Perhaps he was right; perhaps I had no talent. But that didn’t mean he had to mock me, to make me feel so worthless.

“Do you resent me for trying to be a writer?” I asked him once, when we were reading in bed.

He turned with that look I mentioned. Flinty eyes, a curling of his upper lip. “Seems like a strange question.”

“Well… I’m asking.”

“I don’t resent you.”

“But?”

“Who said there was a but?”

A tingle moved up my spine, an instinct. It was like I was waiting to be hit. Scott had never laid a hand on me. Our marriage was distant; emotionally speaking, he was never there, and when he did deign to share his feelings with me, he behaved as though he was doing me a favour. It was like I was somehow beneath him.

I summoned courage. This conversation needed to be had. “Sometimes I feel like you want me to fail because you’ve stopped trying. The writing course, Scott, it isn’t…”

“What?” He leaned closer, laying his book in his lap. “Spit it out. Jesus.”

“It’s not a personal attack on you.”

He laughed in that belittling way of his. I’d spotted it in the early days, but he’d had so many redeeming qualities. At least, he’d pretended to be loving and attentive and loyal. I was there when his dad died, and I saw how amazing he was with his mum, how affectionate and supportive.

But with the ring on my finger and the years passing, he was making less of an effort.

“I know it’s not,” he said after a pause. “What would you attack me with? Your little story? Give me a break.”

I hated the sobbing that gripped me. It made me feel like a child. “I’m trying. That’s more than I can say for you.”

“Just leave me alone.”

“Maybe I will leave you alone.”

“A divorce? I’m praying for it. Put me out of my misery.”

“You’re a bitter failure,” I snapped, leaping to my feet. I threw something. I wasn’t sure what until it smashed against the wall, the hairdryer cracking, plastic shrapnel chipping away. “You wanted to be a historian. You failed. Then it was a writer. You failed. Every time you go for a promotion at work, they reject you. And you know why? Because they can tell how evil you are–”

“Shut the fuck up, bitch! Bitch!”

He raged from the room. I’d never seen him like this. I yelled and jumped out of his way when he almost barged into me. His footsteps pounded through the house, echoing through the walls, and headed down the hallway. Suddenly I knew where he was going.

I ran after him, reaching the door to my office just as he turned, my notebook in his hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Get out of my way.” He strode right up to me, eyes blazing, crumpling the notebook in his trembling fist. “I mean it. Unless you want to share a bed with your bitch of a mum.”