So it was midday last Thursday, on the way to town – drizzling. It’s Britain, what do you expect? Had to wear that big black coat with those hideous, chunky pink buttons Gareth bought me. Quite a scandalous cut, so I think was it meant for her? Kim. Is that who it was bought for? Bigger question, were the buttons pink or fuchsia? I hated the feel of it. Should've pawned the thing. A hundred or so would've gone a long way after the “Egos Fiasco”. Good Lord! Everyone was watching, it was an absolute embarrassment. Even next door managed to find out. Came knocking with their flowers. Now those were fuchsias I can tell you. Can't bear the things.
But anyway, midday Thursday, and I had to go into town to get some things:
− Hat − Cake − Party poppers − Bunting
And in the medicine aisle: − Something for the pain
I knew the plan by then.
(I didn't even know how much the trolley was coming to, but was hoping it wouldn't run over whatever was on my card. I had to take care of those things, since Gareth and I . . .had chosen to continue in different paths.)
I couldn't get the “Egos Fiasco” out of my head. You know those moments in life where everything suddenly changes at once and you can just feel everything you ever worked for and loved slip, far too easily and much too quickly, away? That was Egos -
You know, I’ll really miss Egos, our go-to Mediterranean, with our go-to balcony spot if we called ahead. Not like I can go there any more though after the scene Kim created. I didn't know who she was at the time. She just walked in, all make-up and extensions, bold-as-brass and started howling at Gareth with her gutter mouth...
Got what was coming for her. She'll be combing mushroom ravioli from her hair for a month, I tell you! Who did she think she was? A hairdresser – all X Factor and celebrity gossip and text messaging and fake tan without a single GCSE I bet. Wouldn’t know what hard work was if it crash landed in her bed and spat in her morning Frappuccino.
But Gareth? Oh, Gareth . . . He had it easy. So, so easy. He got to keep his money, his respect and escape from me, as he saw it. Getting away with murder, that's what it was. It was consuming me, the pain. Growing.
- Something for the pain. That's what I needed.
So I swerve the trolley into the medicine aisle, a bit of a skip in my step as I do so. Christmas coming in mid-October. Paracetamol! That’s the plan – packets and packets and packets of the stuff – the more the better! CCTV on my back, the shop assistants circling like vultures, there are probably spies posing as a married couple in the frozen foods aisle, so everything gets tipped into my pockets and down my trousers like I'm smuggling across the Mexican border, and before you know it I'm twice the size I was when I entered, with white packaging poking out my sleeves.
That would ease the pain.
Let’s discuss Gareth’s milk drinking habits. He’s a sucker for milk – in
his morning coffee, tea, cereal, custard, anything – guzzles like a babe at a teat! Four bottles of it delivered to the door every other morning; he really is an addict. And after fifteen years of living in the same house as that man, if there's one thing I know, it's that he's not a morning person. He stumbles about, picks up the wrong things, eyesight all blurry . . . can’t taste properly . . . So when, every other morning, he goes to open the bottle of milk, he barely even looks at it – just tears it open and drinks without a single moment of thought.
It's surprisingly easy to contaminate a milk bottle.
Next door managed to find out. Came knocking with their flowers. How awfully tragic that Gareth suffered such an unexpected decline into liver failure. You must be devastated. Here, have these, we cut them from the garden this morning. I hear lilies are appropriate. Yes, how awfully tragic, I agree, unsure whether they’ve noticed the bunting I’ve hung up in the hallway, or the final sweet crumb of Wake Cake on my bottom lip. Oh me.
I might wear that big black coat to Gareth's funeral next week. Shows off my hips.
Sam Spencer
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