OTHER PEOPLE'S HUSBANDS
When Sara, as an art student, first met Conrad he seemed like the most glamorous man in the world. Already a famous painter with a reputation for serial womanising, he was the sexiest thing she'd ever met. Her mother told her that she shouldn't marry him - that the twenty-five year age gap would tell in the end. And that end is now (apparently) approaching fast. Conrad - now approaching seventy - has decided it would be good to die while the going's still good and while his adored Sara is still young enough to find happiness with another partner.
Sara, meanwhile, is busy teaching art at a local college, helping take care of daughter Cassandra's baby son and dealing with Conrad's bizarre moods. She is not short of younger male company - other people's husbands - platonic friends that Conrad knows about. But there's one she somehow doesn't get round to mentioning...
It was my husband who came up with the title for this book. I was wondering what to call it and he said, "How about Other People's Husbands? You're always out with them...". And so I was, at the time - with my art friend, my dog walking friend, the one I went to the local blues club with and so on - nothing untoward, but I could see it might look that way to an outsider.
As for Sara falling for someone else.. well all I can say is that even in the happiest marriage, it's possible for an overwhelming feeling of desire for another person to creep up and bite you when you're not looking. How you deal with it? Your choice...