Cathy and Chris Ch. 11

The relationship had been about sex; that was what they had both understood – 'until we both... you know' he'd said, meaning 'find someone new', not 'until we end up falling in love with each other.'

She thought of how awful it would sound, the younger widow, Husband only dead a year, falls for the smooth talker that chat's and woo's his way into her bed less than three months after moving in together...

Suddenly her mind was back in the club, and all of the women. Looking askance at the first poor unfortunate widow that dared to 'shed the black and the weeds' and get back on with their lives. The general age of the clientele meant that this was more often than in an average situation. She thought of her 'friend' at the club, Linda; husband a former Navy man and sentenced to death by Asbestosis he'd contracted on board old ships before he'd even reached his 25th birthday. He'd died in same hospice that Jenny had – a shadow of the man he had been.

Almost two years later, and she had started to 'see' a man from work. Those appalling harridans of a temporary virtue given weight and life by their need to bitch about someone, would pronounce 'see' with such a hateful venom that you could almost smell the leather and hear the crack of the whip and the disgusting grunts and groans of two disrespectful people that should know better at their age.

She shuddered slightly thinking back to her own thoughts at the time. Those other women, content that they wouldn't be sat on their own every night missing the content of companionship, tearing the absent Linda to strips in a frenzy of reality TV nastiness.

But that was a crock of shit, she had no contact with any of those miserable bitches any longer and she couldn't use that excuse anymore.

She had admitted to him and herself that she had moved in because of the sex. OK it happened that she wanted to move out of the area she was in and desperately so. Doing the legal work that she did, meant that she knew house prices in the immediate vicinity and a two bed on that estate, even paid for, wasn't going to fund much in the way of a replacement for a late thirties, part-time working single mum. So when the opportunity to share bills and babysitting with someone she trusted was ideal, it just so happened that they also clicked in bed and were incredible together, both having an instinctive response to the other's needs.

And it wasn't just in bed, domestically they were a great team too, all of the children were happy and settled; the loss of either a mother or a father was understood and accepted. He didn't try to replace Brian and she didn't try to become Jenny to her niece and nephew.

One day, Robert had walked over to her and was chatting through some of his homework with her, moving closer as they talked. Out of the blue, he pushed his nose into her neck and breathed in.

"You smell like Mummy," he said, breathing in the perfume Jen must also have used. She was stunned by his statement and thought quickly.

"That's OK isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes," he said with grin, "it's a lovely smell."

"Well, everything about your mummy was lovely wasn't it." She said reigning in her emotions.

"Yes." He said with a grin, "Nanny says Mummy is with great nanny and baby George that died just after he was born. Do you think she went to look after baby George?"

With tears straining at the backs of her eyes, she quickly put pay to doubts that were set, however innocently, in his young brain.

"No darling," she said, "Mummy would have given everything to stay here with us; but in the end she was just too ill." She gave him a hug and pulled him onto her lap. "But knowing your mummy I bet she is looking after baby George along with great nanny Rose," she bent closer to him and whispered conspiratorially "Actually, I bet mummy and great nanny Rose are arguing over who gets to have the most cuddles, while the other one makes the tea."

Robert giggled and she gave him a squeeze, and they sat together chatting until Chris got home, neither of them in a rush to move.

Chris came into the kitchen to find all of them together while Colleen and Karen where playing camping in the large garden. She could feel the satisfaction pouring from him to see her so close with Robert.

Her emotions pulled again. He'd been in love with her sister not her! Her feelings for him were very close, she knew that. After all it must have been almost impossible to be that close to him in so many ways and not love him. But 'in love' with him?

Was she?

They'd all moved in together and they had all clicked into place. There had been a few problems at first, while boundaries were established and people got to know each other. The younger kids were all at the same school, and he dropped them off in the morning on his way to work. The atmosphere in the house was fantastic, better and warmer than it had been even when she had first married Brian and there were no kids to tire them out.

Chris could work an eight hour day, go to the gym, be home at half five or six and still have a smile on his face as he helped with the housework.

He insisted they have a dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer, in fact any machine that could possible make life easier for them all; insistence was necessary as for some reason she found herself repeating Brian's twin mantras of 'a little hard work, and soap and water never hurt anyone' and 'it only takes a few minutes'. Chris's reply had been, 'well you can do as much washing up as you like, I'm having a dishwasher'.

And that had been that; Karen and Robert automatically put there crockery and cutlery into it and Dan and Colleen followed suit. Soon even she got used to the sudden automation of another part of their domestic world.

Brian would have hated it, and would have grumbled about the waste and laziness of such a thing. Chris didn't even consider any other option, and it did free up more time, and as she got to know him and their children, not forgetting herself all over again, she began to realise what a fantastic thing free time was.

Chris would help when asked to help with homework without Brian's customary snarl, didn't balk when asked for a lift somewhere and was kindness and generosity itself. On occasions he even read stories to the little ones when he put them to bed at night – Brian had never done that, he might have missed Coronation Street or Eastenders.

Once the kids were all in bed she had snuggled up to Chris and they cuddled, even to the point of falling asleep on his shoulder in his arms, or with her head on his lap; even after 16 years with Brian she could count on the fingers of one hand how many times he'd let her do that. Once the kids came along, he'd retreated into an arm chair by the fire and the cuddles disappeared – not in front of the children.

In this new house they only had sofas, and they had christened two out of the three of them.

One evening, she woke to his coughing, and realised that he too had nodded off. Her face was on his thigh, his hand resting gently and lovingly on her shoulder. She felt his erection through his jeans and decided she should help him with it. Tugging gently at the zip she slowly, so very slowly, eased the sensitive tip of him out and wrapped her lips around it, gently sliding her mouth up and down the small exposed area.

It was enough to wake him, and he sat up with a slight start, enough to force the rest of his erection out into the open, and her grasp. She rolled onto her front and carried on sucking until she gratefully received his come in her mouth. He of course said it was only fair he reciprocate and did so, and being Chris, managed to strip her completely and wonderfully naked into the bargain, warm skin against the cool leather, using his long and skilful fingers, lips and tongue to prolong one orgasm into a stream of multiples that left her gasping yet wonderfully and achingly satisfied.

No matter how much they pleased each other sexually and emotionally her mind would always go back to Brian and how different these two men in her life had been.

Chalk and cheese. Brian was a only a few years younger than her Dad. But while her Dad stayed young and contemporary, Brian seemed to age both mentally and physically from the fun man she had fallen for, and at great speed once he had his required 'wife'.

As Brian got 'older' he became a committee member at the Legion Club in town, one of his regular haunts since his youth and leaving the Parachute Regiment. He had kind of wandered into the painting and decorating/jobbing handyman trade and had regular work from many of the local builders and some well off regulars that could afford someone else to look after their homes. Brian had even come home one day with an offer for her to be housekeeper at one of them; pin money he'd said, no need for her to go to that nasty office with all those solicitors. Her advocacy training had taught her to ignore stupid questions like that.

They'd met when he was employed to repaint the office she was working in as part of her degree course during the summer break. She had just broken up with a bloke who she thought was the one, and it had hurt her.

Brian was older, wiser, smoother than the boys at university and just 'had a way about him'. His was tall, rugged and had that 'squaddie' sense of humour she had grown up with. As she sat in her room sixteen years on she thought about it as a solicitor and not lover. He was a father figure, Freud would have been proud.

But at the time, she convinced herself that he was the one for her. He promised to take care of her, support her and see to her every whim. He owned his own house, mortgage free, but it was in the part of town she recognised as being where most of the legal aid clients came from. It was a two bedroom, but when the children they spoke of came along they would have to move up surely. They got engaged.

She finished that years tough exams and decided to take him up on his advice and take a year out of study to get married. Even her normally passive father had advised her not to and to finish college – even for just a year. Jennifer her younger sister still studying A' levels with a view to a medicine said not to, this bloke was ages older than her, almost as old as Dad, it was a rebound thing, live together for a while but not marriage.

Head strong and easily led she moved in to his house as the college year finished, her exams in the bag, with a promise to return in a year's time, two possibly.

Marriage followed, for her a fairy tale; for her parents and family who were far from being snobs, cheap, rushed and not even half of what they would have done for her. Brian had booked the local British Legion Club hall for the reception, and little did Cathy realise the place in her life it would hold from then on.

But now, thanks to Chris, so much of that was behind her...

She picked up the phone,

"Hello?" said a voice, "Can I speak to Mrs Brian McMahon please?"

She snorted just the tiniest bit.

"Cathy McMahon speaking,"

"Catherine?" said the voice with some hint of recognition.

"Yes,"

"Hello there, it's Mike," he paused, waiting for her to respond, but it was unforthcoming. "Mike Stafford, Treasurer at the Legion."

"Oh," she said, as noncommittally as possible, "How are you."

"I'm very well Catherine, very well, I was just calling to check that you are OK, we were a bit concerned when you disappeared off of the face of the earth like that!" He added a giggle to his final comment.

Shit, those old farts had managed to track her down. Someone would get a bollocking for this.

"Yes," she said, "I must have forgotten to give the Legion a forwarding address, silly me."

"Yes well," he said, "we never forget one of our own, just a welfare call to check all is OK with you."

"Yes all fine thanks, you..."

"Would it be OK if I popped round sometime?"

"There's no need really," she said. Last thing she wanted was one of those old fools dragging her back to the club so they could buy her a Bacardi and coke and stick her in the corner of the room, as Brian used to put it, like one of the ol' gals who sat with their drinks, hats and handbags only to be sent home at ten thirty in a taxi.

"Well we'd hate for you to be sat at home every weekend on your own, feeling sorry for yourself."

She snorted.

"I certainly don't do that Mr Stafford,"

"Mike please,"

"Mike, I have two young children, a new house and lots of friends, please don't think I'm going to be rotting away in doors for lack of company."

"Oh well, I wasn't suggesting that you were of course," he chuckled to himself, "only we can't find the harness or the white gloves for the standard bearer. Brian was the last standard bearer we had and we needed them for the Remembrance Sunday last year and no one knew where they were."

"Oh," she said, "well, I still have a few of Brian's boxes to unpack, I'll set to it this weekend and see if I can find them. If I do, I'll drop them over to you."

"No need," he said, "we'd be only too happy to come collect them." Shit, that would mean they'd know her address as well.

She tried to remember which one Mike Stafford had been; at Brian's funeral many of them had been there in their blazers and Berets. She seemed to remember someone saying it was a shame that they couldn't have had a standard bearer there now she came to think about.

She was sure he was the overly friendly one; the more she tried to remember, the more the image of the slightly younger, overly touchy man with awful combed over hair and only the one suit that smelt of mothballs and nicotine every time he wore it.

"No problem Mr Stafford I'll drop it round to you. Can I ask how you got my number, I'm ex-directory."

"Oh, must be on file somewhere," he said after a pause.

"No, it's brand new, and I didn't give it to anyone at the club, so the Legion wouldn't have had it on file," with a hint of malice she added, "Try again."

"Catherine," he said blustering, "I'm only trying to track our stuff down, I have no idea how someone got your number, I only know it was here with Brian's things."

"OK." She said, "once I find the harness I'll..." she paused, "I'll have it delivered to the Legion."

"We'll come..."

"I'll have it delivered Mike," she said firmly.

That night she explained to Chris what had happened.

"You sure you hadn't given the number to one of your friends there?"

"Didn't have any." She said thinking back to Brian's crowd of Legion cronies, and their strange wives, many of whom seemed as bored with it as she did.

"What about the girls at work?"

"Nope, I work with solicitors, we don't do that kind of thing."

"Hmm," he said, and snapped his fingers, "Kids!" he said, "perhaps Dan or Colleen gave the number to a friend or someone at the Legion, did they have mates there?"

"Colleen did," Cathy said, "not sure Dan would have done."

"Oh well, we'll ask her later." And they thought no more of it.

A week later, Chris pushed the door open and smiled at Cathy; there were at least three 'family' rooms in the huge house they occupied but the whole family tended to gravitate towards the kitchen. Their was no TV, a radio tuned to different stations at different times of the day, a kettle that never seemed to get cold and a wonderful warm feeling that people just responded to.

"Hi Chris!" said Cathy then indicated with her eyes across the room to where an older man was standing by the table, mug in hand. The other man smiled.

"Hello," said Chris, "I'm Chris." He reached out a hand to shake the other mans.

"Mike," said the man, "Mike Stafford, I'm an old friend of the family."

"Nice to meet you," said Chris as genuinely as he could, despite the other man's proprietary attitude to the room, "See you must have 'found' our new address as well then, how lucky."

"Well," he grinned, "can't shirk my responsibilities to an old comrade's family can I?" he chuckled but with little humour at Chris's arrival and intervention, "I was a very good friend of Brian's, best man ah Catherine?" Chris saw that the funny little man was edging close to Cathy, as if trying to stake a claim to her and her family, over and above that of his.

"Yes," Cathy said with a smile, burying her smile in her mug.

"Yes," breathed the man, "One of the finest was our Brian, we were mates for donkeys years." He smiled almost sadly and shook his head.

"At the Legion club," said Danny walking in the room after Chris, in the first display of bad humour they'd had from him in months.

"Oh, hello Daniel," said the man with a rising, almost admonishing tone to his voice, "pleased to see you've had your hair cut." He snapped, and looked Dan up and down. Looking critically he added, "Would have made your father proud, shame you never did it when he was alive." The older man folded his arms as if in triumph. Much in the way Brian would have, Cathy reflected.

"Yes well, him being proud of me would have been a first too wouldn't it." Dan's new confidence started to appear and he smiled at Mike. "Mind you," Dan gave an exaggerated look of thoughtfulness, "If he'd spent less time drinking at the Legion and more time with me, his son, he might have had more reason to be proud of me don't you think?" Dan pulled out a dinning chair and sat next to his cousin Robert with a smile.

"How dare you!" said the man straightening up, Dan stood up in response, his chair flying back with a squeak. The man was surprised at how much taller Danny was than he remembered him, how much he had broadened and tried to step back. "He was proud of you, he told me, said he was looking forward to the day her could bring you to the club and buy you your first pint."

"Oh, well," said Dan, "that almost makes all of the rest his bullying worth it, him wanting to be my mate and buy me a pint when I was eighteen." Said Dan derisively.

"He was..."

"Yeah," said Dan standing, "finest bloke you ever cooked sausages for, you always used to say."

"Now look here," said the older man, "I promised your father..."

"You promised my father what?" said Dan, "You'd see I was brought up right by someone just like him? You going to try to give me a slap and make me sit in the car if I don't behave?"

Dan raised his eyebrows in the tiniest, almost imperceptible challenge.

"That'll do Dan," said Chris with a flick of the eyebrows that said 'don't bite, don't rise, sit down, the old fart isn't worth your energy' – even Cathy could read the look and she tried to hide the pride and love for how he watched over them all.

Danny looked down his nose at the older man, and sniffed.

"Going to use the computer to check something for my homework, nice to see you again Mike, really it was." He added just the hint of a chuckle.

"OK mate," Chris said with another smile, "don't forget to check your emails."

"Cheers Chris." Danny looked down his nose at the older man again and walked to the door picking up a bulging sports bag, "do you have that copy of 'Catch 22' I can borrow?"

"On the second shelf mate," said Chris, "Red cover."

"Ta." The door clunked shut softy, the laughter settling on the boys lips could only be about one thing.

"Computers," the man sighed and shook his head, "practically do the homework for them."

"Oh really?" said Chris, jumping in to defend the both the boy and personal computers, "He's doing English Literature, never found a computer that can write a book report for you."

The man shook his head again,

"Takes the skill out of a job," he said folding his arms again "just the same as when they introduced pocket calculators into my industry."

"And what was your industry?" said Chris pouring himself a cup of tea.

"Engineering," said the man proudly.

"And I suppose that buildings were taller and straighter when you used a slide rule and a note book and pencil."