As I understand it the word 'cuckold' means a man whose wife is having sex with other men with his knowledge and generally against his will. On that basis the following story does not accord with the definition but I felt that it was worth relating due to the undoubted degree of poignancy.
When the husband, a Thomas Fairfield, rang me I felt from his voice that he was somewhat older than my other confidants and this impression was confirmed when he later walked into my office. I guessed at middle sixties and it turned out that he had just celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday. He was somewhat below average height and could have been classed as dapper but for a thickening round his middle of the type that I always attribute to contented living. After the polite preliminaries, I sat in silence waiting for him to begin in his own time - I always try to avoid prompting if at all possible. Thomas obviously wanted to get it off his chest because he began almost immediately on what had to be a prepared speech.
"If I had spoken to you at last New Year I would have said that I was only six years away from my golden wedding after a marriage filled with happiness and mutual fidelity," he said ruefully.
"But late this summer my younger brother Robin died very suddenly. His widow Jane, my sister-in-law, declared herself capable of handling all the financial aspects of his estate but felt unable to go through his personal papers. So it was logical that I, as a last fraternal duty, should step in and undertake this task for her. I worked with mixed emotions because although at times I was intrigued to discover aspects of my brother's interests that I had never known, at others I felt intrusive and had to force myself to continue. For all the good that my perusal of these documents did, I might as well have dumped the lot unread into the bin - and I wish to God that I had. Tucked in the back of a well-worn wallet I came across a very old letter. Written thirty-five years ago, it was from May, my wife, ending an affair with him."
At this point he halted with a film of moisture in his eyes. I waited to let him regain composure but when he displayed no inclination to continue I murmured quietly, "And?"
"I don't know what to do about it," he said.
His dilemma was obvious but I was not willing to say anything constructive on such sparse information - if fact, offering advice even after full disclosure is generally frowned upon. "Have you got the letter or have you destroyed it?"
In answer he took the mentioned wallet from his pocket, extracted a faded envelope from it and this he laid in front of me with almost religious reverence. It read:-
Dearest Robin
Ever since first discovering that you were so much bigger than Tom
I have been completely crazy and perhaps am only now regaining my
senses. I love Tom and cannot bear the thought of hurting him or ruining
my marriage so we have got to stop what we are doing. I will miss our
special afternoons together desperately but I must ask you not to call
again when I am alone.
Sorry darling
May
I spent some moments contemplating how I should approach this and finally asked what he could remember about the period in question.
"I think it was a time when my brother was often there when I got home from work," he said. "Rob had a job then which involved working evenings and early mornings so that much of his days were free. My little girl Sarah, (we only had the one then) was three and went to a nursery during the afternoon. I do know that for a period of months I frequently got home to find him playing with my daughter - that's when the affair must have been going on although I don't know if it was right from the start. Rob tended to stay and eat with us. He used to jokingly refer to May as 'our wife' and it is only now that I have belatedly realised the joke was on me."
"Did this change after your wife must have ended it?"
"Yes - Rob suddenly stopped calling at all but at the time I believed that this was because he had changed jobs. He actually dropped out of our lives completely for a couple of years and when he did reappear it was with a girlfriend called Beth in tow. During the following months he seemed pretty serious about her and May and I went out with them two or three times as a foursome. Then suddenly he switched to Jane and shortly after that married her. Since then we raised our family and they raised theirs. Over the years we met at family gatherings, sometimes on a pretty regular basis but at others with two years or more intervening between meetings. When greeting and saying farewell I noticed that May and Rob shared more natural affection than occurred between myself and Jane - I have always been pleased at their rapport and only now realise that it was a reflection of that one time shared intimacy."
"Is there any other factor you can think of that might have a bearing on this?" I asked.
"Yes - Rob's character," he told me bitterly. "Right from the start of his marriage he was a compulsive womaniser. Jane knew but it didn't seem to decrease her love for him - the only time that she ever commented on his behaviour was to say simply, 'It's the way he is.' Rob must have been with hundreds of other women over the years because his different jobs always brought him in direct contact with the public. Once when he was a rent collector, for some reason I accompanied him for a morning as he made his round. After leaving one young woman he said, 'Stripped she's got the most amazing pear shaped tits' and a few calls later his comment was, 'That woman may not look much but she's a volcano in bed.' I can't say that I was jealous because I had no real desire to act like that but I did resent the way that he went through life not caring who he hurt and invariably getting away with it."
"To your knowledge - was he well endowed?" I had to ask.
"I never saw him naked as an adult but odd remarks he made gave that impression. One time, possibly that same morning on his round he said, 'Once women know what I've to offer, they just can't say No'. I suppose that he must have been," Thomas added sadly.
"And you?"
"Average I guess, I've never given it much thought."
