Chapter 3

We'd been happy in our marriage at first. Although, as it eventually transpired, it seems I had been much happier than my wife. I had managed to make foreman at work, meaning a substantial rise in wages. Claire's father had increased her salary when we married, I'm sure with the intention of making me feel inferior to my wife, so in theory anyway, we had no money problems to hinder and impinge on our happiness as many other newly-married couples obviously do.

Despite the fact Claire was bringing home much more money than I was, the majority of the household expenses, mortgage, electric, gas, etcetera were paid by me. I didn't mind that. In fact, in my eyes anyway, that was my role in our marriage: provider and protector if you like. Old-fashioned I know, but just the way I had been brought up.

All of those financial contributions by yours truly meant that Claire was left with a great deal of disposable income to spend just as she liked. She willingly took advantage of that, always having trendy, designer clothes and shoes. Oh my God, so many shoes. Her father also bought her (as a company car of course) a brand new E-Type convertible from the dealership where I worked. Again, I am sure he did it purposely to try to humiliate me in the eyes of my workmates. To be fair to her, she also bought me many expensive presents. A Rolex for my birthday; designer suits; even hand-made shirts. All the trappings not usually associated with a foreman car mechanic.

I, in turn, had completely renovated our little cottage, adding an extension and turning it into a good-sized family home we could be proud of, or so I thought.

I first began to notice a change in Claire after we had returned from a holiday in Spain. Back then, there wasn't the cheap sort of package holidays around that are readily available now so she had paid for it out of 'her' money. Again I didn't mind, all my spare cash was going into our home so if we wanted a holiday, she had to pay. We stayed at a quite posh hotel in Barcelona, close to all the vibrant night-life and glorious beaches that wonderful city had to offer. We had become friendly with another couple our age that we'd met in the hotel bar on our first night there. At first I was OK with them, but after a few days of listening to how much their house in London was worth; how much money they earned in their 'wonderful' jobs, I soon became bored with them and didn't hesitate to tell Claire. I didn't really want to fraternise with them at every opportunity the way she obviously did.

I was amazed when she flew off the handle at me, complaining that I was just a stick-in-the-mud who was quite happy to remain where I was and not try to get on in life as her dad had. I was stunned. Up to then I had had no idea whatsoever that my wife was dissatisfied with our life together. I felt safe in the knowledge that we were 'soul-mates' who wanted all the same things from our marriage, like a lovely home with maybe a couple of kids later on. How wrong I was...

It became quite obvious after our return home that my lovely bride was nowhere near as happy with our way of life as I was. Brought up by her doting father to have almost anything her little heart desired provided for her at the drop of a hat, she couldn't see any reason why we had to save for anything we wanted. If she wanted something, she wanted it now. Not in a few months or years when we could afford it, but NOW! Her father didn't help. He would still buy her anything she asked for, even though that responsibility should have been mine once we were married.

I had adamantly refused his offer of buying us a brand new house on the 'desirable' estate development he insisted his daughter deserved to live on. Instead, I agreed that we would reluctantly accept him paying the deposit on our first home, but only if we had a mortgage we could afford on my income alone. Of course, working for her father as she was, Claire's salary was much higher than that of a humble car mechanic, and didn't her father let me know it. He would take every opportunity whenever we were together to 'snipe' away at me. Doing his best to undermine my relationship with his daughter. Still trying to split us up, even though we were 'happily' married, or so I thought. This of course led to resentment on my part and increasingly more vociferous arguments between my wife and myself.

Frustrated by our constant bickering, I threw myself into my martial arts training. Four or five times a week, I would either be at the gym or running around the country lanes surrounding our little town. Inevitably I suppose, this led to an ever-increasing rift with my wife. She started going out with her single friends when I was training during the week, only going out with me at the weekend when we would go to a good restaurant for a meal, or a club for a night of drinking and dancing. Even though we were by then leading fairly separate social lives, our home life was still good. In-between the petty arguments we still laughed a lot, we still talked, and as for the sex? WOW!

Consequently then, it never crossed my mind that our marriage was actually in deep trouble. That is until that day. The day that spelled the end of my idyllic life as I knew it. The day that destroyed my life. Destroyed me...

Looking back now, I remember every second of that horrible, fateful day.

I had arranged to pick up a customer's car for service that involved driving past our house. As I always left home before Claire, and before the post had arrived, I thought I would call in and have a cup of coffee while I checked if an important letter I'd been waiting for had arrived. If only I had not been so impatient, my life could have been so different.

I let myself in and picked up the post before going through to the kitchen and putting on the coffee machine. I much preferred proper coffee back then to the instant crap we drank at work. Noticing the 'message waiting' light flashing on the brand-new phone answering machine my wife thought we desperately needed, I flicked the switch as I looked through the post for my letter. Not really paying attention to the message, it was a few seconds before I realised it was playing back a conversation that involved my wife and a man's voice I didn't recognise in the slightest. It would appear, as I found out later, that if you picked up the phone at the exact moment the answer-machine kicked in, it recorded both sides of the complete conversation. That was obviously what had happened. That was the small technical fault that ruined my life.