The Way Back Ch. 07

The doorbell rang and one of her girlfriends stood there, with her mother's car in the background, ready to pick Greta up. The girl was wearing similar clothes, but clearly no bra and a skirt so short that when she walked away her thong gently flashed me with every step. I wondered which knickers my own daughter was wearing. Greta looked at her retreating figure and hugged me. "I'm more decent under here," she whispered.

I think she enjoyed teasing me, and reassuring me, after all I missed her early teen years, when most of her principles would have been laid down and most of the fights resolved with her mother.

We played scrabble with the lads, and I settled them down.

As I kissed Stefan goodnight he asked, "Is Jenny coming to say goodnight?" I told him I was sure she would and he smiled. A breakthrough!

On request she went upstairs and said goodnight, kissing each of the boys. Lucky lads, I thought.

Quarter of an hour later I checked and they were both dead to the world.

I sat down next to Jenny and she snuggled up to me. As we listened to some quiet music we caressed each other until I began to explore under her sweater.

"The boys?" she asked.

"No chance," I answered with a smile. "They'd sleep through an earthquake once they're off."

And so we made love naked on the sofa in the living room. It was gentle and sustained, and her orgasm was all the more intense for the slowness with which I built her to it with gentle fingers and the need for quiet. Then I entered her and stroked slowly for an age, as she, not having come down completely from her first, endured two more orgasms until I could hold out no longer and by keeping my own strokes measured, climaxed all the more powerfully inside her.

The afterglow was relaxed as always, though there was something different about it. She seemed lost in her own thoughts. I felt she was not quite with me and wondered what it was, but something prevented me from asking her for her thoughts. Just after eleven, she got up and dressed, and I did the same. It was time for her to go for Greta. We hugged and kissed at length, she stared at me, as if wondering about something, and then she went.

At eleven thirty the phone rang. It was Ann.

"I know it's a big favour," she tentatively asked, "but could you both hold the fort until tomorrow morning? I'm worried about Derek; he's talking suicide and I think he means it."

"OK" I said, thinking I'm sure a good fucking will talk him out of it.

"In any case, Jenny is picking up Greta and they're sleeping at my flat. See you in the morning."

She disconnected and I fumed while I mopped the sofa of our combined emissions and went to bed. I was angry. Nothing made any sense. The world was becoming surreal. My thoughts ran riot.

Ann says she is not going to sleep with him. Then she sleeps with him. No sex? I don't think so! Why doesn't she simply leave me alone? Why keep telling me she feels married to me, then go off with the man she must know tried to kill me?

Unless of course there is more to their relationship than she's telling me. She was having an affair all those months and I, dumb fool, never noticed. She must find him irresistible to be doing this. I obviously never could compete. Is it just the children that are bringing her back here?

I felt satisfaction that the children hated him and that meant a wedge between the adulterous lovers.

Well, that was what went on in my head, all the while I felt betrayed and mocked and became increasingly angry until at last I fell asleep.

I awoke early Sunday morning. The sun was up and the birds were singing; a lovely morning. I could not appreciate it. I sat in the quiet kitchen and thought about my strange life. The frenzied thoughts of the previous night were gone. In their place was a dull feeling of depression, of being used, of uncertainty about my future, and also about the past. All I seemed to have was the present! It is difficult to live in the present with an uncertain past and future.

So my thoughts must have gone something like this.

Jenny kept on about me 'loving' Ann. Viv kept on about how perfect Ann and I were for each other. Were they right? Was it really that I was still in love with Ann? It didn't feel like being in love, but what did I know what being in love felt like? I mean I loved Trish, and I was heart-broken when she left. I loved Jenny, but like Trish I felt I had no hold on her. I had a feeling that inevitably she would leave me for someone else, and rightly. So was I in love with either of them?

So where did Ann fit into all this? The question went unanswered, for at nine o'clock, with both the lads still asleep, the front door opened and Ann crept in. She came into the kitchen and saw me.

Immediately she looked guilty. She launched in.

"Allan, I didn't sleep with him. There was no sex. He slept in the bedroom and I watched him until early this morning. I slept across the hall with the doors open in case he tried anything to harm himself. Please believe me!"

I couldn't believe my own response. I was intensely angry. Jealous if you like. "You've left him now?" I growled. "Does he only commit suicide overnight?"

She blanched, and controlled herself. "He's calmer this morning. He promised to see a doctor tomorrow. He's so dispirited, and worn out. He doesn't understand what's going on. I'm convinced that somehow he's innocent. He's not concerned about the trial and what might happen to him. He just can't understand what's happening to him at the moment."

So Derek was playing the innocent victim? Looking woebegone and puzzled? Very clever. He'd certainly caught Ann. She'd feel eternally guilty if he committed suicide. So by threatening it from time to time, he could assume she'd keep coming back. Better than nothing. Why couldn't she see it?

"I'm sorry," I eventually forced out, "You don't seem to see that he's playing you along. Perhaps you don't want to see. You told me you wanted to revive our marriage. That you still feel married to me. Is that what married women do, go off for the night with another man? What you're doing isn't exactly helping."

She flared. "It's not like that and you know it. He's been my man for over a year. You know damned well that I'd not even look at him if all this hadn't happened. I'm sorry Allan," she said in a resigned tone, "but I just have to do this. I couldn't forgive myself if he committed suicide."

"Well," I snapped, getting up and moving to the door, "It seems to me that no matter what you say, I no longer figure in your real intentions. You take his side every time, which as I've said often enough implies that I'm a liar. Now I find I'm baby-sitting while you go off with him for the night. I don't seem to be getting any loyalty from you. I wonder if you were ever loyal or true to me."

I left the room before she could answer. I put my things together and waited in the bedroom for Jenny and Greta, who arrived ten minutes later.

I clattered down the stairs.

"Good party?" I asked Greta, and got a tired nod.

"Come on," I said to Jenny, "We're leaving."

Jenny gave me a quizzical look, but followed me out. Ann was nowhere to be seen. Greta had wandered off to her room.

As we drove I was full of tension. Jenny felt it.

"She stayed the night with him," I stated.

"Oh." No more. Jenny always knew when to talk and when to keep quiet.

At the flat car park I rested my head on the steering wheel.

"Jenny, I don't understand what's happening here. I think she was having an affair with Fanshaw long before he tried to murder me. Perhaps she was in on it. One minute she's assuring me so earnestly that she wants me back, that she feels married to me still, then she gets me to baby-sit while she spends the night with him.

"I think we ought to make a clean break. She lives there with the children, Derek won't be around long. I get visitation rights. This pseudo-friendship thing just isn't working. She can't believe he's guilty? It's just not possible with the evidence. I think she's as big a liar as he is. She's stringing me along so she's got someone when he's banged up for years."

"She could have been taken in," Jenny said gently. "He seems to be able to put on a good act."

"There's more evidence Jenny."

"What?"

"His accounts show beyond doubt he was the one who paid for the attempted murder. Not only that but I'm sure he thought I was dead when he forged that letter, otherwise I could have turned up, like I have, and made him the liar that he is,"

"Has he admitted he forged the letter?"

"I don't know, but it hasn't made any difference to Ann. She's firmly on his side. I'm out of it."

She hugged me and took me up to the flat, where she undressed herself first and then me, and took me to bed. She cradled my head on her breast and rocked me gently, and I found myself crying. I think it was the constant strain and pressure. It was too much.

She hummed a gentle tune, and I fell asleep.

The next thing I knew was awaking to find myself alone in the bed, and wondering where I was, and what time or day it was. Thus disorientated, I became aware of Jenny's voice coming from the living room, muffled by the closed door. The words were not recognisable but the tone was. She was angry and she was complaining bitterly to someone. Her voice rose and fell with pauses while whoever was on the other end responded.

The rain was beating on the window. I looked at my watch; it was three fifteen in the afternoon, and the weather had changed from a quiet sunny morning to a stormy afternoon. I got up and went to the bathroom. When I emerged, Jenny was standing waiting for me. Her face was flushed and she was not a happy bunny.

"Are you OK?" she asked. I nodded.

"I'm off out for an hour or so. Can I borrow your car?" she asked. I nodded.

"I'll be back soon," she finished, as she put of her coat against the rain, and picked up an umbrella which she brandished at me in a mute request to use it. I nodded.

She smiled, hugged and kissed me. "Love you!" she whispered. I nodded.

"Love you too." I said, and she was off. I could hear her heels tapping hurriedly down the stairs. She rarely used the lift.

I wandered into the living room, and into the kitchen area, to find a pot of freshly made tea. I sat and cupped the mug in my hands, looking out at the windswept scene outside. I felt exhausted, and merely replayed the events of the past hours.

I decided it was no use sitting doing nothing, and getting nowhere with any explanation of what had happened. I was hungry and cut some bread, got out some Stilton and some green salad.

Thus fortified, I got out the lease proposals for the factory and studied them, trying to find a place where we could compromise and get a reasonable deal. We needed at least ten years. They wanted a minimum of twenty. Fifteen with an option to escape without too high a penalty should be possible.

I got lost in the detail and the ringing of the doorbell surprised me. David stood at the door.

"Jenny's been round to see us. She's taken the car back to her place and will pick you up at eight tomorrow. If you need the car, call her mobile and she'll bring it back. How about a drink?"

I realised immediately that was exactly what I wanted!

Settled in the lounge bar of the Cross Keys with a pint of the monthly guest bitter in front of us, David began to talk.

"Bit of a mess," he said.

"Yep."

"The women are talking."

"Oh?"

"I was not privy to what transpired"

" 'Privy' and 'transpired' -- not lost your way with words then."

He ignored the jibe. "Jenny phones Viv. I get half the conversation. Greta had phoned her. Ann is a basket case."

"'Basket case' -- still the wordsmith," I commented.

He grinned. "I gathered Jenny calmed Greta down. I understand that Ann got you to baby-sit while she spent the night with Derek."

"That's about it."

He shook his head in disbelief, "And she, Ann I mean, can't see why you're upset?"

"Got it in one. I don't think upset is the word for it. I'm not sure there is a word. Perhaps baffled would do. I just can't work out what's going on in her mind."

"Anyway, Jenny then asked to come over. That finished the conversation. I was banished when she arrived. They talked for quite a while, then Viv left to go talk to Ann."

There was a pause while we drank our beer and each of us had our own thoughts. Then he spoke again.

"Allan, do you love Ann?"

"Yes," I replied without thought, "but I don't like her at the moment. I mean I am attracted to her as a woman. I like a good deal of her character, at least I think I do. I want her settled with the children. As I said, I don't understand what she's doing. I love Jenny, and Jenny and I have a real relationship. I don't cheat on my lovers like some apparently do. I don't dump them either."

"OK," he replied, the implication of what I said being clear to him, and we lapsed back into silence.

"David," I said, "I'm getting more and more certain that Ann and Derek had an affair before I disappeared. It's the only way I can explain her choice of him over me. I heard from some people that Derek's divorce involved a married woman with children who he was meeting during the day on a regular basis, while the husband was at work. Come on, David, do you know anything about that?"

David looked uncomfortable. At length he straightened up, having made up his mind.

"I'll be straight with you, Allan, I followed the divorce, and so did you. Derek's wife had evidence of his cheating in the form of a PI's report and photo's. She threatened to publish them unless he gave her a divorce and a swingeing settlement.

"It crippled him, but he did what she required to protect his lover. I've never heard or seen anything to make me think Ann was the woman; as Viv keeps saying, Ann worshipped the ground you walked on.

"It really is true she did go completely to pieces when you disappeared, Derek was very much in evidence then of course, but she only showed any interest in him as far as we could see, after she got the forged letter.

"Look, the only way you're going to find the answer to your uncertainty is to go and see Stephanie Fanshaw. I'll find her address for you. I'm absolutely sure when you talk to her, that you'll find your suspicions are groundless."

"I hope so David, I really do. Thanks for all you're doing for me."

"What are friends for?" he said with a gentle smile.

We left the pub together. He dropped me off at the flat.