The Girlfriend
One
Ray was older than me. Twenty-one years older to be exact. My parents hadn't been so happy about that, but then again I think they were pleased I'd found someone.
I wasn't ugly or anything. I was shy. Socially awkward you might say. I'd never been comfortable at parties and avoided clubs as though they were a plague of biblical proportions. I couldn't dance and it was embarrassing to try. Whatever it was that people heard when they talked about moving with the beat escaped me completely. I couldn't even tap my foot in time to music.
The outcome of this affliction was that I'd reached my mid-twenties completely devoid of boyfriends. The boys just didn't notice me. I'd been a virgin until Ray. Right up until after we'd married I was still untouched. It'd been so romantic that he'd waited. It made me feel special.
It wasn't that I hadn't craved sex. I'd been fairly normal in that respect. At least at first. It was just that I hadn't been able to turn my fantasies and masturbation into reality by actually making love with a real, warm-blooded person. Then as I left my teens it'd become the norm for me as my expectations of being like my sister faded. A pattern I just settled back into.
Sadly, now that I could have sex, real sex, I found that reality didn't match the reaches of my earlier imagination. Sex had turned out to be a big disappointment and masturbation was no longer the poor relation. Rather it had become the preferred option.
I had a sister. I both loved and envied her. A little older and much like me in looks. But somehow on her, the same features seemed sexier. Where I was homely and cute, she was outgoing and sexy. I would turn my eyes down from a man where she would hold his gaze and beam from ear to ear.
We looked alike but Mindy was the opposite to me in every way it mattered. Even her dress sense was something I didn't have. She chose loud colours and revealing dresses. I preferred a pair of slacks and a cardigan. The idea of having my boobs on display or my legs exposed above the knee horrified me. I was my Nan forty years early.
When I met Ray, I was on course to end up in a cottage full of cats by my forties. I still had no idea what he saw in me. I'd told myself it was my cuteness but perhaps in truth, that it was my timidness. That inability to argue or stand up for myself.
In our teens, Mindy had been the outgoing, flirty one. A predator. A wildcat chasing boys like prey while I'd hid in the shadows. Unnoticed and unwanted.
Only Ray had taken an interest in me. A chance meeting in a busy coffee shop. There'd been only a few spare seats and I'd reluctantly accepted him sitting at my table. Somehow he'd fought through my shyness and struck up a conversation.
I think because he was older he'd seemed safe. A friend rather than someone intent on wanting to do naughty things. Even when we dated I'd treated it as friendship for a long time. He didn't try it on and I never considered he was my opportunity to discover sex. Not until he asked me to marry him.
So why did I marry him? That was a good question. Again, he was safe. And above all else, he wanted me.
Even after three years, I'm not sure we had what you could call love. I tried not to analyse it for fear of the truth. It was better to live the illusion than face up to reality. On the rare occasions I did let it enter my head, I couldn't escape the realisation that it was more like a brother and sister relationship. Or more accurately a father-daughter one. Perhaps that's why I didn't enjoy the physical side.
He called me Mouse. My real name was Mandy but he never used it.
Mum had said more than once that he was belittling me. I took it as a term of endearment. A sweet pet name for someone he had affection for and who needed his protection. Either way, I supposed it was fitting. I was a mouse. Quiet and unassuming. My husband made all the decisions and I followed meekly.
Ray was a wealthy man when I met him. At least to me, he was. We certainly had a good life materially. A lovely big period home and no financial concerns. There was always money in the bank for anything we wanted. Not that I came from a deprived background or anything, but it was still a far throw from the working-class area I'd grown up in just a few miles away. Dad drove a bus. With overtime, he made a reasonable wage. Nothing great but enough to keep us fed and a roof over our heads growing up.
In marriage, I found myself free of having to manage money, save, or even question purchases. I had no idea about our finances. Only that money was there when I needed it.
As a couple, me and Ray weren't the most touchy-feely but we didn't argue. I didn't argue. I let Ray look after things. He was the clever one. I was just grateful that he'd seen something no one else had and that he wanted me.
The only thing that really frustrated me was how much he worked. I was a stop at home. Not so bad in the summer when I could tend to the garden, or get out to the park, but winters were boring and we were not so far away from another. Several months filled with daytime TV, scouring Netflix, and shopping trips while I waited for my husband to come home. Like today.
One of the things about having no money concerns was that I could spend it without thinking. Just little things. A new vase or a coat. Whatever took my fancy. Ray didn't care. So long as I let him play golf without a fuss, and made dinner, he didn't mind what I spent or what I bought. He just complimented me on my choices and told me how nice I made the house look. To me, that was an achievement.
To be fair, I wasn't that extravagant. I didn't splash out on clothes. Nothing on makeup. It was mostly things for the home and tat from charity shops. One of which I was standing in now.
As I rifled through some old books in the British Heart Foundation shop I wondered if I could entice my husband from his work for lunch. His office wasn't so far from the centre of town that I couldn't walk there in ten minutes. It was worth a try.
I found a romance novel I hadn't read. Fifty pence for charity. I paid the old lady minding the shop and slipped it into my bag. It'd be something to pass the evenings when Ray was buried in his paperwork.
Outside was reasonably warm but that sense of summer ending and the onset of more mixed weather was there. It was just hiding out of reach. Betrayed by a noticeable chill in the shadows and the morning dew glistening on lawns. Soon the trees would turn brown and soggy leaves would make the paths slippery in the rain.
Spiders webs were always the first thing to catch my attention in September. A proliferation of concentric circles dampened by vapour-heavy, morning air. They sparkled like jewels in the low sun. It reminded me of childhood walks to school after the long summer breaks. Magical after the sun and warmth of July and August and a sign that we were on the slope to Halloween and Christmas.
I started picking my way through the busy crowds, keeping my head down. I hated making eye contact with strangers and just wanted to go unnoticed.
Ten minutes walk and I was at the grand building. I'd been there loads of times. Especially when we'd been courting. Then, Ray had almost always made time for a morning coffee or lunch in one of the many restaurants and pizzerias around the towns. Now it was hit and miss. But I remained forever hopeful.
George was security this morning. He was most times I dropped in on Ray at work. A portly middle-aged man who was excellent at watching the CCTV or checking visitors into the building. Having to deal with a disturbance would be a different matter. The exertion would likely give him a heart attack.
"Morning, Mrs Armitage..
Go on up."
"Thank you."
Even with someone I kinda knew it was hard to look him in the eye. I was conscious that I always kept my head down and avoided conversation. I could do it if I had to. I just preferred not to. I always felt unworthy. That I wasn't interesting enough to talk to or that I was being assessed in some way.
I took the lift. One of those old things that hardly existed any more. It had a cantilever door that clattered as you closed it and rose through a cage. It was about as Victorian as the rest of the building. A dark foreboding place that even in the daytime needed to be lit by vast chandeliers.
Next, I had to negotiate Ray's Secretary.
Ophelia was everything I wasn't. Confident. Blonde. She dressed to impress as they say. She oozed sex appeal. I hated her at a cellular level. I especially hated that she worked so closely with Ray.
"You can go in." She smiled with rosey red lipstick coating her lips.
And most of all, I hated that whenever I visited his workplace, I had to await her permission to see my own husband. It felt as though she was judging my worthiness as I waited, feigning interest in the paintings on the wall to avoid her talking to me.
"Thank you."
Such a pretentious name as well. It belonged in a Shakespearean play or a nineteen fifties historical movie. Who called their child Ophelia in the modern age?
"Mouse. What are you doing here?"
Ray looked important behind his big desk. A monstrous dark oak thing just like everything else here, a relic of a bygone age. It all had an air of empire about it.
