Notes from the edge

"I don't want to go back to school. I don't like the children, I don't like the teachers. I hate the school lunches."

"So do I."

"But you're the teacher, Mum. You're not allowed to feel like that."

"Oh, yeah? And what are they going to do? Dock five minutes of my playtime for being rude?"

Deborah giggles.

She's back at her school today. Mine starts tomorrow. And, as is usual, the mood is a cross between endless shaggy dog story and mourning for the time I could have spent in places that don't smell of cabbage and echo with screams. And that's only our house. School is 100 times worse.

"I'm just too old to be in a classroom," I whinge, overcome with sadness for myself and the parallel life I know was out there for me once, before thick blue veins started pulsing across my hands and I developed not so much a mono- but multi-brow that heads off down the side of my face in so many directions at once that I'm convinced somebody's given it a dodgy plan of escape that leads straight into my ear.

But the real problem is that, in my customary 'ignore the problem and there's just a chance that some superior being will magic it away' fashion, I haven't yet put together my lesson plans. Admittedly, these are short at the best of times, but even the most unobservant of heads of department can probably tell the difference between four paragraphs of lucidly constructed objectives and a blank piece of paper - though, given a severe enough hangover, it's certainly something capable of foxing me.

I'm waiting to collect Deborah from her first day at school when Cultured Mum's brother greets me. He is also a music teacher, though one who, bizarrely, appears to enjoy what he does. He also has boundless energy, enthusiasm and an encyclopaedic knowledge of techniques and instruments I've never heard of. I feel my heart sink.

"Are you using the Kodaly method?" he asks.

"How reliable is it?" I ask. "With three children already, I don't want to take any chances."

He looks confused. "You know, that marvellous Hungarian system of getting children to sing on their own, limiting the range of notes and encouraging them to listen as they sing. You get the most amazing purity of sound."

"You do? I mean, you do, yes, absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Good old Hungary. I'll certainly be rooting for them come the next Eurovision."

"Anyway," he says. "I'm working through the instruments of the orchestra with mine. It's the Cor Anglais this week, and then a Bass Oboe. If I can get hold of one."

I nod, dumbly. I've come to the reluctant conclusion that being a crap music teacher isn't just a case of playing the wrong chords consistently.

Later on, I ring Cultured Mum and ask her what a Bass Oboe is. "You mean, you don't know?" she says, laughing, and hangs up.

Filth on a stick

"Did I tell you I was being stalked?" says Bad Lindy.

"You did," says Vicky, "I assumed it was attention-seeking and ignored you."

"I can't think why," says Lindy, with as much dignity as anyone sporting a non-attention seeking microskirt, microshirt, maxi cleavage and very little of anything else can muster. "In fact, I reckon I'm fast on the way to becoming a victim."

If my mouth is as wide open with surprise as Vicky's, you could pop in several elephants and couple of suburban housing developments apiece and they wouldn't even touch the sides.

"That would be after a total redefinition of the word 'victim' to include Vlad the Impaler and Stalin, then, would it?" asks Vicky. "Even then I think you'd be stretching it."

"Seriously," says Lindy. "I've had a very odd text. Frankly, I think it's filth."

Given the fact that Lindy has amassed so much male groin material that she's of setting up 'I-Giblet' - an online rival to I-tunes, but without the music, taste or variety, this is, if anything, more amazing still.

"Go on then," says Vicky. "Let's see."

It takes a while to locate the offending text, as Lindy's nostalgic wander through the sunny uplands that constitute her text archive reveals a cornucopia of giblets that bring back memories. Finally -

"- Look at this," she says.

A blurry, stick-like object, thick at one end, curved at the other is being lovingly fondled by a pair of hands.

"Disgusting, I call it," says Lindy. "Mind you, I'd be interested to know just how he achieved that angle."

A vague memory is stirring in my head.

"Forward it to me," I say, "I'm going to ask Ra. It's not what you think it is."

An hour later, I'm knocking on Cultured Mum's door. She answers it wearing a surgical mask across her nose and mouth.

"Gluten allergy," she says, lowering it to talk to me. "Just been diagnosed. If I cook with wheat flour, I have to avoid inhaling any of the particles or I swell up. You should see my stomach. On bad days it's up and down like a - oh, goodness, I can't think of a suitable metaphor."

"I can," I say, thinking of Bad Lindy. "Anyway, what happens if you need to blow your nose?"

"I've got Tom to build me a little circulating hankerchief on a roll. It works really well except I keep drying the dishes on it by mistake. I'm researching this idea I've got for a cookery book. I was going to call it 'Reaction-free Cuisine'"

"They'll be fighting to publish it," I assure her, then show her the text. Within seconds, either the colour's drained from her face or she's quickly dusted herself in icing sugar.

"A crumhorn. Oh, my God. It's Colin's favourite early music instrument. I recognise the hands. And just when Tom and I have got things on an even keel. We're booked in for his and hers allergen testing next week."

"Colin?" I say, slowly. "Now that is a surprise."

And leaving her to fend off the toxic wheat particles unaided, I make my way slowly back home.

Book club notes by cultured mum

This one's for you, Stay at home Dad.

"It's nice to be asked to communicate with a wider public that can really appreciate literature," says Ra, aka Cultured Mum, when I ask her whether she's got any book recommendations I can plagiarise.

Conscious of a dearth of decent blog material of my own, I nobly suppress the urge to smack her in the kisser and instead plead for her to email me her notes, which follow. They are only slightly edited by me as Cultured Mum is totally lacking in humour - rather like Simone de Beauvoir herself, I gather:

'Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, by Simone de Beauvoir

'Simone de Beauvoir's 'Memoirs' was generally felt to have been a 3-glass-of-wine read - much tougher than anticipated.

'Her densely packed account of her childhood was considered big on detail - sometimes excessively so - but annoyingly short of information and analysis when it really counted. The death of the erstwhile best friend, Zaza, dismissed in a few brief lines, was a case in point.

'However, as the discussion progressed, levels of irritation dropped slightly and a little more empathy crept in.

'Her often ambivalent relationship with her parents, passionate espousal, then total rejection, of religion and search for a man worthy of her devotion, set against a backdrop of crumbling family finances and stifling expectations for women didn't make her armour-plated intellectual arrogance any more appealing - but, if nothing else, it helped explain why she acquired it.

'The discussion then broadened to compare French versus English approaches to the intellectual life, including the much-avowed desire of Jean Paul Satre - and others -to embrace the proletariat in general and fishermen in particular, platonically speaking.

'Widespread sympathy for fishermen was expressed.'

A clash of symbols

"Who's gone? Colin?" I ask Ra

"Not Colin. Tom," says Cultured Mum, a touch of impatience edging its way into her tone through the tears.

"Tom's gone? But I thought - "

"Quite. The thing is, I just don't know what to do. Can I come round?"

Vicky is mouthing something at me in an exaggerated, conspiratorial way, all teeth and tonsil, like somebody leading a lip reading tutorial for beginners, but I still can't make it out.

"What?" I say, when I've finished on the phone.

"It's not Colin who's round at Lindy's. It's Tom."

I stare at her.

"I'm going there now - while you're seeing Ra."

"You are? Does Tom know."

"Who cares," says Vicky.

"Well, he might," I say. "And should I tell Ra?"

"Personally, I'd save it for the time being," says Vicky. "After all, it's not as if you're going to run short of things to talk about."

Cultured Mum tends naturally to the brusque side, conversationally. Where others would um and er, her favourite all-purpose word is 'quite' which she uses for punctuation and is despatched from her lips like a bullet, making it hard to resist the urge to dive for cover whenever a sub-clause hoves into view.

But today she's more brioche than biscotti when it comes to verbal crunch.

"I saw this couple today," she says. "There was a girl, and a man. But the strange thing was that he was wearing a hoodie - it was grey, enormous, almost monastic and I couldn't see his face - just hers, young and pretty, sipping her coffee opposite this hooded, brooding figure. It looked like a visual representation of 'Death and the Maiden'"

I look blank.

"That famous quartet. By Schubert."

"Oh. I see. Or like that film with about the plague - by - um -"

"The Seventh Seal. Bergman. Quite," she says, repeating it for greater emphasis. "It made me feel - oh, I don't know, as though it were a message."

Despite her careful use of the subjunctive, this is very bad. Cultured Mum's messages are delivered through the normal channels - computer, mail and phone. She does not do symbolism, unless, of course, it's embedded, like a journalist on army duty in Iraq, in a major work of art.

"I've been listening to a lot of Rachmaninoff," she says, apparently by way of explanation for what, for her, is an unprecedented marshmallow mood.

"So, going back to Tom. I thought it was all over."

"It was," says Ra. "But now he's gone, I'm beginning to find out how much I miss him. Take the wireless computer system he installed. He's the system administrator - nobody else can get into the system without his password."

This isn't exactly high romance, but I suppose it's a start.

"And then there's the in-line descaler we've just bought. Heaven knows which valve you need to unscrew before you clean it out."

I can't help wondering how, exactly, Ra and Tom worded their marriage vows, but from the sounds of it they might just as well have cut and pasted them from an instruction manual and then chosen the Bob the Builder theme song as the bride made her triumphal entry down the aisle.

"And what about Colin?"

"Oh, he's there, all right. I never believed Lindy for a moment. It's just he doesn't do anything. I ask him for to sort out the computers and all he does is rant on about Rameau's neglected role in early French opera. It's no help at all, frankly."

"Ra," I say. "What would you like to happen?"

"I don't know," she says. "Help me."

The doorbell rings. "That'll be Vicky," I say. "Let's see if she's got any suggestions."

Gone too long

"Things v quiet round here," Vicky texts me.

"Too damn quiet," I text back.

It's three days later and there's a palpable sense of tension in the air - palpable, though, only to Vicky and me.

Ra's unnerving intensity has earned her few close friends on the school run, though she has a lot of casual acquaintances who tend to hide behind trees when they see her coming, thus avoiding the danger of being shaken out of their default stand by mode and, instead, subjected to intellectually rigourous conversation first thing in the morning.

So they either don't notice or don't care that Ra seems to have mastered the art of teleporting her children to school and back again - one minute they're in the playground, as usual being pelted with chocolate chip brioche rolls - stones are so declasse, my dear - as they attempt, unsucessfully, to woo a crowd of mixed infants with 'Greensleeves' arranged as a recorder duet, the next, gone, leaving just the faintest echo of the most delicate of demi-semi-quavers hovering in mid air.

Lindy, too, has been unnervingly absent. There have been no giblet texts. In fact, there have been no texts at all. Even her house, which normally has the air of a structure under severe strain, seems to have breathed out and settled down on its foundations for a nap.

"Wot next?"

"Sleeping dogs?"

It's not easy. Even the vet's looks different without Lindy. The animals are palpably more cheerful and less apprehensive and so, to an even greater extent, are their owners.

Then Vicky turns up on my doorstep.

"Look!" she says, pointing dramatically at her phone.

"Got him!" says the text from Lindy.

My phone starts to ring. "It's Ra," I mouth at Vicky.

"He's gone," she sobs down the line.

Concert Pitch

It's one of those moments. To be more accurate, it's several of those moments, all rolled together and combined with the interesting sensation that the universe has encountered a points difficulty and lurched to a grinding halt somewhere outside Thurrock.

I look at Vicky. She's not saying anything - in itself, a highly unusual state of affairs. I am trying to gather my thoughts and rearrange them into a nice, ordered little posy rather than the disordered Triffid-like tendrils they currently resemble.

Bad Lindy, too, is silent. But when I glance at her I see that she's perfectly relaxed and looking straight at Colin with a half smile.

"So you resent it, do you Colin?" she says. He draws himself up to his full height, tailor-enhanced shoulders following a split second later, and looks straight back.

"I do, as it happens," he says. "My good lady friend here - "

"Your what?" says Vicky, perking up suddenly.

"I can speak for myself," says Ra. "And I don't know what the three of you are up to, but it feels like a very public transgression on to very private territory."

"How funny," says Bad Lindy. "Because that's pretty much what your mum said, too."

"My mum?" says Colin."What's my mum got to do with this?"

"Quite a lot, now," says Bad Lindy. "Since I told her all about you and me - every little sordid detail."

"You did what?" says Colin."But you don't even know my mother. You don't even know me."

"I may not know you inside out," says Bad Lindy,"I was starting with the extremities and working my way in. That is, until you dumped me."

By now, Ra, Vicky and I have combined forces to form a sort of impromptu Greek chorus.

"He dumped you?" we say together, running our eyes up and down Colin in an effort to calculate whether so puny a frame as his would be able to dump anything as large as Lindy without severe internal injury.

"Oh, yes," says Lindy. "We met on a campsite. Colin was showing me the ropes. Literally. He wooed me with words. Just the way he's doing with you, Ra."

"And which word exactly was it that did the trick?" I say unwisely, but unable to resist asking.

"There were so many. Aufenthaltsgenehmigung was one, if I recall. But I think it was 'Fancy a f***' that did the trick in the end."

"Colin would never be so coarse," says Ra, indignantly.

"Oh, no?" says Lindy. "Want to see his texts?" She gets out her phone and, after a bit of finger agitation, shows the screen to Ra, who reads the message and goes pale.

"That is his number, isn't it?" Ra looks at it distractedly. "Yes, I'm sure it is."

"Anyway, your mum didn't take kindly to hearing about the new woman in your life, especially one who's married. I think she'll be having words with you when you get home. She told me she felt really sorry for me."

"I'm not taking any more of this," says Colin. "It's a pack of lies from beginning to end. Coming, Ra?"

Cultured Mum looks bewildered. "I...I don't know," she says. Colin shrugs and turns away.

"Come on," says Vicky to Ra. "Come back with us. Let's find somewhere you can calm down for a bit." She leads Ra away.

"How did you do that?" I say to Bad Lindy.

"Do what?" she says. "I'm telling you, the boy was a legend in bed. I don't know what they teach them at music college, but he must have practised a hell of a lot of scales." She catches my eye.

"Oh, all right," she says. "It's all down to the private detective. He tracked down Colin's mum and I phoned her. Sounded pretty damn convincing, if you ask me."

"And the texts from Colin?"

"Oh, I just sent them to myself from that other phone."

"But I thought Ra recognised the number."

"She was upset. All numbers look the same when you're in a state of post-Colin shock."

As Vicky and Ra come back, I can't help wondering how long it will take Ra to become suspicious. The odds of discovering that your new man has a history with one of your friends must be astronomical. Unless, of course, that friend is Bad Lindy, in which case all bets are usually off.

Coda honour

Vicky, Bad Lindy and I are waiting for a train after a brief, celebratory stop-off at a nice little waiter round the corner who, conveniently, comes with in-built wine bar ("I could listen to him croon that list of specials all night, couldn't you?" says Lindy. "No," we chorus rudely.)

The station is crowded with the walking inebriated who are still able to move at a fast stumble without vomiting. We're hoping that by now, all the concert goers are well on their way home.

"What about the phone you put in the briefcase?" I ask.

"What about it?" says Bad Lindy.

"Couldn't it be traced back to you?" I ask.

"No way," she says. "And the phone I called him on is registered to a small haybarn in Lithuania. I knew that private detective would come in useful."

"What private detective?"

"The policeman's wife hired him to discover if there was anything going on between us. He turned up on my doorstep to read the meters. I let him in and locked him in the cupboard under the stairs - they'd only been done the week before, so I knew he was a fake."

"How long did you lock him in there?"

"I dunno. Ten minutes or so. Well, as long as he took to find where I'd hidden the key."

"What were you doing in there with him?"

"What do you think?" says Lindy. "I never could resist a man in overalls."

"Or dungarees," says Vicky, "Or clothes. Or standing up, sitting down -"

"So, what about Colin?" continues Lindy, taking Vicky's comments as some sort of tribute. "Ra'll ditch him. Got to. It's embarrassing, crass, tasteless." She looks a little wistful for a mioment. "Shame to waste it, really, but there we are."

"He'll certainly find it hard to explain away," I say. "Mind you, should make for an interesting review. That is, if he ever gets round to writing it."

"He's like a jackal," says Vicky, indignantly. "Sneaking round and scraping up the fag ends of other people's marriages."

"No, he's not," says Ra, suddenly.

"No, I'm not," says Colin, popping up behind her. "And what's more, I resent that."

Overtures and beginners

"Oh, go on, let me keep watch. They'll never spot me," says Bad Lindy, who has arrived at the concert hall wearing a scarlet jacket and matching leer that is slightly less unobtrusive than a fleet of fire engines, but only just.

There's an hour to go and we're all in position. Vicky is stationed by the entrance and I am in a dark corner with Bad Lindy, who is making strenuous, though so far unsuccessful efforts to disguise herself using native cunning and any raw materials that come to hand: in this instance, an attractive young attendant.

It's already getting crowded when Vicky joins us. "They're over there," she mutters, pointing behind her.

Colin and Ra are in the queue for drinks. They look serious and absorbed. Colin isn't audible, but Ra appears transfixed by whatever it is he's saying, nodding vigorously at intervals and clearly in total agreement.

"Over to you, Lindy," says Vicky. "Aim for his case."

Lindy picks a phone from her pocket, and, using the attendant as cover, wanders behind Colin and Ra. She stoops, briefly, apparently checking to see if she's dropped something, then, as she stands up, very quickly posts the phone inside Colin's briefcase.

"Phase one accomplished," she says, as she arrives back. "I'm going in. Wish me luck."

A few minutes later she calls us. "They must be in love. I've never heard such a load of b******* in my life. Here, I'll hold up the phone."

Colin's small, whiny voice is chewing up the syllables, one by one.

"Now take that remastered HMV version. I thought Isolde was in superb voice," he says, "though the dynamic quality was somewhat lacking."

"I never felt she reached her true pianissimo, especially in her initial entry," says Ra, earnestly.

There's a snort as Bad Lindy's laughter ricochets off the double entendres.

"How did she manage to get so close?" I say. "She must have disguised herself as the entire string section."

"What about that double bass build up to that ominous, surging Liebestod climax. You could almost see them being enveloped by that tsunami of sound." says Colin, "A breathtaking moment."

There's the associated scraping and puffing of an orchestra tuning up, applause for the conductor and singers, and then they're off. The music surges, rises, surges, rises - "God, if it was a bloke you'd be hiding the Viagra," - says Vicky and then dies away temporarily.

"I'm doing it - now," says Lindy. "Bye for now." The phone goes dead. We steal up to one of the auditorium doors and open it a crack.

The music is at it's softest when a sudden, alien sound rings out, so loud that even Vicky and I can hear it.

"Pick up the f***** phone, you c****," it shrieks. And it's coming straight from Colin's briefcase.

Bad Lindy - siding with the angels

"Do you think the NSPCC would back a campaign to reward infanticide with cash prizes?" says Vicky, wearily, looking round her kitchen, which appears to have been ransacked by troupe of of small, not very bright but incredibly well-armed mercenaries who are just honing their pillaging skills. "Just wait for Christmas. I'm going to franchise King Herod grottos with henchman helpers instead of elves. Think it'll catch on?"

Given all those advertisements that encourage you to text a number if you believe in children, but say nothing about what to do if you don't, I think this is unlikely, and say so.

There's the sound of footsteps followed by a muffled thud.

"Checking giblets on phone, didn't see step again," translates Vicky, raising her voice above the swearing. She lets Bad Lindy in, just in time to stop her dispensing with the tired old convention of opening the door and instead coming straight through the wood, cartoon fashion.

Bad Lindy stumbles to a chair, still clutching her phone. "God, he's gorgeous," she says. "Look at this."

"Who is he, and which bits are on display?" asks Vicky.

Bad Lindy looks as hurt as it's possible to get with lips slathered in so much Motherpucker Lip Gloss that they're not so much bee stung as savaged by several nests of hornets. "He's a fireman, Vicky, and he's in uniform." She takes another look. "Well, at least, half of him is."

"No, thank you," we chorus, righteously, pulling our eyes away from the phone screen.

We get down to the real topic of conversation - Cultured Mum and Colin - and the unlikely nomination of Bad Lindy, queen of bad behaviour, as champion of fidelity, marriage, and traditional values. There's only one problem. It's not a role she wants to take on.

"You've got to be joking," she says. "Why should I care what she gets up to? She's a snotty cow, anyway."

This is all true. And Ra's habit - she puts it down to nerves rather than innate pretention - of answering questions with questions or, on very bad days, of coming up with a mot juste, prefaced with, "As Flaubert put it......." is singularly annoying.

But the thought of living with Ra's interminable agonising about her emotional turmoil for days, weeks or months, in any language at all, is almost unbearable. And there's a practical dimension. Emotional destruction is catching. We've all experienced the pack of cards effect that one failed marriage can have, creating a wake that takes every other fragile relationship with it, too.

"Everyone's allowed the occasional flirtation," says Vicky. "But never with anyone called Colin. And falling in love is absolutely not on. If she goes, so will all the rest. Before you know it the place'll be stuffed with private detectives and court orders."

"Divorce just means more choice for the rest of us," says Bad Lindy. "Can't a bad thing."

We look at her.

"Oh, all right," she says. "What am I supposed to be doing, anyway? And what do I get out of it?"

"Well," says Vicky. "You know that really nice plumber I wouldn't let you near because I wanted to get the central heating sorted out?"

"Yes.." says Bad Lindy.

"Well, he's coming back in two week's time to sort out a problem with the timer. And I'm prepared to let you know when. If you do the business for us first."

"And what does that involve?"

"Well," I say. "Been listening to any Wagner recently?"

A came of scruples

"I've got a text," says Cultured Mum.

"Oh no," I say. "Look, if it's a giblet picture, I can explain. It's all Bad Lindy's fault. Nothing to do with me -"

"Giblets?" says Cultured Mum. "Why would Bad Lindy send me pictures of giblets without the recipe? And it's months till Christmas"

"Why, indeed?" I agree, heartily. "So what's this text, then."

She shows me.

"This is fast turning into a came of scruples. C."

"A came of scruples?" I ask. "What's that? Some advanced musical expression?"

"I think Colin must mean 'game'. I've only just introduced him to texting and his fingers are so muscular from all that crumhorn practice that he has difficulty pressing the right letters. Anyway, what do I write back?"

"I've got no idea. How about suggesting a game of football? Then we could all come and watch."

She looks at me for a moment as if stunned by the brutal realisation that such enormous levels of insensitivity can be packed into a perfectly average body.

"This is my life we're talking about,"

In a way, it's reassuring to discover that Cultured Mum is relying on those same well-worn cliches that the rest of us have been picking over for years. It's also intensely depressing.

"Colin isn't your life," I say. "Tom and the children are your life. Think of Colin as an interlude. Heard once then totally forgotten."

"Or the theme music to a completely new series."

This is worse than I thought. I can only think of one person who might be able to save their marriage. That's assuming I can bear to meddle, which I usually can't.

"He's the most devoted son, you know. He lives with his mother."

Right, that's it. The final straw.

That evening, I get out my phone and send a text to Bad Lindy.

Ignition sequence has commenced.

More sub-texts

Bad Lindy: 'Honestly - phone reception round here is rubbish. Only place I got signal was in the middle of Padstow Bay - and I had to fight off all these bloody dolphins first.'

Vicky: 'Just got weird call. i said hello and this man's voice said who is this? is it vicky? i said yes, he said is it vicky gonzales. i said no and he said oh, wrong number and hung up. i know its lindy passing my fone number out again. but why 'gonzales?' dont i suffer enough?'

Cultured Mum: As Marcel Proust puts it: 'Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.'

'He must have met Lindy,' says Vicky, after I forward Cultured Mum's text to her.

Lofty ideals and mounting climaxes

"It's ridiculous," says Cultured Mum. She's glowing round the edges - not obviously but the way an imperfectly fitting door gives a sense of the lit room behind it.

"What's ridiculous?" I ask.

"He ..... oh, he laughs at things I say. The way Tom used to. And he looks at me with these wonderful eyes. Tawny. Like cats."

Good grief.

Normally, the problem with Cultured Mum is bringing her back to the downlands where we lowbrows live, scrabbling a hand to mouth existence without recourse to Cultured Mum's encyclopaedic memory and lofty ideals which, like manor houses, are incredibly impressive but horribly draughty for anything other than a brief visit.

But for the first time I find myself desperate to elevate the conversation and stop all this subversive talk of eyes and laughter. If Cultured Mum carries on like this, she'll soon be onto moonlit evenings, candlelight and then, as far as I can see, moving straight into irrevocable action.

"And that whiney voice?" I say, playing what has to be a trump card.

"That's easily solved. I just talk more."

I'm not convinced drowning out 50% of the conversation is the basis for a long-term relationship but I suspect Francis might argue differently.

"So - how's Tom," I try again.

"Oh, Tom. The same as ever, really. Do you know what I think?"

Oh, boy. Please let it be about some hard to understand development in avant garde theatre.

It isn't.

"I think marriage vows shouldn't be about the big issues - better or worse stuff, but about the niggly things you're going to have to live with day in, day out. Take Tom. Every day I find matchsticks lying round the house. And I just know he's been cleaning his ears out with them. Now if the vicar had mentioned that I'd spend God knows how long - decades - making sure I picked up matchsticks by the striking end because the other end's all sticky, I might have thought twice about saying 'yes'."

"For all you know, Colin might do even worse things. Like - I don't know - picking the dry skin off his heels."

"This isn't about Colin," she snaps.

"You could have fooled me," I say. But that light's on again.

"We're going to see Wagner in a couple of weeks."

Dear God. All those mounting climaxes and leitmotives - a Teutonic version of 'I can't get no satisfaction,' stretched out over hours and hours. What is she going to be like afterwards.

Please, please don't let me have to find out.

Crumhorns at dawn

"Please come," says Cultured Mum.

I say nothing. Cultured Mum doesn't so much ask favours as demand sacrifices with potentially life-affecting consequences. Last time I failed to say 'no' quickly enough I found myself drafted in as a last minute replacement for the cookery demonstration at Ladies Night, the annual bonding event organised by Deborah's school.

Parents still talk in hushed voices about my sushi making demonstration. It was going well until Bad Lindy, who was bending over backwards to show everyone exactly which bits of her body were double-jointed, discovered a super flexible section and the shock made her fall on top of my food prep area just as I was talking about the importance of selecting the correctly balanced filling, and overturn it.

It was her idea to pick up the grains of rice from the floor. It was my mistake not to knock her out with the mixing bowl when she started reshaping them into little balls.

Personally, I thought the PTA over-reacted. After all, the salmonella outbreak was limited to just a few teachers and they only had to close the school for a week.

So this time round, I'm extremely wary.

"I've been asked review to review a concert for this music site. Colin's going to be there, and I don't want to give him the wrong idea."

"Colin? Anyone who's called Colin and has a whiny voice qualifies for some sort of disability benefit,"I say. "Anyway, if you're worried, just take your bassoon with you and honk at him if he gets frisky."

"You don't understand," says Classical Mum. "He's a world crumhorn authority. He'll probably take it as a sign that I'm keen. No, I need you as well. Tom refuses to come. He says he'd rather risk his marriage than listen to anything Radio 3 is prepared to do as a live broadcast."

Five hours later I'm sitting in a concert hall between Colin and Cultured Mum who are exchanging remarks about Early Music over my head.

"It's a real antiphonal exchange, isn't it?" laughs Colin. Cultured Mum is right. He definitely has a whiny voice. Perhaps it's all that crumhorn tongueing.

The concert features Shostakovitch, and lots of it. To my mind, it's a classic example from his prolonged, 'I wonder if I should put a recognisable tune in here. Oh, bollocks, can't be arsed. Let's have some more percussion. Oooh, isn't it loud," period, which probably explains my limited success as a music teacher.

Judging by the heartfelt sighs on either side of me, this is a minority opinion.

“I liked the saxophones,” I say, afterwards, trying hard to come up with something penetrating yet original. “Mmm,” says Cultured Mum. “I don’t think there were any saxophones in that piece. In fact, I’m not sure they’d even been invented.” She and Colin exchange indulgent smiles.

"My gooseberry days are over," I say to her, on the way home. "I am not doing this again."

She smiles. "Don't worry," she says. "I expect I'll manage."

I may not have that good a musical ear, but even I can sense a nuance. And if things develop and Tom finds out, will it be crumhorns at dawn?

All in the mind.

'Am on way to meet man who may be mad axe murderer at concert. Tom says he couldn't care less but to let him know if I'm not coming back so he doesn't wait up'

Cultured Mum is clearly in a bit of a state. Not content with the impact of Nordic walking on her body, she's decided to give her brain a work-out, too. Where others might make synapses swell and flex with back copies of 'The Puzzler' magazine, Cultured Mum has started swapping thoughts on The Arts with a man who runs a classical music website.

They've got quite an intense e-mail relationship going, and now things are moving on. He's asked her to go to a concert with him, with a view to commissioning some reviews. To her own amazement, she's said yes - it's on a Saturday night, too - and is now suffering agonies of conscience as a result.

"Stupid cow," says Bad Lindy who is round at Vicky's, drinking wine and picking through the crisps to see how many have been pre-gnawed by rodents. "She probably gets her thoughts laundered so they're all pure and white, let doing anything to be guilty about."

Bad Lindy snatches the 'phone and stabs out a reply.

'Atta girl. Am proud of u. take studded condoms and ky jelly. i think it's great that you're going 2 makle fker Tom jealous. Hope ure really dressed up with plenty of make-up and huge cleavage.'

There's a long pause. Then the reply:

'Think may have killed jealousy by telling Tom the man has small, whiney voice.'

'Wot's rest of him like?' texts Bad Lindy. 'foto would be nice as proof. Tell him Bad Lindy insists. We're waiting, innit.'

Two hours later;

'All fine. I even told him that was a little worried he was rapist or killer and he said that was a mad axe murderer but this was his day off as otherwise runs out of axes. Phew! And think I've got reviewing work out of it, too.'

'Reviewing is a piece of piss,' texts bad Bad Lindy. 'Just put 9 out of 10 - phwoarr. Works every time. Tell him I'm I'll be on the next train to give him a full critique. Reasonable fees. Instant feedback.'

Publish and be damned. Or splifficated

An encounter between Bad Lindy and Cultured Mummy is a rare event, but one which is always keenly anticipated.

Cultured Mummy tends by inference alone - she rarely has to resort to anything as explicit as overt superiority - to occupy the moral high ground, to the point where most of us assume that if Cath Kidston ever launched a range of pastel-sprigged tents with a be-moraled motif, Cultural Mummy would have hers parked on the topmost peak, virtual steam issuing from the decorative kettle atop the solar-powered living flame effect camp fire.

If Bad Lindy were even aware that a moral highground existed, she'd be well on the way to using it as an off-road motor-yomping track for her 4x4, or having it bulldozed to improve the view.

Cultured M's name is Ra, short for Alexandra. It's not Bad Lindy's favourite type of name, combining poshness and silliness to an equal degree.Today, she arrives at Vicky's house bearing gifts for the kids and a broad smile.

"They're healthy - loads of fruit," she says to Vicky, handing a carrier bag to the eldest with a large wink.

The children disappear at top speed.

"Saw Ra today," says Bad Lindy. "Guess what she was doing?"

It's hard to know. Publically guillotining non-composting enemies of the people and having them recycled as flip-flops? Whipping up biscuits for the school fair that despite their no-fat, no-salt, no-sugar, no-gluten content are beloved by every child for miles around and sell out in minutes?

"No idea," says Vicky.

"I'll give you a clue," says Bad Lindy. "It makes her look like a complete tit."

"Almost anything, then...."

"Nordic walking."

I guess everyone's been there. The moment when the friend you admire, who knows little boutiquey places which treat you as if you're at least semi-human, reads the book as well as the reviews and can name the Iraqi Prime Minister - look, I never said my standards were that high - does something so manifestly aberrant that your friendship tilts alarmingly on its axis. Thus with Cultured Friend Ra.

"She said she was doing it in a group, it was wonderful and she'd never found exercising so painless yet effective. I said that at a distance all those waving sticks made them look like the invasion of the giant insect women from Planet Zog."

"I bet she took it as a compliment," says Vicky.

"She said she'd borrowed the poles to start with, but now she'd just had to dash out and get her own set."

"I said the only reason women bought poles was if they planned career in uphill waltzing in a club. She ignored me - but I don't think she could hear through the funny hat."

They both sigh.

"C***," they chorus together.

There's the sound of running steps and a child appears. "Mum," it says, "Lizzie's just thrown up."

Vicky looks suspiciously at Bad Lindy. "What did you give them?"

"A few Bacardi Breezers is all. Like I said when I arrived, there's virtually nothing in them except fruit. All that Vitamin C is good for them."

"You're going to come upstairs and help clean up. Then you're going to stay while I tell them what I think about drinking Bacardi Breezers."

"They're lucky," says Bad Lindy. "At their age all we had was cider. Kids. They just don't know they're born."

Judging by the sounds upstairs, not only do Vicky's kids know they're born, but they're rather wishing they weren't.

Manflesh and music

I wake on Sunday morning to the sound of pounding feet and look out of the window to see a stream of athletic-looking men running past the house, while bicycle-riding marshals urge them on to greater efforts. Several look slightly scared, which quite naturally makes me think of Bad Lindy, especially when one, slower than the rest, keeps looking behind him with an expression of dread, as though pursued by a giant pair of super-pouty lips.

Then the phone pings with Bad Lindy's first text of the day. "Waiting 4 text 2buzz and thunderbolt 2 strike! come the f*** on," - which I assume means that Darren hasn't called yet. Perhaps I should invite her over so she can dangle by her heels from the bedroom window and pout over the continuing parade of manflesh.

But no. In Francis' current gently depressed state, an early morning infusion of Bad Lindy - with or without lip gloss - might cause total breakdown. Even worse, it might not. Either way, I decide against it.

Instead I ring Cultured Mummy. She's the woman I know I could be if only I learned to swap Agatha Christie and Artic Monkeys for Coetzee and Bach's Goldberg Variations. She lives for the arts, has Radio 3 on the whole time in the background and is learning the bassoon. I never quite catch up with her, though it's not for want of trying.

"Did you find a recording by that Chinese pianist who played the Chopin so wonderfully at the proms last year?" I ask. "You know, Ling Ling?" "Lang Lang," she says, though kindly. "Wasn't Ling Ling a giant panda?"

But even Cultured Mummy is struggling. She's been in a 'Is that all there is' mood all week, she says. Everything seems black, pointless and impossible. We compare notes on moods. We're all approaching that difficult stage - too old for smear tests, too young for mammograms - while hormone levels surge and retreat like spring tides. The result is that we all live for the brief state of mid-cycle euphoria that lasts mere two or three days before misery sets in again.

"There's just no way out," says Cultured Mummy, gloomily. "A sex change might do it." I suggest. "Though Francis might feel a bit funny living with a man"

"No," says Cultured Mummy. "He married you for the person you are, not what you look like."

"I think two of us with five o'clock shadow might be pushing it," I say, "but frankly, if things go on like this, I'm prepared to risk it."

Maybe I should get Dave the decorator round for a quote, after all. At least he'd be able to offer some penetrating insights into my up and down feelings, possibly by scoring them into our carpets with his Stanley knife.