Chapter 6

Friday 19th July 2002

From the car park, through my binoculars, I could see into the restaurant, and fortunately had found a parking place from which the couple were in view, though towards the back of the room. I could see that they were nearing the end of their desserts, and Leo was refilling Faye’s wine glass. Yet again? I smiled. Leo didn’t know Faye all that well if he thought by getting her tipsy he could have his way with her.

Fredericks’ hand slipped beneath the tablecloth and I assumed he was stroking her thigh. I wondered how far up her thigh he would be permitted to go, but it did not matter in view of what was shortly to come to pass.

As soon as I saw the waiter remove the dishes I left the car and crossed to the restaurant, walking boldly through the door. I was greeted by the head waiter.

‘So very glad to see you again Mr Jenkins, your companions are over by the palms.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, shedding my wet raincoat into the man’s arms and taking the envelopes from its pockets. Then I walked across the room between the tables of the other diners.

The two were deep in conversation, gazing into each other’s eyes, and holding hands over the table, so they were not aware of my presence until I pulled out the third chair and sat down.

‘What the...?’ exclaimed Fredericks as his face darkened in annoyance and Faye rapidly withdrew her hand from his.

‘Aaron!’ she whispered, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I think you better leave, Jenkins,’ snarled Fredericks, but he was disconcerted to find the waiter arriving with coffee for three. ‘Why?’ he began to ask the waiter, but I overrode him.

‘They knew I was coming,’ I said, quietly and calmly. ‘They know me. Faye and I come here often. Now I suggest you both keep the noise down and listen to me. I have something to say and it seriously affects all our futures. You don’t want to entertain the rest of the restaurant if they become an audience to your raised voices.’

The two were silenced by the assurance and decisiveness I projected but did not feel, or perhaps by my quiet aggression, at least for a few seconds. It was all I needed; I placed the two manilla envelopes on the table in front of me.

‘These two envelopes–’

‘Listen here, Jenkins,’ Leo broke in.

‘No, you listen, Fredericks!’ came my calm riposte. ‘After twelve years you break into my life, you attempt to seduce my wife, break up our happy family, damage our children, and cause me personally a lot of suffering. So button it, chum, and let me talk to my wife!’

I turned to Faye, henceforth ignoring her suitor completely.

Faye was sitting with an uncertain and fearful expression, blinking her eyes and twisting her hands on the table, while gazing at the envelopes. She seemed breathless.

‘Now Faye,’ I said firmly, ‘These two envelopes are for you. You have put me through months of hell and uncertainty. You are well on the way to alienating your children, and destroying what’s left of our marriage. Your sister is mystified by your behaviour. So tonight you are going to make a final decision.’

Fredericks made as if to interrupt again, but Faye shot him a look of appeal and a shake of the head, and he sank back into his chair.

‘I have had enough!’ I stated baldly. I sat back on my chair, hands on the envelopes, ‘I’ll take no more of your vacillation, Faye! So, you have a simple three-way choice and you’ll make it now.’

I took a drink of coffee, then continued.

‘Now to these envelopes:

‘First choice. You tell Mr Fredericks here that it’s over, that you’re finished with him and he is never to see you or contact you in any way ever again; that you have chosen to come back to me and your family fully, completely and permanently. If you do that, I will give you this right hand envelope marked “B” and you will then read the contents. When you have finished reading, we will go home and see if we can repair the war damage you have done to our marriage.’

She began to speak, but this time my shake of the head silenced her.

‘There are two other alternatives, Faye.

‘Second choice. You tell me you are going back to Fredericks’ place tonight to sleep with him, that you are going to go on seeing him. In that case I will give you the left hand envelope marked “A”. It is a copy of my petition to the courts for a divorce.’

Faye gasped, and whispered ‘No!’

I went on. ‘Oh yes! And I warn you very solemnly Faye, there will be no going back on that; once you have taken envelope “A” I will not relent; there’ll be no reprieve, our marriage will be effectively over at that moment and I will leave. You cannot change your mind after that. We’ll be finished. As far as I am concerned the marriage will end here at that moment when you make that second choice.

‘Let me repeat that once more so you’re in absolutely no doubt: there will be no going back no matter what. It will happen. We will be divorced. Irreconcilable differences will be the reason.

‘You can then explain to our two unsettled and unhappy children, who will be devastated, what you have decided to do. Then you can marry your teenage sweetheart here. By the way, they hate Fredericks – Samantha thinks he is “creepy”, so you’ll have an uphill battle there, and you saw their attitude to you tonight before you came here. Don’t think for a moment that I’ll change my mind on this. I won’t. Ever. We will be finished.

‘When I give you “A” with the copy of the divorce petition that the courts will send you, that is the end of our marriage. You understand that? At that point you have no way back. I will also give you the envelope marked “B” and you will read it before I leave you to him. I warn you solemnly, knowing the contents of “B” will change nothing; it will be too late. You will have already made your choice to reject me as your husband.’

She looked puzzled. ‘What does it say? I don’t want to decide-’

I cut across her. ‘You don’t want to decide? That leads me to the Third choice: you refuse to make a decision between us now. That means you have effectively refused me, and you will have chosen him by default. Whether you end up with him or not, you will have made me second best since you did not choose me outright. You will have made our marriage optional on your part. So the result is the same as the second choice. You get ‘A’. I will divorce you. Just as finally. There will be no delay to make up your mind.

‘If you want to avoid our total break-up – our divorce, you have to choose option one and choose me now, and tell Mr Fredericks here to disappear.

‘That’s it. Now, Faye, for the sake of me, your children and our future life, make your choice!’

She sat dazed and upset. There were tears in her eyes, and they began to trickle down her face.

Fredericks also seemed frozen by my statements, but suddenly he came to life.

‘Faye, now’s your chance! I’ve waited long years to find you again. Years of longing for you, cheated out of you by my mother, going out with girls and finding none of them measured up to you. None lasted more than two dates. I’ve been alone all this time, searching for you. I never thought you’d marry and change your name, so I couldn’t find you. I thought you’d wait for me. He’ll always be second best; you know it, Faye. I’ll make you happier than he ever has. You know how happy we were together, and how you’ve loved seeing me since I found you again.’

Faye sat rigid, her eyes staring into space. The tears trickled down her face and her bodily tension showed her suffering.

‘Why have you done this to me, Aaron?’ she asked plaintively.

‘Why have I done it? You need to ask? Because I love you so much and you are in the process of leaving me in every real sense. Because I love you so much I am suffering more than I can say. Because I love you so much I can’t go on any longer, Faye. I’m worn out. I want it all to stop tonight, to go away one way or the other. I’m at the end of my tether, so I’m ending it before Sam and Michael suffer any more uncertainty. They are sure you are going to leave me for him, so they are suffering; they are in pain. That good enough for you?’

My voice had never risen, it was quiet and calm and measured, almost cold. She began to sob. I’m sure people at nearby tables were staring, but none of the three of us noticed.

Her eyes were closed and her face a mask of pain. Then she opened her eyes wide, as if struck by a realisation. She gazed at Fredericks for a long while, and then spoke.

‘Leo,’ she said. ‘You were my first love. I’m so sorry you had to wait all those years without someone to love because you were waiting for me.’

Fredericks began to smile. How I hated that superior smile!

‘But, Leo,’ she went on, ‘I didn’t know that. You stopped writing–’

Fredericks leant forward. ‘I told you, it was my mother who burnt your letters. I thought you were tired of waiting for me.’

‘Well, Leo,’ she continued, ‘No matter what the reason was, I didn’t know, and Leo, I found someone else, and I fell in love with him.

‘For fourteen years, twelve of them married, he has loved me selflessly through good and tough times. He’s funny, clever, a wonderful father and lover, and I’ve let him down so badly because you arrived and I thought I was a teenage girl again.

‘But I’m not. I’m an adult, and I made real, adult, solemn promises to this man and he made those same promises to me. He’s made me so happy; he’s kept his side faithfully and lovingly, even through all this suffering I’ve inflicted on him he’s kept on loving me, and I’ve failed him.

‘In spite of all I’ve put him through over the past two or three months, he’s tried his best to fight for me, and to support Sam and Michael, which to my shame I have failed to do.

‘So Leo, I’m very sorry, but this is where it has to end. I can’t go on seeing you and stay faithful to the love of my life – and that’s what he is – the love of my life. I loved you intensely for three months as a teenage girl, and now I’ve wasted more months trying to be that girl again. It blinded me to common sense and real life.

‘It’s time for me to grow up and finish my idiocy, Leo, and get real. I will always choose Aaron, he’s proved to be my strength and support day by day, and he’s my true love. In fact, he’s shown his great love for me yet again by forcing me to make this choice right now, when I wanted to carry on with my woolly thinking.

‘And now he’s forced my choice, it’s so obvious there isn’t any comparison between you and him at all. I don’t know why I was so undecided! So blind! I realise now that I don’t really know you as you are now, but I do know him.’

Fredericks looked surprised, and angry. ‘You’re making a big mistake Faye. You’ll always be wondering what it would have been like with me. You’ll never be satisfied with him again.’

‘Your choice Faye?’ I asked. ‘Say it.’

‘I will always choose you, my darling Aaron, and I hope and pray you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me for what I’ve done.’

‘You sure?’ I prompted her, ‘absolutely sure?’

‘Yes, absolutely sure, and I’m so happy you forced the issue now, tonight, before I did something stupid.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and I took a deep breath and smiled at her with relief. Then I tore envelope “A” in half and pocketed it, watching the relief flood her face, and I then pushed the right hand envelope “B” to Faye.

‘Read it,’ I said grimly, ‘Read it all, now, before we go.’

She opened the envelope and took out the sheaf of papers, and began to read the top sheet. As she did so, her face changed and became stony. When she had finished the covering page, she skimmed through the other sheets. The tears had dried. She looked up at Fredericks.

‘Leo,’ she said accusingly, her voice cold. ‘Who is Caroline?’

Leo’s face lost its healthy ruddy glow and became pale as death. He looked panic stricken. ‘It was a mistake, Faye darling–’

‘Don’t “darling” me! You mean you weren’t cheating on Caroline, your wife of three years? Three! and she didn’t divorce you?’ Faye snapped. ‘All that rubbish about “keeping yourself for me”, never lasting more than two dates with anyone? You seemed to manage all right with Caroline! Or perhaps you cheated on her from day three?’ she mocked him scornfully.

‘Faye–’

‘And Leanne?’ she added viciously, ‘You didn’t get the girl pregnant? I’ll bet you wouldn’t take precautions like you refused to with me when we were teenagers. I was lucky, I had Cressy to protect me. That girl’s been looking for you since you disappeared when you found out she was pregnant. You mean the Child Support Agency isn’t looking for you to pay maintenance? Her little boy is your son Leo – and you reckoned you’d be a good step-father to my kids?’

‘Faye it wasn’t like that, these are lies.’

‘Don’t be a fool, Leo. Aaron is thorough. There are copies here of your marriage certificate, and a photo-copy of your decree absolute. And letters to Aaron from Leanne, and Caroline. Leanne’s begging Aaron to tell her where you are. All the evidence is here.’

‘I went to pieces when I had to leave you, you could put me right. Please, Faye.’

‘You said no woman lasted more than two dates, because you were pining for me! That was a deliberate lie wasn’t it? Don’t tell me you married and cheated and divorced and then later abandoned a woman pregnant with your child because you were pining for me! You’ve lied and lied. And to think I might have ruined my life because of you. I was nearly another casualty in your wake! God knows what would have happened if Aaron hadn’t loved me enough to expose you. Just pay the bill and get out of my life.’

‘But Faye, my mother caused all that by her–’

‘Oh, yes, Fredericks,’ I said. ‘I had an interesting conversation with your mother. I took the trouble to record it and transcribe it. See it, Faye?’

She fished out the final sheet of paper, and read it through.

‘So Leo, even that was a lie,’ she said with utter contempt. ‘You are despicable. D’you really think you could sustain a relationship built on this bunch of lies? So many lies? Really? Did you really think you’d get away with it? Or didn’t you care as long as you got me for a while, or so you cold take me away from Aaron? Until you got tired of me?’

Fredericks said nothing, as the last plank of his argument fell away.

Then a look of horror crossed Faye’s face. She turned to me.

‘If I’d gone for Leo, you would have shown me this list of his lies, and there would be no way back to you! Why didn’t you just give me the evidence? I would definitely have come back to you then.’

I grimaced.

‘Not enough for me, that, Faye. I needed you to come to me because you wanted me, a straight choice between him and me, not because you found he was a liar and a con-artist. If you’d chosen him, I would always know I’d been second best in your mind and in your life – I wasn’t enough for you. I don’t think our marriage would have lasted very long with that knowledge even if I forgave you, because I would always know your opinion of me as second best, so I made the decision: it was always him or me, a straight and final choice. Envelope “B” was there to save you from making a life-changing mistake, even though we’d split up.’

‘Even if I’d rejected you, you still wanted to protect me.’ The look of love on her face showed her realisation.

But I hadn’t finished.

‘Put it another way,’ I want on, ‘If you’d chosen Fredericks here and then seen what he is, I might have possibly forgiven you after all, but afterwards I’d always be wondering why you came back, whether it was just for the safe comfortable life, or just for the sake of the children, and not really for me at all. Would you start looking for someone else, someone better, someone you really could love in the future? How long would we have lasted, do you think?’

Fredericks was still sitting there; he now seemed to be in a daze, all his confidence gone. If he had listened to what we were saying, he had not reacted in any way, once he realised his lies were exposed.

That reminded me and I turned to Fredericks.

‘Three things Leo,’ I said. ‘Your mother is heart-broken you’ve not been in touch. The least you can do is to go and see her. The second thing is that Leanne knows where you live and now so does the Child Support Agency. Perhaps you could consider not running away but doing the right and decent thing for once and actually become a real father by supporting your son? The third thing is this: do not ever contact Faye in any way again. Goodbye.

I held out a hand to Faye, ‘Shall we go?’ I asked.

Faye nodded, sighing with relief, ‘Yes. my love!’

We left the table with Leo still sitting there, staring vacantly in shock. Faye took my arm and pressed herself tightly against me as we left the place.