Gone in an instant

It’s a sickening moment when you realise that your lifetime partner, your kindred spirit, your one true love is not who you thought she was.

Of course, thinking back, I’d seen the evidence of her perversion, but chose to turn a blind eye imagining it was because the builders were in. I’d even caught faint traces of her other life on her breath as we kissed when I returned from work at the end of a long day scribbling.

But it’s one thing to suspect your wife, and it’s quite another to have your suspicions confirmed.  Yesterday, I caught her in flagrante delicto, cup to her lips, as she sat secretly in the kitchen, Western Gazette on her knee, and her paraphernalia surrounding her on the table.

‘Darling, don’t get carried away. It’s just milky coffee. I haven’t been having an affair.’

‘What are you doing?’ I asked as I stared incredulously at the tin on the table.

‘I’m having a coffee,’ she replied, making no attempt to deny it.

‘No you’re not, you’re drinking instant.’

‘What of it,’ she replied, ‘I prefer it.’

‘Prefer it? How can you prefer it to actual coffee?’

‘I don’t like that shivery feeling I get when I drink one of your espressos, darling. It makes me feel like I’ve got the flu; they’re too strong.’

‘How long has this been going on?’ I said as I sank into the Windsor chair by the Aga.

‘Darling, don’t get carried away. It’s just milky coffee. I haven’t been having an affair.’

‘How long?’ I demanded.

‘Since you got that wretched Gaggia.’

I’d had my beloved espresso maker for over six years before moving to Hornblotton when it finally gave up the ghost. All that time my wife had been sneaking into the kitchen, boiling milk in a pan, and secretly adding … granules.

‘I could have made you a cappuccino,’ I whispered pathetically.

‘Yes, but it would still have been too strong – and anyway, I don’t much like the froth; it spoils my lipstick.’

Was there no end? Did she have no shame?

‘Latte?’ I squeaked plaintively.

She shook her head, and took another gulp of her revolting beverage, turning her attention once more to the local paper. I could smell the milk from the other side of the kitchen; it turned my stomach.