Please Release Me by Rhoda Baxter Read Free Book Online Page B

She’d known, from the minute she kissed him and dragged him to the floor in the empty house, that she wanted to have him for herself. She’d always known she wanted the good life. To live in middle class comfort. Peter, bless him, was sweet and caring and so beautifully impressionable. He would give her everything she wanted, provided she didn’t push her luck. He wanted a family, that was obvious. Sally wasn’t sure how she felt about kids, apart from that she didn’t like them. Other people, usually ones with kids running round their ankles, had told her that there was a biological clock that somehow drove them to reproduce. If that happened, then well and good. Otherwise, there were ways she could keep safe. So long as he got a decent amount of sex, he would think she was actually trying.
    Now that she had a sense of time, she was beginning to realise that she’d been in hospital for more than just a day or two. Weeks probably. With nothing to do but listen, she was hearing more about Peter’s business than she had ever done before. She still wasn’t desperately interested, but it was better than listening to the radio that was interrupted by nurses talking to each other.
    She had looked Peter’s company up at Companies House the day after they’d met, just to check before she hitched herself to him, but she hadn’t really understood the work behind it. She also realised that she’d never really paid attention to Peter himself. Physically, of course she did, but she’d never taken the time to get to know him as a person. His hopes, his dreams. To an extent, he’d never made an effort to talk to her about that sort of thing either, what with the whirlwind romance and the wedding planning, there just hadn’t been time. Now time was all she had.
    She discovered that her husband worked too hard. He treated his work with the same level of seriousness that he showed when slicing onions, working with steady concentration to produce fine, even slices. She remembered him smiling a lot, but he didn’t sound very smiley these days. In fact, he sounded heavy and tired. She briefly wondered if he’d changed, or whether it was just the fact that she was ill that was making him a bit down. Not surprising really, she herself would have been pretty sad if she was married to someone who was in hospital. Or rather, she would have been annoyed. It was a sign of what a nice guy Peter was that he chose to see it as sad, not just a bloody nuisance.
    ‘Hello, Peter,’ came the voice of a nurse. ‘How are you today?’
    ‘I’m good thanks, Judy. You?’
    Sally’s spirits rose. Oh good. Peter was here. At least things would be interesting. He’d talk and maybe read her something from those books he seemed to always have with him. Sometimes they were boring, but mostly, they were okay.
    There was a pause and Peter said, ‘How is she?’
    ‘You’re doing okay, aren’t you Sally,’ said the nurse, loudly. Sally hated that patronising tone. If she were really doing okay, she wouldn’t be lying here unable to feel anything, would she?
    ‘Has she said anything?’
    ‘Let me check … no, nothing last night.’
    ‘Oh. Okay. Thanks.’ There was another pause. Presumably the nurse was leaving the room. When Peter spoke again, his voice was closer.
    ‘Hello darling,’ he said. His voice was normal, not slightly raised as the nurse’s had been when she visited. She wished she could say hello back. The tranquillity held her, not restrained, just unable to struggle. She had a vague feeling that she should be able to do something with her body, but had no idea what that might be or how to do it. She would have checked what her body looked like, but in the tranquillity there was nothing to see. Sound was all there was.
    ‘I’m only here for a bit today,’ he said, his tone apologetic. ‘I said I’d help out with preparing the common room on the third floor for redecoration. They needed volunteers.’
    Well that sounded