Writing for Fun
February 2015
How very strange - Sue Barker
Julia fell through the door, blinded by the red hot shooting pain behind her left eye. She felt like someone was trying to force her eye out of its socket; the sickness washed over her. She opened the bedroom door and vomited on the floor, not because of the migraine but by the sight before her. If she could only focus properly, she thought, it must be a hallucination.
The next morning, with the dull throbbing continuing, she got up. Her head felt like lead and it was so hard to concentrate, it's like moving through fog, everything seems off kilter to her. She realised that someone had cleared up the sick from last night. It might have been Keith or Katarina the domestic help, it certainly wasn't her as she passed out on the bed either through shock or pain, both had been felt in equal measures. Sitting down quietly on the sofa she tried to gather herself and to work out how she felt.
Last night was Wednesday and Julia should have been at her book group; this was her one monthly meeting that wasn't work related, but because of the migraine she came home early. How she wished she hadn't. Keith had obviously been relying on her being out for the whole evening. Life would never be the same again.
Over the last couple of months there had been some curious things happening. To start with Julia couldn't put her finger on what was off. Being a high flyer in banking, Julia's life was organised to the nth degree. She needed everything to be consistent so she could concentrate on her busy career; fortunately her husband Keith understood this and was excellent at supporting her. Her salary paid for a very nice lifestyle: holidays in exotic places, beautiful clothes and a fantastic home. His responsibility was running the home like clockwork. He employed the cleaner, and any domestic help that he thought necessary.
For Julia work was extremely pressurised at the moment due to the Libor abuse her bank had been accused of; heads would roll for this and it certainly wasn't going to be hers. She was in charge but the buck didn't stop with her, not this time.
That's probably why it took Julia awhile to notice one or two anomalies that had gone unquestioned, things that now she understood. At first Julia thought the new cleaner Katarina might have been re-arranging things in a different way, then she wondered if she had ruined a couple of items of clothing when she ironed them and had been too scared to tell anyone. She had spoken to Keith about it, he said that Katarina was rather poor and he had given her them. If only he hadn't given her my lovely silk blouse thought Julia, she'll be the best dressed cleaner in London at this rate.
Last week Julia thought her foundation cream was missing but then it was found in the top drawer of her dressing table; she spoke to Keith about that too and he looked at her as if she was losing her marbles. He said everything was fine and had no idea what she was talking about and that Katarina was the best help in the home they had ever had.
This set Julia worrying, maybe she wasn't coping so well with the pressure at work and it was she who was misplacing things. And then the migraines started, if this carried on she would have to see a doctor; she didn't have time for stress and headaches, she had very important reports to write. At home she had been absent minded lately; in the cold light of day she realised no matter how successful she was at work, she had never felt such a complete failure as she did this very moment.
Well it had all come to a climax last night, where the hell is Keith? How could he, in her own home.
She was a complete mix of emotions. Anger didn't even express how she felt, it was a fury needing to find an outlet and Keith was going to get it both barrels. She was blinded by anger and she was shaking from head to foot but she would not cry, she had dealt with worse, just not at home.
No matter how her staff had behaved no-one had treated her in such a way, he must only have felt total contempt for her, and now the coward had made himself scarce. This must be sorted out today. Her mind churned; at work if someone was a problem you could terminate their contract, all Julia wanted to do was terminate Keith and Katarina from her life. Was she so bad a wife he couldn't have talked to her, she tormented herself, was this her fault? No it bloody wasn't; his perversions were his own, she was normal. Now it was all about damage limitation, if only he would come home to face her.
Julia never for one moment thought that when she came home that night her husband Keith would be sitting at her dressing table wearing her best blouse and bright blue eye shadow, false eyelashes with diamantes on the tips and slutty red lipstick. He had the nerve to say when she saw him, 'It's about time for you to meet Katrina.' She'd give him Katrina all right, what made it worse on reflection was he looked better than she did in the clothes and make up.
The banking scandal would be nothing to compare with this, if it ever got out.