A Suitable Lie

by Michael J Malone

  The first weekend at home flew past and we were back in Campbeltown for week two. While at home my thoughts were often drawn back to the previous week: Sheila and I poring over printouts; Sheila and I discussing the day ahead over breakfast; Sheila and I … Several times I had to mentally rattle my brain as if to dislodge the growing affection I had for her. At odd times my thoughts would stray to her. While bathing Ryan, her laugh would play its song in my ears; while reading the newspaper she walked across the page; and while making love with Anna, Sheila’s smile radiated from the pillow.

  Stop it, Boyd. You’re a married man, with two boys, I told myself. I would have to fight to maintain a professional distance. But, with a thrill that surprised me, I found myself looking forward more and more to sharing the flight back to Campbeltown with her.

  The next week back in Kintyre flew by. We worked from eight in the morning till eight at night, grabbed a quick meal at the hotel and then went off to our respective rooms to pore over some more files and then grab some well-deserved sleep – and for me to anticipate Anna’s call. On the Tuesday her call was a little later than usual.

  ‘Hi, honey,’ she said. Her pleasant tone took me by surprise.

  ‘Hi. You’re a wee bit later tonight,’ I said without thinking.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ I could almost see her shouting at the mouthpiece. ‘I’ve had enough of your accusations.’

  ‘Anna. I just commented on the fact that you’re phoning a wee bit later than you normally do.’ I heard a deep voice in the background. ‘What’s that? You got the telly on too loud?’

  Anna cleared her throat. I was too busy thinking how I could calm her down to notice the way she did so. If I had been as paranoid as she was, I may have thought it sounded like she was warning someone.

  ‘Aye, some documentary…’ a strange noise, like a stifled giggle ‘… about dinosaurs.’

  ‘Since when did you watch documentaries?’

  Anna’s TV habits were soaps and movies.

  ‘Since tonight. Is that alright with you?’ she snapped.

  ‘How are the boys?’ I thought it best to change the subject.

  ‘They’re fine. A handful. They miss their Dad. Christ knows why.’ She laughed, and I forced a smile into my voice.

  ‘Ha, ha. Give them a kiss for me.’

  Placing the phone on the receiver, I gave no more thought to Anna’s weird behaviour. I had more pressing matters to consider: Sheila. Having recognised my attraction for her, I forced myself to speak to her only when she spoke first, and then I would only be drawn on work matters. Several times I caught a glance, a partially opened mouth, as if she was about to say something. At this I would feel awful, but steeled myself with the thought that it was for the best. I just couldn’t afford to let my attraction grow.

  One evening as I ate in silence, Sheila decided to say what was on her mind.

  ‘Andy, what the hell is wrong with you?’

  ‘Uh?’ I looked over at her while drawing a string of spaghetti up into my mouth.

  ‘You’ve been off-hand with me all week.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ I said when I had swallowed my mouthful.

  ‘You have, and I want to know what I’ve done.’ Her beautiful eyes drilled into mine. ‘Have I said something? What?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’ I felt uncomfortable. I couldn’t admit my feelings and I couldn’t just leave her feeling like she’d somehow offended me. ‘It’s me…’ I finally answered. ‘Things at home…’

  ‘Oh.’ Silence. ‘I don’t want to pry. Just thought I’d … never mind…’ More silence. ‘Have you finished with the Borthwick report yet?’ Sheila moved onto safer ground.

  ‘Yes. Do you need it? I left it in my room last night. I can go and get it for you if you want.’

  ‘No, no,’ she answered. She had finished her light meal by this point. ‘Give me your room key and I’ll go and get it while you’re still eating.’

  I passed the key to her. ‘It’s on the dressing table.’ As she reached the door, I jumped up. It was almost time for Anna’s phone call. I looked at my watch. 8.45. Calm down, Boyd I told myself. It’s still a wee bit early.

  Just as I was wiping at the bolognaise sauce with a slice of crusty bread, Sheila returned with the file under her arm. She ordered some coffee and sat down sliding my key over the table.

  ‘Did you ring for me just there?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looked puzzled. ‘Your phone rang while I was in the room and I answered, thinking it might be you. There was no one there. Odd, isn’t it?’

  I gripped the fork in my hand and fought the urge to groan. Anna. Shit. She couldn’t have phoned at a worse possible time. No reasonable explanation would please her; her only thought would be that a woman was in my bedroom and I was surely sleeping with her.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Sheila asked, ‘You’ve gone all pale.’

  ‘Must be something I’ve just eaten.’ Nausea pulled at the food I’d just swallowed. I was in serious shit. I stumbled to my feet. ‘See you in the morning, I’ll just go and lie down.’

  Safely in my room, I paced the floor. Should I phone home? No – better let her calm down first. But if I didn’t phone I would be damned for sure. She would know that I knew she had called. In the end I settled for doing nothing. Whatever reaction Anna planned would happen regardless of any assertions I made. I would just end up digging myself a larger grave.

  Sleep evaded me that night and I was able to plead sickness the next day when Sheila showed some concern. All the while thoughts of Anna’s retribution filled my mind. Muscle tightened at imaginary blows and my self-esteem curled up at the thought of the slurs to come. The truth of what happened that evening would simply not be believed, so I had to think of some story that would appease Anna, but none came. Her reaction was too large in my imagination.

  That night, back home, while the boys jumped all over me in competition to out-do the other, Anna maintained a chill distance. She kept this up until the Sunday night.

  ‘What’s wrong, honey?’ I dared to ask. Like a convict whose execution had been postponed by an hour, then another hour, then another hour, I needed to know what was going on. I couldn’t stand her silence any longer.

  She was in the kitchen, I was standing in view of her in the living room, my hands deep in my pockets, my shoulders almost level with my ears. She stopped what she was doing and walked towards me, her hands behind her back.

  ‘Who was she?’ Each word was spoken crisply, quietly.

  ‘Who was who?’ I moved back.

  ‘I’m not an idiot, Andy.’

  Silence can be a very effective way of forcing someone else to speak and Anna’s lips were sealed tight. She would not speak again until after I had spoken. My nerves drew tighter and tighter. Sweat popped out on my forehead like an admission of guilt.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I burst. ‘I know you called. My colleague went to my room for a file that we were working on.’

  ‘You were working in your room, on this file, with this woman?’ She was preternaturally cool. The blast must be on its way.

  ‘No. I was working on the file, on my own in my room. This … colleague needed it once I was finished with it.’

  ‘Why are you sweating, Andy?’

  ‘I’m not sweating.’ I lifted my arm and wiped my forehead on my sleeve while wondering what she was holding behind her back. She moved closer.

  ‘You’re sweating because you’ve been fucking some bitch behind my back.’ The sentence started off quiet and clipped, but ended with a high-pitched squeal. ‘You bastard.’ Her hand shot out, connected with my solar plexus. Air bulleted from my mouth.

  ‘Uhn.’ I fell to my knees, bent forward, struggling for air. ‘Anna, please … I didn’t do … anything.’

  ‘Prove it to me!’ She held my head back by the hair.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Prove it to me!’ Her other hand moved from behind her back
. Light reflected on whatever she was holding. Realisation of what it was made me try to struggle to my feet, but her grip on my hair was too tight, too painful.

  ‘Anna.’ I tried to keep the desperation from my voice. ‘What the fuck are you doing with a knife?’

  8

  The airport on Monday morning was mercifully quiet. Not many people around to see the mess I was in. Sheila, however, couldn’t hide her shock. Anna was normally careful not to make any visible marks. But this time she had really lost it.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Sheila’s hand hid her mouth. ‘What on earth happened to you? Have you been in an accident?’

  ‘Yes,’ I mumbled from the side of my swollen mouth. I motioned to Sheila that it was difficult to talk. ‘Car,’ I said. ‘Steering wheel.’

  ‘You poor thing.’ Sheila lifted her hand to the side of my head as if to caress the bruising. ‘Look at your eye.’ She didn’t touch me and pulled her hand back to her side. ‘Are you mad? You should be at home in bed. Or better still in the hospital.’ She paused. ‘You did go to the hospital?’

  ‘Of course I did,’ I lied. ‘Only bruising. Looks worse than it is. I’d rather be at work.’

  ‘Fine by me if that’s the way you want it. It’s your funeral.’

  I tried to laugh at Sheila’s flippant remark. The thought that she was closer to the truth than she would ever know cut off my strangled laughter. Even now I could feel the iced steel pressing against my neck, Anna’s breath hot on my face as I knelt before her on the floor.

  ‘Prove it to me,’ she had demanded.

  ‘How the hell can I do that?’ A fist connected with my eyebrow.

  ‘You know how,’ she hissed in my ear.

  ‘I don’t. I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.’ A knee shot up to my chin. I bit my lip. Pain surrounded me, pain and a growing certainty what Anna wanted me to do. It was only now in the bright morning that I could understand that she was cleverly letting me state my own punishment. Because then my humiliation would be profound.

  ‘Remember the last time,’ she whispered. I recalled that time when, after we had made love, she checked herself for the volume of my emission.

  ‘No,’ I cried, ‘I won’t do it.’

  The knife moved in the air in front of my eyes. It caught every available beam of light and reflected it at me with menace. She pointed the knife at my groin.

  ‘Prove to me that you haven’t been fucking about or I’ll get busy with this knife. Take your trousers down! And your pants.’

  ‘Anna, please, stop it,’ I begged. My mind screamed at me, why aren’t you running? But I went nowhere and with wooden limbs I unbuckled my belt, allowed my trousers to drop to the floor and then I pulled my underwear down to my knees, exposing my genitals.

  ‘You should have thought of this while you were screwing around.’ She flicked the knife at my pubic hair. ‘Or do you want to be like that guy Bobbit in the States?’

  Utterly defeated, I started to tug at my shrunken flesh, willing it to expand, willing the blood to flow.

  ‘If you’re not hard in thirty seconds…’

  I pumped my hand faster. Nothing.

  ‘You can’t get it up, you arsehole because you’ve been screwing someone else. I’ll fucking kill you if you don’t prove me wrong.’ The knife was back at my neck. Something wet trickled down into my chest.

  ‘Anna.’

  ‘Keep wanking. Prove to me that I’m the only one.’ Her eyes were an inch from mine. Madness swirled in them like black wings. She could do it, I thought. Right at this point she could quite easily push the blade through my flesh, seeking the vein.

  I couldn’t have believed it possible, but fear for my life fired blood into my groin and semen spurted out of my penis.

  ‘Catch it in your hand you messy bastard,’ she ordered. ‘Don’t let any fall onto the carpet.’

  Anna then grabbed my wrist and examined the contents of my hand. Like a scientist peering over a petri dish she peered at the milky fluid strung over my palm. With a grunt she acknowledged that the volume was satisfactory.

  ‘Look at you, you’re pathetic.’ The scorn in her voice was sharper than the blade at my throat and infinitely more painful. ‘Go and clean up, you wanker.’ Finding her choice of words amusing, she laughed. ‘Get out of my sight.’ She kicked at my shoulder and I fell to the floor, my humiliation complete. But she wasn’t finished yet.

  ‘What would your precious mother make of you now, your bare arse stuck up in the air, your hand full of spunk?’

  ‘Leave my mother out of this.’ I spoke into the carpet, hoping she couldn’t hear me.

  ‘What about that arse of a brother of yours? Eh? He probably wanks himself comatose every night. I’d bet Paula is sick of him.’

  ‘Leave Jim out of this,’ I said louder, pulling myself to my feet, while simultaneously trying to dress myself. I’d been naked in front of Anna countless times but for some reason in this situation I felt deeply uncomfortable. Like a choirboy naked before a row of nuns.

  ‘And what about the boys? How much respect do you think they would have for you right now?’ She was building herself up nicely.

  ‘Don’t you dare bring the boys into this.’ I fought for control. She knew my weakness and, not content with the humiliation she had already delivered, she was going for more.

  ‘Those poor wee boys, having an excuse like you for a father. What would they think if they saw you grovelling there?

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘They love you as well. I’ll just have to put them right. Tell them that their father is a worthless piece of scum.’ She moved closer.

  I couldn’t take any more and stepped towards her. Delight softened her expression. She wanted this, but even knowing it, I couldn’t stop myself. I grabbed at the hand holding the knife and squeezed her wrist until she dropped it. With the other hand I swung at her head. The connecting slap, flesh on flesh, rang out. The world slowed and Anna seemed to glide through the air until she crumpled against the far wall.

  Rage ran unfettered through my mind, a rage that was fuelled by years of frustration. Moments of pain and humiliation were dark beads strung on a line of barbed wire that ran from this point in time, through my past to the day we got married.

  And in that moment I was caught up in the release. Enough. No more.

  Anna was at my feet begging.

  ‘Andy, don’t.’

  The words reached my ears, but their meaning didn’t register. She needed to know what I had been feeling like. She needed a flavour of what she had put me through.

  I stepped towards her. Mind dark. Fists solid.

  She would understand how it felt and I didn’t care what the consequences were.

  ‘Daddy?’ A sweet soprano broke through the fog. Again. ‘Daddy?’ It was Ryan. He sounded terrified.

  I turned to him and saw the pale of his face as he emerged from the shadows in the hall.

  Closing my eyes, I took a breath. Somehow forced the anger down.

  ‘Bed,’ I said and wondered where I had found a tone that was almost normal. ‘Back to bed, son. Everything is fine here.’

  I turned away from him and looked down at my guilty hand as if it belonged to someone else.

  Sense broke through. I could hardly believe my own strength or that I had broken one of my own commandments. I sobered up. I had done exactly what she wanted.

  Anna climbed to her feet, holding the side of her head. Bruised but triumphant and looking almost disappointed that I had managed to make myself stop.

  ‘You’ve gone and done it now, sunshine,’ she crowed. ‘You’re mine.’

  ‘Anna, I’m so sorry.’ I crumpled. Fell to my knees, my fists pressed against either side of my head. What would she do now? Call the police?

  ‘Look what you’ve done to me.’ She limped over to the mirror and examined her face, ‘I’m all red.’ Wincing, she then pulled at her shirt, baring her shoulder. ‘I’ll be a mass of bruises in no time.’ />
  ‘Anna, I’m so sorry. I’ll never hit you again.’

  I didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse than I did five minutes previously, but I did. I had broken the one rule that had kept me sane thus far. I had clung to my belief that the stronger should never strike the weaker. In a fit of temper I had thrown away my lifesaver and was about to go under.

  ‘Anna, please forgive me, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ My own hurts were completely forgotten. How could I have lost control like that? She walked slowly into the hall. Despite myself, I followed and watched her adding drama to her limp as she moved up the stairs.

  She stopped halfway up. Her voice drifted down, a penetrating hiss. ‘Stay out of my sight. I’ll have to think about what I should do with you.’

  Summarily dismissed, I slunk back into the living room and sat on the floor before the TV.

  Events of the evening ran through my mind. An image of my erect penis in my hand was superimposed on the TV screen by my imagination. Cold steel burned my neck. Fear that Anna would carry out her threat had stripped every voluntary thought from my head. I was thankful that filling your lungs was an involuntary action or I would have probably stopped breathing as well. Adrenaline stripped fur from my arteries and filled every vein to bursting point. All of this and yet I had managed to ejaculate. Was this self-preservation at its keenest? Had the mechanics of my pumping hand been enough?

  Or was I as sick as she was?

  Sleep eventually claimed me, my anxiety reduced by the thought of my hands round my wife’s throat. Squeezing.

  Squeezing for all I was worth.

  ‘Andy, are you sure you’re okay?’ Sheila asked once again.

  I nodded. ‘Let’s get to the plane.’

  We agreed that I would do most of the donkey work that week, out of sight and hearing of the customers. With a pen in one hand, a mug of coffee in the other and piles of folders around me, I spent the remainder of my time in Campbeltown in the staff room. Working as many hours as I could, I tried to forget about striking out at Anna. What damage could I have done if I hadn’t stopped? A movie played in my head while I crossed off lists of erroneously paid cheques: Anna bloodied and lifeless at my feet, me being handcuffed to a policeman and the boys being taken into care.