How to Be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman Page A

and the valley was deserted.
    I felt Hector watching me as I looked out. He moved behind me, putting his hands on either side of mine and pressing his body into my back.
    ‘My parents stayed in this room after their wedding,’ he said. ‘I always wanted to bring my wife here one day.’
    I wished he hadn’t mentioned his parents. I imagined his mother, before she was the stern woman I knew now, opening a neatly packed suitcase on the bed, folding her gloves one on top of the other on the dressing table. Pulling out a tissue from the luxuriously decorated tissue box and dabbing at her make-up, her face shiny after the long journey. It wasn’t our room any more.
    ‘It’s a beautiful view,’ I said, reaching up to kiss the side of his face.
    ‘Well, we have it all to ourselves,’ he said, and I could hear him smiling.
    He took my hand and led me into the room, pushing me backwards onto the bed. Gently, he touched the material of the wedding dress that had once been his mother’s. He sat there for a long time, just looking. I tried to reach up and kiss his cheek, but he pushed my head to the side and into the bed, keeping his eyes only on the dress. I heard the jangle of his belt buckle, and felt the dress being lifted up, my underwear pulled down around my knees. It took him some time to find his way. I tried to shift my body with his, to make it easier, but he put his hand over my hips and held me still as he jerked backwards and forwards. I watched the juddering lace of the canopy above. He moved faster and faster, muttering something that I couldn’t make out, a word repeated over and over again.
    He rolled onto his side afterwards, and I watched his pupils get smaller. Almost immediately, he sat up, and began to get dressed. The bed was damp between my legs, and I pulled my dress down, feeling a tear roll down the side of my face.
    Hector went to stand at the window, a shadow against the bright outside light.
    I tried not to make any sound.
    ‘We’ll go for a walk before dinner,’ he said.
    I pulled myself up. Hector turned and looked at me. He came closer, kneeling on the floor at my feet.
    ‘You look amazing in that dress,’ he said, ‘Mrs Bjornstad.’
    Through the kitchen door, I can hear them laughing in the dining room. I can still hear Hector’s voice, close in my ear.
    I take the ramekins of chocolate mousse out of the fridge and line them up neatly on a tray with a jug of cream. Each time I pick them up, one or other of the ramekins falls out of their neat formation, and I have to stop and straighten them again.
Presentation is everything: a meal must look appetizing to be appetizing.
I pick up the tray; it happens again. I slam the tray down onto the counter: the ramekins clash together and some of the cream escapes from the jug. My hands are trembling now: I hold them out in front of me, trying to steady them. I dig my fingers into my palms until my raw fingernails ache: until I feel like my fingers might break.
    *
    I pass the ramekins around the table, watching Kylan dig his spoon into his chocolate pot, making a dip which he fills with cream, just as he has always done.
    ‘How is everything at school, Hector?’ Matilda is asking.
    ‘Oh, you know,’ he says, ‘same old.’ Hector is looking down at his dessert.
    ‘Did you know that Hector is a teacher, Katya?’ Matilda asks. Katya nods. ‘The pupils just love him. Don’t they, Hector?’ Matilda places her hand on Hector’s arm, squeezing it. I fight the urge to bat it away.
    ‘I don’t know about that, Mother,’ he says.
    ‘Oh, Hector,’ she says, ‘don’t be modest.’ Matilda turns to Katya again. ‘He’s so dedicated to helping them achieve their goals.’
    ‘Where do you teach, Hector?’ Katya asks, chocolate on her front teeth. Her pink tongue emerges quickly and it is gone.
    ‘At a school across the valley,’ he says.
    ‘You should see his notice board upstairs, Katya,’ Matilda says. ‘It’s covered with notes