Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

endured flashed across her mind. She strode across and confronted the startled Melissa. ‘Leave my husband alone, you trollop.’
    Melissa rose and grabbed her handbag and sidled around Agatha and made for the door. Agatha leaned across the table. ‘You bastard,’ she shouted. ‘I’ll kill you and that philandering bitch!’
    James rose, his face dark with anger. He seized her wrists. ‘Stop making a scene,’ he hissed.
    Agatha broke free of his grip, picked up his half tankard of beer and poured it over his head and then turned and ran out. She ran all the way to her cottage, stumbling over the cobbles. Once safely inside her own cottage, she sat down in her kitchen and cried and cried.
    Then she went upstairs and carefully washed her face in cold water and put on fresh make-up. James would call to continue the row and she wanted to be armoured against him.
    The doorbell rang. Agatha gave a pat to her hair, squared her shoulders and marched down the stairs.
    ‘Now, see here . . .’ she began as she opened the door. But it was not James who stood there but her old friend, Sir Charles Fraith.
    ‘I called next door but James told me you were here,’ said Charles. ‘Can I come in?’
    ‘Why not?’ said Agatha bleakly, and walked back into the cottage, leaving him to follow her.
    ‘What’s up?’ asked Charles, following her into the kitchen. ‘Don’t tell me the marriage has broken up already.’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Agatha. ‘We’re divinely happy. Would you like a drink?’
    ‘Whisky, if you’ve got it.’
    Agatha was torn between telling him to leave in case James came and yet wanting him to stay in case James did not. She led the way into the sitting-room, lit the fire which she had set earlier, poured him a generous measure of malt whisky and then one for herself.
    Charles sat down on the sofa and surveyed Agatha, who had slumped into an armchair opposite him.
    ‘Been crying?’
    ‘No. I mean, yes. I cut myself.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘What d’you mean, where?’
    ‘Aggie, cut the crap. This act of being a happily married woman must be killing you.’
    She looked at him in silence. He sat there in her sitting-room where he had sat so many times before, neat, groomed, well-tailored, as self-contained as a cat.
    Agatha gave a weary shrug. ‘Okay, you may as well have it. The marriage is a disaster.’
    ‘I won’t say I told you so.’
    ‘Don’t you dare.’
    ‘I suppose the problem is that James is just being bachelor James and wants his usual lifestyle and you are getting in the way with your rotten cooking and your nasty cigarettes. Criticized your clothes yet?’
    ‘Never stops. How did you know?’
    ‘It is a well-known fact that stuffy men, once they are married to the object of their desire, start to criticize the very style of dressing that attracted them in the first place. I bet he told you not to wear high heels and that your make-up was too heavy.’
    ‘Am I such a fool? I should have known this. But it seemed to me we had so much in common.’
    Charles took a sip of his drink and eyed her sympathetically.
    ‘People never realize that love is indeed blind. They feel like a soul mate of the loved one. No awful loneliness of spirit. Two against the world. So they marry, and what happens? After a certain time, they look across the breakfast table and find they are looking at a stranger.’
    ‘But there are happy marriages. You know there are.’
    ‘Some are lucky; most go in for compromise.’
    ‘You mean, I should dress the way James wants and live the way James wants me to?’
    ‘If you want to stay married. Or go to one of those marriage counsellors.’
    ‘I don’t see how a bachelor like you can know anything about marriage.’
    ‘Intelligent observation.’
    Agatha clutched her hair. ‘I don’t know what to do. I made such a scene in the pub. James was flirting with this Melissa woman and I happen to know he once had a fling with her.’
    ‘James is not a bad sort, you know. You probably rub him up the wrong way. You’re a bit of a bully.’
    ‘You haven’t heard the whole story. He doesn’t want me to work!’
    ‘And are you? Working, I mean.’
    ‘I’ve got a short-term contract with a shoe company in Mircester. James hit the roof. He said I should leave work for those that need it.’
    ‘Maybe the pair of you should go back to separate lives and date occasionally.’
    ‘I’ll make it work,’ said Agatha suddenly. ‘I love James. He must