OK Ch. 10-12

She had apologised so many times she lost count, begging that they invite John back into the circle, and she was happy when they got back to her and flagged up success.

As the second string to the campaign, she and Susan had made sure they were at the Griffin every Friday, and that now John saw them there.

Each week she hoped against hope that John would come over and say that all was forgiven, but it did not happen. This last time she had sat at his table and he had thanked her, but no more. She was despondent. Again Susan came to her aid.

"Time to ratchet up the campaign," she said as they sipped their wine.

"But how?"

"It'll cost you,"

"If it brings him back, it'll be worth it."

"Jessica."

"Pardon?"

"I enquired from Tom, and John hasn't seen any woman since he came back from London. Give him Jessica."

"Give him Jessica? You must be joking! Jessica? She's sex on legs! If she gets her claws into him, I'll never get him back."

"Don't be stupid, girl. Jessica doesn't do permanent. She does flings. We talk to Jessica and explain exactly what we want her to do. She has to let him know that you sanction a fling with him because he must be frustrated."

"I don't think I could stand the thought of John and her, you know, together. It's too big a risk."

"Look, you're not getting anywhere with the plan so far. This will show him how much you love him. For crying out loud, Carol, he's shagged half of London from what I've heard. What's one more?"

"I'm not sure-"

"Sweetheart, you know John. Think. What's his likely reaction, at best, at worst?"

Carol thought. She thought hard. After a prolonged silence, "At best? He'll be so impressed he'll turn down her offer. At worst they'll have a fling. At very worst they'll get married!" This last brought a laugh from Susan, and Carol had to grin.

Jessica was enthusiastic about the plan and happened to have tickets for a concert for the Wednesday.

So John's next invitation came not from a couple, but from Jessica. She 'happened' to have tickets to a concert on the Wednesday of that week.

John had not been to a concert since leaving London. In addition Jessica was a tall devastating blonde woman with impossibly long legs and impressive cleavage surmounted by a pretty, delicate face and blue, blue eyes. He accepted. Everything she wore accentuated her formidable charms.

They had a pre-concert dinner near the concert hall. The orchestra excelled themselves and the pair went for a post concert drink nearer home. Then John drove her to her flat and parked in the block's car park.

"Jessica, that was a lovely evening, thank you."

They sat side by side looking at the flats.

"Coming in?" she asked. He noticed she did not use the standard invitation 'for a coffee'. Jessica was known for her direct approach to her men. If anything he was surprised she did not say, "Fancy a shag?"

He hesitated; she continued.

"Look, like all the rest I believed the lies about you. You'll be sick of apologies, so I'm not giving you one, at least not verbally." She sighed and leant towards him allowing her tits to dangle almost in full view. He could not miss them, nor did he want to.

"However, physically - I could give you one!" She said breathily, with a sultry smile, allowing the double entendre to stand.

He saw the point (or twin points) immediately. "Thanks Jess, but I'm not sure it's a good idea."

"You're not in a relationship are you? Carol said you were solo at the moment."

"Carol said?" He was amazed. What did that mean?

"Yes," she said. "She's looking for ways to 'help you get over what she did', I think that was how she put it, you know, what you said she had to do to have a chance with you."

"So she sent you? I don't see how-"

"You don't? For a Managing Director you're pretty thick, John. She apologised to everyone and asked them to make you feel part of the crowd again. You know that but you haven't really reacted all that positively, now have you?"

"And she just happens to be at the Griffin on Fridays?"

"Obviously! She wants you to remember what she looks like! To remember your time together. All part of her plan. You did tell her she had to 'get you over what she did', didn't you? Surely you expected her to make a plan?"

"Well, yes, I suppose so, but you?"

"It was something you said. You said she'd been with another man and-"

"So this would make us even?"

"No, silly. She said you'd been with women in London and that set her thinking. As I said, as far as she knows you haven't been with anyone since you came back.

"She thought you might be frustrated. She knows she can't help personally, no matter how much she may want to (and believe me John, you've no idea how much she wants to), but she wants you to feel, how can I put it? Relaxed, satisfied."

She gave him a broad and cheeky grin, or more likely, the grin of a broad offering the delights of the pleasures of her cheeks (both sets).

John stared at her amazed.

"Why you? I mean you could be with anyone. You're any man's wet dream."

"Why thank you kind sir! She knows I'm, shall we say, keen for new experiences, and she knows you fancy me. You do fancy me, don't you?" She asked demurely, a hand on his arm.

He smiled and nodded, "But getting you to... I mean... Competition?" John felt he was losing track of the conversation.

"She hates the idea of you with someone else, especially me, but she loves you, you silly lummox. In any case, Carol and me, we're mates, she knows I wouldn't try to steal you, even though she says you were always blisteringly good in the sack."

"She said that?" John grinned. Like any man he found such praise was intensely gratifying!

She nodded with a grin in her turn. "So, I wouldn't turn down a test drive!" she giggled.

John sat, trying to make sense of it all. At length Jessica spoke.

"I'm just starting to get the faintest idea we're not going to be spending the night together."

John started, as if woken from a sleep. "Pardon?"

"You and me, tonight sweetheart, horizontal mambo, not likely any more?"

John laughed. He leaned over and kissed her on her lips, long and sensuously. Then he sat back to enjoy her dazed expression and her heaving breasts.

"More?" she asked, turning towards him.

He did the same again. Same result.

"She's right," Jessica said thoughtfully. "If the rest of it is as good as that, no wonder she's pulling out all the stops."

John continued to stare at her, still confused.

She grinned. "So?"

"I think I need to go home and think this through."

"Good, I'm glad you said that. Mind you, if you'd said yes, I'd be dragging you up the stairs by your hair right now!"

"You're very kind, Jess. You're the best sort of friend to Carol, and to me."

"Aw, shucks," another grin. "Now you go home and relieve the tension!"

He coloured, she laughed.

They kissed again, this time like friends.

"Bye," she said.

"Bye," he said. "And thanks for the evening."

She got out of the car, and as she shut the car door, "I must be mad!" she moaned, and walked away, with an exaggerated sway of her hips, waving when she reached the door, and blowing him a kiss. He laughed and blew one back.

--

Chapter Eleven

John drove home from his evening's conversation with Jessica with a lot on his mind. There was the usual male thing, feeling a fool that he had turned down a night with Jessica who, everyone knew, was not only strikingly beautiful but a tigress in bed. He laughed at the thought that she was one tiger he wouldn't have minded eating! Then he wondered who 'everyone' actually was.

If he had been in London he would never have given it a second thought. So why now? He knew of course: it was Carol.

He smiled to himself as he thought of her scurrying round all their friends, putting right the wrongs she had created, and inciting them to rehabilitate him.

Then this last effort on her part, offering him a beautiful and athletic woman with a reputation for wild and satisfying sex. How could he take Jessica to bed knowing that Carol had set it up?

Then he wondered with a mental groan, why couldn't he? Of course deep down he knew the answer to that one as well.

He arrived home and went straight for the whisky. He opened the patio door and sat at the table. The thunderstorms earlier in the day had wetted the ground thoroughly and everything smelt fresh and clean. The sky was dark with a tinge of greenish blue in the north west where the sun had set an hour or more before.

He reminded himself it was only a week to the longest day. Midsummer. He had a vague memory of parties to celebrate Midsummer's Day, and wondered how he would celebrate it, probably alone at home.

He suddenly felt tired, and to be sure it was nearly midnight, so he shut up shop and went to bed, promising himself to think about Carol's campaign at more length in the near future.

On the Friday meet at the Griffin, Carol was not there. John noticed her absence and felt cheated: he wanted to talk to her about Jessica.

Leo, Dan and Flynn were there though.

"No Dermott tonight?" asked John.

"He's been a bit off with us," said Leo. "Moody, you know. Didn't want to come."

"Ryan and Karen are hosting this year's Midsummer's party," Dan said to John, "You going?"

"Do I know them?" John asked. "The names don't ring a bell."

"Of course," said Leo, "you won't know them, they came on the scene after you went to London. I think it was Liam that knew them and they came to a party with Dermott. Nice couple. They've bought a hotel out Stockport way. It's struggling at the moment, but it won't stop them throwing a big party."

"Yeah," said Flynn, "you should go, it'll be a gas. There's going to be a marquee in the beer garden and a barbecue and hog roast. Dancing in the marquee and club dance floor till very late."

"Not been invited," said John.

"That's not surprising if they don't know you!" said Tom with a smile. "They may have heard of you, but they don't know you."

"I'm sure they won't mind," said Flynn. "There'll be a lot of folk there: just turn up."

"They know Carol?" John asked.

"Yeah," said Leo. "She was with Liam then." He looked uncomfortable at bringing up Carol's time with that man.

"And Carol is definitely going to be there," Dan added. "I'm sure she'd like to see you there with all our crowd."

"No Flynn, you're forgetting, I'm the one everyone hates, at least the ones Carol hasn't talked to. It's only the ones Carol has got to who have changed their attitude, like you Flynn."

"Oh, come on, John," pleaded Leo, "You'll be fine. Carol will be there, I heard her telling Susan."

"No way," said John doggedly. "I'll not go if I'm not invited."

The group knew better than to argue, shrugged and the conversation turned to other things.

John did the usual Saturday chores: shopping for food for the rest of the week, cleaning his car (he never used a car wash, not trusting them to do the job thoroughly enough for him), and doing his washing and minimum ironing.

In the evening he phoned his parents, to be told they were leaving next weekend for their extended tour of Europe, and would see him in the Autumn.

"Come over for lunch tomorrow, son," invited his mother.

"Love to," he said.

Saturday evening he settled with a novel, a handy bottle of whisky and Mozart, but before long his thought drifted away from the story onto Carol.

The more he thought, the more he admired her tenacity. He knew perfectly well that she had been deceived and set up, but he could not get over her refusal to talk to him, and the violence of her rejection of him.

He felt resentful at the loss of their relationship and their marriage. The memory of his three years in London and on his assignments, when to all intents and purposes he was busy, successful and sexually sated, but where in his quieter moments he longed for his ex-wife, made him burn with anger that he was never given a chance with her.

Now he knew she had been enjoying life with another man in another man's bed, though she had said she'd longed for him until she thought he was beyond her.

He felt he could now look back on those feelings and let them go, but he wondered about the real character of the woman he had once loved. Once loved? Yes, he thought, once.

He was feeling depressed when he went to bed, and the empty house seemed to echo and amplify his solitary state.

After lunch on Sunday, he and his father were sitting out on their terrace drinking their coffee and sipping their cognacs.

"Something on your mind?" asked his Dad.

"Carol," John said, and no more. He knew his father and trusted his wisdom.

"Mum said you were trying to get her to see her mistake."

"I did."

"So?"

So John told him everything about the evidence he had accumulated, Carol's distress and his ultimatum.

"So you gave her what you thought was an impossible task?" His father laughed at this and took another sip of his cognac.

John nodded sheepishly.

"But was it?" his father raised an eyebrow. John realised, not for the first time, how perceptive he was.

"No Dad, it wasn't." He went on to describe the invitations and apologies, all choreographed by Carol, and finally the evening with Jessica.

"Got to admire her," his dad said, sitting back with a gentle smile. John nodded, but his brow was furrowed.

"I just find her response when she thought I was guilty, vicious and violent. I mean not even letting me know what I was guilty of?"

His father was relaxed. "Why would she react so strongly? Shock? Upset? Why?"

"That's what's puzzling me."

"Look at it another way. Why are you still so angry, so upset? Why is she and what she's doing taking up so much of your attention? Why are you still so deeply involved with it all? You've been divorced for a quite a long time."

His mother was passing the patio door.

"That's easy," she said with a laugh. "I'm surprised you can't see it, John. Perhaps you're too close to it, perhaps you are too wrapped up in the hurt of it."

John looked at her, puzzled.

"Love, darling! Love!" she said and flounced out of sight into the house.

John sat still and thought.

His father was still smiling as if to say, 'You'll get there in the end!'

He remembered something Carol had said. He had glossed over it, but somehow it had lodged in his unconscious mind. What was it? She went overboard with hatred because she loved him so much? Didn't she say she missed him the whole time?

She had kept Liam at arm's length until she thought John had settled with another woman? If that was so, perhaps she had loved him all the time, even if it was a weird way of showing it.

"I see you've got it," his father said. "Another thing, son. Don't forget she's a victim too. Malley and her brothers manipulated her. They orchestrated everything, and kept you away from her."

It triggered another memory of what she said. When she learned he was in hospital she wanted to run to him, and, yes, it was Liam who dissuaded her. John frowned with anger.

"What's up, son? You're angry. Remembered something?"

"Not Clare, that toe-rag Liam. She wanted to visit me in hospital and he turned her away from the idea. If she'd come and talked I'm sure we'd still be married, I really am sure of that."

"Did you say 'we'd still be married' son?" his mother said, as she stepped onto the terrace from the living room.

"Well, yes, she divorced me Mum, not the other way round. If I'd known the evidence then, I could have convinced her. We'd still be married."

"Well, my lad," she said, "You do know the evidence now and you've convinced her as well. What's your next move? She's a lovely girl; we've always loved her. She was fiercely loyal to you."

"Fiercely?"

"Oh, yes, and she was so happy with you, she glowed! She'd never let anyone get away with a disparaging remark about you. I can remember a few times. She told me how thankful she was you'd 'chosen' her."

"I was as well, you know, but I always thought she'd 'chosen' me! It hit me so hard when she changed so abruptly - in the space of one morning!"

"So," said his mother, "She was so happy and you were as well. You could both be just as happy again, you know. Why not?"

He loved his mother for her continual optimism in every circumstance, and began to wonder if on this occasion she could be right as well. Was there a possibility that he could recover some sort of a relationship with Carol?

Later, as he sat in his chair back home after his visit, he replayed the conversations during the day. He rehearsed the arguments against an approach to Carol which he had made many times before. They did not seem to carry so much weight with him any more; his parents had covered all the salient points and then set them aside.

She was as much a victim as he was. Of course in reality he had always known that, but now it became real to him. He realised even more clearly that he had been so wrapped up in his own hurt that it had blinded him to hers. He remembered how destroyed she was when she came to see him the morning after she found out her error. He now felt humbled at her efforts to rehabilitate him, and guilty at his reaction, or lack of it.

At that moment he wanted her back. She had kept out of his way, but made sure that he saw her regularly at the pub, but the steady procession of ex-friends asking forgiveness and inviting him to eat or drink with them were a testimony to her efforts. Yes, he was sure: he wanted her back, but gradually. He would invite her on dates and they would take it a little at a time.

He made a decision. He would phone her the next evening.

--

On the previous Thursday evening, after her evening out with John, Jessica had made her report to Carol and Susan. Kathleen Cannon and Freya Dawkins were there having a girls' night in, the respective husband and partner of the latter two having gone to a 20-20 cricket match. Both women and their other halves had entertained John after Carol had appraised them of the truth.

Jessica enlightened them as to the success or otherwise of the plan.

"Last night, ladies, he turned me down," she said portentously with a rueful smile. "Big blow to my ego, girls. I told him the whole tale. I think he was dead impressed. He went away to think about what you've done. I think you're winning, girlfriend."

"Where do I go from here?" Carol asked, of no one in particular. "Any ideas?"

"Firstly you don't go to the Griffin tomorrow," said Susan. "You need to back off a little. Play him."

"A party?" suggested Kathy. "You could throw a party, you know, welcoming him back."

"Yes!" Susan enthused. "Show him how you behave in a party setting, waiting for him."

"Make him jealous?" asked Freya, always something of a flirt at parties as everyone knew. "You know, dancing close with other guys?"

"No!" Carol exclaimed. "That would put him right off. He needs to see how faithful I am."

"Hey," Susan remembered. "The Midsummer party! Ryan and Karen's turn this year: they've gone all out at the hotel. How they'll afford it the way things are going there, I don't know. I think they're selling tickets, sort of a way of advertising, drumming up business. Friends are getting in free, though I think it would be nice to give a donation. Carol, you should go and see them. I don't think they know John, he needs an invite."

The others concurred with the new plan; they would all be there. There was a feeling of rising excitement.

When Carol went round to the hotel on the following Tuesday, she found that Ryan was away at an hotel holiday exhibition, but Karen welcomed her and gave her coffee.