The ABCs of Love by Sarah Salway Page A

harrumphing at me from the other side of the room.
    The trouble with the staff café is that I will have to spend my lunchtimes at work now. I won’t be able to sneak out and meet John.
    See also Bosses; Positive Thinking; Zero
    property
    I know exactly what road John and I will live on.
    I walk down there regularly checking out our new neighbors. I’ve worked out which ones John and I will be friends with. I even plan the little dinner parties we will hold.
    Once the front door of a house in the street was left open, so I looked inside. All I could see was the hall, but that was painted a cheerful yellow color, which seemed a good sign.
    I stood there and tried to imagine just what my life could be like, if I lived there. I could hear the low murmurs of us talking in bed at night, smell the food I would cook for John, taste his lips when I kissed him good morning, feel his suit jacket brush against my skin when he left each morning for work. In the background, I could even make out other voices, children’s voices, like shadows in the wind.
    After a while, a woman came out of the house, stared at me, and slammed the door shut. I felt bereft but couldn’t move. A bit later, I saw her face in the bedroom window. I knew she was wondering whether to call the police. I wanted to tell her,
Don’t.
    That we would be friends soon.
    It was like the sun going out. Seeing that navy blue door shut out the bright yellow of mine and John’s future. There was something so final about it.
    See also Omens; Stalking; Utopia; Yellow

Q
    the queen
    The Queen thinks the world smells of fresh paint because everywhere she goes is freshened up especially for her.
    John thinks I wear black lace underwear every day. He says it’s such a change from Kate, who makes no effort.
    “It’s important,” I tell him, “not to take anything for granted.”
    See also Breasts; Underwear; Zest
    the queen II
    When I was sixteen, I went to Ireland with my parents on the ferry. We had just sat down to our fish-and-chips when a loudspeaker announcement said that the Queen was on a boat nearby and that the captain would be obliged if all passengers could go up on deck to wave to her. We ran upstairs, but when we got there, it was just the
Britannia
with all the sailors in white saluting at us. My mother said she could see the Queen, but neither I nor my father believed her.
    We had just got back to our meal when there was another loudspeaker announcement. The Queen was really there this time, it said. We made our way up more slowly. The Queen was on a motorboat, being taken back to the
Britannia
at high speed. She was wearing a green coat and dress with a matching hat, and she was standing up straight in the boat, but because it was going so fast and the sea was choppy, she waved to us so oddly that she looked like a mechanical puppet.
    Later, my father said it was not her but a cutout doll, but my mother told him not to be so stupid. Nevertheless, it was, my father said, a lesson in not taking things at face value.
    When I asked him what he meant, he said that the Queen probably thought that our waving to her from the ferry was an outbreak of spontaneous applause because we loved her so much.
    I’ve thought about this since. Surely no one could be that stupid.
    Or could they?
    See also Friends; Sex; Ultimatum; Zest
    questions
    What would you do?
    John keeps asking me this. He’s talking about his children. What should he do about them? I know what he wants. He wants me to make his mind up for him. But John is a Libra. If I tell him what I think, he will immediately start to see the other side. I will be in the wrong whatever I say.
    I told him to divide a piece of paper into two and write down the pros and cons of leaving on each side. He came through hours later and said that the trouble was that the children mean everything to him. I felt he’d hit me.
    “So do I mean nothing to you?” I asked.
    “No,” he said. “You mean everything to me