When Shula asked Alistair whether he had a good birthday and he said yes, he had really enjoyed it, she was of course assuming that he had been with Lavinia, with whom she is obsessed; so she didn’t ask him what he’d done, and he didn’t tell her because it would have been embarrassing to admit that a child’s party with jelly was better fun than she had ever been.
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I suppose that explains the exasperated sigh, though I found the exasperated exclamation of ‘Alistair’ very odd. It sounded more like Clarrie saying, ‘Oh, Eddie!’ when he did something stupid for the umpteenth time rather than expressing whatever Shula actually feels about what she erroneously supposed went on between Alistair and Lavinia. It’s always seemed to me that Shula is simply experiencing hurt pride that people found out and gossiped about Alistair and Lavinia as well as being miserable that Alistair isn’t as miserable as she is.
Maybe it was supposed to convey wistfulness about what she’s thrown away. Didn’t work for me, anyhow.
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Treating him, as she did mamy times, like a child, to be belittled and despaired of.
Well Shugs. You separated. On YOUR behest, basically because you were bored. She’d be very fortunate not to be, rather unceremoniously, told to do one.
… & not using those words.
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I laughed until my eyes bled. That’s laughter, right?
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