Mail On Sunday: Upton Girl

'Sorting through her husband’s belongings following his death, writer Sally Ryder Brady was shocked to discover explicit homoerotic magazines. Here she describes what it was like to discover that her partner of 46 years was not the man he appeared to be'

The Mail On Sunday runs an extract from a new book by "writer Sally Ryder Brady."
Who?
I Googled her - and she doesn't appear to be a very succesful writer.
Sorry Sally, I interrupted - do go on...

"When I had a checkup last autumn, [our doctor] urged me to lose 15lb, which I’ve done, and to keep an eye on my blood pressure. Upton took his blood pressure every morning, and sometimes mine, too. I decide to do this myself and take the cuff from the drawer of his bedside table. I realise that I don’t exactly know what I’m doing, and look in the drawer for the instructions.
"There’s a stethoscope and a collection of short stories. I pick the book up only to find that the dust jacket doesn’t hold a sturdy tome, it holds something flimsy. One, two, three, slim, slippery magazines. Beautiful nude young men with gleaming bodies and gigantic erections."

The horror! The horror!
How did you feel, Sally?

"...slightly sick.
"My bedroom has been invaded. Strangers have been in here, and Upton is one of them. I feel as though there has been violence in this room, in this bed, though I can’t explain it. I feel deceived, abandoned and vulnerable. I feel violated...
"I surrender to a flood of sorrow – first the self-pitying sorrow of a spurned lover, then sorrow for the sex we’d only rarely shared in the last 15 years, and finally sorrow for Upton and the great burden of his secret. How could I have not known he was gay? Or did I know?"

Sally then tells a touching tale of her husband telling her he'd just shagged his best friend;
"‘Was this the first time?’ Another pause. ‘No.’"
Bit of a giveaway.
Sleeping with dudes apart, Upton sounds like a regular guy;
"Upton had many talents – he didn’t only sew, he knew how to hand-smock dresses; he didn’t just cook, he made roses from icing. He knew how to figure-skate. He danced."
So what did Sally do next?
"I decide to call the children. First Alex. He’s a ballet dancer – straight..."
And you're usually such a good judge of these things...
"Finally, I call Andrew. Andrew is smart. He can cut right to the quick. I have no idea what he will say. There is only the briefest pause after I give him the news. And then he says, ‘Mom, get over it! It’s only porn!’"
Yes, Andrew, but it's also EVERY WOMAN'S WORST NIGHTMARE!!!!