Second Time Around

If the deck beneath me had opened up and I'd been dragged down to hell, I would have cheered.

"Just a moment!" Ronny interrupted. "If you don't mind me pointing it out, but this is a night club, not the place for a discussion like I believe you are about to have. Please all of you, hold everything right there." Then Ronny was out of his seat and heading towards one of the stewards standing at the bar.

Both Gloria and I knew Ronny well. A nerd he might be, but he was an organiser in our place of employment, one of those people who comes into his own in a crisis!

In a few moments he was back. "There's a kind of conference room down the corridor. I've fixed it so you can talk in private in there. Follow me please all of you," he said in his 'do it now' tone of voice that no one could mistake.

"Do you want us to be a party to this?" Gloria asked, when we got to the room.

"John might not feel outnumbered," Katherine suggested, before I had a chance to speak.

I just shrugged; this was all completely out of my control.

Gloria came in and sat beside me, but Ronny stationed himself outside the door from where he could watch but not hear through a window in the door. He said he'd keep our drinks topped up and went off to get a fresh load.

"Well, are you going to answer my question?" Samantha asked once again.

I looked at Katherine but she sat there, poker faced. I took a deep breath.

"Samantha, when I got out of prison you were five years old. From what I saw you were happy, and you were calling your mother's husband dad. I couldn't see any sense in confusing you and interfering with your mother's life when she was so happy."

I was looking Samantha right in the eye, but I couldn't help but hear Katherine take a sudden deep breath. I looked at her but she still wore that poker-faced expression that she'd worn all through the divorce, my trial and for several months leading up to both.

"All I would have done by sticking my nose in was upset the apple cart again. I'd made a big enough mess of things before the divorce and I figured there was just no sense in causing any more agro. But please don't think I didn't care for you or about you. I used to sneak up and watch you at school, where no one knew who I was."

There was the sound of another intake of breath from Katherine's direction.

"And I arranged for my solicitor to send your mother enough money - once I'd earned it -- that you should have a tidy sum stashed away by now."

I looked at Katherine to confirm my statement about the money.

"Sam knows about the cash, John. It's all in a trust that she can't access until she is twenty-one," Katherine confirmed.

"Why were you in prison, father?"

"That's a long story, Samantha. I don't think we need to go into all that," I replied trying to dodge the issue.

"I think we do, John," Katherine said quite sternly. I looked at her. "Go on. She's never heard the full story. I didn't think it was right to tell her from my point of view. Although Frank stuck his ore in when Sam asked him, of course. We had a big fight over that, didn't we, Sam?"

I looked back to my daughter who suddenly looked very sheepish.

"Well, you wouldn't tell me, so I had to ask Frank!"

"I told you, at the time that I only saw one side of the picture, I saw what I thought was true. Even your father didn't know what had really happened at the time and I got very angry. But then your father nearly killed that man and I began to think that I might have been wrong."

"But why didn't you go back to my father then?"

"Because it was too late. In my blind anger I'd married Frank and John had... well, he was in prison. Besides I didn't fully realise what had really happened until you started asking questions about who your father was. When I thought about it properly all the pieces fell into place, but my bridges had been burnt by then. All I could do was wait until John came looking for us when he got out of prison." She turned her head from Samantha and looked into my eyes. "But he never came!"

"Start from the beginning, John. Tell Sam what happened. She needs to know and she deserves to hear it from you. I made mistakes, and I might not explain it fairly."

"You didn't make any mistakes, Kathy."

"Oh, but I did, John. I didn't trust you when I should have done. I didn't listen to your excuses; I went racing off to the nearest solicitor and divorced you. Not for a second did I think to give you a second chance or wait until you could find out what had really happened yourself. Then after the divorce when Frank came sniffing round, I married him when I was on the rebound. I never loved him and I was his trophy wife, until he found a younger model. Oh, yeah, John, I made a damned sight more mistakes that you ever did, believe me. I didn't even have the decency to bring your daughter to visit you in prison, just because Frank objected to the idea."

"Okay, I'll tell it as best I can. Samantha, your mother and I had been married a couple of years..." I began.

"No, John, right from the beginning, from when we first met!" Kathy interrupted.

"But you've told me about when you and he met," Samantha commented.

"I've told you how I remembered it, Sam. Your father might have seen some things differently than me. And besides I doubt Gloria here has heard the story."

"I'm just here as an impartial witness, to keep things even," Gloria said with a horrified look on her face.

"All right, if you insist, but I can't see what difference starting the story from the beginning will make. Samantha, I first met your mother when her family moved into a house down the road from my parents' place when I was about ten."

"You were eleven and I was ten!" Kathy corrected me. I could see this was going to be like things had been back when we were together. 'You tell the story, John, and I'll correct you.'

"Okay, I was eleven and your mother was ten. All the children in the street hung around together and played silly games. Kathy was quite a tom boy back then."

"Only because I needed to be, to stay close to someone," Kathy interrupted again.

"Kathy?" I said. "Who's telling this damned story?" She got a coy look on her face and sat back in her chair.

"Anyway we all went to the same schools and just grew up together. There was a problem though. I fell for your mother when we were both very young really. I couldn't tell her because... well, she was one of the boys and you don't get soppy with your mates. Well, we didn't back then."

"Anyway I wasn't what you call a great scholar and your mother was. So I left school at sixteen and found a job in the office at Westlake's where I still work now. Your mother was clever and went on to sixth-form college as they called it back then. "

"Didn't get me very far though, did it?" Kathy interjected.

"You got your A levels; that's a damned sight more than I got, girl! Anyway whilst she was at college Kathy took up with Frank..."

"We just went out a few times."

"Kathy!"

"Well, just a few times, that's all!" Kathy insisted on saying. Personally I thought it was many more than could be described as a few. They were together for nearly two years off and on. Whatever, I didn't push the point.

"Then when we were eighteen, we ran into each other at a Christmas party."

"Some run into. I had to insist that Frank take me there!"

"Whatever, you were there with Frank and I was there with..." I couldn't recall the name of the girl I was with.

"Beverley Roundhouse!" Kathy said with a triumphant tone to her voice.

"Yeah, Beverley!" I agreed.

"With the big knockers!" Kathy added.

"I never noticed," I lied. "Anyway how come you remember her name? You didn't even know her."

"There are some people's names that a woman never forgets, John. Am I not right, Gloria?"

Gloria agreed with Kathy, and for an instant I thought that something else passed between the two women that I didn't grasp. It could be that Samantha understood it as well, because all three women were smiling.

At that time Ronny came in with a tray of drinks for everyone. He smiled, kissed Gloria on the cheek and then left the room again. I think I wished he'd stayed; I was feeling outnumbered by women by then.

"The party, dad!" Samantha prompted me.

It didn't strike me at the time, but Sam had called me "dad" for the first time. If it had, I might have understood the whole point of this charade.

"Oh, yeah, well, it was Christmas and someone had put up the mistletoe like they always do. I was coming back from the little boy's room and just by chance," I heard a snigger off to my right where Kathy was sitting, "I ran into Kath right under the mistletoe in the doorway. Well, I'd never kissed her at the time so I asked her."

"You asked me?"

"Yeah, didn't I?"

"No, I had to ask you, twice!"

"Well, I'd imbibed a few that night. Well, whoever asked who, we kissed each other under the mistletoe."

"Some kiss! The girls told me later that we were at it for nine minutes. Until everyone started cheering and shouting," Kathy said excitedly.

"Yeah and then Beverley stomped out of the party, and Frank invited me outside for a little chat."

"Well, you bested him, didn't you?" Kathy said.

"Yeah, but I got a couple of bruises myself in the process."

"And I kissed them all better for you."

"Yeah, you did that as well. I never felt a one of them until the next day. I couldn't see properly out of my right eye for weeks."

"Anyway, Sam, to cut a long story short, I discovered that night that your mother felt the same way about me as I felt about her. Well, I thought she did anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean? I was crazy about you. I always had been!" Kathy blurted out.

"And Frank?" I asked.

"Oh, Frank was supposed to make you jealous and come chasing after me. But that never worked, so I went for the direct approach."

"So you never had any feelings for Frank?" I asked.

Kathy thought for a moment. "Oh, yeah, I liked Frank a lot. But I had no illusions; Frank thought of me as - what do they call it? - arm candy! Frank was always shooting his mouth off; he had to have the best of everything, and, well... I was one of the best looking girls around at the time; you've got to admit that. I could have been as thick as a brick and Frank would still have wanted to be seen with me."

"And if I hadn't kissed you under the mistletoe that night, you would have married Frank a lot sooner that you did," I suggested.

"No, John, I probably wouldn't have married him at all. I was pretty determined to get you some way or the other. I'm sure I would have dumped Frank before too long and then sneaked up on you some other way."

"But you would have still married him after the divorce!"

"No, I don't think that would have happened either, John. Frank never forgave you for making a fool out of him that night at the party. I don't think he forgave me either! The moment he heard we'd separated, he was around the house like a shot, being all helpful and supportive. You know how upset and angry I was and he made damned sure that I didn't forgive you. Looking back on it, he virtually railroaded me down the aisle the moment the divorce was final."

"Then that damned court case came up and I realised that we'd both been tricked. I saw the way you looked at me in that courtroom, and I knew that you'd never forgive me for marrying Frank. What could I do, but try to make the best of a bad job?"

"I appreciated you being there, Kathy. Well, to be honest, I didn't at the time; I thought you were gloating. But I understand now."

"Oh, god, no, I gathered from the newspapers what had happened. But if we are being honest they said that you nearly killed that man. I thought that I'd made you like that. Maybe I did, but when your defence barrister laid the story of that trip out in court, it was then I realised what a fool I'd been. And you were looking at me as if you wanted to kill me as well."

"Look, I'm sorry, parents! But this mutual recrimination isn't explaining to me how you came to divorce in the first place, is it, Gloria?" Samantha interrupted us.

Gloria didn't actually reply. I do believe that she was wishing that she was somewhere else.

"Sorry. Go ahead, John, tell her!" Kathy said.

"Right, I was working for Westlake's and at the time they were in partnership with a Japanese company setting up a plant in Korea. Your mother and I had been married for - what? - two and half years."

"Two years seven months the day you flew out there," Kathy said with confidence.

"I was twenty two and had worked for the company since the day I left school. You could say I grew up in the firm. Old man Westlake was alive then and he ran the place like a big family. But it was outgrowing him and his attitudes. I'd better explain; he was a lay preacher at the Methodist chapel. He had very - er, a very narrow minded approach to morality and he couldn't abide alcohol."

"We played a little game in the office. No one ever admitted that they drank and there was never any hint of anything like affairs or anything among the married staff. Jesus, even the unmarried ones, if they did go out together, wouldn't dare hint that they slept with each other no matter how old they were.

"Yeah, I can remember what it was like. Mr Westlake was still around when I joined the firm," Gloria suddenly entered the conversation.

"Yeah, well, I didn't know at the time but some of the guys seemed to think I was a goody two shoes and old man Westlake's favourite. Of course I got on with the bugger; I'd known him twice as long as any of the others in the department. Even if I was one of the youngest."

"Anyway six of us had to go out to Korea to help sort this bloody plant out. We were with this group of Japs most of the time and they worked damned hard and played hard. That damn sake of theirs has a kick on it like a bleeding horse. One of the guys in our team - well, I don't know - perhaps he was jealous of me because Westlake was always seeking me out to talk to back at the office."

"Near the end of the trip we all went out one night with the Japs to this karaoke bar and, well, we got completely plastered. To cut a long story short, I woke up in a Korean brothel in the morning. I had no idea how I'd got there or what I did. But I brought your mother home a little present from Korea that neither of us expected. To cap it off Kathy became pregnant with you at the time, and they had all kinds of problems dealing with it."

"How could you do such a thing? Now wonder you divorced him. I don't blame you one bit!" Samantha exclaimed, and began to rise out of her chair. The look she was giving me told me that as far as she was concerned the meeting was over.

"Sit down, Sam!" Kathy ordered in a tone I'd never heard her use before. Well, maybe when she first discovered she had a sexually transmitted disease, she might have. But I was in a kind of never-never land at that time myself and sort of lost track of things.

"Tell her the rest of the story, John. The bit we never knew about until it was too late to go back," Kathy ordered.

"Is it necessary, Kathy? Samantha knows why we divorced now," I said.

"But she doesn't know why we shouldn't have been, does she?" Kathy said still in that hard tone.

"All right, but it doesn't change anything."

"Yes, it does. It explains why you made a mistake and I made a major error. I'm sure if I'd waited, giving myself time to calm down and you'd discovered what he'd done then we never would have divorced."

"Well, Sam, it must have been about three months after the divorce was final. And I'd got word that Kathy had married Frank. I was pretty pissed off about life in general and I'd even thought of ending it all a couple of times."

There was another deep breath taken on my right.

"I was in one of the offices we used as a storeroom one day. I can't remember what I was looking for. The photocopier was in the office next door and the connecting door wasn't properly closed. I could hear a couple of guys chatting whilst they did some photocopying. One of them was telling the other how he'd slipped me a Mickey out in Korea and taken me to this cheap brothel whilst I was out of it. He'd taken pictures of me with a couple of pros who worked there. His idea had been to drop some of them around the office, and ruin my reputation with Westlake.

"Then I heard him say, 'I didn't need to in the end. Johnny golden bollocks picked up a dose of the clap off one of those sluts and gave it to his misses. That's totally fucked him as far as Westlake is concerned.'

"Well, I lost it completely and beat the shit out of the bugger with the first thing that came to hand. It was a spare shelf hanger that must have been in that office. You've got to understand, Samantha; I'm not really a violent person. But the treatment your mother had to have for that disease had put your survival in danger. The bugger could have killed my unborn baby with his inane games."

I'm not sure. I think I was crying then and might have been earlier when I'd remembered the emotion of that day. Gloria put her arm around me and Ronny came in to see what was going on.

"You'd better get John a Brandy, Ronny. I think he needs it," Gloria said to him, then, "No, Ronny get a damned bottle. I think we all need a Brandy after hearing what John has just told us."

"A whole bottle? Do you know how much that will cost at the bar?" Ronny asked.

"Just get the damned bottle, Ronny, or you'll sleep on your own tonight!" Gloria instructed him. Ronny was gone in an instant.

When I opened my eyes again, I could see that my daughter was crying as well.

She didn't say anything; she just stared at me. Then she looked at her mother. "Why didn't you tell me all this?" she asked.

"I couldn't - I don't know why - but I just couldn't. I sat in the courtroom and heard the barrister asking that other man what had been said in that office before the fight and he confirmed what your father has just told you. At that moment I realised that I'd messed up everything. All along I knew in my heart that your father loved me and he'd never have gone to that brothel of his own accord. It just wasn't something John would do."

"But I'd been so angry when the doctors told me that you could be in danger. All rational thoughts went out of my mind. And even John was saying he didn't know how he got there; his explanation at the time was that he must have been so drunk that he didn't know what he was doing. I lost my temper and didn't stop to think about what was happening and then Frank turned up. I'm not sure where my mind was, between that happening and that damned court case. The look John gave me when he was convicted cut a hole in my heart. It was my fault that he was sent to prison."

"How do you work that one out?" I asked. "I would have smacked the bugger around whether we'd been divorced or not."

"No, John, you know that isn't true," Kathy replied. "You would have hit him, yes, I'll give you that and I don't think anyone would have blamed you. But you would have stopped before you did the kind of damage to him that you did do. You'd have been thinking about Sam and me; as it was, you've already said that you didn't give a damn whether you lived or died yourself."

"True, I had thought about ending it all."

"I'm so glad you didn't, dad! I want to get to know my father," Samantha said, getting up and walking around the table. She came and sat herself on my lap. "I hope I'm not too big for a cuddle now and then."

"Until some boy comes and steals you away, no. I'd like that."

Samantha leant forward and kissed me on the forehead. "Hello, daddy!" she said.

Ronny came back in with five Brandy glasses and a bottle.

"Five glasses?" Gloria commented.