The Perfect Girl

TESSA

One of the tube lights under my kitchen cabinets is flickering silently. It needs replacing.

Sam doesn’t answer his phone so I leave a message to ask if I can come over, although I wonder if he’s asleep. I apologise for potentially disturbing him. We’re very polite to one another, Sam and I, though it’s not formality. I think it’s fear that we’ll lose each other.

I put my phone down on the kitchen table and watch as the screen dims to black. I roll my shoulders back to ease the tension that’s grabbed them in a pincer grip.

The room is stuffy and the smell of Richard’s lasagne still lingers; it’s cloying and it feels as though it will make the back of my throat catch. I get a glass and turn on the tap at the sink, waiting for the warm water to run through until it’s cold before I fill it, and then I drink it all in one go. I look out into the darkness of our garden, and see the shape of Richard’s shed at the end of it, and remember how I found him there earlier in the day.

And even though I know that the homes and the streets of Bristol will be full of people having normal, comfortable Sunday evenings, I feel as though I’m the last person on earth.

And suddenly I can’t stand to be in my house any longer. I grab my bag and leave. I’ll just take my chances and go and turn up at Sam’s flat, because there’s nowhere else I can bear to be.

I’m halfway there, and about to pull over and try to phone him again to give him some warning, when I remember that I’ve left my phone at home, on the kitchen table, and I just can’t face going back to collect it, not now that I’m nearly at Sam’s.

No matter, I think. It won’t do Richard any harm to not be able to contact me for a while, to understand how it feels to have a spouse who is utterly unavailable for support. It won’t do him any harm to feel frightened in the morning because he has to cope with the unreliable actions of the person he’s supposed to be sharing his life with. If I go straight to work in the morning I can manage without it, and Richard can always phone there to track me down. I’ll tell him I stayed at Maria’s, or with a friend.

I surprise myself a little with these sharp feelings of spite towards him, but the thing is, you need energy to cope with an alcoholic spouse, and I have none tonight, so the malice creeps in.

Rain begins to fall as I drive. It’s not heavy, but it’s persistent and my windscreen wipers creak noisily across the glass.

The city centre is empty and I find a parking space easily near Sam’s apartment building.

Before I go up to Sam’s flat I sit in the car for a moment and I wonder whether I should go back to Maria’s house and check on them, before I remind myself that she’s an adult and I mustn’t interfere.

I wonder what Tom Barlow is doing, or thinking. I wonder if he’s lying awake beside his wife and stewing, or whether he’s online, searching for more information about Zoe, and her new family.

Raindrops spatter on the roof of the bus with a tinny persistence, like a fusillade of toy guns. My thoughts have become exhausting enough that I decide I’ve had enough of sitting in the car. I step out and run across the wide pavement that separates the road from Sam’s building and I don’t stop until I’m safely under the partial cover of the meanly proportioned porch, and I press the buzzer for his apartment.