Chapter 24

it was the week before Ian came to visit, and Victor had been sitting in his living room at the house most of the afternoon looking out onto a sunny garden, weighing the situation between Susan and himself.

It was time, Victor decided.

It had been four months since that moment when they had made love for the first time, and so successfully. It began with mutual forgiveness and was born of love, of that he was sure, but since then they had settled into a loving relationship. He was sure of that as well. Was she really in love with him, was he with her?

He thought back to that first meeting. He had been entranced by her. Yes, she was an attractive woman, but it was her vulnerability that entrapped him. After that it was her capability and her fortitude.

So it was time. When she came to stay on the Wednesday, he was about to ask her to sit down and talk about their future. He needed to know. It was unusual for him to need to know where he stood with a woman; normally he kept emotionally aloof, while being kind and loving to the women he knew.

He always allowed them to go their way. His early commitment to his ex-wife and its disastrous ending had kept him so, but now he had fallen again, and he needed to know. This time he wanted this woman even though she was so much younger than him. This time it did not seem to matter. He hoped not.

He was about to broach the subject when she told him about her forthcoming weekend. It put him off. There would be time after her visitor had left.

He thought no more about it until the Friday afternoon when he realised he had not got the little treats the children liked, and went out to get them. On the way to his car he saw another car driving in, it was an upmarket BMW, one he did not know.

He wondered who it was and which flat the driver wanted. He sat in his car and watched. The man rang the bell at the entrance and Susan came out. He watched the man drop his bags, he saw Susan throw her arms round his neck and he saw their prolonged kiss. He saw them go into her flat. He saw the door close behind them.

It did not bother him; this was her visitor from home. It was only after he had driven for some minutes that he began to feel something was amiss. It was not the greeting. Then he remembered. He had assumed it was a woman who was coming, but she had not corrected him. Why?

There was a sinking feeling. Why would she want to conceal the sex of her visitor? He felt let down by her. He had thought she was committed to him and him alone, had he assumed too much? Or perhaps she didn’t pay attention to what he said.

He corrected himself immediately. He had learned in his army life, and since then in business, not to jump to conclusions. His training kicked in; he would give her a simple test.

He did not try to contact her on the following Monday. On Tuesday morning she came to his door and he invited her in for coffee. Gail was at nursery and Carl, who only went to day nursery twice a week, played happily with Victor’s collection of toys.

“Good weekend?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “We caught up on things; took the children to the coast.”

“I bet your girlfriend was impressed with your job,” he said disingenuously. “Did you take her round the various blocks.”

She was caught, but once again she could not face the consequences of telling him the truth. She ignored the mistake she thought he had made.

“No,” she said, “but I showed her the office and explained the supervision. We went to the coast on Saturday. We missed the rain.”

“Well, I’m glad you had a good time,” said Victor. His face betrayed none of the feelings welling up inside him.

They chatted about other things then until it was time for her to get back to work. She hugged and kissed him, and he was just able to return the semblance of affection.

When she had gone he sat down heavily and gazed out of the window over the tops of the houses in the estates below. After a while he gathered his thoughts. She had lied to him, and that showed there was more to her relationship with the male visitor than mere friendship, or she would have introduced him and invited him to join them for part of the time.

So it appeared she was using Victor, and had another lover. From what he had seen of the young man, he was about her age, and was well placed enough to drive a high range BMW.

A wave of sadness came over him. It seemed he would never be successful in relationships. He berated himself for ever thinking that a young woman like Susan could make anything permanent with a middle-aged man like him.

Then he felt annoyance which rapidly developed into anger at her for her deception. Why couldn’t she just say that she had found someone nearer her own age? Then he wondered how long she had been seeing him. He realised she had not been back home very often. Perhaps it was a recent thing. It did not really matter though. She should have finished the sexual aspect of their relationship when she found her new man.

He wondered with renewed anger how long she would have continued using him for comfort and sexual relief before handing in her resignation and returning to her roots.