I Took A Memory To Lunch.

"Would you like to make another?" the woman asked.

"I don't think so. I do believe that what happened to delay me this afternoon has cured my main problem. I've just got to get home as fast as I can and hope that I can cure the other one."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand?" The woman said.

"Don't worry about it. I understand, and that's what's really important." I said before I hung up on the woman. I was in a hurry and I was running very late; several years late I suspected.

Regretfully the start of the Friday rush hour was upon me by the time I had bought my ticket. To add to my woes there was some kind of an incident on the tracks, which delayed my journey even more. Consequently it was half-past-six before I ran out of our local station. Tina habitually put the dinner on the table at half six.

Stopping only to buy the biggest box of Christina's favourite chocolates that I could find, a bottle of her favourite wine, a large bouquet of flowers and a selection of the children's favourite sweets; Christina and I try to discourage them from eating too many sweets, but this evening was special.

Then I dived into a cab -- ignoring the shouts from the people in the queue, about me waiting my turn, and instructed the driver to get me home, pronto.

He looked from the flowers to the wine, chocolates and sweets... and then he looked at me.

"Big trouble?" He enquired

"Deep deep doo-doo!" I replied.

"Been there, got the ef-in' Tee Shirt." The cabbie replied with a smile, before jamming the pedal to the metal so hard, that I fell back violently into my seat.

Rather more quickly than usual, the cab was screeching to a stop outside my front door. I just shoved a tenner at the guy and said thanks as I climbed out of the cab.

"Good luck Gov!" He called after me as I hurried away.

"I'll need it!" I yelled back at him.

I could hear them in the kitchen as I entered the house by the front door. My car was still at the office, so I guessed -- not hearing me pull into the drive -- they would be unaware of my arrival.

Carefully and as quietly as possible I put down my load on the table in the hallway and crept towards the kitchen door, that fortuitously was not quite closed. There I stood and listened to Christina gently and with the usual good-natured humour she used with them, chastising the children about neglecting their table manors.

"Where's daddy this evening?" I heard my youngest asked. "Why isn't he home yet?"

"I don't know sweetheart. He's very busy at work you know." Christina answered. "He'll be here as soon as he can."

"But he's always late nowadays. Its like he doesn't want to eat with us anymore." My eldest chimed in. She hates not to be the centre of attention.

"I told you Daddy's very busy at work at the moment and he has a lot on his mind. But he loves you very much, you know that." Christina replied somewhat unconvincingly.

I thought that it was about time I put in and appearance. So positioning myself in the centre of the doorway, I gently pushed the door open. It was several moments before any of the four realised that I was standing there.

"Oh my god, you made me jump,." Christina said when she finally realised that I was there.

"I wanted to surprise you. Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you that much." I replied.

Which was both a stupid statement and a white lie, because that was what I'd intended to do even; if I hadn't thought about it. Isn't that the sort of thing most fathers do, although most would have probably shouted, "Boo!"

"Why are you so late, daddy?" My eldest demanded. "You've missed eating dinner with us again!"

"I'm sorry sweetheart, but I'm not really hungry; I had a rather long lunch today." I replied.

"Did you go out to a restaurant for lunch daddy?" My eldest daughter persisted.

"I sure did kiddo. A very swish restaurant in London."

"Who did you go with, daddy?"

She wasn't going to give up until I'd told all, but I'd intended to do that anyway. It was just that I wasn't intending to tell the children, it was their mother I needed to explain everything too.

I entered the kitchen and moved to a point where I could look Christina straight in the face.

"I'm sorry I'm late for dinner, Babe, but I took a memory to lunch."

I'm not sure I can explain the expression that came over Christina's face, but somehow I knew that she knew or suspected exactly what I was about to say. That didn't stop her from asking the question though.

"And who was this memory?" Christina's voice had a hard and slightly worried sounding edge to it.

"Marion Holden." I replied.

"Oh!" Christina commented, in a definitely disappointed tone.

Christina was well aware of my long-term relationship with Marion, as was just about everyone else who'd lived in town and had been around at the time.

"Yeah we ran into each other by chance and went to lunch together.

"How is she, as beautiful as ever?" Christina asked.

The children, sensing something was in the air, remained silent.

"More so if anything. Looked to me like she's into all the latest designer clothes as well."

"What did you find to talk about?"

"Ah you know, all kinds of stuff. I learnt a lot from her today really. Things I should have known all along but for some reason I had forgotten."

Christina had turned and sort of cocked her head to one side. You know how some folks do that when they are listening closely and trying to understand what you're saying.

"What kind of things could you possibly have learnt from her?"

"Well for a start that it was the..." I stopped speaking for a moment, whilst I did a quick bit of mental arithmetic; never one of my best subjects at school. "Sixth luckiest day of my life. The day I broke up with her."

"The sixth?"

"Yeah My first was the day I met you. My second, the day I persuaded you to marry me. The third, forth and fifth were the days you presented me with our dinner guests here. So that makes it the sixth luckiest day of my life when I finally ditched that bitch. My god, was that one lucky escape!"

"I don't understand."

"Babe, I'm sorry, things have been getting me down for a year or so now and... like an idiot... I don't know I had started wondering what might have happened if..."

Christina suddenly smiled "I know. You've developed the habit of talking in your sleep."

"Oh shi..." I began to say, then I remembered that there were six little ears sitting expectantly the other side of the table. "Very much?" I enquired.

"Enough!"

"Oh B...alderdash. I'm sorry. But I suppose it explains..."

It was pretty obvious to me what had happened and my mind was playing with the scenario of how I would have reacted, had I heard Christina mumbling some other guy's name in her sleep. Pretty much the same way that she'd been behaving towards me lately I hoped. But knowing myself as I did know myself, I suspected that I would have gone loopy. But Christina was talking.

"We can't control what we dream about, dear. Dreams are just random thoughts that your brain is trying to make sense of."

"Looking back at them now, Babe I don't think they were what you'd call dreams. I think they're best described as nightmares."

Suddenly a smile on Christina's face turned into a grin. "That bad was she?"

"Oh my god, worse than you can ever imagine. Selfish and by the sounds of it a complete..." I couldn't finish that sentence, well not with the children present. "On her third... or was it forth... divorce as well."

"I never did like her; she was one of the girls... Well you always thought she had an ulterior motive when she deigned to speak to you. And she had you of course!"

"Why should Marion going out with me have any bearing on whether you liked her or not?"

"Why do you think?"

"Aaah, should I feel flattered?"

"That sort of depends." Christina said, rising from her seat and stepping into my arms.

"What are you two talking about?" My... our eldest suddenly interrupted.

"Love my sweet. Your daddy and I love each other very much." Christina replied, without the slightest hesitation.

"Oh, are you two going to get all soppy on us now?"

"I don't believe we've been getting soppy enough lately sweetheart," I replied, "and I think that's been the biggest problem around here. But I think... or I rather I hope that I've cured that problem."

"How did you do that daddy?"

"I took a memory to lunch, my sweet, and learned that memories, sometimes, aren't what they're cracked up to be."

Life goes on.