Dedicated to Abbi,
my dearest friend

‘Heav’n has no Rage,
like Love to Hatred turn’d,
Nor Hell a Fury,
like a Woman scorn’d.’

– The Mourning Bride,
William Congreve

The Wife

ONE

Friday 24 November, 06:54

‘You were grinding your teeth in your sleep again.’

Amber pushed the eye mask to her forehead and squinted to see the time on the alarm clock. Morning rays shone around the curtains, and the sound of a power drill growled behind the glass, drowning out the birdsong she had woken to before Mr Penfold began the renovation on his property across the street. As she returned the mask over her eyes, she vowed to make a visit to number forty-two.

‘You know I don’t wake up until seven,’ she said.

‘I have to leave early. I wanted to say goodbye.’

Amber removed the mask and sat against the headboard with a forced smile. Her jaw ached from a night of grinding her teeth.

Richard was one of those men who grew even more attractive as the years passed. His olive skin only seemed to age in the right places: the creases in the corners of his eyes, the rugged lines on his forehead. His dark hair and stubble were dashed with flecks of grey, which made his blue eyes all the brighter, and his body was almost as firm as it had been in his thirties. To anyone looking in, Richard was perfect.

‘Goodbye, darling. Your lunch is in the fridge.’

‘Thanks.’ He took a quick glance around the room. ‘Are you sure you haven’t seen my phone anywhere?’

‘Did you check your suit pockets like I said?’

‘Twice.’

‘I’ll keep looking.’

‘Thanks.’

Richard leaned over the bed in his checked suit and pecked her on the lips. He smelled of the cologne she bought him for his birthday every year. It was her favourite.

Just as he began to pull away, she held on to his tie and led him back to her until their noses touched.

‘Tell me you love me.’

His breath smelled of coffee and cream. Only Richard could drink cream with his coffee and not gain weight.

‘I love you,’ he replied.

She looked into his eyes to search for the truth. He straightened the moment she released her grip.

‘Will you give Samantha a kiss for me?’ he asked as he approached the door.

‘Of course. Have a good day.’

As Richard left the room, the alarm clock began to bleep. She slammed her palm against the snooze button and her smile fell.

He had told her everything she needed to know just by looking her in the eye.

Richard was lying.

* * *

The house was almost perfect. Almost.

Amber walked down the hallway and picked up the post from the mat. The under floor heating was at just the right temperature, and the carpet was soft Mongolian wool she’d had imported and trimmed. The wallpaper cost over three hundred pounds a roll, and the front door was solid oak with stained glass that lit up the floor in bursts of colour when the sun shone. It had taken her over three years and tens of thousands of pounds to complete the house, and already her palms were itching. She wanted to rip the paper from the walls and start all over again.

‘Ready, Mummy.’

Samantha was the only person Amber knew who had one eye a different colour to the other. One eye bright blue like her father, and the other a deep hazel like her mother. Samantha was her rare treasure.

‘Almost perfect,’ she said as she eyed her daughter standing at the bottom of the stairs. She tucked a lock of hair behind Samantha’s ear. It was bright auburn, just like hers. She looked her daughter up and down and adjusted her school tie.

‘There. Beautiful as always. Your lunch is on the island.’

‘Thanks.’

As Samantha walked down the hall to the kitchen, Amber placed the post on the sideboard and vowed to look through Richard’s later. That’s if she had the time. A busy day lay ahead. She glanced down the hall to check that Samantha was out of sight before she took Richard’s phone from her pocket.

Another text from his mistress.

Yes, Neena, she thought to herself. We are.

Amber walked towards the kitchen and replied to the message the same way her husband would, after days of devouring every adulterous word and studying his responses.

‘Is that Daddy’s phone?’

Amber looked up. Samantha sat at the island preparing a bowl of cereal.

‘I found it down the side of the sofa. I’ll drop it at the office later. This is from Daddy.’ Amber kissed her on the forehead and went to the coffee machine. She couldn’t stomach breakfast. Rage had swelled in her abdomen and taken up every inch of space. Coffee would have to do.

As she fixed herself a mug, she thought of Richard with his lover, and imagined them naked on top of the island, grunting and moaning until their sweat glistened on the marble worktop. She clamped her hand around the mug.

She would get her own back – she just had to be patient.

‘You’re shivering,’ Samantha said.

‘What, darling?’

Samantha looked up at her from the very same island Amber had envisioned as a make shift bed for her husband and his lover. For a brief second she saw both worlds: the lovers ravishing each other right in front of Samantha’s twelve-year-old eyes. She blinked furiously until they were gone.

‘I said you’re shivering.’

‘Aren’t you inquisitive this morning,’ she replied, and sighed away the rage. ‘I’m always cold in the mornings.’

She went to the sink expecting to find Richard’s coffee mug stained with a dark ring and dregs of cream nestled at the bottom. She checked the dishwasher: he had tided it away inside. Richard had no idea that his small, unconscious acts of kindness were his undoing. His guilt left behind its own trail of breadcrumbs for her to follow.

She stood on the other side of the island with her coffee and watched Samantha eat breakfast. God, how she loved her. Of all she had achieved, from creating the life she had made for herself from the meagre start her parents had given her, to her grand house designed from her mind’s eye, her daughter was her most prized creation.

‘Have you revised for your exams next week?’

‘Yeah. Mr Hynes thinks I’ll pass,’ Samantha said with a mouthful of cereal and milk lining the parting of her mouth. It reminded Amber of when she breastfed her, and how her milk had lingered in bubbles on her lips.

‘That’s brilliant. You’ve always been good at maths. I never have. How did I create such a smart young woman?’

Samantha smiled.

‘Daddy’s good at maths. Maybe I got it from him.’

Daddy is a lot of things.

‘Yes, maybe.’

Samantha was incredibly intelligent for her age. People always underestimated her because of her learning disability, but that was a good thing – her daughter could use their assumptions against them, once she learned to control the people around her. Amber would teach her when she was older. Samantha would be her own little protégée.

After Samantha drank the remaining milk from the edge of the bowl, she breathed out heavily and wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

‘You’re not dressed, Mummy,’ she said.

Amber eyed the milk on her daughter’s shirtsleeve and wondered if it would be too pedantic to ask she change into a fresh one.

‘I think I’m coming down with something,’ she lied and took a sip of coffee. ‘I’m taking it easy this morning.’

The doorbell rang.

‘That’ll be Laura.’

Samantha threw her backpack over one shoulder and rushed down the hall.

‘Bye, Mum!’

Amber rushed after her.

‘Samantha, wait!’

Samantha stopped just before the door with an eager hand on the latch.

‘Don’t I get a kiss goodbye?’

Samantha met her halfway down the hall. Amber cupped her face in her hands and admired every freckle and lash. Her daughter’s breath smelled of sweet milk, and her differing eyes stared up at her as though two people were trapped in one skull. Amber kissed her on the forehead.

‘Have a good day, darling.’

Amber watched as her daughter rushed out the door, and stood in the hallway for some time. She listened to the workers across the road and the tick of the clock from the living room. Her breaths were calm, but her heart was racing. She closed her eyes and breathed in and out of her nose until it slowed, and waited until the clock struck nine to mark the start of school. With the day she had planned, she couldn’t be disturbed.

Amber headed back to the kitchen and picked through the contents of the knife drawer, surveying her options before choosing a large chef’s knife with a thick handle. She twisted a fresh tea towel until it resembled a rope and placed it between her teeth. She mimicked the action she planned to make and brought the handle to her face exactly where she wanted it to land. Her heart beat faster until the sound of her pulse drummed against her temples. She took a deep breath, clenched her grip on the knife, and thrust it into her cheekbone as hard as she could. She winced with the pain and white spots burst in her vision. If she wanted substantial bruising, she had to do it again. She thrust the butt of the handle into her cheekbone two more times before the knife clattered to the floor and the towel fell from her mouth with her cry, the sound echoing through the house. She held her throbbing face and breathed quickly through gritted teeth. When the pain eased, she opened her eyes and moved her jaw from side to side until it clicked. Flecks of blood were splashed against the tiled floor. The tip of the knife had clipped the top of her foot. Blood trickled between her toes.

Amber picked up the knife and wiped her wound and the floor clean. She licked her fingertip to soothe the cut on the top of her foot before covering it with a plaster.

Once the knife was washed she put it in her pocket, turned back to the room and caught her reflection in the mirror.

Most people would describe her as beautiful. She eyed her stark ivory skin and hazel eyes, and ran her fingers through her hair, which stopped at the bottom of her ribcage. For a woman in her early forties, she had remarkably smooth skin, now tarnished by a bruise waking on her cheekbone.

Richard had thought her beautiful once. She wondered when he had begun to change his mind.

Someone wanted to destroy everything she had built.

But she already had the upper hand.

TWO

Friday 24 November, 10:37

The four by four shone on the drive. It had been perfect when she bought it, but now the number plate was six months behind. It would have to do. Richard wouldn’t hear of her getting a new one on lease until it was at least a year old. She had considered getting a new number plate instead, so at least the people in the village thought that she had the newest of everything, but she would know it wasn’t the best, even if the rest of them didn’t.

She locked the door behind her and walked up the driveway. When she reached the gate, she turned back and looked up at her home.

Her life had been years in the making. She had designed the house down to every minute detail, from the type of stones on the gravel drive to the shade of red in the stained glass on the front door, and had even pursued her husband with equal determination and precision.

And now someone wanted to tear it all to pieces.

She knew what it was like to have nothing. Her parents continually told her that they did their best, but Amber grew up aware that she was the poorest child in the class. When the teachers pitied her and the children teased, the hate for her parents grew until even the sight of them boiled a deep, harboured rage that refused to dissipate, even now, as they lay dead in the ground. As young as twelve, she vowed never to let her child go through the same ordeal, and to make something of herself to show those who judged her that they had underestimated her. With her parents dead, she was free of any connection to the past, and got away with the lie of a middle-class upbringing and private education. She had told so many lies over the years that it had become difficult to differentiate between her real memories and the ones she had fabricated along the way. But that was what made a good liar: for someone to believe a lie, the liar must believe it too.

Amber looked across the street at number forty-two. Through the open door, she spotted that the inside of the house had been gutted. Fresh plaster had been packed onto the walls and the new kitchen had been fitted, which had been delivered the week before in a lorry that took up the whole of the lane for the afternoon. The outside of the house was covered in scaffolding where men in hard hats dropped roof tiles into a skip below. Each tile made a nerve-wringing crack as it landed. She winced at the sound of the blows and clenched her hands into fists.

The village of Friars had been her home for twelve years. Not only had she integrated herself into the locals’ way of life, she had become a pioneer of the thriving community. She had created the neighbourhood book club and remained chair of the group; she was on the Board of Friars Parents at the local school, a member of the village watch, and a volunteer at the hospice. She had become the model citizen. To the rest of the village, she was the perfect wife, mother and neighbour. Just the way she liked it. But sometimes, she had to remind people that she wasn’t to be pushed around.

Amber crossed the street and walked up her neighbour’s driveway. Mr Penfold’s Audi was parked in front of the garage beside a tall van, hidden from view of the house. She crouched down beside the car and removed the blade from her coat pocket.

When she was done, she walked up to the front of the house and passed through the open door. The groundsheets placed over the carpets were covered in muddy footprints from workers’ boots. She looked up the stairs and called out Mr Penfold’s name.

A heavy-set man walked down the stairs with each step creaking under his weight. His T-shirt was covered in worker’s dust and flecks of paint had dried on his jeans. Varicose veins slithered beneath the skin on his cheeks and nose, which were made brighter by the white stubble on his face and the last few tufts of hair on his head.

‘Good morning, Amber.’

‘Hello, Mr Penfold.’

‘What do I owe the pleasure?’

He stopped on the last step and rested his weight on the banister. The wood creaked.

‘I was hoping you would delay the work on your property until a decent hour. My daughter has end-of-term exams coming up and she needs the right amount of sleep. The work has been known to start at six thirty in the morning.’

‘Now, Amber, I’m sure you want the work to be done as much as we do. The earlier we rise, the quicker it will be done.’

‘When do you expect the work to be complete?’

‘End of January, here’s hoping.’

Tiles clanged against the side of the skip outside. She flinched at the sound and clenched her teeth. Pain shot up to her gums. She had to stop grinding her teeth, but she had done it ever since she was a child. If she was stressed, she worked it out with her jaw in her sleep.

‘And you expect us to listen to this racket from dawn till dusk until then? I’m not asking you to stop work, simply to start at a reasonable hour.’

‘You know that if I agree to that, there will be another request soon after. You housewives don’t have to listen to our work all day. I can’t have you asking us to keep it down just so you can luncheon in peace.’

Amber imagined thrusting her heel into his crotch. She could forgive many ill traits in a person, but misogyny wasn’t one of them.

‘Very well. End of January, you said?’

‘That’s right. Now you enjoy your day, and don’t have too much fun while us men slave away in the cold.’

He chuckled and his protruding stomach jiggled with his movements. She wondered what it would look like if she punctured it with the knife in her pocket.

She smiled through gritted teeth and turned for the door.

‘Oh, Mr Penfold?’

He turned back with the smile still pulling at the corners of his lips.

‘As I was walking up the drive, I noticed that someone has slashed the tyres on your car. You do own the Audi out front, don’t you?’

His smile fell.

Amber left the house with a triumphant smile of her own.

* * *

Amber stopped the car outside the café and pulled down the sun visor. Her reflection stared back at her. The bruise was starting to show, but her make-up hid it well. She often admired her reflection – it was proof of her survival. The skin may have aged, and the eyes grown wiser, but the little girl she had once been was still in there, the one who paved her own path, bloomed from a place smothered in weeds. Today of all days was a time to marvel in her accomplishments. The date was an important one. But she had far too much to do to sit around and gloat.

Amber walked into the café and sat at their usual table. She always arrived first. She ordered a flat-white latte for herself and soya cappuccino for James.

They had met when James moved into the house next door the year before. He was remarkably successful for a twenty-eight-year-old, amassing a small fortune renovating and developing properties up and down the country. He had a ruthless nature when it came to business. Amber admired that about him. It didn’t take much to survive in this world, but it took a particular cunningness to thrive.

Ten minutes later, James strode to the table with flushed cheeks. Tall and slim, he towered over her as he stood before the table, but lacked intimidation in his stance. His golden blond hair was fluffy from the wind. He unwound the scarf from his neck as he spoke.

‘Sorry I’m late, work crisis.’

‘No different to usual then.’ She nodded towards the counter. ‘I’ve ordered your coffee.’

‘Thanks. I could definitely use it this morning.’ He sat down and sighed. ‘So, how’re things?’

Just as she went to speak, a waiter came to the table with their coffees. He was young, with red cheeks inflamed with acne. Amber hadn’t seen him there before.

‘Would you like to order any food?’

‘Have you eaten yet?’ James asked her.

She nodded as she took a sip of the latte. She was so good at lying that she couldn’t remember if she’d had breakfast or not.

‘I’ll have the oatmeal with soya milk and fresh fruit,’ James said. The waiter wrote down the order and turned to leave. ‘And I’m severely allergic to nuts.’

‘I will let the kitchen know, sir.’

The waiter left and James took a sip of his coffee. He licked foam from his top lip.

‘I didn’t have a chance to eat this morning. I was on the phone to my contractor at seven a.m.’

‘You earn every penny,’ she replied.

‘I’ll earn even more when my latest deal goes through.’ He placed the cup back on the saucer. ‘So, how’re things?’

‘Richard is having an affair.’

The room buzzed with noise compared to his silence. Young mums in gym gear conversed behind them with cake crumbs on their laps. The central heating in the ceiling hummed quietly, and the baristas worked behind the counter in a cloak of steam.

James stared at her from across the table.

‘Are you sure?’ he whispered.

‘Positive.’

‘Who is she?’

She took a sip of the latte. ‘I have an idea.’

Amber hadn’t had a problem with the colour of her eyes until she met James, and suddenly hers were inadequate compared to his. They weren’t just green, but a deep emerald. She had never seen anything quite like them. If she could pluck them from his skull and slot them inside her own, she would.

‘How long?’

‘Long enough.’

She placed the latte glass on the saucer with a steady hand.

‘You seem awfully calm.’

‘We’re in public. What do you expect me to do, break down and cry?’

‘You know what I mean. How did you find out?’

‘I’ve been with the man long enough to know when I’m being lied to.’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it. I’d never thought of Richard as the adulterous type. Are you sure?’

‘Deadly.’

He cupped his hands around the mug and eyed her over the table.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m not leaving him, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘I wasn’t thinking that.’

‘Then what are you thinking?’

James’ eyes twitched from left to right as he thought about her situation. Amber waited.

‘I’m thinking it must be a mistake. Richard loves you.’

‘Men can still love someone and give in to the urge to stray, and the even worse notion that they have pulled the wool over their partner’s eyes.’ She smirked. ‘Excluding you, of course.’

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