Emma Chapman: How to Be a Good Wife

When we heard the doorbell, he pulled off my apron and rubber gloves and we went into the hall together. I see him now, telling me to smile, as if it’s happening all over again. The way she looked me up and down, shook my hand and smiled tightly. She asked me where I was from, where I went to school. Did I want children? Hector answered for me. I only nodded.

I hear their voices, through the kitchen door. I am on the other side, out of sight.

‘She’s very young, Hector.’

‘She looks younger than she is.’

‘Where did you meet her?’

‘We met when I took that holiday to the island.’

‘Does she live locally?’

‘She’s staying here for the time being.’

She breathed in sharply. ‘Staying here? How long for?’

Hector sighed. ‘I don’t know, Mother,’ he said. ‘Her parents died recently and she doesn’t want to be on her own.’

‘Well, if you’re sure. It just all seems a bit fast. But then, you’re not getting any younger.’ A pause. ‘She’s very thin. Is she ill?’

‘She’s been through a tough time, with her parents. She’s a good girl.’ There was a silence. ‘I’m going to marry her.’

Now, I am here still, standing with my head resting against the closed kitchen door. My heart is hammering. The words seem to have come out of a place I don’t go any more. Yet I heard them, as clear as if I was hearing them in that moment. I can’t lose the feeling of something in the wrong place.

I go to the tall wooden cabinet in the hall where I keep my china dolls. Hector has bought me a new one each year since we’ve been married. Twenty-five dolls for twenty-five years. I keep them away from dust, looking at them only through the glass panes, opening the door as little as possible to keep them preserved. Brunettes, blondes and redheads, each face perfect in its own way. My favourite is a blonde-haired doll, sitting in pride of place in the middle row, her perfect curls and pale grey eyes catching the light. I look for her now and for a moment I am confused by what I see. She is facing the wrong way. I feel my throat tighten. Hector knows not to touch my dolls. I wonder if this is his idea of a joke.

Opening the cabinet, I pull on my white gloves. Lifting her out, I tilt her up and down, watching her eyes flick open and shut. I trace her lips with my fingers, always slightly parted, always smiling.

I hear something on the other side of the front door. Startled, I drop her. Looking over my shoulder, I bend to pick her up, my heart thumping. She has landed on her head, but there is no visible damage. There is a noise at the front door again, and my head rings, as if it was me who took the fall. Slipping her back into the cabinet, I walk quickly through to the kitchen, shutting the door behind me. I slide a knife from the draining board and wait.

The front door creaks open, and then shuts. Steps travel slowly across the hallway. I let my breath escape.

I open my eyes. It’s Hector, standing on the other side of the kitchen doorway, watching me.

We watch each other through the thick glass panels: we don’t smile. At the bottom, I see his brown leather brogues, the laces tied. In the middle, his corduroy trousers are pressed stiffly, his hands in his pockets. At the top: his calm blue eyes; the steady line of his mouth, slightly curved down at the corners; his greying hair brushed sparsely. He has deep creases in the skin of his cheeks.

He sees: slippers, the bottom of my black everyday trousers. The neat red apron, a pale pink cashmere jumper, the knife glinting by my side. My make-up-less face, no doubt severe in the bright daylight. My hair tied into a neat dull chignon at the back of my head, dark blonde with the beginnings of grey. Before he arrives home, freshen your make-up; put a ribbon in your hair.

I risk a smile: as he smiles back, the lines around his eyes shift. Now that he’s here, I feel better, and almost silly that I worked myself up before, thinking someone was breaking in.

I turn, slipping the knife under the surface of the water in the sink. Hector opens the door.

‘Hi,’ he says.

I glance at the kitchen clock. Twelve thirty-five.

‘You’re home early,’ I say.

Hector nods. ‘No classes this afternoon,’ he says.

I have to look away from him, down into the water. I begin to wash the knife. The soap slips off the gleaming metal as I slide it onto the draining board.

Hector is still standing there, watching me.

‘How was your day?’ I ask.

‘It smells of smoke in here,’ he says.

‘I burnt some toast.’ I keep my hands below the surface of the water. ‘Have you been touching my dolls?’

‘What do you mean?’ His voice is slow, careful.

‘My dolls. Someone has been moving them.’

He comes towards me; I stay still. He raises his hand and I feel the warmth of his palm on my forehead, dry and papery.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ he asks.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, opening my eyes.

‘Not still feeling sick?’

‘No.’

‘Have you taken your medication?’

I shake my head.

Hector opens the cupboard above the sink. I hear the rattle of the bottle.

‘Open your mouth,’ he says.

I let my jaw go slack. The pink pill moves past my eye line, and when I feel it on my tongue, I swallow. He gestures, and I open my mouth again.

He checks. ‘Good girl,’ he says, putting his hand at the base of my neck. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’ He turns to leave.

I pick up the knife from the draining board and begin to wash it again.

Without looking up, I listen to him climb the stairs. Once I am sure he is gone, I let my legs go, sinking against the kitchen counter. Cupping a hand to my mouth, I expel the small pill, letting it drop into a gap between the skirting board and the floor. It has been so long now since I remember actually swallowing one.

I haven’t mentioned it to Hector. He would want to have a discussion, to remind me of how I get without them. Just the thought of it gives me a headache and I put my hands up to my temples, rubbing at them, pushing the pain away.

The last time I stopped taking my pills, Kylan must have been eleven or twelve. He had just started getting the bus from the end of the lane with Vara, his friend from the farm. I found that now he was away more, at senior school with its additional after-school activities, there was less for me to do in the house. When he was younger, I was so busy, I barely had time to think: he was always there, wanting me. But now, there was only the washing, ironing, dusting, and making his dinner. I had already had time to make stacks of stockpiled meals, waiting in the freezer. I started to look for the shadows of dust that fell on things.

But it wasn’t just that there was less to do and the house was so quiet. I felt him slipping away from me. In the evenings, I would meet him from the bus and ask him questions as we walked home, but he wanted to talk less and less. He kept more to himself, and I missed the shape of his child’s body, grasping after me. One day, he told me he didn’t need me to collect him from the bus stop any more. I said that I liked to, but he insisted that he could walk down the lane by himself. Hector said it was normal, that he was growing up. But it was easy for him to say: Kylan had started talking to him more.

So I stopped taking my pills because I wanted something to happen. I suppose I wanted him to notice me again. I almost welcomed the weariness that came without them: the heavy darkness I dimly remembered which begin to follow me around again. I would be doing a job in the kitchen, and before I knew it, I would be out on the porch step, numbly watching the horizon. Kylan would come in from school and find me there. Dinner was never ready, and his bed hadn’t been made. Sometimes I cried without understanding why, and couldn’t stop even with Kylan’s warm body against mine, his hair against my nose. I remember clinging on to him, whispering in his ear, waiting for it to pass.