In Need of a Wife

‘You sprayed my car with gravel. You hit Mary Bryant.’

Elizabeth barely noticed the hiatus. ‘Don’t interrupt me while I’m speaking.’

‘You got out of the wrong tree this morning,’ Tyler said more menacingly.

‘Please go away.’

‘Aren’t you going to apologise? Say you’re sorry?’

‘Will you please go away?’

‘OK.’

Tyler walked back to the vehicle that was designed for hard work and hard living. Sasha breathed her relief. Then she saw what he was going to do as he reversed his new pride and joy, braked, and revved the powerful engine. She closed her eyes.

‘Don’t close your eyes while I’m talking to you,’ Elizabeth fumed.

Sasha opened her eyes. The huge Range Rover charged forward. There was the sound of crashing metal as it rammed the back of the white Porsche. The rear end of the little car crumpled. The Porsche slewed to one side. Tyler reversed. He was going to ram it again in the side. Dazed, they all looked on helplessly as the bull bars bit into the driver’s door, crunching it inwards, then trundled the whole car forward as though it were a smashed toy being bulldozed off to the scrapheap.

‘That’s my car!’ Elizabeth screamed.

It was ear-piercing.

She forgot Nathan and Sasha, plunged down the steps, ran furiously to stop the metal carnage along the driveway, yelling unspeakable violence at the perpetrator. Not even the Pope could have found such words, even in prayer.

The Range Rover halted. Tyler reversed again.

‘Stop it, stop it, stop it!’ Elizabeth screeched.

It was already too late for that.

Tyler paused to lean his elbow on the window ledge of the driver’s door and look down upon the perpetrator of the initial offence. ‘Say you’re sorry for hitting Mary Bryant.’

‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ It sounded as though Elizabeth had burst more than a blood vessel. She was having a cerebral haemorrhage.

Tyler put his foot on the accelerator.

‘Yes. I’m sorry,’ Elizabeth screamed. ‘For God’s sake! Don’t do it again.’

The acceleration dropped to a throaty rumble. Tyler leaned out again, this time to give dictation. ‘Say after me. “I’m sorry I hurt Mary Bryant.”’

Elizabeth forced the words out. ‘I’m...sorry...I... hurt...Mary Bryant.’

‘If you’d said that earlier, it would have saved you a great deal of trouble. Let this be a lesson to you.’

Nathan and Sasha automatically strolled down to the driveway to survey the damage now that the worst appeared to be over. Elizabeth looked as though she was barely containing herself from flying at Tyler tooth and nail.

‘And one more thing,’ he said with a mocking leer. ‘You didn’t unman me one bit when you behaved like a bitch in heat between the sheets. I got the better of you there, too.’

Sasha closed her eyes. Had Elizabeth Maddox been another of Tyler’s infidelities when he was taking photos for magazine articles on celebrities?

‘You’re nothing but an animal,’ Elizabeth snarled.

‘It takes one animal to recognise another.’

‘Pig!’

‘Sow!’