Chapter 19

I had taken the day off work, and I had asked Jenny to come to the house from lunchtime and fill me in on our coming appointments. She told me she would then stay the weekend. She insisted, knowing it was Ann's wedding on Saturday and I have to say I was grateful. The morning was taken up with changing the bed. I felt it would be churlish to expect Jenny to sleep between the same sheets that had seen Trish's and my amorous activities of the night before. Then I shopped for us for the weekend.

I made some soup at lunchtime and she arrived in time to eat (or drink) it. I never worked out which of the two one does with soup. Perhaps it depends on how thick the soup is. Over the simple meal I told her of the previous night's meeting with Ann.

"You still feel something for her then," she stated when I had finished.

"No, I don't think so. I have feelings about how things have turned out but we've been through all that before."

"Allan, if you reacted so strongly to one accidental slip on Ann's part, you do feel something for her."

"If you say so," I replied with a bad grace, but I could not help wondering if she was right.

"So she still doesn't know about Derek's part in your disappearance."

"No. I won't tell her either unless she asks. In any case she'll be married to him by this time tomorrow. She'll have to deal with having a convict for a husband."

"Allan, that's not fair. It's vindictive."

"Sorry Jenny, she's made her bed, so ... well you know the rest."

"Allan, I know it's been said before but she did give you twenty years of love. I can't imagine how she's feeling now."

We may have continued the argument at some length had the doorbell not rung. Jenny went to answer it, and I followed to see who it was.

She opened the door, and there on the step stood Ann's brother Peter, and Greta. There was a moment of stasis. Ann's brother just stared at Jenny. The look was one of wonder and admiration. I'd seen a lot of men look at her like that. It reminded me how lucky I was. Greta looked at Jenny and I realised she had never met her before. Of course Jenny had seen neither of them before either.

"Hello!" said Jenny, and I knew she was smiling in that way of hers.

"Hello," said Greta, "I'm Greta."

"Greta, how nice to meet you! I'm Jenny Tasker, your Dad's PA."

"This is Peter Drayton, Mum's brother."

Yes, I remembered him from the previous night. He's a very good looking man but at that time had no confidence in himself as far as women were concerned. His shyness meant he never made a move on a woman, so he was now in his mid thirties, and single, and I mean really single.

"Pleased to meet you Peter," said Jenny. "Please come in."

I saw Peter blush and I smiled to myself.

I ducked back into the kitchen and sat down before they arrived. Then I stood up again when they came into the room.

"Peter!" I said warmly. "It's good to see you again!"

We shook hands.

"Come here Greta!"

She hugged me and gave me a kiss.

Peter paled when he saw my head. He swallowed hard but managed to smile. Greta must have warned him. He made no comment for which I was grateful; I had heard it all before.

"Dad," said Greta. "Mum's called the wedding off. She's very upset. Derek is very angry. He was telling her that you, Geoff and David are trying to destroy 'the wonderful relationship they have'. Yeuck!"

"Allan," said Peter (I noticed he shot the occasional admiring glance at Jenny), "I don't know what you said to her last night but she came back to us very subdued. She said she wanted to go home; she looked very unhappy."

"Well, Peter," I answered, "I'm afraid I rather lost it. She criticised me for not telling her I was around and who I was, and added that as my wife she had a right to know.

"I told her that since she had divorced me she had no rights to anything from me. I think I pointed out she didn't exactly spend very long looking for me, and that she believed the story about the other woman rather too easily for my liking.

"You'll appreciate that when you come back from the dead after two years, it doesn't go down well that your loving wife is living with someone else and has divorced you."

"We all wondered why you left it until just before her marriage."

"Hey! I've been trying to talk to her for three weeks. She wouldn't talk to me. So don't give me that 'just before the wedding' crap."

"You clearly wanted to stop the marriage. Am I right?"

"Not necessarily, what she does with her life is no longer any concern of mine. We're divorced remember? I wanted her to know the true situation. She's hated me for no reason for long enough."

"But Greta says you've been back for months. Why wait so long?"

"OK Peter. The police wanted me to keep quiet. Let me put some facts before you. Just facts. I won't say more. You can make your own inferences. I can't tell you everything, but this will give you an inkling.

"The photos Trish showed to Ann show a man watching my cousin and me. You do know that the 'other woman' is my cousin and her husband?"

He nodded.

"One of my friends took me to talk with that man since he lives locally. The man told me himself that he got me to get into a car, saying that my client needed to clarify a detail in our contract. The car was a red Toyota. I was dumped from a red Toyota on waste ground in Newcastle. It seems two other men joined the driver. The men are also from round here. The police think that someone employed the three of them to kill me. In other words it was not a random mugging.

"The police are getting evidence together and have been since I got back. They much prefer me not to talk about it at all, and in particular didn't want me to contact Ann. They were emphatic about that. Since my memory was so impaired that I didn't know Ann at first, that was no problem, until that is, I did recognise her. I contacted Ann against their wishes, but she would not talk to me.

"Can you imagine Ann's feelings if she married and then found that the man who she thought had run off with someone else, had in fact been the victim of an attempted murder?

"As I said, I tried to see her but she refused me every time. Trish took control and you were there, you saw the result.

"Is that good enough for you?"

Peter was quiet for a moment or two, digesting the information.

"But I remember," said Peter, "last year – March I think it was – she said she'd had a letter from you. You said you were with someone else and were never coming back. That's when she became really bitter and angry. I think that until then she hoped you'd come back. She showed me the letter, it was cold and heartless. I couldn't believe it was from you; it was so out of character. But when it's there in black and white..."

"So Peter, you couldn't believe I would have written such a letter. But she did – easily! How it was that when I had no memory of any of you here, I was able to write such a letter? I assume I signed it. Have you seen my signature since I've been able to write?"

I got some paper and a pen, wrote my name and slid it over to him.

Peter sighed, "It was a forgery."

I smiled. Nothing more was said. There was nothing more to say, but as they were leaving Greta as usual hugged me, and Peter shook my hand.

They left and Jenny gave me a hug.

"Very restrained," she smiled, "but if they've any brains they'll realise that Derek's involved in your attempted murder. Now it's time for a little relaxation."

She led me upstairs and undressed me, then herself, slowly and provocatively, especially her knickers which she slid inch by inch down her thighs and then let them fall, stepping out of them delicately. She sat me on the side of the bed and knelt before me. I was already half hard at the sight of her progressive nudity. Her body is really a walking wet dream. She took me in her mouth and worked her magic. My penis continued to rise until I was quite hard. She took her mouth off me.

"Shall I finish you in my mouth or elsewhere?" she grinned and flicked her blond hair out of her eyes.

"Elsewhere!" I said.

"Condom, I'm messy."

She rolled it on, then stood and straddled me, an action which opened her vulva which was glistening with dampness and a tell tale string. I leaned forward and attempted to initiate cunnilingus. Now in that particular position the man needs an exceptionally long tongue, which in my case I have not got. My nose got in the way and I couldn't reach her outer lips, let alone her clit. We both burst out laughing, and the laughter bred more laughter, until it became one of those situations where it is almost impossible to stop. Each time we drew breath, a new fit of giggles would break out.

She pushed me onto my back and straddled my face, then said, "Whoops, period, not nice!" but that brought more uncontrollable mirth. So she rolled off me and we lay side by side giggling, until exhaustion set in.

"I needed that," I said at length, "Life has been too serious for too long."

"Good!" said Jenny in a satisfied tone. "Laughter is sometimes better than sex."

"I don't think so!" I argued, sitting up and pulling her to the edge of the bed.

She remembered the position from Canada, and lay with one leg dangling and the other flexed with a foot on the bed, opening her up as I sank to the floor.

"In this leisurely position I think I proved my point, while never straying from her button. She was not laughing when she came from my short wide tongue on the clitoris of her exquisitely beautiful blonde-framed vulva.

She sighed at length.

"That was good!" she said, as if to herself.

"What did you think about Peter?" I suddenly said. I think I surprised myself; it certainly wrong footed her.