There wasn’t any milk in the flat this morning, so I had to go out and get some. AGAIN. I’m going to start keeping a record. Anyway, it’s not even eight in the morning and the first thing I see when I step outside is the girlfriend from hell! Since I got all that grief from Justin for just talking to Bethsheba, I decided to ignore her. She called my name, but I kept right on walking. When I got back with the milk she was standing in front of our door. I told her Justin was still sleeping and she said how nice it would be if she could have a cup of tea while she waited. I told her there was a café nearby. She didn’t budge. I said would she mind stepping aside so I could get into my own home and she started crying and going on about how she LOVED Justin and how if only she could talk to him they could patch everything up. (Talk about drama queen!!!) Not only was I DYING for a cup of tea, but I was going to have to dig a cup out of the sink and wash it before I could have one, so I was less than MEGA sympathetic. I told her that as far as I could see, Justin had even less interest in her than he did in translating Mansfield Park into Sanskrit. I advised her to get a life. That’s when she went for me! (Literally!!!) I know this may sound naïve, but I really wasn’t expecting to be attacked on my own doorstep. Which gave Bethsheba the advantage. She lunged straight at me and knocked me over. (If you ask me, it’s a miracle I wasn’t wounded.) It’s just as well Sigmund’s a light sleeper. He charged out in nothing but his boxers (which is not a pretty sight – if photographs of Sigmund in his boxers were given out in sex ed there’d be a whole lot less pregnant teenagers in this country, believe me), shouting like a kung fu warrior. Of course, it wasn’t Satan’s spawn he was shrieking at. It was ME – the innocent victim!!! What the hell are you doing? Blah blah blah… What I was actually doing, besides trying to push the stupid cow off me, was open the milk so I could try to drown her. Sigmund got us both inside and then he went to wake up Justin, but Justin had already escaped through the garden despite the booby traps. Sigmund, of course, was TOTALLY oblivious to what had been going on, but Bethsheba was excruciatingly happy to fill him in. Anyway, Sigmund was all Mr Concerned Parent and Comforting Shrink, while I (of course!!!) got stuck with making the tea and washing out THREE cups etc. Eventually Bethsheba calmed down enough to say she was sorry for trying to cut my promising life short, but she was in a v emotional state (um, duh … really???) and she couldn’t believe I told her to GET A LIFE when that was what she had. Neither Sigmund nor I knew what she was on about. We looked at each other, and then we looked at her again and Sigmund said, “Pardon? I’m not certain I understand—” and Bethsheba started crying again. HANG ON HARD TO ANYTHING THAT ISN’T CEMENTED DOWN!!! Bethsheba, through a churning ocean of tears, said that what she meant was that she’s carrying Justin’s child! Even Sigmund didn’t have an answer for that one. He just sat there like a beached fish, staring at her. I took advantage of this moment of SHOCK AND HORROR to pretend I had to go to the loo (not that either of them noticed). I walked straight out of the front door and went to Disha’s. (What would I do WITHOUT HER? I ask you!!!) D called it the Attack of the Killer Cow. She said did I really think Justin would be stupid enough to get Bumshiva knocked up and I asked her if she’d met my brother. I was going to stay over at D’s, but in the end I decided to come home and work on my story. It’s so ABSOLUTELY true that suffering fuels creativity, isn’t it? Let’s face it: shallow, happy people write Burger King jingles, but deep, unhappy people write War and Peace.