They were all the same, women. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Elaine, that slob Elaine, was having an affair. Was lifting her skirts in the back of someone’s car and sitting on someone’s erect . . .

‘George! Are you all right?’ Elaine’s voice was sharp.

The picture in George’s mind evaporated and he dragged himself back to reality.

‘Of course I am, dear.’ His voice was his usual mild and humble one.

‘Well, stop staring at me, it gives me the creeps.’

George stood up from his seat and felt dizzy as a picture rose into his mind once more. This time, he was standing over Elaine with his Swiss army knife raised above his head . . .

‘I think I’ll go for a walk, dear, I don’t feel very well. I need to clear my head.’

‘But Taggart’s on in a minute.’

Taggart was George’s favourite programme. But tonight he had to get out of his house and away from Elaine before he exploded.

‘I won’t be long, dear. Tape it for me.’

Elaine turned her gaze back to the television. George knew that within seconds he would be forgotten. She would be thinking of her fancy man. He hurried from the room, grabbing his hat and coat, and left the house. As he walked down the road he pulled his gloves from his pocket and put them on. He felt a rage inside him. A blinding rage. How dare she? He didn’t want her, he had not wanted her for years, but she was still his wife. His wife. He had married her and given her his name. He had raised her from the gutter to be his wife. But, like them all, she was a conniving cunt.

He saw Elaine again in his mind, taking off her clothes as she had been the night he had seen the marks on her neck. He saw her then in the back of a car, with a faceless man touching all her secret places. And Elaine liked it! She liked it, the slut!

George was walking faster and faster, his shoes clattering on the pavement. Elaine was like his mother. Oh, they pretended to be good women, but deep down they were whores. Like Eve, they betrayed you. You gave them your all and they took it. They took it and they smiled and they simpered - and all the time they were laughing at you. Laughing their fat ugly heads off.

George’s breathing was laboured.

He stopped and looked around him. He was outside the block of council flats where he’d been mugged. He crossed the road and strode purposefully up the incline and under his tree. He watched the second floor, cursing Elaine because in his haste to get away from her he had forgotten his opera glasses.