Admonition

‘Hi, honey, I’m sorry I’ll be a little late tonight.’

Suzie accepted her husband’s message with a rueful sigh and took a sip of port, wiping down the greasy stove, smiling to herself. This was just like their first date. A warm July evening, Harold was late, a lasagne in the oven. She thoroughly rinsed a chef’s knife in the sink and took another sip as her phone chimed again. 

‘I dropped some documents and have to sort everything again. I’m sorry, dear.’

Suzie smiled again. That was her Harold, always so clumsy. Always so hardworking and considerate.

‘I’ll pick up some of your favourite rocky road ice cream on the way back,’ read his

next message.

Suzie hugged her phone to her chest like an infatuated schoolgirl. She imagined him

opening the door, bottle of wine in hand, sweeping her up into his arms with a passionate

kiss.

Everything had to be perfect.

She frowned. There was a little tear in the wallpaper. Well, that wouldn’t do on their special night.

“What happened to you?” she mused.

Did she rip it while cleaning? Was it clumsy Harold, always staggering in late at night from God knows where? No, not her Harold, he would have told her. As if on cue her phone buzzed again:

‘I’m sorry, honey, I forgot to tell you I called a handyman to fix the wallpaper tomorrow.’

Suzie’s smile widened. What a considerate man! She would have to do something nice for him!

She took another sip of wine and filled the kitchen sink with OxiClean, humming as she scrubbed the stains from his shirt.

Yet as she worked, her eyes kept drifting to the tear in the wallpaper. It was only a minor thing really; a slit twelve centimetres long revealing a fraction of timber. And yet, something about it felt… ugly and perverse.

What act of violence caused a rip in her lovely home?

What sinister little secrets could this slit let slip?

What had it witnessed that caused that thin veneer to peel away in revulsion?

She took another sip. Why didn’t he tell her?

She puzzled, putting the knife back on the rack, and grabbing a duster. After all, no husband would purposefully hurt his wife. He would tell her all sorts of things when he got home. It was his way of showing love: those little comments, his passionate touch, the kind worth the concealer in the morning.

‘I love you, you know.’

But she couldn’t keep making excuses. So clumsy! Ha! So clumsy, he fell into another woman’s bed. So clumsy he struggled and tore the wallpaper. She threw back her head and laughed.

What a silly thought!

That wasn’t her husband. Not anymore. Harold was a few minutes away! She’d better clean everything up for him.

Suzie moved into the bathroom and took another sip, and the sickly-sweet nectar

trickled down her throat.

He’d make it up to her. She bent by the bathtub and nudged his arm out of the way, wiping away the red before it seeped into the grout. He would make it up to her soon. The smile widened; her lips stretched taut.

The knife in her hand was still dirty.

Suzie stood at the sink again, drenching the utensil with all the detergent she could until she was positive she had drowned it in a spume of toxic froth. She may have been scrubbing for hours, till the scalding water and the bite of the salt scraped her hands raw.

Yet, the knife still felt tainted, infected, by some most horrible affliction, hissing, begging, begging even now, over and over, a booming in her head, to heed its warning about the wretched blemish in the wall.

Her hands trembled. She froze, feeling its hollow gaze prickling the back of her neck, sure she heard it inhale, about to scream from its rotting jaws.

Quick. Quick, quick, quick, quick.

She grasped the knife, her knuckles turning white. She plunged it in the wall, into that offending voyeur, and ripped its foul mouth until it could no longer speak. Feeble painted flesh thrashed for a moment, peeled away and crumpled softly like a cadaver in snow.

Suzie picked up her husband’s phone again and wrote,

‘Good news, honey. I’ll be home in five.’

Photo by Gioele Fazzeri from Pexels