Dead Like You

began to sob.
    He sat in silence. He had nothing to say. If it had been possible, he would have liked to lean over the table and strangle this bitch with his bare hands.
    ‘I thought you loved me,’ she sobbed. ‘I thought we could make a life together. I knew you were damaged, but I thought that if I loved you enough maybe I could change you. That I could offer you something that you never had.’
    ‘Give over!’
    ‘It’s true. You were honest with me once. Twelve years ago, when we married, you told me I was the only person who had given you peace in your life. Who understood you. You told me your mother made you screw her, because your father was impotent. That after that you were disgusted by women’s private parts, even my own. We went through all that psychology shit together.’
    ‘Denise, shut it!’
    ‘No, I won’t shut it. When we got to together I understood that shoes were the only things that turned you on. I accepted that because I loved you.’
    ‘Denise! Bitch! Shut it!’
    ‘We had so many good years. I didn’t realize I was marrying a monster.’
    ‘We had good times,’ he said suddenly. ‘Good times until recently. Then you changed.’
    ‘Changed? What do you mean changed? You mean I got fed up fucking myself with shoes? Is that what you mean by changed ?’
    He was silent again.
    ‘What’s my future?’ she said. ‘I’m now Mrs Shoe Man. Are you proud of that? That you’ve destroyed my life? You know our good friends, Maurice and Ulla? The ones we have dinner with every Saturday night at the China Garden? They’re not returning my calls.’
    ‘Maybe they never liked you,’ he replied. ‘Maybe it was me they liked and they just put up with you as my whingeing hag wife.’
    Sobbing again, she said, ‘Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to go home and kill myself. Will you care?’
    ‘Just do it properly,’ he said.

120
    Friday 23 January
    Denise Starling drove home recklessly in her black Mercedes convertible coupé. She stared at the wet road ahead through her mist of tears. The wipers clop-clopped on the windscreen. A chirrupy woman was wittering away on BBC Sussex Radio about disastrous holidays people had experienced, inviting listeners to call in.
    Yeah, every sodding holiday with Garry Starling had been a disaster. Life with Garry Starling had been a disaster. And now it was getting even worse.
    Shit, you bastard.
    Three years into their marriage she’d fallen pregnant. He’d made her abort. He didn’t want to bring children into the world. He’d quoted some poem at her, some poet whose name she could not remember, about your parents screwing you up.
    What had happened in Garry’s childhood had twisted him, that was for sure. Damaged him in ways that she could never understand.
    She drove, way over the limit, along the London Road, past Preston Park, and shouted, ‘Fuck you!’ when the speed camera there she had totally forgotten about flashed her. Then she turned into Edward Street, drove along past the law courts, and Brighton College and the Royal Sussex County Hospital.
    A few minutes later she made a right turn, opposite the East Brighton Golf Club, where Garry was a member – not for much longer, she thought, with some strange, grim satisfaction – let him be a sodding pariah too! Then she crested the hill, swung into Roedean Crescent and finally turned right, into the driveway of their large mock-Tudor house, passing the double garage doors, and pulled up in front of Garry’s grey Volvo.
    Then, her eyes still misted with tears, she unlocked the front door of her house. She had trouble, for some moments, unsetting the alarm. Typical! The one time we have trouble with the alarm, Garry’s not around to get it sorted!
    She slammed shut the front door, then slid the safety chain across. Sod you, world. You want to ignore me? Fine by me! I’m going to ignore you too. I’m going to open a bottle of Garry’s most expensive claret and get rip-roaring sodding pissed!
    Then a quiet voice right behind her said, ‘Shalimar! I like Shalimar! I smelt it the first time I met you!’
    An arm clamped around her neck. Something damp and sickly-sweet-smelling was pressed across her nose. She struggled, for a few seconds, as her brain began to go muzzy.
    As she lapsed into unconsciousness, the last words she heard were, ‘You’re like my mother. You do bad things to men. Bad things that make men do bad things. You’re disgusting. You are evil,