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after nine years of marriage that I can be dispensed with in the same way as unwanted baggage?
    Christine makes a cup of tea. Upstairs in the study she fires up her computer and check emails. She deletes the usual rubbish that floods the inbox on a daily basis without reading it. Richard attacks her inbox with a rash of messages, most demand Christine contact him followed by accusations that by delaying the inevitable she is only making the situation awkward for both parties.
    His last message is a pathetic attempt to appear reasonable.
Christine, I realise you are angry that our relationship has ended. Must you make things worse for yourself when I’m offering a suggestion to give us a clean break and avoid bitter and heated disputes that will inevitably disrupt our lives if we are living under the same roof? Would you consider a lump sum cash payment ahead of legal proceedings to expedite the division of property and assets? This will allow you to purchase a property and move on from our relationship that you know has become stale and soured. You cannot deny that our relationship is over.
    In Richard’s usual manner he implies he’s blameless. He simply states the marriage is over because the relationship is no longer convenient to him.
    When he wasn’t subjecting Christine to protracted silent rages or explosive outbursts he patronised her, treating her as ignorant and needing every detail explained in simple terms. He often accused her of embellishing the minutiae, likened her to a dog with a bone. He claimed she hung on toslights, collecting them to add to future disagreements and blowing them out of proportion. She cannot recall one instance where she had done what he had accused her of.
    The tea has gone cold.
    She plucks a strand of hair, twirls it around her finger. She stares out of the window at groups of people passing by, cars parked or pulling onto the high street and driving away, not fully conscious of the detail. The activity and noise in the café become a blur; each separate image is a block of colour. The only noise Christine hears is the coffee machine’s hissing in the background. She startles at the blonde, black-aproned girl who chirps, ‘Can I take these for you?’
    Christine is surprised that she only left the crusts from one half of the sandwich. She nods.
    ‘Do you want another coffee or something else?’
    Christine turns and looks at an assortment of cakes and individual chocolates in a glass cabinet. ‘Yes. I’ll have four chocolates.’
    The girl picks up the menu, points to the sweets section. ‘You can choose your flavours from here.’
    ‘Can you select them for me?’
    ‘Do you like pralines, truffles, creams?’
    ‘I’ll leave it up to you. Thanks.’
    In the café she still hasn’t decided how she will respond to Richard’s rash of demands. She pays the bill and returns home and back to the study to read emails. There is a hospital newsletter, one from her brother and another telephone missive from Richard.
Christine, please contact me to indicate your response and intentions. I’d like to avoid the unpleasantness of us finding ourselves in the house and the possibility of an explosion. We need to be civil about this.
    Christine is furious.
Does the creep expect he can pull a stunt like this? Why should I leave? This is as much my home as his. He should be the one leaving since he wants me out of his life.
    Christine wrings her hands with rage. She picks up the glass paperweight with the letter R embossed in it and bounces it ready to smash it into the computer screen. Instead she throws the glass against the door; it explodes into glittering pieces of hail that scatter over the floor.
    I will leave before he returns; amputate this gangrene from my life. I will be gone when he returns. He can fume and sweat it out to find that I have left without a word of where I will be or what my intentions are. He can suck s—t until he chokes waiting for me to answer his