Chapter 20
November
Aidan and Vicky returned from their London trip feeling a mixture of triumph and fear. They agreed the outing had been a resounding success, and now it was a question of how to manage a much wider extension of the business. Fortunately the commissions were to begin with the new financial year in April, though there would have to be more meetings before that.
Once again they needed to hire more staff. Fortunately an adjoining office suite had become vacant on their floor of the building, and the immediate concern was to acquire it and join the two together.
Life became very busy for the two of them, and fortunately the expansion activity coincided with one of the brief slacker periods in the financial year when most of the accounting was routine and unhurried, capable of being handled by any of the staff.
For Vicky and Brendan there was the more remote preparation for their wedding in April which took up a lot of their free time. Aidan's once a week meals with them went by the board.
Aidan arrived home from London to a warm welcome from Julie, who threw her arms about his neck and kissed him soundly, rubbing herself against him, and evincing a strong reaction from him, so he unzipped her dress in the hallway of the flat while her hands did the same to his trousers.
Knickers and underpants were mutually pulled down and sinking to the carpeted entrance (after closing the front door), she pulled him over her, thighs widespread, and he speared her and buried himself to the hilt in her warm silky wetness.
"Oh, YES!" she crowed.
"Oh that's
better!
" he reiterated, as he proceeded to pound her hard, her eyes opening and shutting until they rolled back into her head as she grimaced and shook and twitched and bucked under him and he flooded her with his pent-up semen, both of them grunting and moaning and crying out with the intensity of it all.
Then they went to bed and did it again in due course at more length. The noises were largely the same if a little more muted.
"Anything happen while I've been away?" Aidan asked diffidently, as much to pass the time as to get information, while they had tea and crumpets at the kitchen table after emerging satisfied and exhausted, looking for sustenance.
Julie felt a spear of terror at the question, and the power of her dilemma. She knew she should tell him. She knew she should give him Sam's business card, indeed in a sense she wanted to, for Sam was safely in the past, but fear overcame that impulse.
"No, nothing," she answered, albeit with a sense of foreboding and guilt.
Aidan was looking at his crumpet as it dripped butter onto his plate and missed the frown of worry, which was gone when he looked up at her. She smiled at him, and asked how the trip went. As he recounted the events of the fortnight, the moment for truth receded and she was stuck in the omission that was in fact a lie. She felt an urge to tell him, but then simply could not.
Julie stayed that night before leaving for work the next morning, which was a Monday, and was invited to stay after the Wednesday pub meeting until after the weekend. Aidan felt a desire for her company after his time away, and once again wondered if the time was approaching, as it did after Xavier, when he would want her to move in again.
He mooted the idea to himself at more length after he had eaten his solitary evening meal that night. He reprised the events that had led to their fracture, and found them to be much less important than he had thought before.
First of all, she obviously loved him, and apart from her Welsh dalliance had always been faithful and showed no interest in anyone else. After they broke up, and after what he had told her, he could hardly complain about her subsequent relationships.
Then it was obvious that, without removing any of Julie's own guilt, it was Caroline who had waged a war of attrition against him. It was Caroline who constantly sowed the seeds of doubt concerning Vicky, culminating in Vicky's illness after her holiday. Then of course Julie finding Vicky in Aidan's bed simply 'proved' everything Caroline had told her to be true.
He had forgiven Caroline her treachery which was so much more evil than Julie's, but for some reason would not forgive Julie in any real sense, though his resentment had gently subsided over the months.
Then there was the effect his repudiation of her had on her health, her intense depression and loss of weight, which only abated when he began to give her the crumbs of comfort of their platonic outings together.
He remembered her scheming to get him into bed the previous May. As he saw it, it was not so much the alleviation of his sexual famine and obvious physical fulfilment, as the feeling that their bodies seemed to belong together; it was like coming home.
Everyone they knew seemed certain that they belonged together. They had lived harmoniously and blissfully together for three years in the same flat, and now, more recently, there was the same feeling that when he was with her he felt happy and contented, to say nothing of the sexual satisfaction she brought him, and which he knew, he brought to her as well. Conversely he did feel her absence on the days she was not at the flat.
Two triple whiskies later, one would have expected him to commit more fully to asking her back, but the reality was the reverse.
Something was holding him back, something was telling him to wait a little longer, that he was not totally confident about their long term future together, for he thought that if she returned they would marry in short order and have a family, and then there would be no going back. He was certain, and it was a sure and powerful conviction, that moving her back was an irrevocable act on his part. That was it. That was why he was holding back, he wasn't yet sure
enough
about her commitment.
He felt satisfied that he had covered all the bases. It would not hurt to wait until he was sure, for they were very happy as things were,
and let's face it,
he thought,
she's in my bed three times a week as it is!
So December came, and with it Christmas cards from Canada. Sam had written her cards early and sent them as a parcel to her parents to send on, and by a simple error had sent Aidan's card as well. The inscription wished Julie and Aidan the blessings of the season and was signed off with love from Sam.
When Julie saw it she felt an overpowering sense of relief. Sam had gone back to Canada, and had accepted that Aidan had also moved on. She felt giddy with delight; her Christmas would be just perfect.
Upon Aidan however, the card had a deeply unsettling effect. Something about it made him uneasy. It certainly brought back all his feelings for Sam, after he had thought she was firmly behind him. He realised that he had been fooling himself, and resigned himself to have her always deep in his memory, unexpected comparisons rising from time to time between Sam and Julie, and indeed anyone else with whom he might end up sharing his life. Then would arise that wistfulness, that regret at something precious having been lost.
There was something else, something obvious he was missing about the card, that he thought should be staring him in the face, but he could not put his finger on it.
Christmas was indeed a happy time, and as a change from the previous year, Aidan went along to Caroline's and Julie's parents on Boxing Day. They attended the New Year bash at Giles' place, but this time Julie would only dance with Aidan. Tristram was there and when Aidan was away getting the group more drinks, he tried to get Julie onto the dance floor, and got an earful from her. Caroline gleefully relayed the scene to Aidan on his return, and everyone had a good laugh at Tristram's bare-faced effrontery.
This year, Kathy went home from the party with her boyfriend, promising to follow the Vienna New Year's Day concert, and it was Julie who enjoyed sex in bed to the strains of the first half of the concert, and the unusual breakfast during the second half.
They spent the rest of New Year's Day with Kevin, Caroline and Annie. Caroline announced on that day that she was pregnant with baby number two. Of course there had to be renewed celebrations, and this necessitated a stay over: no one was going to be driving anywhere! Thus Aidan arrived for work the next day very late, but was forgiven when he gave Vicky the news.
When he got home at nearly ten that evening, he found Julie waiting.
"I'm not stopping," she said. "I made a stew; it's in the oven. You need to keep your strength up. It's the January rush isn't it?"
He hugged and kissed her. "Hello," he said. "Thanks darling. I was looking forward to cheese and biscuits, but this is much better."
"Aidan," she said, "what if I come every evening from work and make something for your dinner. All you have to do is to tell me in good time when you'll be home."
Aidan stared at her, amazed at her selfless offer.
Julie on the other hand read his lack of response as his suspicion that she was worming her way into his life..
"No, no!" she hastened to put him right. "I'll come and make dinner for both of us and then I'll go home. You need your sleep!" and she grinned at him.
That is what she did. Needless to say, Aidan invited her to stay from Wednesday to the weekend, though he told her he could not promise to be there on Saturday. She was happy to do that, saying if he had to work on Saturdays, she would do a weekly shop for him, otherwise they could do it together.
Manic January passed and February dawned with a sigh of relief. Aidan felt much better for Julie's support and told her so.
"I love you," she said. "What else would I do?"
Once again it got him thinking, and on Sunday evening he sat once again with his whisky, and sought to assess the situation.
It did not take much thought. For three years they lived together and were very happy, and that was with Caroline constantly undermining him. Without the hitch called Wales they would still be together.
They had almost been living together since the autumn. Their love life was comfortable and satisfying, and he had to face the fact that she had shown him nothing but love since they went to bed the previous May. Yes, he decided, it was time to ask her if she wished to come back. The only remaining question was when. Then it came to him: it was the first of February that day. He decided it should be in a fortnight, on Valentine's Day.
Then he had another thought, the counter to his previous decision. He would invite her back on a six month trial basis, with the option of ending it on either side when that time was over. On the fourteenth of August they would decide whether to call it a day or to commit for the foreseeable future.
He would ask her on the Friday the Thirteenth and if she said yes - here he laughed out loud: of course she would - they would move her in on the Saturday as her Valentine's present. He grinned to himself: that Friday the thirteenth would be far from unlucky!
The decision made, he felt more at peace than he had for a long time, since he was with Sam in fact. Immediately there was that feeling of loss and emptiness. He wondered what she was doing at that moment, perhaps having Sunday lunch with her parents, or with her brother and his family.
He regretted then that he had not emailed her parents when he got their Christmas cards, to get their address so he could send one in return. He had that feeling of longing again; it would not leave him. He wondered if this was what bereaved people go through, never quite getting over the loss of their loved one.
