Singled Out Read Free Page A

Greer or another of those –?’
    â€˜No, it’s what I think, Michael. You just wanted to control me – and planting a baby inside me would have been the ultimate form of control.’
    â€˜No, it’s –’
    â€˜I’ll have a child when
I
want to have a child.’
    â€˜Listen!’ His hand closed fiercely over hers, crushing the bones together. ‘I can only take so much of this!’
    â€˜Don’t start that again, Michael.’
    For a moment he could not contain the fury inside him, but then his grip relaxed. Laura withdrew her hand and rubbed it to restore the circulation.
    â€˜Now do you understand why I don’t want to be alone in a room with you?’
    He shook his head in exasperation. ‘God, what can a man do with a bloody woman?’
    â€˜He can refrain from hitting her, for a start.’
    â€˜Laura, that only happened once or twice.’ Catching sight of her expression, he looked away. ‘And it wasn’t as if I lacked provocation. You were my wife, for God’s sake!’
    â€˜Yes, I
was
.’
    â€˜But, Laura –’
    â€˜Don’t make a fuss about the divorce, Michael. Let it go through. Otherwise the domestic violence may have to be brought up in court.’
    â€˜It was hardly domestic violence.’
    â€˜Wasn’t it?’
    Once again he could not meet her eye. A little smile tugged at his sulky lips. ‘Anyway, if it did come up in court, I’d love to know how you’d prove it. No witnesses, were there?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜So it’d just be your word against mine, wouldn’t it, Laura?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜And most judges are men, aren’t they?’ said Michael smugly.
    Her husband drove off in a disgruntled squeal of tyres, and Laura let herself into the house. It was a tall white building fronted by an impressive portico and black railings. Her flat was on the second floor with a view over the trees of the central square. Rented. Soon she wanted to buy her own place, but needed a few more years of high earnings. Building societies were still wary of giving mortgages to single women.
    She switched on the transistor radio, which was tuned to the new commercial station, Capital, and looked round the living room. Her own space was very precious. It gave Laura enormous and continuing satisfaction to know that every item in the room was hers alone. She had chosen them, she had paid for them, they expressed her identity.
    She put on the kettle in the kitchenette and, while it was boiling, changed her clothes. Basic, functional underwear, tights. Ribbed T-shirt with a row of buttons at the neck, Indian cotton dungarees. Green shoes with platform soles and appliquéd leather flowers. It was hot in the office. Better to dress as for the summer and ward off the October chill with her coat when she went outside.
    She put all her dirty clothes in the washing machine. They didn’t make a full load, but Laura needed to start the wash straight away. The clothes didn’t exactly feel soiled, but the events of the night before required a symbolic cleansing. The unimportant details of what had happened needed to be purged away.
    She ground coffee, put it into the glass funnel of the Cona and poured over hot water from the kettle; it started to percolate through. Capital Radio announced the nine o’clock news. She must hurry. The lead item was once again the fighting between Egypt and Israel in the Sinai Desert. The oil states threatened to raise prices in protest against America’s support for Israel. A woman had been found strangled in a West London car park. England’s football team had only achieved a 1–1 draw with Poland and wouldn’t qualify for the World Cup.
    Laura perched on the back of an armchair as she sipped her coffee. Facing her on the mantelpiece was a small wooden-framed mirror and beside it the photograph of her mother. As she often did,