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Chapter 1
The cactus is sitting precariously close to the edge of the kitchen island. A smirk is tugging at the corner of my mouth. A very little push would knock it over.
It would make my day.
‘What the fuck is up with you?’
It really says a lot about the state of this household when the hint of a smile on my face has my wife questioning my sanity.
I look up from the sandwich lunch I’m preparing, as Valerie fastens a glittery earring to complete her dolled-up, skimpy outfit. I’d never tell her, but despite being a few months shy of forty, her slim figure can still pull off the tight top and the very short skirt.
‘Where are you off to?’ I say, rather than responding to her comment. I don’t know why I ask – Valerie is hardly ever home. I spend more nights on my own than in her company.
Truth be told; whenever she is at home, I try to avoid her.
‘I’m going out with Linda and her husband. You know’ – she walks closer, taps her manicured nails on the kitchen island and raises finely plucked eyebrows above her unique violet-blue eyes that once had me mesmerised – ‘you couldpretendto be a good husband and join me now and then, Kyle.’
I don’t mind going for a pint with my mates to the village pub – the old, thatched pub that is miraculously still standing despite the death of the English countryside. That’s not where Valerie is going. The posh and snobby wine bar in Windmoor Heath, the nearest large town, is where she’s heading, just shy of an hour away from here. I do that trek every day to get to work in the council office – I sure as hell don’t want to do that drive on my day off.
Anyway, I’ve got a mile-long list of chores and no time to be the designated driver for my nagging wife’s all-day gin session. The grounds don’t look after themselves.
‘Why the hell would I join you?’ I reply and flick the lid off the tub of butter. ‘Believe it or not, watching my wife flirt with other men isn’t my idea of a good day out.’ On the rare occasion that I do join her, she’ll take any opportunity to taunt me, rub up against other men, disappear for long periods and come back with freshly applied lipstick. I used to think that she wanted me jealous. I’ve since understood that she wants me humiliated. Valerie truly is a bitch.
‘Well, at least other men give me attention – you hardly look at me anymore.’ Her gaze travels up and down my body. She deliberately shudders and adds, ‘Not that I’d want you to.’
I’m fit, very fit. My tall and muscular build was the second, less important reason, why I caught Valerie’s attention back in the day, but my usual paint-stained sweatpants and washed-out t-shirt doesn’t live up to her standards.
I glance up from spreading the butter. ‘I look at you right now, Valerie, and all I see is a selfish woman past her prime who pretends she’s still twenty and single.’
‘All I see when looking at you is joyless death,’ she spars, tossing her dark, shiny hair over her shoulder.
She’s not wrong. With Valerie and her brat daughter in my life, there is no joy. I go to work, work on the estate, then work out. That’s my life. Work, work, work.
My heart sinks theatrically as Valerie pushes the cactus back to safety as she walks around the kitchen island. As much as I hate all of Valerie’s cactuses, I think she hates this island even more. In fact, she hates the whole kitchen. Hates its old-fashioned country style with the big range and Belfast sink. The island is a large old oak table that my grandfather raised to a workbench height and built drawers and cabinets to fit below. The surface is scored and worn from years and years of use. I love it, both for its practicality and the endless memories attached to it.
Valerie once suggested we use it for firewood.
My wife likes her kitchens the same as her men; sleek, modern and shiny. She thought she could change me, turn me into a suit-wearing lord of the manor, alpha arm candy that her girlfriends would envy her for. After many failed attempts, she’s finally given up trying to alter my style. Regulations for altering Grade II listed buildings have made her give up on this kitchen too.
My attention shifts from Valerie as her daughter walks into the room. Seeing the young woman brings on the usual irritation. Cara is nineteen, refuses to go to college, has only managed to get a small part-time cleaning job, and still lives in my house. Cara is a lazy brat – perhaps she helps out a bit with hoovering and some cooking – but just like her mother, in the five years she’s been living in this house, she’s never offered to help with the endless list of chores that goes with a small estate.
She’s another reason I don’t join Valerie on her all-day drinking sessions – I’ve broken up my stepdaughter’s house parties on more than one occasion coming home. One time, a spring in the chesterfield in the front lounge broke after she and her friends decided to use it as a dance floor, another time, two of my mother’s old, irreplaceable china cups broke as Cara thought it would be hilarious to drink their cheap spirits from them.
Kids don’t have any respect for antiques.
They don’t have any respect for clothes etiquette either. I may not dress smartly, but at least I wear clothes. That belly top is almost smaller than her bra and can hardly contain her young, but full, breasts and half her cheeks are poking out of her tight bleached jean shorts. Cara glances at me from under her lashes, a hint of pink tinting her cheeks as she sucks in her belly and pushes her chest out.
‘And what are you up to today?’
Cara’s eyes snap to her mother’s. Valerie frowns as her gaze now travels down her daughter’s body.
‘Scott is coming over.’
‘Again?’ I say and stab the knife into the butter, trying to quell my anger at the thought of Cara’s latest loser boyfriend in my house. The distinct smell of weed always lingers in the hallway after he’s left. ‘Why do you have to hang out here? Can’t you stay at his place and annoy his parents for once?’
‘We can’t go to his place, he shares a room with his little brother.’
