Chapter 10

On Thursday evening at about seven thirty, I was once again ringing Sally’s doorbell and being let into her flat. Once again we kissed chastely as friends do, though I was still not sure we were friends any more, and what was to follow certainly called it into question. Once I had sat down, she launched in.

“I got the Decree Nisi on Tuesday. Are we still married?” She looked resigned but there was anger in there as well.

“Yes, we are, until the Decree Absolute in six weeks.”

“That’s automatic, is it?”

“No. I have to apply for it. If I don’t, you can apply after a four and a half months. I thought Nick would have told you all this.”

“I haven’t spoken to him. The Decree Nisi came through the post.”

She paused and I waited. Her tone had been cold throughout and I knew all was not well.

“I’ve thought about what you said last time,” she began, “and some of it made me angry. It still does. I can’t get over the fact that in November you saw me on the other side of the road – a few feet away and you said nothing!

“You say that as soon as you knew where I was – the minute you knew – you came hot foot. For God’s sake why? When you got so close to me you only had call my name, that’s all. You said nothing. You let me walk away. So what did you come for exactly? To tell me you knew where I was? Well, that failed didn’t it?”

She paused for breath and glowered at me. Then she started again.

“By not saying anything you condemned me to another five months of suffering. Was that your revenge? Is that what you came to do? Did I need to be punished like that? Five months of agony! Like a prison sentence!”

As her tirade got under way, I initially was asking myself the same question, casting my mind back to that night in the pouring rain. I remembered being very tired after the journey and my abortive meeting with Connor, feeling depressed as I began to make my way back to the hotel. Then I snapped out of it.

“You want the answer to that?” I asked quite aggressively. “It’s Yes. You needed to be punished. As far as I could see you were about to join a second lover in his bed. That was a shock. By the time I got over the shock, you’d gone and he was in my way.”

I got up and stalked to the door. “But you’ll do anything to avoid dealing with what you yourself did, won’t you? Over months you deceived me by fucking a priest twice weekly while pretending to be a faithful wife. Lying about a faulty computer. But we aren’t to talk of that, are we? Oh no! We’ll talk about me not saying anything when we met. Let’s not go into your whoring after the clergy! Just me being struck dumb by surprise and shock. Good Night Sally.”

I walked out. I clattered down the stairs and out to the car, got in and drove away at speed. I did not look back. I had covered about five miles when my phone rang. I pulled over; I knew who it would be.

“What is it, Sally?”

She was weeping. “Please come back, Caleb. I’m so sorry. I need to talk. Please!”

“After your little temper tantrum? You must be joking! Not tonight, Sally. I won’t be able to control my temper tonight. I’ll phone you when I’ve talked with Nicky.”

She was silent for a while. Then: “Caleb, I’m getting calls and text messages from Bryn.”

“So? D’you want to go back to him? Why don’t you go? You’re both liars and you’ll suit each other fine. You’ll be a free woman soon; you can do what you want.”

“No, no, please Caleb, that’s the last thing I want. I’m not answering his calls, but his texts worry me. I wanted your advice tonight. I really need your help.”

“Well, you certainly went about it the right way, didn’t you?”

“Caleb, I’m sorry. I’m all mixed up. I’m trying to cope. I’m sorry about what I said. Please, Caleb?”

Ok, I thought, so I’m a pushover for a crying woman. “Let me talk to Nicky – find out what she’s doing. I promise to call you later.”

“Thank you Caleb. And I’m really sorry!”

“Yeah, whatever!” I answered but I was smiling by then, though why, I couldn’t fathom. And where did I get that ‘whatever’ expression from?

I disconnected and then drove home. I was in early so left a text for Nicky, who came round after her extra gym session.

“What’s happened now?” she grumbled as she entered the house. “You’re back early.”

“We had a flaming row. She laid into me about not calling out to her when I saw her in November, as if that was the worst thing that’s happened over the past year and a half. I gave as good as I got. The meeting lasted about five minutes. She phoned me on the way home: she wants to meet again.”

“Oh God, Caleb!” Nicky exploded. “You and that woman! Why can’t you just get what you need and put an end to it? I’m sick of all this messing about!”

I was silenced by the outburst. She was not a happy woman.

“Nicky, what’s the matter? Something’s happened. What is it?”

She sank into the sofa and lay back, her eyes closed.

“One of the staff thought I was available and tried to feel me up. I had to make a complaint. He won’t be there next time.”

I opened a bottle of beer and made her a glass of shandy. I sat next to her with the remains of the beer, and she cuddled up.

“He said I led him on!” she muttered. “The cheek of it! Just because he’s hot, he thinks every girl wants him. Well, he knows different now. I mentioned where I work and it was amazing how fast the management acted.”

“Hot eh?” I smiled knowingly.

“Hot body, vacant mind!” Then she laughed and the anger was gone.

“Sorry for shouting,” she said. “I didn’t think your talks would go easily, but I was seething about that louse. You should see her as soon as possible, and get over the argument.”

“She’s getting texts and phone calls from Price. It’s worrying her, though how I can help her in that, I don’t know.”

“Caleb, get back in the car and go and see her tonight. It’s Friday tomorrow and you won’t feel like going then. Or get her over here on Saturday.”

I phoned her. “Sally, Nicky thinks that we should meet again tonight. How do you feel about that?”

“Do you want to? You must be pissed off at me. I’ll wait till next week. Or I’m in town tomorrow lunchtime.”

Caleb looked at Nicky. “Can you remember what my schedule is for tomorrow? Sally’s in Worcester at lunchtime.”

“You have a court appearance at ten, then there’s the usual completions mid-afternoon. Middle of the day is clear of appointments as far as I remember. I can handle the house stuff if you’re later back.”

I spoke to Sally. “I can make it from about 11.30.”

We agreed on our erstwhile favourite pub for lunch at twelve.

“But,” I added, “I think we’ll both have to remember we’re going to get upset and angry and be ready to take it from each other.”

“I think the location tomorrow will help,” she suggested. “It’s embarrassing to have a slanging match in a public place.”

We disconnected and I turned to Nicky to gauge her reaction. She seemed at ease.

“Caleb,” she said. “I know I usually go back to my place on Gym days but I’d prefer to stay tonight. After that gorilla at the club, I need some loving care from a real man.”

“As long as you shower first!” I said, trying to keep my face straight.

“Well, since you got hot and bothered with Sally, you need one too!” said with hands on hips, and an affected scowl.

How could I refuse? So she got her loving care after a loving shower; her squeals of pleasure proved it. She elicited some noise from me also.

I arrived at the pub a few minutes early and ordered a pint for myself and a weak shandy for Sally, who I assumed would be driving. I had only just seated myself when she arrived. She looked extremely fetching in her business trouser suit. We ordered food and sat ourselves down in a quiet corner, shielded from prying eyes and ears.

We looked at each other for a moment that felt like an hour. Then she spoke. “Caleb, I’m very sorry about yesterday. No, don’t say anything, I think I simply had to let out my feelings. You were quite right, what I did was far worse than you not calling out to me. There’s no comparison really. Will you forgive me?”

I nodded. “I over-reacted as well. We wasted an evening. Where do you want to start?”

“I need your advice, Caleb, about Bryn. My phone is clogged with missed calls and texts because I don’t want to speak with him after what he did. If he’d said that night that you wanted to see me, we might not be in this mess now.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I replied, “but certainly there’d have been a better chance of salvaging something.”

“And there isn’t now?” she asked, with a look of distress. “Now you know I was misled and lied to? I would have run to the hotel that night and I would have come home with you. I’m sure of that.”

“How can you possibly know that, Sally?” I said, “You’d been away from us all for months. How would that have been different? By then Connor had conned you with her lies.”

“Caleb I don’t expect you to believe what I say any more, but I’ve never stopped loving you. Never once. I told you that last time. I was wretched without you while I was in Wales. The whole time. Oh I wish I knew what was stopping me just coming home.”

“You seemed to be managing quite well with Bryn.”

“I wasn’t. He was a comfort,” she bridled. “But I was sad in varying degrees the whole time. Don’t be bitter. I was at a very low ebb. His loving care stopped me from doing anything silly. He had to put up with a lot from me.”

“You were suicidal?”

“Sometimes I didn’t want to go on. Bryn kept me going. He got me clients so I’d have something to do to take my mind off my troubles. I do owe him for that at least.”

“So why won’t you talk to him? He’s looked after you, and if as you say he loves you–”

“He lied, Caleb. He ruined my chances of getting back to you. I can’t forgive that.”

“People do desperate things when they are in love, you know. He wanted you to stay with him. Did he think you loved him?”

“I did love him in a way. I was so grateful, yes, but it wasn’t love – you know – like being in love. Not like I love you. More like friendship and affection.”

“I can’t see how you can distinguish different kinds of love so clearly. But let that be. Look. You’ve lived with this man. You shared your life with him for some months. You are so attractive, he was bound to fall head over heels in love with you. True?”

She coloured up and smiled shyly. “I suppose so,” she muttered.

“So how can you leave him so abruptly?” I asked. “Does his one lie eclipse all that selfless love and affection he gave you?”

“Yes it does,” she was adamant. “We’d been together for two or three months. He knew I’d left a husband of twenty-four years who I was still married to. I’d refused him more intimacy, so he knew you had the greater claim on me. And knowing that, he lied – by omission first, then directly. And that lie lasted months, for as long as he didn’t tell me what you’d said.”

“He wanted to keep you,” I said doggedly, “He’d fallen in love with you. I bet he was desperate.”

“Caleb, why are you taking his side? After what he did? He tried to keep your wife from coming back to you.”

“Because I know how he feels now, Sally. Can’t you see? You’re doing the same thing to him that you did to me and the children? I know how he’s suffering.”

She had the grace to look surprised then ashamed, “So, I should answer his phone calls?”

“Sally,” I said patiently, “don’t put him through any more pain. Take some time to think exactly what you want to say and finish with him gently. But finish with him.”

“That’ll be hard to do.”

“Yes.” I smiled, “but you were never very good at finishing with boyfriends, were you?”

She smiled at the recollection, and nodded. “But I managed it for you with Simon,” she said wistfully. “I can do it again.”

“Think carefully first. Be gentle. He may have let you down badly, but he also supported you when you needed help most. You are sure you want to finish with him? You couldn’t make a life with him?”

“Not now I’ve seen you agai...” she began and then stopped. My frown must have spoken volumes.

“Sorry,” she said.

“So,” I pressed on, “You know what you’re going to do?”

She nodded decisively. “Yes, this is one thing I won’t run away from. Now, you’ve been very good to me today. I needed that. So what do you want to talk about?”

The meal arrived and I ordered another round of drinks. “Let’s eat and talk afterwards.” I said. “I don’t want indigestion!”

She laughed and I briefly saw the girl I had married. The bright woman she had been flashed across her face. It made her now usual appearance look dull and lifeless by comparison. So we ate in silence. The meal was good and once completed we sat back feeling replete.

“So?” she asked.

“We’ve done the bit about you leaving us with a deafening silence. I don’t need to go over that. I still can’t understand that and it seems neither can you.”

“My therapist is working on it with me, but not much progress yet. We’re just beginning the usual examination of childhood thing.”

“So we’ll have to leave that unsolved and see what develops. When I left last night, I was going to ask the questions that were unsettling me. I didn’t give myself the chance, going off like that. Those questions overshadow everything. I can’t move on.”

I paused for a moment, gathering my thoughts.

“I think I want to go back to the beginning of all this, and talk about Mulhern. I have some questions about him.”

I could tell she didn’t like that idea, but that is what we were there for.

“You mean like, was he bigger than you?” she asked, full of concern.

“Oh, Sally,” I snapped. “Don’t be so crass. How many boys did you bed before me?”

“Seven or eight I suppose, if you count the ones at high school.”

“We managed twenty-three years of sex with the equipment I’ve got, and you seemed satisfied. I always thought I was big enough. Were any of those boyfriends bigger than me?”

“I suppose.” She was embarrassed.

“Did they do it for you any better than the smaller brethren?”

“You know they didn’t. We’ve talked about this in the past,”

“So were you satisfied with me? Sexually I mean?”

“Oh Caleb, do you need to ask? Of course you satisfied me. Way better than Tony, come to that. In fact you are the best I’ve ever had, and that’s just the physical side, and I’ve also never felt so loved with anyone as I have with you.”

“Well, that leads to the obvious question. Why do it with him at all, Sally? Why do it with Mulhern? He’s the root of everything bad that’s happened. Why?”

She sat silent but I couldn’t wait.

“Sally, I thought we had a good marriage. I thought we loved each other – were totally committed to each other. We’d both been with other people before we eventually got together so it isn’t as if you were curious about what sex might be like with someone else. So the usual questions that I believe are asked in this situation – those questions arise.

“I thought we communicated very well; we shared everything, no secrets,” I went on. “We never had to tiptoe round each other. I thought we were happy, that we satisfied every need in each other. We were friends. I couldn’t work out what else I could have done to make you happy, but there must have been something missing in me, or in our relationship for you to go after a relationship with him. So what was it, Sally? Why did you do it?”

I wasn’t exactly shouting, but I was certainly animated, but by now she was ready.

“I’ve had plenty of time to think about it over those months,” she said quietly. “I too asked if there was anything missing in our marriage – in me, I mean. Caleb believe me you have always been the perfect husband and lover. You are right – you couldn’t have done more.

“I asked myself what there was in me that would want someone else, and there wasn’t anything. I had everything a woman could want in a man and a marriage. That’s what makes this so painful and worrying for me. I’ve thrown away a perfect life, for what? To spend the rest of my life alone in a flat.”

“Don’t be silly,” I broke in. “You’ll find someone else.”

“Not while you’re around, Caleb. I’ve experienced a man – stupidly – and lived with another. They’ve convinced me that other men will not measure up for me. I can’t start again after all those years I’ve had with you. I just wish...”

She stopped herself going further.

“So, there’s no answer to that question either?” I admit I began to sound frustrated, because I was. “You had everything you wanted, you weren’t after a new experience. I don’t get it at all.”

“Let me try to explain. My therapist has been through all this with me. I have something of an answer, though personally I’m not sure even I believe it.”

“Go on,” I had been leaning forward, now I sank back. The gesture was not lost on Sally: it amounted to rejection before I’d even heard it.

“My therapist thinks that Tony set out to seduce me and played a careful game to do it,” she shot an apprehensive glance at me. “I’m not so sure. She thinks he played on my good nature; my willingness to help people out. She called it my nurturing nature.

“At the beginning he’d come into the parish office and we’d talk about all sorts of things while I did the newsletter or the accounts. After a few weeks he began to tell me bits about his bouts of depression and how unhappy and lonely he became, especially living alone as a priest. I would sympathise and he’d tell me how much comfort he got from my friendship, and then it sort of slowly grew.

“If he looked miserable, I’d go into his living room with him when I’d finished on the computer – and it did go wrong regularly by the way – and we’d just talk about his loneliness, worries about his priesthood, and his depression. It would always come back to his depressive condition. Then one day he was very dispirited; he cried, big wracking sobs. So I sat with him on the sofa–”

“And you put your arm round him and cuddled him,” I stated.

She looked at me in wonder, “Yes, how did you know?”

“Come on, Sally, it’s what you do if people are upset!” I laughed.

She smiled thinly, but it faded fast.

“I put my arm round him and he cried with his head on my breast.”

She reddened, and seemed to be forcing herself to carry on.

“He said he felt much better after that.” (I giggled inwardly: who wouldn’t feel better after nuzzling her breast!) “So in the following weeks, as we talked more and more, we just got closer and closer. It became normal to cuddle him on the sofa when he felt down, which was more and more often. I see now that he played on it to get closer to me. I was naïve in the extreme, but it was so gradual.

“My therapist says it’s common in affaires. The couple grow closer platonically and gradually become more close, more intimate – quite innocently. You understand this happened over a long period – weeks, months. He took to kissing me on the cheek when I left and I’d kiss him, then on the lips – lightly, not passionately, but it was not appropriate Caleb. I think knew that.”

“So why did you allow it?” now I was intrigued.

“I liked it,” she looked into my eyes, “You want the truth? I liked it. I felt he needed me. It felt good that a priest who dedicated his life to others needed me. But the other thing was that he asked that I kept his conversations confidential. I should have told him that I told you everything. But I didn’t. And I justified it of course – it was like the secret of the confessional. So I didn’t tell you anything. So gradually, I was cheating you by keeping it from you – long before any sex happened.”

“But why?” I asked. “He was only a bloke asking you for support. What was so wrong that you couldn’t tell me about it?”

“I know,” she said with resignation, “At the time it was this secret of the confessional thing. But looking back on it, I think now that I felt ashamed of what I was doing. Deep down I knew it was wrong. It was beyond what I should be allowing as a married woman.”

She bit her lip, “But as I said, I liked it. Dr Masters–”

“Oh, no,” I laughed. “Does she work with Dr Johnson?”

Sally frowned. “She says everyone above a certain age cracks that joke. Do you want me to finish this?”

“Sorry,” I tried to look penitent but I couldn’t quite wipe off my smile. She sighed with resignation and pressed on.

“Dr. Masters said that I must have found him attractive, and she was right, I did. But that’s normal. You found Nicky attractive, but you didn’t do anything with her until ... Anyway, she said that his attractiveness, added to my comforting nurturing rôle and our growing affection as friends was enough to push our relationship on to the next level. That and the fact that this was a secret – it would add to the excitement when the moment came.”

“The moment?” I sat forward again.

“We’d had a harrowing half hour, with him despondent, head on my breast while I stroked his head. And his head on my breast had excited me. We walked to the front door with our arms round each other and he turned me to him and kissed me. Not like before. Sexually. And... “ she gathered herself, “I kissed him back. It was like a dam breaking, it was sudden simple lust, I’m sorry Caleb. Dr Masters said everything had been leading up to it, and I would have been unprepared.”

“And?” I knew what was coming and that it would hurt, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“And,” she was almost whispering, “before I knew it we were on his bed. I’m sorry Caleb, but then I wanted him. He stripped and he was very good looking, he had a good body. I got my clothes off and that was that.”

“You fucked him?” I was surprised at the speed of it. The question was unpremeditated.

“Oh, no!” she said hurriedly, “I wouldn’t let him have me without a condom. So it was mutual manual, nothing else. I wasn’t looking for full on sex. It took me by surprise – the event and my urgent response. I suppose it made it easier the second time – he had bought condoms by then. And, I’m sorry, by then I wanted it.

“Once we’d done it, I felt really guilty. I thought, well, I knew you couldn’t forgive ... how you felt about unfaithfulness, I was very frightened then. But the damage was done and it didn’t seem to matter if we did it again. I was doing him a favour, making him able to cope. That’s how I thought about it.

“As I said, it became something totally separate from you and me, Caleb. It was another part of life. I was supporting this man emotionally when he was down, which was often, lifting his depression. Sort of therapy, I suppose. At least I justified it that way. I didn’t love him, it was almost like therapy! So stupid! I was just as loving to you, just as committed. It did not impinge on our life and love at all.”

I remembered that there had been no change in her behaviour or her attitude. She was telling the truth no matter how unpalatable it might be. I could see and I appreciated how difficult this was for her. How humiliated she felt.

“It didn’t happen every time I went, Caleb, only when he was down. I always made him wear a condom, and it was always missionary: I was doing him a favour,” she continued, “Dr Masters thinks I wanted to keep unprotected sex for you – something only you would have, along with other positions and oral. It would make our love making more intimate than his. She’s probably right, I suppose. There was always a certain distance between us.

“The last time, after I’d called a halt to it the time before ... we were suddenly doing it ... and I hadn’t expected it, I thought we had finished the week before. That time I realised he was bareback. I cried on the way home – that’s when it hit me hard what I’d done to you, to us. I felt very guilty and knew for certain I’d betrayed you.”

A thought struck me. “If you were so frightened of me finding out, why did you carry on doing it? Surely each time brought you nearer to the point when you’d be found out. Didn’t you think of that?”

She shrugged. “It only happened when he was depressed and begged me, so I suppose I felt I was giving him something he needed that no one else could give him. Caleb, it wasn’t the sex so much. It was to comfort him. It only happened five or six times in all before I stopped it.

“He kept saying how he was able to go on because we had that intimacy, but it was when you started grumbling about the time I was taking I knew I had to finish it. I tried to explain to him how it was so wrong, but he still wanted to carry on! I couldn’t believe it! He even offered to marry me if you divorced me!”

She laughed derisively and I let that go. She obviously found the idea ridiculous.

“You were giving him something he needed; was he giving you something you needed?” I asked.

“I didn’t need it Caleb, but I liked it. It was a mixture. Perhaps I fooled myself into thinking that I was helping him with his depression. I felt good that he was happier. That was the main thing.”

I smiled at that, “Anyone getting you for regular sex would be delirious, not just happy, I would have thought.”

She had the grace to smile shyly at the compliment, and I smiled as well, but I felt empty inside.

“Did you love him?” I asked.

“I loved him in the sense that I gave him care and affection, but I wasn’t in love with him. I didn’t desire him. I’ve always been in love with you. I obviously enjoyed the sex – he was quite good, once I’d trained him a little bit, but nothing mind-blowing. I had sex out of care for him – wanting him to feel better. There was affection too, but I never wanted to initiate it.”

“Then you never thought of me when you were on your back underneath him? Or when you were stripping for him?”

The starkness of my description showed how bitter I felt.

She flinched and blushed, but she gave a straight answer. “No. I didn’t think of you then. Somehow it was something totally separate from you and me. It was almost like another world, or like my accounting work. I’m sorry Caleb I want to tell you the truth. I could ask you, did you ever think of me when you started making love with Nicky?”

“Sometimes; not every time, but then I felt our relationship was over before I started making love with her.”

I knew it would hurt her put that way, but I was getting angry. She winced.

I continued.

“You know what’s the worst of it? You kept me out of what you had with him. Not the sex so much – we both had other partners before we committed to each other, though that’s bad enough I suppose. I was excluded from the things you shared with him that you’d no right to do. You rejected and betrayed me in doing that.”

She looked at me with a woebegone forlorn stare, but I was not finished. “You rejected me by not stopping with the priest after that first time, you could have confessed it as a mistake – a one off. But you had so little faith in me that you couldn’t risk telling me what you’d done. Now look what it’s brought you and me to. We’re divorcing. Parting. Going separate ways.”

“Caleb, I was certain you would divorce me anyway without a second thought. We’d talked about that.”

“Sally, you’ve got that wrong as well. You were the one who would divorce or at least separate – no reprieve; when you asked me and I always said I supposed I would do the same.

“For goodness sake Sally, there’s a world of difference between the theory and the practice. Did you really think that I would throw away twenty years of marriage for one mistake on your part? It doesn’t make any sense at all. What d’you take me for Sally?”

She looked surprised. No more than that, horror struck.

“There was always a way back, Sally,” I went on, “though it wouldn’t have been easy, until you disappeared and caused us all such suffering. And when I saw you that night, and when Connor told me you said I had abused you, that’s when it all changed inside me.

“That’s when it all finished. It was done. I had searched and searched and now I had no further reason to look for you: I’d found you, and I thought you were in the arms of another lover, that you’d been unfaithful with two men.”

I choked back tears at that.

She sat and gazed at me, concerned on her face for my feelings, and I thought she wanted to hold me, but obviously she knew better than to try. She had no words that could comfort me, I could see her trying to find words to say. We sat in silence for a few minutes and then she looked at her watch.

“O hell!” she exclaimed springing to her feet. “I’m late for my meeting. I’m so sorry Caleb. Can we finish another time?”

“Ring me,” I said.

She leaned forward and kissed me. A light kiss on the lips, affording me a view down her shirt to the tops of the breasts pushed up by her bra; a sight I always loved. Then she rushed off. I wondered if the viewing of her assets was deliberate. Another mystery I was not likely to solve,