Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [140]
‘Fine,’ Jack interrupted.
‘Really?’ she asked cautiously. She’d been expecting him to mock her request.
‘Absolutely. They make the picture. What d’you think they’d like?’
‘Somewhere to live,’ she semi-joked.
‘I haven’t got the budget,’ Jack replied. He sounded quite regretful. ‘Any other ideas?’
She thought about it. ‘Money, probably.’
‘Thirty quid each? It’s all I can stretch to, I’m afraid.’
‘Er, fantastic’ It wasn’t much, but it was more than she’d hoped for. At least Boo and Dave would get a couple of hot meals out of it.
‘Here,’ Jack signed a petty cash slip. ‘Give that to Bernard.’
‘Thank you.’
He let his dark eyes rest on her face for two or three long seconds. ‘You’re welcome.’
At seven o’clock, as arranged, Lisa went to the bar at the Clarence. Oliver rose when he saw her.
‘What d’you want to drink? White wine?’
White wine was her drink, at least it had been when they’d been together. He’d remembered.
‘No,’ she said, hoping to wound. ‘A cosmopolitan.’
‘I might have known.’
She watched him, big and bulky, loud and forthright, cheerfully joking with the bar staff. How come he always occupied more space than he actually filled? Her head tightened and lifted – he was so familiar she almost didn’t know him.
Returning with her drink, he got straight to the point. ‘Have you got a solicitor, babes?’
‘Weeell…’
‘We both need a solicitor,’ he explained patiently.
‘For the divorce?’ She tried to sound blasé but it was the first time the word had ever been actually uttered as a real likelihood.
‘’s right.’ He was brisk, businesslike. ‘Now, you know the deal –’
She didn’t, actually.
‘Our marriage has irretrievably broken down, but that’s not enough to get divorced. We need to give a reason. If we were already separated for two years we could just do it. But until then, one of us has to sue the other. For desertion, unreasonable behaviour or adultery.’
‘Adultery!’ Lisa bristled. She’d been totally faithful while they’d been together. ‘I never…’
‘And neither did I.’ Oliver was equally emphatic. ‘As for desertion –’
‘Yeah, you left me.’ She was keen to blame.
‘You gave me no choice, babes. But you could sue me for that. Only thing is we have to be separated for two years before you can use desertion as grounds, and we want to get this sorted soon?’ He threw her a questioning look and waited for her to concur.
‘Yeah,’ she said snippily. ‘Sooner the better.’
‘So that leaves us unreasonable behaviour. We need five examples.’
‘Unreasonable behaviour? What’s that?’ She was almost laughing, forgetting briefly that this had anything to do with her. ‘Like doing the hoovering at three in the morning.’
‘Or working every weekend and bank holiday.’ His tone was bitter. ‘Or pretending you want to get pregnant and continuing to take the Pill.’
‘Whatever.’ Her expression was hostile.
‘We have a choice. I can sue you or you can sue me.’
‘So you admit you were unreasonable too?’
He sighed heavily. ‘It’s only a formality, Lees, it’s not about allocating blame. The person who gets sued doesn’t get punished in any way. So which is it to be? You sue me?’
‘You decide, seeing as you know so much about it all,’ Lisa said unpleasantly.
He gave her a long look, as if trying to make sense of her, then he shifted. ‘If that’s what you want. Now, costs. We each pay our own solicitor but we split the court costs between us, yes?’
‘Why do we need solicitors? If we flew to Vegas for a quickie wedding, can’t we fly to Reno for a quickie divorce?’
‘Not that simple, babes. Think about it, we own a property together.’
‘Yeah, but we each know how much we contributed to… OK, I’ll get a solicitor.’ She couldn’t take another second of this, so she rearranged herself in her chair and asked with brittle gaiety, ‘How’s work been?’
‘Loco. Just got back from France