Even the stains on the towel looked authentic. I didn’t know there would be so much of it. The small red bottle was a tardis.
With an hour still to go before Maurice returned from the garden centre, I washed my hands repeatedly with his special carbolic soap. No success.
The nail brush was at the back of the cupboard, behind a stack of mildewed gardening magazines and underneath a large fake spider. I picked the latter up by one long, rubber leg and put it back in the barrel with the rest.
When I heard car tyres crunching the gravel outside, I gave up the Lady Macbeth routine and crawled into position on the sticky, red sitting room carpet. The knife blade was cold. This time, I thought, I’ll show you I’m serious.
*first published online in the Spring 2011 issue of Split Milk
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Viccy Adams 