How best to kill him she thought? She stared down at her husband. Tom was lying on his back, his mouth slackly open, snoring noisily. He had seemed to fall asleep almost immediately they had retired to bed, while she lay there, crying softly in the dark. She couldn’t sleep; even his snoring seemed yet one more weapon deployed against her. She knew he hadn’t really gone to sleep that quickly; that he had lain there awake, deliberately ignoring her obvious misery.
God, she hated him. She thought back over the day’s events. Their daughter, Claire, had travelled down up from Cambridge for the weekend. Claire was a researcher for one of the big pharmaceutical companies, Astra something or other. Margaret could never remember. She had done a roast dinner for them all and had spent most of the morning preparing it. She had insisted on the two of them going for a walk together down by the river. She said she was fine on her own, more than happy pottering round the kitchen.
As soon as they disappeared, she had poured herself a glass of wine; half a bottle had disappeared by the time they came back but she was careful to hide this in the drinks cabinet in the dining room, behind the malt whiskies Tom only reached for at Christmas, putting a fresh bottle in the fridge to cool. Then she prepared dinner: roast chicken with roast potatoes. a carrot and swede puree, cabbage, broccoli and courgettes. She also prepared a dish of sweet potatoes. Timing was the thing and she prided herself on getting it exactly right, noting the them down on a checklist in a small notebook she kept in the kitchen drawer for expressly this purpose. Except this time she didn’t get it right; she had forgotten to put the sweet potatoes into the oven until the very last moment. Swearing softly under her breath she now put them in. Never mind, she thought, I can serve them late; it will be fine. I’ll just slow everything else down.
Her husband and daughter returned. It had started to rain when they were out and the smell of their damp clothes filled the hallway. They both helped Margaret to serve up, Claire giggling when the chicken leg she tried to lift on to her father’s plate toppled onto the dining room table instead. Margaret pursed her lips; the table was light American oak and she knew how difficult it was to remove stains from it. Tom’s choice. She had wanted something more practical and had remained dubious despite the salesgirl’s assurances in the store. She hurriedly wiped the greasy surface where the chicken leg had fallen with a damp cloth.
“Whoops,” said Tom. “Good job that wasn’t me or I’d be in the doghouse.”
Margaret glared at him, a look that warned him not to do anything that might spoil the afternoon. Tom pretended not to notice.
She left the oven on to give the sweet potatoes another five minutes to cook and then poured both herself and Tom a large glass of wine. A chilled Sancerre, her favourite. A bit expensive at £17.99 from Waitrose but then it was a special occasion.
“You can finish serving up,” she called to her husband. “I’ve done my bit.”
Tom looked at his daughter and shrugged. They both guessed Margaret had been drinking. They whispered to each other in the kitchen, as they gathered up the remaining dishes to bring through.
“Eggshells?” said Claire.
“Eggshells,” Tom agreed.
They were sat at the table in the dining room, their daughter facing them. Margaret stared at herself in the large mirror hung on the wall opposite. I should have arranged things differently, she thought. I should have made sure I was on the opposite side of the table so I wouldn’t have to stare at my own reflection for the duration of the meal. Her face was flushed and blotchy, her hair an untidy mess of dark curls. All this was in sharp contrast to her daughter’s flawless complexion and neat page boy cut. She always looked so perfect. I was never like that. Where on earth does she get it from? Not me anyway, she thought bitterly.
Margaret turned to her husband.
“Can you get me a refill?” she said, holding out her wine glass.
Tom raised an eyebrow.
“You haven’t finished that one yet.”
“Well, it’ll save me getting up again.”
“Fine,” he said.
In the kitchen he noticed the oven was still on and turned it off. He returned with the wine and settled himself to eat. It didn’t escape her notice that he had underfilled it. Moments later, Margaret let out a cry.
“God, I’ve forgotten the sweet potatoes.”
She rushed out to the kitchen.
“Who turned these off? She called.
Tom grimaced.
“I did. I thought you’d left the oven on by mistake.”
“Of course, I bloody didn’t. You knew I had the sweet potatoes in there. I told you they needed a bit longer, that I would bring them out when they were ready. Why don’t you ever listen to me?”
She returned, wearing pink oven gloves and holding the tray of sweet potatoes aloft like a key piece of evidence proffered at a trial. She was sufficiently self-aware to know that she looked ridiculous and the pink oven gloves weren’t helping. Normally, she wore the yellow marigolds but she had torn a hole in them the previous evening whilst trying to clean the oven hob. She had rushed to the small shop on the corner that morning to buy some more but the best they could offer were the hideous pink ones. Yellow marigolds were bad enough but the pink ones were a new low. A disgusting Barbie pink, if anything spoke more to a woman’s place being in the kitchen then she had yet to find it.
“These aren’t cooked,” she said accusingly.
“Well, that’s not my fault,” said Tom, evenly. He was deliberately avoiding her look, staring down at this meal as he carefully sliced another portion of chicken. “You should have put them in earlier.”
“You did this deliberately. You don’t like them so you made sure no-one else would have them either.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re being irrational.”
“You did it deliberately. You’ve ruined this meal.
“Mum,” said Claire, a note of warning in her voice. “We’ve got more than enough vegetables as it is. I’m not that keen on sweet potatoes either, to be honest. I think you’re the only one who really likes them.”
“I spent the whole morning doing this meal and now you’re both throwing it back in my face.”
“Mum, please don’t; you’re spoiling everything.”
“He’s the one who’s spoilt it,’ she said angrily. She banged the tray of sweet potatoes down onto a chopping board she had laid on the table to protect its surface. A globule of hot fat splashed onto one of Claire’s hands and she winced with pain. Margaret pretended she hadn’t noticed and reached for a serving spoon. “Now, who wants this? A brittle brightness in her voice.
Tom stared at her for a moment and then shook his head.
“Claire, what about you; Do you want any?’
“No. I’m fine, Mum, honestly. What I’ve got is more than enough.”
Margaret glared at her. “But you always have sweet potatoes,” she said, her voice a mixture of barely suppressed irritation and desperation for her daughter to take her side.
By now, Claire was struggling to hide her own irritation. “Please, Mum. I honestly don’t want any.”
“Right, so no-one wants them,” she said angrily. “I don’t know why I bother. Your Dad’s ruined this meal, completely ruined it.”
Claire looked at her coldly, as though she were the adult, Claire, a recalcitrant toddler needing to be slapped down.
“Leave it now,” she said. “It was an accident. That’s the end of it.”
She stared at her daughter, tears pricking her eyes. Humiliated by her own daughter, the afternoon spoilt by her unfeeling pig of a husband, almost as though he’d engineered the whole thing. Her own daughter, who she loved to distraction, siding with him.
She stood up.
“I can’t eat now; you’ve ruined everything. I spent all day preparing this meal for the two of you and this is the thanks I get.”
“Margaret,” said her husband despairingly, “please don’t.”
“Mum,” Claire cried, “sit down. Dad didn’t do anything.”
“I can’t,” said Margaret and burst into tears. “I can’t – I can’t bear it. I can’t.”
The following day it was still raining, a low gray pillow of a sky suffocating the town. Her husband had risen early and she could hear him laughing downstairs in the kitchen with their daughter. Thirty years I’ve put up with this she thought; his condescending manner, how he continuously managed to put her down and humiliate her in front of their friends. All innocence afterwards, of course, but he knew exactly what he was doing. Now he had turned their own daughter against her. Well, no more she thought. Today marks the end.
She told them she was going for a walk, needed some fresh air.
“Do you want me to come with you?” said Tom. “It’s still raining by the way. Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“It’s fine. I won’t be long anyway.”
“Make sure you take an anorak—” The sound of his voice was eclipsed by the thump of the front door as it closed. Well, she can’t pretend I didn’t try he thought to himself as he wandered back to the kitchen. Why does she have to make things so difficult all of the time?
The rain became fiercer as she walked, almost as though it was warning her to turn back. Her jeans were damp against her thighs, her trainers already spongy and wet. She immediately regretted not taking a coat but she was damned if she would give him the satisfaction of going back. She imagined the scene: him smirking at her in the hallway as she stood there soaked, dripping water onto the parquet flooring, the flooring she had got up early that morning at 5am to clean and polish in preparation for their daughter’s homecoming. She walked on, cursing him under her breath.
There was a wood close to the house and she turned into it. The plant she needed was close to where a tree had recently fallen, a gaping wound torn in the earth, a hydra’s head of twisted roots at its base. If you were of a certain imaginative or religious bent (which she wasn’t) it almost looked as though the tree had opened up a passage to hell in the dark maw beneath its roots. She stared for a moment at the black bead like berries, each held in a cluster of leaves like a star, small jewels offered up for her admire. She slipped on a pair of disposable plastic gloves she had brought with her and carefully prised a number of the berries away from their casings, quickly filling a small freezer bag. Blueberry muffins, she thought, his favourite. She would need to mix in some of the real berries, of course, to make sure they were sufficiently disguised. She could give him one of the muffins tomorrow once Claire had gone. Would one be enough? She wasn’t sure but it wouldn’t do to do a half-baked job would it? She smiled to herself at the inadvertent pun: half-baked. No, she would have to do some research on the Internet before she started baking, make sure the concentration was enough for just one muffin to do the job. Another problem: she would need to disguise her search history. There was bound to be an inquest and the police would be involved. If she just wiped her history of Google searches would that be enough? Would traces still linger on the hard drive which some Police technician would be somehow able to recover? Perhaps she could get round it by using her laptop computer rather than the desktop in the study? It was an old laptop and she needed a new one anyway. She could still wipe the history and then take it to the local tip. She could put it in the bin outside, of course, but that would be the height of stupidity. She had seen more than enough police dramas to know that would be one of the first places they would look.
When she got back she found a note on the kitchen table written in her husband’s almost illegible scrawl.
Gone for a walk. We’ll buy a paper on the way back.
Good she thought. That will give me the time I need to do these muffins. She found her laptop and did some quick searches. Apparently, ten to twenty belladonna berries would be needed to kill an adult, dependent on their height and weight, of course. Tom was tall, just under six foot, but slim. To give him his due, he looked after himself. Many of her friend’s husbands had morphed into slobs, their large bellies spilling over the tops of their jeans, their clothes assembled from whatever surfaced first from a drawer or wardrobe, or even the laundry bin if they were desperate enough. Ten to twenty would be far too many for a single muffin and she would also need to mix some ordinary blueberries into the dough as well. Still, he was usually greedy enough to finish off two of the muffins at a single sitting so that should be enough, surely. Once made, she placed them in a large cake tin and hid it one of the cupboards behind some packets of cereal. She barely had time to wipe down the work surfaces to remove the residues of flour and pastry left there when she heard the front door open and the two of them bounced into the kitchen.
“Got completely soaked out there,” laughed her husband. “Hmm, something smells nice. You been baking?”
“No, well yes, I made some puff pastry for the chicken and leek pie later.”
Tom sniffed the air.
“Smells sort of sweetish though, a bit like cherries.”
“I think you’re hallucinating dear – probably in need of a sugar rush. How about a nice cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit?”
“Sounds good. Got the paper by the way, although it is a little damp.”
“More than a little damp, Dad – you’ll need a hairdryer to sort that out,” said Claire.
“Do you want tea darling?” said Margaret, turning to her daughter.
“No, I’m fine honestly. I’ll just change out of these wet clothes if that’s OK. Oh look” she said, “I think it’s clearing up.”
They stared out of the window. The sky was patched with blue, the sun peering from behind a curtain of grey cloud like an actor with stage fright.
“Typical” said Tom.
The afternoon brightened enough for the three of them to venture out into the garden. Tom wiped down the metal garden chairs with an old tea towel and adorned them with some blue and cream striped cushions from the garage. Claire made them all a jug of Sangria and regaled them with tales of her flatmates, how inept they were at cooking and how one of them had got so drunk at a wedding reception that he had toppled backwards into a hedge where he lay helpless like an upturned beetle until some of his friends had rescued him. She also told a story from her student days about one of her friends, Amanda, who had tried to make a boiled egg by microwaving it. It had taken the poor girl so long to clean out the residue of the explosion that it was too late to contemplate cooking anything else so she said she would order a takeaway instead from the local Chinese. ‘Good idea,’ Claire told her. ‘Make sure you get some egg fried rice with it as well.’ It was a weak joke but at the time, utterly hilarious and they had all collapsed laughing.
It was all so enjoyable, Margaret finally started to relax. The wine had worked its slow magic and with the sun gently warming her face, she felt her anger at her husband slowly seep away.
At one point Claire disappeared into the garage to fetch some more ice from the freezer for the Sangria. She came back not with the ice but instead brandishing two hula hoops.
“Remember these Dad? You taught me how to use one of these when I was ten years old which is a bit of a joke because if I remember you were pretty rubbish at it.”
“I was not,” said Tom. “I think I was pretty good.”
“Well, you can prove it now then,” said Claire.
“You’re on – hand me one of them and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Tom gingerly stepped into the hoop and lifted it to his waist. He expertly spun the hoop, his hips moving smoothly to keep it spinning.
“Not bad for an old ‘un,” laughed Claire.
“Less of the old if you don’t mind,” said Tom and he winked at Margaret.
Margaret smiled up at him. She had a sudden vision of their wedding day. He had turned and winked at her in exactly the same way when she arrived at his side, having made her way slowly up the aisle of the church, her father nervously clutching her arm. She had taken care to be exactly four minutes late before entering the church as dictated in the many books on wedding etiquette she had read. This she learned was to build the appropriate sense of occasion for her grand entrance. She had also learned in her research that Elizabeth Tayor sometimes arrived half an hour late, or even worse, but she thought that might be pushing it rather. The priest did, after all, have another wedding arranged after theirs. Taylor had famously said that ‘a bride is never late; everyone else is simply early.’
Then on the exit from the church that supremely beautiful organ music by Mendelssohn, the March recessional from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, played by one of Tom’s close friends. What a gloriously memorable and perfect day it had been. Then the honeymoon night; Tom, playing the fool in the bedroom singing Nellie the Elephant as he tromped his way around their bedroom, his baggy underpants pulled up high around his waist, making him look even more ridiculous. How she had laughed. She didn’t believe she had ever laughed as much as she had that night. When did the laughter stop?
She looked again at her husband. He had moved on to trying to keep two hoola hoops aloft around his waist and was looking even more ridiculous. Claire was hooting with laughter, tears running down her cheeks.
How giddy and fun filled their early years together had been before life had begun to grind them down. For a while she sat there in a reverie. What had gone wrong she wondered? They had been so happy.
She suddenly remembered the muffins. I have to get rid of them. What was I thinking? Have I lost my mind?
“Are you alright Margaret? You look –“
“I’m fine. I’ve forgotten to do something. I’ll be back in a second.”
“Is it something I can help with?”
“No, no it’s fine honestly.”
She went back into the kitchen and stared out at them; they weren’t looking back. They were laughing and smiling and engaged in animated conversation. The sun disappeared behind some clouds and it seemed suddenly darker. She bent down to retrieve the cake tin and carefully lifted the lid. She had made six muffins. Two were missing.