Page 37 of My Husband's Wife
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I don’t know how much time has passed before I slowly come round. Every part of my body screams in pain and I can’t see. I don’t know if I’ve been out of it for ten minutes, or several hours. Actually, I can see but there’s nothing to see except the four sides of the pitch-black box that I’m contained in.
I panic. I’ve been buried alive. I touch the side of my head and it’s sticky with what has to be blood. Heart banging, I yell, scream, and pound on the hardwood then I remember seeing aquamarine. I know who put me in this box. ‘Help me. Let me out, Nicole,’ I yell as I burst into tears. Why has she done this to me? My head hurts and I can’t think straight. It’s like my brain has been substituted for cotton wool. I’m going to die and although I feel like I deserve it, I want to go home to Caiden and hug him hard, tell him how much I love him and how sorry I am for what I did all those years ago.
I’m never getting out of here. It hits me that I’m never going to see my son again. My mind is telling me Hugo brought me here because I know he is capable of murder – but he didn’t. For whatever reason, Nicole smashed my head into a rock several times and she’s put me in this box and left me here to die, and I deserve it because I left Caiden to die all those years ago. This is my punishment. There is one thing I can’t fathom: why is Nicole doling out the punishment?
Thirty
Madison
Madison glances at the clock on the wall behind her client. Being pregnant was a miracle, that’s for sure. Or was it simply biology? She was going with biology with miraculous undertones. ‘I adore this mistletoe-berry red,’ she said to Christie, one of her regular customers, while trying not to think about the nauseous churning in her gut. It’s typical; she’s a beautician, a hairdresser and a nail technician. Why couldn’t she have an aversion to sausages instead of nail polish or nail polish remover? And why were her assistants, Orla and Tammy, both at lunch at the same time?
‘Are you okay? Your green complexion isn’t exactly complementing your red hair. You look more Christmassy than my nails,’ Christie replies, her head tilting in sympathy.
Chuckling, Madison waits for Christie’s nails to cure under the lamp. ‘It’s the nail varnish. I thought the sickness went after a few weeks; I’ve been sick all the way through.’
‘That sucks. It happened to me too. I bet that little bun in the oven will be out soon.’
Madison places a loving hand on her bump. ‘And Mummy can’t wait because Mummy would like to not have to pee every five minutes; she’d like to be able to cut her own toenails and she’d definitely love a glass of wine.’ She grimaces. She intends to breast feed so wine might be out of the question for a long time.
‘Weather’s a bit yuck at the moment.’
‘It is,’ Madison says for the fourth time that day. It’s still grey and there is still a frost on the road outside, but then again, it’s early December. What did anyone expect?
‘Have you been on holiday this year?’ Christie asks.
Another question that always gets asked. ‘Yes, we stayed in Loch Ness.’
‘Did you see the monster?’ Christie chuckles.
Madison forces a smile. It’s pretty obvious she didn’t see a monster because the monster is a myth as far as she’s concerned, but she’s learned never to express an opinion, because that would result in losing customers. ‘I saw a monster.’
Christie scrunches her brows. ‘Tell me more.’
Madison shakes her head. ‘Only joking.’ But she’s not joking. She knew it had been a tall order getting Theo to go on holiday, what with his agoraphobia. If he had it his way, he’d never leave the house; but she had needed to leave the house before she went insane; anyway, if he couldn’t leave the house, what had all the therapy been for? What she hadn’t banked on was him leaving her alone in Loch Ness with no phone signal, in the middle of nowhere, for a whole night, in a creaky cottage. He’d left a note that said, ‘I need some space’. On his return, he apologised profusely, saying he had some sort of anxiety meltdown and didn’t want to upset her. What kind of monster leaves someone alone with no way out, no provisions, and no phone and car, with no word on when they’d be back? So much for his agoraphobia. She remembered having her hiking bag packed the next day, just before his return. It was only seven miles to civilisation, but still, it was far enough.
‘Right, you can remove your hands now.’ She grabs the cuticle oil, ready to massage it in.
Speak of the devil. The door rings as Theo walks in, carrying a box of something she knows she’ll find yummy. He’s frowning and that bothers her. ‘Excuse me a moment, Christie.’
She leaves her client and leads Theo to the other side of the salon, knowing that Christie can still see them through all the mirrors. He thrusts the box at her. ‘Pasta salad,’ is all he says.
Madison takes the lunchbox and places it on one of the empty salon chairs. ‘Thank you. Is everything okay?’
His brow is a little damp with perspiration. He removes his glasses and begins massaging his tired looking eyes. ‘It’s the photo.’
With furrowed brows, she waits for him to elaborate. ‘What photo?’
He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through her Facebook page. ‘This.’
He holds it up in front of her face.
‘Faye’s wedding hair?’ Madison is proud of her work. It’s one of the best she’s ever done, which is why she chose to show it off on her page, and it’s the only photo she took. She had planned to put that photo onto her website too.
He jabs at the phone with his index finger. ‘That’s me, in the corner.’
So that’s what his mood was about. He’d popped into frame just as she snapped the photo. ‘No one’s looking at you. It’s about the hair. You’re barely in it and does it matter really?’
