Then we went back to work – I was doing a stint at the Post – when this amazing thing happened to me. I was sitting at my desk one lunchtime, putting the finishing touches to a rather vicious profile of the P.R. king, Rex Delafoy, when suddenly there was this commotion. Doors were banging, people were running, and an air of tension and panic prevailed. It turned out that Edith Smugg, the Post’s ancient agony aunt, had gone face down in the soup at lunch. No-one knew quite how old she was because of all the face-lifts, but it turned out that she was eighty-three! Anyway, before Edith’s stiffening body had even been stretchered out of the building, I’d been deputed to complete her page. And I remember standing, shocked, by her paper-strewn desk and wondering what the hell to do. So I stuck my hand in the postbag and pulled out three letters as if drawing the raffle at some village fete.
To my astonishment I found the contents riveting. The first was from a chap with premature ejaculation, the second was from a woman who’d sadly murdered her boyfriend five years before, and the third was from a seventy-three-year-old virgin who thought he might be gay. So I answered them as best I could and the next day I was asked to carry on. I didn’t mind at all, because I’d enjoyed it; in fact by then I was hooked. I didn’t care how many letters there were – I’d have done it for free if they’d asked. The feeling it gave me – I can’t quite describe it – this delicious, warm glow inside. The knowledge that I might be able to help all these total strangers filled me with something like joy. I suddenly felt that I’d been born to be an agony aunt: at last I’d found my true niche. It was like a revelation to me – a Damascene flash – as though I’d heard a voice. ‘Rose! Rose!’ it boomed. ‘This is Thy God. Thou Shalt Dispense ADVICE!’
I kept expecting to hear that they’d hired some B-List celeb to take over, or some publicly humiliated political wife. I thought they’d be handing me my cards and saying, ‘Thanks for helping out, Rose – you’re a brick.’ And indeed there was talk of Trisha from daytime telly and even Carol Vordeman. But a month went by, and then another, and still no change was announced, and by now they were putting Ask Rose at the top of the page, and my photo byline too. The next thing I knew, I’d got a year’s contract; so there I was – an agony aunt.
I’d always read the problem page; it’s like the horoscope, I can never resist. But now, to my amazement, I was writing the replies myself. It’s a role I adore, and the sight of my bulging postbag just makes my heart sing. All those people to be helped. All those dilemmas to be resolved. All that human muddle and…mess. There are lots of perks as well. The money’s not bad and I get to broadcast and I’m asked to give seminars and talks. I also do a late-night phone-in, Sound Advice, at London FM twice a week. And all this simply because I happened to be in the office on the day that Edith Smugg dropped dead! I thought Ed would be pleased for me, but he wasn’t – far from it. That’s when things began to go wrong.
‘Ed – what’s the problem?’ I asked, one Sunday in late June. He’d been in a funny sort of mood all day.
‘The problem Rose,’ he said slowly, ‘or at least the main problem – because there are several problems – is other people’s problems. That’s the problem.’
‘Oh,’ I said uncertainly. ‘I see.’
‘I wish you’d never become an agony aunt,’ he went on wearily.
‘Well I’m sorry, Ed, but I did.’
‘And I don’t like you bringing your work home.’
‘I have no option, it’s a huge job. In any case I’d have thought you’d be understanding given that you work in Personnel.’
‘It’s called Human Resources these days,’ he corrected me stiffly.
‘So it is. But you sort out people’s problems too.’
‘I sort out “issues” actually,’ he said. Not “problems”. And it’s precisely because I have to listen to people whining to me about their maternity leave or the size of their parking space, that I don’t want more whingeing when I get home. In any case I thought agony aunts made it all up.’
‘A common misconception,’ I said.
‘Well how many letters do you actually print?’
‘I answer eight on the page, twice a week.’
‘And how many do you get?’
‘About a hundred and fifty.’
‘So why bother with all the rest? I mean, why don’t you just put a line at the bottom saying, “Rose regrets that letters cannot be answered personally”.’
‘Because, Ed,’ I said, irritated by now, ‘those people are depending on me. They’ve confided in me. They’ve put their faith in me. I have a sacred duty to write back. I mean, take this woman for example.’ I waved a piece of Basildon Bond at him. ‘Her husband has just run off with a dental hygienist thirty years his junior – don’t you think she deserves a reply?’
‘Well do other agony aunts write back to everyone?’
‘Some do,’ I said, ‘and some don’t. But if I didn’t then it would make me feel…mean. I couldn’t live with myself.’
Gradually it became apparent that Ed couldn’t live with me either.
‘Will you be coming to bed tonight?’ he’d ask me sardonically, ‘and if so, how will I recognise you?
‘I shall cite the letters as correspondence in our divorce,’ he’d quip with a bitter laugh.
Then he began getting on at me about all my other alleged shortcomings as well: my ‘total inability’ to cook for example – well I’ve never learnt – and my alleged ‘bossiness’. He also objected to what he impertinently called my ‘obsessive’ tidiness – ‘It’s like living in an operating theatre!’ he’d snap.
By July conflict had long since replaced kisses and we were sleeping in separate beds. That’s when, in a spirit of compromise, I suggested marriage guidance – and that was that…
‘Ed was supposed to get the seven year itch, not the seven month itch,’ I said to the twins as I fumbled for a tissue again. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s so humiliating.’
‘Well what would you advise a reader in this situation to do?’ asked Bella.
‘I’d advise them to try and get over it – fast.’
‘Then you must do that too. There’s an equation for post relationship breakdown recovery,’ she added knowledgeably. ‘It’s supposed to take you half the time you were actually in a relationship to get over it. So in your case that would be five months.’
‘No,’ Bea corrected her, ‘it takes twice as long, not half – so it’s going to take her a year and a half.’
‘I’m sure it’s half the time,’ said Bella.
‘No, it’s double,’ insisted Bea. ‘Look, I’ll show you on a piece of paper if you like. Right, where x = the time it took him to ask you out and y = the number of times he told you he loved you and z = his income multiplied by the number of lovers you’d both had before then –’
‘Oh stop arguing you two,’ I said. ‘Because you’re both wrong – it’s not going to take me five months or eighteen months – it’s going to take me the rest of my life! Ed and I had our problems but I loved him,’ I wept. ‘I made this public commitment