Keeping a secret is like being constipated. It’s a pain in the arse and then, sooner or later, it all comes out anyway.
I’ve somehow lost two hours through watching mindless television, skimming around the internet, browsing videos of cute dogs, scrolling through Facebook and finding out what type of cheese I am via a Buzzfeed test. I am a cheddar because, apparently, people know where they stand with me. I can only imagine that being a stilton involves crumbling at the first sign of resistance and stinking like old socks.
David yawns his way into the living room at a few minutes past six in the evening and heads to the kitchen. ‘I needed that nap,’ he says, partly to himself. He rests on the counter, waiting for the kettle to boil as he fiddles with his phone. ‘I thought you had classes?’
‘I had to cancel them.’
‘You’re still not feeling well…?’
‘Not really.’
He takes a couple of slices of bread and starts to smear margarine across the surface. ‘Do you think you need to go to the doctor? You might have the flu. I think it’s going around.’
‘It’s not the flu,’ I say.
He drops the mucky knife into the sink and returns the margarine tub to the fridge, before removing a block of cheese. He picks up a sharp chopping blade from the block and stands poised.
‘What do you think it is?’ he asks.
‘I’m pregnant.’
It’s what we talked about; what we wanted – and yet, now it’s here, everything is wrong. There’s a sinking sensation in my stomach that isn’t down to the pregnancy. It feels like I’ve woken up on an airbed with a leak and that I’m being swallowed into the centre.
The cheese hits the floor as David stares open-mouthed across the room, knife still in his hand.
‘Pregnant?’
‘Yes.’
‘But we haven’t…’
‘That night before you went away a month ago.’
He nods, but he’s dazed, like he’s staring into the sun. It’s not like he could have forgotten that night.
‘Are you sure?’ he asks.
‘About when it happened?’
‘About whether you’re pregnant.’
I wasn’t sure how David would respond – but this is probably the one question I didn’t expect.
‘There are pregnancy test kits in the bin under the sink if you want to check. I’ve peed on them, though.’
He takes a breath, steps backwards, steps forward, scratches his arm, then pulls up his trousers. All the while, he never stops staring – and he doesn’t put down the knife.
I get to my feet and cross to the counter. It’s all that separates us.
‘I thought this was what you wanted,’ I say.
David shakes his head slowly and it’s now that I notice the tears that ring his eyes: ‘It’s not mine, is it?’
‘Why would you say that?’
His tone is firm and unerringly knowing. ‘Tell me.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘Whose it is?’
‘It’s yours.’
The knife wavers in his hand, but then he grips it tighter. I can see the veins bulging in his arm as he squeezes the handle.
‘I had a vasectomy,’ he says, looking up to catch my eye and hang onto it.
‘What?’ I say, stumbling. ‘When?’
‘Before the engagement party.’
I remember him limping around the room at the rugby club because of what he said was a running injury. It didn’t sound right at the time – but so much of what David says doesn’t sound right. I figured it was another white lie to disguise something unimportant – now it couldn’t be more important.
‘I’ve never wanted children,’ he adds flatly. His stare is stone cold, a different person from the man who gazed longingly at me along the wedding aisle.
‘It was your idea to try for a child!’ I say. ‘When we were on the bridge, you brought it up.’
It’s as if a switch has been flicked as, suddenly, I get it. It’s like minor politicians promising policies they’ll never have to implement because they have zero chance of winning an election. It was easy for David to suggest us having a baby because he knew it wouldn’t work. As long as we were trying, we would be together. It gave a foundation to our marriage. Without that, perhaps there was no purpose for us as a couple. He knew I had doubts all along and this was his way of keeping me.
I’ve finally seen the truth – and he knows it.
‘How much of this is a lie?’ I ask.
‘You tell me.’
‘Me? This whole have-a-baby-thing was a trick to keep me with you. Like everything. The fake trips, the fact you and Ben were never good uni friends. I’m asking you how much of the last two years have been a lie?’
David doesn’t flinch and it feels like any warmth I ever saw in him was a mirage. Perhaps I did that to him?
‘You first,’ he says, with steady and terrifying calmness.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re pregnant, but it can’t be mine – so who were you with?’
It feels like the truth doesn’t matter any longer. Things are broken anyway.
‘You,’ I say. ‘Only you.’
‘Whose is it?’
He repeats the line three times, with each time sounding more and more like a growl. I simply stare at him, not sure what to stay. I can see his forearms starting to tremble as his upper body tenses. I’ve never seen him like this before. This is a different person and, perhaps for the first time since we met, I realise how helpless I could be up against him.
‘Tell me.’ His lips move but his teeth are clenched.
‘David—’
‘You’ve destroyed us,’ he says. He should be shouting but his tone is steady, almost calm – which makes it feel so much more dangerous. ‘You’re ruined everything. I’d have done anything for you – but you’re just like all the others.’
‘I—’
I don’t have a finish to the sentence and it’s only now that I remember the knife. The overhead light catches the blade as it sags in David’s hand. He notices it too and suddenly grasps it tighter.
It’s strange how things that happen the quickest can feel as if they’re occurring in slow motion. At regular pace, it’s easy to miss the details. Two people side by side can spot completely different things in the same scene.
Even though everything happens in an instant, I see it all with absolute clarity. David lunges towards the side of the counter, the knife clenched in his hand; the tip angled in my direction. His teeth are bared, like a cornered animal; his arm muscles tensed. In a blink, he slashes the knife towards me. The glint of the kitchen lights flash off the blade as it arcs through the air towards my cheek. My back is pressed hard into the counter and I feel the swish of the air as it passes millimetres away from my skin when I angle away.
I’m acting on instinct as I grab the Tigger head pot from the counter at my side. David’s attempt to cut me has left him slightly off-balance and, as he straightens to come at me again, I throw the pot towards him. Anything to gain myself a second or two so that I can dash towards the door.
I’ve always had some degree of fitness and athletic ability – but I never tried javelin or discus when I was young. I didn’t play cricket or rounders and threw ‘like a girl’ according to the boys I was at school with.
Not today.
The throw couldn’t be more perfect, or devastating. David glances to his own hand, as if surprised he is still holding the knife and, in that millisecond, the pot thunders into his temple. His eyes roll into his head as he slumps to the side, thwacking his other temple on the corner of the counter. His head snaps back and then he drops limply to the floor, surrounded by broken ceramics, unmovingly still.
There’s a sudden second of silence and I’m gasping for breath as I take a couple of steps towards the door. Flight not fight… except that David hasn’t moved.
There’s something else…
When I glance down, there is a drizzle of red across the centre of my top. I’m not sure how I missed it – but there is a throbbing sting as I touch the base of my neck and then remove my blood-soaked fingers.
David’s knife didn’t miss me.