Bright was struggling to make supper, stirring a pan on the stove. On the other side of the kitchen, the telephone rang and the kettle began to boil simultaneously. He stopped what he was doing and rushed over to attend to them. He answered the phone first – more out of habit than necessity – then pulled the whistle out, stopping the din from piercing his eardrums. It had to be said, he wasn’t having a good day, at work or at home. Pouring water over a teabag already in a china pot, he barked his name into the phone.
A man’s voice came on the line. ‘It’s Trent.’
‘Trent who?’ Bright said impatiently.
‘Sorry, wrong number.’
The line went dead.
Bright looked at Stella, the woman he’d loved with a passion since the day they had met some thirty years before, now a shadow of her former self. ‘Charming,’ he said. ‘You been up to no good, love? Guy called Trent on the phone, no manners, younger than me by the sound of it. Having a clandestine affair, are you? Would have to be a secret with a name like Trent.’
A tear rolled silently down Stella’s cheek. She was at the kitchen table in her wheelchair, her frame shrivelled, her eyes fixed to a point on the far wall.
‘Dinner won’t be long now, love,’ Bright said.
Of course it would be long! It always was.
Bright smiled at his wife, trying hard to mask his feelings. He wasn’t cut out for domesticity in any form. He’d barely coped since the accident, was too proud – or was it too stupid? – to ask for help. He had struggled to keep up appearances both at home and at work when he was barely hanging on.
Pouring Stella’s tea, he added water from the mains tap to cool the temperature, then tipped it into a child’s beaker and lifted it to her lips, his thoughts turning to a little boy whose parents were relying on the murder investigation team to bring his killer to justice. And they damned well would, even if they had to work day and night to do it.
And still his wife continued to stare from those vacant eyes, trying to send a message she couldn’t put into words. Bright followed her gaze to the cooker and looked on in horror as the unappetizing contents of the pan on the stove made their own way out, oozing over the edge into a congealed mess he knew would take hours to clean up.
‘Fuck’s sake!’ he yelled, slamming his fist on the table.