Chapter 2: Help

“I didn’t realise it at the time but Tanner was after someone to have an affair with from virtually the first day that he joined the school as my department head,” Mandy began, “When I restarted part-time after eight years out having the children, so eager to please and having adults around me after so long without, I seem to have been his main objective. I suppose he saw me as a vulnerable target. He was very subtle about it, taking time to discuss issues with me as my manager, giving me credit for all my suggestions in meetings, praising me for my work, congratulating me on the results the children were getting. He made me feel grown up and important after eight years of basic child-minding. I was eager to please.”

“He was grooming you,” I said.

“Yes I know now that he was,” she admitted, “He used to touch me on the arm or shoulder, not aggressively or in a way that would alarm me, but innocently. I just thought he was a friendly touchy-feely person. He was a very friendly and supportive boss. I guess I trusted him.”

“So how did he get you into bed?”

“I was on my own all afternoon at that barbecue party, waiting for you to arrive from work and Gosford kept me company, listening to me and-”

“Listening to you moaning about me, and making disparaging remarks, I expect.”

“No, quite the opposite. He was telling me how you would be here soon and I could look forward to cuddling up to you and show you how much I loved you and I lapped it all up,” she said, “He was topping up my drinks and he definitely put something it them making me horny and couldn’t wait to get my hands on you as soon as you got there. He was setting me up for later, I know that now.”

“You know I always worked every Saturday,” I said quietly, “It was one of our busiest days at work.”

“I know,” she responded, “I had no problem with that, although I was upset earlier in the day that you couldn’t have got at least a half-day off, and was looking forward to you eventually getting there. If he had tried to put you down I would have sussed him out but he kept saying how great I’d feel when my husband got there and could welcome you in my arms. In the meanwhile I thought I was having fun talking with someone I trusted, respected and considered a friend.”

She stopped and thought for a while, I kept quiet, I had said enough on the subject and I guess I had accepted that she should have her say. We should have had this out nearly five years ago, I might have healed by now instead of sitting here poking at open festering wounds with a sharp stick.

“He was not a friend, he was a parasite,” she said bitterly, “And I was a victim. He had done the same thing at his previous school and I made sure my school were aware of it and didn’t hide it under a table. I was put under a lot of pressure to resign but I stuck to my guns and one or two people at the party saw I wasn’t backing down and supported me with corroborating evidence. Tanner was eventually forced to resign, either that or face prosecution. Too little too late for us, of course.”

“I always assumed he was doing the charming, that it would be one-way, I just never thought you would give in so easy though. I had warned you what he was doing and I trusted you to resist. You knew I was coming as soon as I left work and got washed up and changed.”

“Of course I did and I was looking forward to dancing with you and making a night of it for just ourselves, with the children staying overnight with Mum.”

“So what happened, exactly?”

“We were talking, eating and drinking, we even have a few dances and were having an enjoyable time. Not just him and me, we were circulating with lots of our friends from school. He must’ve been spiking my drinks. There was a lot of coming and going late afternoon and early evening as the guys that brought children for the afternoon were taking them home and coming back again for the evening party. I think I got confused at what was going on.”

We sat there quietly for what seemed an age, giving me time to rake over the past again in my head.

I worked in a tyre and exhaust centre back then, so Saturday was an intensive full day’s work for me. My weekend was split, always Sunday off plus, on a rolling rota, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Even then, I tended to work overtime three out of four of my mid-week rest days because, quite frankly, once the kids came along, we barely managed to keep our heads above water on my basic pay and Mandy’s part-time work, and she got precious little of that until the youngest started nursery school a year or two earlier. She had earned double what I earned when we got married, so stopping work to have our family really hit us hard in the pocket.

Anyway, the occasion for this party was that the teachers at Mandy’s school were having a summer barbecue. Naturally, for them, they held it on a Saturday, the first weekend of the summer holidays, at the Head of Mathematics’ rather grand and rambling mock-Tudor mansion.

With my kids aged 7, 5 and 3, at that time, Mandy was about to increase her days at school that following September from two per week to three, with a view to returning full-time once Kaytie started primary school in a couple of years. So she thought it was important for her to be at this party. I couldn’t get any more vacation time off because we were committed to a family fortnight holiday in August and I had used up all my holiday entitlement until October. Mandy was pissed at me accordingly, especially as I had taken up my last remaining holiday for a day’s sea fishing with a bunch of mates during the previous month.

Her new Departmental Head, Gosford Tanner, was one of those smartly-dressed smooth types. The type I hate most, and I thought he’d been sniffing round Mandy for a couple of terms, since they started working at the school within a term of each other. Mandy had laughed at my suggestion that he was bidding to bed her, she insisted that she thought he was gay. He was single, he didn’t date, didn’t really hit on her or anyone, was just friendly, just like one of the girls. I wasn’t so sure about that. My radar didn’t pick him up as gay at all. I knew for certain though that I didn’t like or trust Gosford Tanner. It was at that party that he achieved his aim and won my wife away from me.

I caught them having what looked to me like consensual sex in one of the bedrooms almost as soon as I got there and had looked around for her. All her colleagues seemed to know what was going on, as they all unhelpfully turned their backs on me as I looked all over, before trying the bedrooms as a last resort.

Mandy had been my childhood sweetheart, living just round the corner from me when we were kids, our mothers were particularly good friends. My parents split up and my Dad left home when I was about 10, so I became the man of the house at an early age and left school as soon as I could in order to bring some income into the home. Mandy, Amanda Wilson as she was then, went to college and on to University and became a secondary schoolteacher, specialising in English Lit and Drama, as well as providing special needs support for the younger children coming up from primary and junior schools with reading difficulties.

“I was waiting for you to come to the party,” Mandy said, bringing me back to the present day, lying there inactive, sore and powerless in my hospital bed. This time I couldn’t run, or lash out, or do anything except seethe, submerged deep in my own misery.

“What were you thinking, then, when he took you to that bedroom?” I had to ask.

“We were just walking around exploring that huge place like everyone else had at some time during the afternoon and I got to thinking I had to get myself ready for you,” a sob escaped her as she continued, “I was expecting you to arrive early evening, while it was still light and Tanner said it was time to get ready to meet you in bed. He had been going on about it as if it was a secret plan by us for me to seduce you and that he was just helping me as a very good friend. Our children were away with my parents, we were at a party and I was looking forward to seeing you and holding you and loving you. I’ve loved you since I was a little girl, I’ve always loved you, my childhood sweetheart. And then I lay down on the bed and thought we were cuddling and kissing and making love. I thought it was beautiful and dreamy and just so right. I thought I was lost in your arms.”