Friday, March 16

What was she thinking? Why did she do it? Why on earth would Bonnie be so stupid as to torch my home? I mean – don’t get me wrong – You wouldn’t rush to Bonnie’s side to sort out a complicated personal issue, or come to think of it you wouldn’t rush to Bonnie to solve a crossword puzzle – nobody thinks Bonnie is actually very smart – but who could have guessed she was actually as thick as two planks? As dense as they come? To go ahead and actually burn down a perfectly good house which was on the verge of selling? Not me! Never saw it coming!

All this time she was festering away, ever since I showed her that there was a life outside of Kumeu, working out in her tiny little mind in ever diminishing little circles, how she could strike back! Revenge of the unaccomplished! of the fatbottomed! Revenge of the married-to-Jase’s!? Hell I don’t know – did I tip her over the edge when I got a shorter more fashionable hairstyle and went blonde? Did that do it? Oh now I can see that she was taking everything personally. That every move I made in my exciting promising life was a personal slur on her? The fact of it is that I barely think about Bonnie – ever! She simply never comes to mind! She’s not interesting! She’s a Fat Bottomed Kumeu Cow! Well perhaps this is the first time she’s done something truly effective. I’m stumped. Now the insurance company is playing hard to get, making noises about arson, long investigations, procedures, forms, meanwhile I’m struggling along with bridging finance on two homes… You see what she doesn’t realise is that one day, she’ll pay. Handsomely.

You might be thinking, that’s a lot on poor Dim’s plate. That’s not the half of it! My husband has moved into the shed. There. Perhaps the most humiliating moment of our twentysomething years together. He prefers to doss out in the shed with the crickets and wetas than to be beside his wife in the marital bed. The signal this is sending to our two boys is – we’re done. We’re over. And there’s silly old Dimity holding things together in the meantime. Well… Julian saw me on the verge of tears and that’s something new for him to witness. I didn’t cry – but it’s a millimeter away just under the surface of my skin just waiting to happen. Sandy Grey has decided I’m the aggressive one – that I need to do some “homework” on this issue! But who is earning the household crust at the moment? Me! Who is arranging the legal and financial affairs in an attempt to stave off bankruptcy? Me! Looking after the boys and feeding the family? Me! Aggressive? Me?

You know, if I step back, take a deep breath, calm down enough to look dispassionately at the current state of my affairs, I still want what I set out to have. I still want a new life in Ponsonby, I still want to open up new possibilities for myself and for my family, and I still want to renew the possibility of falling in love with my husband again. These goals fit my current needs like a hand fits a glove. Except now, thanks to the combined efforts of my closest friend Bonnie, and my husband Stewart, and Julian, and Arthur Bloody Short and his hideous brood – that glove has been shredded and unpicked until it looks like something a scarecrew might wear on the end of the broomstick for an arm… Oh Dimity how did everything go so wrong?