CAUGHT ON THE HOP
By
Suzanne Readsmith
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PUBLISHED BY:
Copyright © 2012 Suzanne Readsmith
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Determinedly she took the stairs two at a time. No point in sneaking up quietly – she knew they were in her bedroom and there was no escape for her prey in this confrontation. She could hear them scrambling about. If she were to derive any compensation for the pain she was feeling, it would be when she flung open the door to catch them in a ridiculous naked pose.
There was no compensation. In confirming for herself what someone else had told her about, she found the true vision more painful than her imagination. She wished now, as the woman scrambled past her, clothes bundled under her arms that she had waited downstairs. It would have been a much more civilised approach, but in a frenzy of anger, disbelief and hurt she had been forced into the bedroom. The expression on his face sickened her. She flew across the bedroom, heading straight for him and when she reached him she grabbed hold of what was left of his hair and jerked his head violently from side to side. Leaving hold of his head she clawed at his face, kicked him and punched him. But he didn’t retaliate at all. She pulled away. Looking directly at him, she saw humiliation in his eyes and knew that he was sorry she had witnessed what he had always denied could ever happen. His face was bleeding. There seemed no point in conversation and she left the room, glancing towards the bathroom on her way downstairs.
Her immediate reaction was to leave the house straightaway to flee to her mother’s. In downright anger she thought of the young, beautiful, slim, large breasted woman upstairs in her bathroom. It was ridiculous to remember how she had cleaned the bath with lemon cleanser and poured new, scented bleach down the lavatory only that morning. After putting out fresh towels she had returned to the bathroom and made up their king-size bed and had actually felt proud of her new William Morris design duvet cover with the matching pillow-cases and valance that adorned it. They had made love last night and he had taken another woman to lie on the very same sheets, his wife’s scent mixed in with his own and then hers. How many times had he done this before, then opened the windows and pulled back the duvet to air the bed afterwards? Any why had she never detected it?
In a fresh burst of anger she returned to the bottom of the stairs; she herself was certainly not going anywhere but she knew someone who was. Like a fishwife she shouted, “Get down these stairs! Get out of my house! Get out of my house do you hear? Right now! Get out of my house you bloody whore!” She carried on repeating this chant until the woman suddenly and ungraciously appeared on the landing, her face holding an expression of absolute terror. She stopped shouting and waited for the woman to come down. The woman did not move or speak David appeared, stepping in front of the woman to guide her protectively down and past his wife. The three looked ridiculous standing on the staircase glaring at each other.
David spoke quietly. “Come on Beth, there’s no need for this.”
She wanted to hit the woman. But suddenly she decided she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of degrading herself any more. She moved back into the lounge with its stupid bay window. The room seemed small, dirty and dingy. Only yesterday her thoughts had centred on redecorating this room and whether or not to buy some new summer curtains. Now all she wanted to do was to smash the window. She looked at the copper figurines standing by the Adam-style fireplace. She picked up one, threw it straight towards the large central window pane and, without even waiting to see the impact, her eyes turned back to David, who had only managed to don a pair of jeans which were unzipped. The woman, dressed now or at least more covered, was hiding behind him in the corner of the room. The woman made towards the kitchen door but wasn’t quick enough. Beth ran before her, blocking her escape route. “How long? Just tell me how long? How many times have you been in my house?” When the woman spoke, the sound of her voice surprised and hurt Beth as much as the large breasts had done. It was well spoken, refined and sexy even. Beth immediately regretted her shrill, coarse shouting earlier.
“I would like to leave please. This is nothing to do with me. It’s between you and David.”
Beth started to tremble, her bottom lip was quivering and she knew she looked pathetic. A look of pity entered the woman’s eyes and Beth moved aside to let her pass. The back door slammed quickly shut. David looked at the jagged pieces of glass left in the window-frame. “You’re bloody insane. Mad. There was no need for that. To break the bloody window, no need at all.”
He ducked as the second copper figurine whizzed past his head and shot through the left-hand windowpane. He had never been a man of violence but as he walked towards her now she felt a little frightened. He slapped her hard across the face. She didn’t feel it. She slapped him back, harder she hoped, enjoying the sickening sound. Then she looked past David to see Norma, her next-door neighbour, surveying the damage to the window, obviously wondering what, if anything, she should do. It had been Norma who, only this morning, had alerted her to this nightmare. She returned her gaze to David.
“Why?”
David said nothing, just turned around and made his way upstairs to dress and pack. He knew they were finished. Suddenly there was a meek tap at the back door. It was the woman. “My car is in your garage. Your car … it’s blocking me in.”
Beth threw her hands into the air dramatically, mockingly. “Goodness, how thoughtless of me. I’d better move it then hadn’t I?” She picked up her car keys and followed the woman back outside. The woman entered the garage through the side door and, after seeing her settled into her car seat, Beth locked the side door and then ran around to lock the front garage doors. She went back inside and looked into the pot on the mantelpiece. True to habit, his keys were there. She took them and hid them, along with her own. Then she picked up the telephone and called her mother.
“Mum. Hi. Yes. Okay really. You okay? Yes. Well I’d like you to come over. Now if you could. Yes, for tea if you’d like. Salad, yes. You can meet David’s girlfriend. She’s here in the garage.” She replaced the receiver. While she had been talking she had focused on David’s precious iPad and iPhone. She could hear the sound of slamming drawers. David was obviously packing. She tore his PC from the electrical socket, leaving a mass of cable connectors behind. After carrying it out into the back garden Beth placed it into the centre of the lawn and returned to fetch his gadgets. She returned once again and spotted his jacket thrown casually over the chair. She felt inside the interior pocket. Yes, his wallet was there. She carried that out into the garden as well.
Before she put a match to the firelighters and paper around her bonfire. She thought of how much it had cost her to pay for this very PC. Nine monthly instalments by direct debit from her bank account. She cast her eyes around the garden for a stick with which to prod the fire, then looked towards the garage. The woman was looking at her through the small window. She was angry but too proud to shout or call out to Beth. Beth waved and smiled at her and wondered if the woman knew how tight David was with his money.
Norma’s head appeared over t
he fence just as David appeared at the back door carrying two suitcases in his hands, and her mother was heading down the driveway into the back garden. Her mother looked first at David, then at the woman’s face, framed nicely by the window frame, then at her daughter, and finally at the two suitcases placed on the step by David’s feet. Beth poked at the fire, guiding a half-melted disc, which had fallen away from the flames back into the heart of the fire. “Ah Mum.” She threw down her stick and walked towards her mother. “I’m glad you were able to come at such short notice.” It was a stupid statement because Beth’s mother only lived two streets away. “I’m sure David is also glad – he can introduce you to his new girlfriend.”
They all looked at the woman trapped in the garage, her face now wearing a menacing expression. Beth peered at her as one might at a monkey in a cage. The woman backed away. “Doesn’t look as pretty as I first thought David, although she’s young,