Another loving wives tale, but split into three chapters. All three are finished and will be submitted over three or four days. The first two chapters are 'loving wives' and the last 'romance'. Yes, it's going to have a happy ending.
This first chapter is quite short, and sets the story up.
Sorry but not too much in the way of explicit sex.
+++++
I took a long deep wholesome breath.
The air was no different from that which I had breathed for the last eight years. No different at all.
It just felt as if it was.
CLANG!
The heavy steel door doors shut behind me, mingling with the good wishes of the two men closing it. The two men amongst others, who over the last eight years had controlled my life so completely.
"Good luck Jim."
I like to think that they had meant it.
I like to think that maybe I had earned it.
Who knew? ---- Who knows? ---- It wasn't my call.
--------
Bedford.
Bedford prison in middle England.
My home for so long, and the place that I was so pleased, yet equally so uncertain, and so very nervous of leaving.
It hadn't been so bad really, as I stood there recalling my experiences.
No!
No, that wasn't true ---- the first year had been awful, the first month unbearable, and the first few days unimaginably terrible.
But it had got better, more acceptable, more within my understanding.
Then gradually the whole experience changed.
I made it change.
I changed my life and my expectations.
But even so!
It was half past eleven and what was I to do?
I had no wife to meet me, to welcome me, to rush into my arms.
No!
No fuck that cow ---- let her rot in hell.
It was her fault that I had just spent all that time incarcerated.
-------
Turn left, stroll along the busy road, and then left again as I weaved my way through the Victorian streets of the northern part of old Bedford town. I knew where I was going, and I knew what I was looking for.
There it was!
The Welly! ---- The Wellington Arms.
According to the screws in the Nick, the best bloody pub in the town, and serving the best real ales in the region.
Go in --- Look around ---- Go on ---- nothing to be frightened of ----- I was a free man.
Bloody hell just look at that.
Boddingtons, Ruddles, Green King, Breakspears ..........
Too many for me to take in.
"Pint of that one there," I demanded, pointing at a brew that I had never heard of before. Licking my lips as the guy behind the bar pulled on the pump and the gorgeous amber liquid filled my glass to the brim.
"Best pint I've had in years," I told him as I took my first taste. Though I doubted if he realized quite how honest I was being. Quite how much I savored that first wonderful pint.
Feeling in my pocket I took out my money.
Forty quid.
Just forty quid ---- the same forty pounds that I had handed over eight years ago when I had gone into prison. The total sum that I was left with after that bloody cow, my damn wife had turned me over, and taken everything from me.
But it wasn't the money ---- it wasn't the house or the car. It wasn't my lost career, or my lost prospects.
What was it then?
I didn't know and had never worked it out.
She's deserted me, abandoned me for someone else after I had given her everything. Left me in the lurch and gone off.
I hated her ....... Or did I? Did I still maybe love her?
Why had I thought of her virtually every day that I had been locked away?
------
Three pints and a pork pie later, and with the first hint of a real smile on my face, I was ready to face the world again. Ready to restart my life.
Back to the town centre, and down the main street.
Barclay's bank --- Good old Barclay's bank.
With the merest hesitation, as if I didn't have the right, I entered the august premises and marveled at how things had changed in the eight years since I had last visited such a place.
Personal Bankers!
