Emma Chapman: How to Be a Good Wife

In the old days, Kylan would eat at five thirty, ravenous from school. I would pile food high on his plate and call him in. Standing here, by the windows, I would ask him about school, and he would chatter away about football and maths and biology and how much homework he had. When he was finished, he would return to the television, leaving his plate for me to clear away.

Before that, when he was a baby, I would feed him myself. We had an old green high chair with a blue plastic tray that Kylan loved to slap his fat little hands on. I would tie a bib around his neck, making him laugh when it tickled, and pull up the chair nearest to him, pulling faces as I fed him. Even when it wasn’t easy, when he was in a bad mood and didn’t want to play, I loved every second I was with him.

At exactly seven thirty, I stand at the bottom of the stairs and call for Hector. His name is a harsh word, sharp in my throat, like machinery breaking down. When I first heard it, I imagined it was a strong name: the name of a protector, a warrior, a fortress. I was right, I suppose.

I mound huge hills of mashed potato onto our plates, drown them in casserole, and garnish them with trees of broccoli. There is still enough food left in the pan to feed us twice over.

I sit at the table, not eating, watching curls of steam rise from my plate. I can picture him in his study, his navy slippers resting on the edge of his faux mahogany desk. His reading glasses on, half-moons, glinting as his eyes shift across the page. He always finishes his chapter.

Never hurry or nag him along. His time is precious, and must be treated as such.

I am being punished, of course, for the cigarette. I pour myself a second glass of wine.

I’m hungry. The cigarette was all I had for my lunch, and the tender lumps of lamb are almost irresistible.

Always wait for him before you begin eating: he should always come first.

I hear him moving in his study. Getting up from his desk. Putting his book down. Walking across the floor. Opening and shutting the door.

Now he is going into the bathroom.

The walls in this house are thin. I almost laugh to myself, looking at the table that I have carefully laid. There is even a candle.

I pick up my fork.

As I look at the steaming plate of food before me, the smell spreads through my body, filling up my head. There doesn’t seem to be room to breathe.

Looking to my left at the wide patio doors, I see the body of a sturdy middle-aged woman, a wine glass at her side. One of her hands clasps a fork, the other rests on the wooden table, her wedding ring glinting.

I remember watching myself before, years ago, my static reflection caught in the car window as we rushed through countryside, following a river. We were off on our first holiday together. It wasn’t long before the wedding and it was summer. We have always told people we met on that trip, but we had met before, when I was ill and Hector had taken care of me. We thought it would be best not to tell people about that: it only made them ask questions about the past. Hector didn’t want me to be embarrassed, or to have to talk about my parents: he knew it upset me.

We ducked through various valleys on the long journey east. Hector and I often talk of this holiday we took, and we remember it fondly. I have a few details I return to, like the car skimming through the green land. When I think hard, I can feel the wind whipping my hair back on the ferry across to the island, where cars are forbidden. Trying to catch my breath on the short, steep walk from the port. Peeking behind us at the water stretching towards the horizon, the sun turning the sea to molten orange. Of the house, I remember a smooth pine table at which we ate some bread and cheese, and the green blind that was pulled down over the bathroom window. Hector tells me we went for dinner one night in a restaurant along the harbour: we both ate lobster, which was a special treat. There are photos of us, sitting in the fading sunlight. In one of them we are holding hands.

As I sit here now at the kitchen table, other things start to show themselves. I remember the smell of a musty bedroom, and the strange silence all around us. It must have been the morning as there was light at the window and I could hear birdsong. The mound of Hector’s body asleep next to me, his breathing. I listened for a long time, afraid he was still awake. Once he began to snore, I climbed out of the bed and crept out into the hallway.

From the window, the water shimmered in the new light. The sun made the wooden staircase glow, breaking across the floor and furniture of the living room in heavy blocks. There was the heady smell of pine. A step creaked and I stopped. After a minute of stillness, I kept going. I found the key to the cottage. Slowly, as silently as I could, I stepped across the old brown kitchen tiles, unlocked the back door and followed the path through the expanse of rocky land.

I can see the building: near the water, perched on the edge of the sloping brown and red rocks. Behind it, the dark green forest began. The rocks were splattered with white lichen, alien red shrubbery growing from dark places in between. Stumbling a little, each step measured, I made my way. At every moment, I saw myself fall, my skull smashing like a watermelon onto the rocks.

Ahead, the sea stretched flatly in the deserted cove. There were rocky islands not far out, breaking the surface, making it seem shallow: a flooded plain. I imagined the grey slate roofs of houses below the surface, covered by a sudden flood: tables, chairs, plates, cups and saucers, floating above their place.

Hearing the waves breaking and smelling the sea, I began to feel awake. I pulled off my clothes and walked along a wooden jetty, settling myself on the edge. The air was fresh against my bare skin, and without thinking I dropped into the water.

I swam down, tasting salt, the water rushing about my ears. Pushing back with my arms, I went as deep as I could. A strange blue blur filled my eyes, twisted by the light from above. My head felt lighter, my limbs loosened in their sockets. It was calm and quiet at last. The surface moved further and further away as my breath tightened across my chest. I watched it go, the shafts of sunlight blurring and dimming. I shut my eyes.

Just when everything was perfectly still, a shadow fell. There were hands, sharp under my armpits, and my body was pulled upwards, rushing towards the surface. I kicked to get away but the world came into glimmering focus, the line of the horizon rocking. My body was too weak to break free: all I wanted was to return to the coolness beneath the water. I struggled but was still dragged backwards. My scream rang out through the morning air. Immediately, the hands disappeared.

‘Ssshh,’ a voice said.

I breathed in sharply, my breaths falling over each other, unable to catch up. I could see the jetty now, only a few metres away.

Hector was floating next to me: his hair slicked back, his wide blue eyes as dark as the water below the surface.

He pulled himself onto the platform, reaching his arm out for me. With the sun behind him, he was little more than a shadow. I felt the strength in his brown arms as he lifted me. His body was taut and muscular, the shadow of dark hairs on his chest sparkling with trapped water.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he said.

I sank onto the wooden floor, unable to catch my breath. The sun was too bright. When I could finally open my eyes, he was gone, walking away from me along the jetty. I was shivering. I heard something behind me: he was coming back, holding a big blue towel open. Pressing it around my body, he sat down beside me.

He looked into the dark water. ‘What were you doing?’ he said again.