The irritants and I are back in Singapore before our next trip on Thursday, and I thought it would be nice to stay at Raffles so I got two suites next door to each other. Leaving Max and Mills with the help, I went down to the bar for a beverage. As I sat there, deciding how best to spend these last few days in Singas, a curious thing happened. I got a Skype message from Chantelle.

[For those of you in need of a Previously on Expat Somebody… Chantelle is the estranged wife of my demented father. The two of them and Chantelle’s daughter Angelica (Angel, ugh) were living in Noosa before he lost his marbles last year, and once said marbles were truly gone, he decided that his wife was not in fact the gorgeous young Chantelle, but a lovely smelly old dear at Shady Elms where he had been incarcerated for his own safety. In possession of a tremendously weak character, Chantelle proceeded to indulge in a nervous breakdown and I accidentally agreed to have Angel come and live with us for a few months. Then the week before last, my husband ran off with Angel and there you have it. That’s your Previously on…]

So here is the Skype conversation from last night:

Oh Hawaii, is it? How divine. Don has moved to Hawaii with his teenage girlfriend, and I’ve got a one-way ticket to freezing my A off in London…

I had a quick think and messaged her back:

One of the screenshots Chantelle sent was of Angel standing in front of a sign saying ‘Lokelani Suite’, with a great big grin on her stupid face and the location tagged as the Four Seasons Resort, Maui. So I rang the Four and got put through to the suite (it was late in Hawaii at that point, but all I had to do was give my name and say that something awful had happened to Max). Don answered the phone.

“Don, it’s me. Don’t talk, just listen. I don’t know what you’re up to, and frankly the number of sh**ts I give is in rapid decline. But I want you to know that I mahusively enjoyed our family holiday in Langkawi – where I made the acquaintance a delightful pool boy with a much nicer c**k than yours FYI – and I’m looking forward to taking the kids to Phuket this week, as we’d planned, for my Expaterati girlie’s awesome birthday party… And oh, by the way, your children keep asking when you’re coming back. But I’m totes cool, as are my chi and my Kundalini, no thanks to you very muchly. I’m all set to head home to London next week. Not that you care, obviously, but we’ll be at Mummy’s until the shipment arrives, and then we’ll go up to Highgate late August. So you need to let me know what I should do with your possessions, particularly the enormous pieces of furniture, such as your vile ancient grandfather clock. You’ve made it quite clear that my home is no longer our home, and I do not want your things in my home.”

I paused for breathe. Gosh I really am very fit to have gone on speaking for that long! Well done me : )

“Ok”, he said, “Are you finished?”

“No. No, I’m not actually. Chantelle got in touch with me just now and it could’ve been mucho embarrassando were I not so quick witted…”-

Cutting me off, Don asked somewhat abrasively, “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing, Don. She thinks we’re all having a wonderful holiday together in bloody Hawaii!! But we’re not, are we, Don? No, we are not.”

“Oh, thank god”, he said, under his breathe, before regaining his usual smug tone, “Ok… Well look, EJ, I know you must be worried about all this… but there’s really nothing to worry about… and certainly no reason to alarm Chantelle. Don’t worry about money or anything, I’ll” –

This time I interrupted him.

“No, I’m not worried at all. You just carry on doing what you want to do. As you always have. Why change the habits of a lifetime, eh? But now I’m going to do what I want to do. Goodbye, Don. Good effing riddance to a lowly excuse for a man. If you’re not going to be grown-up about this, I suppose I’ll have to be. And I meant what I said about the pool boy, so there!!”

With that, I hung up. That told him, I reckon. It’s always best to rise above.