Читать книгу William Walker’s First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story - Matt Rudd - Страница 76

A woman with a loud voice has just got a job in the book department of Life & Times, which involves her sitting two desks away from me. After an alarmingly short I’m-in-a-new-job-so-must-be-on-best-behaviour honeymoon period (five days), she has settled in and revealed her true colours: she is a phoner of friends and a sorter-outer of home administration at work. This is dreadful news.

Last week (her first in the office), she booked a holiday to the Maldives (‘I just need to get away from it all for a while’), arranged for a quote on a garden spa bath (‘how much more are those underwater speakers? It wouldn’t be proper without a bit of Courtney Pine bubbling away,’ snort, guffaw, snort) and had a two-hour argument with her daughter about the pros and cons of Gordon Brown.

This morning, I arrive late because of my one-to-one face time with the knife-man and she’s already mid-conversation with an unspecified friend.

Johnson is making slit-throat mimes but I don’t know why he’s complaining—he sits seven desks away and, because he likes rock and roll, he can’t hear properly anyway.

‘My BUPA insurance has always reimbursed me. Mmm, mmm, mmm, so why’s she taken him off the diet if the stools are only grey? Mmm, mmm. I suppose all I would say is that there is probably a psychological aspect to it, in that she’s a bit of a hypochondriac. Mmm, mmm, mmm. But if they were green…mmm, mmm.’

My appetite for a morning croissant is ruined.