The Optician's Wife by Betsy Reavley Read Free Book Online

together like that for some time in her hallway. Eventually I pulled myself off her and sat back to look at her body. My breathing was heavy, almost a pant.
    She was so still. Her eyes were bloodshot and staring. I sat with her there for a while stroking her hair. The I got up off the floor and went to explore her home. I turned the television off in the sitting room before walking into the kitchen. There, lying on a draining board was a clean plate, a saucepan and a small kitchen knife. I picked it up, mesmerised by the shine of the metal, and ran my finger along the sharp blade. It had been calling to me and at last I knew what I had to do.
    Returning to the body I knelt down beside it and stroked her hair for one last time before carefully inserting the point of the knife into the skin below her left eye. I moved the blade around the socket until eventually I was able to lever the eyeball out.
    The jelly mass lay on her cheek still attached to the nerves. I was amazed by the intricate anatomy. My fingers were covered in blood and bits of skin so I wiped them on her blouse before hacking through muscles and veins that were attached to the eyeball itself.
    When I had finished removing both eyes I stood up to admire my work. She would never look at me like that again. Two hollow bloody caves stared back at me and I felt a grin spread across my face. I returned to the kitchen, washed my hands and the knife before putting it back where I’d found it. Then I searched for something to put the eyeballs in. I would keep them. They would be a reminder.
    For lack of anything better, I used a plastic bag to wrap them in before putting them into my pocket. Checking the time on my wristwatch I saw that it was nearly one o’clock in the morning.
    Stepping over her corpse I went over to the front door and opened it a fraction. Outside the night was dark and quiet. I ran my eye up and down to the street to check nobody was about, before taking hold of her ankles and dragging her heavy weight down to the river. It was only twenty yards but my heart was thumping hard in my chest from a mixture of the effort and the next wave of adrenaline.
    I rolled her on to her back to look at her one last time and noticed the little brooch on her blouse glinting in the moonlight. A keepsake.
    Using all my strength I rolled her little body into the water and watched for a second as it started to drift away.
    Then I slipped back into the night taking with me my treasures.
     

July 19 th 1983
     
     
    By the time Tuesday arrived I had started to forget about my interview from hell. Larry had done a brilliant job of consoling me. Silly old bat, he’d said. It made me feel much better. But still I couldn’t quite shake the memory of her forbidding stare and cutting words.
    It wasn’t the first time in my life that I’d suffered rejection, and it wouldn’t be the last, but it had never come from someone I expected to respect before. I couldn’t make sense of it. My mere existence seemed to be at the root of her hostility.
    Before I met Larry I’d been invisible. I might not have liked that but I was comfortable with it. It was all I’d ever known. Then he burst into my life and things started to change – both for the better and for the worse. It seemed that my association with him was having a ripple effect on my life. It was as exciting as it was scary.
    As usual I had agreed to meet Larry for lunch. It was a dull day. The air was close and the sky threatened rain. On my way to buy my sandwich I passed a newsagent’s. Propped outside beside the entrance was a billboard with a headline in large black capitals.
     
    BODY OF WOMAN FOUND IN RIVER
     
    I never normally paid attention to the local news but it was such a sensational story that I felt compelled to go into the shop and buy a paper. I paid for a copy of the Cambridge Evening News and left the shop. The sky was darker than before and ominous clouds were collecting above the rooftops. Shoving