In Bed with Jocasta (6 page)

I agree to sit in restaurants, and order dessert for myself, while she demurely refuses, in the full knowledge that when it arrives, she’ll polish off the lot.

I agree to eschew nicknames such as ‘darl’, ‘baby’ and ‘old girl’.

I agree never to make separate calculations of the cost of her STD phone calls.

I agree to the former on the understanding there will likewise be no adding-up of my annual credit-card spending at Theo’s Liquor Mart.

I agree to her use of the word ‘we’ when describing to her sister the back-breaking labour that I have just completed on my own, as in the sentence: ‘We rebuilt the whole of the back fence last Sunday.’

I agree to learn all her strange family expressions, and teach them to our children, so that these peculiar traditions may be carried on.

I agree to watch as she tries on five different black tops, all seemingly identical, before enthusiastically endorsing her conviction that ‘the second one is the best’.

I shall remain able, however, to sense subtle changes in the wind, and adopt a sudden preference for Black Top Number Four should she change her mind.

I agree, when we are old and grey, not to dye my hair before she does.

I agree not to recruit her friends to my side of things during any bitter interior-decorating feuds.

I agree to be sympathetic when she’s sick, and not secretly imply it must be her fault.

I agree, when I’ve talked about my own day at work for two and a half hours, I might occasionally remember to ask about hers.

I agree my mid-life crisis, when it comes, will not involve a sports car, sky-diving, or guitar lessons.