Five Minutes

"Look, I don't know where to begin with apologising for my behaviour last night. I was rude, boorish and so far out of line it's beyond measuring. If you'd prefer me to leave I will, I don't want to ruin your weekend." A tear ran down his left cheek as he was saying all this.

Being a bloke and having spent five years in the Navy as a young man, I'd like to say younger man, but I know I'm not fooling anyone, I have a bit of a problem with displays of emotion and did what any normal man would do and waved it away as not a problem, we've all had a few and made tits of ourselves.

Wendy, being a girl and more in touch with her emotions or something like that, ran over and gave him a bit of a quick hug, telling him we didn't want him to go anywhere, and he had nothing to apologise for.

Diane came down to join us allowing Grahame to escape to the shower. She tried apologising as well, I knew what to say now and told her exactly the same as Wendy had said to her husband, I meant it, but it also meant I looked sensitive and sympathetic. Which of course I am. Wendy knew exactly what I was doing and laughed silently at me behind Diane's back.

"Sorry Wendz, what was that?" I asked her, causing Diane to turn round to face her friend.

Wendy did a swift impression of the cat caught with a goldfish in it's mouth and improvised quickly to get out of her embarrassment.

"I said, why don't we all do a couple of activities together and book a table for dinner at the diner?"

Nicely played, babe, nicely played.

We got on the phone and booked a morning's session on the tree-top trail and tried to get an afternoon's clay pigeon shooting for us all, I don't think Wendy or Diane were devastated by the news that there were only two places available so they booked a spa session and left me and Grahame to go and destroy bits of pottery.

Grahame came down and seemed happy enough with the plans, so we set off to grab breakfast at the pancake restaurant. Grahame seemed much better company than he had been the other times I'd met him, contributing to the conversation, cracking jokes and either showing a genuine interest in what Wendy and I had to say or doing the best job of faking it I've ever seen.

The treetop trail was exactly what you'd expect, a series of climbs and rope bridges taking you thirty feet up into the trees, with a couple of zipwires and a final controlled drop to the ground. The whole thing took us around two hours to complete, at the end of which we headed to the central bar for an early lunch.

I tried ordering a pint to go with my beef sandwich, but Wendy pointed out I was handling weaponry in the afternoon and was it such a good idea. One large Pepsi later and a couple of coffees after lunch we split into our two groups, the girls going off to get massaged, steamed, hot rocked and mudded, Grahame and I went to blow the living bejeesus out of those clay mothers.

We were lined up and given the safety brief, we were in a group of six with a father son pairing and two younger lads probably in their early twenties.

Once we'd been told how to avoid killing each other the chief instructor gathered us round and asked who had any shooting experience. Ordinarily I'd keep quiet but the youngster in the father son group piped up with "Air rifle, Air Pistol,.22 rifle in cadets" which was great, I think there's nothing wrong with children being taught about weaponry in a controlled environment. Where it went wrong was when the two lads laughed at him "Cadets, no man. We fired a Glock, and a Colt Python and an Uzi on a range in Vegas last year, wicked." So, when it came to my turn I listed everything I'd fired in the Navy.

"Browning 9mm, Glock 17, SA80, M16, MinMi, GPMG, Fifty Cal, Rarden 30mm Cannon, Chain Gun, SeaCat missile, Sea Viper Missile, Tomahawk Cruise Missile."

The son was looking at me in awe, his father was chuckling, and the two lads were looking distinctly second best.

Grahame's turn surprised me.

"Peacemaker Colt, Winchester rifle, Smith and Wesson.357 Magnum, Heckler and Koch MP5. All blanks."

I was about to ask him where all that came from when the instructor gave us the "Good, a nice mix of abilities there. I doubt we'll need to shoot any clays in Kabul, so the Cruise missile probably won't be any help and blanks probably won't be much use to us, but interesting to see the range we have."

We each got twenty shots in the teaching phase then another ten in a competition, the two lads asked if anyone wanted to make it interesting and put a fiver on the result. Grahame, the dad and I agreed, and we each gave our money to the son to hold. I was quietly confident and went first, knocking four of the first five out of the sky. The son was second and hit a creditable three, as did his father. The first lad got four, as did the second and they started trying to play mind games. "Ooh mister, where's your cruise missile now then?" and stuff like that.

Grahame stepped up and dusted five out of five, taking the lead into round two.

Feeling less confident I stepped up with another four, probably not good enough. The son got a solidly consistent three, his dad got a four and then it was the cocky lads. First one was clearly not able to handle the pressure and only got two, which I pointed out was the worst individual score of the event and perhaps he should get down to hie local air cadets for some lessons. His mate was slightly better with three.

Grahame stepped in again and proved he had wire guided bullets by demolishing all five, which earned him a round of applause, and twenty-five pounds. Well technically twenty as five was his own stake. I was particularly impressed when he told the young boy to give him ten and keep the rest, shaking his hand and telling him not to spend it all on beer.

His dad joined in the handshaking and announced, "I'll let him buy me a beer, but the rest will probably end up on his savings for a new combat jacket."

Grahame handed me back my fiver, which I passed back to the boy telling him "No better piece of kit for a young man of your age to be spending his money on." Then he and I had a little chat about my time in the Navy, mainly on type 45 destroyers, and how I'd been to most places between Portsmouth and Auckland both ways round the world by the time I was twenty-two. He had his heart set on life in the Army, but I like to think I planted a seed of an idea to look at the senior service instead. After all, as I pointed out, James Bond was Navy. Grahame then handed his fiver back as well, saying it was worth the money just to beat the two cocky twats that had slunk off after losing. All in all, one happy young man.

Grahame and I decided the best place to wait for the girls was in the bar, it was warm, convenient and had seats. And beer.

The first couple of pints disappeared in an exchange of stories about shooting things, Grahame knew I'd been in the Navy but hadn't realised I'd been a weapons specialist and had actually pushed the button to fire several cruise missiles into Taliban strongholds.

I quizzed him about the guns he'd fired, and it turned out he'd done a gap year in the US and got some work as an extra in Hollywood, while he didn't get any actual lines having an English accent meant he was often asked to make background filler noise when they needed an exotic or villainous atmosphere.

I was seriously impressed and told him so.

"So, been in anything big or that we might have seen? Did you meet anyone famous?"

He laughed

"Trouble is as an extra, or 'Background Artist' to be exact, you often don't know. You turn up at around six in the morning, get put in a costume that usually isn't clean, sit round drinking coffee until your scene. Run around or stand still depending on the requirements of the day, break for lunch and then get paid off at around six in the evening. If you're working for an A lister they come down once or twice to say hello, so they don't get a rep for being arseholes, so for example Matt Damon asked how my burger was and Sigourney Weaver one stole one of my fries, but I have no idea what films they were for."

I chinked my glass with him, "But that's one hell of a claim to fame, Ripley nicked my chips. Well done."

I was really warming to this version of Grahame, he was friendly, generous, funny. All the things you want from your friends.

By pint three he was getting a lot more introspective.

"About yesterday," he started, I tried to cut him off saying it was nothing, but he obviously wanted to talk it through, so I took the precaution of ordering two more pints and a bowl of chips in case Sigourney Weaver turned up and settled in to listen.

"About yesterday, I'm sorry. I was an absolute arsehole. The trouble is I know when I'm doing it and I know why, I just can't help myself."

I nodded sagely, offering trite advice like you might get in a fortune cookie, "Well if you know what the problem is you're halfway to fixing it surely."

He looked at me, resisted the urge to suggest I get a job writing for a greetings card manufacturer and carried on.

"I was what you might call a late starter. I went to America at the age of nineteen a virgin, and despite being in California, working in movies, with an English accent I failed to get laid until I was back here in my second year at Kingston Polytechnic. Until I met Diane I'd had full sex twice, half a blowjob and two wanks, not from me.

I met her and fell for her so heavily you wouldn't believe it. She was, is still, the most beautiful woman I've ever known, no offence to Wendy. I mooned around after her for weeks until she noticed me and asked me out for a coffee, I still don't know why she asked me out, I'm just eternally grateful she did. She was the making of me, in a couple of weeks I went from being a scared, slightly nerdy boy to a confident young man.

Three weeks after we met she took me back to her flat and showed me what sex was really all about. I remember it as if it was yesterday, she..." I held up a hand,

"Over sharing mate. I get it, she was your first proper girlfriend, and you married her. That's fantastic. How long's it been?"

Grahame was starting to tear up a bit, to give him a bit of privacy I pointed at a free booth across the bar, picked up my pint and Sigourney's chips and relocated.

"It's been eight years, nearly ten since we met. They've been ten really good years; the trouble is it's what happened before we met that I can't handle.

Pretty early on she sat me down and told me she'd been a bit wild in her early days, I was so smitten at the time I said nothing mattered and as long as we were together that's all I cared about. For five or six years it was, but I started wondering what she meant by 'Wild'.

I knew she'd been close with Wendy since, well, forever really, and I always wondered if she's been part of Di's wild times. It always meant I was a bit off with you both, jealousy really I think.

Last year it came to a head, we had a screaming row, I insisted she told me exactly what she'd done before I met her, so she did, and it nearly broke me. I don't think it was particularly outrageous, I mean, some of was a bit...how much do you know about Wendy at university?"

He seemed concerned that he'd blurted too much, maybe causing problems for me and Wendy.

"We talked about it, I know she and Di had a couple of occasions where they were in the same room while they both had sex with their boyfriends, I know .... A bit more" suddenly I had the same thought.

His turn to confirm how much he knew, "Yeah, that one time they swapped, and Di had a bit of a three-way then watched Wendy and Derek."

I gave a rueful smile, "You're one up on me mate. I knew what they'd done, didn't know his name though."

Grahame snorted, "Know his name? Met him. We were at the cricket in Headingly a couple pf years back and I turned round to see Di being snogged by some random bloke, turns out he's her ex-boyfriend, Derek. He's married to a Welsh girl called Sharon. Quite cute but I felt good because Di's way prettier. Then I felt bad about being so petty."

He went on, "How do you handle it, knowing what Wendy did before you knew her?"

I looked around, uncomfortable about sharing emotions and feelings. I'd felt calmer under fire from Iranian gunboats (never made the papers) than I was right now.

"I think spending six years in the Navy helped. I went to sea from nineteen to twenty-four, and I spent most of that time shagging my way round the world. There were a group of us on HMS Mandrake that would go out on the pull together, we'd spring for one hotel room, and all end up having a massive shag fest back in the room. Quite often money was changing hands with the girls, occasionally other things would get passed. Several of the guys would go bare back and come back with Chlamydia or once syphilis. I always went in wrapped up, it's a chargeable offence to catch a dose, self-inflicted wound you see. Can be up to a week in the brig, 28 days loss of pay or three months restriction of duties.

Thing is, I did plenty of things that I wouldn't necessarily want to tell my mother, I'm not ashamed of any of it, I was a young man having a great time. Same for Wendy and Di, you probably don't have the same historical armour plating. "

"No," he disagreed with me, that's OK, he's allowed to. "It's not so much that, I think it's a bit of jealousy. She did these exciting things, and I'll be honest, thinking about it is a massive turn on, she did these things just not with me. I know I should be thankful she's with me, and I am, I truly am, but part of me wishes I could have been part of the crazy years."

We sat in silence. Everything that needed to be said had been said, even someone as insensitive as me realised that to go from the conversation we'd just had to talking about the potential moves in the upcoming transfer window or the impending retirement of Valentino Rossi was beyond inappropriate. Fortunately, the girls arrived shortly after that, unfortunately while we may have been bonding and baring our souls to each other we were still four no, five pints to the good.

"Hi sweets, I love you." Wendy wrinkled her nose, what a pretty nose I thought. She's really pretty. I told her. "You're really pretty. So's Diane. Really really pretty. Aren't they Grahame? really pretty."

Grahame agreed, "Yeah, they're the prettiest girls here. We're lucky the two prettiest girls in the pub are with us."

The two prettiest girls in the pub looked at each other, then at us. In unison they told us "You're pissed," then grabbed an arm each and heaved us onto our feet. "Come on. Back to the lodge for you. It's five now, we've got until seven thirty, so you can sit in the sauna for an hour to sweat all that out."

We were outside now; it was getting dark and windy. Grahame turned to the nearest pretty girl.

"You coming in the sauna too? We should sauna in the nuddy you know." It turned out to be Wendy, but the answer would have been the same whichever it had been.

"Yes, of course. We'll get back, you two get in the sauna then we'll get some drinks and join you."

That put a spring in our combined over a gallon of beer infused stagger, the thought of both Diane and Wendy naked in the sauna was quite a tempting one.

I turned to Grahame, he was sitting, leaning back against the wall of the sauna, his towel was hanging open exposing his gonads to the world, well not the world. Me.

I was in a similar state, the beer was still coursing round my veins, slurring my speech and blurring my vision.

"I don' think they're joining us. For such pretty things they fucking liars mate."

He grunted. "Yeah. Liars. Pretty fucking liars."

We shouted "Liars. Liars pants on liars." And started laughing uncontrollably. I was desperate to pee, so I staggered out, leaving my towel behind, into the lodge, through the kitchen where the two wives were chatting and into the downstairs loo. I shook, flushed and washed then wandered back, pausing in the kitchen to point accusingly. "Liars."

Diane maintained eye contact with me throughout and passed me two pints of water. "Here, drink one, take the other to Grahame. MAKE HIM DRINK IT AND SEND HIM BACK FOR MORE. With his towel would be good."

I did as I was told and sometime later, he went back to get more water. I noticed just after he'd closed the door he'd forgotten his towel, so I grabbed it and followed him into the kitchen. I stood behind my new best friend as naked as the day we were both born and vaguely waved his towel around. "Forgot this mate." He looked blearily at me, then it, then the girls then back at the towel. "Thanks mate" and threw it over his shoulder.

We both drank another print of water, Wendy pointed at the clock on the wall. "Big hand on twelve. Little hand on 8. We're hungry. You two, get some trousers on and stay here. We're going for a burger."

"Get some chips" I squawked. "Sigourney Weaver might want some." Grahame and I thought this was comedy gold and collapsed on the sofa, one of us flicked through and found a film that consisted of cars smashing into each other, or they may have been robots. Or people dressed as cars, or robots, or space aliens. I'll be honest, I have no idea what it was about, but it was colourful and loud and every now and then a girl in a short skirt screamed or punched someone. Best film I've seen in ages.

It was three in the morning when I woke up, still naked, cuddled up to a naked Grahame on the sofa. A spare blanket was draped over us, it was very itchy, and I had a massive headache.

I shook his shoulder, "Wake up Grahame. It's three am. It's time to go to bed mate." I spotted Wendy's handbag on the kitchen table, she always has antacids and paracetamol in there, I swallowed two of each with another pint of water and made Grahame do the same. He was less awake than me, coming round slightly he looked at me and at himself. "You're naked. I'm naked. We're naked." He seemed confused.

"Yes mate. We'll never speak of this again, OK?"

He nodded vigorously, then clearly regretted it right away, reaching for the pills I was holding out to him.

We both crawled into our respective beds next to our respective wives where I for one snored fit to raise the dead until nine thirty the next morning. I know this because I had a bruise in my side where Wendy kept bashing me to make, sorry, try to make me shut up, and because she told me so next morning.

She did bring me a coffee and two more paracetamol though, so I wasn't entirely in the shit.

"Morning Lover" she greeted me with a kiss. "You better today?"

"I felt pretty good yesterday, couldn't you tell?"

She laughed, it cut straight through my head and reduced me to groaning as the pain subsided.

"How can this hurt so much, I know it was five pints but come on, I've done much more than that before."

I got the look. "Five pints? What about the case of craft lager that you two polished off while Di and I were out at the burger joint?"

Oh yes. Something was stirring in there. Beer and crisps on the sofa.

Never going to think about that again.

I turned serious, beckoning her in close. "Grahame and I had a serious heart to heart, he told me why he's been so weird with us, well, you. Did Diane mention anything?"

She lay next to me on the bed, "Yes, he's got a big green-eyed monster on his back. She's at her wits end, it's close to breaking them up. She loves him to bits, but if he can't get over this she thinks they might end up splitting."

"He's crazy about her, I saw some of the real Grahame yesterday, he's a top bloke. I thought maybe you two might have swapped bedrooms last night, to you know, give him something crazy to remember. Ow, Fuck, that hurt."

She shook her fist under my nose. "It was bloody supposed to. Point one, honestly, do you live in a permanent porn film or something? You are the shallowest man I've ever met, and I've met premier league footballers. Point two, do you think either of you would have been capable of having memorable crazy sex last night? Or remembering it afterwards? Point three, he wants to do something crazy with his wife, not with someone else's wife."