Just another domestic

I have never wanted a knife block. I always knew it would be a mistake. My mother thought it would be a nice present. I should have told her there was a reason I didn’t already have one. But I couldn’t. I would have had to explain. And we don’t have that kind of relationship. We talk about the weather, she talks about her boyfriends, I pretend everything is fine. Talking about why I shouldn’t have a knife block would involve too many explanations, it would expose my weakness, show the world I was a fool. I have never sought her advice, and I wasn’t ready to receive any now. But I knew in my heart, it was better not to open myself up to the possibilities that the knives brought with them.
There are days when I stand on the edge of the pavement and am so very tempted to step in front of a bus. Let this be over. But I don’t. Or I’ll find myself in the china section of a department store and I desperately want to run my hands along the shelf and smash everything to pieces on the floor. I don’t do that either. I fight it. The urge to destroy someone or something lurks there, simmering. I simmer.

“So what happened?”
I resist the urge to say, well you’re the detective why don’t you tell me? I look across at the Sergeant and bite my lip. The red light is on the tape machine. Everything is ready, everything set up for me to explain why I did it. How did I get here? How do I explain?
“It’s okay you can take your time. We just need to understand what happened. “
He’s already told me that everything I say could be used in court. Best not to mention the buses and the crockery then. It’s not going to help. He doesn’t need to know that. No-one knows that.
“How about we start from the moment your husband Dave came home?”
I nod.
“You’ll have to speak up, the machine can’t register a nod.” he smiles encouragingly.
I can’t smile back.
“I wasn’t supposed to be home. I’d really hoped I’d be staying with a friend for the weekend as it was a bank holiday. It was her birthday, I thought it would be nice. But she’d forgotten, or maybe I hadn’t explained why I needed to come. Dave had gone to the Pompey game. It was a school trip. A reward for good behaviour. Or so he said. I don’t know, maybe it was. Not his you understand. The pupils. He’s a head of year at the local school.”
“It was sunny. Unusually nice for a bank holiday. Outside I could hear the sounds of early summer, a lawn mower buzzing in a neighbours garden, cricket in the park, jets skis on the beach. You can only hear that when the wind is in the west. “
“Where were you?” he asked, establishing the facts.
“ I was in my kitchen. Our kitchen. Dishing up the kids dinner. Dave came round the back, through the French doors. Dave asked me why I was still there. He said, he was supposed to be cooking the kids dinner. I had a plate full of food in my hand, I held it out to show him and said it was all done now so no need. He just took the plate and smashed it on the floor. The dinner lay mingled in with the broken china. Our children Holly and Lizzie took their dinners and disappeared upstairs. They had learnt it was better to get out, before they too were dragged in.”
“He was drunk. He told me that should I go. As he spoke spittle flecked his mouth and landed on my cheek. I had nowhere else to go. I told him that as he was out I’d cooked, that the kids were hungry and it was all fine. I bent down to pick up the pieces of plate.”
“It had all been fine, till he came home. A nice normal day.”
“Then he started being mean saying stuff like “Why aren’t you with your boyfriend? Has he dumped you? I’m not surprised no one would want you, you are a barren shrivelled up bitch.””
“I walked out of the kitchen and into the hall. I needed to think, I went into the lounge and closed the door behind me. I stood leaning against the door breathing hard for a moment and then sat down on the sofa, head in my hands, wondering what to do. But Dave followed me.
“He walked in and he said “Get off the sofa you fat cow. You’ll break it you’re so obese. Off you get.” His eyes were bloodshot, his skin red and blotchy, he stank of beer and sweat. He was so angry he seemed to have super human strength. He tipped up the sofa with both hands and threw me onto the floor. I tried to crawl away, so he kicked me in the stomach. I curled up into a ball so he kicked my legs, my back my head. The blows were coming down so hard i couldn’t tell if they were boots or fists anymore.”
“As he kicked me he said “Don’t worry it won’t show, I’ll make sure of that.” He thought that if I had a black eye like his mum used to get off his Dad, then he’d be in trouble. But this, this was okay.”
“I tried to crawl away. I thought this was it, that this time he wasn’t going to stop. I reached up, I hadn’t got a plan or anything my head was ringing from the kicking, I just reached up and grabbed his hair. A clump of white hair came away in my hand. He yelped and jumped back in surprise. I never fight back. He knows that. He came towards me again. And I thought oh shit, I’ve really done it now. This is it. He bent over me and said “I’ll be back. I’ll come in the night and slit your throat. Just you wait.”
“I heard him leave the room and shut the door. I stayed curled on the floor for ages. My head really hurt, there was this ringing that wouldn’t stop. I sat up and leaned against the sofa. After a while, i have no idea how long, I put the sofa back the right way up and sat down on it. I heard the kids creep down the stairs, they opened the door slowly and asked if they could go to the park. I said yes. It seemed a good idea that they shouldn’t be around, just in case.”
“I didn’t get up, I felt sick and felt dizzy. I had this one thought running through my head. I’ve got to go now before he comes back. I grabbed my keys and went to my car. I had no idea what time it was, I had no idea where I was going. I drove, know I probably shouldn’t have done, but honestly I was a mess. I wasn’t thinking right. I found myself down Sinah Lane I parked outside my friends house wondering what to say. I knocked on the door, luckily Sonia was home. I have no idea what I said. Maybe I didn’t say anything. She took me inside and gave me a drink, a brandy I think, she said it was good for shock. She’s a nurse you see. After I finished my drink she asked what had happened. She wanted me to call the police, but I couldn’t. We were getting divorced next week. It was all supposed to be over. If only we could sell the house or he would leave. But I knew he never would. He’d always said he kill me if I took the kids away from him like his brother’s wife did. Sonia made up the spare bed, gave me some paracetamol and a glass of water. I went upstairs, but couldn’t sleep. My head was throbbing, my thoughts whirling around, never settling into a pattern I could make sense of. “
“Your friend Sonia – can she verify that you were at her house last night?” asked the Sergeant.
“Yes absolutely.”
“And what time did you return home?” he asked as he made a note of Sonia’s name.
“I don’t know, it was early. Sonia came with me. The children were in bed, asleep. Dave hadn’t come back. Sonia will now what time. Things are still a bit fuzzy for me.”
“The children told me they’d been on their own all night. That when they got back from the park the back door was wide open but there was no one home. They asked me where I‘d been . I went downstairs to make us all a cup of tea and told Sonia everything was fine, she could go home. She didn’t want to leave me, but I felt embarrassed.”
“The front door opened, he went upstairs. The children came down. They told me he was throwing all my clothes out of the window again.”
“You have to understand when I told him I wanted a divorce he just laughed. But I went ahead and did it and he was really shocked. He’d been bullying me for so long he didn’t think I would ever have the courage to defy him. The problem was I couldn’t leave the kids behind and I had nowhere to take them. He wouldn’t move out. Said we had to sell the house. It has been up for sale for six months, but we can’t sell. He wants too much money for it, more than it’s worth. “
“Then what happened after he came home?” asked the detective.
“I heard him come down the stairs again. He walked down the hall and came into the kitchen, he came towards me. He had an empty drawer in his hand. He threw the empty drawer at me shouting “Your stuff is all outside. Now you get out too.””
“Holly shouted at him to stop. Without turning round I reached out for the carving knife. It was the centre one in the block. I stuck the knife into his stomach.”
“After you stabbed him what did you do?” he asked.
“I just stared at him as he fell to the floor. Dave was looking at the knife and then at me. He had this look of surprise on his face. Like he was thinking, now I wasn’t expecting that. Blood spread across his shirt. “
“Then what happened?”
“ Holly screamed. I couldn’t help noticing the flecks of blood sprinkled across the perwinkle blue flowers on my summer dress. Then Lizzie ran to the phone and dialled 999, like I’d taught her, she asked me if he had a pulse. I said I didn’t know. She said the ambulance people wanted to know, so I bent down and checked. I couldn’t feel one, but I never was good at that sort of stuff. I sat down on the chair, Lizzie put her arm round me. She must have got off the phone. Holly was sitting next to her Dad crying. Not long after an ambulance came. You came - the police.”
“I just wanted it all to stop. And now I guess it finally has.”