'Catherine's dead!' It was Wendy his secretary who blurted it over the mobile phone. The simple statement answered the question, as to why anybody would phone at such a time. 'I'm so sorry!'

'What happened?' Catherine was his wife and now she was gone.

'She crashed her car into a tree on the Newmarket road. She died instantly!' She paused, as if trying to make it easier for herself and for him. 'She felt no pain! You'll get to know soon enough, but she was drunk out of her mind!'

'Thanks, Wendy.' He took only a moment to change his destination from London to Newmarket. 'I'll go straight to the cottage. I should be there at about three!'

'I'll see you there!'

'There's no need!' There was, but he could not expect the faithful Wendy, who had taken over from Catherine as his secretary, when they had got married, to leave her husband and her warm bed in the middle of the night, to comfort him in his grief. But she would come, when he needed her. She always did!

***

The journey of just under a hundred miles to the cottage, that lay to the north west of Newmarket was one of the longest of his life. As he hurried through the dark, wet night, he was aware he had been drinking and although he knew he was probably below the legal limit, he didn't want to incur the attention of the Police. So he kept the Rover to a calm seventy-five as he followed the motorway through Kent, under the river at Dartford and then on through Essex and towards Cambridge and Newmarket.

His thoughts and questions turned to Catherine. Not one! But the two Catherines he had known.

The first had been his secretary for nearly four years. She had been kind, charming, considerate, efficient, fun, supportive and in fact everything else you would want from a partner, both in business and in life.

The second had been his wife. Within a few months of marriage, the sweet Catherine had changed. She had made her catch and now she made the best of it for herself.

Why had she changed so much and so quickly?

All the reasons he could find were trawled, dissected and examined in his mind. He'd decided that two years was long enough in his original computer business after he had sold it and soon after they had married, he had decided to make a clean break with his past. Perhaps that was it. No work colleagues. No real friends. No longer did he work with Catherine, and the cottage at Newmarket they had bought for weekends, seemed to be too small for his ego and her temper. He couldn't find anything else to be good at, and all she did was spend his money. She had decided she didn't want any children and at that time he would have longed to be the father of her child or perhaps even children. So the rows got longer, the fuses got shorter and he took to finding excuses to live more and more by himself, in the flat in the Barbican.

Had he been that uncaring and wanted nothing but a wife, who would cook, have children, keep house and do her duty in bed?

He thought not! But then, he admitted to himself that he wasn't totally without blame. Following the advice of his accountant, he'd lost a lot of money in a property deal. He'd bought cars that had been a waste of further amounts. He'd done other things with money he shouldn't. Perhaps, he should have consulted her more about investments? It all led to more arguments and now she was gone, he felt guilty.

Why had he never left her?

Perhaps it was just that she possessed enough of that original charm to keep him? Or was it the blackmail of attempted suicide, addiction, sorrow and violence? Perhaps he was weak and just couldn't leave her? Perhaps, he hoped she would reform and become the sweet Catherine again? The questions turned and turned in his mind. Now though, he did not have to ask the question about leaving her. She was dead and again he felt guilty as perhaps her death was his fault.

Should he have married her in the first place?

After all, if it hadn't been for a long visit to the United States and a forced separation from his mistress, he would probably have married her and not Catherine. But then that con-artist, who became his mistress' second husband had arrived in her life and had stolen her before he could have a chance to persuade her otherwise. He'd then married Catherine on a sort of rebound to try to forget the pain. A possible truth bit him again and increased his feelings of guilt. He had killed Catherine, by always hankering for his mistress. Their marriage had never stood a chance.

But then, why had he stayed for so long?

Perhaps, he just found it impossible to leave her. He would return from London to find her asleep on the sofa, with an empty vodka bottle on the floor and the ashtrays full of cigarette ends. He couldn't leave her in this state, as she wouldn't last more than a few months. He remembered the way she screamed at him, both at home and over the phone to his office. Perhaps, by staying he thought he could control it. But he could not and knew that now it was all over.

The questions came, went, returned and recycled themselves, as both similar and opposite doubts and fears. The answers rolled through like some endless fruit machine and were about as useless as most of the combinations that get displayed.

***

As he approached the Stansted Airport junction on the motorway, he slowed, took the slip-road and pulled into the Esso service station tucked in on the Colchester Road. The car needed fuel and he needed the break. He took a couple of Cokes and some crisps to try to fight his tiredness.

He had now taken to comparing the two women in his life; wife and mistress. both had their points; good, bad and indifferent.

He could live with his wife, arguments and rows notwithstanding. He doubted he could live with his mistress. Their explosions were so different and almost relied on prolonged periods of absence and abstinence. But she had all the tenderness, care and sexuality that Catherine lacked.

He cursed the fact that he had ever taken the plunge and turned the good secretary into the bad wife.

***

Twenty minutes later, he had left the motorway, taking the road to Norwich and then after another twenty, he had turned off towards his cottage, which lay about six miles from Newmarket.

The town, with its famous Heath, two racecourses, studs, trainers, jockeys and thousands of horses is one of the strangest towns in England. Legend has it, that Boudicca's tribe, the Iceni, had founded the town in the mists of time, when they needed a new home for their horses. Facts have it, that the Heath, which is about ten miles across, is one of the largest areas of mown grass in the world, that has never been fertilised artificially and that horse races have been organised outside of the town for hundreds of years.

Surrounding the town and the Heath, are literally scores of studs. Some are large, famous and have been established for hundreds of years. Others are small, unknown, run-down and barely scrape a living. Increasingly, here and there Arab money has created great edifices to the horse. Some tasteful and some not so! In the midst of all this patchwork, the cottage had at one time belonged to one of larger studs. They had overpaid for it at the peak of the property boom, so that Catherine could be nearer to her family at weekends.

***

As he approached the cottage, he slowed to almost a walk as he feared the greeting he would receive. He did not want to go back to the source of all that unhappiness. Now he would be entering a world of grief.

At least Wendy would be there and she would be supportive and very protective. She knew everything about Catherine and his marriage and had done her best. But there had been little she could do or could have done, against a woman who's pleasure came from the chequebook, credit card, bottle and cigarette packet.

He could now see two cars in front of the cottage. There was Wendy's Peugeot and a black Ford Sierra. The second belonged to the woman, who had as much to do with Catherine's change all those years ago, as any other. Her domineering mother. His overbearing mother-in-law!

Copyright 1999 by Ewart Higgins