I drive the familiar stretch of road again. Edging the darkness of the jagged trees along the top of the valley, I notice the sky is beginning to dim, as if its strength is failing. The clocks went back last week and we are losing the light. It happens gradually every year, the slip into winter. Unless you are diligent, it can creep up on you, leaving you in flat darkness. A never-changing nothing that makes my teeth ache.
The pressure of the town eases as I drive on. To my left, the dense forest begins. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of pink between the trees, but when my head turns, it is gone. I reach to switch the radio on.
After a few songs have passed, I hear myself singing along softly. The tune isn’t one I recognize, but the words keep coming, filling the car. After a while, I put my hand to my mouth. It is closed. The voice keeps singing. I jerk the wheel, trying to get away from her, and before I know it, I have swerved onto the grass verge and my foot has slipped from the accelerator. The engine has cut out. The car is full of silence and the screen of the radio is blank.
I look ahead at the empty grey road sloping upward, listening for the voice, but it doesn’t return. Though I tell myself it was my imagination, something in me longs to hear it. Nothing happens. I look out over the valley to my right: this is the highest point of the drive home. I can see the water spreading behind me around the hills. From here, the spire of the white church is a pinprick, and I remember how dangerous it looked when I stood directly below it, looking up at the sky.
There is nothing left to do but continue, so I turn on the car engine, pushing my juddering foot down onto the accelerator, hearing the revs echo through the space.
Eventually, I turn into our lane. It’s long and narrow, rounding a bend so that our house is out of sight from the main road. The house sits back, lower down, hidden behind the skeletons of the trees, its oversized roof sloping towards the ground. The white shutters look dirty and a collection of old leaves have blown onto the wide raised porch.
I watch as the front door opens and a woman walks out onto the stone doorstep. She carries a child on her hip, a boy with blond hair, and she is wearing my red apron, splattered with what looks like cake batter. She smiles as she puts the little boy on the ground and begins to sweep the leaves. I hear her humming to herself. The little boy watches her with wide eyes. He reaches his arms out to her, and when she is finished, she scoops him up and runs back into the house with him. I can hear their laughter intertwining. Then the door closes and the house is as it was.
Walking up the steps to the front door, I can see my breath. The rolled-up parcel is no longer on the window ledge. I try to see where Hector is in the house; none of the downstairs lights are on. I slide the key into the lock.
In the kitchen, I open the fridge door: the mix of colours and the tight squeeze of everything inside make me feel warm. I couldn’t fit anything else in if I tried, but I still like to go to the market at one o’clock every day. It is a habit I can’t seem to break.
I check the clock.
Normally, I would be expecting Hector back soon: I would be preparing the dinner. Since our honeymoon, I don’t remember him taking a single day off, or coming home before the usual time.
I wipe down the kitchen surfaces. That’s ten more minutes gone. Then I check the teapot. The cigarettes are not there.
The kitchen table is strewn with empty envelopes: Hector must have opened the post. Scooping them into a pile, I open the bin lid to throw them away.
The cigarette packet is in the bin. Gingerly, I pick it out. It’s damp, the cigarettes inside soaked through: they’ve been run under the tap. A couple have avoided the water. I slide them out and put the packet back where I found it.
Slowly, I walk through the kitchen and up the stairs, looking down the long dark corridor towards Hector’s study, listening for him. There’s a bar of light under the door: a shadow moves across it. I walk to our bedroom, leaning down on my side of the bed and sliding the two dry cigarettes under the mattress, feeling the springs stretch.
When I pull my hand back out from under the mattress, it won’t come. It’s as if something is holding it there and I can’t get away. My arm is drawn further in; I feel a pain at the tip of my finger and cry out. Then, without warning, I am released and thrown backwards.
Reaching over, I turn on my bedside light. My index fingernail is torn right down: a line of blood begins to appear.
I lift the mattress up with both hands and peer underneath it, but there is nothing there. Looking again at my finger, I wonder if I did that to myself and have only just noticed it. All the fingers are bitten, but this is the worst one. I pull myself up, wipe my hands on my trousers, and return to the brightness of the kitchen.
I run my hands under the warm tap for a long time, dousing them with soap and scrubbing. The water gets hotter and hotter, until my index finger stings at the raw edges, but I hold them there, until they are clean again.