CORROSION

(Trigger warning: Contains strong language and graphic scenes of domestic abuse. If this is likely to upset you, I beg you not to read. Thanks.)

CHARLES RISES LIKE a corpse from an open grave, shuffles across the room and disables the alarm clock. He knows the time, but looks anyway — 05:45 — and sits down on the end of his bed. Enough light from the downstairs hall climbs the stairs, providing a dim glow to the dark room.

With painful difficulty Charles puts on his socks. He has a watermelon gut and tightropes for joints. His fifty-three-year-old body is decomposing, although his barrel chest and thick biceps still project the illusion of a bull. He steps into his ironed trousers, buttons his shirt, puts on his standard-issue V-neck jumper, sits back down on the bed and with more difficulty ties the laces of his polished shoes.

While unfolding himself, Charles catches his silhouette mimicking his movements in the mirror. He can make out his face, puffy, like that of a Siberian potato farmer. Grey stubble, but the hair on his head has remained stubbornly black. He fingers a touch of Vaseline into it and flattens it to the left, then switches off the light and goes downstairs.

Jacqui Winston is standing in front of the full-length mirror in the hallway, dressed in her work uniform and a new pair of black leather boots, applying mascara to her eyelashes.

Charles watches his wife from the bottom step. Jacqui ignores him. Charles steps forward, so that the tips of his toes are touching the side of his wife’s foot. Jacqui rolls her eyes and lets out a sigh.

“What do you want, Charles?” she says, without looking at him or his reflection.

“What do I want?” Charles says calmly. “What do I want? You fucking slut!”

“I beg your pardon!” Jacqui snaps.

“You heard,” Charles says, still calm. “You must think I was born yesterday. That what you do after he’s done fucking you, is it? Lie in his arms and laugh about what a mug I am.”

Jacqui laughs mockingly. “What are you talking about now, you silly little man?” She squints in the mirror, applying the finishing touches of mascara.

“The thing that’s killing me,” Charles says slowly, “is not that you’re a whore. I’ve always known that. But that you lie to my face, like I’ve got the word CUNT stamped on my forehead in capital letters, even while you watch me slowly dying under your nose.”

Jacqui Winston screws the lid on the mascara and zips up her make-up bag. She knocks loudly on the closed bedroom door behind her and walks down the hallway, shouting, “Get up, Dean! You’ll be late for your paper round!”

Charles follows his wife down the narrow hallway, muttering in her ear.

“I’ll slit his throat. Kill the pair of you. How can you do this to me, you bitch. That’s right, I know all about it. You’re not as clever as you think you are. In fact you’re stupid.”

“You need help!” Jacqui says, tapping her temple with a finger. “You ain’t all there!” 

Charles pushes through the toilet door on the left, drops to his knees and heaves up the same concoction of bile, acid and blood that splashes from his gut into the bowl every morning. Straining the muscles in his abdomen, chest, neck. Making his neck and face red and bringing tears to his bloodshot eyes.

Once it’s all out, he pulls himself up with the help of the wall, wipes his mouth with toilet paper, brushes the knees of his trousers, and hears his son’s bike being wheeled out the front door and the front door closing. He has a bitter taste in his mouth. He leaves the toilet without flushing and locates his wife standing in the kitchen, drinking tea.

“So are you going to tell me who he is or just keep lying to me?”

Jacqui rinses her mug, puts it on the draining board, turns and faces her husband.

“Tell you who who is? There is no one! You’re a crazy old pisshead! Can’t you see it! You’ve lost your mind and you need help! We can’t go on like this!”

Charles stands in the doorframe. There is no kitchen door because Charlie smashed it with a chair and never got it replaced. Likewise there is no door between living room and hallway. Over the years, Charlie’s anger has destroyed everything. Jacqui attempts to push past him, but Charles puts his hand round his wife’s neck and pushes her backwards. Jacqui looks up at her husband with excited eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching.

“Get out of the way, you stupid arse!” Jacqui says. “I’ve got things to do and you’ll miss your train.”

“Not until you tell me who the cunt is that you’re up at dawn putting make-up on for! The cunt you’re wearing those boots for! The cunt you’re wearing that perfume for! The cunt you didn’t want me to meet at your work Christmas party, that’s why you didn’t invite me!” Charles’s eyes are bulging. Spit flies from his mouth. “Who’s it for? Cos it ain’t for fucking me, is it!”

“Did you ever think,” Jacqui says serenely, “that it might be for me? That a woman might want to feel attractive for herself. Why should it be for a man? When was the last time you made me feel attractive or, heaven forbid, loved? Now get out of the way, you ridiculous man!”

“Me make you feel attracted or loved!” Charles’s eyes wetten like sponges. “When was the last time you touched me? Hugged me? Kissed me? Asked about my day? We sleep in separate beds! We don’t go out! You don’t invite me to parties! You don’t love me, admit it!”

“How can I invite you anywhere,” Jacqui says, “when all you do is get pissed and end up either picking a fight or doing something to humiliate me. You’re an alcoholic! I told you after what you did at your cousin’s birthday party that was the last time I was ever going anywhere with you! I still haven’t lived that down!”

“Oh, I see,” Charles says, “I’m an alcoholic…” He pauses. “How many alcoholics do you know who get up at quarter to six every morning and go to work, never a day off sick, never late? Doesn’t sound like any alcoholic I ever knew!”

Charles steps into the living room, takes his flask out of his work bag, fills it with vodka from the bottle under the kitchen sink, puts it in his bag, slings the bag over his shoulder and steps into the cold, damp morning air, and starts walking briskly down the hill to not miss the train.

Apologies for the abusive dialogue. That's how the character speaks. To censor it would make the story inauthentic.