Sadie Drew thinks she must be the world's worst wife. She only needs to walk into a room to make it untidy. She wears flannel pyjamas to bed. Furry things breed in her fridge. But she's a busy working mother not a wifebot, and husband Tom loves her as she is. 

Until he gets a hot new job and things change. There are alpha-wives to entertain. Nuclear rows. Unsettling secrets. And the smell of another woman's perfume on his suit. Sadie risks losing everything if she can't transform herself into the perfect wife...

One

I wake up with a jolt. The day I’ve been anxiously anticipating for the last month has finally arrived. Yes, it’s Friday, 25 May, 7.33 a.m., and in just over five hours I will be sitting down to my first lunch as a corporate wife. I will meet Tom’s new colleagues and their spouses, the gorgeous Anderson & Co wives, for the first time. I will be expected to say the right thing at the right moment, smile brightly, not spill wine down my dress, or, God forbid, drink so much that I forget not to be myself. This is Tom’s break after all, a big job, the reason we moved back from Canada. He gets a pulse in his temple when he talks about it. And things have been so bad between us recently – he says I don’t support him properly, I say he’s a workaholic – that this meet-the-spouse lunch needs to go well for other reasons too. It really does. I’m not going to screw up.

To pre-empt my natural leaning towards chaos and lateness I’ve organised ahead. I even chose my dress yesterday afternoon to avoid the usual nothing-to-wear last-minute frantic wardrobe rifling. The dress is hanging on the back of the door, a blue floral print tea dress, fitted, not too booby a neckline, small fabric- covered buttons. I sit up on the pillows and stare at it, not entirely convinced. Could it be a bit Mary Archer? Too fragrant wife? A bit religious cult prairie dress even? The longer I stare the more certain I am that its prudishness demands the agony of the silver strappy sandals that I bought for my cousin’s wedding last summer. (I managed the church service then went barefoot.) Yes, with the heels the outfit may be just about me enough, whatever me is these days, while still looking appropriately wifely. One thing’s for sure, I’ll have damn good hair. I’ve booked a blow- dry, confirmed the appointment three times. Whenever I attempt a blowdry myself I end up resembling a member of a Christian rock group, or someone with access to a hairdryer without one of those funnel attachments. I’m not good with whirring bits of domestic kit, especially things with attachments. Hoovers, hairdryers, food blenders, they just weren’t designed for the likes of me; someone, my husband says, ‘about as practical as a daffodil’. That’s him being nice by the way. He’s said far, far worse things.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed on to the warm, bare floorboards, and run through my tight but foolproof drill: drop Danny off at nursery; bomb to client’s house; back home to shower and change into Mary Archer dress and killing killer heels; blow-dry and chance to read deliciously rubbish magazines; wow husband’s colleagues with beauty and wit at The Ivy. Simple. I check my reflection in the dressing-room mirror and yawn. A thirty-four-year-old hedge-haired brunette with her mother’s teal-blue eyes yawns back at me. She is not unattractive, especially if she stops yawning and lifts her chin to add a bit of jaw definition. But she has both crow’s feet and a light scattering of Tzone acne, the two least attractive symptoms of youth and middle-age closing in a cruel pincer movement. Still. She doesn’t look hung over, which is a miracle. Yes, I almost blew my carefully laid plans last night. Tom was working late and my old mate Chloe popped over and . . .

Well, it wasn’t grown up and it wasn’t dignified. But it was fun. The most fun I’ve had in ages. A bit of background. Chloe and I go way back, all the way back to sharing clothes and boyfriends in our early twenties – in both cases I usually got the hand-me-downs – and a colourful six-month interval sharing a tiny cockroachy studio apartment and pull-down bed in Chelsea when we were both horribly skint and trying to establish ourselves as a make-up artist (her) and florist (me). We used to joke that we were like a married couple then. That was before either of us knew what real married couples were like, of course. Anyhow, forward wind many years – two husbands, one divorce (Chloe’s), a few wrinkles, and some extra poundage around the old hips (mine) – and we’re the same but different. I’ve recently returned from a two-year stint in Toronto, and a particularly bad annus crapus. Chloe has been in London, finding herself again after her divorce from a photographer whom she married in Las Vegas two years ago. (The wedding was sweetly ironic. The divorce wasn’t.) We’re still catching up.

By 9 p.m. we were high as kites, Chloe trying to wax my armpit, telling me how much better it was than shaving and that all the make-up artists did it. Me with my arm in the air, shaking with laughter – the first time I’d properly laughed in months, the laughter coming out in gulps like bubbles under water. The air was thick with the smoke of Chloe’s psychotropic weed – how can anyone smoke that stuff and remain sane? – and the fumes of red wine. Chloe wielded her wax strips and drunkenly squealed, ‘I’m going to get you.’ I shouted, ‘Shush! Danny’s sleeping! Ow! You enjoy my pain, sicko!’ and flicked at her with a manky tea towel crusted with dried scrambled egg. Then, of course, Tom walked in, all stern and husband-like, in a suit, after a long day at work. Chloe tried to swallow her giggles, which was worse because she started gagging, went puce and her cheeks puffed up like whoopee cushions. I started to giggle too. But Tom didn’t. His sense of humour totally malfunctioned when he discovered that we’d consumed two of his most coveted, expensive bottles of wine and that there was nothing in the house to eat apart from fish fingers and out of date Petits Filous. I kissed him and said jokingly, ‘Darling, you know, I’m not a natural! I know how to look after hyacinths, not husbands!’ He didn’t laugh then either. His last words to me before he rolled over and went to sleep were ‘Don’t be late tomorrow’. I kissed him on the lips. ‘Stop fussing. I won’t.’ Said with tipsy confidence. ‘Trust me.’

I empty the basket of laundry on to our bed, releasing a baffling tsunami of clothes. Tom’s odd socks. Danny’s odd socks. My jeans. Danny’s jeans. Looking at the higgledy pile I realise that actually my clothes are not entirely dissimilar to Danny’s: jeans, stripy T-shirts, hoodies. Yes, I’m walking round in a cheaper, scruffier, outsize version of mini-Boden. It makes me wonder. Maybe when the wedding ring is slipped on the finger, or when the baby arrives, a primal part of the female brain whispers: ‘You’re married now. Why wear heels? Nasty uncomfortable things. Now, what about a soft rubber sole? A comfy elasticated waist? Re-laaaax.’ Or maybe I’m making excuses. Maybe my wardrobe is a symptom of wider marital negligence.

I pick out my work clothes from the pile: faded jeans, roomy grey knickers, and, because nothing else is clean, an ancient T-shirt with an open Rolling Stones mouth and the words Lick Me scrawled above it in peeling red letters. (Chloe brought it back from Las Vegas.) Which I cover with an old pink cotton cardigan. There’s no point dressing up when you’re a florist and rushing between appointments, especially when you know the client won’t be there. The clothes get splashed with water, or dusted with pollen, and you need to be comfortable. I walk through to Danny’s bedroom. A slice of sunlight breaks through the gap in the black-out curtains and stripes across his perfect, dewy infant skin.

‘Danny, sweetie, time to wake up.’ I gently pull back his Thomas the Tank Engine duvet.

He rubs his eyes with clenched fists, so adorable at this time in the morning, docile with sleepiness, more baby than boy. I kiss him on his cheek, which is creased by the pillow. ‘I had a Daddy dream,’ he says, looking puzzled, as if unsure if he’s still in the dream. ‘Where’s Daddy?’

‘At a meeting. He had to leave early this morning, sweetie.’ I resist adding, ‘Again.’

After a rushed bowl of Cheerios, I carefully pack my boxes of flowers into the boot of the car and drive Danny to nursery, a tall, red-brick Victorian building, five minutes from our house. The nursery is quiet and empty. Normally Danny is the last child to arrive in the morning. Today he is the first. The only person here is Scary Hanna, Danny’s key worker who looks like a character from a Grimms’ fairy tale, all straight black centre-parted hair and too many teeth. She grips Danny’s hand so he can’t run after me. I kiss him hurriedly and jump back into my ancient silver Audi before he can pluck the heart strings too hard. ‘Love you!’ I shout, tooting the horn as I drive off. The moment I am out of sight of the nursery, I switch modes. I am not a mother. I am a florist and I will do my best to forget about Danny until I see him again later. Today I need to focus.

The traffic is surprisingly light. I sail through three green lights, which is unprecedented. I’ve recently been wondering if my car number plate carries a secret code to make lights go red, or for road works to suddenly appear at critical junctions. To my astonishment there is also a metered parking space directly opposite Dr Prenwood’s apartment in Belsize Park. This never happens either. I usually have to park streets away. Someone is smiling on me today.

I ring the bell and listen to the housekeeper – Aysha, a Muslim lady who always wears a leopard-print head scarf and a wide smile – fiddle with the numerous security locks behind Dr Prenwood’s front door. Eventually the door opens. Aysha is holding a Dyson with one hand, her jaw with the other. She is not smiling. ‘Morning, Miss Sadie,’ she says, speaking through clenched teeth.

‘Morning, Aysha. Oh dear. Are you OK?’

‘Not so good, not so good.’ She shakes her head.

‘Oh no, what’s the matter?’

‘Terrible toothache. Terrible infection.’

‘You poor thing. Agony?’

‘Agony. I’m waiting for my blasted, lazy-bones dentist to call back with an appointment. Have you ever tried to get an emergency dentist appointment in London? It’d be quicker to fly to Pakistan.’ She shakes her head. ‘Come in.’

I slip my trainers off in the hall and pad across the thick, white carpets in socked feet, carrying my cardboard ‘coffin’ boxes from yesterday’s Covent Garden Market. This is the only flaw in my plan. Normally I’d never give a client yesterday’s flowers but I just couldn’t figure how I’d fit in the market this morning too. And something had to give.

Dr Prenwood – aka ‘Syringer to the Stars’ – is a buoyant, waxy-skinned sixtysomething who has made enough money filling the frowns of London’s glitterati to afford a weekly £200 flower budget, which gets him two big vases of flowers that should last a week. His apartment is everything my house is not: immaculate, tidy and childfree. It is wrapped in gold silk wallpaper, like a posh present, the walls studded with framed press cuttings about himself. There are puffy white sofas with gold claw feet that are covered in dust sheeting when he goes on holiday, which is frequently. There are gleaming gold taps. Polished loo-roll holders. Unsurprisingly, Dr Prenwood has a thing for showy displays, the floristry equivalent of big coiffed hair. He doesn’t go for my signature simple seasonal arrangements: bunches of hyacinths or sweet peas wound with raffia and a trail of pussy willow. Oh no. He likes wire trickery, rosestudded spheres, twisted dogwood, thick fists of peonies, the whole shebang. (Haven’t yet worked out his sexual persuasion but am thinking, on basis of flower displays, possibly not heterosexual.) This is a nice little number, one of the better jobs I’ve managed to secure since returning to London and building up my client base.

I open my khaki canvas sundry bag on the kitchen table, take out all my bits – secateurs, florist wire, florist foam, other bits and pieces – and get to work, stripping leaves, slicing the stems at an angle, carefully prodding the tight pink roses into the foam sphere. I hum along to myself as I do this, as I always do, losing myself in the methodical twist and push of flower, the slight crunch of the foam, like a small bone being crushed, imagining myself as a kind of plastic surgeon, cutting off unsightly lumps, improving proportions, distracting the eye with huge, youthful blooms.

Somewhere in the apartment I hear a phone ring. The vacuum cleaner noise stops. The kitchen door opens.

It is Aysha, smiling at last. ‘I’ve got the appointment! It’s either in ten minutes or in two weeks, can you believe it? I’m going to have to run!’

‘Brilliant! Run!’

‘Bye, Sadie!’ She grabs her handbag and clatters out of the apartment, the front door shutting behind her with a clunk.

I push the last pink rose into the foam, plant the giant rose- impaled ball on the top of a black vase so it looks like strawberry ice cream on a cone and stand back to admire my work. One vase done. As I finish the second I’m aware of a dull hum behind my eyebrows. A hangover hum. Damn. So I didn’t get away with last night. I pour myself a glass of water and clean up, not leaving even so much as a droplet of water on the marble floor; like fairies, florists should leave only magic behind. I slip on my old white Converse trainers, throw my sundry bag over my shoulder, tuck the empty cardboard boxes under my arm, and pull the front door.

I pull again. The door doesn’t budge. I pull harder. No movement, not a click, not a millimetre of give. There are six locks. I turn each one and tug, trying to find the blasted one that is locking the damn door. I drop the boxes and tug harder. Nothing’s budging. I dump my sundry bag and try to turn all the locks simultaneously. Nothing’s budging. I realise with a shudder that I’ve never actually let myself out of the apartment. Aysha has always been here when I’ve left. And I don’t have a key. Why didn’t I think? Shit. I pull and pull again. I open the letter box and shout into the corridor. ‘Hellooo! Is anyone there? I need a hand.’

My voice echoes around the empty hallway.

In frustration I throw myself at the door. My shoulder now aches. My mouth feels dry. My headache tightens like a belt.

Calm. Think, Sadie. Think. Who can I call? How long do emergency dentist appointments take? Will Aysha even come back? I check my phone, scrolling furiously through the phonebook. Yes! Dr Prenwood’s number. Thank God. I dial. There is a pause, then a ringing tone. The phone on a console table a few feet behind me is ringing too. It rings three times and snaps to answer machine, my phone and Dr Prenwood’s phone in sync. Oh no. I’ve got his bloody home number! I feel a bead of sweat drip down my nose.

Fucking up is not an option. It’s so not an option. I phone through to directory enquiries and get the number of Prenwood’s clinic, slide down the wall and crouch on the white hall carpet.

‘Dr Prenwood’s Skin Clinic,’ says a breezy voice on the other end.

‘Hi there! I need to speak to Dr Prenwood, please.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. May I ask who’s calling?’

‘I’m his florist. I need to speak to him, please.’

‘Sorry, madam, he is engaged in treatments. No one is allowed to disturb him in treatment.’

‘I understand that but this is an emergency. I’m locked in his flat. I’m meant to be at this lunch . . . Sorry, please, can you make an exception? I’d be so grateful. I’m desperate.’

The woman coughs. ‘Excuse me, madam. If you’d like to leave your name and number I’ll pass your message to Dr Prenwood.’

‘When do you think he’ll get the message?’ I try to remain polite but I want to scream at her cool faux efficiency.

There is a pause. ‘I cannot speak for Dr Prenwood, madam.’

‘I’m not asking you to speak for him. I’m asking you when you think he’ll get the message.’

‘As soon as he is available, madam. Now if you’d like to leave your details. I have people waiting in reception.’

I leave my details, hang up and pace about the apartment, foraging for spare keys. I open cupboard doors, I rifle through drawers. I come across diaries and syringes and medical journals, even a gold condom. But no keys. My breathing comes faster. There is now a waterfall of sweat sliding down my nose. What the hell am I going to do?

My phone rings. I dive towards it. ‘Hello? Dr Prenwood?’

‘Sorry, no. It’s the Steven Hart Salon here. You were scheduled for a blow-dry . . .’

‘Yes, I know but the thing is—’

‘We do like more warning of a cancellation, Ms Drew,’ says the receptionist wearily. ‘Josh is very busy.’

‘I’m not cancelling! I’m—’

‘So you are going to attend your appointment? How late do you think you’ll be?’

My eyes start to water in frustration. ‘I don’t know! I’m locked in an apartment. I don’t know when I’m going to be freed. Soon, I hope. I’ll come straight over as quickly as I can.’

There is a pause. ‘Well,’ says the lady eventually. ‘I will let Josh know. In future . . .’

I hang up. What’s wrong with these people? Hell, what’s wrong with me? Of all the blimming days. Suddenly overcome by thirst, I pour myself a glass of cranberry juice from the fridge and gulp it back, clumsily splattering my cardigan and T-shirt with pink juice. Damn. I strip off my cardigan and run cold water over the stain, which makes it bleed further, then sit down at the kitchen table and put my head in my hands. I should phone Tom and warn him but I can’t face it. No, I’ve got to get out of here. I walk to the long Georgian windows, pull back the crunchy yellow silk curtains, and peer out. As I thought, three floors up. I shout through the letter box again. I make another call to the clinic. Then I sit on the sofa and cry, big, fat, pitiful tears of frustration. It is now a quarter to one. I’m not going to make it. I imagine the wives in their designer frocks filing into the restaurant, all the ‘Lovely to meet yous’, the ‘This is my wife . . .’. Oh God. Tom is going to kill me. This is going to turn into the mother of all rows.

With trembling fingers I admit defeat and call him. It goes straight to voicemail. Then there is a sound. The hair on my scalp tingles. Is that the key in the lock? I jump up and run to the front door, just as it swings open.

‘Aysha!’ I shout, wrapping her in a bear hug. ‘You came back!’

‘What are you still doing here?’

‘You locked me in.’ Aysha puts her hand to her swollen left cheek. ‘Oh, no. Oh, I didn’t! Oh, I am so sorry.’

I grab my sundry bag and leap out of the door, like an animal released from its cage. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to go.’

Can I make it? Yes! I think so. I pelt down the stairs, across the street to my car. Oh no . . . Oh sweet Jesus.

‘No!’ I kick the wheel clamp. Not today. Not me. I run towards the main road, arm waggling in the air. ‘Taxi!’

The traffic is now terrible. The taxi crawls through the streets towards central London, the meter bouncing up a pound every minute, the air rushing in through the window, hot, fumy and close, like there’s a big thunderstorm brewing. I keep looking at my watch, as if I can will time to go backwards. Will Tom check his phone? Why hasn’t he called?

Eventually we pull up outside The Ivy. A group of paparazzi, lurking around the entrance, snigger. ‘Easy,’ one of them says gruffly as I push past.

The doorman stops me, politely obstructing my way. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m late. For lunch. In the function room.’

The doorman glances at my enormous sundry bag, my trainers, jeans, and – oh God – my Lick Me T-shirt. I forgot the pink cardigan.

‘It’s the Anderson and Co lunch. I’ve been locked in. I’m horribly late,’ I blurt.

‘Upstairs,’ says the doorman, seemingly taking pity. Then he hesitates. ‘I’ll get someone to escort you up.’ He turns and mouths something to one of the cloakroom girls and I’m accompanied by a pretty brunette in a pencil skirt and high heels.

With every stair my heart pounds harder. I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I look a fright, pale with raw pink patches on my cheeks and frizzy Christian rock group hair. I stop, three steps from the top, unsure if I can go further.

The cloakroom girl looks at me suspiciously. ‘You OK?’

‘Fine, fine,’ I say, terrified of being booted out. In my fluster I stumble on the stair, falling forward and dropping my sundry bag, which I evidently haven’t closed properly, because it explodes like a homemade bomb, spurting bits of wire and foam over the stairs. ‘Shit. Sorry.’ I scrabble to pick everything up at once, then climb the last few steps to the landing and try to collect myself. I can hear a hubbub of chat and laughter coming from the other side of the dark wood door.

‘You’ve missed these,’ says the cloakroom girl warily, handing me the secateurs.

At this moment a waiter edges past with a tray, leaving the door to the function room wide open. I am frozen to the spot, staring into a room with stained-glass windows and an arrangement of long tables filled with men in suits and glossy women eating and chatting. The hubbub of chat stops as my presence registers. There is a bemused silence, a sprinkle of laughter. People stare, mostly at my Lick Me T-shirt. I grip the secateurs. The moment goes on for years. I look around desperately for Tom. I see a couple of faces I recognise, a young agent type in his late twenties, and Perfect Pam, the wife of one of Tom’s business colleagues who lives not far from us and has a son at Danny’s nursery. Her mouth has dropped open in disbelief, displaying half-chewed asparagus.

‘I think you’re in the wrong place, love,’ says a man with a red puffy face sitting near the door. ‘We’ve got a function going on here.’

Someone laughs. The others continue to stare, some look puzzled, others irritated.

‘I know.’ I smile helplessly, wishing I was still locked in the flat. ‘I’m Sadie Drew, Tom Harrison’s wife. I’m, er, here for the lunch.’

The first person narrative fizzes with life

The Daily Telegraph

A sharp and witty insight into one of modern marriage's dilemmas - status anxiety

Glamour

A wry look at modern marriage

Woman

Williams writes with deadly, witty accuracy about modern life

Sophie Kinsella

Original, funny and very sharply observed. I loved this book.

Katie Fforde

Book Club Questions

It is impossible to be the perfect wife and a feminist! Discuss.

Does domestic perfectionism destroy happiness?

You have sex with your husband or you tidy the house. What’s more important?

What does Sadie learn from Enid?

Do you think Sadie and Tom will have a happy marriage or willit end up in the divorce courts?
  

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