Conversations 14

A short and slightly different view at reality from two sides. No sex, sorry: Viagra delivery hijacked.

***

I was wiping the breakfast table clear of crumbs when the doorbell rang. I didn't move. When it rang again a minute later, I heard an exclamation of frustrated annoyance and Tracy's feet on the stairs.

"Why didn't you answer the door?" she said, clearly annoyed. She had the skirt of her business suit on and was pulling her robe over her naked shoulders as she moved towards the door, her stockinged feet making a swishing noise over the faux-marble tiles in the hallway.

"Busy," I replied, moving dishes to the sink and running hot water into it. We had a dishwasher, but for a pair of cups, plates and bowls, a few pieces of cutlery and a frying pan, why go to the expense of running it? I'm no cheapskate, but I was raised to appreciate the value of a buck. It should be pounds, but the expression calls for a buck so I always think of it that way.

Tracy clicked her tongue at me, a sign of deep annoyance. I would get a mouthful after she dealt with whoever was at the door. She was already so annoyed with me at the moment, I'd probably end up getting yelled at.

Except I wouldn't. Not this time.

I watched from the kitchen as she opened it, the half-height wall allowing whoever was in the kitchen to take part in conversations and festivities taking place in the lounge. Idly, I rubbed a tea-towel over a washed plate, keen to see what was happening at the door.

She opened the door, clutching the robe closed with one hand.

"Delivery for Mrs. Tracy Evers," said a bored looking young man, his uniform shirt and shorts indicating he was from the parcel delivery section of the post office.

She reached out a hand to take it and he drew back a little.

"Sorry, I need a signature, missus," he stated, hauling a small device out of his pocket and handing it to her along with the parcel. Tracy had to use two hands, and I saw the man's eyes widen slightly. Her robe must have swung open. She squeaked and clutched the parcel to her chest, trying to sign on the device with a fingernail without dropping anything.

The man grinned as he took the device back and turned away. Tracy slammed the door closed, a flush on her cheeks as she turned back to me.

"What was so urgent that I had to come down half-dressed to open the door?" she demanded.

"Dishes," I said. I was forcing myself to be very succinct that morning. Words would come later. I couldn't let them flood out now.

"Happy worker," I said nodding at the door to indicate the postman. "Big smile."

"He didn't see anything. He may have thought he did, but he didn't."

"He certainly thought he did. He's very happy."

"Sometimes you can be a complete ass, you know that?"

I shrugged and picked up and rinsed another plate before drying it, taking my time. I wasn't in any rush. This was going to hurt a lot, and nobody wants to rush into that type of pain.

"What is it?" I nodded at the A4-sized parcel in her hand, slim in a buff envelope.

"How the hell do I know?" she grumped. She was never particularly sweet-natured in the morning and we had sat through breakfast in complete silence.

"Looks official," I said.

She tossed it on the table, and I frowned.

"I'll look at it tonight," she said moving towards the stairs.

"Well, you had to sign for it, so..." I left the words 'it might be important' unsaid, hanging in the air. After four years of marriage, I knew what triggered her, just as she knew what did it for me.

Tracy paused halfway up the stairs, her light brown pony tail bobbing from side to side across the back of her robe. When she went to work, it would be pinned up in a neat bun on the back of her head. I preferred it this way.

"Damn it," she said, under her breath. She always swore very quietly, her religious upbringing kicking in. "I can't be late for work! I have a meeting at ten."

I looked at my watch and pointedly raised one eyebrow. It was seven thirty and the trip to her work took half an hour.

"I need to finish prepping for the meeting," she conceded, picking up the parcel and looking it over. "The address on the back is Northern Ireland."

"Careful it's not a bomb then," I said, forcing a smile. My heart was beating a little too quickly for a real smile, and my stomach was trying to play bass along with it, flopping over to the beat. I could taste sawdust in a very dry mouth.

"Oh ha ha. It's just the return address for non-delivery. You're not funny, you know."

"Amused me."

She ripped it open and took out a sheaf of papers, scanning them quickly. Her eyes widened.

"Plea for Decree Nisi," she said blankly.

I looked at her.

"You're divorcing me?"

"Yes."

"Why?" She didn't seem as shocked as I'd expected.

I reached into my shirt pocket and flicked a photograph onto the table. It showed her entering a City Lodge: the one at the services just off the start of the M6. She was dressed up to the nines in that little black dress of hers. Most women would have looked great in it. When she wore it, it screamed 'come fuck me!'

Tracy picked it up, gave it a cursory glance and put it down again, her eyes flicking up to stare at me.

I decided to wait it out, staring right back and carefully keeping my face from showing any emotion.

She dropped her eyes first. Her breathing had become a little faster. She was nervous.

"You had me followed?"

"Nope, did it myself." I was saying little because I was so afraid my voice would crack and reveal the depth of my emotions. For my own sanity, I couldn't turn into that guy - the one who cried and wailed, moaned and screamed... and then gave in. I couldn't do that. I loved her, and had since the evening we met. When she said yes to my proposal, it felt like I was in a dream. Now it was nightmare time.

She nodded. "So you're just divorcing me without even talking to me first."

It was a statement, so I simply nodded, my mouth twisting slightly as I lost control for a split second.

"So, you don't want to know why I did it?" Apart from her breathing, she was being remarkably calm for someone who'd just been hit with divorce papers.

"Doesn't matter," I ground out. "Just that you did."

She smiled at me, and I felt a form of horror creep through my brain at her casual dismissal of two years of dating, a year-long engagement and four years of marriage. Either she didn't care or didn't understand. If it was the first, we'd be finished that day. If it was the latter, I would have to make her understand, and then we'd be finished. Right at the very beginning, when we had both been so breathlessly in love with each other we had to share breathing, and as I still was with her, we had both agreed that cheating meant the instant destruction of our relationship. Either way, no matter how much I loved her, I would be alone very soon. I didn't like to think of that. To have to go cold turkey after seven years of my so beautiful Tracy would be very, very tough. I wasn't looking forward to it.

"I did it because you're forever going on those trips."

"The trips we both understood and agreed were part of my job before I took it on? Those the trips you mean?" I liked my job and felt I was going places in the company, but we had discussed it almost to death before I took on the travel part of it.

She flushed slightly. "You didn't tell me there would be so many. So many nights alone."

"Neither of us knew."

"I wouldn't have agreed if I'd known there would be that many; that's the problem."

"You never told me it was becoming a problem."

"I shouldn't have had to tell you. You left me alone so often that it had to be obvious. You should have known."

"Then I do apologise wholeheartedly, and I promise to get my psychic abilities checked out by the doctor. Fuck, what a bad time for my mind-reading ability to pack up." Okay, we were back to normal sentences again. The time for brevity was over.

She frowned at my language. I didn't care. I was an atheist, although I generally tried to keep my thoughts on that to myself, allow her to live the way she wished and go and bother her God whenever she felt the need. But I didn't live within her religious dogma.

"Don't be stupid!" she said coldly. "We've been together seven years in all. You should have been understanding and empathetic enough to pick up on my distress, how upset I was getting. I love you - I always have and you know that - but you're never here!"

"And you should have been intelligent enough to realise that telling me we were getting into real difficulties in words, rather than thought waves, would have been a much more efficient way of communication. A hundred thousand years of developing language to the point where every single English book in the world is created from just twenty six letters, and it's all wasted if you don't use them.

"Besides," I continued. "It doesn't make any difference now. Last Monday, you made a choice. All choices have consequences, and you always knew about those. Some are good. Yours... not so much!"

She gave a little smile once more. Her fingernails drummed lightly on the sheaf of papers on the table.

"I won't sign these, you know."

I had a little laugh, just a snort of air from my nostrils. "You've been taking in too many American books and movies. British law doesn't work that way. You see a place to sign on that page? No! These are purely for your information as to the date the Decree will be granted. Then I'll apply for the Decree Absolute and six weeks and one day later, we'll be divorced. You don't need to sign anything except the agreement as to splitting the few assets we have."

And I'd be free of one nightmare where my loving wife - a woman who made my soul complete - cheats on me and throws me into another where I'm alone and lost, with my heart ripped out.

She frowned, the creases marring her perfection. "No, that can't be right. That's not fair."

"Oh, you'll get a chance to argue your case on the split of the assets if you want, although we both earn pretty much the same. We sell the house and the paltry profit after the mortgage is repaid gets split between us. I'm only going to keep my personal stuff: my computer and laptop, a few books and DVDs. You can keep the kitchen stuff, the furniture and the TV. I don't want the bed or settee or anything else with a flat surface, just in case you were fucking guys on them. You want to argue the split, it's going to cost us a lot of money and we both end up penniless."

"I didn't bring any men to the house!" she said, her eyes narrowing. Her nostrils flared, and I couldn't resist a tiny smile at that. It was a sign that she was getting upset. Good! Why should I be the only one wounded in this clusterfuck? Why should I be the only one getting hurt by her actions? If she loved me as she always swore she did, she wouldn't have gone with door number two.

"No way I can possibly know that. You can't prove something like that didn't happen. So I'd always imagine it did. That settee, this table, over the sink, against the wall, over the banister... who the hell knows. But I do know about this."

I flicked another photo from my pocket. The Centre Lodge she had visited was only two storeys high and I'd got lucky—if that's the right word in these circumstances—and she'd ended up with a ground floor room. I'd been watching the windows for a light to come on, and when one did, I saw her enter one of the rooms before the curtains were pulled closed. And like most of the motor lodges for travellers along Britain's highways, those curtains were cheap and nasty and never closed quite enough in any of the rooms. There was a three-inch gap, and by standing on tip-toe and praying that in the dark no one would take notice of me, I'd managed to lift my phone at full stretch and click away blindly. In the end I took over a hundred pictures, most of them showing the ceiling, the television, and the far wall and distant door. A few had revealed my wife getting undressed while a man stood closer to the camera with his back to me.

The photograph showed Tracy on the far side of the bed, her LBD lowered and hanging around her waist, leaning slightly forward towards the lens with her arms twisted behind her to unfasten her bra. Sadly, it was that little, black half-cup bra that I really loved her to wear on special occasions. That wouldn't be appreciated any more, or what they supported either. She had C-cup breasts that filled my hands very nicely indeed, and that bra just lifted and rounded them to superb proportions.

She picked up the photo I'd printed out, and looked at it judiciously, her lips pursed up in concentration. She dropped it and nodded.

"You have more?"

Damn, I'd been interrupted in my snooping by a family dragging suitcases along with them and had to make a sudden getaway. Being caught blindly taking photos through a hotel window would not look good on an eventual charge sheet at a police station. I only had two more that showed any detail.

"You want to admire yourself cheating?" I asked.

She frowned for a moment, her face showing pain, and then seemed to pull herself together again. She put an expression of impatience on her face. "Grow up and stop behaving like a little boy who's had his favourite toy taken away. This is an adult conversation!"

"No longer even my second favourite toy," I muttered. I silently swore at myself for sounding like that small boy.

I flicked another photo at her. This one showed her naked from the waist up and those magnificent round breasts were plain to see - so pale, with nipples so darkly pink and lovely. She had one foot up on the bed and was undoing the complicated ankle straps that wound some way up her lower leg and held the four-inch heel of her red shoes firmly in place. Her skirt was lifted high on the raised thigh, and the picture clearly showed the tiny black thong that half-heartedly covered her cheating cunt.

"I do look good," she remarked. Her words made me boil with rage inside, but I was grimly determined to hold it in. This was my show, not hers. She'd had her show the previous Monday, and if she didn't care that I'd documented it, then why should I? Despite my bewilderment at her actions and my fear that I was doing the wrong thing, that I was throwing away the rest of a life with the girls I loved, my face remained determinedly impassive. I was brought up to not show broad emotions. It wasn't the done thing.

Her gaze flicked to me to see my response to her words, and the corners of her lips turned down in slight frustration. That was interesting. She wanted me upset. I needed to think about that.

"Perhaps you should get ready for work," I suggested, playing for time so I could consider her reactions. "It's time."

She stared at me for a long moment, and then reached into her robe pocket. I should have known she wouldn't move without it being in reach. She pressed a button.

"Sophie, offer my apologies to Charlie and tell him I'm not feeling well at all, so the meeting's off. I'll hopefully be in tomorrow, so please reschedule everything on my calendar for later in the week. Thanks."

"Now we have all the time in the world," she smiled, love on her face. How did her face remain so beautiful while it showed lies to me?

"Nope," I replied, allowing some of my anger to leak into my voice. In my frustration, I lied. "We have half an hour at most before my taxi gets here. One of us won't just call things off at a moment's notice."

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" she cried out angrily, obviously frustrated with me. "We're discussing a problem in our marriage, and you blindly go off to your work like some damn mole, snuffling about in the darkness without a clue. That's why we're here having this discussion."

"Nope," I repeated. "I don't have to go to work, I just want to. That's all my choice. I need to get away from you and your lying, your disdain, disrespect and disloyalty, and any other disses I may have forgotten. I can probably get those for free at work. I don't need to hang around you to get them. That's why we're having this discussion."

She sneered, and I never came so close to hitting a woman in my life.

"The little boy's back again, I see," she said. "Sometimes I don't know why I bother."

My mouth actually dropped open. Then I closed it with a snap.

"Then I'll be off," I said. "If you can't be bothered..."

I started to move and her expression flashed to one of panic. "No, that's not what I said."

She put her hand on my chest. I looked down at it, and then up at her with hurt and a mingling of disgust. I could almost see her using them on him.

"Don't touch me. Not knowing where they've been."

She flushed deeply this time. Not a good look for her, but she dropped her hand instantly.

"Look. Let me explain. We love each other and owe each other that much!"

"I'm not interested in the reasons you can't keep your legs closed. I don't need to hear how your need to get your cunt stuffed is more important than anything we had together."

"No! Listen to me!" There was a tinge of panic in her voice now. After seven years of being together, I realised I didn't understand anything, not even one single thing about her. Why would she even entertain the thought that telling me she loved me meant we could still be together after this? We both knew how we felt about cheating. It was an instant kill - faster than a sniper's bullet.

"I don't think so," I said, pulling away from her. She had to be crazy to some extent to say she loved me with those photographs lying face up and mocking me from not three feet away.

I picked up my car keys and headed for the front door. I'd lied about the taxi. Everything I wanted was already in the boot of my car. After she'd gone to sleep the night before, I'd taken the things from the garage where I'd stored them and packed them in the boot. She hadn't noticed that my cupboard and drawers were just about empty.

"Bye. Have a shit life," I said.

"Wait," she screamed wildly. "I didn't have sex with anyone. It was a set up to show you what could happen. You know I love you! I could never cheat on you!"

What the fuck? She was even crazier than I thought, but it halted me in my tracks.

"What are you talking about?"

"The hotel, the cheating - it was all a pretence."

"Bollocks," I said scornfully.

"It's true. It was just to show you how easily I could have an affair if you didn't attend to business at home."

"Attend to business?" I hissed, and my rage was more than clear in that question. She wilted slightly.

"I didn't mean that how it sounded," she said. "I meant leaving me all alone so often, you know."

"Attend to fucking business?" I roared. She scampered around the table to put it between us.

"It was a bad choice of words. I'm sorry"

"Too fucking right it was a bad choice. You're saying I don't fuck you enough, is that it? You can't cram my cock inside that all-too-needy cunt of yours often enough for your liking, so you need to go out on the streets like a whore to get some strange cock? Is that right?"

"No," she whispered, although it sounded more like a whimper. I'd never sworn at her before. Not like that. "I miss you when you're not here. I love you. I just wanted you home more often."

"So you decided to fuck other men in order to pass that information on to me? Really? Just how fucking crazy are you?"

"No, I'm not crazy. It was just to show what could happen. But nothing did."

"You looked at those pictures! At least I'm pretty sure you did. Or maybe you were too busy admiring your nasty, cheating self to understand what they meant."

"No," she moaned. "It was all pretend."

I shook my head.

"You getting naked and fucking some guy was all pretence? In what universe does that make any sense?"