Retribution
She had never been enough for him – he had always wanted more; more than his wife, more than his fair share, more than he deserved.
The world was a blur of colours, sounds, smells and feelings of which she was barely aware. She saw only a swirling mass of reds and blacks, heard only a drawn out scream that issued from her mind and surrounded her like a blanket. The torment was relentless, punctuated only by car horns momentarily drowning out the screams and headlights of oncoming vehicles shining through the gloom. She couldn't feel the biting cold that blew through the car in the late evening, nor was she aware of the pain that occupied her ankle as she drove in heels not designed for such activity. She felt nothing but the salty tears that ran down her face, cascading unchecked as they ran down her cheeks and onto her shirt, their salty taste lingering slightly on her lips as they passed over them, her hands remaining fixed with a vice-like grip on the steering wheel, making no attempt to dry the tears.
She pulled up outside the large gothic monstrosity that had been his less than suitable choice of home for them upon their move to Holby and sat staring up at it, feeling a renewed surge of hatred for her house – it's purchase was a classic example of her husband's bullying tendencies. She had preferred the minimalist luxury of a house on a convenient and exclusive estate on the outskirts of the city – an easy drive to work, an easy to maintain property with all the mod cons that she could possibly wish for and more besides. He had called it soulless. She had suggested a recently renovated farmhouse complete with rambling gardens – perfect for long lazy days spent baking in the sun – tasteful but traditional décor from top to bottom and even a log burning fire which filled her with happy images of lying curled in each others arms during the long winter nights. He had said that it was a family house and that it would be wasted on two people as involved in their careers as they were. He said that they should allow it to be bought by someone who at least held some prospect of filling the house with the children and laughter that it deserved, using her greatest pain as a trivial weapon in a trivial row. She had hated him for that. After he turned down her third suggestion of a three-story townhouse in the nice part of the city centre she had challenged him to find better himself. Two days later he had called her at work, excitedly informing her that he had found the perfect property for them. So certain was he that she would love the house as much as he did that he had placed an offer on the house then and there. By the time she viewed the property, loathing it on sight, the deed was done and the house was theirs. She had taken six weeks between jobs and had spent this time attempting to make the house feel like home but still just stepping into the hall gave her the creeps. It was like the dilapidated old church at the end of their road when she was growing up except that now taking a long way round to school would not allow her to avoid it. The best she could manage was to convince him to buy a flat in town and stay there on the numerous evenings when he was away in order to avoid being in the house alone. Without him with her, every time the wind blew she felt a chill run deep within her and every unidentified noise was a potential burglar, rapist or murderer breaking in. It was the night that he had come home to surprise her and nearly found himself bludgeoned by his wife wielding a golf club that made him agree to the second, thankfully more modern, property in town.
It had occurred to her to go straight to the flat from the hospital, knowing that it would inevitably be where she would end up once the tears and recriminations had passed and she walked out on him. By coming back here there was the risk that he would walk out first and beat her to the flat, leaving her to spend their nights apart scared half out of her mind in the house. If that happened she would be left with no choice but to dig out her little black book from it's current home in the dusty depths of the drawer where she stuffed bills and forms that she wanted to forget about until either the moment for dealing with them had passed or he had dealt with them for her. She certainly had no intention of spending the following nights alone with her misery in this house – even Mubbs Hussein was a more attractive prospect than that. There was only one reason why she had returned to the marital home after his shocking betrayal and that was because she couldn't bear the thought of his smugness at thinking that he had gotten away with what he had done to her. He was going to pay the price for what he had done and he was going to pay tonight before her anger passed and it became another painful blot on the copybook of their marriage that would fade and eventually she would stop noticing. He had been allowed to get away with his misdemeanours for far too long and so his misdemeanours grew. It was as if he was testing how far he could push her before she snapped. He had pushed her too far this time. It was going to stop and it was going to stop tonight.
Her key turned easily in the lock and for a moment she stood, staring into the dark and empty hall and she wanted to run away. It was only her desire to punish her husband that kept her from turning and running back to the car and driving far away from him and this gothic nightmare. She looked around the hall, taking in the small personal touches that littered the surfaces. They had been her vain attempt to make this place feel like home but now she saw them for what they were. Pointless sentimentality, more an attempt to convince herself that her life wasn't really as barren and empty as it appeared than an attempt to make a house a home. It would take more than a couple of silver framed photos and various ornamental items bought back from long ago holidays abroad to do that. She stepped inside and picked up the first object she came to – a silver frame containing a holiday snap; on the beach, her toned and tanned body encased in a neat crimson bikini, him behind her sporting a pair of ridiculous shorts in Hawaiian print. They were laughing. She couldn't remember the last time that they had laughed together. Her grip tightened around the frame and she threw it, savouring the sound of it crashing against one of the solid oak doors and shattering into a thousand pieces. The respite from her emotions was immediate, the act of destroying the things which they had amassed as a couple finally delivering her the catharsis which she had longed for. It was practical too – it would save lawyers fees in dividing up of shared belongings if she had destroyed them all. She picked up another framed photo, this time of a long ago Christmas spent in New York, cuddled up in blissful happiness on top of the Empire State Building, all rosy cheeks and broad smiles. She threw it, watching with a smile as it left a satisfying dent in the door before falling to join the first frame in a shattered heap on the parquet wood flooring. On the third object – a hideous pottery effigy of a dolphin which Michael had produced as a lame attempt at a peace offering following one of their earliest rows – she emitted a small scream of triumph as it shattered, one of it's eyes remaining in tact and gazing up her in a manner which she found slightly sinister until she stamped on it, shattering it too into many pieces. She ploughed through the rest of the pile with almost frightening speed and soon she was left surrounded with nothing but a pile of shrapnel. It was reminiscent of their marriage – shattered, obliterated, destroyed and for nothing more than a brief high followed by an unimaginable low.
By the time he returned home all the objects which normally occupied the hall table lay in a useless heap by the now severely battered door, and she was in the kitchen, working her way through the cupboard which contained the expensive glasses they had received as wedding gifts many years before. Each glass was filled with vodka and she would drain it before throwing it at the back door, watching it splinter into a million very expensive, diamond-cut, pieces. She had heard his key turn in the lock but hadn't paid a lot of attention, intent on working her way through the glasses and starting on the crockery. It was only when he placed a hand on her trembling shoulder that she registered that he was in the house. It was only when he asked, with an element of forced calmness in his voice, that she stop throwing things that she stopped ignoring him and turned to him, catching a brief glance of her reflection in the window that sat above the sink. She looked a state – her eyes were ringed with red and bloodshot, her hair stuck up in various directions, none of which were the desired direction of downwards, and her complexion had taken on an unhealthy pallor.
'I'm sorry' his words eventually punctuated the tense silence but she didn't respond, instead staring at him, loathing coming off her in waves 'I didn't mean to…' he paused, not sure what to say next but she saved him the trouble of groping around for the right thing to say. She knew that such a phrase no longer existed. Instead she felt her hand tighten, almost involuntarily, around the champagne flute that she was holding. She barely noticed as it shattered in her grasp; barely felt the shards embed themselves in the soft flesh of her palm; barely saw the river of deep red blood flow from her fist and pool at her feet as she opened her hand and the shattered glass fell to the floor. The first thing which she became aware of outside her own world of pain at her husbands behaviour was his face paling as he took in the deep gashes that ran across her hand. She looked down at her hand, surprised to see the damage that she had inflicted, but finding that she no longer especially cared. It would heal, probably without a trace, and she was suffering greater pain than the gentle throb that occupied the palm of her hand. She picked up another glass, watching with fascination as the blood that poured from her wounds pooled in a sticky mess on the outside of the tumbler. Still he watched her, speechless, as she slammed the glass against the granite of the kitchen side, the top half of the glass shattering away leaving several serrated shards of glass glistening dangerously from the part which she held. Her movement was sudden, instinctive and devastating as she thrust the homemade weapon into her husband's neck, watching as he crumpled to the ground, a flash of horror, pain and then acceptance crossing his face.
She had never seen so much blood in her life. It flowed from the deep wound in his neck, pooling on the slate tiles, soaking through his shirt and tie. At this she let out a bitter laugh – she had always loathed his yellow silk tie, a 'leaving present' from a previous secretary who he had doubtless been sleeping with, and now it was ruined, stained by his own blood. For a moment she was motionless, staring in rapt horror at her husband's lifeless form, watching the life drain from his body leaving simply a shell of the man that she had married. She crouched beside him, half concocting a story which would absolve her from blame when, inevitably, the police came asking questions, half bitterly entertaining the idea that she had saved herself from a messy divorce and shown him that she wasn't the weak-willed woman he had always mistaken her for. From the first time that they laid eyes on each other he had underestimated her and despite her best efforts, she had never truly been able to prove him wrong. On this occasion the fact that he underestimated his wife had delivered her most lethal weapon – the element of surprise. At this thought she leant forward, her voice taking on the taunting element that her husband had often used against her. Her voice came out in a low, barely audible whisper:
"Am I enough for you now, sweetheart?"