The Best Husband Is No Husband at All
Margaret had long stopped believing in fairy tales. Six years had passed since her divorce—six endless winters, springs, summers, and autumns. Her daughter had married a year ago and moved to Manchester, calling rarely, their conversations reduced to, “Mum, everything’s fine.”
Nobody asked if Margaret was fine. She was only forty-two—an age when a woman ought to blossom, to learn to breathe anew. But what good was blooming if there was no one to see it?
She could do anything—cook delicious meals, pickle cucumbers and tomatoes so well the neighbours envied her. Her balcony was lined with jars of preserves, like an exhibition of her solitude. “I can’t just wither away indoors, not at my age!” she joked with her friends. They’d laugh and say, “Don’t wither! Look around—plenty of men about!”
Then someone whispered, “Try a matchmaking agency. They say they find perfect matches. There’s one called ‘The Perfect Husband.’”
Margaret scoffed. “Ridiculous. Like shopping for a man—try him on, return him if he doesn’t fit!” But then she remembered her forty-two years and the grandfather clock ticking like eternity on her wall. And she went.
A woman in a crimson blazer and heart-shaped glasses greeted her.
“It’s all very serious,” she beamed. “We screen candidates, lend them for a week. Keep him if you like, return him if not.”
“Lend him?” Margaret huffed.
“Yes! He lives with you. You’ll know straight away if he’s the one. Saves time. No troublemakers—strict vetting.”
Against her better judgment, Margaret felt a spark of hope. They picked five. She paid. The first was due that evening.
She pulled out her emerald-green dress—”the colour of hope,” her mother used to say—and clip-on earrings from an old perfume box. Her heart fluttered between excitement and dread.
Ding! The doorbell. Peering through the peephole, she saw roses—a grand bouquet. Her pulse quickened. She opened the door. The man was as handsome as his photo, suited, smiling confidently. They sat to eat—salads, roast, trifle…
He tasted the salad and grimaced. “Too salty.”
The roast—”Tough.”
The wine—”What rot is this?”
Then he stood, circled the room like a critic. “Furniture’s plain. The kitchen needs work.”
Margaret took the bouquet and handed it back. “I don’t care for roses. Goodnight.”
That night, she wept a little. It stung. But four remained.
The next evening, the second arrived smelling of whiskey.
“Celebrating already?” she asked carefully.
“Oh, lighten up! Put the telly on, match is starting!”
“Watch it at home,” she said coolly, shutting the door.
The third came two days later—no Adonis, in scuffed boots and a faded jacket. She nearly turned him away, but courtesy won.
He ate eagerly, praising each bite. At her pickles, he exclaimed, “This is genius! Never tasted better!”
The grandfather clock’s uneven chime caught his ear. “What’s that racket?” Soon he was on a stool with a screwdriver. Fifteen minutes later, it ticked perfectly. Margaret watched, thinking, “This is it. Not handsome, but handy. Third time’s the charm.”
That night, she stepped out in her rose-patterned nightdress—to find him snoring on the bed, fully dressed, roaring like a lorry on a frosty road.
She battled the noise all night—pillows, shoving, silent curses. Come morning—
“Well? Shall I fetch my things?”
“No. Sorry. You’re lovely… but no.”
The fourth was straight from a bohemian film—beard, guitar, a free spirit’s gaze. He lit a fag in the kitchen, flicked ash into her fern.
“Listen, I love my freedom. Don’t call me, don’t ask where I am. And I do like women—plural.”
“A proper cad, then?”
“Course. I’m a bloke, aren’t I?”
After he left, she aired the kitchen for hours, head pounding as if hungover. Too drained to wash up, she slept like the dead.
Morning brought sun, silence. No footsteps, no stranger’s scent—just Margaret, her coffee, and sparrows at the sill.
“How lovely to be alone…”
Then the phone rang.
“Margaret! It’s ‘The Perfect Husband.’ Your fifth candidate arrives today—he’s the one!”
“Strike me off your list!” she cried. “Delete my file! The best husband is no husband at all!”
With a laugh of pure relief, she threw open the curtains—as if greeting the dawn of her freedom anew.
