The Mistress by Valerie Keogh

Author:Valerie Keogh [Keogh, Valerie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Published: 2024-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

28

SUSAN

The Godfather is a long movie. After an hour, the smell of congealing food on her plate was beginning to make Susan feel queasy. ‘I need a toilet break,’ she said, reaching for the remote.

‘I’ll do it.’ He snapped it from her hand. As if she was incapable of pressing the button to stop the film without losing it. As if he were the king of the goddamn remote.

‘Fine,’ she said, getting to her feet. He’d left his tray on the floor. It took her only seconds to combine everything, the plates, cutlery and condiments, onto one tray. A lazy man’s load. She noticed Mark didn’t offer to help and frowned as she rested one end of the tray on a hip to free a hand to open the door. He used to, didn’t he? Or was she looking back with thick, rose-coloured glasses?

In the kitchen, she scraped the uneaten lamb from her plate back into the container and put it into the fridge. The sombre voice of a newsreader drifted through the open doors from the living room. Mark would be content catching up with the news. There was no need to rush back. She took her time, putting the covers on the various cartons, finding space in the fridge for everything, wondering once again what she was going to do with all the damn cheese she’d bought.

Maybe Mark was still hungry.

She stood in the living room doorway. ‘You fancy some cheese and crackers?’

‘Sure,’ he said without looking at her.

So much cheese. She took out a handful of packets, using scissors to open the waxed paper. A few slices of each on a plate for Mark, a couple of thin slices on a separate plate for her. She opened the cupboard to take out a box of crackers, staring in confusion when she didn’t see any. Maybe she’d put them in a different place to usual, challenging herself by doing things differently. A stupid thing to do, she thought with a shake of her head as she opened another cupboard, then another and another. Every cupboard was opened and searched, then opened and searched again. She was making such a racket, she was surprised Mark hadn’t come to investigate.

Finally facing the truth, she leaned back against the counter. Cheese but no crackers. What an idiot she was. She thumped the side of her head, then remembered there was bread in the freezer. It would do fine.

Nobody ate bread except Drew and it was frozen into a block, resisting her efforts to free individual slices. She reached for a wide-bladed knife, inserting the sharp edge between the slices, and pressing down. It freed quicker than she’d expected, the metal hitting the granite worktop with a snap, the point of the knife scoring a line down her hand.

She stared as blood bubbled along the cut. Bizarrely, it reminded her of the water running down Mark’s neck earlier. This time, she didn’t resist and held the cut to her mouth, the metallic taste on her tongue making her cry.

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