There is no clock in my bedroom and I have no watch, but I’ve become quite adept at judging the time. It’s easier in wintertime when night falls early but in the summer I have no real idea of the exact time Jack comes back from work—it could be anything from seven to ten for all I know. Bizarre as it seems, I’m always comforted by the sound of his return. Since the time he didn’t come back for three days, I have a fear of starving to death. He did it to teach me a lesson. If I have learnt anything about Jack, it is that everything he does and everything he says is calculated down to the last full stop. He prides himself on uttering only the truth, and enjoys that I am the only one who understands the meaning behind his words.
The comment he made at our dinner party, when he said that Millie coming to live with us would add another dimension to our lives, is just one example of his double entendres. His other comment, that it was the knowledge I would do anything for Millie which made him realise I was the woman he’d been looking for all his life, another.
Tonight, he comes home, by my estimation, at about eight o’clock. I hear the front door opening, then closing behind him, his footsteps in the hall, the sound of his keys being thrown down on the hall table. I imagine him taking his phone from his pocket and, seconds later, I hear the rattle as he puts it down next to the keys. There is a pause, then the sound of the door to the cloakroom opening as he hangs up his jacket. I know enough about him to know he’ll go straight to the kitchen and pour himself a whisky, but I only know this because my room lies above the kitchen and I’ve learnt to distinguish the different sounds as his evening begins.
Sure enough, a minute or so later—after he has looked through the post maybe—I hear him walk into the kitchen, open the cupboard door, take a glass out, close the cupboard door, walk across to the freezer, open the door, open the drawer, remove the ice-cube tray, crack it to release the ice cubes, drop two into the glass, one after the other. I hear him turn on the tap, refill the tray, put it back in the drawer, close the drawer, close the door, pick up the bottle of whisky from where it stands on the side, unscrew the cap, pour a shot of whisky into his glass, put the cap back on, replace the bottle on the side, pick up the glass, swirl the whisky around with the ice. I don’t actually hear the sound of him taking his first sip but I imagine he does because a few seconds always pass before I hear him walking back across the kitchen floor, out into the hall and into his study. It could be that he’ll bring me up some food during the evening but after all I ate at lunchtime, I’m not worried if he doesn’t.
There is no regularity to the meals he brings me. I may get one in the morning or one in the evening, or none at all. If he brings me breakfast, there may be cereals and a glass of juice, or a piece of fruit and water. In the evenings, it may be a three-course meal and a glass of wine, or a sandwich and some milk. Jack knows there is nothing more comforting than routine so he denies me any semblance of it. Although he doesn’t know it, he is doing me a favour. Without routine, there is no risk of me becoming institutionalised and unable to think for myself. And I must think for myself.
It’s horrendous to be dependent on somebody for the mere basics of life, although thanks to the tap in my tiny bathroom I’ll never die of thirst. I could die of boredom though, because there’s nothing to relieve the empty days that stretch before me into infinity. The dinner parties I used to dread so much are now a welcome diversion. I even enjoy the challenge of Jack’s increasingly exacting demands about what we will serve our guests to eat because when I triumph, as I did last Saturday, the taste of success makes my existence bearable. Such is my life.
Maybe half an hour or so after he arrived home, I hear his footsteps on the stairs, then on the landing. The key turns in the lock. The door opens and he stands in the doorway, my handsome, psychopathic husband. I look hopefully at his hands but he isn’t carrying a tray.
‘We’ve received an email from Millie’s school, saying they’d like to speak to us.’ He watches me for a moment. ‘What could they possibly want to talk to us about, I wonder?’
I feel myself go cold. ‘I have no idea,’ I say, glad he can’t see the way my heart has started beating faster.
‘Well, we’ll just have to go and find out, won’t we? Janice apparently told Mrs Goodrich that we planned to visit again this Sunday and she suggested we go down a little earlier so we can have a chat.’ He pauses. ‘I do hope everything is all right.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ I say with more calm than I feel.
‘It had better be.’