He said he loved us, but knew immediately he wasn’t up to the job (right, and I knew I was!?) so we’d be better off without him. That was two years ago, now he thinks he can just waltz back into our lives as easy as that. But we’ve coped this long so we can carry on coping. He’s got a lot of making up to do.’ Maria, 30, Cirencester Vicky’s kitchen smells of coconut and fish sauce. I sit at the pine kitchen table and inhale the aroma, hungrily. ‘Come over on Saturday,’ she’d said on my mobile last Wednesday as I was walking home from having my bikini line waxed. (Yet another expensive tactic aimed at avoiding my monosyllabic housemate who is intent on pulling the biggest strop Britain has ever seen.) ‘It’ll probably be a madhouse but I can cook lunch and we can have a proper chat.’ I knew that ‘proper chat’ probably meant an interrogation about my and Jim’s forthcoming ‘wedding’ but to be honest, I didn’t care. Even if Dylan had a small army of similarly bombastic mates over and the ceiling had fallen down, it would be more relaxing than being at home.
