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Chapters (39)
  1. Cover
  2. WORST CASE SCENARIO
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. WORST CASE SCENARIO
  6. THE WIFE KILLER
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. 6
  13. 7
  14. 8
  15. 9
  16. 10
  17. 11
  18. 12
  19. 13
  20. THE NED
  21. 14
  22. 15
  23. 16
  24. 17
  25. 18
  26. 19
  27. 20
  28. 21
  29. THE PAEDOPHILE
  30. 22
  31. 23
  32. 24
  33. 25
  34. 26
  35. 27
  36. 28
  37. 29
  38. Acknowledgements
  39. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In order to not think about that, Mary had a second joint out the window. Laptop in the optimum viewing spot, she then assumed the foetal position in bed, and without seeing which series or episode was loaded (no glasses nearby) pressed ‘play’. If Mary had less Catholic guilt (her membership had lapsed, but not its side-effects), she’d spend all day and all night watching Sex and the City these days. She’d stumbled on season four – the best, in Mary’s opinion – episode seventeen: ‘A Vogue Idea’. Mary noticed that the opening music had already changed her breathing. She felt the stories of the day – and the night – floating away. Ahhh, home.

9

CUCK, Dr Liam Macdowall

The Thirty-Seventh Letter

Dear Bella,

Rab just left and I cried. In the end, he was happy for me, he called me ‘class’, said he was proud to know a man who had made it – a doctor – even if I couldn’t help with the vibrant rash he regularly insisted on showing me. It is finally a good thing to hail from Balshagray! It made me think about home, actually. I believe I may have been happy as a child.

I haven’t flown solo since I was on remand. For five months back then, I waited alone in a cold, bare cell wearing trainers with no laces. I spent most of those months arguing with my lawyer, a thirty-year-old plain Jane who wanted me to stitch you up, Bella, which I admit I thought about doing. Our daughter even begged me to – she needed a parent, but I couldn’t because you mattered more than I did. This, my counsellor, Julie says, is as unhealthy as not being authentic. A healthy relationship, according to the domestic abuse ‘work’ she programmes into the minds of men like me is: I matter, you matter. Some of what she says seems logical, but what does it matter?

Before the trial, my cell shutter opened every fifteen minutes for 140 days. That’s 3,360 times. And each of those times, I would have to declare very quickly: ‘I’m alive,’ as if saying ‘present’ to Miss Parkitny in primary two. Maybe that’s what she was checking back then – ‘Anyone dead since yesterday?’ Robert Parkitny, her son, was nunchucked to death by David Burns, so the question was fair enough.

I am not being watched these days, and I know I should be careful about what I allow myself to dwell on. I should not think about mattering in the real world, or about the day I killed you, or about us watching Sex and the City.