances, so all must be well. Emily suddenly finds out what is most important in her life. But has she left it too late to change?

Read it, love it. Sarah Waights has given us a cynical, gentle and all too human story in NEVER MARRY A POLITICIAN. Make up your own mind as to whether the marriage would be worth the hassle. Sarah's debut novel was a runner up in the 2014 Good Housekeeping Novel Writing Competition. I'm looking forward to her next book.

Learn more about Never Marry a Politician

SUMMARY

‘Never, under any circumstances, marry a politician … ‘ In trying to be the model wife to Ralph, a fiercely ambitious politician, Emily has betrayed her heart and her principles. Once she was a promising journalist, but now reluctant domestic goddess is more her scene.

When unexpected events lead to Ralph becoming a candidate for Prime Minster, Emily finds maintaining the façade of picture-perfect family life an increasing struggle –especially when her romantic past comes back to haunt her in the form of tough-talking journalist, Matt Morley.

Matt is highly skilled at ‘digging the dirt’ and, sure enough, Ralph has a sordid secret that is soon uncovered. In the aftermath of the discovery, will Emily finally find the courage to be true to herself, or is she stuck in the world of PR tactics and photo opportunities for good?

Finalist in the 2014 Good Housekeeping Novel Writing Competition.

Excerpt

My name is Emily Pemilly. I know, catastrophic. Being of dubiously sound mind my advice would be never, under any circumstances, marry a politician.

However, if you insist, the only advice I can offer is this:

1. Thou shalt take thy husband’s name – because this is expected, even if thou art then called something utterly ridiculous like Emily Pemilly which makes thee sound like the heroine of one of those silly children’s book that would never have got published if they hadn’t been written by someone famous.

2. Thou shalt give up thy career – which was the one thing that made thee feel like a proper adult. That and having a sensible name. Sadly, being a fearless and uncompromising mouthpiece for the truth is an impossible career choice for people with silly names anyway. As another option, you could consider the following commandment;

3. Thou shalt choose a career which makes thee look saintly – thereby casting a glow of sanctity upon thy husband by association. Looking after sick children would be good, although being a nurse is politically sensitive because of the union issues and being a doctor means thou art a bit too clever. Perhaps run an animal rescue centre or similar as being nice to small, furry creatures is definitely a vote winner.

4. Thou shalt give up the right to make even the simplest decisions on thine own – leaving such weighty issues as which supermarket to shop at, which car to drive and even names for thy children, to be endlessly dissected and analysed by a focus group which will tell thee precisely how to do absolutely everything.

5. Thou shalt gaze adoringly at thy husband at all times whilst in public – even when he is making the most boring speech in Christendom. Actually, especially then. And no yawning. Ever.

6. Thou shalt cheerfully attend an endless series of constituency fundraising events – where members of thy husband’s constituency and team will talk about thee as though thou aren’t there.

7. Thou shalt deputise for thy husband at all the constituency surgeries that he can’t be arsed to go to himself – even though this involves sitting for hours in draughty village halls listening to old people moaning about waiting lists for hip replacements, the solution for which is entirely beyond thy power.

8. Thou shalt not beat thy children – as thou art required to be a far more perfect parent than anyone else in the world. This is mainly in case thy husband is called upon to speak in support of a smacking ban or some other entirely unrealistic parenting policy thought up by people who don’t have children.

9. Thou shalt not allow thy children to misbehave in public – a particularly difficult commandment given the restrictions imposed by commandment number eight. By the way, thou needn’t think drugging them into submission is an option either because this is also frowned upon by those pesky childfree policymakers.

10. Thou shalt believe that the end justifies the means – in practice this translates to a devout and unquestioning acceptance that how things look is considerably more important than how things are.

And this is the word of the Party.

Amen.

Chapter One

Even the combination of tiger face-paint and a generous coating of chocolate spread failed to disguise Alfie’s gorgeousness. ‘Daddy,’ he announced, ‘is a poo-poo head.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Emily muttered. ‘I know you’re disappointed sweetie,’ she said, ruffling Alfie’s hair. ‘Daddy wouldn’t have missed your party for the world if he didn’t have to.’

He had still had a fabulous birthday, she mused. As a sociable four year old, his idea of heaven was a crowd of mates, opportunities to run around screaming like a banshee and endless supplies of party food made primarily out of artificial colouring. He had had all these since three o’clock that afternoon and fifteen pre-schoolers had trailed home two hours later, off their heads on sugar and additives and primed to put their parents through hell until bedtime.

The house had not escaped unscathed and, once again, Emily rued her lack of forethought in not giving birth to her children in the summer. How did the other parents of children with winter birthdays cope without the garden party option? Her husband Ralph – pronounced Raif, but frequently mispronounced, to his irritation – had thought the same. He’d had little patience for her in the first mind-numbing weeks when she was caring for the new-born Alfie who had arrived when Tash, then four, was at the height of her despotic infant powers.

‘You should have waited for summer recess,’ he had said, creating the impression that, in his view, Emily could have extended gestation to fifteen months rather than thoughtlessly sticking with the usual nine.

He missed the birth of course. A three line whip had kept him in the House to vote. Then he had turned up at the hospital, not with flowers and champagne but with his agent TJ along with Saul, TJ’s celebrity photographer boyfriend. Saul’s sleeveless leather jacket, worn over a naked torso, attracted even more interest in the maternity ward than Ralph, who was irritated at not being the centre of attention. The resulting arty black and white shots of father gazing into the eyes of his new- born son had been sold hard into the national newspapers. Columnists had twittered at length about the family- friendly face of the Party, edging ahead in the polls with their young, dynamic team of shadow ministers, of which Ralph was the newest and shiniest. He was Shadow Secretary of State for Children and Families at the time, being elevated to the top of the party at just thirty- eight, only four years into his career as an MP.

She gazed wearily at the post-party mess. If only she’d organised a press call along with the crisps and sausage rolls, he might have made an appearance. Mind you, as Alfie was a lot more vocal and less co-operative than he had been, it suited Ralph to play the sanctimonious ‘my family life is private’ card more often nowadays. ‘Give us a kiss, gorgeous,’ she sighed, holding out her arms.

Alfie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Okay, just one,’ he said, offering a cheek, ‘but no spit.’

Nessa and Emily were having a cup of own-brand instant coffee, the best the kitchen cupboards at the village hall had to offer. It was an unappealing reward for finishing the clothes sorting.

‘Who donates their pants to a jumble sale?’ asked Emily again.

‘I know darling. Too ghastly,’ agreed Nessa with a shudder. ‘Never mind,’ she added, ‘just the books to go – thank heaven. Must be my millionth time ...’

‘More, I should have thought. You’re so kind to help, you know. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

The last words came out with a barely perceptible tremor and Nessa knew Emily wasn’t just talking about gruesome jumble sale preparations.

‘Darling, I wouldn’t be anywhere else,’ she replied, giving Emily a little squeeze and then busying herself with the coffee cups so they could both regain their composure. ‘God knows, I’d still be doing this as MP’s wife if Arthur hadn’t so selfishly dropped dead on us all,’ she continued over her shoulder as she rinsed the cups and put them on the draining board. ‘Mind you, it’s been forty-six years of jumble sales and coffee mornings I worked out the other day. Horrifying isn’t it? The truth is – despite it all – I’m not ready to hang up my constituency boots just yet.’

Emily could hardly believe her friend was in her sixties. She wore her age with an ease that made the thirty year age gap irrelevant. ‘I didn’t have a clue what I was doing when Ralph took Arthur’s seat,’ she reminisced. ‘Thank goodness you were prepared to stick around.’

Nessa smiled. ‘I was thinking the other day I’ve gone from MP’s wife to a kind of honorary MP’s wife’s mother- in-law.’

‘I can assure you, you couldn’t be less like a mother-in- law.’

‘You say the sweetest things. Also, the very thought of being Ralph’s mother! I don’t know who would be more horrified – him or me ... ooh look, porn!’ she exclaimed, distracted by a grubby paperback with a naked woman on the front.

‘So it is. Much pored over by the look of it too. Ugh. Shall I chuck it?’

‘Absolutely not. I’ll keep it under the counter and whip it out when the vicar gets to me. He likes a bit of smut.’

‘No he doesn’t,’ giggled Emily. ‘You are naughty. He’s a clean cut young man with a gorgeous wife and three children, as you know perfectly well.’

‘Ah, but appearances can be deceptive,’ said Nessa, tapping the side of her nose. ‘Now this really is interesting,’ she exclaimed holding up a fat red volume with gold tooling on the spine. ‘How to Run the Perfect Household by Felicity Wainwright,’ she read. ‘It looks like – oh yes, look at this publication date – 1953. Now those were the days,’ she reminisced. ‘It was only the mid-sixties that Arthur and I were married – I was a child bride obviously – and my, what a shock it was, too! I could have done with something like this.’

‘Must be hopelessly old-fashioned nowadays though,’ said Emily, holding out her hand for it. ‘For goodness sake, look at this, for example. Page one, chapter one, “A young woman of refinement entering marriage today is likely to find herself running a household with the bare minimum of staffing. She will therefore be likely to have to take on the role of housekeeper herself, taking a close interest in the work of the maid and cook, to ensure standards are kept to a respectable level. This is essential if she is to do her wifely duty of maintaining the dignity of her husband amongst his peers.”’

She blew a sigh. ‘It was another world wasn’t it! Pipes and slippers for the men and domestic slavery for the women, albeit with “help”. Thank goodness we made it to the twenty-first century before Ralph and I tied the knot.’

‘Hello ladies,’ announced TJ as he marched into the village hall, looking more than usually brisk and efficient. Behind him followed a bespectacled grey-haired man in pinstripes. ‘Right,’ said TJ rubbing his hands together, ‘let’s talk tactics.’

‘Great,’ said Nessa. ‘They’re my favourite ... Only the mint ones of course, those orange and lime things they brought out are just too horrid for words.’ Emily giggled. ‘Tactics, Nessa, not tic tacs.’

TJ looked cross. He raised his chin and continued, ‘In light of the … er … developments of this morning, central office are keen to ensure we are optimising the opportunities presented to us by the inevitable increase in media interest.’

Nessa shot Emily a look.

‘What developments, TJ?’ asked Emily, ‘only whatever massive news has been announced, we’ve missed it.’

‘True,’ agreed Nessa. ‘We’ve been buried in dirty underpants and porn all morning. Haven’t heard a thing,’ she added innocently.

TJ and pinstripes looked pained and astonished in turn.

TJ sighed. When Arthur had died, a tiny glimmer of hope in the general bleakness of the situation was that Nessa would be replaced by an altogether more amenable MP’s wife that he could boss around. It had worked out, to a point. He was secretly and devotedly in love with Ralph, as well as being extremely fond of Emily, but Nessa’s continued presence led her frequently into insurrection that TJ, as agent and therefore lynchpin in the constituency, could do without. Now, more than ever, unquestioning compliance would be helpful.

‘So, he hasn’t contacted you?’ he asked Emily, incredulously.

She shook her head. Although he had been in the London flat since Tuesday night and it was now Thursday afternoon, they no longer called each other several times a day, just to hear each other’s voices.

‘Well,’ TJ continued, flustered, ‘I am sure he would have done if he could. It’s been really mental. I happen to know he’s in a shadow cabinet meeting as we speak.’

‘So anyway,’ said Nessa, ‘cutting the crap – as it were – what the bloody hell is this huge news, TJ?’

‘Oh, right. Well, in a nutshell, the government have done it. They’ve called a general election.’

Emily whistled. ‘Ralph must be beside himself,’ she said with awe.

‘Well, we’re all pretty excited, that’s true enough,’ conceded pinstripes, coming forward to shake the women’s hands. ‘I’m Gerald Mortimer, from central office as TJ said. Basically, I’ve been asked to come out and help get everyone on message, help out with profile management, that sort of thing.’

Emily nodded and Nessa looked amused.

‘The thing is,’ he continued, ‘Ralph is obviously a pretty key person as far as the presentation of the party is concerned. We will want to be using him – and you,’ he flashed a grin at Emily, ‘to show the electorate what we represent.’

‘Which is ...?’ queried Nessa.

Gerald looked as if it was the pinnacle of his life’s ambition to be asked such a question. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘the main thing to get across is probably going to be the whole traditional family values thing.’

Emily threw him an enquiring look.

‘You know,’ he continued, ‘like supporting the nuclear family with the introduction of a tax framework that rewards the single wage earner, allowing the other parent the choice to manage home and childcare meaning better educational attainment and a future workforce with inherent personal social responsibility and a valuable skill set ...’

Nessa yawned extravagantly. Emily was sure she was putting it on. ‘So, my role is ...?’ she queried.

‘Ah,’ smirked Gerald, ‘You would be the go-getting, ball- breaking alpha woman, with the high-flying career and the househusband, obviously ...’

‘Really?’ said Emily, flattered that her gossipy column in the local lifestyle magazine plus the odd feature article in a national broadsheet was considered ‘high- flying’.

‘Erm, no – sorry – I was joking,’ he replied, embarrassed. ‘We rather had you down as the “perfect home-maker, photogenic family, dedicated wife, charming consort to the powerful man” type of role actually.’

‘Sounds like not much has changed,’ Nessa observed. ‘I’ve done rather too much “charming consort” stuff myself over the years.’

‘Really?’ said Gerald, a little too incredulously for Nessa’s liking.

‘Yes, really,’ she said. ‘I am relieved to say that role is behind me – and I can assure you there is nothing less diplomatic than an ex-diplomat.’ Emily noticed TJ nodding fervently. ‘But surely,’ Nessa continued, ‘we should be allowing Emily a little more freedom than I had?’

‘Yes, sure … I mean, erm, no,’ said Gerald, confused. ‘That is, Emily is an asset,’ he beamed at her, ‘and we feel she has an important role to play in enhancing the appeal of the party to the electorate. She and Ralph are a package. That’s the point.’

‘So she can continue being her charming, supportive, delightful original self?’ pressed Nessa.

‘Oh yah, absolutely,’ said Gerald. But he didn’t mean it. Emily could tell, having been mugged by the central office mafiosi before, not least when they insisted that she turn down a parliamentary sketch column – the would- be pinnacle of her journalistic career – because of a “conflict of interest”. In other words, it “conflicted” with Ralph’s “interest” in becoming the youngest member of the Cabinet.

‘Anyway,’ said Nessa, tiring of her TJ baiting game, ‘I’m off.’

‘I’ll call you later,’ she whispered in Emily’s ear as she gave her a goodbye hug. ‘And I think you might be needing this,’ she added as she pressed something hard- edged and heavy into her hand.

Bringing it up to her face, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. There, in her hand, was the copy of How to Run the Perfect Household by Felicity Wainwright, 1950’s housewife extraordinaire.

Remember, your husband will be looking forward to returning home and off-loading the stress of his day. Even if your own day has been wearing, don’t make the mistake of burdening him with your problems. Instead, prepare to amuse him with an entertaining snippet or two.

Felicity Wainwright, 1953

‘Tash has got nits again,’ she said to Ralph as he took off his coat.

‘Really? What glamour, what hedonism you enjoy when I’m away,’ he joked. ‘D’you think it’s the school? Maybe we should send her private ...’

‘The village primary’s fine. She’d still get nits in a snob school.’

‘Ah, but posh nits though. A better class of nit, if you will ...’ said Ralph, giving her a hug and a glancing kiss on the cheek. ‘Nothing for it though, the village primary it must be. Better for the image don’t you know?’

She did. ‘How was the surgery?’

‘God, what a ghastly crowd,’ he groaned. Fresh from the excitement in Westminster, the weekly constituency surgery had seemed even more parochial than usual. ‘Can you believe that horrific old crone from Maybury showed up again to rant about double-yellow lines with her photo album of badly parked cars? Do you know, she actually goes around with a measuring tape to get evidence? One can only hope she’ll get squashed by a lorry…’

‘Did we not get a reply from highways on it? You remember we decided to ask them to do a study on it to see if the parking restrictions should be extended to help the flow of traffic?’

‘Did we? To be honest I don’t have a clue any more,’ admitted Ralph, running his fingers through his hair, rubbing his scalp hard as if his head hurt which it probably did, to be fair.

‘Tea or wine,’ she offered.

‘I’m not sure either of them are going to do it, have we got any gin?’

‘Sorry. Gin, yes, but tonic, no. I forgot to put it on the list.’

‘I’ll have wine, as long as it’s not that filthy stuff we got in for the cheese and wine do last week,’ he conceded, but not before Emily had seen his irritated look at this failure in the domestic machinery which was, of course, her fault.

Emily rummaged for the corkscrew, eventually turning out the whole drawer onto the kitchen table, but then realised it was a screw top anyway as they almost always were nowadays, even the decent stuff which Ralph now insisted on. She recalled the days when any old plonk would do.

The day they met – her newspaper had sent her to do a profile on him as one of the chief architects of the new party – their business lunch had run into the evening and then through the night, with Ralph insisting on ordering another bottle of wine and then another before repairing to his Westminster flat where he talked her into bed. She had been ripe to be impressed by him. Flattened by the series of painful events that preceded her meeting with him, he was ten years older than her, successful, dynamic and in no way plagued by the self-doubt that crippled her.

Ralph, in turn, was totally bewitched. It was not just her petite frame, which belied her strength, or even the way her bright, brown eyes flashed with passion when she expressed her views on political issues. She was so genuinely earnest and charmingly unaware of her own physical attractions.

‘I love your naive idealism,’ he told her. ‘I have to assume it’s your youth.’

‘Yeah, probably,’ she had replied, unimpressed. ‘I suppose I’m bound to have turned into a dried up old cynic by the time I get to your age.’

Not used to taking any woman seriously, let alone a younger one, Ralph found her enchanting and vowed to have her. When she fell pregnant just weeks after they met, he received her nervous announcement with the same decisiveness that he applied to his professional decisions. They would get married, he said. It would all be fine. The timing was ideal as he had been advised to find a wife before standing for Parliament – no-one was so stuffy as to care if the bride was up the duff nowadays – and the wedding would give him an excuse to invite all the people he wanted to cosy up to.

It had worked. He was rewarded for his loyalty to the party with a safe seat, although she had been disappointed it was in Sussex where she had no friends or family nearby. He had been elected to parliament when Tash was just a new-born and Alfie not even thought of, but the move to the country and downgrading of career for Emily had meant that she, quite naturally, had taken an interest in Ralph’s constituency work. Initially, he had been driven by the desire to make things better for those whose votes he had relied on. Lately though, the glamour of Westminster and his rise within the party to shadow Home Secretary had replaced that passion with cynicism and a waning interest in local matters. Emily had tried to take over out of genuine concern for righting wrongs but found she was depressingly powerless to help.

‘So, how are the boys at central office reacting to the election announcement?’ she asked.

‘Excited. Feeling like the PM’s made a bit of an error calling it now, given that we’re riding so high in the opinion polls but who are we to complain?’

‘Who indeed?’ smiled Emily.

‘But then, what choice did he have? Looks like things aren’t going to go their way over the next ten months and then they’d be forced to call an election anyhow. They obviously thought waiting until the last minute would be even worse.’

‘Will we win then?’

‘There’s a good chance. As long as the key people can be persuaded to keep their noses clean over the next couple of months anyhow. It’s all going to be on personalities. You could barely get a fag paper between our policies and everyone else’s.’

Emily nodded. This had been her main angle when writing her political commentary even before Alfie was born and nothing much had changed since then.

‘Yeah,’ continued Ralph, ‘as we’ve been saying, it’s all on personalities now, so we just have to make sure we are offering what the voters want.’

‘Perfect, shiny, happy families then?’

‘Well, yes,’ he conceded, ‘that’s us. Then we’ve got the cool, cosmopolitan gay guys who are obviously Charles and Ivan, the steady older bloke with business experience, Alan – we need him to be the PM in waiting of course. In any other economic climate we’d be fielding a younger man as leader ...’ he trailed off, rubbing his forehead with fatigue and thwarted ambition.

You would have been the ‘younger man’, thought Emily, who knew how painful it had been for Ralph when last year’s leadership battle had led to his narrow defeat, despite the party nearly splitting in half over the battle to decide between him and Alan. He had been persuaded behind closed doors to stand down and back Alan, reuniting the party by publicly and vociferously stating his satisfaction with the role of shadow Home Secretary.

The phone rang.

‘Ralph Pemilly,’ he answered rather too loudly. Emily smiled to herself. However shattered he was – and he frequently was – he always answered the phone as if he had just been interrupted doing something important and dynamic.

‘Yep,’ he said, ‘absolutely – no, you’re absolutely right Gerald,’ he was saying.

So it was pinstripe man, thought Emily. Judging by Ralph’s manner with him, Gerald was a major cog in the machine. She supposed she ought to have been more appreciative that he spent so much of his time and energy on her and TJ yesterday.

Now Ralph was smoothing back his hair, checking his reflection in the darkened kitchen window. They were not overlooked and Emily rarely lowered the blind. Funny, she thought, how people tended to groom themselves when they were on the telephone. Almost like videophones were an everyday reality. And thank goodness they are not, she thought, given the number of times she had answered the telephone to constituents naked. Well, she justified, they did seem to think it was fine to call whenever they had a mind to.

‘Okay, yeah, definitely,’ he was saying now. ‘Just tell him to contact the constituency office when he wants to come down.’

‘Everything okay?’ asked Emily when he put down the phone.

‘Great, actually,’ said Ralph, still arranging his hair. ‘That was Gerald saying he’s managed to get a Sunday Times magazine feature on me.’

‘Wow,’ said Emily.

‘Yeah, well, they wanted Alan,’ he admitted, ‘but he was tied into an exclusive deal with the Telegraph just before the election announcement, so no-one else is allowed to do anything on him ‘til it comes out. The Telegraph have landed on their feet of course, getting a print exclusive with the next PM.’

‘Their loss is your gain though,’ pointed out Emily.

‘Yeah, well, Gerald did a good job of getting them to go for me instead,’ he said with a humility Emily was sure he didn’t feel. ‘The leader of the party’s more of a coup, obviously. Actually, they’ve not just decided to write about me, they want the whole thing; you, the kids, the whole family man thing.’ He looked at Emily anxiously.

‘Sure,’ she reassured him. ‘That’s fine. It’s not like it’s a sleazy tabloid rag doing an expos? of your drug- taking, hard-drinking, and rent boy habit.’

‘Nor yours my sweet,’ he said, tapping her on the nose for her cheekiness. ‘He’ll probably be here on Monday to start getting a feel for everything at a constituency level. I said he should call TJ and go from there. I expect he’ll want to spend more of his time in Westminster all told. That’s where the action is really.

‘I think he’s probably quite good, this journalist,’ he continued. ‘Don’t know if you’ve come across him at all in your former life? Bloke called Matt Morley?’

Emily froze. After a moment, Ralph looked at her enquiringly, waving his hand in front of her face.

‘Earth to Emily! Have you heard of him?’

‘Certainly not,’ she snapped and then caught the puzzled look on his face. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’

‘Heard of him? This Matt Morley bloke?’

‘Erm,’ Emily thought fast, ‘heard of him? Yes, sorry, I thought you said “had I had him” whereas you actually said “had I heard of him” ...’ she trailed off, giggling nervously. ‘So yes, the name rings a bell. I think he’s reasonably good,’ she added, blushing because, in that minute, for the first time in their marriage, she had just told her husband a big fat lie.

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