Chapter 11

“Aidan?” Julie said, after he identified himself on the phone. “Caroline says you’ll meet me.”

“Yes, that’s right,” he said guardedly.

“Thank you,” she said. “When would be convenient?”

It sounded to him as if they were making a business or medical appointment.

“Tomorrow?” he hazarded. “How about the Hare and Hounds?”

There were too many people who knew him at the Plough and he wanted this to be private, otherwise he knew he would never hear the end of it.

“Fine,” she said. That word again! It was agreement, but there was an undertow he could not fathom.

“Seven thirty?”

“Thank you Aidan,” she said, though there was no appreciable excitement in her voice.

When she came through the door he was surprised. Even in her raincoat, he could see she was thinner but still beautiful. He felt an immediate reaction and it worried him.

He signalled to her and she came towards him. There was no smile on her face, she was almost wooden in her expression.

“When will this rain ever end?” she said not expecting an answer, taking off her wet coat. She was wearing a skirt and her legs were also thinner. She always was slim, he remembered, but it was clear there had been some weight loss.

“The usual?” he asked as she sat down opposite him and she nodded, and for the first time there was the vestige of a smile on her lips. He got her drink and another for himself.

“Thanks,” she said. No more. Silence.

“Lost weight?” he said.

“Yes,” she said wearily. “I have no appetite.”

“Why?”

“I’m depressed, or so the doctor said,” she said in a monotone. “She wanted to put me on pills for depression, but I’m not taking pills. I don’t want to get addicted.”

“What did you want to talk about?” he asked at length after they had both taken a drink.

“Kevin told me that you’d walk out if I begged to come back to you, so I won’t say that, much as I might want that to happen. I want to talk about us. I should have done that at the start.”

She stopped and glanced at his face as if to ask permission to continue.

“Ok,” he said. “Let’s do that.”

“I’ve been a fool,” she said, eyes on her drink, “but that’s obvious to everyone, even me! Looking back I can’t understand why I was so angry with you.”

“I can,” he interjected. “You thought I was screwing Vicky. I’d told you when you met her that we had a brief fling at University and realised it would never go anywhere, but for some reason you got it into your head that my late nights were spent in her bed. Where that came from I just don’t know.”

She sat still for a long moment. Then she spoke. “I know where. It was Caroline.”

Aidan was dumbfounded. “Caroline?” he stuttered, “what did she know?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Julie said sadly. “She went on and on about you being alone with her night after night, how it couldn’t have been just work, that no one worked that hard in accountancy, and if you remember you were always so dog-tired that we didn’t have much of a love life at the time. She put that down to you doing it with her night after night.”

“And you believed her.”

“No!” Julie became animated. “Not at first, but she went on and on, it was like a drip feed. Then when Vicky went on holiday, Caroline kept on and on that she hadn’t gone away at all, but was making more time for you.

“Then you came home with the story that Vicky had food poisoning and we wouldn’t be going on holiday, and of course Caroline put it to me that you cared more for her than for me, and she and I should go away together. You were already having a good time with Vicky, she and I would do the same.”

“Caroline was married, Julie,” he said, no more than that.

Julie nodded. “She’s always been a bit wild, well you know that. I think she saw it as a chance to have the sort of fun she had before she was married and a mother, without losing her steady husband and secure family life.”

“And I caught you.”

“Yes.” She sat still and solemn. Then continued.

“You said to come and see you to talk, and I had some hope. Then when I came round she was in your bed. I didn’t believe she’d been on holiday, but that you’d got her over to get revenge on me. Seeing her naked in our bed did for me, I’m afraid. I couldn’t see a way back after that.

“You know, Caroline was in the shit with Kevin but she was still telling me you were a bastard, and it proved you never loved me. I believed her, and seeing you with different women didn’t help.”

“But Kevin must have told you...”

“Yes, yes,” she sighed. “He did. Called me a lot of names as well. Caroline kept quiet while he told me, but tried to counter it when we were alone. When I met you with that American girl I told Caroline, and she kept on about how I’d said she was so fit. She kept telling me you’d moved on. Then the girl -- Samantha wasn’t it – left.”

She paused, as if she did not know what to say. Aidan wondered where this was going.

“Aidan,” she said after a pause. “Can you forgive me? I miss you so much. I don’t mean I could move back with you,” she added hastily.

Aidan shook his head and her face fell. He noticed, and felt a twinge of guilt and a sense he wanted to ease her sadness a little.

“Julie...” he said, and stopped.

She waited patiently while he got his ideas together.

“Oh dear,” he said with a wry smile, “I hope this comes out as I hope it will. Here goes. First, I don’t hate you, and if you need forgiveness you’re forgiven.

“But let’s get the negatives out of the way first. The last thing I want is for you to get your hopes up that we will get back together. I have to tell you I think it’s most unlikely. I’ve been through hell over the past few months, both the women I was in love with trashed my love.”

Julie raised an eyebrow at that, wondering which of the other women she had seen him with had dumped him, but he was continuing.

“In addition you trashed me twice, once with Xavier, then Gary, I think his name was. I really don’t think I will get over that; I’ll always be waiting for the next time you’ll dump me. I simply can’t trust you with the rest of my life. Last time, after Xavier, we started out distant and grew together, and I got over your time with him. The problem is, I think you might think it will be the same this time. Well, it won’t be.”

She gave a half smile and nodded. He continued.

“Ok, if that’s absolutely clear, I’m happy for us to spend time together, but you have to understand that I may be going out with other women as well. After being burnt, I’m in no hurry to put my hand in the fire again. I’m not going to get serious with you or anyone else any time soon.

“We always got on together and had good times long before we became an item, and I think we can be like that again, but that’s as far as I can go.”

She made as if to speak, but he held up a hand.

“Just one more thing,” he said, “it’s not true that there’s only one man for each woman and only one woman for each man in the world. That’s a naïve view of the world and patently false. You know that. There are lots of men out there who would be a perfect match for you.

“You should realise that, and keep an open mind as to finding someone else to settle down with. If and when that happens with either of us, we part. We could hardly carry on seeing each other if either of us were committed to someone else. Best to think of me as a bridging friend. I don’t want you hanging on hoping things will change – the years are passing by, you know.”

She looked shell-shocked. He got up and went for more drinks. By the time he returned she looked resigned, but calm.

She took a drink and looked at him. “Ok,” she said, “I have to accept what you say. I’m a bit disappointed, but I feel better about us now. It was sort of unfinished before – my fault.”

“Not altogether your fault,” he corrected her, “I could have come round to Kevin’s and talked with you. It was obstinacy on my part. I’m glad we’ve cleared the air.”

They talked for a hour or so, mainly about Kevin and Caroline’s ongoing efforts at reconciliation, which in Julie’s opinion was not going well. Aidan told her of Caroline’s approach to him, but Julie was not sure she was sincere, which unsettled Aidan. He wondered if Kevin and Caroline had a future after all.

Aidan and Julie agreed that to begin with they would invite each other to events like plays, films. concerts and gigs by bands they knew each other liked, and if that worked they might invite each other for meals at restaurants and then at their flats, and evenings watching films at home.

By the time they had finished, Julie had a smile on her face and already looked less drawn. Aidan commented on her smile and she blushed.

“I haven’t had much to smile about,” she said as a parting shot as they left the pub together. He walked her under his umbrella back to her new flat, her arm in his, and her breast making itself felt. They stopped and faced each other.

“Good night Julie,” Aidan said, and as it seemed natural to him, he kissed her gently and briefly on her lips.

Her eyes filled with tears and she mumbled “Good Night,” before turning away and entering the building.

Aidan wondered if this was a good idea after all. He shook his umbrella of surplus water, put it back up and went home.

The following Thursday, Julie phoned suggesting they go somewhere on the Friday evening. Aidan said there was a film he wanted to see, and they agreed to meet at the cinema. Afterwards they went for a drink in a nearby pub.

They chatted about the film and then Julie surprised him with a question. It was not a difficult question, only sudden and unexpected.

“So what happened with Samantha?” she asked.

“She went home to Vancouver,” he answered. His tone was bland as if he did not care.

“I thought from seeing you with her, she would be staying.”

“She only had a visitor’s visa.”

Aidan could see that Julie knew he was evading the answer she was looking for, but it was really none of her business.

“How did you meet her? In Edinburgh?”

Aidan wondered briefly how she knew, but immediately remembered telling Kevin.

“We came across each other in a hotel reception area. She had lost her passport, so I helped her out. Once she got her replacement she went home.”

“You got on well together.”

It was a statement not a question.

“Yes, we did.”

“Honestly Aidan, it’s like trying to get blood out of a stone.”

“Julie, it’s none of your business, is it? Ok. We got on well together, we slept together, she was great in the sack, we did things together; it was fun. We both knew she was going home. She wanted to be near her parents and family, I can’t leave my company to set up in Vancouver, can I? So we parted. Does that answer your question fully?”

“Yes, thank you Aidan.”

She smiled at him, and he could not help thinking she had in some sense won a victory. What sort of victory, he had not a clue, and he realised he did not care.

The following week Vicky invited him to dinner with her and her new boyfriend Brendan, and Kathy invited him to a symphony concert. Julie rang during the week but he forestalled her with his previous appointments. He pointed out the following week would be full as Vicky and he would be getting all their contracts completed in time for the Christmas break, otherwise January would become more hell than it usually was. He would see her at the family’s Christmas celebrations.