Escaping

Escapes
by
Kim West

Slipping away, as he always did in the early hours, he caught his
breath by the gate. What she had said came back to him at a rush. At
the time he had assumed that she was issuing her threats as part of her
usual melee of ranting and raging. Now he realised, after the usual
reconciliation and ensuing passionate night, that she had at last
threatened to tell her family. The little wrought iron gate refused his
first attempt. He had to push firmly down on the stubbornly rusted
latch and lift the gate at the hinges to be able to walk free of the
garden. The gate clanged behind him. He turned to shut it properly. The
chaotic flower beds burst with lush colour even now in the early
morning light, as his contretemps with the latch came to an impatient
end. It was all too much.
Walking away to his old blue Audi, he fumbled in smart pockets for the
keys. The memory of her hair on the dampened pillows and the sexual
contentment he had reached out for in the night surged back to him,
making him feel a little weak as he unlocked his car and swung into the
driver's seat. This was indeed a very dangerous game he played with his
wife's emotions. It had been a long drawn out dangerous game, as they
had known one another's bodies since early adolescence. She had been
stunning and wild and he had hunted her. Lately, she had grown volcanic
in her eruptions. Her words of hot seething lava scalded and her tears
stung him like wasps. Constantly there was the sound of her in his
ears. Her weeping and her screaming.
The bloody engine would never start first time. He never could glide
free and purr along in the early morning haze. Like the bloody gate,
this carbon-choked engine always took its time to capitulate. He was
used to this. Pumping his right foot, he wiped the screen with an old
cloth. Why did he not go right to the bank that day and get himself a
decent car? This bloody heap was an insult. All the curtains were
pulled, all the doors were locked. Just him, the intruder making his
way out of the street, as night turned to day.
The car's painful juddering at last set him into motion. His wife would
not be waving farewell. The children would not wail
"Daddy!"
He was off and out of it again because the emotion of it all was not
for him.

She turns in her morning reverie and remembers that her husband is
always gone by daybreak. A child stirs bit does not wake. She stretches
across the big bed, free of his demands.

The pool is all but empty at this time of the morning, so he takes his
time. He slips into the water with the grey haired folk who habituate
that early shift. A tiny man in goggles fiercely turns at the pool end
and plunges on towards his target time. A couple dawdle at the edge and
chatter. The words echo around the sparsely inhabited pool, so that
every one can hear about someone's heart condition and someone's
daughter's husband's new job. He smiles to himself as points his body
at the other end and glides through the water in perfect arcs. His
breath comes easily as he is, of course, very fit. Later in the shower
he cleanses and refreshes. The hot water feels like ecstasy. His only
regret is the somewhat threadbare towel he purloined from his mother's
airing cupboard. Not quite big enough to do the job, he hurriedly rubs
himself with the nasty thing and dresses carefully. His sports bag is a
mobile vanity suite, into which he has gathered everything a man could
need. Shower Gel, battery razor, skin toner, nail brush and his
father's manicure set, clean underwear and a carefully rolled clean
shirt. It's a veritable cupboard of a bag.

As he now completes these ablutions, she is stirring and responding to
her childrens' calls. She's brushed out her hair and twisted it up into
the familiar roll. Sticky from her husband, she feeds the little girls.
Numb but vaguely satiated from her passionate night. The children
chatter as they all bathe together. She is a child with them and they
all play happily. "This will do" she has persuaded herself again and so
the day rolls on.

At the office, as temperatures outside begin to soar, there has been
great intrigue lately. Everyone is alert and each snatch of gossip
treasured, circulated with discretion and rolled and moulded along its
steaming way. Of course you can only sustain your credibility amongst
others by elaborating a little.
"I've already heard that, but have you heard about his wife's best
friend?"
As he stands in the lift that morning two men from accounts that he
doesn't know are mercilessly tearing their senior manager to shreds. He
has no treasure to offer them but stores their stories for later
re-cycling. At the third floor he exits swiftly, leaving them still
engrossed in it.
He passes down the line with the ritual chummy welcomes
"My man!"
"Morning bastard"
"Roy you old bugger"
"Where were you last night?"
"You dirty bugger. None of your business."
"Roy you dog."
He sits himself at last at his computer and strikes a key. It is
suddenly as if someone has walked over his grave, as his wife's
derisive jeering voice echoes through him
"And you should go and fuck your mummy if you won't love me now.
Meanwhile, I shall tell my daddy if you don't."
A wave of nausea grips him and he rushes out to the men's room to sneak
a cigarette from through the tiny open window. This is not a thing that
he makes a habit of. Crouching there on the cracked toilet seat, the
apparition of his raging bull father in law striding into his office
and demanding satisfaction now takes on a slightly ludicrous quality.
He summons a cheeky response
"Whose? Hers or mine?". He practices an innocent look and then imagines
the vastness of his father in law's underpants. He imagines him
straining painfully on the toilet. Thus he puts off the pain of the
shuddering moment when the mighty Patriarch will demand his balls on a
plate.

At home, his wife has begun her daily chores in her search for the kind
of perfection that will trap him forever. The children must be happily
entertained. They must have fresh air, so she walks them to the park
and dutifully pushes each one on the swing, returning home to prepare
the evening meal. Her preparations are always most elaborate because
she believes it is the way to his heart. Each day is a clean slate for
her to draw a pretty picture of domesticity and sensuality upon. All
this to charm her wayward husband. As she bends to pick up the Hoover,
a moment of passion will surge through her, as she recalls his embrace.
Her appetite for him is insatiable. In the back of her mind she knows
he is utterly lost to her and that she is a stupid slut for him, but
she pushes that way back into the caverns and blocks is with a boulder
of stubbornness.
"He is mine. Not hers. One day he will ditch her and her stinking kids
and beg me to take him back."
It is very late when the blue Audi rolls up outside, stereo blaring
soul music in the middle of the night. There was no point in preparing
that meal for him. Was there ever? He had eaten at his parents' house.
A pleasant spicy meal with a good claret. He had lingered to chat in
the garden, he father always enjoying the full detail of his days at
the office. Their impression, encouraged by his lies, is that his wife
is a very busy and independent woman. They sense that their son suffers
a little and therefore cosset him whenever they can. His father will
always pop ?10 into his pocket when his mother is out of the room. He
appears to have an endless supply of them about him.
Leaving his dear parents, he proceeds to a bar and then to Jeanette,
his lover. With this woman he can relax at last. She is adorable. One
day soon he will move in with her.
Later back at his own home, his keys fall onto the step, as he tries
the obstinate lock. All at once she is there reproachful, seething. In
her passion, she looks wonderful he desires her there and then on the
door-step. He grabs at her. She smacks away his hand.
" I made a meal"
" I ate at mummy's."
"Did you fuck her?"
"Don't be filthy. Come here and fuck me."
She punches him hard in the stomach, winding him severely.
The door slams. The screaming begins. She screeches and wails her
lament, whilst in the back of her mind she knows she is killing any
possibility of his return. She cannot help this. She is the lost wife.
The lone parent of his children. The cuckcolded. The abandoned. He
mutters and apologizes. He always does. He whines about his job. He
knows that he is wrong. All he wants is bed. He has come home to her
body. He makes feeble attempts to soothe her. He has to wait for an age
until her wailing grinds to a halt and their passion overtakes them. It
is their routine. Yet in the back of her mind something has really
begun to shift. The boulder has definitely moved.
Another morning not quite arrived, he once more steps clear of the
house. There is a fine drizzle and he hurries to his car. He thinks
painfully of his little girls. He hasn't seen them for three days now,
but he cannot bear his wife's agony, so the gate clangs, a dog barks
and folk turn in their sleep, as he drives away.
"Come back! Come back!" she screams in dreams.
"Love me now. Don't go to your mummy," she howls.
She turns to find a huge red poppy engulfing her and dusting her with
pollen. She dives into the centre and finds herself in a dark pool. She
is cold. She struggles to the edge of what is now a rock pool and all
at once she is climbing free of the cold water. She notices that her
thigh is bleeding from a deep gash. The blood trickles down her leg and
she falls back into a swoon.
All at once she is wide awake. Her husband has as usual gone from her
side and she grabs at his pillow to hold close in her isolation. The
little girls are still fast asleep and she can take a moment for
herself. Still hugging the pillow, she quietly makes her way downstairs
where she makes real coffee and thick toast. She reads her magazines
and hugs her pillow.
Of course there are moments of desolation for him too. The shame and
embarrassment of his wife's screams which reverberates through the
neighbourhood in the early hours. This makes him feel like an alien in
his own house. It is, after all, his wage that pays their mortgage.
Leaving so early in the morning, sets him free from the humiliation of
the searching looks of his good neighbours.
"If she would only shut the fuck up" he mutters as he drives to
work.
"Is there no depth to which she will not stoop?"
Then he remembers her tongue on his body and shudders. It is a
passionate trap. His wife is quite mad, but so intensely beautiful and
satisfying that he cannot break free. Again, his little girls are there
in his thoughts, like echoes across barren hillscapes.
"Daddy! Daddy!" they will cry so excitedly when they see him
next.

(to be continued)