THE LOCKDOWN WIFE

THE LOCK DOWN WIFE

He had mastered the art of ignoring me. Whenever he came home from work, he gave me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. Then he would change his clothes for a jog, the gym, or a game of football with his mates. He would come back to take his dinner in front of the telly. He communicated in monosyllabic grunts in command form.

I loved being a housewife. There was a lot to be busy about maintaining a household. I ran it very well, indeed. For as long as he provided enough for the upkeep, I was happy.

But then came the pandemic. Like everybody else in the world, we were forced into each other's company during the lockdown. His firm temporarily stopped operation. He did not even have to work at home but kept getting financial support from the social security. Along with the firm, the gym, the pub, the sports club, the shops, and everything else that could interest him were closed as well. Nobody was allowed to stray more than a couple of kilometers away from our respective homes.

For the first time in a very long while we were confronted with each other's constant presence. I felt quite comfortable in my own turf and just went about getting busy with my daily chores. But sometimes he got in the way of my tasks as we kept bumping against each other and there would be a rush towards the remote control in the afternoons when it was time for my soap show.

He started getting irritated by my noisy comings and goings, at least judging by his furrowed brows and deep sighs. He looked like a caged animal longing to be freed. I sometimes saw him just staring at the window watching the empty street, maybe plotting an escape from everything that was here and now.

He would toss and turn at night. Sex petered out into nothing. I went to bed much earlier after a full day of physical work. He crept into bed early mornings, quite exhausted from drifting off on the couch as Netflix flickered on the screen.

He would be woken up by my clanging and banging around noon. He would go straight to the fridge and hunt for the greasiest left-overs and pop them in the microwave and wolf them down as he headed for the couch.

He never offered to help in the house. He refused to run errands for me, not even to the grocery for milk or beer. He used to be the well-turned up one between the two of us, leaving the house in his well ironed (by me) shirt and smelling of manly cologne. I was the Cinderella in my raggedy clothes that could put an apron to shame.

Now he looked haggard, his beard scraggly, his eyebrows droopy, his belly saggy. There were more lines visible on his forehead and around his eyes.

I relished the idea that I was finally the better looking one. My extra work due to his presence gave me a heathy blush on my cheeks. I now had a reason to look cute because I had an audience of sorts as I bounced about with my chores. I still had the shops as a means of socialising, even if I could not see the smiles underneath the masks. I always came back from my sprees quite exhilarated and in contrast he seemed to shrink some more every time I looked at him.

He must have stopped bathing at some point, not bothering to change into day clothes. He padded around in his jammies the whole day, his hair dishevelled and his teeth unbrushed.

He still ignored me, now more pointedly than ever. There was even a tinge of resentment that I sense in his grunts. And so I stayed away from him for as much as I could. I was not too fond of verbal exchanges anyway.

This morning I found him splayed on the bathroom floor. There was a half-empty bottle of sleeping pills in his hand, some spilled, some on the disgusting vomit beside him. I nudged him. Was he dead? Was he just passed out? A shiver of pleasure ran through me at the prospect of cleaning all that mess up.