Part 3

I stared at the logs in the fireplace, my vision blurry with the tears I was trying to hold back. I finished my beer and put the glass down. Carol took my hand in hers.

I said to her with a catch to my voice. “She should have been home at seven, and now it’s almost eleven. She sent me a message saying she was delayed at the office and it wasn’t true. She lied to me. Now she’s ignoring all my calls and messages. Gillian’s supposed to be here as well, and she’s not turned up either.”

“I’m sure she’s got a perfectly reasonable reason for being late Neil.”

“I’m no fool, Carol, I can add two and two together. I guess they’ve both gone to her place in Scotland, just as Gillian planned, and I’ve realized I don’t give a fuck anymore.”

“Don’t fret yourself, son, let me get you another drink.”

“Thanks,” and I handed her my glass. As she turned to go, I said, “What upsets me isn’t that she wanted to go, it’s that she felt she needed to lie to me about it. You know, I almost hoped she was late because she’d been in an accident, not that she just couldn’t be bothered to tell me she was leaving me.”

Carol left me to my contemplation of the end of my marriage.

It was quite a few minutes later before she returned and placed the beer on the table beside me.

She said, “There’s someone here who’d like to talk to you.”

Christ, I guess it was Philip wanting to talk tactics for tomorrow’s match, and I wasn’t in the mood.

“Jesus, Carol tell Philip I’ll be there tomorrow, but I really don’t want to talk to him tonight.”

“No lad, I think you do need to talk to this person.”

I sighed and turned to see who it was. Karen stood there beside her. She was dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing in the morning. Her face looked tear stained, and her eyes were red.

My heart lurched and then hardened. I’d devoted the past twelve years of my life to this woman, and I deserved better than the crap I’d been getting the past few days. She’d kept vast important parts of her life secret from me, and now I’d learned she loved someone else. This is the woman I’d poured my soul out to. I had no secrets from her, and as much as it hurt me, I wasn’t sure I could carry on like this.

“What do you want?” I asked in a belligerent tone, “Is she bored with you already?”

“Please Neil, I want you to come home, she’s waiting for us back at the cottage.”

“And I thought my day couldn’t get any sodding worse. What was so fucking important today that you needed to lie to me, and then ignore me?”

She went to speak, but I stopped her. “On second thoughts, I don’t want to hear yet another lie, Karen. Tell you what, why don’t you go off with your fuck buddy for the weekend. It’ll give me the time to pack a few things. I can stay in my rooms in college until I can find somewhere permanent.

Karen went white and collapsed on the chair next to me. I went to say some more, but I was stopped by Carol.

“Will you shut up you idiot, can’t you see she’s upset? She came running in here a few minutes ago frantically looking for you. You left your phone at home, and she’s been trying to call you for the past two hours.”

“So now she knows how I’ve been feeling since this afternoon,” I said bitterly.

“It’s not what you think,” Karen cried out. “Please listen to me.”

Carol snapped, “Both of you sit there and say nothing until I close the place up, then we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

I suppose I should have explained much earlier, that Carol is my mother’s cousin. Which makes her my, my ... well whatever it is, we are related. She’s my mum’s favorite cousin, and now that my parents live in Holland, has decided she’s my de facto mother. Oh yes, and Philip the cricketer is her son which makes him my ... oh hell, I’ve no idea.

She was one of the reasons we had decided to buy the cottage in the village, and why we’d been accepted into the community so easily. It also gives her the right, so she believes, to treat me like an errant son.

We sat in silence while Carol bustled around ushering the last patrons out of the door. She locked the door and switched off a majority of the lights, leaving us sitting in a single pool of light broken only by the soft glow of the bar lights. There was a chill in the air, and she struck a match, held it to the kindling in the fireplace, and the flames spread. I knew what she was doing, she was trying to give me time to calm down. She knew I was upset and would lash out at Karen in my anger.

After a few more moments she sat down beside us and looked expectantly at me. “Neil, it’s no good blowing up if you don’t, at least, give her a chance to explain,” she said. “There may be an entirely legitimate reason for all of today. You need to let her tell you.”

I shifted in my seat to look at Karen. She swallowed and started talking.

“Please, Neil, believe me, I never intended to upset you as much as I did, but I lost control of the meeting and I wasn’t allowed to get in contact.”

That made no sense to me, and I started to say as much, but Carol shushed me and told Karen to continue.

“One reason Jilly says she got in contact with me, was she’s about to launch her own range of branded goods: clothing, lingerie, cosmetics, perfumes and so on. She wanted to know if our agency would be interested in handling the branding and advertising and for us to run the campaign.”

I snorted in disbelief, and she said, “I know, I know I should have told you when I got back. I called David from the states, and he told me not to discuss it with anyone, and explicitly said that included you. In the end, it was easier not to say anything, and I thought I could deal with it after we’d discussed the weekend.”

David was the majority partner in the agency and could be a secretive son of a bitch when he wanted to be, so I wasn’t too surprised by her words. Even so, I was surprised he explicitly told her not to tell me. Something about that nagged at me, but I lost my train of thought in my bitterness.

“Well, that didn’t work out to plan, did it?” I commented. “So he knows you two used to be lovers?”

She shook her head and sighed, “No, just that we were close friends at uni. I fucked that up, didn’t I?” I could see the tears forming in the corner of her eyes, but after a moment, she got herself under control.

“Once you got back home yesterday, I switched off my phone. I didn’t want anything to distract us. I knew I had an important meeting today, but at the time, I didn’t want any distractions while we sorted things out.”

“And?” I asked, not understanding what she was trying to say.

“I didn’t remember to switch it back on until I was half way to the office and that’s when I found out that my plans for today had been changed. I only had one meeting. It was with Jilly’s management team, and the representatives of the companies who are going to create everything that needs to be branded and advertised.”

That made no sense to me; surely Gillian would have known about the meeting, so why hadn’t she mentioned it at breakfast. It was her endorsed products, for Christ’s sake, that the meeting had been about. I was going to say something, but Karen continued.

“Even then I wasn’t worried,” she said. “I was told we were meeting the representatives in a hotel and that David, Janice, one of the graphic artists and I were going to be driving down to London in an hour. I just assumed the meeting was in London and at worst, I’d only be a little late. That’s what I told the girl who was covering Janice’s desk.”

“Yeah, I got that message,” I muttered. “Not long after your, ‘I’m stuck in the office’ lie.”

“I know, I worked that out when they allowed us to switch our phones back on and I saw your messages.”

“What do you mean, allowed you?”

“There’s a hell of a lot riding on this, and the other side is paranoid about secrecy. We got to the Dorchester, we met Jilly and her agent, then her agent told us that we needed to drive to a hotel in Surrey. When we got there, they insisted we switch off our phones. All we had was David’s laptop with our presentation and a folder of concept drawings. Jilly was pushing for us, but none of the others involved was in favor of us. They have their own advertising agencies that they prefer to work with, so it was an incredibly hard sell; we all worked our asses off to sell our ideas.”

Just saying that made her wriggle on her seat.

“I think that they were hoping that we would fuck up and they could convince Jilly that they needed to use their agencies.”

She looked at me apologetically, “Neil, I’m sorry I screwed up. I got so involved I completely forgot about you and the meal. Even with Jilly’s full support, it was well after eight before we’d hammered out all the issues and we were able to come to an agreement and sign a letter of intent. They wanted us to stay for a meal to celebrate the deal, that’s when I realized what the time was. I really hadn’t known how late it had got.”

She looked at me pleadingly, willing me to believe her.

“When I switched my phone back on, and I saw your texts and listened to the messages, I panicked. You wouldn’t pick up my calls to your mobile or the house phone, and I had a panic attack. Jilly bless her, got me out of there. She told them that she and I had a prior engagement. She had a helicopter waiting to take her back to town. She had the pilot drop us off at a local airport, and we got a taxi here. That’s then I found the cold meal on the table...” She tailed away.

“I really lost it then; the meal you’d prepared, sitting on the table, cold and untouched, abandoned. Just like I’d abandoned you. I sat down on the floor and burst into tears. I thought that after everything that had occurred over the past few days, you’d left me.”

By now I was starting to feel a bit of an ass. In my defense, she was right that given everything that had occurred, I hadn’t so much jumped to a conclusion, as rather snatched at the one that had fallen into my lap. But then again, it seemed that Gillian and her business was so much more important to her, that she’d lied and then forgotten all about me. She must have known I’d have been worried, and even if they’d made her switch her phone off there would have been phones at the hotel.

“Jilly pointed out to me that your car was still in the drive, so I didn’t think you’d gone far. I guessed this is where you’d be, so I ran over here.”

I knew she was expecting me to apologize, but there was a stubborn streak in me that refused to let me. Plus, truth be told, I was really feeling sorry for myself, and I was tired of the lies.

I sighed and said, “I can’t do this anymore Karen. You’ve turned my life upside down this past week. I’ve been waiting for this to happen for as long as I’ve known you. You’re beautiful and intelligent, and for years I’ve waited for a better man to come and take you away from me. More fool me, I should have been looking for the better woman.”

Karen gasped, and Carol interjected, “You know she loves you, she’s not looking for someone else. Nothing’s changed, son, it’s obvious you both love each other.”

I turned to her and said, “The problem is, a few days ago I thought I was the only one she loved. It seems I was mistaken and I’m sorry, but I won’t share her. Tonight was a comedy of errors, I admit it. But it doesn’t hide the fact I’ve been well and truly fucked over by her for the last couple of days.”

Karen clasped at my hand, raised it to her lips and kissed it.

I pulled back, and she blanched.

“There is only one man I have ever loved,” she said imploringly. “I can’t bear the thought of not being with you for the rest of my life, but Jilly was my first love, and I’ve missed her these past years. For four long years, she was everything to me, and I’ve tried to put her in the past.”

“I need to know, me or her, who do you want?” I asked.

Karen went silent, her mouth opened and closed several times as though she was about to say something, but no words came, just an extended low keening.

Carol hissed a breath in, “That’s not fair, son.”

“It is fair,” I argued, “Every time she says she loves me, the next thing out of her mouth is something about her ex-lover or is it an ex, I don’t know. I need to know where I stand in her world!”

“You,” she said defiantly, “I choose you.” Then softly, “I will always choose you over her.” She looked at me beseechingly and then said with a faltering voice, “But I won’t deny that there will always be a place for her in my heart.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you just did it again!”

Karen stared at me, tears streaming down her face. Then she said to Carol, “I don’t think I can face her at the moment. Can we stay here tonight? She needs to go back to London. Would you go over to our place and ask her to leave?”

Carol nodded and started to stand, but I took hold of her arm and stopped her.

I said, “You can’t ask Carol to do that. It’s our mess, and we need to clear it up. We need to talk to her together. She needs to understand where she stands in your life.”

I got to my feet, and reluctantly, Karen stood as well. Carol hugged the pair of us, and we made our way across the village green. We held hands as we walked and I think both of us wanted to say what we were thinking, but neither knew how to start, so we walked in silence past the cricket pitch and the duck pond. I pulled her to a halt by the entrance of our drive.

“You realize if you’d just told me about Gillian and the other women when we first met we probably wouldn’t be in this fix now.”

“And do you think you wouldn’t have run away if I’d told you I was gay? I was in love with you, and I didn’t want to lose you.”

I thought back to those first few dates and shook my head. “I knew I loved you that first night we met, and I still do regardless of any revelations.”

A thought crossed my mind. “You keep telling me that you’re gay, but Gillian says she’s bi. You both have slept with men, I don’t understand the difference?”

Karen smiled at me, “Jilly prefers sex with women but has some men as lovers. Before I met you, all my lovers were exclusively women. I made up a couple of boyfriends so you wouldn’t think I was odd. Since we got engaged, I’ve been exclusively yours, I love only one man. I don’t like other men touching me, They make my skin creep when they touch me. I tried when we shared a flat; Jilly wanted us to share a boy she knew. It didn’t go well, I threw up all over the poor guy.”

She wrapped her arms around me. “When you caught hold of me that night, it was like an electric current hit me. It shocked me, you were a man, and I was expecting to feel repulsed, and I wasn’t. I was desperate for you to carry on touching me, and I still am!” She lay her head against my chest and sighed.

The lights were on in the hall as we let ourselves in through the front door. There was a flicker of firelight through the door to the lounge. Gillian appeared in the doorway, a half smile faded away as she took in our expressions. She went to hug Karen, but Karen kept her at arms distance and stepped around her into the lounge. Gillian followed her in, and when I entered the room last, they were sitting on either end of the sofa. A cautious look passed between them.

I sat down on the armchair opposite them and realized we were mimicking the discussion at the pub last night. Was it really only twenty-four hours ago? So much had changed.

They both looked at me, expecting me to start, but this wasn’t my decision. I’d made mine, I was just here for the ride.

“You know what I think, love,” I said, “You need to explain to Gillian the situation, I’m not going to change my mind.” I sank back into the soft cushions of the chair.

“Neil has given me a simple choice,” she said. “I can have one of you as a lover, but not both. The thought that I might lose him made my decision very easy. He will always come first, I’m sorry, I still love you and I always will, but you can never be as important as Neil to me.”

She seemed to pause and gather her thoughts, “Jilly, I’m glad you came back into my life, and I don’t want to lose you. But your place in our lives is whatever Neil says it is.”

I looked at her, she gave me a long pleading glance before turning back to Gillian. This wasn’t exactly on script, although it was obvious that she was desperately hoping that I wouldn’t entirely reject her statement.

What did I want? I knew I wanted my wife to be happy, I wanted her to be happy with me. Christ, I wanted to be happy, but there was the elephant in the room. If I forced her to never see Gillian again, how long would it be before she grew resentful and I lost her? Then I wouldn’t be happy, would I!

So the question was, did I love her enough to let her have her friendship with Gillian? Knowing that the chances are that it was likely to morph into something more? And if it did, could I cope with no longer being the only person in her life. Shit, deep down I knew that train had already left the station. I wasn’t the only person in her life.

Then a random thought hit me, and something clicked in my mind, something that had been niggling at me since yesterday. It was something that had almost surfaced earlier. If I was right then, Karen was being played by a master manipulator. The timing, the theatre of the last few day’s events hit me with a clarity of thought. But, in case I was barking up the wrong tree I needed to have my next conversation with Gillian in private.

I said to Karen. “Can you give us some privacy please.”

“Why?”

“Please, Karen, Gillian and I need to have a talk.”

Karen stood and looked back and forth between us, indecision plastered across her face.

“Please, love,” I said, “There are a few things I need to understand, and I suspect Gillian has the answers. If you’re here, then I’m not sure she won’t lie.”

Now it was Gillian’s turn to look annoyed and confused.

Karen smiled weakly, “I’ll get changed out of these clothes, and I’ll wait in the bedroom until you call.”

I took her hand, and she followed me to the bottom of the stairs. We kissed, and she started up the stairs.

“Wait,” I said as she was half way up. “Before you went to Chicago, had you ever discussed your relationship with Gillian with anyone in your office?”

She turned to face me and started to shake her head then she stopped. “Well, not that we had been lovers. but I know I’ve mentioned that we went to school together, and we were close friends at uni. Hey, she’s a big movie star, it was fun telling people we once shared a flat.”

“Yeah, I notice you didn’t tell me.”

Karen looked a bit sheepish, “Well I didn’t want you asking any awkward questions.”

“Oh, and one other thing. Do you know if there are any rumors about Gillian’s intentions about entering the fashion industry bouncing around?”

“I think so, at least, I wasn’t that surprised when she mentioned it.”

“In Chicago?”

“Yeah.”

I racked my brains to remember, and another cog in the wheel fell into place. The Chicago trip had come up rather suddenly. Usually, her business trips were planned weeks in advance. This time, it had been the Friday evening before, far too late for me to change my plans and travel with her as I’d done in the past.

“Who planned the trip?”

“It was David, he was supposed to be going, then at the last minute, on the Friday, something came up and he asked me to go instead. Why all the questions, Neil, I thought you wanted to talk to Jilly?”

“Oh, I do, but now I think you need to be there as well.”

She looked confused but came back down the stairs and followed me into the lounge.

“Gillian,” I said. “Tell us again, when did you know Karen would be in Chicago?”

“Err ... it must have been at least a couple of weeks beforehand.”

“And how did you find out?”

“Her travel details and hotel reservation were sent to me in an email.”

Karen shook her head, “That can’t be right. I only found out the day before I flew.”

“Who sent you the information?”

“The PI’s, they have a source in her offices.”

The last card fell into place in my mind, I needed to talk to David. I glanced at the clock, it was twenty to one. I hesitated then thought, fuck it, if I’m awake, he could be as well.

“Karen, call David and put it on speaker.”

“It’s almost one in the morning, Neil.”

“Please just do it.”

She shrugged her shoulders and picked up her phone and dialed David’s number.

“It’s ringing,” she said, “I hope you know what you are doing.”

“Oh, I do. Please don’t say anything.”

She passed the phone to me, and I put it on the table in speaker mode.

“Karen?” A sleepy voice said.

“No, it’s Neil.”

“Is there a problem, is she alright?” David’s voice rose in concern.

“Not really, mate, she and I have been discussing her affair with Gillian and the end of our marriage.”

“What!” David shouted, and Karen whispered, “Oh God, please no Neil.” looking at me with a horrified expression. I shook my head, putting my finger to my lips.

“You need to get over here right away,” I told him.

“Neil, it’s late, and I’m in bed, and I don’t even understand what I can do to help. Can’t this wait until the morning?”

“David, I know. You’ve got an hour, if you are not here by then, I’ll get Gillian to tear up any contract she has with your company.”

“FUCK, you can’t.”

“I can and I will.”

“And I most certainly can,” Gillian shouted.

There was a long pause, “Shit, she’s there with you, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” and then he rang off.

Karen was whimpering on the sofa and Gillian had her arm around her trying to comfort her. Karen raised her tear stained face and said. “Is our marriage over, have I fucked it up that badly?”

I shook my head, “Not yet, but I’m tired of all the lies and half-truths. I told you everything about my past and my old girlfriends. What did you tell me? Oh, I had a couple of boyfriends, and you made that up! Not once did you consider telling me the truth; you preferred girls, your lover is a movie star. Christ, you were still sleeping with your friends for months after we became a couple.”

I was on a roll and I could see my words were hurting her, but I needed to get my emotions off my chest. “The first time you meet her in years and what happens? You forget all about me and end up making out. You’d have fucked her if hadn’t called you, and I only called because I couldn’t get to sleep.” I couldn’t stay still, and I started pacing the room.

Karen sobbed out, “I’m sorry, I promise I’ll never see her again, please don’t leave me. I love you, l want to have your babies.” She looked wretched, and Gillian didn’t look any better.

This was just what I feared. “If I do that, how soon would it be before you resent me?” I said.

“I wouldn’t,” but she didn’t sound as convinced as I’d like.

I sat back down, and Karen came over to me immediately. She was sobbing quietly, and I held out my hand to her. She settled down on my lap, burying her face against my chest, her tears soaking into my shirt.

In the silence, Gillian asked, “When’s David going to get here?” She gave me a calculated look.

I gave a tight smile. “You’ve guessed what I’m thinking about David, haven’t you.”

She nodded hesitantly, “I’m not sure, but backing your play seemed the best idea at the time.”

Karen roused herself and said, “You think David has something to do with this, don’t you? I can’t see how. I was the one who went to him about the possibility of getting the account.”

“Jilly,” Christ, I’d started to call her by Karen’s pet name for her. “Let me propose a scenario. You wanted to get closer to my wife. You knew that she worked for an advertising agency, and low and behold, you were just about to launch a clothing and accessory line that needs to be branded and advertised.”

“All you needed to do was find out where she’d be, and if I wasn’t around, all the better. Then, contrive a meeting and drop hints you are looking for a new advertising agency and you’d have a genuine reason to be around her all the time.”

I looked at her, “Convenient how things worked out, wasn’t it, almost as though you had a helping hand.”

Silence fell, and I could see both of them thinking hard. I kept myself busy while we waited to see if David would appear. I made hot chocolate for all of us, my go to comfort drink in times of stress. Karen and Gillian took their mugs with a grateful smile, blowing on the froth to cool them.

I sat down between them on the sofa and Karen tucked her feet up and curled up against me. Gillian gave us a longing look and thinking that it’s not going to kill me, I raise my arm in a mute invite. She gave a contented sigh, slid up against me and pulled my arm over her shoulders.

Karen gave me a surprised look.

I said to Karen as I kissed the top of her head, “Let’s face it, other than the fact she’s an opportunist, she’s still in love with you after all these years.”

“True, I am both of those,” Gillian interrupted.

“I think that when our guest arrives, we are going to find out that both of you have been manipulated into this situation. I still don’t trust you, Gillian, but for the moment I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Ohh, do tell?”

“You know how I hate not having all facts, so let’s wait till David gets here.”

“Are you sure he’s going to come?”

“Oh, I know he will. Our threat to tear up the contract would have him panicking.”

Karen wriggled around to face me, “Yes, about that. You know that’s all my hard work the pair of you are casually tossing in the bin. If we lose this contract, a lot of our plans for the agency are going to have to be scrapped. I’m not even sure we will survive.”

Gillian stretched over me and kissed Karen. “I’m not going to do it, but David doesn’t need to know that, it’s our secret.”

I moved away from Gillian, “Did I say it was okay for you to kiss her?”

Karen looked nervously at me, Gillian just looked annoyed.

“I still don’t trust you,” I said.

She appeared to swallow her first thought. Then said, “I’m sorry, I forget myself sometimes. I’m just nervous and worried about what David’s going to say.”

I said to Gillian, “If it hadn’t have been for the fact that Karen worked there, would David’s company even be in the running to get you as a client?”

She shook her head, “Not even on the horizon!” I felt I’d been told the truth, for once.

It was another ten minutes before the glow of the security lights coming through the window announced David’s arrival.

“I’ll let him in,” Karen said, as she stood up.

I said, “Don’t say anything to him, just bring him through.”

She nodded and went to open the door. We had heard the sound of David’s voice before she reappeared, closely followed by a flustered looking David.

“I don’t appreciate being threatened,” David said as he sat down on the armchair.

“And I don’t appreciate that your actions have come close to ruining my marriage,” I replied.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Why don’t I tell you all a story, you three can fill in the gaps. David if you don’t cooperate, then I’m going to get Jilly to tear up the contract.”

“And I will, I’m not happy with you,” Gillian said. David sank back into his chair with a resigned expression on his face.

“So this is how I think it went down,” I said. “Please step in at any time and correct me if I go wrong.”

“I guess this all started a few months ago. Karen, I remember you telling me that David was looking for a big client to help fund his expansion plans.”

“That’s right, though it wasn’t just for that. The recession has hurt us; we’ve lost several of our old clients. We need to find new business to survive.”

“Ahh, that explains a lot. David, I suspect that you heard rumors that Jilly was about to enter the fashion industry. You already knew that she and Karen had been close friends at university, that wasn’t a secret. How did you find out that they had been lovers?”

He gave a little smile at that, “Ah, that was Sally, my secretary. It seems her girlfriend was part of the group that ran around with the pair of them at the university. She saw the pair of you, at last year’s Christmas party. She couldn’t believe that Karen was married. She remembered you as a hard and fast lesbian, in a long-term relationship with Gillian. She told Sally, who told me.”

“Okay, that explains that. It was one thing I couldn’t work out. I knew that you knew, but not how. Then you found out, or were told that Gillian was still interested in Karen.”

“You can chalk that up to Sally, as well,” David said. “She let slip a year ago that someone was paying her for information about Karen. She didn’t see any harm in it, as all they wanted to know was Karen’s travel and social calendar. I was worried that a competitor was trying to head hunt her. I got Sally to arrange a face to face meeting, which I crashed. That’s when I found out it was a private detective and that Gillian was paying them to keep tabs on Karen.”