What Have I Done? by Amanda Prowse

Author:Amanda Prowse [Prowse, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781781853788
Google: qo-XMQEACAAJ
Amazon: B00APDVENO
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2013-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

It was nearly bedtime, an hour that always seemed to come round much too quickly. In earlier years she would try and delay going up to bed, but this only postponed the inevitable and angered her husband more.

Kathryn trod the stairs, changed into her familiar white cotton garb and waited.

Mark bent down as he walked past the end of the bed and inhaled her scent.

‘Your hair smells of fish.’

She winced, remembering running her fingers through her hair after touching the salmon and knowing what that might mean. She was embarrassed. No matter how routine, it was still humiliating to receive negative and nasty comments.

‘That was an interesting revelation about Miss Mortensen earlier and I am surprised that you found it appropriate to raise it not only at the supper table, but also in front of the children.’

Kathryn knew that it was better to say nothing, although the temptation to point out that he frequently raised far more inappropriate topics at the dinner table and in front of the ‘children’, one of which she knew for a fact was sexually active and smoked like a chimney.

‘Tonight you will read to me. I know how much you like reading.’

He smiled briefly at his wife, who was kneeling and waiting in her regular pose.

While Mark showered, her heart lifted slightly at the prospect of reading, albeit aloud. She was unsure how she should react. If she showed any joy at the task, he would surely be angry, yet indifference could provoke the same reaction. She needn’t have worried. There was to be no joy in the task, none at all.

She rose shakily from her kneeling position as Mark handed her the book. He unfastened his dressing gown and indicated the ladder-backed chair that he had placed by his side of the bed. Kathryn handled the weighty tome and read the title: The Iliad. Her fatigue and desolation felt overwhelming. She was tired and the idea of having to plough through that particular text at that time of night felt like she had a mountain to climb.

Mark positioned himself centrally on the bed, lying face down with this head on his raised forearms, his face averted. She opened the first page and tried not to look at the plump pillow next to her husband’s head, to which her eyes were powerfully drawn.

She started to read, struggling to find a rhythm as the unfamiliar words formed on her tongue.

Sing, Goddess, sing of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus –

that murderous anger which condemned Achaeans

to countless agonies and threw many warrior souls

deep into Hades, leaving their dead bodies

carrion food for dogs and birds

— all in fulfilment of the will of Zeus.

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