Not Dead Yet

divorced, man!
    He ruminated on that for some moments.
    Yeah, but.
    He got out of the car, scooped up the bottle and flowers, and locked the doors. He walked the short distance up to Terringes Avenue, turned left towards Bella’s home, and then froze.
    A man was standing outside her front door, clutching a huge bouquet of flowers in his arms. A man he recognized.
    He could not believe his eyes. No way, it absolutely could not be him! But it was.
    The door opened, and Bella stood there, wearing a short dress, her hair looking like it had just been done, as it had last night.
    She looked like she had been expecting him. He said something and she laughed. They kissed, just a fleeting peck. Two people comfortable with each other.
    Norman Potting went inside and the door closed behind him.
    Glenn stood there, gobsmacked. Then, slowly he walked back to his car, stopping on the way to jam the bouquet into a dustbin.
    He drove off at speed, shaking his head in anger, astonishment and self-pity, the wine bottle rolling on the passenger seat beside him. Norman Potting. Incredible! Like, it did not make any sense. What the hell did she see in an ugly old lech like him?
    Clearly something.
    Or had he totally misread it?

59
    ‘You bitch! You cut me dead!’ Anna screamed at Gaia.
    Her idol stared icily back.
    ‘You humiliated me in front of so many people. You can’t do that, you can’t treat people like that, do you understand?’ She was gripping the knife in her hand. It was an antique dagger with a scabbard that she had kept in her handbag ever since a man tried to attack her outside a nightclub in Brighton, a few years ago.
    She had learned from an episode of CSI that it was dumb to use an ordinary household knife to stab someone. Invariably the knife would strike bone and when that happened your hand would slip forward along the handle, and the blade would slice into your hand. As a result you would leave some of your own blood at the scene. A dumb way to get caught. But if you used a dagger with a guard, that would stop your hand sliding forward.
    ‘You think you can just treat people how your mood takes you? One moment sending them passionate signals and the next cutting them dead? How would you like to be cut dead?’ She raised the dagger, the blade glinting in the overhead light. ‘Do you think all of us who love you would still love you if your face was a mass of scars? How much value would you have then, do you think?’
    She stared at her, hatred blurring her vision. ‘All this stuff of yours, this tat, this grot, this rubbish we pay a fortune for on eBay. Do think we’d still pay the same if you had knife cuts all over you? Well, do you? Can’t you speak? Cat got your tongue? How would you like to try singing with your tongue cut out? People did that to their enemies in some countries once. If they got screwed. They’d use red-hot pincers to pull their tongues right out of their throats. You wouldn’t look so damned great going on stage and trying to sing without your tongue, would you? You wouldn’t make much of a lover for King George in this film, would you? You’d be prettyuseless at kissing, and you wouldn’t be that great at giving him oral sex. Have you thought about that?’
    She waited.
    ‘Have you?’
    She waited again.
    Then, screaming at the top of her voice, and shaking with rage, ‘HAVE YOU?’
    She slashed the knife forward, ripping across Gaia’s face, right from the side of her forehead, across her right eye, down her cheek. The cardboard cut-out fell off the display stand and tumbled to the floor.
    Anna stared down, dagger held high, gripping it even harder. Gaia stared up at her from the beige carpet, the rip clear and even across her face. ‘Listen to me, bitch.’ She knelt, staring down into Gaia’s eyes. ‘No one stays on a pedestal who doesn’t deserve it – no one, not for ever. You’d better understand that. You’d better understand what you did tonight. Look at you now,’ she sneered.
    Mimicking 1950s sex idol Betty Page, Gaia had her hair died black, with a fringe, and was wearing a see-through black negligee. Bondage tape was wound across her mouth. There was Japanese writing on the front, below her face, and it was signed by Gaia. The poster came from her second Japanese tour and was one of only four in existence. Anna had paid £2,600 for it five years ago.
    ‘We build you up, and we can smash you down just as easily. See? See what a worthless bit of