Chapter 2

With work and school, life returned to normal. The humdrum of the day-to-day enlivened by our children’s comments and games, and by the little treats we enjoyed – restaurants, films, plays and concerts, some with the children and some by ourselves. We blessed our parents who babysat or even took their grandchildren for whole weekends.

There were all the little actions that spoke of our love and affection, the grazing touches, passing kisses, loving looks. Of course there was the sex, which was varied, sometimes fun, sometimes loving and affectionate and sometimes hot, busy and sticky.

For me, the problems engendered by Fredericks’ intrusion faded into the past and the man had not been mentioned at all. May passed into June. Life was truly back to normal.

We celebrated the two bank holidays on the third and fourth of June for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee with a street party, and found ourselves talking to people from the other end of our road with whom we had never spoken at all before then. I wondered if we’d ever speak to them again – the road is quite a long one! No doubt we’d be on nodding terms if we were to pass on the road!

So, all in all, June was a tranquil month, and summer with its long days and warmer temperatures was here. Of course it couldn’t last, could it?

It all changed with the onset of July. Trouble reared its ugly head in the first week of July, on the Friday of that week, when my life took a renewed plunge into doubt and uncertainty. It came as more of a shock precisely because life had been so normal, loving and full for so long. There had been no indication of anything amiss...

These things often happen casually. In my case it was a casual remark at work from Bill, a colleague from the Sales Department.

‘Hey Aaron,’ he had said over lunch on Friday, ‘I was out for lunch with Harry from XTC yesterday. You know he’s a Yank, and it was the Fourth of July, so I pushed the expense account boat out, to give him an extra treat, and we went to the Midland Hotel.’

‘Yes?’ I prompted, intrigued, wondering where this was going.

‘Well, I saw your Faye – it looks like her firm has her lunching with clients – having lunch at the Midland! No one else lunches at the Midland Hotel unless they want to impress a buyer now do they?’

That surprised me: she had said nothing about it the previous night. Then I had an unsettling thought, and it rapidly turned into a sinking feeling.

‘Unlikely,’ I said. ‘More likely one of her cousins. What did they look like?’

Then the blow fell.

‘Tall, broad, good looking bloke, I suppose, blond wavy hair, expensive suit.’

So I knew immediately who it was: Fredericks. With difficulty I managed to keep my expression bland.

‘Yes, it must have been her cousin,’ I managed to get out.

The subsequent afternoon was a complete washout as far as work was concerned. It was filled with questions and a realisation. The Midland Hotel was expensive, very expensive. This was not just two friends having a casual lunch for a chat, I don’t think the Midland ever did casual. This was seduction. Fredericks was really pushing the boat out. I wondered how far he had got with her, and I was going to find out pronto.

How often had she been meeting him? How far had this liaison gone? Was I losing her to him already after all? Had I lost her already? Then there was the fact that she had said nothing about it and I knew why. She knew my feelings about him and had decided to deceive me. About what else had she been deceiving me?

I thought about it some more and realised that she had not really had an opportunity to spend more than quite abbreviated lunchtimes with him, and not very many of those at that. Moreover, since her company would look askance at her taking a whole afternoon off, they would not have enough time to misbehave. However, it would only take one afternoon, wouldn’t it? My spirits sank and depression took possession.

What should I do? Like many in this sort of situation, I thought perhaps I would not confront her with it immediately; better to wait until I had more information. I am known to have an analytical mind so naturally I began to work out some sort of strategy.

Firstly, it was not known whether she had in fact been sexually unfaithful, though her seeing Fredericks behind my back seemed to me to be a type of unfaithfulness. Deception it certainly was, and in a matter like marital faithfulness it was serious deception.

Secondly, I did not know very much about this rival of mine. That would be remedied fairly easily using my knowledge of the internet. Know your enemy! This led to a decision to examine Faye’s email account.

Thirdly, I would now keep a much closer watch on her. While at work she had little opportunity to stray, apart from at lunchtime, and I assumed that a snogging session in one of their cars afterwards would be as far as they could go, if indeed they even had opportunity for that in a public place. I still shuddered even at that thought. Fingers and hands can stray, though I couldn’t see Faye submitting to furtive sex on the back seat of a car in a carpark in broad daylight!

Finally, I would be far more sensitive to any changes in her attitude to me.

I let the rest of the team know I would not be in the office on Monday morning, “working from home”, but could be reached easily. It was not an unusual practice for me when I needed to be free of distractions for work needing concentration.

However, I would not be “working”, at least not for the company. I would be doing other, more important research for my own peace of mind and well-being, and that of my family.

I gave myself a stern lecture as I turned into my drive at home that evening. There was no evidence that Faye had been unfaithful – yet. Deceitful she might have been, but she’d be innocent until proven guilty. She would get the benefit of the doubt. Twelve years of faithful marriage allowed her that privilege.

In fact as soon as I entered the house, was assaulted by two loving children and was hugged and kissed hotly by Faye, I felt my worries dissipating. There seemed no hidden agenda in her approach to me, she seemed as open, as relaxed and as loving as always. I began to wonder if Bill had mistaken another couple for Faye and companion. In no time I was immersed in family activities and felt again that life was good.

That did not mean I was not on the lookout for any change in Faye, but as we made gentle love that night, I could discern no change in her attitude to me. All I could see was love and affection in her eyes, though she no longer kept her eyes open as she approached orgasm; she had not done that after the first few times when I needed reassurance. She had provided just that.

After a pleasant and uneventful weekend I made a show of getting my things together as if I was going off to work, and Faye left with the children before me. This was not uncommon; my office worked flexitime at a time when few offices did.

Once my family had left, I took my work and my coat up to the home office next to the bedroom and set to work. Fortunately no one from work saw fit to contact me, and I was able to work unimpeded by phone calls or emails.

Faye usually left her laptop at home when she went to work, and this day was no different: there it was, so I was able to access her emails easily. She had helpfully filed her incoming mail under different headings, and my spirits dropped as I saw that one of these headings was “Leo”. Before opening that folder, I looked into her “sent” folder, and found she had not erased the emails she had sent to Fredericks.

I copied both sets of data, erasing any evidence I had done so. I organised them on my desktop computer in date order. Then steeled myself to read them, feeling guilty at invading Faye’s privacy, though I convinced myself that I needed certainty in order to decide where I would go after this, and if possible see what action I could take to save our marriage and family.

In fact there weren’t all that many emails, though what there were did not inspire much confidence about the outcome of this new relationship between Faye and Leo Fredericks.

I set myself to read them. The first was written three weeks after the dinner-dance.

So it took her three weeks to get round to emailing him, I thought, so she couldn’t be that keen, could she? Perhaps the hold of family life was stronger than his good looks. I noted she did hold out some hope that they would meet, and I had to admit that when we were arguing she had asserted that she would meet Fredericks and that I should trust her. She had also made the promise it would never go further than talk, but I wondered if she would be able to keep that promise once she actually met him alone. As Ian Fleming wrote in “Diamonds are forever:” “Nothing propinks like propinquity” and she had been set on the idea of meeting rather more enthusiastically than I liked. I read on, noting the almost immediate response from Fredericks.

So Fredericks was definitely making a pitch for her. It was a bit sickly sweet, but perhaps it would impress Faye. The immediacy of his reply certainly showed his keenness.

The next one showed his impatience! I wondered if Faye not leaving a reply to him for over a week perhaps showed she wasn’t as keen as I had thought.

I pursed my lips, and I think I actually whistled! This man was making a really strong pitch for her, all implied, but quite intense nevertheless. Couldn’t she see through these flowery protestations of love? He was so obvious!

Then came Faye’s reply and I knew Fredericks was on the way to success. Mind you, she did leave it another week before replying.

Talk about mixed messages but leaving the door open! So that was her ambiguous response to Fredericks: “It’s not right, but I want to do it anyway”. However, I noted how honest she was. She was not comfortable about doing something I didn’t like.

So, he’d turned to the next page in the seducer’s handbook – undermine the character of the husband, and find a way to drive a wedge between the couple. He was obviously aware that he needed to tread carefully. I suspected he’d succeeded, and was capitalising on it. What was more, Faye had heeded him and she had not told me about that first lunch meeting, before or after it had taken place.

So there it was. The first breach in the fortifications of our marriage. I went and brewed a coffee, needing a break. Then a return to the emails. It was emotionally tiring.

I skimmed through the other emails, looking for clues to a full blown affair, or even that they had had sex just once, but found none, though there was other information, some quite devastating for me.

After the first lunch Thurs 20th June 2002

The mail after the first lunch date had Fredericks rhapsodising over how close they were and how it was as if they had never been apart, how young and beautiful she was: all the usual seductive stuff, I thought. Then came the begging for another lunch the next week. And her acceptance.

2nd Lunch Thurs 27th June 2002

I thought her response was quite neutral but she did agree to meet him the following week at a different restaurant, and he suggested The Midland! He was really pushing the boat out. I also knew it had a huge car park full of private hedge-lined bays!

3rd Lunch Thurs 4th July 2002

(I should point out that July 4th is not a holiday in Britain)

I stopped reading and thought back over her attitude those weeks at home.

There had been absolutely no change at all; no change in her abandon when we made love, and certainly no diminution of her affection for me and her touches and “I love yous”. She was as open and loving to me as ever, to the extent that I could not believe she was carrying on this “lunch affair” with Fredericks at the same time. Of course it was not a sexual affaire, but it possibly could be thought of as an emotional affaire; it was certainly by now a relationship in which she should not be involving herself, and in which Fredericks was aiming to make more progress to intimacy.