It couldn't get worse

"Do you really think you're going to get away with this?"

"Why not? How would she ever find out?"

"Maybe if someone snitched on you."

"Nobody would. You're the only one who knows. Listen - why are you looking at me that way? You wouldn't snitch, would you? We're buddies!"

"Let me see, now ..."

"Listen, you wouldn't. You really wouldn't. I trust you."

"Ah, the look on your face! No, I won't snitch. I'd love to see you put one past your wife! She knows you inside out, she does!"

"Well, she won't know this."

With that, Alan turned his back on Michael and strode off home. At least, he tried to stride, but couldn't, wholly. Deep down, he knew Michael was right. Henrietta would see through his trickery. She always had.

"But I've got to try, I've got to," Alan urged himself, desperately. "The alternative is almost unbearable."

He was at his front door. His hand trembled as he turned the key in the lock.

"Is that you, dear?" he heard her calling from their bedroom.

"Yes, I'm home, and I'm going to work now."

"What do you mean, work? It's a holiday, for crying out loud."

"When one has a boss like mine, holiday or not, one still has to go to work."

"Does one, then, does one? And will one's boss be at one's workplace, too?"

"Yes, he will."

"No, he won't," Henrietta snapped, fastening her bracelet with unnecessary energy as she marched out ot the bedrrom and straight at him. "No, he won't because he is going to be at Georgina's place with us."

"What?"

"So don't try to pull that my-boss-is-waiting-for-me-at-work stuff on me, Mister. Now, are you changing your clothes, or coming like this?"

"Listen, honey,"

"Don't honey me. You promised."

"I didn't exactly promise, I thought you were joking."

"Well, I wasn't. You don't have time to change your clothes. Get the car keys and let's go."

"Listen, dear, what if I don't want to learn how to make spaghetti bolognese?"

"You don't have a choice. Get the car keys while I bring the cheese parmesan. The Baxters are bringing the ground meat."

"Honey, you know I'm trying to go vegan."

"Vegan my left toe. You ate a chicken sandwich yesterday. Now move it."

Nothing could be worse.

He had really thought she was joking, when she talked about it. Whoever heard of six couples giving up a holiday to learn how to cook? So when she asked if she should sign them up he had (he thought) joked back, 'Certainly, right away'.

So now he was going to a cookery class instead of playing golf.

It couldn't get worse. He was useless in the kitchen, and he'd be shown up in front of people who would kid him mercilessly forever ... he wondered what the cost of their silence and sympathy would be. He reckoned it would be pretty high.

He was just calculating how he'd buy them over, when he saw something that turned his hands to ice.

It could get worse.

TV Cameras.

He had apparently signed up for a reality cooking show, and he'd have to buy the silence and sympathy of the whole country ...