Snow had been falling since early morning, thick, wet flakes that clung to the tarmac, turning the carriageway into a ribbon of treacherous ice. Olivia gazed out of the side window of their black Land Rover, not seeing the swirling snow nor the strobing streetlights. Her whole being was gripped by the cold stone inside her chest and the monotonous drone of her solicitor, whose words came muffled through the phone gripped in her sweaty hand.
Any property acquired prior to the marriage remains entirely your husbands, Mrs Olivia Harper. Even if youre named on the utility bills or have lived there for seven years. The flat wont be split in the divorce.
She rested the mobile in her lap, unmoving. Seven years. Seven years spent transforming a soulless flat on the outskirts of Manchester into something resembling a homeagonising over paint swatches, hunting for curtains, trawling websites for the perfect lamp to soften the spot by the settee. Seven years of washing up, cooking, making peace with his never-ending friends shouting laughter at two in the morning, tolerating his unpredictable moods and suspicious remarks. All those years, played out in his fortress, never hers. Now, as the house of cards collapsed after that fateful night hed never returned home, when in the morning she found another womans lipstick mark on his coat and a text with a heart, it was clearshed be the one out on the street. Left with her modest teaching salary and suitcase of clothes.
So? came the sharp question from the drivers seat. Samuel twisted in the seat, not taking his eyes off the road. His face, once so strong, now twisted with his familiar smirk. He already knew. And seemed to relish it.
Olivia turned slowly, eyes bone dry and impossibly wide in her pale face.
The flats yours. You bought it before we married. Theres nothing coming my way.
No reply, just a tightening of his knuckles around the steering wheel. His cheek muscles flexed, a shadow across his jaw.
Thats what I thought. What did you expect, Liv? That Im daft enough to put half my home in your name? Did you think I wouldnt see it coming? His voice oozed satisfaction.
Something snapped. Not the pain of betrayal nor fresh humiliationthose shed chewed over and spat out. This was different: a biting, cold clarity. He hadnt just stopped loving her; he hated her. Years of seeing her not as wife but as squatterssomeone tolerated until he tired of her. Hed planned it all, counted every risk. Like an auditor.
You worked it all out, she said softly, not recognising her voice.
Youve got to. You cant be naive, darling. Soon women like you will be after maintenance once the new laws pass. Ive done you a favour, really. Roof over your head for free these years. Count yourself lucky.
Her trembling, which shed tried to swallow back, was replaced with something stillerdead calm. Ice within, expanding.
Take me home, Sam. Ill pack my things tonight and leave.
Home? He snorted. Its mine. Ive found you a new place already. Look
He swerved abruptly onto the hard shoulder. Theyd almost left the city behind, where the street lamps grew sparse and lorries tore past, spraying water that froze as it hit. The wind was a knifing thing out here, across the empty moor.
Out you go. Clear your head. Have a good think about your life.
Are you mad? Its minus five! Im in slippers! Instinctively, Olivia shrank into the seat.
Move! Out! His shout cracked the silent car. He snapped the central lock, yanked her wrist. She smelled his aftershave, blended now with the last nights gin.
She fought, tried to push him away, but he was much stronger and drunk on rage. His clenched fistadorned with his heavy signet ringstruck her temple. Stars exploded white-hot behind her eyelids, pain flushed through her head. Another blow, her shoulder. He dragged her from the car like a sack. She sprawled on the icy verge, knee cracking painfully against the crash barrier. The door slammed in her face. The black Land Rover roared off, sending a volley of slush in her direction, then dissolved into the storm.
For the first moments she lay there, unable to move. Her body roared with pain, her cheek and temple numb. Now the snow fell directly on her face, melting into bitter tears that at last broke free. She pushed herself to her feet, unsteady. On her feet: thin felt house-slippers, thrown on in a panic after that solicitors call. Her jacketa light thing, useless in this bitter cold.
She fished for her phone. Dead. The charger left behind, plugged into his socket in his flat. No one and nothing for miles, only juggernauts rushing by, blind to a small figure flailing in the darkness.
The fear was almost chewable, thick in her mouth. She understood: he wanted her to suffer, to clear her head, or perhaps worse. No, Sam hadnt planned murder, just wanted her out of sight, like a child throws away an unwanted toy. What happened to her was not his concern.
She had to move. Must keep walking. Anywhere. Olivia braced herself against the wind, shuffling painfully towards the lights of Manchester in the distance, directionless and frozen. Every step jarred her bruised knee. The cold found chinks in her thin clothes, hooked into the skin with iron claws. After five minutes she felt nothing in her toes. After ten, her face was numb and burning. Breaths staggered, wrapping her head in ghostly plumes that crystallised on her lashes.
Through it all, one idea tolled, rhythmic and cold: Hes off celebrating his victory.
That was exactly what Sam was doing. He pulled into the car park of a swanky spa just outside the city, where Tom and Ben, mates from school, as big and boisterous as he, greeted him warmly.
Whats put that grin on you? Kept the flat? Tom clapped him on the back, handing him a whisky.
She left, alright. After a little walk to clear her head in the snow, Sam leered, downing his drink. The familiar warmth ignited in his belly, fuelling his swagger. He bragged: about the solicitor, Olivias face, the hard shoulder, the dramatelling it as comedy, every detail sleazy.
His friends howled in approval. Nice one, Sam! Women these days, all rights and half-shares Good you showed her her place! They sweated in a pine sauna, drank brandy, ordered rare steaks, cackled at crude jokes. Sam felt king of the worldeverything accounted for. Victory, plain and simple.
Beneath the heat of drink and pride, something crawledan awkward itch. The flash of her eyes as he strucknot fear, but emptiness. Like shed already gone, long before hed thrown her out. He gulped more brandy. The night was his.
The party wound down near three in the morning. Swilling, satisfied, Sam got a cab back to his flat. His. Truly his at last. He fumbled for the key, burst into the hall, flicked on the lights.
He froze.
The flat was immaculate. But it was the purity of a mausoleum or museum. Everything of Olivias had vanished. Photographs, embroidered cushions, her books, even her silly African violets on the sillall gone. Worse, it wasnt simply her leavingit was erasure.
She had taken only what was truly hers. With surgical precision, her touch was scrubbed away from every object shed selected or improved over the years.
No curtains at the sitting-room windowshed taken them, the ones shed searched for months, dusty rose. Bare hooks left behind. Paintings and prints theyd hung together removed, only pale rectangles and nail-holes remained. The kitchen shelves were stripped of spice racks, her favourite knives, her beloved mugs, even the paper towel holder was gonea single screw left in the tile.
Sam wandered through, unsteady. The bedroom had no trace of her; half the wardrobe empty, her bedside table removed. Yet shed even taken half his pillowsthe ones shed insisted were better for his neck. In the bathroom, nothing: her shampoos gone, her bubble bath, her dressing gown, even the mat had been pilfered.
He sank to the cold floor in the middle of what was once their lounge, staring at an empty patch of wall. The silence was not absence, but anaemiathe flats soul, its hearth, its ease had been scraped away. Seven years erased, the fortress whittled to a dungeon.
He remembered her last look. Not pain, not pleaonly calculation, cold as his own. Shed never planned to freeze on the road. Shed given him the performance he wanted, the victims exit. Then, while he drank champagne, shed returned. Probably in the same taxi. Had the audacity to come back, and meticulously rewrite the place, not a tear shed.
He surged to his feet, pounding the wall, rage fizzing in his chest. Cow! he bellowed. But the echo was gulped by emptiness. He punched her number to threaten her, only to find shed blocked him; new number unknown. But what could he say anyway? Bring back my curtains?
He stalked to the window. Below, the city sprawled, indifferent. Shed be somewhere out there now: maybe with a friend, maybe renting a bedsit on her teachers pay. And no doubt, wherever she was, thered be her marvellous old curtains and violets, her haphazard, irritating warmth. While here, only frost remained. Not the frost of the roadbut an inner cold, leeching bone-deep.
He had been calculated, planned for everything. But hed never foreseen her leaving as the desertion of a conquerorpacking up her laurels, leaving behind a ruin. He owned the flat, every last inch. Now each cold, empty metre pressed down, weighted with an impossible emptiness.
Sam stared out through the black holes where the curtains had hung, reflected in the darkness. He drifted to the kitchen for another drink, but all the glasses were goneexcept one chipped mug, Worlds Best Dad, nicked years ago from the staff room. He drank brandy from the bottle, sitting on the bare floor in that chill, silent flat, forever his.
And outside, on and on, the snow kept falling.
