The Woman Who Upped and Left: A laugh-out-loud read that will put a spring in your step!
**The laugh-out-loud Sunday Times bestseller is back. Perfect for fans of ‘Outnumbered’ and Carole Matthews, Fiona writes about life as it really is.**Forget about having it all. Sometimes you just want to leave it all behind.Audrey is often seized by the urge to walk out of her house without looking back – but she can’t possibly do that.She is a single parent. She is needed. She has a job, a home, responsibilities…and a slothful teenage son’s pants to pick up.But no one likes being taken for granted – Audrey least of all – so the time has come for drastic action. And no one’s going to stand in her way…
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Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2016
This ebook edition 2016
Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2016
Cover design © Emma Rogers 2016
Fiona Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9781847563675
Ebook Edition © Feburary 2016 ISBN: 9780007469406
Version 2018-10-02
For Susan Walker, with love and a hug on a chair.
Table of Contents
Chapter Four: Disappointing Soup
Chapter Six: The Wrong Jelly Beans
Chapter Eight: Motorway Muffins
Chapter Ten: The Right Way to Chop an Onion
Chapter Eleven: Boiled t-Shirt
Chapter Twelve: De-Bearding Mussels
Chapter Fifteen: Droopy Soufflé
Chapter Sixteen: Champagne in Bed
Chapter Seventeen: Curdled Custard
Chapter Eighteen: A Dazzling Array of Canapés
Chapter Nineteen: Minibar Snacks
Chapter Twenty: Lacklustre Mousse
Chapter Twenty-One: Soothing Broth
Chapter Twenty-Two: A Bun in the Oven
Chapter Twenty-Three: A Touch of Salt
Chapter Twenty-Four: Breakfast at Natalie’s
Chapter Twenty-Five: Dinner for One
Chapter Twenty-Six: Emergency Booze
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Fish Bone
Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Hail of Falafel
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Tea and Sympathy
Chapter Thirty-One: Sparkling Sundaes
Chapter Thirty-Two: Contraband Chocolate
Chapter Thirty-Three: Sunshine Crêpes
Chapter Thirty-Four: Mr Whippy Ice Cream
Pants. There’s a lot of them about. Tomato-red boxers are strewn on the sofa, while another specimen – turquoise, emblazoned with cartoon palm trees and pineapples – has come to rest under the coffee table like a snoozing pet. A third pair – in a murky mustard hue – are parked in front of the TV as if waiting for their favourite programme to come on. I’m conducting an experiment to see how long they’ll all remain there if I refuse to round them all up. Perhaps, if left for long enough, they’ll fossilise and I can donate them to a museum.
Yet more are to be found upstairs, in the bathroom, slung close to – but crucially not in – the linen basket. The act of lifting the wicker lid, and dropping them into it, is clearly too arduous a task for a perfectly able-bodied boy of eighteen years old. It’s infuriating. I’ve mentioned it so many times, Morgan must have stopped hearing me – like the way you eventually become unaware of a ticking clock. Either that, or he simply doesn’t give a stuff. Not for the first time I figure that boys of this age and their mothers are just not designed to live together. But I won’t pick them up, not this time. We can live in filth – crucially, he’ll also run out of clean pants and have to start re-wearing dirty ones, turned inside out – and see if I care …
Beside the scattering of worn boxers lies a tiny scrap of pale lemon lace, which on closer inspection appears to be a thong. This would be Jenna’s. Morgan’s girlfriend is also prone to leaving a scattering of personal effects in her wake.
I stare down at the thong, trying to figure how such a minuscule item can possibly function as pants. I have never worn one myself, being unable to conquer the fear that they could work their way actually into your bottom, and require an embarrassing medical procedure to dig them back out. I know they’re meant to be sexy – my own sturdy knickers come in multipacks, like loo roll – but all I can think is: chafing risk. And what am I supposed to do with it?
Although Morgan has been seeing Jenna for nearly a year, I’m still unsure of the etiquette where her underwear is concerned. Should I pick it up delicately – with eyebrow tweezers, perhaps – and seal it in a clear plastic bag, like evidence from a crime scene? Tentatively, as if it might snap at my ankle, I nudge it into the corner of the bathroom with the toe of my shoe.
