Into the Light

by Megan Hetherington

  As the door shuts, so do my eyes and I focus on the bubbling sensation that is forcing its way up through my stomach.

  “You bastard. You fucking, good for nothing, lousy bastard.”

  My shrieks urge me on as I fly down the hallway towards him. Fists pummel his chest and slippered feet kick at his shins.

  “Woah.” He grabs my two fists and holds me away from him. “What’s got into you?” he laughs nervously.

  That was the first of his belied signals. Too late to flick this off now, matey.

  I wrestle away from his grip and fall back onto the bottom step. He walks away down the hall to hang up his coat and scarf and place his briefcase down in its usual place as if there is nothing wrong.

  That was his second signal.

  Those two signals rile me enough for a power surge to erupt within me once more. I leap up and hasten towards him, stopping an inch from his unflinching chest. His breathing doesn’t falter, steadily rising and falling as if he has played this scene out before.

  He knows that I know. He wanted to be caught out. What else would give him the impetus to leave me?

  “I don’t know what has got in to you Rosa, but I think it is best if I leave you to calm down. We can talk when you’ve got yourself under control.”

  He walks off with no emotion up the stairs and into our bedroom.

  I hear the wardrobe doors slide back and then the house shake with his anger. “Rosa, what the fuck have you done with my clothes?”

  The corner of my mouth lifts, ever so slightly, from a nervous sarcastic twitch.

  There is rolling thunder when he stampedes down the stairs.

  “You fucking bitch.” He spits in my face. “Where are they?”

  I point toward the utility room.

  I want to be calm but I’m not sure if that’s possible. I follow him through the kitchen snapping at his heels.

  “So, who is she then? Some stupid bimbo, no doubt? She’d have to be, to fall for you. Is she good in bed? Is she better than me?”

  He turns to me, his lips pursed together and with a look full of false pity shakes his head in a condescending manner.

  My face crumples.

  Why can’t he just deny it, or tell me he’s sorry and it’s all been a big mistake?

  I suck in a breath and then force it out through shaky lips.

  “Rosa…just don’t.” A smirk tattooed across his face.

  My blood pressure rises and I can feel the throb in my temples.

  “Don’t you dare.” My voice rises to a volume I’ve never conjured up before. “Don’t you fucking dare. You’re the one in the wrong. It’s you that’s been sticking your dick in some bimbo’s rancid vagina.”

  He turns away, but not before I see the smirk morph into a full toothy grin.

  I pick up the sculpture from the hall table and throw it at him along with a curdling scream that would make Braveheart proud. The scream alerts him and he ducks just in time. The sculpture smashing against the wall.

  He turns with a raised hand and I stand stock-still, up against this wall of a man. He can do what he likes now. The damage is done. I want him to hit me because, so far, he doesn’t seem to think he has done anything wrong. His hand stops inches from my face, pulsing from the force of resistance he has created. Spit is frothing at the corner of his mouth and his teeth are clenched like the ferocious wild animal he is. The wild animals we have both become.

  He backs off and returns to his mission, cursing under his breath. Flinging open the utility room door, he roughly lugs the suitcases into the kitchen. Then he marches passed me to the front door, throwing the cases down the stone steps and on to the gravel.

  I rush up to him.

  “Is that it? Is that it, after five years of marriage? Just like that? No explanation? No apology?”

  He snorts. “There’s no reasoning with you when you’re like this Rosa.”

  “Reasoning? You think you can reason with me? You’ve cheated on me and you think you can reason your way out of it?” My hands are flying around and my face is pushed up against his.

  “I know what you are trying to do.”

  “What Charles? What am I trying to do?”

  “Think you’re clever, do you?” His spit actually showers my face this time.

  I’ve had enough of this mind-bending nonsense.

  I hold out my palm. “Key.”

  “Not fucking likely,” he snarls. “This isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”

  He scurries down the steps, slamming the door with such ferocity the whole house quakes.

  As the air stills, my knees give way and I drop to the floor; my sobs drowning out the noise of him driving away.

  Chapter Three

  Rosa

  I can’t even greet my sister before the tears start flooding down my face.

  “Rosa? Rosa?” She shuffles on her seat towards the screen.

  I want to remain calm and answer her.

  I want to tell how much I love her.

  I want to ask about her day and how little Lily is.

  But all I do is weep. The sobs are muffling the words and Poppy can only look on with frustrated anxiety.

  “Rosa, what’s wrong for goodness sake? You’re scaring me now.”

  “He’s… he’s… left… me.” I snivel in between each word.

  “What do you mean he’s left you?” She repeats back in astonishment.

  I can only nod, while I push a tissue around my nose.

  “For Christ’s sake Rosa. He can’t have left you. You do mean Charles, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I gasp.

  She doesn’t know what to say. I can see in her wide eyes and open mouth, that she just doesn’t know how to respond.

  And neither do I.

  If we were both together, right now, we would hug. Cling together like we did when Mum died. Merge in our sisterhood. But she isn’t here, and I’m not there. We’re four thousand miles apart.

  “What happened, Rosa?”

  I shrug.

  “Another woman?”

  I nod.

  “Jesus, Rosa.”

  I drop my head in shame and cry like I was the one who had inflicted the injury on him.

  “I can’t believe he would do that to you?”

  Her eyes have become wild and I think I need that sort of person on my side right now. I feel weak and she looks strong. Determined. The sort of person that would quite easily prod a finger in his chest and give him what for.

  “What an absolute asshole.” She continues her tirade, flinging her body back on the sofa.

  Her head snaps to the side and I hear the faint cries of her little girl.

  “Is that Lily?” I whisper.

  “Yes, she must have woken from her nap.”

  “Can I see her?”

  While Poppy goes to fetch my niece, I wipe my face and pull my fingers through my hair, practising my smile, so as not to frighten her with my misery.

  They come back in. Lilly’s cute little chubby hands reaching out to my face on her screen.

  “Ro-ro,” she says.

  It makes my heart melt.

  So innocent.

  “Hello Lilly-pops,” I coo back to her. “I hear you’ve got a new tooth?”

  She roughly pulls down on her lip and prods the small white tooth, continuing to rub at it as if she had forgotten it was there until I reminded her.

  “Who’s a clever girl?”

  She claps her hands in appreciation.

  “Rosa, you need to tell me exactly what’s happened. Let me put Lily in the play-pen.”

  Poppy disappears again and I can hear rustling and squeaking of toys.

  “There.” She returns to my view. “So, what the hell happened?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. I was just at my computer on Thursday morning and a message flashed up on the screen. It wasn’t meant for me though, it was for Charles.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “He got
me a Mac as an early Christmas present and it was only my second day using it, so I’m not sure why it happened either, but a message from an unknown number flashed up and then he replied.”

  “Did he set the Mac up?”

  “Yes.”

  “He must have used his Apple ID. His iMessages are linked to that and they show up on the computer too.”

  “Oh.”

  “What did it say?

  “That he couldn’t wait to be inside her again.”

  Her eyes widen.

  I continue. “And he was going to fuck her until she screamed.”

  She coughs.

  “So, no mistake then?”

  “No, no mistake.”

  “What the hell? Did you look at the other messages?”

  I nod.

  “What did they say?”

  “Oh, all sorts of disgusting things. It’s like it’s not him. I’ve never heard him say half those things before.”

  I watch her cringe.

  Her tone softens. ”How long has it been going on?”

  “Since May.”

  “May?” she shrieks. “Oh, Rosa.”

  Her sympathy makes me cry again.

  “Where is he now?”

  I try to regain my composure.

  “I don’t know. He came back last night and then just left.”

  “What did he have to say for himself?”

  “Nothing, it was like he just knew that I’d found out but didn’t want to discuss it or anything. Then he just left. Took his clothes and went.”

  “No explanation?”

  “No explanation.”

  Our eyes mirror our thoughts. I soak up her support and she takes in my grief.

  “So, what now?”

  I shrug.

  “Have you told Dad?”

  I shake my head. She nods hers.

  “Do you think he’ll come back?”

  “Probably. He wouldn’t give me his key so I assume that means he will come back. Whenever he wants. For whatever he wants.”

  “You can’t have that Rosa. That’s not right. If he’s gone then that’s his choice. He can’t just come waltzing in whenever he pleases. You need to get the locks changed.”

  I pull my chin back into my neck.

  She sits closer to the screen. “Yes, you heard me, get those damn locks changed and recode the gates. If he wants to come in, he should jolly well ask first. He’s lost all rights now that he’s walked out.”

  I blow out a nervous breath.

  “Don’t be scared Rosa. Get in touch with that guy in the village. What’s his name? You know the guy that you used to break into Dad’s house that time he went off for a walk in his slippers and locked the door behind himself.”

  “Mr Ford.”

  “Yes, Mr Ford. Do it now Rosa. Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Look, I’m going to have to go, I’ve got to get Lilly to the crèche. I’ll email later. Let me know how you get on with the locks. And Sis… I love you.”

  “Love you too Poppy.”

  Her image freezes momentarily before disappearing.

  My shoulders sag at the prospect of what I need to do. Now I’ve told someone, it all feels very real.

  I pick up my phone and read a text that’s come through from Charles.

  Think you’re clever, do you? Bitch.

  My heart skips a beat. It’s vicious. Scathing.

  My head sinks into my hands. I guess he has found out about his clothes.

  Bitch? He has cheated on me and broke up our marriage and he is already calling me a bitch.

  I go to clean up the broken sculpture from the hallway. It’s left a dent in the plaster on the wall near the kitchen door. That sculpture cost a ridiculous amount from the gallery on the high street. It was bought to cement our position as art connoisseurs with the great and the good in the town. The little tag that said ‘sold to Mrs Cockburn-Holt’ was left on display for all to see while it sat in the window waiting for me to collect it. Under any other circumstance, I might have considered getting it repaired but not this one. In this one I hate that sculpture. Absolutely hate it. Just like so many other things I abhor right now. Hate is my overriding emotion.

  Hate at least drives me to ring Mr Ford and an hour later he is walking up the drive carrying his large canvas bag full of tools, having parked his scruffy van respectfully in the road.

  He doesn’t ask why I want the locks changing. He doesn’t even comment on the awful looking cup of tea I make him. Just drinks it all in one go, after leaving it to go unnaturally cold, and even tells me it was just what he needed. Mr Ford is nothing like my husband. Mr Ford is quiet, diminutive, grateful. He’d maybe had an affair many moons ago and his wife forgave him, or maybe his wife had been the unfaithful one and he forgave her. Either way there are no affairs involved in Mr Ford’s life currently. I am an expert in affairs now you see.

  “Thank you, how much do I owe you?” I look into the empty compartment in my wallet.

  He watches my action and then looks across at the dent in the wall for quite a few words into his answer.

  “Now then, it was a lock that I already had in the workshop, thought it was best that I used that as it’s the original door and an odd size that you can’t pick up no more in the ironmongers. And I didn’t have too much going on today, so it’s not like there’s an out of hours call out charge or nothing.“ He scratches at the bald patch at the top of his head. “Best if I work it out and drop an invoice by.”

  I don’t think he means anything by his comment about the original door. When we moved to this town and bought the oldest, quaintest property around, the other town inhabitants expected we would sympathetically restore it to its former glory. Our plans to add on a huge modern structure that contrasted perfectly, in my architecturally scholared mind, was rejected with countless objections. The much-reduced enhancements that were finally given the go ahead are still probably the talk of the town. Mr Ford, however, doesn’t seem inclined to think that way.

  “Thank you so much.”

  I can’t look into his eyes, his kindness will break me. I have a feeling he won’t be dropping an invoice by and no doubt I will have to track him down to pay him at some point. If I actually had any cash on me now I would press some into his worn fist, insisting he take it and no invoice would be necessary. But I can’t remember the last time I had any cash in my purse or the last time I had cause to use cash. My purchases only ever required a credit card.

  I had intended to ask him about recoding the gate, as my sister suggested, but having failed to pay him for the one job I really couldn’t do myself, I decided against it. I would have to dig out the instruction manual or check the internet for guidance on that one. Not today though. I’ll just take the fuse out again today. I quite like the idea of taking the fuse out. It forces me to stay in.

  ~~~~~~~~~

  I barely register the days going by, they’re a haze of whiskey and angry texts.

  Poppy told me I needed to shower as she reckoned she could smell me all the way across the Atlantic; the stench competing with the neighbouring swamps.

  I did snort at that, but promised to wash.

  I must have heeded her instruction and run a bath one day – only to forget about it. I only know that because the water is still there.

  I will remember to wash today though, because today is my birthday. The promise of Poppy and Lily video calling me, forces me to shower… and to smile.

  “Have you got it then?” She pulls at the thin elastic strap attached to the silly cone shaped hat she is wearing, which is obviously starting to irritate her chin.

  “Yes.” I hold up the plastic wrapped airmail package.

  “Go on, open it then. I want to see if you really like it.”

  I pierce the packaging with my nails and rip downwards. The moment of vandalism feels good. I can smell Poppy the moment I unfold the inner tissue. I can imagine her choosing and holding it to her face to feel ho
w soft the cashmere really is. It’s a beautiful emerald green and I immediately wrap it around my neck and close my eyes. It feels like it’s Poppy holding me tight.

  I open my eyes and mouth, “Thank you.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” She coughs, probably to dispel the tears that are so clearly evident in her eyes. “Right, so we’re not going to talk about anything miserable today. It’s your birthday and you’re not allowed to be miserable on your birthday.”

  She then proceeds to sing Happy Birthday to me, clapping Lily’s hands together with every beat of the song.

  Sky makes an appearance behind them and waves to me, but doesn’t join the sofa party. He’s a man and I imagine he’s embarrassed about my situation, probably feeling partly responsible for the collective weakness that heterosexual men have when it comes to seductive women. My view is tainted of course.

  “So, have you got anything planned today?”

  “Not sure,” I reply.

  This was a birthday I would remember for all the wrong reasons. It was the first in a long time that I had not been the centre of attention, showered with expensive gifts and wined and dined at a fancy restaurant twice in one day. The first that my, so called, girlfriends, didn’t talk about for weeks before. Planning the perfect high society luncheon at the golf club or an afternoon tea accompanied by copious amounts of champagne. The first that Cxxx hadn’t booked a table at a Michelin starred restaurant and gifted me some expensive jewelry or designer handbag.

  Hah.

  That laugh nearly makes an appearance again. I have missed that laugh over the last few days. It reappears now because it is appropriate to make such a noise when I replay in my mind what Cxxx did do for me earlier today. On my birthday.

  ~~~~~

  This morning I awoke from the sofa when it was still dark outside, although I knew from the hum of the nearby motorway it was commuter time. A flashing light shone over the hedge and the annoyingly high-pitched beep of a reversing lorry stopped outside the gates. It wasn’t until the intercom buzzed incessantly that I was forced to engage with whatever was happening out there.

  “Come for the car missus.” A gruff voice declares over the intercom.

  “The car?”

  “Yeah, Black Range Rover Evoque.”

  “What?” I squawked back to him.