Waiting for Wednesday

enthusiasm, her
undisguised liking for him. ‘When?’
    ‘How about now?’
    ‘Now?’
    ‘But you’re probably
busy.’
    ‘As it happens, I’m not. I was
just worrying that my hair needs washing.’
    He laughed, his spirits lifting.
‘It’s not a job interview.’
    They met in a wine bar in Stoke Newington
and drank a bottle of white wine between them. Everything was easy. Her hair looked fine
to him, and so did the way she smiled at him, nodded in agreement. She wore bright,
flimsy layers of clothes and had put lipstick on. He caught a whiff of her perfume. She
put her hand on his arm when she spoke, leaned in close. Her breath was on his cheek and
her pupils were large in the dimly lit room.
    They went back to her flat because he
didn’t want to be in his, even though it was closer. She apologized for the mess,
but he didn’t mind that. He was a bit fuzzy from the wine and he was tired and all
he wanted to do was to lose himself for a while.
    She took an opened bottle of white wine from
the fridge door and poured them each a glass. She looked up at him, expectant, and he
leaned down and kissed her. As they undressed, he couldn’t stop thinking what a
long time it hadbeen since he had done this. He closed his eyes and
felt her against him, her soft skin, took in the smell of her. Could it really be this
easy?
    Paul Kerrigan wasn’t exactly drunk,
but after three pints and no food since the cheese sandwich he hadn’t finished at
lunch, he was blurry, hazy, a bit adrift. Theoretically he was on his way home, but he
really didn’t want to go there, to see his wife’s thin, sad face, his
sons’ hostile, derisive stares. He was like a stranger in his own house, a hated
impostor. So now he walked slowly, feeling the weight of his heavy body with each step
he took, the thump of blood in his aching head. He needed to make sense of all that had
happened, but this evening everything felt like an effort and thoughts were sludge in
his brain.
    One month ago, Ruth had been alive and
Elaine had known nothing, and his boys had been full of teasing affection for him. Now,
each morning when he woke, he had to realize all over again that the old life was
over.
    He reached the corner of his road and
stopped. The pub was disgorging its drinkers on to the pavement in a burst of noise. He
didn’t hear the footsteps behind him, or turn in time to see who it was who
brought something heavy down on the back of his head, so that he reeled, stumbled, fell
in an ungainly heap on to the road. The blow came again, this time on his back. He
thought how that would hurt later. And so would his cheek, which had scraped along the
tarmac when he fell. He could taste blood, and there was also grit in his mouth. Through
the roar in his head, he could hear the pubgoers, like distant static. He wanted to call
out for help but his tongue was swollen and it was easier to close his eyes and wait for
the footsteps to recede.
    At last he struggled to his feet and
blundered along thestreet to his front door. He couldn’t make
his fingers hold the key so he knocked and knocked until Elaine opened it. For a moment
she stared at him, as if he was a monster standing in front of her, or a madman. Then
her hand flew to her mouth in a cartoonish gesture of horror that he would have found
funny in his safe old life.
    ‘I didn’t do it.’ Russell
Lennox’s eyes were bloodshot. He had the sweet, stale smell of alcohol on him.
Since the bottles had been found hidden in the garden shed, he seemed to have taken to
drink in earnest – almost as if, now the secret was out, he had given himself
permission.
    ‘It would be understandable
if …’
    ‘I didn’t do anything. I was
here. Alone.’
    ‘Can anyone confirm that?’
    ‘I told you I was.’
    ‘You seem to have had a fair bit to
drink.’
    ‘Is that illegal?’
    ‘The man who was having an affair with
your wife has been badly beaten up, not ten minutes from your house.’
    ‘He had it coming to him. But I
didn’t do it.’
    That was all he’d say, over and over,
while Dora peered through the banisters at him, her face small and pale in the
darkness.
    Frieda lay in bed and tried to sleep. She
lay quite straight, staring at the ceiling, and then she turned on to her side,
rearranging the pillow, closing her eyes. The cat lay at her feet. She put an image in
her mind, of a shallow river running over pebbles, but the water bubbled and the faces
rose from the bottom. Thoughts stirred in the