The
moment will ever stay with me. A seminal few seconds, just a few
heartbeats long, a space of time where some words changed forever the
way I live life and how I feel about it.
It
happened at Clapham Junction Train Station of all places. Supremely
good actors indelibly imprint into their subconscious’ their reactions
when unexpectedly receiving news of great portent, good or bad. A
sudden shock of ice-cold immobility then a cry of grief was my
reaction. As forgiving as the Gusslethorpe clan are renown to be, the
texture and force of my emotions when I read that email has never faded.
It
was dark, early evening. A sharp cold east wind blew, and it was
miserably wet. An ebb and flow of people circulated on the platform.
Trains trundled in. One arrived at my platform, and a trickle of
passengers fanned out from the carriage doors, spreading in a wash
towards the dispersed exits. A larger press of people compactly edged
up and through the carriage doors, into the warmth. My train was the
next one, so in this idle time I made to check my emails from my phone.
Damn clever person I thought, the chap who invented the Blackberry. A
minute later I was transfixed, still as a stone troll, caught unawares
and ossified in the rising sun, as people milled around me. I read the
email incredulously, painfully, wondering if it was a hoax, then
knowing it wasn’t. That email both destroyed and made my life.
My
wife and I had met some seven years earlier. In a supermarket no less.
At a distance, I saw a slim, sexy body sway around the end of the Fruit
and Veg aisle, heading towards the Frozen Meat cabinets. It was only a
brief second of enticement, but intrigued, I quickly abandoned my reach
for a Cape Town pear, and hastened down to the corner of the isle,
knocking a corner stand of satsumas along the way in my haste.
And
there she was, a slow, sensual, sexy Vision, gliding like the Girl from
Ipanema towards the other end of Frozen Meats. She stopped, turned
around and salsa swayed back towards me. I did what I imagine those
old, wizened beachcombers on the shores of Island X did when
Anadynomene, also known as Aphrodite, rose from the sea precariously
perched on a sea shell, like a former day Ursula Andress in the Bond
film, Goldfinger. I gawped. Jiminy Cricket, she was beautiful.
However,
my forebears in the various arms of the Military did not help win the
Empire by merely gawping, and a battle plan quickly formed in my mind.
Quickly recalling various tenets of the Military Strategists Clausewitz
and Auchinleck, I estimated her trajectory on the shop floor, and then
launched my trolley like a Cruise missile. She was going one way, so I
went the other, and my Waitrose TrolleyMissile Mk 1, as Cruise missiles
do, deftly curved its way around old ladies, little boys, couples and
other trolleys, circumnavigated the Frozen Meat gondola with me hanging
on and swerving in its wake. It entered the adjoining aisle,
straightened out and gathered speed. It soon burst from the end of
Frozen Veg, leaving broccoli to port side and pizzas to starboard, and
in perfect timing and unerring accuracy, hit Anadynomene’s trolley
amidships. A brief uncomfortable memory of what happened to the County
Class Destroyer Sheffield during the Falklands flickered, but I
dismissed it.
“Oh,
I say, do forgive me, I’m terribly sorry …”, I spluttered, then flashed
her the Gusslethorpe smile, which has been known to melt the hearts of
even the most stoical of women at twenty paces and bring them to their
knees for more delightful things (more on that last bit later), “ …
what lovely weather we’re having.” She then saw thorough my ploy,
raised an eyebrow, smiled, and that, as they say, was that.
Quixotically,
we arranged to meet at the place of collision at the same time the
following week. Then lunch followed, then an evening at a disco-dance,
where I impressed her with some of the auld family dance steps, some of
which have been handed down from generation to generation since ancient
times. Ten days after the mid floor collision, I moved in with her as
this was the most convenient arrangement. I worked in the City as she
did. Eighteen months later, we were married. She later told me that
after just three days, she knew she would be married to me. It took me
a little longer, but we both knew. It seemed so right at the time.
Sex
was great. Now – I find this hard to believe myself, but we had sex of
some sort a couple of times a day, erectile dysfunction inexplicably
banished, for the entire eighteen months, except when I was away for
five days.
The
Wedding was at the family Chapel, the Festivities at the Castle. The
Dining Hall could only seat about 60 guests, but we had 80 and all had
a super time, with the traditional Gusslethorpe hospitality in full
swing: a roasted pig slowly turning in the inglenook and Fire-eaters,
Jesters, Pipers, Clowns, Magicians regaled the guests. I’m told even
the resident ghost made an appearance. It all seemed an auspicious
start to our union. At the wedding ceremony, we were both in tears.
But
it was not to be. Very quickly and inexplicably it began to unravel.
Helga, as the observant among you will wisely note, is not an English
name. She has, like myself, a mixed parentage. She is part German, part
Norwegian and part Thai. Which makes for an alluring combination, and a
certain strength of character that is common among Eurasians.
She
had had a bloody awful childhood, abused by kith and kin and
emotionally repressed quite severely. These repressed feelings were
somehow buried under a dam of her own formidable will power, but when
we were wed, cracks appeared and insidiously some severe physical
ailments appeared as a psychosomatic reaction. These I could cope with,
what was more difficult were a fast growing insularity, an inward
obsession with self, and absorption with her inner issues to the
exclusion of our relationship. She became critical, judgmental, needing
external validation but providing none. The trickle became a torrent
and then a flood through the breach of her defences.
The
natural traits of her race became amplified; she was in character
precise, efficient, and dogmatic anyway. But these grew to unbearable
proportions. Oh, we were friendly enough. Polite. And at times a
patina of companionability became the norm. Sex became a tolerated
function allowed only occasionally when poor Gusslethorpe was about to
crawl up the walls in frustration. She told me early on that I wasn't
her type, that she didn't fancy me. All of her life and living was
directed inward towards her demons. I was merely tolerated. It was
like living with a Valkyrie Traffic Warden I suppose. Because of our
protracted estrangement I had flung myself into work and in turn became
a stranger to her.
“And
the weeks turned to months, and the months into years,” as Andy
Williams in his song gently croons. But I grinned and bore it, we
Gusslethorpes are made of stern stuff. I hoped it would get better.
Not
that I don’t have my own faults, far from it. I’d be the first to admit
it. At dinner my tie often soaks up the gravy in my plate as I reach
across for the Worcester sauce. Once, at a formal Dinner, I arrived
late, halfway through the dinner address – wasn’t feeling very well,
cramped stomach pains, don’t you know. The dinner speech stalled, an
icy stare from the hostess followed me as I sat down at my place, and
as I sunk into my chair a flatulent discharge of the most enormous
proportions ripped through the room, making the silverware tremble on
the table. My companions on either side of my chair immediately wilted
away from the foul discharge in opposite directions, guests in their
surprise knocked over wine glasses and dropped uplifted forks. The
Speaker gulped like a landed brown trout; the hostess' husband, a
venerable gentleman of advanced years, fell off his chair. They hadn’t
come across a Gusslethorpe Special before, but I suppose this wasn’t
the place to get acquainted with it.
Och well, back to the email. Here it is:
“Robin
my love, especially today I have missed you so much, and have felt
really miserable with the whole situation of not seeing you these three
weeks. I just want to see you, and be with you so badly - it's a
completely crazy situation that we should both feel this way, and yet
deny ourselves being with the other. Anyway, it is only two more weeks
and needs must. I so long for us to be together, laughing, making sweet
love and fucking hard. Naked together, your body closely pressed
against my breasts, my licking and sucking you the way you like so
much, hearing your moans, you sucking me sucking you, feeling your
tongue flicking my clit, you are so good at that, then us fucking hard
and fast, you deep inside of me, you exploding inside of me. I suppose
writing you an email is the only way available to me right now, to
bring me a little closer to you. Having had several bad days running, I
guess I'm feeling particularly low. How are you at the moment?
Everything at home here seems to be going wrong – without you life here
seems to be inconsequential and a sham. Not least of all, having to
deal with Rupert. I wish he would take a long walk off a short pier
right now, and just leave me alone. He senses something is dreadfully
wrong ... It makes me feel terribly on edge, and very irritated with
him, yet I cannot show him that is how I feel. Oh well, let me not
burden you further with my stuff - I'd much rather know how you are,
and what you are up to. I so miss your stories. I hope you are having a
good week. I'll be thinking of you. I love you so, so much my darling.
Your Helga, forever, xxxxxxx.”
Perhaps
it was her haste or complete discomfort using computers. Whatever the
reason, she sent it not to her secret lover, but to her entire address
book. All of our friends, acquaintances, business contacts. And most
damaging of all, to me.
You
know, I hadn’t really sensed anything at all, it was her guilt that
made her think I did. I was rather pre-occupied at work.
She
was in a highly-strung state, well, more than usual, when I returned to
the old homestead. She must have known her error and was nervous with
me, probing me, expecting recriminations. But I was my usual affable
self. I needed time to think and didn’t let on. Later that evening, I
came down feigning annoyance and mentioned that my browser on my
computer had misbehaved and I had lost of all the emails in my inbox.
Complete twaddle of course, but in her innocence she believed it. I
needed time.
Now
I ask you, what is a chap to do in circumstances like this? She had
obviously lost interest and passion for me, and had so patently fallen
in love with this Robin miscreant. And also fallen deeply in lust. I
decided that before I did anything I should find out all I could about
Robin. And what an eye opener that turned out to be ...
