The Tens Read online

  Feeling conspicuous in her car she pulled up directly underneath where his office window faced down over the car park. If he was actually there, he would surely see her, come down to avoid any scene or abate her irrationality. There was no one in his office, as far as she could tell. But it wasn’t worth the risk of leaving. So, she waited some more. Every minute twisting at her gut. Time had stretched so much that she did not understand how it could ever go back to normal; cut into blocks, marked by normal activities like meals or the hum of peak hour traffic.

  Well beyond home time, Sophia did not spot Alex making his way towards his designated car park. Which she realised now, was empty and had been the entire afternoon that she sat cramped up in the driver's seat, breathing her own fetid breath, staring at his office window.

  She gives Maria, the receptionist, one last call.

  ‘Hello, IT Associates, how may we help?’

  ‘Hi Maria, it’s Sophie. Is Alex in yet?’ Her voice sounds foreign to her.

  ‘Sophie, he hasn’t been in for a few days and definitely not all day. Please stop calling.’ Maria hung up on her and she felt the coldness of the phone click off. There wasn’t an ounce of worry in Maria’s voice. She clearly knew something about Alex’s decision that Sophie didn’t.

  Could Alex be in danger? She couldn’t think why.

  The thought of going to the police made her stomach churn. The last time she was at a police station was as a child, wrapped in a stiff grey blanket. That’s all she can remember of the time she lost her parents. The blanket was as unyielding as a side of a cardboard box and wrapped around her just as awkwardly.

  No, she thought to herself, the police can wait. Besides, he left a note. He wouldn’t have left a note, if he was in any kind of trouble. How embarrassing it would be to go to the police when really, her husband had just not wanted to be married to her anymore. The humiliation flicked at her like a snake’s tongue.

  Sophie’s legs felt like cement as she mindlessly pumped them, alternating between the brake and accelerator and headed back to her empty cave all whilst coming to the realisation that he wasn’t at work and he wasn’t at home. The life they had weaved together started to unpick in her mind as she faced that he clearly just didn’t want her anymore. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have left her with such a pathetic half-assed note.

  Driving home was a sort of exhilaration, the shock creating an adrenalin bomb that made Sophie ill and excitable and she giggled with the absurdity that her love was no longer her love. She deliriously giggled all the way into the shower, where she tried to strip a layer of her skin off with the hottest the shower water could get. And just as quickly as the hysteria had started, it stopped. She screamed his name into the cold, glossy teeth of tiles. The wail bounced back at her from the reflective surface and reflected back her pain. This was just the beginning of, what she assumed would be, unbearable heartache. And she was scared.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It didn’t take long for Sophie to begin to plummet. It wasn't living alone that saw her change. Sometimes she doubted it was even the fact that the love of her life had abandoned her. It was as if something greater was happening to her. Something that had been threatening to break the banks her entire life, undulating underneath the surface of her skin and she had been clever and strong enough to keep it at bay, really well in fact, until now. Emotional distress had taken off a layer of her armour and now she was exposed without an inner barricade to keep back that torrent of emotional sludge. Whatever it was, it was confusing and unrelenting and she did not know where to put it.

  Sophie’s senses started to shut down, one by one. Not shut down as such, just... dissolve. What they could once easily and unnoticeably tolerate, they now revolted against. An olfactory alteration first. Always a lover of scents, the mysticism and romanticism of smells transfixed Sophie. She could smell when something was cooked to its best through a deep inhale, could identify the components of anyone’s favourite perfume and her life was incomplete without a scented candle burning. Although it had started before Alex had left, it came at her with full force in his absence. Petrol, perfume and certain foods were the enemies. The tang of the creamy, yet artificial, coconut shampoo that she’d used for more than a decade was too pungent and she was forced to rinse her hair in benign liquid that could only be bought at weekend sunrise markets. Even the sting of toothpaste became too much. Which threw her because somehow, as if they sensed her inner decay, her gums became tight and began retracting as fast and as far away from where they normally sat. The rate at which she was grinding her teeth down served only to exacerbate the problem. If she pushed her tongue— had it always taken up this much room in her mouth?— into the cushions of gum that filled the space between her teeth, a foul taste would emit, like a citronella collar on a barking dog.

  Her behaviour became obsessive to curb the daily peeling back of her identity. Seven minutes exactly in the shower; she timed it. One slice of cheese, one slice of tomato, one slice of pineapple from a tin and two leaves of iceberg lettuce, all salted with a violent shake of the salt shaker. This constituted her midday and evening meal. Introducing any new items of food made her stomach curl over itself.

  Her nights were filled with splotchy sleep: she took half a pill after dinner, to assure herself she'd be okay, at least until midnight when she would routinely wake up, flick on the TV and watch harmless reruns, often the same episodes so there were no surprises, no nasty little hidden plots that she couldn't handle. The sound of her TV friends would lull her into a half-sleep for a few hours, when she would wake up startled from the nightmare and repeat the process until light broke through the curtains. Morning break was the worst part of her day. At least sleep gave her hope, an anaesthetic and a link to who she was when she was whole and someone's wife. But with the peeling open of both eyelids came the sinking feeling as reality attacked her and she was reminded that her husband had left her and her world was no longer a vanilla milkshake life but one of muddy water.

  Uselessly, she kept reminding herself that millions of people broke up and it was an everyday occurrence, not a life-threatening one. And then it broke her a little more to think that she lived in a world where a heart breaking was an everyday occurrence and not one where the world should stop still.

  Since he left, Alex had not sent her one text, email or even phoned. Sophie had sent him countless; begging, fury, placating, nonchalant. The silence fed a monster inside of her; a kind of wild and foreign grief that she was drowning in. She feared what it was doing to her physically and neurologically. Mostly, she was terrified she was going to die of a broken heart.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The nightmare struck again. Sharply sitting up in bed, she searched for Alex until she remembered that he was no longer there. For what felt like the millionth time in less than a week, she checked her phone in case he has called but that provides no results.

  Sophie looked around the room and found nothing to comfort her, the gloom seeped through the windows and rolled across the floorboards, where there should be sunlight.

  Bile kept rushing to the back of her throat as she swallowed whilst her face was hot and tender from crying. With the television still murmuring in the background, she sat up in bed and pressed her back against the cool stone wall. Which, strangely, soothed her as her heart felt in physical pain, wincing and writhing with each fresh batch of thoughts. It was as if someone had ripped a BandAid off mighty fast and left an open wound that wasn't ready to be healed.

  Sophie started a silent, movementless cry but was quickly interrupted as a bird flew into the window with a disturbing thud. The sound was enough to shake her out of her misery.

  Looking bedraggled in her pyjamas, Sophie cautiously stepped out into her backyard and noticed the small, shiny bird that flew into her window. It lay motionless on the ground. She tiptoed up to it and looked at it for a beat. Unexpectedly, and making Sophie jump, the bird recovered from its shock, shook itself off and flew away.
/>   As she turned back to go inside the house, clutching the loose waistband of her pyjama pants, she notices that there is a thin wire of copper where the bird landed. Too sad to care, she walked back inside whispering to herself, ‘I’m falling apart without you, Alex.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sophie shuddered in the waiting room of the doctor's surgery that she’d reluctantly hauled herself to. It wasn't that it was cold, in fact, she felt like a roast chicken inside an oven. But something inside her had stirred up a chill.

  The doctor was middle-aged podgy man that didn’t really want to be dealing with Sophie and her imaginary problems. At the other side of the desk, he typed without meeting her eyes. ‘And has there been any stressful events that have occurred recently?’ He asked.

  ‘Well... yeah. My husband left me.’

  Nonchalantly nodding, he said ‘it’s certainly an unusual set of symptoms… the hair loss, the nightmares, sensitivity of taste, smell and touch, sore gums… You say your body hurts?’

  Sophie wasn’t sure whether it was a question or accusation. ‘My whole body feels like a bruise. It’s all been happening since just before my thirtieth birthday.

  ‘Hmm. I see. Like I said, it’s an unusual set of symptoms but nothing that we can’t attribute to stress. Particularly seeing as though your husband left.’

  ‘So what should I do?’

  ‘Take a multivitamin and get as much sleep as you can. Try to get back to your normal routine and structure. I find that always helps when people get a bit… wobbly.’

  Sophie looked at him blankly for a bit. ‘Do people die from a broken heart?’ She murmured.

  The doctor stopped what he was doing and turns to face her. ‘I’ll prescribe you something to help you sleep. You might want to look into finding a good therapist.’

  Sophie stood to leave, but hesitated and was about to say something. In the end, she decided against it and walked out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Despite the tiredness dragging at her face, Sophie decided to go back to work, welcoming the distraction. Almost looking forward to going back to work and being in a familiar enough environment, she was sure that it would take her away from her cave of misery.

  Hurriedly she slipped into her corporate work outfit. Looking in the mirror, she approved of her outfit but was dismayed at her hair and face. She tried to plump up her hair and seeing it fall greasy and limp, settled on tying it back in a sleek ponytail. To herself in the mirror, she announces ‘you’ve got this. This is the kind of normalcy that you need to get better. You don’t want Alex to come back and see that you’ve totally fallen apart, right?’

  Swiping on a lipstick that made her feel garish rather than put together, she smacked her lips together anyway. ‘Good. That’ll fool anyone.’

  Since Alex left, Sophie told herself that it was near impossible to resign without an income. Until her beloved paintings started to sell, she was tethered to her job. She'd squandered all her sick leave, pining over the Alex-shaped hole in her life.

  Usually, she loved being positioned on display at the front of Roman & Associates at the sleek mirrored desk that stood on thin trestle legs and exposed her knees. The desk bore no more than a phone headset and a laptop, she rarely even had the requirement for a pen. People would walk by during their ordinary day and peer in, mostly absentmindedly, but some people who walked the same route regularly made it habit. Often, people would smile or nod. She felt so comfortable being on the fringe of activity, amongst the people but nowhere near being amid people.

  But since she'd turned thirty, she struggled to find that same sense of ease. The smiles still came but she found them annoying, rather than pleasant. It was a hassle to smile back and she'd taken to pretending not to see anyone, busy typing up emails and checking the weather on her laptop. What once made her feel attended to, now made her feel uneasy, like a pending disaster was about to occur. Imagined scenarios of trucks losing control and crashing through the two-storey high glass walls or an unnoticed gas leak to spread throughout the building shattered through her mind. She didn't hate her job— although she would prefer to be at home painting— but it was laborious to turn up and use all her spent energy pretending that she wasn't constantly on edge. Sometimes, she felt like a wrongly hanged woman on display in the town square.

  Sophie smiled tightly at her colleagues as she slid herself behind the desk, affirming that yes she did, in fact, feel better and it was just a little virus, nothing to be concerned about. They didn't need to know that her husband had left her. Especially when Sophie was sure she would find a way for him to come back.

  The morning flew by, just as she had anticipated and was grateful for. She was right, work was just the tonic that she needed. She even had a new idea for a painting she could start working on that night and she was itching to get home to start it.

  Around lunchtime, though, things took a turn. After a flurry of couriers had come and gone, a squat woman traipsed in. Initially, Sophie didn't bother looking up until she could see her torso pressed against the desk in front of her. When she lifted her eyesight and saw her face, she ejected herself backwards with her hands, rolling her chair until it hit the wall behind her. The woman donned timeless clown makeup: a powder white face, exaggerated lips and eyes rimmed in black eyeliner, forming pointy triangles halfway down her cheek. She had stripy stockings that sat under satin frilly bloomers and a matching top, frills flopping on her arms as she breathed heavily.

  'Sorry, you gave me a fright. How can I help you today?' Sophie quickly tried to refasten her composure.

  In response, the woman placed her hands on the desk and leaned as close as she could towards Sophie. 'Durrr dunt dunt duddit derr derr duddit...' The woman moved her head and torso around in a circle whilst humming the Entry of the Gladiators circus theme music. Sophie surveyed her as she moved slowly and stared straight ahead, the humming as unnerving as the outfit and movement. Despite herself, Sophie squealed. More out of confusion than straight fear.

  A handful of eager colleagues rushed from their hidden offices to attend to Sophie's screams and she turned back to them, fielding away tears that were coming thick and fast. ‘What's wrong? What is it?' Came a chorus of concerns.

  Sophie pointed and turned back to the clown woman but there was no one there. Just an empty tiled foyer with one strip of sunshine lying across the floor like it belonged there. 'There was a scary woman here! She was just here. I...'

  'I didn't see anyone when I came out. Are you okay?'

  'She was humming at me! I swear she was right here.' Sophie’s hand flapped uncontrollably around her.

  Each of her coworkers looked to one another, unsure what to do. Her manager strode out and looked at her compassionately. 'Soph sometimes viruses can take a lot longer to heal than we think. I'm really happy for you to take the rest of the day off with pay. Have a rest and come back tomorrow, if you feel better.'

  Sophie didn't bother responding, she knew they thought she was crazy. And they were probably sick of her declining behaviour lately anyway. She hadn't exactly been warm and friendly to everyone. Maybe they had cottoned on that Alex had left her?

  Grabbing her handbag, she swept out the front door looking up and down the street to make sure it was clear of any clowns before she went home. There was not a clown in sight.

  By the time she'd driven to their white stucco suburban house, she had shaken the nonsense out of her brain. It could have easily been a vagrant off the streets or an actor trying out a bit on her. It really wasn't that big of a deal. But the way she overreacted concerned her. No, it annoyed her. And she felt humiliated and so very exhausted.

  Stepping out of the car, she scanned the driveway and the perimeter of her house for any signs of Alex. There were none. But Sophie noticed a small lump at her door. Yet another dead bird and she swiped it away with her foot, disgusted.

  Despite being the pointy middle of the afternoon, Sophie crawled into bed, making sure all her doors and
windows were locked. Exhaling with enough force to make a dent in the doona, she turned her morning alarm off because she knew that she wasn't going back into work the next day. Or ever again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The storm of humiliation faced her when she awoke the next day. Fearing what her coworkers must think of her, she knew she had no other option but to cut that part of her life off. Close it down, especially so she could focus on healing herself and finding Alex.

  Gathering her work suit, she bundled it up and shoved it in a garbage bag, which she stuffed straight into the outside bin.

  Opting instead for saggy leggings and a faded turtle neck, she plopped herself on a stool in front of her easel. She liked to draw back the curtains when painting. The wide windows that she sat in front of offered her generous light and a reprieve for her eyes and brain when she needed a rest from staring at the small woven squares of the canvas. Her painting area was the sunniest and brightest spot in the house. But she was careful not to fall into its trap of false optimism, the warmth of the sun liked to trick you into thinking that everything was going to be okay.