The Story of Bunny Sunday

Elisabeth "Bunny" Sunday was born to two loving, church-going, Home Counties parents. She had a lovely sheltered life, filled with shopping, swim parties and ponies, until the age of 18 when, just before her A-levels, she met a young man called Horace Whittaker.

Horace seemed terribly dashing - his red Porsche wowed all the girls at Bunny's boarding school - and he showered her with designer clothes, champagne and chic little French restaurants. He was really quite intelligent, albeit somewhat pompous, and Bunny found herself rather bowled over. Horace didn't think that it was necessary for girls to go to university, especially if they were as pretty as Bunny, and over time Bunny found herself thinking that perhaps he was right. When Horace proposed to her under an old oak tree in her parents' garden, she withdrew her application to St Andrew's, got a part-time job at an upmarket florist's in Cheam and spent a blissful summer arranging their wedding with her mother.

After they were married, Horace persuaded Bunny to give up her job at the florist's. He said it was appropriate, especially as they'd soon have a young family. They moved to a three-bedroom semi in the suburbs, and Bunny waited. But the patter of tiny feet didn't come, and didn't come, and in the meantime Horace started to change.

He worked later and later, and would bring his boorish colleagues home at the weekend, often without warning, and expect Bunny to prepare more and more lavish meals with shorter and shorter notice. He would tease her in front of them, laughing at her lack of a university education and showing up her ignorance of current political affairs while sloshing Lagavulin and cigar ash on the cream shagpile carpet. Quickly the teasing turned to mocking, and the mocking to bullying. Some nights he'd roll in drunk at four or five in the morning; others he wouldn't come home at all, and Bunny began to prefer these. After a particularly bad run of late nights or shouting episodes, he'd turn up with armfuls of red roses, Jimmy Choos or a Chloë frock, and slowly Bunny's love for fashion, flowers and shoes turned into sadness, and then resentment. One Christmas, he smashed Bunny's grandmother's teaset while shouting at her stupidity for thinking Blackpool was on the east coast of England. Bunny cried, and the dog he'd given her that morning, a little puppy whom she named Foofoo, whimpered at her feet.

Bunny continued as best she could. Her mother had always taught her to act with grace, so she prepared fashionable canapes for Horace's drinks parties and supplied the church fêtes and bazaars with copious chocolate cakes. But she felt there was something missing - something warm and tender, something kind and loving.

Then, one day, Bunny woke up. Horace hadn't come home, and she lay in bed for a moment, savouring the peace and quiet and the softness of her Egyptian cotton sheets. She listened to the birds calling to each other, she looked at the patterns the early morning sunshine was making on the bedroom ceiling, and she looked at her big fitted wardrobe filled with designer clothes and shoes. Then Bunny made a decision. Bunny decided that life with Horace wasn't worth a big pile of dresses, no matter how pretty. She got dressed, went downstairs and fed Foofoo. Then she took her little weekend suitcase, packed some essentials and wrote Horace a note. She told him that she didn't want anything from him apart from a divorce, and that she didn't want to see him again, ever. Then she bundled Foofoo into his basket, picked up her suitcase and left in a black cab.

Bunny turned up at the Pulliplove house that afternoon. Cecily and Scout, her old schoolfriends, squeaked with pleasure when they saw her, and she moved in straight away. Ever since, Bunny has cooked, cleaned and fussed over the Pulliplove girls, and they've loved her for it. Lola May has encouraged her singing - Bunny has a very sweet, clear voice - and Hope has helped her to write out her frustrations and wishes for the future. (She even lent her some of her pink notepaper to do so.) Tigerlily, whose customers are mainly Bunnys without the courage to leave, often gets Bunny's opinion before confirming orders on any of the exclusive items in her shop, and Elfie has been very kind about Bunny's rather pallid watercolours of various country house gardens. Bunny's proudest moment to date was when she heard that she'd passed her Open University degree in child psychology with first class honours. All the girls went to her graduation, and cheered like mad when she went up to the podium to collect her degree.

(And Horace? Well, Horace came home, and read Bunny's note through a drunken haze. He shouted and threw things about for a bit, then he collapsed into an armchair and snored off the claret. When he woke up, he realised that he wasn't angry at Bunny for leaving. He gave her a divorce, and sent her favourite outfits and shoes on to the Pulliplove house, along with a very fair settlement cheque. Soon after, he married another woman, an older, tougher, uglier woman who bosses him around and feeds him steamed puddings, and finds that he's much happier - and stouter - than he ever was before.)