It was tucked away in the old bureau in the attic. She wouldn’t have been up there if weren’t for the fact she’d hunted high and low looking for her passport. She’d reached that point of desperation where something simply refuses to be found and you begin searching everywhere.

The passport wasn’t in the bureau but the torch light fell on the small leather bound journal, pushed discreetly to the back of one of the drawers.

That’s how Corrine found out about Tina.

The entries were obviously Gareth’s handwriting. She’d been married to him for twenty years, she should know. What was totally unfamiliar was the passion contained in the words.

Corrine stood dumbfounded, her mouth hanging open in shock.

She pictured Gareth, big and ungainly with thick black rimmed glasses and thin grey hair, sober suited or lounging messily on the sofa watching telly in smelly slippers. The image and the words on paper simply didn’t match. They were light years apart.

Corrine read on and on, the shock and disbelief gradually igniting to luminescent rage.

When Gareth arrived home the diary was safely back in the bureau. He acted exactly like the everyday Gareth always acted, making that annoying snuffling noise as he read the papers and fussily picking out the celery from the beef casserole. She whisked to and fro cooking and serving, convinced that her face hung askance, flapping like an unsecured shutter to reveal the murderous glower beneath. But Gareth seemed to see nothing untoward.

And Corrine said nothing untoward either.

The next day she went up to the attic and read more. She gripped the edges of the book with whitening knuckles as the words sprung like spikes from the pages to wound and madden her.

The entries weren’t dated but the last time she’d been to her mothers without him had been at least six months ago. The book was nearly full, this must have been going on for ages.

‘You fucking…fucking bastard!’ she hissed.

‘You trolling little slut! I’ll kill you both!’

But again her smile was apple pie and wholesome when he walked through the door that evening. She spat in his feta salad and trickled gravy from an open cat food tin into the bottom of his wine glass before disguising it with a splash of Merlot. Corrine sat across the dinner table watching as he ate and drank and again said nothing.

It was frightening how easily she could feign composure. They were days this week when she’d sat at her work desk convinced she must appear to the world like some sputtering fizzing bomb about to explode acid vitriol in all directions, nights when she sat at home feeling her eyes must be stripping the flesh from Gareths face in smoking strips as she glared. But no one seemed to guess.

Corrine continued to play at charades, biding her time. She patiently awaited her chance for revenge, the type of revenge she liked best, calculating, spiced with poison and served on a bed of nettles. She wanted both Gareth and that primping little slag right in front of her, wanted to see their eyes, relish the shock and fear when she confronted them. Because by God when that happened her fury would rise up like a breaking tsunami and crash upon them mightily.

She had a vile temper. Most who crossed her, foolishly believing this pleasant, rather prim woman would be a pushover, found out soon enough. Terrified by the violence of her response they seldom made the same mistake again. She had learnt to rein in its worst excesses, making the times she could fully indulge it ever sweeter. Gareth, his gentle, rather placid nature weathered by these frequent storms, had long ago been cowed. Or so she had thought. She would never have believed he’d have the guts to risk an affair.

That was the real affront.

Two days later taking an illicit peek once more to feed her ever growing harrowing addiction, she discovered her opportunity. Gareth had made a new entry.

Just for a moment Corrine’s fury faltered shoved aside by an insistent wailing hurt. Gareth had brought her a little black dress once but she never wore it as the fool had chosen one not ‘little’ enough. It hung off her like a tent and had been consigned to the back of the wardrobe along with all the other oversize mistakes he‘d purchased and she never got around to taking back. Had he brought it to try and spice up their admittedly patchy sex life before giving up altogether and seeking fresh pastures.

A tear pricked the corner of her eye but she swallowed with Amazonian resolve. She would give no man the warm, wet satisfaction of her tears. They would have only cold retribution from her, not sorrow.

Instead she made her plans.

***

That Thursday Corrine sat at her desk, answering calls, tapping away at the keyboard, neatly groomed, the model of decorum and professional integrity. She’d carefully dressed for work that morning in front of the fitted wardrobes with the mirrored doors. Her reflection gazed back, with not one flickering muscle or misplaced hair to betray the dark anarchy that fired her veins. Bidding goodbye to her husband she watched bleakly from the window as he lumbered up the path heading for the train station. Corrine floated through the morning, an iceberg on calm seas, deliberately psyching herself up. Imagining them together. Quoting snatches of the journal from memory.

The phone on the desk rang. Corrine reached over and picked it up. A tinny voiced man complained that he’d been waiting three days for someone to return his call He demanded to speak to the manager.

‘I’m afraid he’s out right now.’ Corrine’s voice was bright and bland, her smile as brittle as dried bone.

A torrent of abuse spat from the earpiece.

‘If you’d like to phone back later,’ she soothed, dropping the receiver dismissively. ‘Fucker!’ she muttered.

A young temp at the desk opposite glanced up and frowned. Corrine smiled quickly and pretended to rummage in a drawer as bile stirred and bubbled like magma beneath the serene surface.

After lunch she told her supervisor she would not be staying for her customary overtime but leaving at five. The supervisor looked up, mildly surprised. ‘Oh ok Corrine. Got something important on.’

She smiled impeccably. ‘Yes…very actually.’

She walked home quickly; the insipid winter light had already yielded to evening. Lights blazed in the darkness. A bus growled past, its occupants frozen behind yellow squares like insects in amber. Corrine wondered what illicit secrets they clutched to their deceitful chests and felt the anger surge.

She turned into the avenue. Bare trees lay gnarled and unadorned along the kerbs edge. There were so many cars parked it would be impossible to guess what one belonged to Tina. Maybe she hadn’t even arrived yet. Corrine did not want to burst in and find Gareth alone, still waiting, proving nothing and alerting him to her suspicions. She skulked along the shadowy edges of garden walls and gazed up at the house. It shone out like a beacon to treachery.

Easing open the side gate, she edged around the corner and peered in through the kitchen window. The room was empty, the beech units and marbled worktops dimly lit by recessed lights glowing beneath the wall cupboards. At the kitchens end the door to the hallway stood open. A square of light shunted into the dark passage from the living room.

Corrine took a deep breath and gently opened the back door and crept in with steps like silk. For a moment she stood furtive and cautious like a thief in her own house. The exquisitely designed and decorated house, the house kept clean and spick and span by her for a faithless husband who screwed his slut within these very wall.

There was no sound whatsoever, not even the inane gabble of the TV. She shifted the weight of her bag and placed it gently on the table. Reaching in she drew out the small cudgel she’d purchased as protection against muggers and crept down the hall. Through the crack in the door she saw the living room was also deserted. Coming into it fully a sense of anticlimax dented her resolve. It suddenly felt mildly absurd, creeping around the familiar environs of her own home.

Then she saw the coffee cup.

It was perched innocuously on the tables edge, hardly worthy of a second glance had it not been for the smudge of lipstick that spread itself like a gaudy slug across the cups rim.

Adrenaline surged, she mounted the stairs determinedly but still avoided the creaking fourth step. As her head drew level with the banister she peered through the rails and saw the master bedroom door ajar, heard a feminine smoky voice and saw shadows cast broad strokes across the wall in the lamp lit space.

‘Oh that feels so lovely!’ The low voice uttered breathlessly. ‘My panties are so soft and silky. Feel them too!’

Corrine hoisted the cudgel high and crossed the landing at lightening speed. Shoving open the bedroom door she burst in.

Tina gasped, looking up and staring straight at Corrine. The big hands ranging across her crotch fell away limply.

She’d had her speech all planned, had mentally rehearsed her entrance line long and hard. How very nice to meet you at last Tina, so sorry my husband failed to introduce us, I can’t imagine why. She believed a little sarcasm would set the tone perfectly; but the words withered on her lips, her narrowed gaze and cold, implacable smile faltered. Corrine’s eyes widened and her mouth gaped. The cudgel lowered as she stared at Tina‘s face.

For Tina was quite the ugliest woman she had ever seen in her life. A big lantern jaw, thick beetling eyebrows and a spreading nose jostled for room on a jowly face further defiled by long thin lips and piggy eyes lined erratically with kohl and gobs of mascara. Navvies’ shoulders strained forth from the little black dress, hanging in a turmoil of creases and rucks before ending at bristling, tree trunk thighs.

‘Tina?’ Corrine exclaimed in disbelief.

But Tina didn’t answer, spinning away at exactly the same time as Gareth turned from the mirrored wardrobe doors to face her.

A broad hairy back rose from the dress, reflecting back at her in the glass. His five ‘o clock shadow flinched darkly beneath powder daubed cheeks as his fuchsia smeared lips writhed in horror. Gareth whipped the blonde wig from his head as though this could possibly confound her discovery.

Corrine thought of all the oversize garments. The gifts from him, unworn… by her at least…that hung furtively in the closet.

Tina in black!’ She whispered in horror.

Gareth tried to speak but only managed a strangled croak.

A scream exploded from her lips, Corrine raised the cudgel,