My Wife is a White Russian (in The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories - BRADBURY)

Blurb

Rose Tremain’s “My Wife is a White Russian” is a depressing story about a businessman with a debilitating condition, attempting to eat dinner and drink wine at a fancy restaurant with two business clients. He’s unable to speak to them, so his gold-digging wife does most of the talking, as well as wiping the drool off his face. This could have been crass in so many ways, but for the melancholy bent of the narrator’s thoughts as he tries to piece together where he went wrong. And it speculates about Britain’s exploitation of its former colonies, and how it fares against new empires.