The Breakdown(72)

works furiously, wondering if it’s possible that I made a mistake about leaving my mug on the side. But I know that I didn’t.

I turn my attention back to PC Lawson, who has just finished telling Matthew that she couldn’t find any trace of a break-in or of anyone being in the house.

‘But there was someone,’ I insist. ‘My mug didn’t get into the dishwasher on its own.’

‘What do you mean?’ Matthew asks.

‘Before I went out, I left my mug on the side and,

when I came back, it was in the dishwasher,’ I explain again.

He looks resignedly at me. ‘You probably don’t

remember putting it in there, that’s all.’ He turns to PC Lawson. ‘My wife sometimes has problems with her memory, so she forgets things.’

‘Right,’ she says, looking sympathetically at me.

‘It has nothing to do with my memory!’ I say, annoyed.

‘I’m not stupid, I know what I did and didn’t do!’

‘But sometimes you don’t,’ Matthew says gently. I

open my mouth to defend myself but close it again

quickly. If he wanted, he could reel off any number of examples when I haven’t been able to remember what I’ve done. In the silence that follows I know that even if I insist until I’m blue in the face, they’ll never believe that I left my mug on the side.

‘I’m sorry you’ve come out unnecessarily,’ I say stiffly.





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‘It’s no problem. Better to be safe than sorry,’ PC

Lawson says kindly.

‘I think I’ll go and lie down for a while.’

‘Good idea.’ Matthew smiles encouragingly at me.

‘I’ll come up in a moment.’

PC Lawson leaves and I wait for Matthew to come

and find me. When he doesn’t I go downstairs to find him. He’s in the garden sipping a glass of wine as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. A flash of anger hits me.

‘I’m glad it doesn’t bother you that there was someone in the house,’ I say, looking at him in disbelief.

‘Come on, Cass, if all they did was put a mug in the dishwasher, it’s not a threat, is it?’

I can’t work out if he’s being sarcastic as he’s never shown this side of him before. A voice inside me warns: B e careful, don’t push him too far! But I can’t stop the anger I feel.

‘I suppose you’ll only believe me the day you come

home and find me with my throat cut!’

He puts his wine glass down on the table. ‘Is that what you really think is going to happen? That someone is going to come into the house and murder you?’

Something snaps inside me. ‘It doesn’t matter what

I think because nobody takes any notice of what I say anyway!’

‘Do you blame us? There’s absolutely no foundation

for any of your fears, none at all.’

‘He spoke to me!’

‘Who?’

The Breakdown





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‘The murderer!’


‘Cass,’ he groans.

‘No, he did! And he’s been in the house! Don’t you

understand, Matthew? Everything has changed!’

He shakes his head in despair. ‘You’re ill, Cass, you have early-onset dementia and you’re paranoid. Can’t you just accept it?’

The cruelty of his words stuns me. I can’t find anything to say so I turn my back on him and go into the house.

In the kitchen I stop to swallow down two of my pills, giving him time to come after me. But he doesn’t, so I go upstairs, peel off my clothes and climb into bed.

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 22nd

When I next open my eyes it’s the morning and, all at once, the events of the previous evening come rushing back. I turn my head towards Matthew, wondering if he tried to wake me when he came to bed to apologise for his hurtful words. But his side of the bed is empty.

I look at the clock; it’s eight-thirty. My breakfast tray is on the table, which means he’s already left for work.

I sit up, hoping to see a note propped against my glass of juice but there’s only a bowl of cereal, a small jug of milk and my two little pills. I feel sick with apprehension. No matter how much he tells me that he’ll never leave me, that he’ll stay with me, this new harder edge to his character has thrown me. I understand that it must be frightening for him to have a wife who keeps banging on about being stalked by a murderer but shouldn’t he try to get to the bottom of my fears before dismissing them so abruptly? When I think about it, he’s never Title: The Breakdown ARC, Format: 126x198, v1, Output date:08/11/16





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once sat me down and asked why I think the murderer is after me. If he had, I might have admitted to seeing Jane’s car that night.

Tears of loneliness spill from my eyes and I reach

for the pills and the juice to wash them down with, desperate to numb the pain. But I can’t stop crying, even when sleep begins to take me, because all I feel is terrible despair, and fear at what the future might hold for me. If I have dementia and Matthew leaves me, all I’ll have to look forward to are years in a care home where a few of my friends will visit out of obligation, an obligation that will end the minute I can’t remember who they are. My tears increase and become huge sobs of wretchedness, so that when I’m woken some time later by a terrible groaning noise, with my head feeling as if it’s about to explode, it’s as if my emotional pain has manifested itself in physical pain. I try to open my eyes but find that I can’t. My body feels as if it’s on fire and, when I lift my hand to my head, I find it wet with sweat.