Chapter 1

He had it all. He had all the information he needed for the confrontation that he knew must come, and must come quickly.

He had some extra information, a tasty titbit, in a way, that he would somehow try his best to shoehorn into the confrontation, if it could be described as a confrontation? Hell, who was he trying to convince? Of course, there was going to be a confrontation.

Even at this late date, he was still unsure what nature the confrontation would take, exactly, how it would all pan out.

The information that had been shared with him made him believe that the whole denouement would take place this evening.

For a split second, he felt like just walking away from it, taking off and ... what? That really wouldn’t solve anything. Besides, that would let people down, irritate and upset people who had been irritated and upset more than enough, without him screwing everything up even further.

The only realistic option would be for him to follow through with his plan and hope that everyone else was following through with their plans, playing their parts. Actually, he didn’t seriously doubt that they would not do so.

He parked his car in the allotted space in the underground car park, which was next to his wife’s BMW, before he took the lift to the fourth floor.

Mike Cooper walked out of the lift, turned right, walked a few more paces, slower than of late, and he arrived at the flat. He begged its pardon, the apartment; the monthly rent was far too grand for it to be described as a mere flat, which he shared with his wife of ten years, Nicola.

As he shut the front door behind him, he sensed an atmosphere of tension. Perhaps, he mused to himself, today would be the day. All that he had seen and heard indicated that it would be. He fervently hoped that it would be, as he was not sure how long he could keep up the pretence that things were normal, that he was as clueless as Nicki seemed to believe him to be.

He hung his jacket on the clothes pegs in the hall, and as he reached for the handle on the lounge door said, sotto voce “Let’s Do This!” He smiled, but there was no humour in it.

“Hopefully, it’ll be time for Nicki to face up to reality, bite the bullet, stand up and be counted and whatever other clichés I can muster up for this shitty situation,” he mused to himself. Despite the seriousness of the situation, he allowed himself a brief grin.

When he opened the door, she was sitting on the sofa. Her face was a mélange of mixed emotions covering a wide range from fear to dread, from sympathy to apathy. “Or perhaps it was an attack of the wind?”

He stopped himself from laughing. If tonight was, as he suspected, the night it was all going to go down, then he really didn’t want to cock things up by laughing at his own jokes, no matter how hilarious he might find them. His ability to hide behind jokes during awkward or tense situations had always irritated Nicki. “Tough shit!” he thought.

“Hello, honey,” she spoke to him in a tone of voice that sounded ... what? Expectant? Nervous?

“Please, sit down. We need to have a little ... chat.”

“Bloody, buggering hell!” he thought. “Looks like we are going for cliché bingo, tonight! Well, eyes down, look in, as they say in all the best bingo halls.”

He realised, inconsequentially, that there would be no “looking in” tonight, as her not inconsiderable cleavage was hidden from show and she was very soberly dressed, almost as if she were attending the funeral of someone she didn’t really know well enough, or care enough about, to wear formal mourning wear for.

It occurred to him. That was exactly what was happening, because this was the funeral of their wedding, something she had proven she really didn’t know all that well, and which she certainly no longer cared enough about.

He sat down, facing her, with the coffee table between them. He placed his leather messenger bag underneath the table.

She had probably expected him to sit by her side; he based this on the hurt expression on her face. “Oh, well, that’s a pity!” he thought. “We don’t always get what we want in life.”

“Okay, Nicki,” he said. “What is there to have a little chat about?”

She swallowed nervously before she continued. “It’s like this, Mike. I no longer love you.”

Despite having a pretty good idea of what was about to go down, hearing it put into words by his putative loving wife shocked him to the centre of his very being. He let out a startled gasp of pain.

She had a look of horror on her face. “No! No! I’m sorry! That came out all wrong! I still love you, but not like that! Not in the way that a wife should love her husband.”

She paused before continuing: “I love you as a good man and as a good friend, but not as a husband. Not anymore. Not any longer.”

He spoke softly, perhaps a little fearfully: “Is there ... anyone else? Another man in your life?”

She nodded: “Yes, there is. Please! You must believe me, I didn’t mean for it to happen, I met him at the office about six months ago. He’s the new owner of the company I work for.

“I was asked to show him round the office and the building and we both instantly fell in love over a coffee in that lovely little Italian coffee shop that is underneath our offices.”

“The place we sometimes used to meet in for romantic interludes in your working day, when you had a few minutes to spare?” he said, sadly.

She had been smiling as she thought back to the first meeting with her lover. Mike’s words made her tense up and she must have realised her mistake, as she flushed with embarrassment.

“That was insensitive of me, Mike,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Mike shrugged an acknowledgement. “Please, go on. Tell me what you need to tell me.”

She swallowed nervously. “It was as near enough to love at first sight as ‘damn it’ is to swearing. We, neither of us, really intended for it to develop into anything. At first, it was just innocent, going out to lunch, that kind of stuff.”

She paused before continuing. “But then it started to grow and develop; we started holding hands and before we really could comprehend what was happening, before we could get a handle on it, so to speak, we realised that our first initial feelings were right, that we were not actually falling in love so much as we were actually really already in love. There was an electricity running between us.

“And then we made love for the first time and I realised that it was perfect.”

Mike nodded. “That must have been about five months ago? Which one of you was it who decided to cut me off from sexual relations with you? Was it him or you?”

She made a placating gesture with her hands. “Well, in truth it was a joint decision, he didn’t like the idea of my having sex with anyone else, even though, or perhaps especially, because that other person was my husband, and me because the idea of making love with you felt like it would be cheating on him. I’m sorry, Mike, but that was how I felt.

“I must admit that not allowing you to have sex with me didn’t sit well with me, as it made me feel even more guilty, thinking of you not getting any loving, but with my lover getting all of my attention.”

A thought struck him. “At about the same time, you shaved yourself, even though you know I prefer women to be naturally hairy. Did you do that for ... your lover? You must have done, because you know I prefer a woman to be naturally hairy, down there.”

She had the grace to look shamefaced as she nodded.

Mike looked at her. Dare he? He thought. He shook his head. His voice was filled with pain, resignation and sorrow. “I suppose I owe you some apologies, Nicki.”

A look of bewilderment flickered across her face, like summer lightning. “You? Apologise to me? For ... why?”

He shrugged. “Nicki, you are one of the most open, honest, forthright people I have ever known during my entire life, probably the most, in fact, so I can’t conceive of you just cheating on me for no good reason. I have to conclude that you must have had a valid reason for what you have done, what you are doing. I am apologising for whatever it was that I did, or what I didn’t do, that meant I wasn’t enough of a man for you, that I drove you away from me and forced you to seek the comfort of the arms of another man. That is why I am sorry. Sorry that I failed you, that I failed our marriage and that I failed myself.”

He looked at her, then he allowed his shoulders to slump as he lowered his eyes, as if he could not stand to look at the woman who he had betrayed, albeit unknowingly and unwittingly.

Nicki was abashed at what he had said. She had expected Mike to be angry, to rave and to call her a slut. What she hadn’t expected in her wildest dreams was that Mike, her normally sensible husband, would take all the responsibility for her cheating on himself, that he would shoulder all the blame for her affair!

She just wanted to move on with her lover, divorce Mike as fairly and as cleanly as possible and then marry her new man when the time was right.

She had thought of Mike getting over the breakup fairly quickly and finding someone else.

She looked at Mike and said, “I had thought that you would get over it, you’d find another woman and I sort of hoped that we might all become friends at some point down the road, but with this turn of events, how you are taking things now, I doubt it’s possible. I think things are more than a little out of control.”

She had tears in her eyes when she spoke to him. “Mike! Lift up your head! Look at me! Look at me, please! None of this is your fault! I didn’t know you held me in such high regard about the type of person that I am, but I cannot help thinking that perhaps I am not as perfect as you might have imagined. I have been having a relationship with another man, but that was all down to me, it has nothing to do with you, or your abilities as a man or a lover, at all! Please believe me!”

He looked up at her and gave her the kind of smile that they used to call a “brave smile,” and said, “Thanks for saying that, even if it isn’t exactly true, I thank you for trying to cheer me up with that little white lie.”

“I’m not lying! Look, I don’t want you to suffer or to pine for me, as that would serve no useful purpose for anyone, but especially you. My life is now dedicated to another; you must move on and find yourself a new woman, a woman who can love you as a woman should love a man. I am very sorry I can’t be that woman for you, not any longer, but it is what it is. You’ll find someone else. I know you will.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see that as happening, Nicki. I don’t even see it as being possible. Twelve years ago, you came into my life and you made and filled a Nicki size space in my heart. You have now stepped out of, and away from, that space in my heart, but that space is still there, Nicki. It’s a Nicki sized void that no other woman could ever fill. I doubt that I’ll even bother dating again. I certainly feel that marrying someone else would be an impossible dream. After all, if what you say is true and I never did do anything to drive you away, how on earth could I ever trust anyone ever again? Besides which, how could they replace you?”

Nicki dabbed at her eyes with a small white handkerchief. “Oh, I am really sorry for the hurt that I have put on you. Please, please do not let this situation make you into an embittered person, Mike. You are worth so much more than that. I feel so guilty about what I am putting you through, but it’s happening and I can’t change it.”