Part One

Shedding 

The end couldn’t be described as them “splitting.” The word implied a single, decisive and finite action. “Unravelling” was the more accurate term. It implied a slower, less linear and more complex process. A gradual, corrosive deterioration of an ongoing but now unwanted and unresolved relationship. However, when applying an appropriate sobriquet to her ex-husband, Carol found little ambiguity in the phrase, “lying, cheating, manipulative bastard,” its descriptive qualities perfect in both their accuracy and simplicity.

Her ex, now referred to as “the bastard” or simply “bastard” within the family circle, had shed Carol, their children, and the extended family as easily as a snake sloughs its skin.

Where he had been present, he was now absent. No explanation, no protracted goodbyes, no slamming of doors or dramatic exits.

He took nothing. He left everything. And at a stroke, Carol’s world had emptied through a hole in her soul as large as a catastrophic and fatal wound.  

Raw

Their home became her house. Their history, her prison. It was mapped across every wall in prints, pictures, and photographs. The years spent together were now caged like rare animals who sensed their own extinction. Restless and resentful, doomed to pace endlessly in wardrobes and cupboards, the seasons captured in every short-sleeved shirt, month appropriate jersey, and down-filled jacket that retained his shape, his smell, his memory.

Each and every room bore the abrasions, nicks, and scratches of their time in this place. He was etched into the very fabric of their former home. His indentation on his chair, in his spot, in his lounge. Their family height chart recorded year upon year on the kitchen wall. Carol could feel the holes left by the panel pins where they had hung their children’s advent calendars, the ghosts of many a Christmas past.  

What was theirs is now hers. What was his is now baggage.  

Cleansing

Compartmentalize. Carol had seen the concept described on a daytime television program. Four women united in a coven of self-proclaimed but highly judgmental non-experts. They passed judgment on this novel hypothesis on behalf of their equally ill-informed audience. The piece was sandwiched between items about fashion-conscious politicians’ wives and coping with the death of a beloved pet, Carol recalled.

In truth, the compartmentalization model being proposed was abstract; it centered upon creating mental boxes within your head and placing all concerns, worries, and any major issues in an appropriate “box” and closing the lid. “Containment is contentment”, was the strapline.  

Carol took the concept literally.

She Googled “storage boxes,” then remembered the whole point of the exercise was containment and added, “with lids.” Heavy-duty 145 liter capacity storage boxes (with lids) came in at number three. Perfect. She ordered 25. One for each year of their marriage.

Carol would excise the bastard. Like a surgeon tackling a particularly virulent form of cancer, Carol would cut every trace of his malignancy from her life. Carol would fill these boxes with the dead tissue from their cadaver of a marriage. She would slice and hack until every last putrid and rotting and rancid trace of him was exorcised. And each box Carol filled would become the coffin within which each year of their lives together would be interred. Each lid she closed would be slammed shut with the finality of a sarcophagus, sealing its contents behind opaque plastic; a specimen preserved for the future amusement of the debauched, the degenerate, and the decedent of another time.

Carol’s plan was to stack the boxes up and along one of the walls in the garage. The boxes were designed to interlock, like a particularly bulky set of Lego.

While waiting for the boxes to be delivered, Carol would tackle the clearing of the garage. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually entered the place. This had been another of his exclusive territories. She unlocked the door and peered inside, surprised by her sudden nervousness. Carol’s cardigan provided a comforting hug. Flicking the switch, she watched as the fluorescent lights came on in sequence, bringing light to the darkness one step at a time. The air smelt dank and musty. The concrete floor evinced every minor paint job and major oil change, a spotted and clotted Jackson Pollock masterpiece. The bastard’s tools lay where he had last left them, redundant. Dormant DIY projects lounged on tables, pieces and parts lay like broken stones long tumbled from a crumbled ruin, and several coffee cups continued their game of hide and seek, lurking in shadows on shelves, skulking on sills. Carol’s breath caught in her chest as she saw his orange boiler suit slumped in a chair against the back wall; a sentinel posing an aggressive challenge, a potent, palpable threat. His work boots standing incongruously to attention beneath.

A paint-splattered radio/CD player offered distraction and Carol pressed “Play.” Frank Sinatra addressed the room. He told no one in particular he was bewitched, bothered, and bewildered. It had been his favorite song.  

And Carol’s nerve cracked as suddenly as thinly frosted ice on an October pond. She plunged downwards into the turbulent, cross-flowing waters of insecurity, uncertainty, and indecision, floundering to breathe, flailing for the door and finding her feet, Carol crash-closed the garage door on the specters in this mausoleum of memories.

Her screaming caused concerned neighbors to alert the police who found her in the garden, hands battered and bloodied from sustained slamming against the garage door. The appropriate agencies were summoned, and Carol was stretchered past those self-same neighbors to be medicated, counseled, then sectioned.

Two months passed before Carol was able to return to her house. The boxes had been delivered.

Purging  

Carol had been collected by her older sister, a pinched-faced woman with broad hips and a narrow mind, much given to offering unsolicited advice. “I warned you at the time” snapped Janice. “That man was no good. Two-faced and trouble from the start.” Each word was delivered in a staccato rhythm and synchronized to Janice’s bad driving. “Wandering eye and wandering hands, that one. Was never going to stick around for long. Better for you he’s gone if you ask me.” Carol wasn’t requesting commentary of any description from Janice. She simply needed a responsible adult to collect her from the hospital. Self-righteous criticism was merely the price to be paid. As they pulled into the drive, Carol saw the boxes. Janice noticed and took this as her cue. “Yeah, those! Well, they were delivered last week by a … let me tell you, a horrible little man with a really bad attitude. “You… eh, Mrs. Johnstone?”, he says. “No”. I said, “I’m her sister”. So, he says, “Ah, Need Mrs. Johnstone to sign for these.” So, I say, “Can’t I sign on her behalf?” And he says to me, “How do I know you aren’t some random woman, signing for stuff?” “Can you believe that?” Carol zones out.

“… so, I’ve aired the place out, cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms, and made a first sweep of the garage. Cleared that back wall you wanted. I’m not moving those boxes though. Left them where that awful man dumped them. Good mind to complain to his boss.”

Carol is back. “Thanks, Janice. Thanks for the lift and … well, everything. The cleaning and stuff.”

A wearied Janice, exhausted from the doing of good deeds responds, “Oh forget it. But you need to get yourself together, Carol. Really. It’s just a man. Forget the … bastard.” Carol has never heard Janice swear. Not once. “Anyway…” Janice continues, “The house is in as good a state as I could manage in the time I had. Couldn’t do anything about that … smell though. Tried everything. But that’s your problem now. Right, that’s your home. I’ll leave you to it. Keep in touch, tell me if I can … well, you know.” 

“I will. And thanks, Janice.”

In that instant, they remembered that despite their differences they were still sisters, that there were things left unsaid, things that didn’t need to be articulated.

Janice stalled her car twice. Crunched through the gears, over-revved the engine, and bumped up the drive. She waved to Carol without looking and still managed to hit the gate.

A sobbing Carol cursed herself for being caught off guard. She resolved that her return to his former kingdom would be on her terms, and the agenda would be hers.

Approaching his wardrobes was akin to entering a lion’s den brimming with sharp-toothed memories; the recollections evoked, intolerable. Janice had been right, there was the smell. At first a faint mixture of scents and sensations. Aftershave. Deodorant. Sweat. The odor of stagnant, worn once but since unwashed clothing. It had lain in wait, using its laundered and fragrant fellow travelers as a shield. Intent on ambush, it anticipated the arrival of the next, unsuspecting visitor.  

Carol looked at the wardrobes as if seeing them for the first time.

He had built these unnecessarily cavernous structures himself. Spent many months surveying, measuring, and sourcing his supplies. Many hundreds of pounds buying and storing his materials. Many thousands of hours hacking and hammering out his vision. Finally, there they stood. To him, voluminous testaments to his ability as a carpenter; no, as a Man. To her, mocking reminders of his many failures as a human being.

She knew he had installed a supposedly secret panel and false wall during the construction. There was something hidden in the eaves of their roof. He had tried to cover his duplicity with boards of 3-millimeter plywood and equally thin excuses. Because he had a hobby.

Carol wasn’t certain about the specific nature of her husband’s pastime, but she was pretty sure it was connected to what she knew was called “The Dark Web”. All the clues had been there; hidden in plain sight. As his interest in her began to wane, his secretiveness, his need to be alone and distant increased incrementally. Doors, once open, were closed and locked.

On completion of the wardrobes, he had said, “Just like the Pharaohs,” they had the same thing, in their tombs. The pyramids. In Egypt. Kept all their valuable stuff inside. Showed people who they were by what they’d built, what they owned. Me, I’ve got my wardrobes. Here. Exactly the same thing.”

Carol can remember saying nothing.

A resolute Carol slid back the wardrobe doors and uncorked the unhygienic genie.

Wave upon wave of repulsive but irrepressible aromas intent on invasion and occupation swept across Carol’s senses like decomposing fish.

This was proof of prior corruption on a grand scale. The reek of him slithered across carpets and oozed into every cranny, every corner. It wormed its way into blankets and bedding and massed pungent and heavy across the ceiling. His ripe and rotting aura clung like cigarette 

smoke to her clothing as panic rose in her chest, and an all-enveloping terror forced her from back this space, back into the room.

Like a parasite, his squalor snaked downstairs to conquer and colonize what remained of Carol’s house.

The bastard was back.

Part Two

Purification

Thirty-six hours later, Carol had rationalized her situation. She had spent a sleepless night at her younger sister’s home. On the couch, the all-too-short blanket and all too long hours had provided the opportunity to think things through. The task was merely bigger and more complex than she had anticipated. Nothing that can’t be solved with a broom, bleach and rubber gloves Carol thought.

She had started by opening all the windows throughout the house. The noise of passing cars and the chill of winter air had brought a welcome sobriety to her situation; the sheer ordinariness of life beyond these walls was comforting.

Of course, the visit to Doctor Thompson had helped. And the pills. 

The boxes were still in the back garden, where they lay like tipped and tumbled gravestones, spread along the gravel path.

Carol carried the first of the boxes into the house and upstairs. “Maybe this time. Maybe it’s third time lucky,” she prayed.

Regeneration

Her face mask expanding and contracting like an accordion, Carol crawled towards the back of the wardrobe. The smell still clawed at her throat, coated her tongue. This was the last of her senses to be assailed. She could taste him. The smell was strongest here, lodged deep within this wooden cave. She began to tunnel, pulling the bags of folded clothing to her, then pushing them behind. Gradually, she formed her own bubble, her own tiny world, lit solely by her head torch. A cocoon of life.  

Carol levered the last of the bundles out of the wardrobe as she inched herself towards the back wall.

Gripping the screwdriver that she had found in the garage, Carol prepared to remove the four screws from the secret panel. They were missing. Placing the tip of the tool underneath, she prized it free. There was a small passageway beyond, a crawl space, one-meter square. It led off to her right, then her left. It took her up then down through a series of blind alleys and false walls. Still following the putrid smell, Carol saw a light ahead, then a hatch in the floor, a dim glow defining its edges. A single handle had been recessed on one side, the other was hinged.  

 As she lifted her head to look down into the space beneath, the beam of her torch caught his face staring back at her. Head tilted to one side. A length of nylon material had been tied to a beam at one end and around his neck at the other. As Carol watched, she became aware that he was turning slowly away from her, twisting the noose clockwise. As the cord completed its lazy circuit, it tightened and sent him back towards her, anticlockwise. It was as if he’d had a sudden thought, half-remembered some amusing anecdote.

As he returned in yet another languid arc, Carol became aware that the nylon cord around his neck was a woman’s stocking. Its partner lay like a discarded snakeskin beneath the corpse clad in a black evening dress.

This time there was no panic. No hysteria. Shock took control and coordinated Carol’s body. It slowed her breathing, reduced her heart rate, and brought her mind to a place of delightful abstraction. One by one her senses started to shut down. The all-pervading odor had been the smell of death; now it too was gone.

As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, the vague bundles strewn across the floor of the chamber swam into focus. Clothes. Women’s clothes, arranged in neat piles, stacked against the walls, hanging on rails. Waiting to accompany their owner on his final journey to another life.

Carol thought, “A Pharaoh in his tomb, surrounded by his possessions. The stuff that defined who he was. And how he would be remembered. Forever.”

Carol was calm, clear-headed, and decisive. She would need another, bigger box.