LIZ JONES'S DIARY: In which no news is good news
I haven’t heard back from the Liam Neeson lookalike. I keep asking my girlfriends why he hasn’t replied to my last missive, in which I stated I would love to see the Antarctic, where he’s working for a couple of months, but I live in hope. The thought of him is what is keeping me going through a January that seems to have lasted for months. One friend suggested that he might not have emailed as he could be ‘submerged under an avalanche’. Hmm, well, let’s jolly well hope so.
I did, though, get an email from David. As always, it was laced with dooooom. It was like something you might get from an ancient maiden aunt. I could feel all the energy being drained from my body.
‘Hi. Hope you are well. Has Pru had her dental treatment yet? If so, how is she? And do you know when she would be able to come home? Regards.’
Prudence is, of course, the cat I looked after for three years until he snatched her back without telling me. Against my better judgment, I had stayed at David’s ‘flat’ for a night while he was away, to find no heating, no electricity and a flood. There were mouldy avocados in bowls. The poor cat was frozen, lonely, was being bullied by the other cats in the neighbourhood meaning she had wounds on her head and tail, and despite David being told she needed some teeth out and the rest cleaned under anaesthetic, he had done nothing about it. So I snatched her back. She is now living with Nic, as David has no idea where she lives and therefore cannot just turn up and take her. Ha!
And anyway, besides all the feline shenanigans, who on earth uses the sign off ‘regards’ to a woman they have (until recently, and never again!) been sleeping with? I’m not even that formal with my accountant. It’s weird.
My friend Helen the artist who stayed at Christmas came armed with a big box. ‘What is it?’ I said, thinking, ooh, dog food! It turned out to be a box of all the hand-painted Save the Date cards she made when I asked if she would do our wedding invitations and placement settings. I looked at them, and I felt again the optimism I’d had about David when we first got together. I thought he would buy me a lovely ring, take me somewhere romantic, whisk me off my feet, and love me till I die (not long!).
Even this Christmas and New Year, despite all the disappointments he’d faced me with – his swearing, his smoking in my bathroom, his inability to walk far (and yes, it is his fault), his constant moaning, his awful, awful flat, the fact he doesn’t read books – I still had a glimmer of hope for us, like a crocus poking through the snow. I thought he might just turn up as a huge gesture, with a bunch of roses and a REAL RING for a change, saying I am the love of his life.
But no. All I get is, ‘Regards.’ He has absolutely no inkling he is in the wrong. I wouldn’t shout at him and throw him out if he didn’t keep doing awful, thoughtless things, such as when I sent him for an Indian takeaway when we arrived in Edinburgh, as I was working and couldn’t go out, he spent £46 of MY MONEY! When does a veggie meal for two ever cost more than 25 quid?
I bash out a reply. ‘Hi. Not sure if I am going to the five-star Alpine lodge with just 24 suites in Switzerland in a village with no cars, but with views of more 4,000-metre peaks than anywhere else in the world as there is seven inches of snow, but will let you know. I could drop her off as I head to Gatwick. Regards.’
All the above is true, btw. I am going to a spa in Saas-Fee – for a story! I’m not paying for it. It’s work! And I’m not bloody skiing! I’m going to stay in the warm by the tepee log fire: I get enough bleeding exercise in the Yorkshire Dales. He could have come with me had he not been such an arse, saying, ‘Why? What has changed?’ But I’m not going to drop her off. In his dreams.