The Novel

And finally it was done.

 The finished novel sat in front of him, printed and published just this past week. The large wooden desk it sat on was very old, sometimes when he ran his fingers along it he came across the odd splinter. It was a faded brown colour, having been picked up from a charity shop and painted years previously. This was the hardest story he had ever put down on paper, it had taken well over a year and had almost broken up his relationship.

"You spend more time bothered about your characters than me," she had shouted at him during one argument. Then they all blended into one, the arguments. One after the other and they had all seemed to be about the same nonsense. Him. His novel. His life. She never ever seemed to be happy.

Now there was nothing but silence.

 She had been reading the book right before it happened, a look of quiet contentment on her face. This would be a great seller, and she knew it. She quietly fantasized about finally getting a carpet for the old wooden boards on the living room floor, or even upgrading the television. She could never stay mad at him for long for that exact reason. She had stuck by him through times of hardship and now although her life was a fairly simple it was a comfortable one and it was all due to him. He knew it, she knew it too however she would strenuously deny it when asked.

 This went on for a few days, this wondrous silence, as she absorbed herself in his most recent novel. He had plenty of time to reflect on his writings, although he spent most of each day searching on the internet reading reviews massaging his own ego.

 ‘Wonderful writing’, the reviews screamed, ‘His best novel to date! This book will take you on an incredible adventure, but trust no-one.’

 He smiled with each one he read, knowing that his happiness would be short lived. Soon she would cease reading, either through boredom or through finishing the book. If she finished it then he would have a few days of her smiling and being nice to him, however if she gave up through boredom she would berate him over and over, leading to yet another fight until eventually one of them snapped, and stormed out taking the dog and the car with them. This was usually his role and although the fun of the fights had left him, he was getting old after all, he still tried to act like the regularly chided husband he was as it almost always ensured that she was happy on his return home. She took some sort of awful pleasure in knowing he was always within her control.

 Across the room she snapped the book shut bringing him out his trance like state immediately. She had a preference for hardback novels, and once he had asked her why.

 “The noise when you slam a hardback book shut is an utterly delightful sound,” she had quite dreamily snapped at him, as if it was the most obvious answer. She was usually such an angry person, and each time she happily snapped her book shut he realized this was one of those small things that kept her happy. From then on he made sure that every book he bought her was hardback, and each time he had another book published it came to the house in hardback. It was always all for her but she never saw it that way.

 “You can't write about me you idiot. Look how badly you've portrayed me!” her words took him by surprise, yet she raged on. “You’ve made me out to be some sort of monster!”

 He never usually based his characters fully on her, but each one of them contained a small part of her personality. How could she not understand that this was art? He was creating a version of her that would be forever immortilised, perhaps even on the big screen one day. It may not be her most flattering form however it was all true to her, all he had been was honest and she just didn't understand.

 “But darling,” he began.

 “Don’t darling me,” she spat, “Do you think I never noticed? All these years you’ve been writing your stupid books and you think I never noticed once that they were all about me?”

 He shook his head, she was wrong. He wrote about murder and yet here she was, standing in front of him screaming and as alive as she would ever be.

 “I know that you’ve been writing about me. I’m your muse.” She sarcastically barked the last word in his direction, “Without me you would just be that pathetic idiot you were before me. Without me you would have nothing to write about, and yet your stories have so much life to them. But you can’t write about me, I wont allow it. You absolute…”

She trailed off and spun away from him. The final insult not quite passing her beautiful ruby red lips. She was wrong, he never wrote about her. He wrote about pieces of her, but nothing solid enough for her to have proof that they were about her. Often aspects of her were in a crazy character in the background, but nothing solid enough to know that it was definitely her, nothing she could be sure of.

 “I’ll need to do something about this,” she berated him, still facing away, “I cannot have people thinking that this is me. I’m not some stupid angry person like you’ve made me out to be.”

 “So what makes you think that she is based on you?” His voice was quiet, quivering. He knew what this large lady was capable of. More than once she had beaten him with whatever came to hand at the time, a frying pan, the poker for the fire and most recently she had tried to strangle him with the cable from the newly installed telephone. He often feared that one day she would kill him.

 She began her angry tirade again, criticizing every move he’d ever made. His flaws were dragged out and celebrated, and his successes were slowly belittled. His fingers grazed over the cover of the book she had put down. He picked it up and quietly flicked through the pages, noting the grubby marks her greasy fingers had made on the once white pages.

 And seconds later it was over. The hard cover of the book let out a satisfying crack as it collided with the back of her skull, silencing her mid-way through her ranting. A split second passed and she collapsed to the floor, not moving, not speaking.

 “I do understand now,” he gave a small smile, “the noise these hard back books make is utterly delightful.”