A Second Chance Ch. 01

My sister Diana had always been a bit 'stern'; when we were growing up, she had a few friends that were just as 'focussed' (not to say grumpy) as she was. Fair play to her, she studied hard, got her degree, got an excellent job, got a masters, got an even better job and everything that went with it.

'Di' worked in the financial services industry, was the classic 'work hard, all the time' until the big money started to roll in and 'play hard' was added.

She bought her first house, and so enjoyed the refurbishment, and watching the value go up because of it, she soon had her sights on her second and became a bit of a property developer, buying it, moving in, repairs and decoration, living there for a year or two until she bought another bigger one, placing a tenant in the previous one and paying off the mortgages in slow time. She wanted money and success, quickly, whereas I took a similar route but wanted interesting rather than hard work, and to have some fun along the way.

On reflection the real difference between us was experience. Di could remember our father, but rarely spoke fondly of him.

What she most remembered was him having a series of blazing rows with our Mum shortly after my birth, because of the lack of money after Mum stopped working to look after me, and him finally walking off into the sunset, taking his wages and savings with him. During my early years, of which I can't really remember, cash was extremely tight, and Di could remember being cold and hungry, moving from the house Mum and Dad had bought and were paying a mortgage on, to move into council housing, whereas I couldn't.

Having a wife, two children, and an unpaid mortgage, he hid his trail quite successfully until a chance meeting with his apologetic sister gave Mum the hint as to where he was and the younger woman he was now living with.

Revenge was sweet and from a distance. Rather than jumping on a bus, a train and another bus, Mum just passed the information to the Child Support Agency, who called to visit, and served him with all the paperwork they'd had stored up for him over the three years he'd been absent, much to the surprise of his new partner, who didn't know he was married and had two young children already.

More research showed that he was part owner of the house they both lived in and apparently, they suggested that if he didn't 'play the game' they'd have the house, his share of it at least.

So the money appeared, the rent arrears were paid, all just in time for me to start at my primary school and Mum to go back to work part-time at the architect's office she'd worked at before I was born.

I'm pretty sure that experience had decided Diana on her 'I'm never going to be poor ever again and neither will my family' ethos, and saw her reading, researching and asking questions about the world of finance and how she might get into it.

Her excellent degree helped, and she had been talent-spotted before graduation.

I, on the other hand, was a nerd, not up there with 'Leonard and Sheldon', more of a 'Howard'. I went on a school day trip to a technology centre and learnt the basics of how computers worked. It was a short step and soon I was learning coding. I studied hard and while doing A' levels at college, was invited to an apprenticeships day with lots of employers and there was the firm that I ended up working for. They made AIRCRAFT! Just like the model ones that hung on white cotton from my childhood bedroom ceiling.

OK, the young blood in me wanted to get into the avionics of fast and funky jet fighters but that was all about signing up for a career in the Royal Air Force or Royal Navy, and that really didn't do it for me, I wanted weekends off after all.

Instead, I applied to the civil aviation side of things and gave my all, and it was enough to get me into an engineering degree with a large aerospace company and with the promise of a job with them on graduation.

I worked for them during college breaks and the 'hands-on' aspect just made me hungry for more real input. I graduated, and was soon designing, re-designing and occasionally building parts for commercial jet engines on our own aircraft and working on them when they broke down.

I was very well paid but nothing close to Di's salary and benefits, but I did get to travel all over Europe, and as far out as the Gulf to the various factories and plants, and airports across the world to carry out reviews and replacements on working aircraft.

I'd made quite a bit of money, lived a comfortable life with the girl I'd known from univesity in a small two bed terrace we had shared ownership of. By the time our Mum died of liver cancer a few years ago, Diana had two houses plus the one she lived in and nagged me because I only had half a share of one with my long-time girlfriend Anna.

My sister really liked Anna, and they worked in a similar industry and framework, but she had no such relationship of her own to be able to comment on mine.

After a few glasses of wine, or something similar, my girlfriend would talk to her about 'guys' or 'men' but Diana always had the same response.

She was 'Too busy right now'.

'Too driven' more like, but she insisted that once she had things how she wanted them then she would settle and find THE man and have THE family, she already had eyes on buying 'THE house'. Di was in her early thirties having seven years on me, and I really hoped she'd find the kind of contentment that I had.

Or at least I thought I had.

Thanks to a flight delayed by weather, then cancelled until the next morning, I'd gotten a taxi home on the airline as I knew Anna was going to have an early night with a Netflix movie and I didn't want to disturb her by getting her to drive out to get me from the railway station so late.

I got home at just after eleven, and I could see from the bedroom window shades that the TV was off and only a bedside lamp was on. I crept in as quietly as I possibly could so as not to wake her, leaving my suitcase and kicking off my trainers at the bottom of the stairs ready for the taxi to collect me at ten thirty the next morning.

I crept up the stairs but slowed as I heard a quite familiar squeak from the bed we shared, and a familiar groan. Perhaps my hot and sexy girlfriend was getting busy with her variety of sex toys, and I felt my energy level rise, perhaps it wasn't going to be such a bad night after all.

It turned out to be a horrible night though.

I slowly pushed OUR bedroom door open ready to slip off my travelling hoodie and get cosy with her, she did quite like the whole 'me dressed and her naked' thing.

I was shocked to see her on her hands and knees on our bed with her colleague and line manager Sean behind her, both naked and going at it doggie style like there was no tomorrow, and she smiled and groaned an 'oh fuck yeah!' rolling her head back as he thrust into her, his thighs slapping on her arse, in the same way that mine had the night before.

She saw me.

"Craig!" she spluttered, rolling from under her lover and pulling the duvet up over her boobs and puss

"Yeah," I said, standing tall and looking at Sean as he backed off the bed reaching to my bedside chair for his clothes to cover his wilting genitalia, "Hi Sean."

"Craig..." he managed to splutter, working on which tone of voice he would use with me.

When we'd met before he'd tried to give it 'senior corporate manager voice' and talk down to me, but here he was naked, in my bedroom, screwing my girlfriend of nearly four years on my bed.

"Don't feel you need to explain," I said to him then looking across to Anna, "so I'm guessing that Sean ISN'T gay then Anna?"

She'd told me that particular fiction the year before when I'd been introduced to him at a works party and had noticed him looking her up and down in the skin-tight, sparkly mini-dress that clung to her every curve and her great cleavage.

She sat up and turned her back to me and was looking across to Sean, I picked her silky wrap gown from the hook behind the door I was stood next to and dropped it by her.

"I'll leave you two lovebirds to err... get dressed and... whatever you usually do after this kind of thing."

I threw that in as I closed the bedroom door; I was shocked. Shocked, cross, hurt and walked down the stairs to the kitchen. As I did, I could now see why whenever I came home from even a short midweek overnighter in the last few months, the sheets had been changed. I guessed it wasn't about it being nice and fresh for me to come home to.

Being a true Brit in a time of crisis, I made myself a mug of tea.

I stood, leaning against the kitchen counter, and sipped, hearing them walk downstairs to the front door, mumbling about 'tomorrow' and other stuff I couldn't make out as the door was pulled close-too behind her.

I took the opportunity to head up to bed, taking my mug with me, and stripped down to my boxers, putting my clothes where his had just been. Still smelling his aftershave, I pulled the still-warm duvet up to my bare chest and reaching out for my mug saw a condom wrapper on my bedside table. I picked it up between thumb and forefinger and put it on hers, next to her glass of water, nice and obvious.

In those spare moments of helplessness, I set my phone alarm for eight-thirty and my flight out to Dusseldorf two hours later.

Fuck.

I sat there sipping my tea and feeling like my world was falling to bits around me. I could hear Anna moving around downstairs. Eventually she appeared at the bedroom door, her eyes bright red and her cheeks wet, that silky dressing gown pulled tight over that great, still-naked body that her boss had been screwing so energetically not ten minutes before.

"Craig," she said with some hesitation, "I don't know what to say." She kept her head bowed, not making eye contact with me.

"Anna, don't say anything... OK?" I sipped more of my tea, and almost made to hand it across to her as I had done so many times when I'd brought one to bed with me, "knowing the details really isn't going to make me feel any better." I thought on that, "But just to be straight, this started about seven months ago, when I was in Poland?"

She looked at me in some surprise, her mouth hanging open.

"Yeah," she said, her eyes dropping down with the realisation that I knew.

"You started to change the sheets on the day I got back," I said in explanation, "I noticed the smell of the fabric softener." She always used much more than I did.

She gulped and fresh tears rolled down to join the others,

"I'm so sorry Craig," she said, then took a few breaths, "It didn't mean..."

"Oh, please don't tell me it didn't mean anything Anna!" I snapped, "that REALLY doesn't make me feel any better!" I turned to face her, "If you were screwing the Boss behind my back for a promotion, screwing him for a better company car, shit, actually screwing him because you were in love with him, THAT I could get my head around but..." I stopped myself, "just screwing him because you could, shit Anna, that hurts."

She was blubbing properly now, and she lay down on the bed, facing away from me.

She caught her breath.

"So, what do you want to do?" she asked.

"Well, I'm fucked if I know Anna; if I'm going to be totally honest, half an hour ago I was going to come home, cuddle my girlfriend to sleep, and wake up tomorrow morning and fly out to Dusseldorf, but now?" I couldn't hide the break in my voice, "it beats the shit out of me and no mistake."

"Craig please..." she burst out, "it really didn't mean anything, it was just... sex..."

"What was it that we did then Anna, was that just sex? I was in love with you, lock, stock and both barrels-but evidently you weren't in love with me."

I used the endearment all the time, ending each phone call, text message and email with 'love you', telling her each night before we slept.

"But... it wasn't..."

"Sorry Anna, but when you're in love with someone you don't go off shagging the Boss, 'because you can'."

"Is there anything I can say?" she said.

"Nah," I said, "I pushed the bedroom door open and saw you on your hands and knees, getting it from behind and groaning like a good'un, I pretty much ran out of conversation right there and then." I put my mug down and slid down under the duvet, "Night Anna," I switched off the light.

"Craig!" I could hear her gasp, "please."

She put a hand on my shoulder, and I let her, drifting off to sleep much faster than I would ever have thought possible under the circumstances.

Her alarm went off at seven and she was up and into the shower

In the kitchen, I made tea for us both and poured her a bowl of breakfast cereal as I normally would have, and she appeared, still with red eyes from her disturbed night's sleep. I took my mug and headed for the bathroom myself.

"When are you back?" she said when I reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Why?" I said, heavy with suggestion, and her face gave the look where even she got the possibilities of that question.

"Meals Craig," she said with a soft, hopeful smile, "So I can have something..." she thought about her words and not laying herself open to my ridicule or contempt, "make sure there's something edible in the fridge for you when you get back."

"Probably Thursday, late afternoon or early evening."

"Want me to collect you from the station?" She would often leave her job early and collect me on the way home.

"Nah," I said, "I'll grab a taxi, no bother."

"It's no bother for me," she said, her eyes starting to fill up with tears.

"Anna..."

"When you get back... on Thursday, can we talk?"

"What about?"

"Us," she whispered.

"Is there an 'Us' to talk about?"

"I'd really like there to be." She tried to smile with that.

"I don't know Anna," I said, "you did kind of break my heart last night," I put my now empty breakfast bowl on the drainer, "I'll let you know."

"Call me," she said, "while you're away?" breaking up at the end.

I looked at her with some disappointment,

"I don't know, Anna," I said, "I really don't know."

She walked across to me and pushed her face against mine, turning to kiss my cheek as she always had done before leaving for work. I actually felt quite cold about it now.

As she walked towards the front door, I could see her shoulders heave a bit, she turned and mouthed 'I'm so sorry' to me again. The door clunked behind her.

I flew to Dusseldorf and threw myself into my work, happy to have something to take my mind off my problems. That evening I walked from the restaurant back to my hotel room, I would normally be thinking on what discussion I would be having with Anna, things to tell her about my day; the flight, the work and just pleased to see that pretty face smiling at me over Facetime.

Only now I knew there was a very good chance that shortly after we said goodnight and I told her I still loved her, as I always had done, Sean would be taking his clothes off and climbing in next to her and screwing her.

I felt the first tears I'd shed since my Mum had died two years before.

All afternoon and much of the evening I'd been up to my eyebrows in engine protocols, cables, chips, boards and chatting in English and my reasonable if a bit 'phrasebook' German to colleagues in the same gear as me. But now as I so desperately wanted to talk to the woman I'd loved, I realised that I didn't love her anymore.

It was the look on her face, the smile, the tilt of her head, the slapping of thigh on buttock, 'oh fuck yeah'; just the same as when I screwed her.

That was it; she'd been having an affair over some months, and I started a mental countdown of the number of times she'd probably screwed him. I'd been flown out to Warsaw's Chopin Airport for a quick once-over on one of our aircraft that had lots of lights flashing and the regular groundcrew couldn't get their head round even after switching it on and off, then replacing a tonne of chips and boards.

It was a pretty regular occurrence for me and there was at least one a month, and Anna seemed OK with the minor disruption, the money was always good after all. It was a few weeks before Christmas and she had a departmental party that I was supposed to be going to with her, but my contract did kind of let me know this would happen and my place as an airborne 'Automobile Association' breakdown man was very well-paid because of it.

She'd rolled her eyes at me and smiled when I met her for lunch and told her the trouble. She obviously went to the party and had a good time. I also guessed that she'd come back to our place and had an even better one with Sean. I thought about my trips away and counted them in my head; there had been at least seven, two of which were one-nighters in the UK.

I thought about that smell of fabric conditioner. Yep, after each visit there had been that smell. If he'd stayed the night there probably would have been that sex-smell, more than likely the aftershave he always covered himself in.

Call it betrayal, call it what you like, I was angry and jealous.

We'd been in a relationship, the kind of thing that meant you didn't have to go out and look for a likeminded stranger to have sex with, the kind of thing that meant you didn't have to wear condoms to make sure you didn't catch something or risk pregnancy.

Condoms; he'd worn one the night before.

My mind started to play tricks as I considered the import of that; she was on the pill, so pregnancy was pretty much out the window, but she had him wear a condom because she didn't trust him not to be sleeping with other women, or men if he was actually bisexual.

It was just sex like she said; just a cheesy, randy fuck; two adults slaking their lust on a convenient other person.

That was it. I knew in my heart that I could no longer trust her, I knew that every time I had one of my regular overnight stays, I'd be torn up about what she was doing and whether Sean was there.

I flipped my laptop shut and turned down the volume on my phone and turned on the TV, casting 'The Office' to it, the US version as I was a bit of a Steve Carell fan, setting the Snooze function on the TV.

It was enough and I fell asleep.

The next morning I saw I had two missed calls, one from Anna and one, strangely, from my sister Diana.

I rang Diana, knowing she would be awake at that time of the morning.

"Craig!" she answered with her usual snap but with some emotion this time, "Where are you?"

"Dusseldorf Hun, what's up?"

"I..." she said, with another gasp, "I'm in hospital," she said, "you really need to come and see me."

"I'm due to fly out this afternoon Di," I said, "which hospital?"

"The Princess Alice," she said, "in the town."

"What's..."

She interrupted me as she so often did, it was a big sister thing, my big sister at least.

"I'll tell you when you get here."

"Di!" I said, "just..."

"When you get here Craig Jeffrey!"

First name AND second name, she was pissed off and used Mum's angry name for me.

"OK," I said, "I'll get their A-SAP."

"OK Craig, quick as you can please." She had a tone to her voice I'd never heard before and that worried me.

"See you soon Di, promise."

We disconnected.

Missing breakfast, I got my taxi to Dusseldorf Airport and checked through my upgrades from the evening before and it was finally nailed as a software update issue. I checked with my opposite number at the Cologne Office that all was good and was on a flight back to Gatwick within an hour, on a train and by lunchtime was climbing into a taxi,

"Princess Alice hospital please mate."

When I finally tracked down Diana Douglas it was in a sideward from the accident and emergency department.

I hadn't seen Diana in at least three weeks, we were quite close and tended to talk on the phone or Facetime each other, but today she really looked like shit.