Emma Chapman: How to Be a Good Wife

Passing the last of the houses before the church, the road ahead continues through the valley. The water is close on the other side of the buildings, and I feel its presence there, its depth. I am alone now, moving further away from the centre of the town. Back into the open space between here and home.

I tell myself I’m walking towards Hector in the redbrick schoolhouse on the other side of the water, though I know that he is not there. I like to think of him, dressed up in his corduroys and a blazer. Sometimes, I see myself as one of his students at the back of the class. The dull morning light is breaking through the classroom blinds and onto the blackboard. It is marked with some incomprehensible formula, which is actually the opposite: as clear and logical as Hector’s mind. He sits behind his desk, pen poised amongst the hush of working students, or stands in front of the class, arms folded, waiting for the little moments of realization to fall about the room like feathers.

It is his place: the place where he can prove that he is right. It follows that if you take a logical argument step by step to its conclusion, there can be no grey areas. On that blackboard, in that room, there is right or wrong, black or white. If the premises of a valid argument are true, then its conclusion must also be true. It is impossible for the conclusion of a valid argument to be false if its premises are true. These are the things he teaches.

Hector says I could never take one of his classes, that my brain doesn’t work the same way as his. I’m not logical; I can’t see things as they really are. He says a lot of women are like me: unable to see the wood for the trees. I have other strengths, he says, though he never tells me what they are.

As I pull out onto the road, I think about him, in the house. The orange light on the dashboard reads 3:25. It is so strange, for him not to be following his usual routine. I feel my hands begin to shake on the steering wheel as I picture him: pacing in his study, messing up the kitchen. He has tipped the delicate balance that is holding us together.

I drive the familiar stretch of road again. Edging the darkness of the jagged trees along the top of the valley, I notice the sky is beginning to dim, as if its strength is failing. The clocks went back last week and we are losing the light. It happens gradually every year, the slip into winter. Unless you are diligent, it can creep up on you, leaving you in flat darkness. A never-changing nothing that makes my teeth ache.

The pressure of the town eases as I drive on. To my left, the dense forest begins. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of pink between the trees, but when my head turns, it is gone. I reach to switch the radio on.

After a few songs have passed, I hear myself singing along softly. The tune isn’t one I recognize, but the words keep coming, filling the car. After a while, I put my hand to my mouth. It is closed. The voice keeps singing. I jerk the wheel, trying to get away from her, and before I know it, I have swerved onto the grass verge and my foot has slipped from the accelerator. The engine has cut out. The car is full of silence and the screen of the radio is blank.

I look ahead at the empty grey road sloping upward, listening for the voice, but it doesn’t return. Though I tell myself it was my imagination, something in me longs to hear it. Nothing happens. I look out over the valley to my right: this is the highest point of the drive home. I can see the water spreading behind me around the hills. From here, the spire of the white church is a pinprick, and I remember how dangerous it looked when I stood directly below it, looking up at the sky.

There is nothing left to do but continue, so I turn on the car engine, pushing my juddering foot down onto the accelerator, hearing the revs echo through the space.

Eventually, I turn into our lane. It’s long and narrow, rounding a bend so that our house is out of sight from the main road. The house sits back, lower down, hidden behind the skeletons of the trees, its oversized roof sloping towards the ground. The white shutters look dirty and a collection of old leaves have blown onto the wide raised porch.

I watch as the front door opens and a woman walks out onto the stone doorstep. She carries a child on her hip, a boy with blond hair, and she is wearing my red apron, splattered with what looks like cake batter. She smiles as she puts the little boy on the ground and begins to sweep the leaves. I hear her humming to herself. The little boy watches her with wide eyes. He reaches his arms out to her, and when she is finished, she scoops him up and runs back into the house with him. I can hear their laughter intertwining. Then the door closes and the house is as it was.

Walking up the steps to the front door, I can see my breath. The rolled-up parcel is no longer on the window ledge. I try to see where Hector is in the house; none of the downstairs lights are on. I slide the key into the lock.

In the kitchen, I open the fridge door: the mix of colours and the tight squeeze of everything inside make me feel warm. I couldn’t fit anything else in if I tried, but I still like to go to the market at one o’clock every day. It is a habit I can’t seem to break.

I check the clock.

Normally, I would be expecting Hector back soon: I would be preparing the dinner. Since our honeymoon, I don’t remember him taking a single day off, or coming home before the usual time.

I wipe down the kitchen surfaces. That’s ten more minutes gone. Then I check the teapot. The cigarettes are not there.

The kitchen table is strewn with empty envelopes: Hector must have opened the post. Scooping them into a pile, I open the bin lid to throw them away.

The cigarette packet is in the bin. Gingerly, I pick it out. It’s damp, the cigarettes inside soaked through: they’ve been run under the tap. A couple have avoided the water. I slide them out and put the packet back where I found it.

Slowly, I walk through the kitchen and up the stairs, looking down the long dark corridor towards Hector’s study, listening for him. There’s a bar of light under the door: a shadow moves across it. I walk to our bedroom, leaning down on my side of the bed and sliding the two dry cigarettes under the mattress, feeling the springs stretch.

When I pull my hand back out from under the mattress, it won’t come. It’s as if something is holding it there and I can’t get away. My arm is drawn further in; I feel a pain at the tip of my finger and cry out. Then, without warning, I am released and thrown backwards.

Reaching over, I turn on my bedside light. My index fingernail is torn right down: a line of blood begins to appear.

I lift the mattress up with both hands and peer underneath it, but there is nothing there. Looking again at my finger, I wonder if I did that to myself and have only just noticed it. All the fingers are bitten, but this is the worst one. I pull myself up, wipe my hands on my trousers, and return to the brightness of the kitchen.

I run my hands under the warm tap for a long time, dousing them with soap and scrubbing. The water gets hotter and hotter, until my index finger stings at the raw edges, but I hold them there, until they are clean again.

We have lamb casserole for dinner. After a hard day at work, your husband will want a hearty meal to replenish his spirits. I fill my biggest saucepan with chunks of steaming brown lamb, carrots, onions and mushrooms, submerged in thick gravy.

When the casserole is bubbling gently, I pour myself a glass of wine and stand by the patio windows. The sky is dark blue. I can still make out the traces of the washing line, and the thick outline of the hedgerows at the edge of the garden. Beyond that, the mountains loom. My watch reads five thirty-six, and it is already night.