Martin Morstan picked up the bottle from the corner hutch and did the one thing he’d been asking someone to do for him for hours. He poured himself a drink.
That's it. That's all he'd wanted - when he’d walked in the door after a hard day’s labor, when he’d gone up the pub looking for a little release. It’s all he’d been after all night. No matter where he’d gone, no matter who he’d turned to for a miniscule bit of understanding, he’d been denied the one thing’d make it all settle. Everyone wondered why he was as he was. They ever stop to think it might be them making him this way? Of course not. Everything had been all his fault since the day of his birth.
Silence hung like dusty sheets tossed over forgotten furniture as he shuffled over to his favorite chair. He pressed the glass against his eye for a second. It wasn’t cold enough to do much, but the sting reminded him he was alive. He didn’t like leaving an affront unanswered, but if he’d swung this time, the publican would’ve banned him for sure. He’d have his in time.
As he sank into the fragrant leather of his favorite chair, he took in the state of things about him. There was a facade of perfection settled over it all. No dust on the mantle, no dirt on the rug, no mud tracked in on the floor or ash or soot escaping the fireplace. But if he looked closer, longer, that’s where the trouble lay. The pillows on the sofa sat at cocked angles. The mantle clock was an inch - no, two! - too far off center. Someone’d hung the poker where the ash dustpan went. His pipe pointed to twelve o’clock, not six. Laziness, the lot of it. Or defiance. He warned her about these little acts of rebellion.
”Not going to come say hello?” He barked the words into the silence, more like a demand than a question. The house made no answer, not even the creak of a nervously depressed floorboard.
He took a long drink and sat the glass on the table beside him. His shirt sleeve still felt damp from the thrown drink at the pub. He itched at the spot with his empty hand, while the other fingers tapped in time to the faint ticking of the off-center clock. Each tap recorded a second, and every second was one more mark against her. Where was she? It was long past dinner. Long past dark. And no sign of her to be seen.
“Being very rude now, you know.”
You’d better be here when I get home, he’d said.
I don’t enjoy it anymore than you do.
If you’d behave yourself like a proper wife should…
His stomach gurgled. Hunger, he supposed. Both attempts at supper tonight went interrupted. Lord knew he hadn’t managed a full or proper meal. Not anything befitting a man. A husband. He lifted the glass again, giving his stomach at least some whisky to fill it. His eyes felt heavy. A long day made longer by so much blatant disrespect, topped off by the lack of a proper hot meal took a lot out of a gentleman of his sort. He winced as the whisky hit the bottom of his empty gullet and made it tighten. I could see what she has for a stomach ache in that bag of hers, he thought. But the second he stood to follow through, he remembered where he had last seen that bag. He grabbed his tobacco and the matches from the fireplace instead and sat back down.
A cloud of smoke floated up toward the chandelier as he sank back into the leather and stuffing and tried to will away the churning and roiling in his guts. He dropped the tobacco pouch and box of matches onto the table next to the coiled leather belt that cradled his glass. It wrapped around the whisky like a cobra protecting a nest full of eggs. It lashed out just as quickly, and its bite stung nearly as much. As he looked at it, his annoyance only grew. If you’d behave yourself…
His eyes closed for a second. Just a second, he was sure of it. When he opened them, though, the cigarette he’d just lit was burned almost to a stub and the gurgling and churning in his stomach had turned into hot coals and jagged rocks and a colony of fire ants crawling through his insides. He tossed back a good swig of his drink to chase it away. It burned all the way down, not the way cheap alcohol could, but the way hot oil searing skin must. He winced and coughed as it worked its way down and forced himself up onto his feet. When he stood, his head felt spinny and his stomach lurched. He doubled over as if a balled fist had slammed into his guts and he vomited onto his perfectly cleaned floor. Spital and spew gathered at the corner of his mouth and ran down his chin. His pulse pounded away in his ears, overwhelming the heavy silence of the house. He tried to take a step, but the floor was like pudding under his feet. All two hundred pounds of him tumbled into the side table, breaking two of the legs in two and sending everything on it to the floor. The impact doused the candle. The table landed on the cigarette. The man’s head bounced off the floor with a heavy thud. As his body started to shake, his stomach lurched again. This time, it brought up the steak from the Victoria and the bourbon, too.
