awkward motion as if to raise the glass to his own lips, then put it down with a bang on the counter, and in an uncoordinated movement accidentally knocked the gin bottle over so that it fell to the floor, smashing into green shiny pieces, the liquid spreading in a pool.
Thomas bent down to pick up the bits. Berenice didn’t help.
She said,‘Thomas can’t get anything right, can you, darling?’ The words were no worse than others, but the acid sarcasm in her voice had gone beyond scathing to unbearable.
Thomas straightened with a face filled with passionate hatred, the worm turning at last, and by the neck he held the top part of the green bottle, the broken edges jagged as teeth.
He came up fast with his hand rising. Berenice, cushioned in complacency, wasn’t even looking at him and seemed not to begin to understand her danger.
Malcolm said I had fast reactions… I dropped my own drink, grasped Berenice by both arms and swung her violently round and out of the slicing track of the razor-sharp weapon. She was furiously indignant, protesting incredulously, sprawling across the floor where I’d almost thrown her, still unaware of what had been happening.
Thomas looked at the damage he’d done to me for a long blank second, then he dropped the fearsome bottle and turned to stumble off blindly towards his front door. I took two strides and caught him by the arm.
‘Let me go …’ He struggled, and I held on.‘Let me go… I can’t do anything right… she’s right.’
‘She’s bloody wrong.’
I was stronger than he. I practically dragged him across the room and flung him into one of the armchairs.
‘I’ve cut you,’ he said.
‘Yes, well, never mind. You listen to me. You both listen to me. You’re over the edge. You’re going to have to face some straight facts.’
Berenice had finally realised how close she’d come to needing stitches. She looked with anger at the point of my left shoulder wherejersey and shirt had been ripped away, where a couple of cuts were bleeding. She turned to Thomas with a bitterly accusing face and opened her mouth.
‘Shut up,’ I said roughly.‘If you’re going to tell him he’s incompetent, don’t do it. If you’re going to complain that he could have cut you instead, yes he could, he was trying to. Sit down and shut up.’
‘Trying to?’ She couldn’t believe it. She sat down weakly, her hair awry, her body slack, eyes shocked.
‘You goaded him too far. Don’t you understand what you’ve been doing to him? Putting him down, picking him to pieces every time you open your mouth? You have now completely succeeded. He can’t function any more.’
‘Dear Thomas -’ she began.
‘Don’t say that. You don’t mean it.’
She stared.
‘If he were your dear Thomas,’ I said,‘you would help him and encourage him, not sneer.’
‘I’m not listening to this.’
‘You just think what you stirred up in Thomas today, and if I were you, I’d be careful.’ I turned to Thomas,‘And it’s not all her fault. You’ve let her do it, let her carp all this time. You should have stopped her years ago. You should have walked out. You’ve been loyal to her beyond reason and she’s driven you to want to kill her, because that’s what I saw in your face.’
Thomas put a hand over his eyes.
‘You were dead lucky you didn’t connect with her mouth or her throat or whatever you were going for. There would have been no going back. You just think what would have happened, both of you. The consequences to yourselves, and to your girls. Think!: I paused.
‘Well, it’s beyond facing.’
‘I didn’t mean it,’ Thomas mumbled.
‘I’m afraid you did,’ I said.
‘He couldn’t have done,’ Berenice said.
‘He did mean it,’ I said to her.‘It takes quite a force to tear away so much woollen jersey. Your only hope is to believe to the depths of your soul that he put all his goaded infuriated strength behind that blow. I’ll tell you, I was lucky too. I was moving away fast trying to avoid being cut, and it can have been only the points of the glass that reached my skin, but I’ll remember the speed of them …’ I broke off, not knowing how else to convince her. I didn’t want to say, ‘It bloody hurts,’ but it did.
Thomas put his head in his hands.
‘Come on,’ I said to him, ‘I’m taking you out of here. On your feet, brother.’