Read The Blissfully Dead for Free Online

the tattoo parlour , but Jess hadn’t cared.
    Now, Jess was biting the inside of her top lip to stop herself smiling and, with her right forefinger, she stroked the smudgy cheek of Shawn’s tattoo.
    If Chloe had had to describe her friend’s appearance, she would have said it was ecstatic.
    ‘Are you on drugs?’ Chloe asked. ‘Did you get some E?’
    ‘Don’t be daft. Drugs are for losers. Now be quiet, all right?’ And she started to sing, belting out the words like her life depend ed on it.

Chapter 6
Day 3 – Patrick
    M ummy, you put the triangle in there.’
    Gill beamed and slotted the triangle through the triangular hole in the apparatus. ‘Here, Bonnie, do the circle.’
    Bonnie took the proffered plastic ball, scrutinised it for a moment, then handed it back to her mother, shaking her head so vigorously that her pink cheeks wobbled. ‘Mummy.’
    Gill posted the circle, then handed a square one to Patrick. ‘Daddy do the square?’ she asked Bonnie.
    Bonnie pointedly turned her back on him, as though he had just made some devastatingly insulting personal comment to her. ‘No. I want Mummy to do it.’
    Patrick shrugged, feeling ridiculously slighted. Bonnie seemed more than fine, playing with Gill as if nothing had ever happened – although of course she wouldn’t remember it; how could she, she’d only been five months old, and that was as it should be. It would be terrible if she recoiled at Gill’s touch.
    Patrick remembered it, though.
    He knew he would never, ever forget it. The sight of Gill’s purple fingermarks on their baby’s neck would accompany him to the grave, her tiny limp body within seconds of eternal lifelessness . . .
    As if she could read his thoughts, Gill looked up at him from where she was crouching on the rug next to Bonnie and her toys. She gave him a slow, tentative smile, the neediness of which made Patrick’s teeth clench. This is all so screwed up , he thought. She had recovered; they had the chance for a fresh start. He knew deep down she would never try to hurt Bonnie again, she’d never wanted to in the first place, she’d been in the grip of a devastating bout of postnatal psychosis. As long as they resigned themselves to being a one-child family, there was no reason to be fearful. Bonnie was now a happy, normal two-and-a-half-year-old. Gill was his beloved wife, and they were a family again. He and Bonnie could move back in here with Gill tomorrow – the social worker had already signed Gill off and she could be left alone with Bonnie all day if she wanted now, after a few months of supervised visits.
    But the problem was, he wasn’t sure that he felt anything at all for his wife, bar a deep sense of sorrow and pity. How could he go back to sharing his bed, his life, his heart with someone he wasn’t sure he even loved anymore?
    Their house was immaculate, far better than it had been in all the months it was rented out on short-term lets. Patrick looked around the room.
    ‘New picture? It’s nice.’ He gestured towards a large canvas on the wall – abstract artily out-of-focus petals. Privately he thought Gill’s tastes must have changed. The old Gill would have dismissed that as anodyne or too predictable. Perhaps that was a consequence of being incarcerated in a secure mental unit for over a year . . .
    Gill actually blushed. ‘I got some new scatter cushions too,’ she said, pointing at the sofa. The cushions were the exact same shade of crimson as the petals in the picture.
    ‘Yes, I noticed,’ said Patrick, although he hadn’t. ‘Lovely.’
    ‘The kitchen was really dirty,’ Gill said, helping Bonnie slot jigsaw pieces into place. ‘Those tenants were supposed to have had it professionally cleaned when they left, but they clearly didn’t. We should complain to the letting agent. Who was the agent?’
    She hated this, Patrick realised. She hated the fact that he’d had to do all the work involved in the temporary lets of their house,