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He’s late once again.
Not that she even expects him to be on time any more. She doesn't bother preparing food for him after the first twenty times of sitting across from a empty seat, with a full plate laid out untouched in front of it. Sitting alone at the table, mascara ruined by tears, silently fuming (planning to give him a piece of her mind when he got home didn't even work out, she was usually asleep by the time he got home) had made her feel like a distressed widower that was waiting for the spouse to come home who never would. She decided to stop. So she lived separately from Malcolm. She didn't feel like Mrs Tucker, she felt like Mary who just happened to have a husband.
She settled onto the soft leather couch after a final glance at the clock, a glass of wine in one hand and the remote in the other and began to watch a film.
A hour or so into the film, the wine bottle almost half empty, she was surprised to hear a car pulling up outside. He was home earlier than usual. If it was him, that is. It would be just her luck to be the house targeted by a psycho killer, the lone woman whose husband was out. No it was too cliché maybe. Besides she doubted that Malcolm would return home and sob before promising revenge on her killer. He probably wouldn’t even notice she was gone for a good few days, he was never home to be aware that she was around.
The sound of keys in the lock and the front door creaking open were the only warning she had before he bounded in with a grin on his face.
“Hey, love.” He practically sprang over to lean down and kiss her. She merely raised her eyebrow slightly as he took a step backwards and gave the room a quick glance.
“What’s got you in such a good mood?”
He grinned wider, the smile that was too wide for his sharp face. He only ever used that grin when he was playing, performing. He clearly wanted her to play along. She didn’t. She just sat and waited for him to answer.
“You are looking at the new head of communications for the government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” He announced as though to a crowd of hundreds that had gathered to meet him. He paused slightly then. “Well, joint head. For now.”
“For now?”
“Yeah, Fleming's still there but it’s only a matter of time before Super Mario gets what’s coming to him. The PM told me just then in fact that he sees me as the future. He’s as keen to get rid of the sleazy bastard as the rest of us. We all know he’s having an affair with the teacher at his kid’s school. It’s only a matter of time before the single brain celled twat slips up and we have evidence we can use to get him out. Then it’ll just be me running the place.”
He smiles down at her now and for a moment he looks like the man she married. The man with the manic glow in his intelligent eyes. It pains her more than a bit to know that it is only his work that brings that glow to his eyes these days and not her.
For a moment his smiled dims slightly.
“Aren’t you pleased?”
“Of course, Malcolm.” She sighs, looking back at the television.
When she looks back at him she just catches the hurt written across his face. Malcolm doesn’t let what most people say hurt him, he doesn’t allow them that close. He only allows a select number of people in, the rest are kept out by massive walls of ice. Those inside have the potential to wound him and if he feels they might be about to they are shoved outside and left to hammer at the walls with the rest of the unimportant idiots he meets.
She stands and moves to him, sliding her arms around his waist and lifting a delicate hand to lift a strand of greying hair off his forehead. She feels his arms come around her automatically. She’s always felt safe in his arms, he may be frail but there has always been a hint of wiry strength in them.
“Of course I’m pleased.” She says more sincerely.
She is pleased. She’s always been proud of him. He’s freakishly intelligent, more so than anyone she met at Oxford. He believes he’s working for the good of the country, the good of the people, so he works hard. He gives all of himself selfishly because he wants-as he has always wanted- to make the world a bit of a better place.
He works hard. Gives all of himself.
That’s the problem, isn’t it?
She pulls back but stays in his arms.
“Does this mean extra hours?”
“Technically no. But I’m want Fleming out ASAP so I’ll have to work hard to prove to the PM that I’m the man for the job.”
“You’re going to be working longer than you are now?” he doesn’t even have to nod. She can see it in his stormy eyes. She pulls out of his arms. “For fucks sake Malcolm. You’re hardly here as it is. You don’t have to prove anything to the PM!”
She can tell he’s on the defensive now. Perhaps its better referred to as the offensive though. He’s always seemed to be a firm believer in the fact that a good offense is the best defence. She can see the energy thrumming through his slightly hunched over posture.
“Yes! I do. I’ve come so far. I’ve worked for this for years. I sat and took orders from that wanker for two years as well. Now I'm so close to having Fleming out. So close to being the fucking Pharaoh. I can’t stop now." He begins to pace in the centre of the room, like a caged animal. “Don’t you see! I’m nearly there. Then no one can touch me. I’ll have plenty of time at home. With you.”
“We both know that’s a lie. You’ll have a whole government to deal with. You might be the Pharaoh, but there’ll be a whole load of assassins waiting for you. Desperate to take your place."
“They fucking won’t! They won’t touch me.” Suddenly the pacing reminds her more of a vulture circling it’s dying prey. “They’re too stupid. And when Fleming’s gone his little band of hairy eared fucking elves will be right behind him. I’ll have my own team.”
“Who? Who are you going to bring in that wouldn’t sell his own grandmother for your job?”
He looks gleeful. He clearly thinks he’s solved this problem already and there is vicious pride plastered on his face as he stops pacing and practically spits the answer at her.
“Jamie MacDonald.” The words are said clearly, slowly and deliberately. He knows she won’t like this. He knows she hated the rough, psychopathic man when they had met in the past.
“You can’t be serious...Malcolm, he’s an idiot!”
“He’s fucking not!” he explodes and she snorts. He sneers back. “How would you know, eh? Just ‘cause he never went to poxbridge.”
“He’s a psychopath. You can’t trust him.”
“I hate to break this to you sweetheart, you don’t go into politics- or journalism- to make friends and have fucking civilised tea parties.” He fires ‘sweetheart’ at her mockingly, she hates it. She remembers when he used to say it softly and sincerely. “I can trust him more than any other twat face in the fucking cess pit of politics. He’s dangerously loyal. I trust him and his intellect more than anyone else.”
It’s the stress on the word anyone that does it. That and being constantly outwitted, he really does have a fucking answer to everything. Before she knows it there’s an imprint of a hand on his too pale cheek.
There’s an awful silence. He’s staring at her with eyes like a kicked puppy. The wounded eyes of the man she fell in love with. The man she loved.
She watches as they morph into unforgiving blizzards, his anger swirling around inside them.
“Malcolm, I’m-“
“Get out.” His voice is dangerously low.
“I-What?”
“Get out.” She freezes, flinching from the anger in his shaking voice. “I said get out you sour faced twat. Fuck off. I’ve had it with you riding my fucking coat tails but complaining about how they’re fucking moving. You’re never happy. Not with my job, not with us, not with me.” He stops for a moment his face almost collapsing into despair rather than fury. The second she steps forward he steps back and the fury reappears.
“Get out. And not a word of this to anyone or I’ll make sure that there’s not a company on earth that will publish those outpourings of shite you call books.”
She can tell there is no return now. She has been shoved outside. She is staring at the icy wall.
She grabs her coat and throws one last look at him. She sees only the hard, straight line of his back as he stares away from her.
*
She goes back for her stuff the next day but he’s not there. He won’t answer his calls and she tries to go into his office the next day. She gets in (the guard remembers her from a function and won’t dare anger Malcolm’s wife) but only gets as far as the office outside Malcolm’s office.
His PA stops her from entering and looks at her with barely hidden contempt.
“Mr Tucker does not wish to see anyone at this moment.”
There is that stress on the word ‘anyone’ again.
She gives up, goes back to her friends house and hides away in the spare room. She gets out her phone deciding to leave a voice mail on his phone. She knows he will listen to it as the blinking icon will drive him mad eventually.
“Listen, Malcolm. I’m sorry. But...maybe it’s for the best. We’re living separate lives, our lives just aren’t compatible any more. I do love you, but maybe thats not enough any more. I’m sorry. I am proud of you and I wish you the best of luck. I won’t tell anyone Malcolm. Not a soul and not because of the threats. You should know me better than to think I’ll give in to threats and blackmail. I'm far too stubborn for that. I won’t tell anyone, because you don’t deserve that.”
He never calls back.
The next time she sees him is as she sits alone in her new, cold and dull flat watching BBC rolling news. He gives a press conference announcing Steve Fleming's resignation, and just behind him is the grinning face of Jamie MacDonald.