Chapter 3
The sun blazed down on the streets of Kensington as Edward Graham, dressed in his finest set of weekend joggers slammed the door shut on his brand new 2006 Range Rover sport. Sweat immediately began streaming down his face causing him to roll down the driver and passenger windows.
“Kate, get me a bottle of water before you step out. It’s scorching today.” Shouted Edward through the large oak doors of his 4 bedroom mansion
“Yeah sure. Have you strapped in the kids?” Replied Kate’s echoed voice from inside the house with a similar volume.
“Oh fuck” Ed cursed to himself, realising he had left his two daughters on the footsteps of the house. “I did, babe” he shouted back trying to seem as authentic as possible, while simultaneously pushing numerous buttons of his relatively undiscovered car in a frenzied attempt to unbuckle his seatbelt. “Dammit, come off” he admonished the car while also realising a 4 wheel drive vehicle has little use in suburbia and in particular, its various off-road buttons.
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH”. Ed jolted free from the belt and jumped in shock on hearing the loud scream, hitting his head hard on the roof. He ran out of the car and to his doorstep as swiftly as possible, meeting his beautiful wife Kate at the location. She stood an unimpressed figure with a look of bemusement slapped on her face. The only thing separating them at that point was the twin seats on the floor housing their twin baby daughters Sara and Zara whose cacophony of noise and wailing required immediate attention.
Ed took Sara, dressed in a green flower dress, while Kate took Zara clothed in yellow. Both girls had identical physical features, from short golden hair, tied in pig tails, to green eyes and short stubby noses. The only thing that separated them on days when they weren’t clad in different colours was the piercing Sara received on her left ear.
Kate rocked Zara back to sleep while coddling her in her arms. She sang a mixture of childhood songs that had infused in to her brain during months of looking after their first set of kids. The combination of kids tv, baby toys with musical elements and other paraphernalia meant that Kate had become an expert tenor in the great musical genre of lullaby’s. Ed on the other hand simply put Sara over his shoulder and patted her back. Both kids fell asleep at the same time.
After putting the babies in to the backseat of the car, Kate walked over to Ed. “Here’s your water, dickhead” She proceeded to take the cap of the bottle and pour it over Ed’s head until he was totally drenched. Ed upon regaining his senses, slowly raised his vision and menacingly looked at Kate. Kate realising what she had done, swallowed a gulp in her throat and slowly began to step back. Ed abruptly stepped forward and lifted her off the ground. Kate screamed at the top of her lungs. The situation was tense. Ed threw Kate over his shoulder and began running around their vast front drive until he reached the little pond on the side of the house. “Let me go, let me go” Yelled Kate while hitting Eds back with her clenched fists.
“Babe, I think the weather is getting to you, you need to cool off a bit”. Ed lifted Kate’s slim figure away from his body and postured throwing her in to the pond. He leaned her head further and further back until it seemed as though he would dip her head first in to the fish inhabited stream. “Ed, what are you doing? Please stop. Noooooo, arrrhhhhh”.
Ed with the slightest of jerks leaned her back until all of her beautifully managed, brunette hair was submerged in the water. She screamed again, fighting to break free. He kept her in this position for seconds that seemed an age to Kate. A few fish began to swim in the direction of her hair, in possible curiosity of this new species that had entered their environment. After realising it wasn’t anything edible, they began swimming again in their perpetual circles. Ed lifted her out of the water, placing her on the ground and looked at her with a mischievous grin, before breaking out in hysterical laughter. Kate was livid and began chasing him around the drive way screaming expletives at him that could be heard half way down the block. “I’m going to kill you, you fucking prick”. Ed was still buoyed with laughter and in audacious cheek, retorted “shhhh, you’ll wake the kids”.
Ed, locked the door of his car in the frenzy of the chase and ran in to the house, with Kate hot on his heels. He ran in to the front living room creating a bit of ground on the rabid female hunter, after circling a few of the many statues and artefacts in their grandly decorated home and slammed the door shut. Kate’s heart was beating with the ferocity of an African tribal drum and she had only one goal in mind. She stood at the door of the closed room, steadied herself and burst in like an FBI agent about to make a drugs raid. She looked around in the vast space of the room, taking in the large, cream leather sofa on the side of the room, the 60 inch LED tv on the other end and the numerous relics and ancient art works from their vast travels on the walls and in the cabinets.
“Where ar....” The hand over her face muffled the rest of her sentence before she could finish.
