Conversations 13

This series is all about conversations around one event -- the cheating spouse. But cheating affects more than just the two protagonists, and I wanted to look at those conversations as well. We all need love.

However, when the conversation is finally over, the story ends. And if you feel it's in the wrong section, well... the others in the series are here and I wanted to keep them together. No sex in this one. Sorry.

Enjoy.

*

I was seated on my favourite bar stool in the Crown and Anchor, quietly having some intimate time with my lager and waiting for Caroline to join me for our weekly date night. It was going to be a dry evening after she did, so I was enjoying reconnecting with my favourite golden tipple, when someone annoyed me by sitting next to me.

"Newcastle Brown Ale, please Sue!" he called.

I shifted restlessly, realising that this was going to get uncomfortable. I fiddled with my phone, put it on the counter and then took three slow swallows, just enjoying the flavour and the little, sharp fizz against the back of my throat, before I said anything.

"Jeff, you're a cunt."

In my peripheral vision, I saw his glass descend to the bar, now only half full of the rich, pale liquid he always preferred.

"That's fair, Marco" he said quietly. "I guess I am."

I turned to my best friend, so mad at him I wanted to put my hands around his throat and strangle the stupid bastard.

"What the fuck were you thinking?"

There was a long pause. Then he sighed. "I wasn't thinking. I was just feeling. It was more emotion than lust."

"Yeah? That's not the way I heard it. For fuck's sake, how could you?"

"How couldn't I?" he responded.

For a moment I was speechless, and once again my fingers itched to leave fingerprints on his throat.

"Look," I said finally. "I know Maeve has all the right female attributes going for her, and all in the right places, but shit -- she's nothing compared to Karen!"

"Except emotionally," he said. "Or at least I thought so."

"That's bullshit, and you know it. Karen loves you completely."

"Mmm. She loves me, but she hasn't been in love with me for a while now."

"Bollocks! Caro and I have been best friends with both of you for the last seven years, ever since our first days at Uni. And there hasn't been a day since when you two weren't joined at the hip like conjoined twins, for Christ's sake. Don't tell me she isn't in love with you, because I'll call you a fucking liar!"

"Feel free to call me what you like. I fucked up, I know. But she isn't in love with me anymore."

I shook my head. I loved this guy like he was my own brother. In fact I loved him more than I loved my own brother, we were that close. And I loved Karen, his wife, just as much.

Sometimes you meet people, and you just bond. You want to be in their company, you want to share things in your life with them, you want them to share with you, and you want to spend time together doing the things you both love. That was the four of us. Two couples -- four best friends.

Caro and I, and he and Karen had shared a classroom at the University of Edinburgh -- none of us Scottish and all of us feeling a little out of place in the venerable old lecture halls and ancient laboratories. The latter had world class equipment for us to work with, some of which was almost futuristic, stuffed into spaces that had been small when the old campus had been first built, over four hundred years earlier.

We were nervous of the high scholastic standards expected, no -- demanded of students, and the incredible pressures we all knew we'd be facing. Less than ten percent of applications had been granted and each of us knew how lucky we'd been to be offered a place.

So in those initial days, the first years tended to huddle together like sheep when the wolves are howling in the darkness, ready to spook and run at the first hint of trouble -- or in the case of students; cry, complain and drink a lot.

And in that huddle, the four of us had found each other -- as individuals and then as two couples; me with Caroline Esterhuizen, and Jeff Colton with Karen Albright.

For three years we studied, worked and played together. We didn't swing or anything daft like that -- there simply wasn't any space within either couple for anyone else to even try to squeeze into, so it never entered our minds. Each pair seemed to be formed like those ancient Egyptian stone blocks, chiselled out of living rock by hand to fit together so tightly that you couldn't get the blade of a knife between any two of them. That was Caro and I, and I knew Jeff and Karen were possibly even closer.

So what was this fairy tale shit he was trying to spin to me?

"Jeff, look me in the eye and say that again."

He turned and did so, and I could see truth in his eyes.

"I don't understand," I said, feeling helpless. "Did she... Was...?"

I simply refused to believe that she'd cheated on him. I shook my head again.

"Ignore that! I wouldn't believe it anyway."

He smiled ruefully, puffing slightly through his nose. "No, she didn't cheat on me. Not physically."

"I still don't get it. You imagined that she was looking at someone else?"

"I said it wasn't about sex," he sighed at my obstinate refusal to accept his words.

"No you didn't," I protested. "You said it wasn't physical on your side. Not the same thing. Besides, it was about sex on your side."

It was his turn to shake his head. "No it wasn't. Oh, sex happened. But it was never about that. It was me needing to find what I'd lost. What I couldn't live without."

"Man, if you can't go without sex for what... a few months?"

He shrugged. "Not important. It wasn't about sex."

I lost my temper with him for the first time since we'd met, and slapped the bar hard.

"Then you'd better conjure up a really good fucking explanation for what it was about then," I yelled. "Because you're not making a whole lot of sense!"

We both looked around, embarrassed at my outburst. I lowered my voice.

"And you'd better make it fast, because Caro's going to be here soon -- and she will rip you a whole new one, believe me. You broke our trust almost as much as you did Karen's and -- especially now -- she's feeling a whole lot of ill-will towards you, mate!"

"Okay, I'll try and explain," he said, then turned to the barmaid, who was watching us a little warily after my outburst. "Jayne, another round please."

I thought of the date night agreement between Caro and me, and the no drinking rule in place at the moment, and then realised that she would have agreed to almost any change in the rules to try and find out just what went wrong between our friends. Since the disastrous news broke, I think she'd been feeling more vulnerable and weepy than ever. We clung to each other at night like a pair of orphans, each knowing that if something could come between even Karen and Jeff, then what certainty could we hold on to in our relationship?

The drinks came, although I held off dipping into mine for a while. No matter what transpired, Caro would not like me to be half-cut when she arrived from work. And her good opinion of me mattered more to me than pretty much anything else in my world.

Jeff had no such reservations and half the pint disappeared down his throat.

"Okay, let me explain."

He looked around the pub as if searching for inspiration.

"When I met Karen, it was like somebody switched on a light in my life. You and Caro were almost instant friends, but with Karen it was love at first sight for me."

He smiled almost shame-facedly. "I know that sounds lame, and if someone else had confessed that to me, I would have been instantly embarrassed for them sounding so clichéd. I've certainly never said it before -- but it was true. I can remember the clothes she wore, and her figure within them. I remember the shade of her lipstick and the light touch of her eye shadow, the long ear rings that drew attention to the elegant neck and the rings on her long fingers.

"Most of all, I remember her eyes and how she looked at me -- as if I wasn't just another guy who would be trying to get into her knickers at the earliest opportunity. As if I was worth knowing. For me, with my background, that meant a whole lot."

Yeah, his background included parents who were borderline abusive, with alcohol-fuelled mood swings that left little self-confidence within an extremely bright mind -- not a good mix really. I knew he'd been smitten with Karen, that was clearly obvious to everyone on campus, not just to Caro and I, but I hadn't realised she'd had that powerful an effect on him. Although, now I thought about it, it would have had to have been love that gave him the courage to approach her, despite his terminally low self-regard.

"When she agreed to go out for a meal with me, it felt as if I'd won the lottery, without even buying a ticket. And we just seemed to click, almost instantly. I found myself able to talk to her about things I would never have considered even thinking about, never mind discussing. It just seemed that she took it all in, filtered out the bad parts, and sent only the good back to me. It was like feeling the sunshine on my face for the very first time.

"I know I held parts of me back for a while -- kind of waiting for the whole thing to come crashing down on my head. But then it didn't and I found myself giving her more and more of me as our relationship continued to get stronger. Every day it seemed to get better and better.

"We'd talk for hours and hours. We'd go on a date and talk non-stop until the wee hours, then we'd go home and Skype each other to talk some more."

He gave that half smile once again; part humour, part irony.

"You know, we talked for thirteen hours solid one day. I timed it. Idle curiosity, I guess, but it was important to me because she was the first girl I was never bored to be with after a while. And we talked about everything, absolutely every-fucking-thing.

"You and I talk. The four of us talk -- and man, some of those conversations are the best I can remember, with every topic under the sun being discussed, taken apart and then put back together again. We communicate so well.

"But Karen and I were so much more in tune even that that. I know all about her first pet, first date, first kiss and the time she lost her virginity and the boy she was with -- and I know how she felt and acted with each one. She knows about the best and worst times with my parents, losing my sister to meningitis, and me trying to close off my mind from the rest of the world. We felt each other's joys and pains as if it had happened to us. We know each other's strengths and weaknesses, and we know all the hope and fear that's within us.

"You know how petrified I was about asking her to marry me. To me, what we had was perfection, and I didn't really see the need to get a certificate or swear to some god that neither of us believed in in order to make it real. But I knew that somewhere within her she wanted that public acknowledgement that this was who we were -- a couple; a real, live married couple whose lives, bodies, thoughts and feelings were now exclusive to each other."

I nodded. Hell, I'd had to almost prop him up at the altar as we waited for Karen to appear at the far end of the aisle, he'd been so scared.

"I was terrified that changing what we had would alter it somehow, that the perfection we'd achieved would lessen to some extent -- that we'd become lazy about feeding it."

I'd had the same thoughts about Caro and I when we married a few months later, but my parents had been supportive and had always fed me a daily diet of the strength of their relationship. So I had been a whole world less nervous than he had.

"It did change," he continued, after another draught of his ale. "It actually got better. I had to keep raising the bar of what I imagined perfection to be.

"You know, in the four years we've been married, we've probably spent over twenty thousand hours holding each other; making love, hugging, snuggling on the settee, spooning and watching movies, her lying back against me in the bath while we both read, or just holding hands and pressed up close next to each other in public. It was like we both wanted to become one person; physically, spiritually, emotionally and mentally. It was like my whole body was open to her all the time -- a disgusting image to imagine, I know -- but that's what it felt like. It was as if I was split open from top to bottom to allow her to get all the way inside me."

This was pretty deep stuff for Jeff. He didn't normally get very emotional. For him, this was pure poetry he was spouting.

"Like the tauntaun in Star Wars that Han stuffed Luke into to keep warm." I gave a laugh to show him I was just breaking the mood.

He didn't seem to notice, lost in memory and pain. Pain? What the hell had happened?

"She gave me everything I needed and I tried to be that for her in return. We'd discussed having children, and I'd always been really clear that I didn't want any. I never saw myself as anything special, so never saw the need to put my genes into the pool. You know my sister died of meningitis, and my parents are both alcoholics. I have type two diabetes and two out of my four grandparents died of cancer. I'm just not a good genetic bet, and didn't want to inflict any of that on some poor kid.

"She knew how I felt, and at first it wasn't a problem. But then it became one, and she started to get broody. We discussed it more and more often, and I know she saw and understood my point-of-view, but we kept circling back to it. And in the end, more than anything else, I wanted her to be happy. That's what happens when you're completely in love with someone. Your happiness comes second to hers. It's that simple -- and that complicated."

"She went off the pill, and two months later she fell pregnant."

He took another drink.

"Marco, I don't think she'd ever been happier. We still argued now and again about the small stuff, but most of the time it was just a haze of loving happiness. I don't think either of us could have loved each other any more without actually bursting at the seams. Even the bad parts when I held her while she was throwing up, or rubbed her back and feet until the aching went away, making love with her whenever she felt fat and ugly and needed reassurance, or simply holding her tight whenever the night-fears about the health of the baby would surface.

"It wasn't a one-way stream either. She was there every time my worries would surface about whether we'd done the right thing; kissing me, holding me, making love with me and just loving me all the time. I was addicted to that love. I couldn't get enough and always wanted more and more of that amazing feeling.

"And we would still talk about everything. Anything that crossed our minds was grist to the mill in those conversations; the past, the present, the future -- about everything, everyone and everywhere.

"You and Caro were waiting outside the delivery room when Alison was born, but I was with her all the way. You know she didn't even swear at me once, although I've heard that's fairly normal for mothers to do to the father when the equivalent of a bowling ball is trying to exit their body through a very small passage. My hand she was holding took quite a pounding though.

"Despite all the fears we'd confessed to each other, Alison was a perfectly healthy child, as you know. I mean, shit -- you're the godparents, so you should know.

"Sometime shortly after we brought Alison home and discovered that she was allergic to sleep -- no, allergic to us sleeping, Karen fell out of love with me and in love with the baby."

He grinned ruefully and shook his head. "Yep, that was the look I was expecting."

I glanced in the big mirror behind the bar and saw the frown on my face as I looked askance at him.

"Oh come on!" I said. "All mothers love their babies."

"Not all," he said mildly. "Mine certainly didn't."

He held his hand up to stop my protests.

"Don't get me wrong, I love that little girl. I'd take a bullet for her. In a zombie attack I'd rip out my own brain to draw them away from her. But I'm still in love with Karen."

I opened my mouth to renew my protests, and then closed it again.

"But..." I said after a moment of trying unsuccessfully to martial my thoughts into some sort of regimented order.

"Okay, think about it this way. One day Caro is in love with you. You're the mainstay of her life. You're her pole star, her protector, her lover, her best friend and her guide through life. Yes?"

I nodded. It was a fair description.

"Of course," I said. "And she's all that to me, in the same way."

"Then the next day, you're not."

"What?"

"Maybe the protector, friend and lover remains, but the rest is gone. It's now for the child."

"But that's how it has to be," I protested after a moment of thought. "How would children even survive without a mother's complete love and...?"

I broke off, remembering some of the things he'd related about his own mother.

"And I never wanted children," he whispered. "Only for her to be happy, that's all I ever wanted. And I know this all makes me seem like the worst, the most selfish, most unnatural, most puerile jerk in the world. I know that. You can beat me up for feeling that way, I don't mind. You couldn't do it any worse than I have already. I don't resent the child -- I love her completely. I resent the situation that her arrival has forced on us.

"Perhaps because Karen loved me so much, so much that I could bathe in it daily, perhaps that's what made it worse. Other couples have children and go through tough times. They also have sleepless nights for months on end. They also have to deal with the puke and the shit and the piss, in the same way that they have to deal with the fear at the smallest rash or cough, or the little noises that instantly wake them up even though they're maddened into zombie land from lack of sleep.

"One day I was a man with everything I ever dreamed of: a beautiful, healthy, intelligent wife who not only loved me absolutely, but matched my every thought with a better one of her own, who pushed me to be better; a better thinker and a better human being. And then the next day I was more a nuisance than a support, and that special love that was more precious to me than my own breath was gone, given to someone else who I couldn't resent, couldn't resist, couldn't compete with -- and didn't even want to.

"I had it all. One day I was a man happily drowning in the absolute love of my other half, the other jigsaw piece that fit only to mine, and the next I was just drowning -- and going down for the third time. Call me needy, call me insecure, call me whatever you like. I was addicted to her love, and had been forced to go cold turkey. I was lost in the wind. I was in mourning.

"I love my daughter, don't ever think I don't. But Karen is in love with her. Alison is at the centre of her heart now and always will be. She's unknowingly and unintentionally pushed me to the side of her mother's affections. Even those precious conversations are gone. We haven't spoken about anything else but her since she was born."

I could only blink at him. Surely what he was saying was wrong! I understood the words, and I understood the sentiment, but surely he was just... wrong!

"Hang on," I said, my voice making my sentiments clear. "That still doesn't give you the right to cheat on Karen."

"I kept saying it wasn't about the sex," he admonished. "It wasn't. I was an addict, a junkie -- and just like the worst of those, I needed a fix. Maeve was there, part of a project group at work. I may be dumb and selfish and even perverse at loving my wife more than my daughter, but I'm not stupid. I'd known she'd had a crush on me for months, and she was really, really bright and a great conversationalist. She seemed to offer that spark, that fix, that chance. And I let myself be stupid enough to grasp at it.