How to Be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman Read Free Book Online Page B

Kylan’s bedroom, opening the cupboard doors to look for traces of him. At the back, I find a pair of balled-up socks and an old magazine about stamp collecting, yellowed at the edges. Holding the socks to my nose, I breathe them in, but there is nothing. Eventually, I put the things back where I found them.
    Turning around, I see a girl, sitting on the floor with her back against the bed. I let out a gasp, but she doesn’t seem to see me. She stares without blinking, her grey eyes wide and glossy. Her hair is very messy: dirty, almost grey, though the broken ends are blonde. She is wearing grimy white pyjamas, her thin arms wrapped loosely around her bony knees. The bed is different: low with a metal frame, and a thin foam mattress covered with a white sheet.
    A strand of hair falls forward into her face. She doesn’t notice; I long to reach forward and brush it out of her eyes. Then she looks straight up at me.
    ‘Help me,’ she says.
    As I step towards her, she disappears. The bed is as it was. I go and stand in front of where she was sitting, lean down and look under the bed, but there is nothing there. I tell myself I must have imagined it. It isn’t real, I say. But I can still hear the desperation in her voice, and see her huge grey eyes. I try to remember if this is what happened last time I stopped taking my pills, but I can’t. The part of me that watches from the outside is intrigued. Something is happening at last.
    I walk quickly back down the corridor, thinking with every step that I see something in the corner of my eye. In our bedroom, I pull back the covers and crawl into bed. It is so warm. I lean in to Hector, pulling his arms around me. I feel him stir.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ he says sleepily.
    ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I say, drawing him even closer. ‘I had a bad dream.’
    I feel him wrap his body around mine. I think then of telling him what I saw, but I know he will ask me if I have been taking my pills.
    ‘You’re so cold,’ he says, his breath warm on my neck.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
    ‘Go back to sleep,’ he says, and I shut my eyes.
    Lying in the darkness, I hear his breaths slow, and I match mine with his.
    *
    I wake again at seven to the sound of the alarm. Hector is on his side of the bed and I am on mine.
    He switches off the sound and I turn over, watching the blue edge of the curtains. It makes me think of the early days, before we were married, when I spent so much time in this bed. I wasn’t well then: I could barely sit up, but waking in the night and seeing the orange summer light around the curtains made me feel a little better. I would lie awake, listening to Hector breathing, thinking of nothing but the light-filled valley above the dim bedroom, and listening to the alien sounds of birds in the trees. My fingers trembled under the duvet cover, stretching towards the window.
    Hector was so good to me in those days. He took time off work, sat with me while we watched old movies, and wiped the tears from my cheeks. I was ill, grieving, and he took care of me, with food and cups of tea and hot-water bottles. He knew I didn’t want to see anyone, so he kept me a secret, didn’t force me to get up, to pull myself together. He made sure I took my medicine, and slowly I began to put on weight, to get better. I owe him so much.
    I get out of bed, creeping towards the bedroom door so as not to wake Hector. He likes to sleep in on Saturdays, and I have a lot to do for this evening. He’ll be down at about nine for his eggs, and I will have them ready.
    Downstairs, I clear the mess in the living room: scooping up the newspaper, putting Hector’s shoes into the hall cupboard, straightening the cushions, drawing the curtains.
    Clear away any untidiness. Catering to his comfort will give you an immense sense of personal satisfaction.
    Setting up the ironing board, I put on my
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CD and work to the ‘Moonlight Sonata’. Everything gets ironed,