by admin | Jan 17, 2021 | Stories
JEFFREY’S DEATH
JEFFREY Cooper heard the knock – a real three-bang rasper – and opened his front door to look upon a figure hooded in a black shroud, the gaping hole at the front being so dark he could make out no facial features at all.
“Good evening,” said a voice from within the hood, a rasping voice that matched the way its owner knocked on doors, though Jeffrey could not see any movement where his mouth ought to be. “I am the Grim Reaper. Death to you, if you see what I mean.”
“Oh, hell,” said Jeff and his face fell. “I’ve been half-expecting you.”
“Oh, dear,” said the Grim Reaper, “have you not been well?”
He sounded as sympathetic as a vampire when a young maiden complains of neck ache.
“No,” admitted Jeffrey, “not really.” He was a bit whiny, was Jeffrey, but then like he said, he had not been well.
“Can I come in?” said the Grim Reaper. If a bag of rusty nails could speak then it would have the Grim Reaper’s voice.
“I suppose you’d better,” said Jeffrey and he quickly glanced up and down the street to see if his neighbours were watching. They weren’t. There were a few people out and about, busy, as people tend to be on Christmas Eve, and no-one was paying Jeffrey or his visitor any attention. Perhaps their umbrellas were obscuring the view. Cars passed by, their drivers’ focus in the constant drizzle directly on the car in front, their minds set on getting home or doing their last minute shopping. No-one glanced in their direction. Jeffrey stood aside to let the Grim Reaper pass. “Where’s your scythe?” he asked.
“Don’t ask,” said the Reaper, grimly.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” asked Jeffrey, when they reached the front room. He was unsure how to address his guest. Grim Reaper? Death? It was the same thing really but people can be so funny about names and Jeffrey figured this was one visitor he shouldn’t upset. It wasn’t every day Death came knocking at your door. In fact, there was usually only one day Death came knocking at your door and Jeffrey had already decided his best bet now – his only bet now – was to play for time. Be polite and play for time. This was not just the eleventh hour, it was the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour.
“I’m dying for a cuppa,” said Death and he chuckled mirthlessly at his own joke, as a robot might. He sank into the leather settee, which he stroked with a skeletal hand. “I remember this cow,” he said, and then: “I remember them all. I’m not wistful, I’m just saying, that’s all. I’ll remember you, too.”
“Thanks,” said Jeffrey and went to make the tea.
He could have course have run away, bolted out of the back door and left the Grim Reaper sat in the front room twiddling his thumbs, but he had a feeling it would be useless. That wherever he ran to Death would already be there waiting.
He took in the tea on a tray. The living room was bright and cheerful with decorations and the Christmas tree in the corner twinkled with lights.
“Sugar?” he asked.
“Six,” said Death. “What the hell, make it ten or twelve. It’s not as if you’ll be needing it, or that it’ll do me any harm, is it?”
Jeffrey emptied the sugar bowl into the cup.
“It’s Christmas Day tomorrow,” said Jeffrey, thinking a change of subject might be just the thing to perk up the conversation. There was protest in his voice, too. Jeffrey loved Christmas and he did not want to be deprived of it. His wife Becky loved Christmas also. It was all planned. Their families were coming round. Wine would be drunk, food eaten, games played. It would be jolly, like Christmas was meant to be. But not if he wasn’t there. All a bit of a dampener really.
“I know, I know, death can be such a nuisance,” said the Grim Reaper. “I don’t do Christmas. Every day is the same to me. I don’t actually do time. It doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned, though I know it is important to you. Three score years and ten and all that. How old are you Jeff?”
“Fifty five,” gulped Jeffrey and this time he could not keep the feeling he was being hard done by out of his voice. He had a present for his wife. She’d have a present for him. They had presents for everyone. It was all organised. Jeffrey was getting better too, everyone thought so. He fought the sudden urge to say it wasn’t fair. Instead, he took a deep breath. “So where’s your scythe, then?”
“You won’t believe it,” said the Reaper. “They’ve taken it off me. After 200,000 years, give or take. Just like that. Guess why?”
Jeffrey shrugged that he’d no idea.
“Go on Jeff,” urged the Grim Reaper. “Guess.”
Jeffrey mumbled he couldn’t imagine why.
“Health and ruddy safety.”
Death was right, Jeffrey couldn’t believe it.
“I said you wouldn’t believe it. 200,000 of your years and not a single accident. Then someone thinks I’ll start cutting people in half, like a demented magician. As if it mattered if I did and I was daft enough to say that, so then they got the idea I might actually start lopping heads off willy-nilly – and you can imagine the fuss that would cause. People getting to wherever their going years earlier than they ought: they whinge enough when a plane’s overbooked.
“I pointed out, people expect to see a scythe. Like Moses and his staff or Ken Dodd and his tickling stick. It’s a symbol. I’m known for it. And to be honest it gives me a bit of status. I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t. A bit of respect. I’m not adverse to a bit of respect. But they insisted.
“Changes, always changes, nowadays.
“You know what they had me doing the other day, Jeff? I’ll tell you what they had me doing the other day…” Jeffrey had the feeling Death was now just getting into his stride “…only a bloody customer relations course.
“What’s it matter? I said, all my customers are as good as dead when I meet them.”
Jeffrey swallowed heavily. He’d drunk his tea, but his throat was dry. As good as dead…
“Do you know what they call it?,” went on the Reaper. “I’ll tell you what they call it, they call it D-Q-I. Stands for Death Quality Initiative.
“First thing they said to me: If you see someone you know, say hello, smile and call them by their name. That’s the first and the daftest. I mean, how can I know anyone? It’s not as if we could have gone out for a drink, is it Jeff? Not that I wouldn’t want to if we met under different circumstances. I’m sure you’re a nice bloke. But the thing is with me there are no different circumstances.
“Take every chance to develop your personality, they said. They missed the point, I haven’t got a personality. People like jokes, so do not be afraid to joke. Smile and show a sense of humour. I’m smiling now, I’m like a demented Cheshire cat under here. Can you tell?”
Jeffrey looked hard but he could still not make out any features. He felt a little dizzy. He sat down on the sofa, literally a few inches from Death. He began to feel tired. He really must play for time, he told himself.
“But they are very big on a sense of humour. It’s all about improving the death experience, they said, as if it’s a ruddy theme park. People don’t want an experience, they want to get it over with, I said. But they took no notice, said I didn’t have a choicer, so I’m giving it a go. How am I doing?”
Jeffrey said: “You’re not so grim, but you are very cynical.”
Or at least he meant to say it, and wasn’t sure if he had. The words had formed in his mind slowly, like having a great thought just before you go to sleep, in time to see the wisdom of the thing but then it is lost forever as you fall asleep. Jeffrey was extremely tired, he was soaking up weariness like a sponge. But Death hadn’t finished yet.
“…reassure people they said. People want to know it’s all right to die, they said, and I said, all right to die? All right to die? People hate it! And do you know who I’ve got to go and see next week? I’ll tell you who I’ve got to go and see, only an empowerment and lifestyle coach, whatever that is. I nearly exploded, lifestyle, I said, lifestyle? Me? And now they are saying I’m being difficult and…”
Jeffrey’s eyes had closed without any effort on his part.
“Paperwork! They’re saying I have to provide, an evidence based structure…”
But Jeffrey had already felt himself moving upwards, not floating, not rising, just moving and not towards the ceiling but towards a brilliant white light and he was engulfed by a feeling of love and an overwhelming sense of well being. He realised, with a little jolt of surprise, he was now dead and that it didn’t matter. Effortlessly he entered a long tunnel and the light was growing ever nearer and brighter but it didn’t hurt his eyes and in front him a world began to take shape. As he came into the light and out of it again he entered a beautiful garden of flowers and butterflies and birds, a stream burbled in the distance. There were wisps of clouds but he knew instantly they weren’t ever going to turn to rain. The sun was strong bit not overpowering and somewhere there was laughter and music and it was all so, so welcoming and then he heard a familiar voice. He recognised it instantly. It was like a bag of rusty nails.
“Paperwork! I haven’t done the paperwork!” Jeffrey looked up and a figure in a black-brown shroud loomed in front of him, blocking his view of the garden and countryside.
“Your time isn’t yet Jeff, you must return.”
“But…” said Jeffrey.
“Sorry. Well, actually I can’t feel regret, but you know what I mean. Off you go.”
“But this place, it’s so…”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not for you. Go, same way as you came. Mind your head in the tunnel.”
Jeffrey, dead, felt more aggrieved the Jeffrey who had just been alive. “So what was all that about?” he demanded.
“Well, they did tell me to work on my sense of humour,” said Death and chuckled as if he reached the punchline.
“A joke! A bloody joke?” exploded Jeffrey. In heaven or not, whether all was love and light or not, whether he had a sense of eternal belonging or not and that all his troubles were worldly and irrelevant, he was bloody furious. He knew he was on the verge of a rant and that it would contain all his earthly expletives, some of them twice. But instead he felt himself being gently tugged backwards towards the tunnel which he somehow knew would be there and as he looked at Death in the face he could swear he saw a shadow of a grin under the hood, as if someone had drawn a smile in black chalk on a blackboard.
“I thought I’d lost you,” said Becky, kissing Jeff again and rubbing a tear from a happy eye. She kissed him once more.
“If I hadn’t come home when I did, if the ambulance hadn’t been quick…” she squeezed his hand. “Well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“I know,” said Jeffrey as he wondered at the power of the mind to hallucinate in moments of great stress, but he could not deny he felt a great comfort now that wasn’t there before and that was not just down to being alive and being with the woman he loved.
Christmas Day in hospital was still Christmas Day and Jeffrey’s room was filled with friends and relations and it was obvious some wine had been drunk, but there joy as well as jollity around the bed. He lived and they loved him.
Soon everyone had to go and let him rest and Becky, too, kissing him once more – twice, three times – said bye. “I don’t want to go,” she said. Five times she said it before, at last, closing the door and Jeffrey was able to shut his eyes.
They flicked open as Becky’s face suddenly re-appeared around the edge of the door again. “By the way,” she asked, “who had the last of the sugar?”
by admin | Jan 17, 2021 | Stories
IF ONLY
3.17
I groan into my pillow. Why, when you wake up in the night, the clock always says three-something? Two-something and it’s like a very late night. Four-something and you’ve not long to go. Three’s a killer though.
3.14
3.07
What? Didn’t it just say…
3.02.
I close my eyes. I’m mistaken, dreaming. Something.
2.30
Ah, I’ve read the two for a three. Idiot.
2.17
No, it is happening. I’m alert now. Her side of the bed is empty, cold. Laura’s. She’ll be asleep on the settee. I go for a pee, wait on the cold bathroom tiles. I feel foolish, but I count to sixty. A minute for a pee, a minute counting. The numbers should now have moved forward by two.
2.15
I sit on the edge of the bed; watch the glow-red digits.
2.14
2.13
I am naked. I sleep naked.
2.12
I try to figure things out.
2.11
A crazy faulty clock? Dunno. I decide to go for Laura and remember the argument. The row. Shouting, back and forth. I get a feeling in my chest like the after-effects of a punch. I hate myself. We watched a film; happy, everything fine and, out of nowhere, we rowed: the state of the place, money. If only she’d… The things we said. We rowed until I thought it ridiculous rowing at nearly two in the morning. I’d no more energy. Contempt in her look as I went to bed.
Except I didn’t. First I drew the curtains. I saw the rain had virtually stopped. Then I went to bed.
Three minutes to two.
2.00
A thought occurs. I look outside. It’s beginning to rain. I wait.
1.57
I am by the bedroom door ready to open it but cannot because if I open it now, right then, I might meet myself on the landing. Then what? I think, even worse, I could walk through the door and come face to face with me.
Nothing happens. Nothing happens because paradoxes can’t happen. Therefore… what? Therefore, I can get Laura. Show her the clock.
Not yet though.
1.28
Now.
Laura doesn’t look up or even speak.
I remember the curtains. They are open and it is raining harder. Naked, I cross the room and draw them.
How much longer?
1.27 (approx)
I sit down on my TV-watching chair. I shall wait. I say nothing about the clock, nothing of what is happening, of what I expect. We are silent Laura and me. The TV comes back on: the Amblin logo and the last note of theme music: Huey Lewis and the News Back In Time. I hit OFF instantly. Laura looks up, smiles. That was good, she says. It’s one of my favourites, Back to the Future.
Let’s go to bed, I say. How’d you get naked? she asks, puzzled. Then she adds, I was going to say something else, but I can’t think what now.
by admin | Jan 17, 2021 | Stories
I DID WHAT IT SAYS
“DO you plead Guilty, or Not Guilty?”
“Ohh, Guilty,” I said. “It was a guilty pleasure. So, definitely guilty. Naughty, but nice.”
There I’d said it. Easy enough. Don’t know what there is to get nervous about. Guilty.
I suppose I’d better explain what’s happening. I’m in court, that much is obvious to you. If it isn’t you should have gone to Specsavers.
About two months ago I met a fella. He had everything – good looks, money, style, nice car. He was an advertising executive and he told me I was the best a man could get. He told me a lot more, as you’ll see.
As soon as I’d agreed to the first date I knew it was a mistake. He called at my flat, stepped inside a moment, spotted the television and said: “Hello Tosh, got a Toshiba?”
From then on, infuriatingly, he would call me Tosh, a nickname, a private joke between us though I preferred my given name Melanie. I’m Melanie Clarke. Hi, and after this little story you’ll never see me again. Anyway it’s not a Toshiba. I don’t even think they make them anymore, to they?
I threw on my beret, rather chic I thought, and I was ready. “If you want to get ahead, get a hat,” he said. His name was Troy. Well, it could be wouldn’t it?
He asked where we should go and I said I fancied the new restaurant in town, Pepper Amy’s.
“It’s a bit of a beast,” he said and laughed. He actually laughed and managed to sound like one of the Cadbury Smash Martians. I should have turned around then, but you don’t do you. You ignore the alarm bells, make you mind up to see it through. Besides I was hungry.
He was well mannered, I’ll give him that. Actually opened the car door for me. “Vorsprung Durch Technik,” he said as he did so.
We were shown to our seats and asked if we wanted a drink. I had a feeling it was going to be a long night. Best stay sober, girl, I said to myself and asked for a fruit juice. What flavour, he asked? Orange, I said.
“Kia Ora? We all adore a Kia Ora.”
“Britvic,” I said, just to be awkward.
“Ah, the most natural thing under the sun,” he said and I dread to think what slogan he might have come up with had I asked for a cranberry.
“I’ll have probably the best lager in the world,” he told the waitress, who handed us our menus.
They were leather bound books and if you are nearby, do pop in, the choice is amazing. Troy was impressed, too. “Let you fingers do the walking,” he advised.
Our drinks arrived. “Good things come to those who wait,” he said, lifting his pint up to catch the light. “It’s a bit gorgeous,” he said.”I’m only here for the beer. It’s what my right arm’s for.”
“Right, okay!” I said, getting the message.
We ordered our meals.
“One chop or two?” asked the waitress.
I was hungry and I had no intention of seeing this fella again after tonight so it was definitely going to be his treat, so I said two.
“Double your pleasure, double your fun,” he observed and that stumped me and it must have shown on my face because because by way of explanation he added: “Wrigley’s Doublemint.” Then he did that laugh again: for mash get smashed. Yeah, I could get smashed I thought.
And so we settled in for the meal and tried to accustom ourselves to each other the way you do on your first date. Only date, last date, in this case. Our meals arrived and they were indeed generous portions. I can definitely recommend the place.
“Wotalotigot,” he declared.
“Smarty pants,” I said. God, what was up with me, joining in.
I think my blouse was a little too low cut for the occasion because he kept saying, “Hello boys,” at intervals throughout the meal, though he may have been talking to his roasters.
The wine was good, too. It was A Santa Margerhita Italian. “A great wine for a great encounter,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
Inwardly I swore, outwardly I smiled. Deep breath, I told myself. See it through. Home by eleven, in bed my half-past. Alone!
The food was excellent and the gravy obviously the chef’s own recipe. “Ahh, Bisto,” he inevitably said, but it wasn’t.
“Well,” he declared with satisfaction, “that was finger lickin good,” even though he hadn’t used his fingers or licked them or even had chicken. He’d had the scampi. “They’re Grrrrrreat,” he declared.
Time for dessert and I dived back into the menu, not least so I could have a few moments quiet deliberation to myself. It was time to start thinking of escape. Good God, he might ask me back to his place. .in which case I’d plead a headache, but he’d have tablets handy and nothing acts faster than Anadin. Upset stomach then, but I could hear the Plink, Plink, Fizz of an instant cure. What then? Think hard girl, think!
I looked down the list of sweets and had to do a double-take. By the pastries I read ‘perfection by confection’, but when I looked a second time, it wasn’t there. Huh?
“Pick one Tosh,” he encouraged me.
Grrr! Actually, I must have said it aloud, because he said, “Who’s put a tiger in your tank.”
The waitress returned to take our plates. She was a shapely girl, but knew what she was about and picked up everything using both hands. Lift and separate, I heard her say. I swear it.
“Pardon?” I said.
“The list makes you salivate… the dessert menu I mean,” she replied, nodding towards the leather folder in my hand.
“Er, of course,” I said and searched for something that would not involve a slogan. I went for plain and simple ice cream and cleared my bowl in double-quick time and there, I am not joking, printed on the bottom of my bowl I read the words: Haagen Dasz creamery Made like no other,” and as I read the message the words blurred in front of my eyes and slowly faded and disappeared and the words Horton Days Crockery rose as if by magic.
Troy’d gone for the apple tart and custard and I could see he relished every mouthful. “Devon knows how they make it so creamy,” he declared, patting his stomach.
And the bill arrived and I resolved again to let him take care of it. Out came the plastic. “Thank God I didn’t leave home without it,” he said. I could see it was HSBC, the world’s local bank! Aaargh! He was getting to me.
“I’ll leave the tip,” I said.
“For everything else there’s Mastercard,” he said.
And that about did it. I couldn’t take any more. Inside I was screaming: “Say something normal!” If he tried it on when we got home and I’d cut his flexible friend off. He’d got me at it now.
The Maitre D handed me my coat. “For the journey,” he said.
“What?” I demanded sharply.
He looked hurt. “I just said, I hope you have a safe journey.”
Safe? But how was I to deal with him? I felt my mind was about the explode. I prayed for a sign. I virtually staggered outside and there, right in front of me was the answer: an advertising hoarding next to the bus stop.
My mind screamed: “What am I going to do?”
And the poster said Christian Dior POISON.
“Is that the answer?” I asked myself.
And it must have been because on the next poster along was a tick. Correct. See? Under it were the words Just Do It.
So I did. I invited him back.
“A drop of Bells?” I asked. “Afore ye go?”
I am always polite.
It wasn’t the coffee. That was good to the very last drop. But he had tea and you only get an ‘Ooo,’ with Typhoo.
And an Aaaarrrggh, come to that. Especially when you add a sprinkle of weedkiller. Kills down to the roots.
by admin | Jan 17, 2021 | Stories
FREUDIAN SLIP
SIGMUND Freud was confident the man he had just watched leave his office was well on the road to… to where? Recovery? No, he had never complained of being ill, mentally or otherwise. To where then? To a life a great achievement, to a vast potential being fulfilled. The great neurologist leaned back in his leather chair, lit a cigar and waited for his client to return.
Twelve sometimes traumatic, often perplexing, always engaging sessions had had a wondrous effect that added to the value of psychoanalysis – or would do so as soon as he was able to write the case up for the scientific journals. He wouldn’t identify his patient, of course. The man had insisted at the outset on total secrecy because patients always did. There was a stigma about matters of the mind and Freud understood and would honour the request. But quite simply the case study would confirm his standing as still the leader in his field.
He would recount how he had been confronted a few short weeks ago with a nervous, depressed, introverted young man who had failed at school and who hated his father and was in love with his mother, an obvious Oedipus complex if ever there was one.
He drew on his cigar in a self-satisfied way, enjoying the richness of the tobacco, and he idly wondered if his oak panelled walls would ever witness another case quite like it. Not in the whole of Vienna, which lay in all its splendour outside his window, nor in world beyond had there been a success that bore comparison.
It was 1920, the world was at peace, the future was exciting, advances in the treatment of the mind astonishing – largely thanks to him, of course. Hadn’t he astounded his fellow professionals with new ways of treating psychopathology?
Freud had explored the man’s set of uncoordinated instinctual desires. He had examined in detail all the parts of psychic apparatus, the critical and moralising roles of his consciousness and how well – or badly – his ego mediated between the two. It had been, Freud thought, like stripping down the engine of an erratic and frustrating motor car and producing a streamline version that purred along and would be simply unstoppable.
His patient had come to him inconsequential – pah! a nothing – and yet would leave a giant. The transformation was extraordinary.
To begin with the man had projected some of his father’s unpleasant traits on to Freud’s own personality,. Transference Freud had named it and it was now an accepted part of the process of psychoanalysis, but in first assessing and then dispensing with the effects of his father’s overbearing ways – while keeping and enhancing the strong desirable paternal characteristics – the exercise had been remarkably successful.
But it was free association that liberated the man’s soul and his spirit had soared. Solid proof, it ever it were needed, that one word or image that spontaneously suggested another from the client was a wonderful technique to investigate the unconscious mind.
It was relaxed and without censorship and truly eye opening, but Freud had gained access to the secret processes of his client’s mind processes. His patient had betrayed violent tendencies but they had been dealt with in transference, and now he was able for the first time to speak for himself and as himself; to expound his own beliefs and views, rather than repeat those of other people. The inhibitions that would have condemned him to a life lacking importance or impact simply fell away and he was free at last to play his part in the world, to be a person of consequence.
So confident had he become he’d been happy to make a minor, yet striking, change to his appearance and did not worry about worry what others might think. But even that wasn’t the point. The point was it had given him identity. Freud couldn’t think yet how he would phrase the phenomenon in his report, but it was as if the man was happy at last in his own skin. Actually, that’s not bad, he thought. He picked up a pencil and quickly wrote: “It is as if he is content with who he is and would soon show the world. Just you wait and see,” and Freud was pleased his phraseology.
In a way the advances they had made together could be summed up right there in that one cosmetic change. It was a move of his latent genius, but it was Freud who had given him the courage to make the decision, as small as it might seem to an outsider. Now he would leave Freud’s care and the world would one day doubtless be grateful. Freud had clients from many nations but it was especially satisfying to help a fellow countryman. He sucked contentedly on the cigar and wondered if the words ‘happy in his own skin’ actually made any sense at all.
Throughout they had maintained a professional doctor-patient relationship, but now he would shake the man’s hand and wish him well. They would separate as friends, if not equals.
If he ever came out of the lavatory that was. Freud mused how his indoor flush toilet was still a novelty in Vienna and his client occasionally took advantage. Ah, here he was now.
Freud got to his feet. His client strode across the room, leaving the door open behind him the sign of a man with urgent things to do and anxious to leave to get started. Good.
He chided Freud: “You ought to be careful Sigmund lest anyone should look at you sucking on that cigar and see some sexual connotations.”
“Sometimes a cigar is simply a good smoke,” he answered, feeling pleased with the retort and thinking he might look to use it again some time. He smiled broadly and held his out across his desk for the other to take.
“May I compliment you,” said Freud, “on that little moustache. It’s individualistic and very you. The world awaits, so go and take your rightful place in it, Adolph.”
by admin | Jan 17, 2021 | Stories
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO ADULTERY
I
Yeah, course you can. You’re welcome to join me as long as you can keep up. I’m not really out of breath, but it’s not easy talking and walking at this pace. I’m fit as a butcher’s whippet – you’ve probably spotted that – but I’ve done about eighteen miles today and walked for five days altogether and I want to get this last mile out of the way.
If I am going to tell you it needs to be before I put the key in the front door. It’s Valentine’s Day, it’s special, so after that, shtum, right? I’m Tony by the way. Hi.
I suppose what you’re after are the main rules for the successful adulterer. I mean, why else would you come to find me? So this is just between the two of us, OK? Just make sure, that’s all.
Now, the one thing I’m not is sexist, so anything that applies to a man in what I tell you also applies to a woman. But I’m a bloke and I’m not saying things twice just to be PC. Take it as read.
OK, firstly what you should do is watch EastEnders and Coronation Street for their invaluable lessons in how not to conduct an affair. Base your extra-maritals on them. So:
No Mobile Phones: Do not use your mobile to arrange, organise, flirt and in anyway communicate with your lover. It is fatal. Your wife will find the message, or the phone number or the name, or all three and come to only once conclusion, the right one.
Cue drumbeats, cue disaster.
No neighbours. For crying out loud, if you are going to have an affair then choose someone who does not live three doors down or serve behind the bar of a pub you frequent twice a day or has been a family friend or workmate for yonks. Your wife will find out.
Cue trumpet, cue catastrophe.
Things have moved on since love letters were written on perfumed paper. We have better ways to completely mess up our lives now.
To be honest I couldn’t take the hassle or the heartache. I love my wife and couldn’t bear to lose her. I can’t wait to see her. Eighteen miles I’ve done today and she’s the reason I’m speeding up. She’s just down this stretch of road. That’s our house right at the end. Individually designed, that’s why I picked it. Angie’ll be anxious to see me, she always is.
I’ll tell anyone I love her and mean it. Just because I take a ride in a different stable doesn’t mean I don’t love her. I said to Wet Dave – a sort of friend but a colleague really. He takes RE at the high where I teach PE – that’s why I’m so fit – and, I confess, I say all manner of things to tease him. He is an easy target, partly because he’s gay. Or did. He’s leaving. better job. I’ll miss him, but Dave’s not comfortable with nudge-nudge sort of conversations and I wonder sometimes whether he thinks I’m just bragging. About what? Well, listen up.
Firstly though there are all sorts of other rules, of course, sub-sections and paragraphs, to which the happy philanderer will comply if he wants to continue getting away with it and sometimes these vary according to the individual. But always the hardest seems to be never to behave strangely or out of character. Never, never, never.
If you and your partner are rarely apart and you suddenly want to, say, spend a night away and your reasons won’t stand close scrutiny then that is suspicious, especially as you may well want to do it again. You have to live with yourself, don’t forget, so you have to be able to commit the ultimate level of betrayal and still do all the married/partner type things without showing so much as a sideways glance of guilt when you look her in the face.
Don’t be over anxious to please her either. A dead giveaway that. I can’t be bothered with any of it to tell you the truth so I stick by the rules.
Far, far better that your life accommodates your affair than the other way around.
Take me, which after all, is what this little tale is all about. I am a serial adulterer and I have never been found out, but adultery fits nicely into my life. I tell Wet Dave the same rules could apply to him. “But you’ve got to come out of the closet first,” I say. He just smiles, like Christopher Biggins.
I tell him, but how’s he going to cheat if he’s got no-one to cheat on? Nowadays there’s no shame in it, being gay I mean, even if he does wear perfumed talc. What is it about being gay that means you can’t use a manly deodorant like everyone else?
I am lucky, I’m fit and I teach, which gives me the ability and facility. Women do like a hard body and I also have time at my disposal.
My pastime – and it is genuine – is walking. Hills and dales, sunshine and rain, road and path. I can take myself off for a week at a time, lose myself in the countryside and I love it. Almost as much as sex as it happens and I think you are beginning to see how these things can be mutually accommodating.
But the guilt? Well, to be fair to me – and I’m always fair to me – there isn’t any guilt because, though I would quite happily die for my Angie. Marriage is about love so I forsake all others; sex is about bonking so I try and accommodate as many women as possible. It’s only fair. Simplistic? Selfish? Well, welcome to the world of the adulterer.
It so happens that Angie is not a walker. I didn’t pick her for that reason, but it’s damn convenient. She doesn’t mind a stroll to the pub and she’ll tackle the treadmill at a centrally heated gym, but she’s an English teacher and she loves her books and prefers her exercise to come in neat little sessions not traipsing the country lanes in a kagoul not knowing where you are going or when you’ll be back.
She loves being in bed with me, of course and I am partial to a good homecoming. She’s so, well, I suppose grateful is the word.
She’s known all along of my fondness for walking and she loves and respects me so much she has never dreamt of trying to halt my forays into the British outback.
When it is time to come home I can’t wait to see her again. It isn’t just the sex and that’s the difference, you see: Do it right and adultery is all about sod all else. There’s nothing platonic in a bonk, nothing meaningful.
Dave fidgets a bit on his bottom when I talk like this, as if it gives him a very personal itch. He says I want my cake and eat it; have my bread buttered on both sides, which seems very Old Testament to me. Of course I do. But I spare him the details, just treat him to the headlines and I’d tell no-one else. That’s another rule: say nothing to no-one, never. Or is it ever. Do so once, you’ll do it again and then you might as well put it all on Facebook.
I have been away six days and that’s a long time to be separated from the woman you love and if it wasn’t for a few intervening bonks I don’t know if I could stand it.
I don’t go looking for it but I do seem to attract it though. Babe magnet? I have been accused of thinking I am, by you know who.
“I couldn’t possibly comment Dave,” I say. “Do you fancy me then?” It’s just a joke, but RE teachers are soooo heavy.
Now then, have you ever been to Derbyshire? A beautiful place, great walking country and you meet all sorts of folk on your way. Blokes never seem to have time to talk to me, they want to get on and I don’t blame them and it works out well for me.
I met a woman about my age who knew what I was about because she was not averse to the same thing. You learn to recognise the signals and hers were all set for go, go, goer.
Our commitment was to each other for the purpose, in this hectic instance, of three bonks. A hat-trick! That’s not bad in a sleeping bag and that goes in the wash as soon as I get home, always does. I never discovered her name and that is no bad thing, but she went away a very happy woman.
Now Jean was different. For a start I knew her name. We had been through introductions to break the ice over a drink in a pub. She’d been let down and, though it cost me the price of room to find out, the other fella would have had to work hard to get value for his money and I only just managed it myself. Twice. So that’s five in six days and now I’m ready for my Angie.
Anyway, we’re here now. Shush. No more talk of naughties. I want a kiss, a cuddle and a cup of tea, in that order. Yeah, come in Angie won’t mind. It’s all very quiet.
“Angie!”
Ah ha, what’s this? A letter on the table, eh? She must have gone to her mum’s. Just run some water into the kettle would you?
Oh.
Forget the tea. I’m going to have to ask you leave. If you don’t mind. No, no it’s nothing. Nothing for you to worry about. No, but if you don’t mind… Thank you. Bye.
Bye.
II
Ahh, I see it’s you. I did wonder if you’d call. I suppose if I’d thought of it I might have expected you: Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret – Ralph Waldo Emerson. Nice to meet you anyway. I suppose he didn’t let you look at the letter? No, he wouldn’t. Not the sort of thing he’d do. It must have been driving you mad. So when did you…?
Oh he showed you then did he? After he’d walked eighteen miles to come home to little me. Well, I don’t mind telling you I didn’t write the letter he found and I wasn’t in favour of writing one. But it’s done and I daresay it was deserved. I’ve got a copy and I’ll read it to you. Ready?
“Hi Tony
“I suppose this is a bit of a surprise for you, finding tan empty house. Well, your fit-as-a-whippet ego is about to venture, blinking, into bright sunlight of reality.
“I am not wasting any more words or time on you, so here it is. I love Angie. I have loved her for three years. That’s right – do the calculations – since just after you married. Or since she realised her mistake is the way she looks at it. Not only that but every time you have wandered off in search of unfettered sex I have been loving your wife and I am sure you of all people will understand the connotations there.
“Did you really think you could bonk your way around the National Parks of Great Britain and your wife wouldn’t suspect? Or do something similar? Why else do you think she waves you off so gaily?
“Ahh, there’s that word, Tony. Yes, I have come out of the closet and revealed myself to be – ta-da! – a rampant heterosexual. You assumed I was gay. But why? Because I was unattached? Because I didn’t talk about women as you do? Because I didn’t ever hint I had a lover? Because I am allergic to deodorants? Or because I stuck to the rules as explained to me by The Master himself? Still, it suited me nicely, didn’t it?
“I am sure by now you are seeing things clearly so I will say farewell. Oh, except to add Angie and I have just stepped out of your hot tub.
“Yours most sincerely,
“Very Wet Dave.”
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