Dear Colin, I wrote. Thank you very much for your letter and I’m sorry that you’re feeling so low. But let me assure you that you are a very handsome young man and I’m sure lots of girls would like to go out with you. But the point is you have to make a real effort to meet them – sitting at home’s no good! I think you should a) do an assertiveness course to help build your confidence and b) join an evening class (not car maintenance) where I’m sure you would soon make some female friends. I enclose my Confidence leaflet and the number for your local community college, and I wish you really good luck. I felt so sorry for him that, on the spur of the moment I added: P.S. If you feel you’d like to, do let me know how you get on. But as I sealed the envelope I realised that this was unlikely, and that’s the weird thing about what I do. Every month over a thousand total strangers tell me about their problems and their intimate affairs. I give them the very best advice I can, but I rarely, if ever, hear back. My replies go out into the void like meteorites hurtling through space. Did what I write help them, I sometimes wonder? Are things going better for them now?
I was suddenly aware that our new editor, Ricky Soul, ex-News of the World, was standing by my desk. R. Soul – as he’s respectfully known – has been brought in by the Amalgamated lowerarchy to try and jack up our sales.
‘How’s it going in the Agony and Misery Department?’ he asked with a smirk.
‘Oh, fine,’ I replied casually. ‘Fine.’ As he hovered beside me I made a mental note to leave a copy of my Personal Freshness leaflet on his desk. Then he reached for my letters – in total breach of confidentiality! – so I quickly swept them into a drawer.
‘Anything spicy you can lead with on Wednesday Rose?’
‘Like what?’ I enquired innocently though I knew.
‘Like “Dear Rose,” he said in a lisping falsetto, “I am a nineteen-year-old glamour model with a huge bust and long blonde hair and my boyfriend likes me to dress up as a nurse. I’m tempted to tell him that I don’t really enjoy it but am worried that he’ll feel hurt.”’
I groaned. Our old editor, Mike, who was sacked last month, used to leave me alone; but ever since Ricky arrived I’ve been under pressure to put in more sex.
‘Got any problems like that?’ he enquired with a leer.
‘No, I’m afraid not,’ I replied. ‘However I have an accountant who likes to wear silk knickers under his pinstripes; a farmer who wants to commit pigamy, and I’ve had a letter from a fifty-five-year-old nun who’d like to become a man.’
‘I said spicy, Rose – not pervy,’ said Ricky pulling a face. ‘And not too many woofters, okay?’
‘Ricky, kindly don’t trivialise my readers’ problems. My column isn’t entertainment.’
‘Of course it is,’ he guffawed, ‘that’s exactly what it is: other people’s problems give us all a lovely warm glow.’ I suppressed the urge to club him to death with Secrets of Anger Control.
‘I’ve also had this,’ I said, handing him the letter about the sick child. He scanned the paper and his face lit up.
‘Great!’ he beamed. ‘A Tragic Tot! We’ll run with it – if she’s cute.’
As he sauntered away I turned back to my final letter with a frustrated sigh. It was from a girl whose fiancé had just gone off with someone else.
Can’t believe it… she wrote, wedding four weeks off…the shame and humiliation…can’t eat, can’t sleep…should I ring him?…suicide…
‘Poor kid,’ I said handing it to Serena. ‘I’ll make this one my lead.’ And, as I quickly drafted the reply, it was as though I were writing to myself.
Dear Kelly, Thank you very much for your letter: you’ve obviously had a terrible time. But your ex is clearly the WRONG man, otherwise he wouldn’t have done what he did! So the sooner you’re able to put this behind you the sooner you’ll meet someone who’s right. You’ve had a huge emotional shock, Kelly, so you need to be radical now. All those nice memories? Erase them! Remember your ex at his worst. Remember him picking his nose, for example, or clipping the hair from his ears. Remember him drunk and snoring, or correcting you in front of your friends. Do this often enough, and you’ll find that pleasant thoughts of him will soon go. Do NOT remember the time he mixed you a Lemsip, or the time he played ‘Only You’ down the phone. Next, get rid of everything that reminds you of him – ‘vanish’ him from your life. All the gifts he gave you – chuck them! And the photograph albums. Then tear up his letters – and the Valentine’s cards. Flog the engagement ring and treat yourself to a week at a health farm with your best friend. Finally, post up the ugliest photo you have of him and draw a red circle round it with a line through. You ask me if you should contact him. NO, Kelly! Do NOT!!! And in the unlikely event that he should call you, then I suggest you tell him to get stuffed! Salvage your dignity, Kelly – it’s so important – and just be angry instead. Those homicidal dreams you’re having? Indulge them! Don’t feel guilty – enjoy! Those sadistic little fantasies in which you pull out his nails – go right ahead. And if it helps why not simply pretend that your ex is dead? Kelly, you’ve clearly had a dreadful time, but I know that you’re going to be fine. And remember that none of these things will work nearly as well as finding another – and much better – man.
I breathed a cathartic sigh as I signed the letter. As I say, I sometimes take a tough tone. But if a man lets you down that badly then you have to kick him right out. And as I made my way home that evening I decided I’d follow my own advice. There were a few marital mementoes I hadn’t had the heart to discard but now I resolved to throw them away. I took the wedding photo out of the drawer, together with our engagement announcement, and my dried bouquet. In a file I found the air tickets to Menorca and the wallets of honeymoon snaps. There was a particularly nice one of Ed, standing on the beach in the evening sun. I could have delivered a deranged monologue to it – I was tempted – but instead I put it, with the other things, in an old shoebox which, to my bitter amusement, came from ‘Faith’. I tied the box tightly with string, pressed my foot on the pedal bin and prepared to let go.
‘Goodbye Ed,’ I said firmly. ‘I am ex-iting from you; I am ex-pelling you; I am ex-cising you. You are ex-traneous,’ I added firmly. ‘You are ex-cess. I am making an ex-ample of you, because I do not want you any more. I do not want you any more,’ I repeated as the bin began to blur. ‘I do not…want. You. I…do…’ – my throat began to ache and a tear splashed my hand – ‘…want you.’ Oh fuck. My heart had been hijacked by nostalgia, and I couldn’t let my memories go. As I reached for the kitchen roll I decided instead simply to hide the box; for if I was going to get through this I couldn’t let myself be ambushed by sentiment. So I went up to the top floor, into the large spare room, and pushed the box under the bed. As I straightened up – feeling better already – I detected a wisp of smoke. I glanced out of the window into Trevor McDonald’s garden. There, at the end of the short lawn, a bonfire was smouldering away. But what was being burned on it wasn’t autumn leaves, but two hockey sticks – how odd.
After a nasty break-up it’s a good idea to put a few post-codes between yourself and your ex. The further the better in fact. There’s nothing quite like it for distracting you from the fact that you’ve just been given the push. Dumped in Devon? Then why not move to Dumfries? Given the big E in Enfield? Then uproot to Edinburgh. You’ll be too busy focusing on the newness of your environment to give a damn about Him. Not that I am thinking about Him. He’s history. My campaign to exorcise Him is going well. It’s already eight weeks since we