Breaking Point (7 page)

Gradually, my hearing returns.

I suck in another breath. The cold numbs the inside of my nose. It is a wonderful feeling.

“Hold him!” I hear.

“Fucking get his legs!” I hear.

“Stop resisting! STOP RESISTING!” I hear.

I close my eyes. It’s suddenly too much effort to hold them open. I exhale. Another voice, a calmer, kinder voice, close to my ear: “You’re okay mate. You’re okay.”

I do believe I am, I think but do not say. I can still feel the glow of the light, still see it through my eyelids, but it’s fading, becoming distant. That’s okay, I think. The voice turns away, yells something about Victor Charlie Tango. I hear the word "Ambulance", and the word "Urgent", but that too is fading along with the glow. There’s no tunnel of light, only darkness, but that’s okay.

That’s okay. I fall into the dark, and I’m glad of it. It’s good to be alive.

It’s good to be alive.

THE LOVING HUSBAND AND THE FAITHFUL WIFE

1

My wife is a great communicator. Her tone, her word choice (my wife has an extensive vocabulary), her facial expressions, body language and gestures combine in a wonderful symphony of expression. She says what she means. But you have to pay attention.

This morning. She came down the stairs in her silk dressing gown and kissed me on the head. “Morning.” Her voice was a little thick with sleep. The kiss was affectionate but not warm. She will be feeling grumpy. A cup of tea will lighten her mood.

“Tea, darling?” I’m already rising.

She smiles and, this time, when she says, “Thanks, sweetheart,” there is real warmth in her voice and her smile touches her eyes. She is melting.  I have read her mood correctly. She approves. She sits down in her customary place while I make the tea.

I look over. “Did you sleep well?”

“Mmm.”

A slight tilt of the head, a non-committal tone. She didn’t sleep well, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. This normally means another bad dream, anxiety-based. She never discusses these dreams because she doesn’t like to worry me or to appear flighty. She worries about so much - her job, me and my health. Never overtly, but it’s all there if you know how to listen, how to see. I feel such a rush of affection in this moment - pure love - at her need to conceal this from me, to be strong for me. I return her weak smile with a strong one, full of emotion:  I understand, I love her, I will protect her from anxiety, she has nothing to fear. Her own smile widens, accepting my comfort, my assurance, and the anxiety drains away from her eyes. She is reassured and happy.

You see? Such simple words, simpler gestures, but so very much conveyed, understood, shared. An effort, yes. But was ever effort more surely or faithfully rewarded? Besides, I love her with all my heart and soul and would do anything to keep that smile on her lips and protect what we’ve built together.

2

Five years ago, we decided to fit a conservatory to the rear of our house. The garden had ample space and the patio did not suit us – I’m not much of a barbecue enthusiast and neither is my wife. A sun lounge made much more sense. I’d secured a new contract, promotion, and a not inconsiderable cash bonus. A sun lounge would improve both the value of the house and our own quality of life.

On the day the building work commenced, I met with the builder - a ruddy faced, careful man in his early fifties, with a firm handshake and a friendly smile - and we discussed the work ahead. Or, rather, he discussed it and I nodded and smiled in the right places, agreeing with what he said without the slightest comprehension of his meaning. As he talked and I listened, I observed the other two men who would be engaged on the work.

One appeared to be of a similar age to the man I was talking to, maybe a few years younger. Short, stocky giving way to stubby, but clean shaven and clear-eyed.

The other was younger, maybe still under thirty. He was handsome, tall, and muscular. Despite the crispness of the bright autumnal morning, he wore a dark, sleeveless T-shirt, which showed off to powerful effect his rippling biceps. He was unloading equipment from the van, as I first saw him, and so I had the clearest view of the tattoo on his right shoulder. It depicted a red devil lady, in a cartoonish style, naked to the torso with her red breasts and pert nipples on clear display. Her face bore a smile of perfect depravity and the wink she was tipping left nothing (and everything) to a fevered imagination. Beneath her chest, a banner, written all in capital letters in a gothic script, simply declared ‘BAD BOY’.

As my eyes travelled from this obscene art to his face, his gaze was also shifting to mine, and his face was turning from half to three quarters profile. His hair was dark and thick and clean, brushed back from his face in a style just short of a quiff. His brown eyes sat well below a full dark brow. His nose, large and a little crooked, and full lips surrounded by insolent dark stubble rounded off a striking and handsome face.
That young man must have the pick of the ladies, blue tattoo or not
, I thought to myself and, as if he read my mind, he gave a Hollywood movie hood half-smile, and tipped me a wink, perfectly aping his body art.

What I would give to be able to say that I immediately saw the threat this man represented to myself and my happiness; to all I had worked so hard to build! Alas, I cannot. My intuition slept like a tired dog on a hot summer's afternoon.

My wife and I departed for work, leaving the men to dig and build. Did her eyes linger on Bad Boy, just for a second, as our car reversed off the drive before pulling out into the street? Behind her sunglasses, was she appraising the shape of him, the taut muscles, the rough good looks? Again, my memory of the moment is silent, suggesting not, but it’s possible that my mind was too much on the drive and, for a crucial second, my true and complete focus was not residing where it should always stay. I cannot know; but the moment haunts me still, for the fact of not knowing must surely prove the fault. And so all that was to follow is ultimately my responsibility. She always tells me just what is in, and on, her mind. I simply failed to pay attention.

3

The work proceeded over the next week most satisfactorily and I was utterly consumed by my own labours. The promotion had drastically increased my workload and, having landed the new account, I was now expected to manage it. It was taking a considerable number of billable hours to bring the new client’s balance sheet under control. For most of the last fortnight my wife and I had taken turns in getting a cab home to allow me to stay late. I found myself resenting the time spent away from her and I detected some of the same dissatisfaction from her. But for the first time in our relationship, I fatally miscalculated its depth, its strength.

The work on the conservatory, having begun on the Monday, was all but complete by the Thursday. The minor cosmetic touches would be completed the following morning. By the sheerest of coincidence, my wife had a half day of leave scheduled for that time and we remarked upon the good fortune that one of us should be there in person to collect the key and allow a final inspection before handing over the cheque. We spent another typically blissful evening, before retiring and making love with our usual frank tenderness.

Just another day in paradise.

4

The following day, the one that was to change my life forever, I awoke as usual, five minutes before my alarm sounded, silenced it, and left my wife sleeping in our bed. I remember looking back at her, the morning sunlight diffused by our thick curtains, surrounding her sleeping form with a soupy golden glow. I watched her breathe, slowly, restfully, and allowed myself to feel, just for a moment, deep rooted pride, pleasure, and love.

The vision of her sleeping form sustained me through a truly dreadful and trying day, as surely as hope of rescue nourishes the prisoner unjustly held. As so often since landing the new account, I ended up working long past my traditional office hours. I left after seven, satisfied that at least some of the tangled threads were now separated and would stay that way. Passing streetlights drove needles into eyes that had stared too long at an Excel screen. I remember too feeling gratitude that tonight was takeout night – as much as I love to cook for her (and she for me), there is little more pleasing at the end of a trying week than allowing someone else the joy of food preparation. So it was with weariness, but in good spirits, that I pulled onto our driveway and shut off the motor.

Tired as I was, exhausted even, I remember beginning to attune myself to her as I took the steps from the car to my front door, unlocked and entered, took off my work coat. I cannot, even now, put this process fully into words. I simply picture her, allow my mind to fill with her - her face, her words, her voice, her body, and the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of communications, from the lightest frivolity to the most stern of intonations - to cascade through my mind, filling me with raw data, allowing me to see her with a clarity that might look to the untrained eye like intuition but is emphatically a conscious and calculated effort.

This I did as I always do - a force of habit so strong as to be unbreakable - and by the time I had shed my work jacket and shoes, and stepped into my comfy slippers, my mind was in that blessed state of attunement. I reached for the door, but just as my hand touched the handle, it opened.

My wife stood before me. I took her in, and for a second, my heart froze in my chest.

5

So much was wrong, so much out of place, that for a second, my mind simply refused to process the information it was receiving. The fact of her opening the door was wrong of course – she hears me enter, but never anticipates it, perhaps understanding how much value I get from those short seconds when I transition from the grey, fastidious accountant into the doting and attentive husband that I consider my true calling. Yet the handle moved anyway and there she stood in the doorway.

My senses were assaulted by further unwelcome details, too many all at once, threatening overload. Her hair was wet. Since returning from work, she had bathed. This was not, in and of itself, unheard of; but when she showers after returning from work, she does so immediately, and her hair would be dry long before I returned, especially with the hour so late. Yet, there she stood.

Further details forced themselves upon me in a rush, pilling up and colliding into each other. She was wearing her nightgown tied tight around her form, the silk hugging her figure like a second skin. My wife is a very attractive and sensual woman, but the idea of her answering our door in her nightwear, even with a certainty that she was opening the door to me; never, even on our honeymoon, would such behaviour be  conceivable. Asked, I would have said it was outside of her capacity. Unthinkable.

Yet there she stood. I noticed her hair was wet enough that there were droplets on her shoulders, staining the dark fabric. Her feet were bare. Her face bore not a trace of makeup. My wife is a striking beauty and she does not paint her face gaudily; but she would no sooner be seen without her subtle eye shadow and foundation than she would leave the house with her breasts exposed to the world.

Again, inconceivable. Impossible. What tale was told in those unadorned eyes and in the colour, one hundred percent natural and unpainted, rising in those high and imperious cheeks?

I could not say. I dared not think.

We stared at each other, her too-wide, too-welcoming smile seeming to scream at me, and I felt my cheeks pull into their own awful rictus in response, a sick parody of happiness, as panic rose up from my chest and threatened to utterly overwhelm me.

“I know, aren’t I a fright? I’m sorry darling, I simply had to bathe. I don’t know what exactly came over me!”

She laughed, nervously, frightfully.

The wheels in my mind were spinning far too fast - the activity was frantic, but I could find nothing to gain purchase on. Why would she do this? What clue in what she was saying to me? A fright? Had she had some kind of scare? Some event she didn’t want to discuss that had scared her, prompted her to bathe suddenly? What could lead to that? Something embarrassing? And what of that laugh? That maddening, high strung laugh, so unlike her usual dry chuckle, or the wheezing cackle of her true humour?

All this my mind covered in less than an instant. She may have noticed the microscopic pause, but I think it more likely she did not.

“Of course not, my darling. You look wonderful."

Ravishing, I almost said, but that is a word I only use in our more private moments. Why would that word have risen unbidden to my mind then? As my eyes took her in, smiling, I began to understand why: she was aroused. Very aroused. The tilt of her jaw, that colour in her face, her breathing within that tight silk a touch too fast, her breasts straining just a little against the fabric. I realised all at once, with a jolt, that my wife was as hungry as I’d ever seen her.

My mind, already spinning, began to fragment; thoughts flying off in all directions at once. I felt a wave of vertigo sweep me, as though I might faint.  Some of this confusion must have registered upon my face because she looked at me with concern and touched my cheek, gently.

“Oh dear, have you had a rough day? You seem tired, love.”

“I am tired, yes,” I said, grasping gratefully at the gambit, trying to regain a sense of normality and, though the vertiginous feelings faded, I was still very aware that something was screamingly amiss. Her hand was too warm, her caress far too intimate to be a simple gesture of sympathy and, even as my mind continued to reel, I felt my body responding to her warmth. Her need.

“They work you so hard, don’t they?”

Her hand slipped, her finger traced my jaw line, then a single finger nail slowly, deliciously, followed the pulsing vein in my neck. I was speechless with confusion and rising lust as she leant forward and whispered, “Why don’t you work me a little?”

My sudden intake of breath was involuntary; an uncontrollable response to the shock of her words. Never had she been so direct, so crude in her words with me. Not once, no matter how deeply in the moment we both were. It was as though she had been replaced, body-snatched by some harsher, more base creature. Or perhaps fallen under the influence of some drug. She held my eyes and, with the sexy half-smile I knew so well and loved so much, she dropped the bomb.