Five Horse Accumulator

Richard was our former next-door-neighbour until his marriage broke up a couple of years earlier. We knew him well and liked him a lot. He was a psychiatric social worker with a great deal of warmth and empathy for his clients and their families. We tried hard to support him when Molly left him, and when he had to sell their house and move to the two up two down on the Leicester Road we helped him move in and redecorate.

A week or so after I saw Janet go into his house, I met Richard in the bank as I queued to pay in some cheques. I had been dreading this meeting; not because I felt he would sneer at me or try to humiliate me. Richard is a good, thoroughly decent man who would not do that. I just could not bear the humiliation of seeing the pity in his eyes. He greeted me in an unassumingly friendly way as if nothing had changed. I felt consumed by gratitude. Clearly Janet had not belittled me to him and he was going to help me hold up my head in public. We parted, our friendship unchanged, promising to get together for a beer sometime soon.

Now, five months later, I could take the action that would give her the freedom she needed. Maybe Richard was not the one, but I knew deep inside myself that she needed a man in her life; a role I could no longer carry off.

*****

When I got home I found Janet in the conservatory, which served as a sort of overflow workshop with her big cutting table and steam press. She was at her drawing board, sketching a very short-skirted dress that owed something to Andre Courreges and a lot to Janet's sense of line and form. I stood, heart full of sadness, watching her work and dreading to lose her.

"Darling," I began, "I've got some news. I have had a huge win on the horses; over eleven thousand pounds."

Her face lit up. "Eleven thousand pounds. How wonderful. What shall we do with it?"

I sat down beside her and took her hand.

"I wondered if this was the time we should think about a divorce. We could clear all our debts and if you want we could buy another..."

I broke off in mid-utterance.

To say that she looked gobsmacked would be understatement. She looked bewildered, and then horror was written right across her face. If I had suggested a suicide pact I think she would have been less shocked.

"Divorce? Have you gone raving mad? Why on earth should we want a divorce? Don't you love me any more?"

"Jan, I haven't been any use to you for the past couple of years, and I understand completely and don't blame you in the least. I know about Richard."

"Oh! So you know about Richard do you? And just what the hell do you know about him? I suppose I'm having a bit on the side with him?"

"Jan love, I know you are seeing him. I really do understand. You need something I simply can't give you any more. Richard is a good man, and I am happy for you both."

"Ok Hercule Poirot. Tell me, how did the 'little grey cells' deduce this one?"

"A couple of months ago, I was stopped at the traffic lights on the Loughborough Road and I saw you letting yourself into his house."

"I suppose that would have been a Thursday at around half past six. Who else did you see going in? Jim Peterson? Deirdre Collins? Pat Steevens? Did you think we were holding an orgy in there?

"I didn't see anyone else. I just saw you then I just drove home."

"And you jumped to conclusions. Well, for a start, Richard has been living with Deirdre for the past six months waiting for his divorce to be made absolute. Secondly, you must remember how I told you how our study group was being pushed out of the leisure centre and we were having to look for a new meeting room? Well we meet in the Working Men's Club now, but for a couple of weeks we met at Richard's. It's nice and convenient for everybody, but it was too small for anything but a stopgap.

"But thirdly, and the biggest of all. I don't want to have an affair with anybody. I don't say I don't miss the sex a bit sometimes, but I am not as needy as all that. And, let me tell you, I'm not short of offers.

"You remember when we were living apart six to eight months in the year? I don't know why, with all those glamorous women around, but I was chatted up again and again by masters of the art. I have heard every line, every slimy compliment, every sob story on God's earth. You have no idea of what wandering hands can be like until you have been groped by a stage magician you are measuring for a costume. He had more tentacles than an octopus, and he had a hand up my skirt a split second before he had my knee in his bollocks. He kept out of my way after that I can tell you."

"I am impervious to seductive approaches, and I despise the slimeballs who trot them out. These tuppenny-ha'penny Lotharios just made me feel cheap and shop-soiled myself.

"I've kept it all bottled up. I have never told you a word of this because it was my problem. It could only worry you and there was nothing you could do to help.

Mischa and Ruth knew how it all upset me, and they tried to protect me, but there wasn't anything they could do really. The reason I was so glad to leave it all behind and why I've never considered going back is because those primping, arrogant, vain, narcissistic peacocks made me physically ill.

"I am not up for an affair with anyone. If I can't make love with you, I'll just do without. Truthfully, it's not so much the sex I miss. The real problem for me is that, because you can't make love to me, you have withdrawn more and more from any physical contact.

I miss sitting on your lap and watching old films on telly. I miss snuggling up in bed with you squeezing my boobs. Half the time now you don't even kiss me on the lips when you come down to breakfast

You know what saddens me the most? When you think I'm asleep, I can hear you getting off. You do it so quietly, you don't even dare to pant when you come in case you disturb me. I lie there and weep, and try as hard as I can not to sob out loud so you don't know I'm awake.

Why won't you let me share in it? Why do you lock me out? If you can wank I can wank you - or better still suck you. You great gormless ha'porth, did you think I used to do all that just for your benefit? I used to love to make you come. Give me another chance."

I was thunderstruck. Watching her weep I could suddenly see how much my wretched insecurity and self-pity had grieved her and undermined our relationship. For the first time, I think, since my disastrous operation, I started to see things from someone else's point of view instead of my own. I was so taken aback that tears started to roll down my cheeks and, bathetically, my nose started to run.

Jan, seeing my tears, hugged me close and patted my back. I blew my nose, wiped my eyes, and tried to speak.

"Jan, my love, I had no idea how I was hurting you. I have been running away from everything. Please could we try again? I don't know about making love - but maybe we can just love each other?"

"On one condition. You can produce semen. Let's not waste it. I want a baby and it is damned well going to be yours. If it has to be artificial insemination this time, well maybe by next time it can be the real thing."

We are going to buy the house in the country with the paddock and the fruit orchard. There is ample room for a nursery and a playroom.