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Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: SHP
Type: Fiction
Pages: 36
Copyright: 26th February 2016
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
Christine takes an overdose and ends up in another dimension, one where she has a different life because she made different decisions.
When Christine wakes up in a sumptuous white room with silken hangings, she assumes she is in heaven. But she soon finds out that this is not heaven but some strange alternative version of her life. Who is the Christine who inhabits this other world? And how is she ever to get home?
Excerpt
Christine lay in the bath sipping a glass of wine and staring at her toes. She had quite nice feet, she thought. A little chubby, perhaps, but a pleasing shape, the toes even and straight. In fact, she wasn’t bad looking altogether. Despite bearing two children she retained a shapely figure. She had stretch marks, of course, fading to silver now, and scarcely noticeable, and her breasts were perhaps on the large side. Kevin thought so, anyway. He laughed at her bra on the line, saying it looked like a couple of potato sacks. And she used to think he was such a kind and loving person.
She scooped up a handful of pills and knocked them back with another sip of wine. It was taking much longer than she had expected. She’d had to run more hot water in twice and had to get out to get another bottle of wine and more pills. She’d used all the painkillers she could find—paracetamols, aspirin, ibuprofen, even the children’s junior aspirin and was now starting on the rest of the stuff in the bathroom cabinet − antihistamine, diazepam, something for diarrhoea. They all said not to exceed the stated dose, which just goes to show how much leeway there was.
She had considered slashing her wrists, even gone as far as bringing the sharp kitchen knife into the bath, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. An overdose seemed so much more civilized, less messy. And if you did it in the bath, you’d slide under the water when you passed out and there would be no question of botching it.
Except she wasn’t passing out.
She scooped up another handful of pills. She was wearing a swimming costume. Even though she would be dead when they found her she couldn’t bear the thought of being found naked. “Over my dead body,” she thought, and gave a hollow laugh.
She had planned this quite meticulously. Kevin was away for the weekend. With a poetry workshop, he said. Ha! She would have believed him once.
The children were at her mother’s for a few days. Her mother didn’t know. Nobody knew. Except Kevin, of course.
It was all so bloody unfair. She had tried so hard. He, being a poet, couldn’t be expected to work and support a family. And so she was the one who had worked full-time, been the bread-winner, brought up the children single-handedly and done all the housework.
He hadn’t wanted children. Didn’t want the responsibility. But it wasn’t just that. She took another sip of wine. He wanted all her attention. The children were rivals for her affection.
God, this wine was disgusting! It seemed a shame, when it was the last thing she was ever going to drink. But it was all they had in the house. Two bottles of Bulls Blood, which she had already drunk, and a couple of bottles somebody had brought to a party that had never been opened. She squinted at the label. Concorde British Red Sparkling Wine. Well, that said it all really, didn’t it? The other bottle was some kind of liqueur, or possibly spirit − Old Vic. It looked like a urine sample. Probably both bottles had been to several parties before they ended up at the back of her kitchen cupboard.
She had left a note explaining how she felt. She’d told him already, of course, but he hadn’t taken her seriously. “For God’s sake, Christine,” he’d said, “Pull yourself together. Everyone does it. It doesn’t mean anything.” And when she had protested that you were supposed to be faithful, he had laughed. “Do you know a single couple where one of them hasn’t had an affair? Name one.”
And she couldn’t. Can you believe that? Every couple she knew one of them had had a fling at some point, usually the man.
It was just that she had thought they were different, she and Kevin. She had thought they were happy.
“Don’t pull that holier than thou act with me. You’re out every night till all hours.”
She had gasped, so shocked she couldn’t speak for a moment. “You don’t think I’ve been unfaithful, surely?”
And he had turned away with a weary expression. “Come on, Christine.”
“Kevin.” She grabbed him by the arm and made him face her. “When have I had time to have an affair? I’m out all night because I’m on night shift at the factory. And anyway,” she said, adding the clinching argument, “all my underwear is grey with baggy elastic.”
He had looked back at her completely uncomprehending. He was so convinced that the whole world, including her, had sex whenever and with whomever they fancied that he couldn’t believe that she had not. He was so adamant that she began to doubt her own memory. Maybe she had had affairs and somehow forgotten about them.
She looked at her feet again. They seemed to be getting further away. Could she be stretching? She sloshed the last of the Concorde British Red Sparkling Wine into the glass and scooped up some more pills. Some of them fell off the table and rolled across the floor.
“Fuck!”
She never used to swear. Her friends laughed at her because she would shout things like, “You naughty boy!” at drivers who cut in front of her. But years of living with children made you watch your language. The last few weeks she hadn’t cared. Had sworn on purpose, in fact. Trying to shock Kevin. Trying to make him understand how hurt she was. It did no good. He just walked out of the house and went off by himself. To meet Daphne. Daphne, for God’s sake! What kind of a name was that? What could her parents have been thinking of? Although maybe it was appropriate. Wasn’t Daphne a nymph?
She was little and thin, with no tits to speak of, like a child. It was incredible to her that Kevin could want to sleep with her. It was like paedophilia. And besides, it was insulting. Daphne had nothing about her – no personality, no intelligence. Kevin said she was his muse. You’d think a muse ought to at least be able to do joined-up thinking.
Perhaps if she had taken more care of herself. Not had children. Stayed slim . . . she knocked back the last of the wine.
“Fuck,” she said, eyeing the empty bottle with disgust. You really would have thought three whole bottles would have been enough. There was nothing else for it. She was desperate. She was going to have to drink the Old Vic. She grabbed the sides of the bath and tried to sit up. None of her limbs were prepared to cooperate. Her arms turned to jelly and her legs buckled under her. Slowly and with something like gratitude, she slid under the water.
If she had just been slimmer . . .
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