Sod's Law Pt. 06

"David, he... I don't..."

Now I could tell she was really upset. I was completely mystified. What did the woman really want? Hadn't she done enough?

"He what? You don't what?" I said, turning to her aggressively. "Are you saying he isn't your lover? Hasn't been banging you for months? Seems like it to me: you are getting married to him after all."

Another silence as she stared into my eyes, and her lip was quivering! I gave up: I had lost the plot if indeed there was one!

"I was so lonely without you," she pleaded. "My whole life was empty without you - there was no possible way back to you, and he was kind, comforting."

"So you slept with him in short order? Now you're deeply in love. Fine for you!"

"No... I mean..."

"You are or you're not, which?"

"David, please!"

I was angry, resentful, and downright jealous. Why was she prolonging the agony? "For God's sake Helen, can't you answer a simple question? Why are you torturing me like this? Either you're in love or you're not. If you're not, why the fuck are you marrying him?"

"Please, David, talk to me, don't be like this. I'm in pieces now. I wish I'd done something... I just didn't have the energy I was so depressed..." She began to weep anguished sobs. Oh, hell!

We'd gone from the most acrimonious shouting match I'd ever had with a woman, or anyone come to that, to her weeping piteously. From my limited experience I knew I could not cope with a weeping woman no matter how I felt about her, though I was not at all sure where we were going with this: she'd all but destroyed me, because now she was surely in love with Barry. But she wasn't going.

It was blindingly obvious to me now: I still loved her with all my heart and it was completely hopeless. She was breaking me up all over again. She was marrying Barry.

"Come on, Helen," I said gently, moving toward the door. "Time for you to go. You must have an awful lot to do ready for tomorrow."

"David..." She was begging urgently now, the tears still running down her cheeks.

"Yes, my darling?" Whoops! That slipped out. I clearly shouldn't have said that - her sobbing renewed its intensity.

"Helen, what the fuck's the matter? You're supposed to be happy about tomorrow."

"David," she began again, then sat down at the table and covered her face in her hands. "I can't go through with the wedding. Not after last night."

My spirits surged.

"Why not?" I asked. "You've just told me you don't love me any more, you love him-"

"I didn't! I never said that!" When did I say that?" She looked up in confusion, and her sobbing took on even more intensity.

"You said you loved me, past tense; then you said you didn't stop loving me after you disappeared, again past tense. You didn't say you haven't stopped."

"I didn't mean that!" she cried. "I do still love you, I never stopped. That's why I had to keep you away, I knew I wouldn't have had the strength to leave you again if we'd met. I didn't know then what you'd found out. I knew being incestuous would have destroyed us in the end. It would have been worse still."

"So, the wedding's off, then? You've told Barry and your parents?"

"Well, no, not yet. I wanted to see you first."

"So the weddings not off."

"No, I mean yes... I mean..."

"What you mean is, you want to see if muggins here still wants you, before you cut your losses with Barry, is that it? If I don't want to try again with you, you'll go ahead with the wedding. Is that what you're saying? Because if you are, you might as well leave now and go and marry him."

The sobbing restarted. "David please! I love you, I can't face things without you now I know. I've always loved you, but if you're beyond me... You don't want me..."

"But you do love Barry," I said.

"Yes, but not enough, now I know we are not related. You're all that counts, always have been for me. If you don't want me I suppose I'll marry Barry and do my best to make him happy, but I'll always know it's second best. I'll always miss you."

Now my spirits soared, in spite of me.

The sobbing stopped, and she gazed at me with that woebegone look, but there was hope there.

"What will it take for you to come back to me David?"

She sat looking at me in silence for a long time, and I looked at her and saw... an ordinary girl, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing special to look at, pretty enough, healthy. However, now I knew differently. After our year together I knew she was perfection for me.

And of course that feeling we had when we first met on the doorstep, that was back. The certainty that 'we are made for each other regardless - regardless of Sod's efforts': that was back. Even so I was saying nothing. I needed to be sure of it, but I was holding my breath.

Then there was the semblance of a smile on her face, then a proper smile. It was a knowing smile. Had she read something in my face? Or had she regained that feeling just as I had? She stood up.

"I'm cancelling the wedding," she said with a certain amount of defiance, and I couldn't help the sigh of relief, the release of breath. I still think to this day that she recognised the meaning of that exhalation.

"No matter what the future holds," she said, "I know for certain that from now on, no one will take your place for me ever again. We are not related, so I'll wait until we can become related!" and she laughed that lovely tinkling laugh. Then was serious again. "Or I'll stay single until I die."

"You won't have to wait at all," I said. I opened my arms. It was supposed to be an empty handed shrug, but they opened rather wider than I consciously intended.

That did it! She crashed into my arms and hugged me so tightly that I couldn't breathe. Then the face lifted to me was impossible not to kiss, and the kiss went on and on, and on and on, tasting salty. Silently. No moans of passion, no grunts of excitement, just the softest of soft kisses going on and on and the feeling of that body I knew so well pressed tightly against me.

After that hug, that embrace, that kiss, when we drew apart, her face clouded.

"You're thinking about facing Barry, your parents and his, and the other guests, aren't you?" I said. "But most of all you're thinking about what you have to do to Barry."

She sighed and her sad eyes shone with tears. "See? We've not lost anything, have we? We still know what each other is thinking. You're still in my head and heart and I'm still in yours. It's true, isn't it?"

What could I say? It was crystal clear that what she was saying was true. The resentment and dislocation we had both suffered had clouded that understanding, and in her case closed off our relationship as impossible. But now?

I was surprised, astounded that from an aggressive shouting match we were so swiftly at peace with each other. I knew I'd always wanted her through the separation, and now she knew the score, she wanted me as well.

There was no fighting it, we both knew there was no possible way we could ever part again, and I couldn't think of any way Sod's law could divide us now, short of a terrible physical and fatal accident. We would have to be very careful crossing the road!

I smiled at the thought, which she took to be affirmation of what she had said.

"I need to go back and tell them," she said. "I don't look forward to that at all. Imogen said you've taken the day off. Will you come with me? I need your support so much."

There was no doubt in my mind. "Yes," I said. "I'll come, but I've got to grab some breakfast first."

She moved without more ado to the kitchen and by the time I had followed her, she had taken two bowls and the muesli and put them on the table and was at the fridge, getting the milk.

We did not stay longer than the time it took to eat our small breakfast and drink one cup of tea, before driving back to York and the hotel. She phoned the hotel before we left, and spoke briefly to Barry who was staying there with his parents. She arranged to meet him in the bar.

We went outside and she went to a car. it was a VW Golf.

"You've got a car!" I said redundantly.

"Had it since I started with the Harrogate practice."

So we went back to York and the Edgemain Hotel in convoy.

Helen and I entered the lounge bar, which was empty before opening time, but in one corner, sitting alone, was Barry.

He already knew, that much was clear. He stood to shake my hand and he smiled sadly.

"Please, sit down," he said. "I know what's coming. I've known since last night. Your rather masterful deposition, clear as a bell, showed me that you always had her heart, and it was patently obvious last night that she certainly has yours."

He glanced lovingly to Helen, who had sat at the table beside him and now had tears streaming down her face again.

He continued, "She talked about you, you know. I could see how deep her feelings ran, she talked about how close you were, how complete the rapport. Indeed it was that among other things which prompted her parents to wonder if you were related. Every time the subject came up, I could see the suffering etched into her face.

"Then last night when you executed the coup de grace with the certificates her face was a picture. She was devastated, David, completely shaken. She kept on muttering 'I was wrong, I was wrong.'

"David, I was nowhere then, I could see that. I knew there'd be no marriage. I'd lost her. After that revelation we would never have made it for more than a year or two. If you hadn't turned up last night, we would have married and then one day, in the future, the truth would come out, and the marriage would crash and burn."

"Actually," I said, "that was one of the reasons I had to tell her the truth one way or another. I knew that she'd find out - in a few months, in fact. When I phoned Peter's parents, his father said Peter had already started tracing his family history. He already knew about his birth parents. He would have arrived eventually on your doorstep."

"If we had married," Barry said, "you would never have told her yourself, would you? You'd have kept the truth to yourself, wouldn't you?"

I nodded. "Yes. I don't go round wrecking marriages. I'd have found someone else, and never come near her again, but it would never have been as perfect as we are together."

"I'm so sorry, Barry, my darling," she sobbed. "But there's nothing I can do. I would have tried so hard to make you happy. I love you."

"But not enough," he said. "Not like you love David. Better this way, or it would have been worse later."

I had to say it. I admired the man so much. "Barry, you are such a great man," I said. "You would have made her very happy."

"Better this way," he said, standing up. The meeting was over. We walked to the foyer, and he turned to her. Her tears were still falling.

"Your tears for me speak more eloquently than any words, my love," he said, and as they sank into each other's arms, I walked out to the porch and left them to it. They had things to say and hugs and kisses to give that were none of my business. I couldn't help admiring that line of his, 'tears more eloquent than words!'. Another lawyer who had a way with words.

I went to my car and after a few minutes she came out. Her eyes were red and she looked completely woebegone. I got out of the car. She looked at me through the remnants of her tears and smiled bleakly. She made as if to speak.

"Don't say anything," I said. "I saw how much you love him, and he you. That's good. He's a great man to stand aside like this."

"He's just wonderful," was all she said, and I nodded to that. "Now," she said, shaking herself into action, but still subdued. "We need to face the parents."

When we arrived at the house, again in convoy, she came to my car and sat with me, making no effort to leave. Neither of us said anything for a while.

Then she said, "When I left you, to begin with I did not contact my parents, I was so angry with them for ruining my life. Then I realised they were doing the right thing. Incest would have destroyed us, wouldn't it?

"So I phoned them and we had a long talk. I was absolutely adamant that they must never contact you, nor allow you to contact me. Anything that came from you had to be forwarded to me. I would never have opened any letter from you: I knew that if you sent me a begging letter, I would come running to you, but our situation was hopeless and it would never work. I had to be strong and it killed me."

She was talking as if reflecting on what had happened. I did not try to interrupt.

She continued, "I made it clear that if they disobeyed my wishes, I would cut them off for ever. You can understand now why they behaved the way they did. I had told them that I thought you would be feeling as I did, and you might break and use some stratagem to reach me. I couldn't have faced that and I was relying on them to protect me. And of course, bless them, they did."

She sighed and leant against me, putting her head on my shoulder.

"Barry was an office romance, we work for the same firm. Mum and Dad were so relieved when I told them about Barry. They thought I was over you at last and everything would be fine. So they never told me about Peter's letter. Really I don't understand that. They said last night that it looked to be so obviously a trick, that they didn't carry out my instructions but kept it back."

"So do they know the wedding's off?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "No, we'd better go in and face them, but kiss me first."

When Maurice opened the door it was immediately clear that they already knew the wedding was off. The atmosphere was solemn and reeked of disappointment.

"We know," he said sadly. "Barry phoned us last night and told us he was fairly sure, and when you were gone early this morning and had taken the car, we assumed you'd have gone to Manchester. It's true, isn't it? In any case, David's presence is enough to confirm it. Come in."

We met Kathleen as she emerged from the kitchen.

"How could you do that to Barry? Everything's ruined now," she exclaimed then saw me. "What are you doing here? You've ruined everything!"

"Mother!" Helen shouted. "Don't be so rude! You don't understand. David saved me from making a terrible mistake."

"Marrying Barry a mistake? Ruining your wedding, that's the mistake! How are we to face everyone tomorrow?"

"By telling them the truth, mother," Helen said. "If I'd married Barry and then found that David and I were not related, there would have been a divorce in short order, I can tell you! Barry would really have suffered then!

"What you don't understand is that no one but David will do for me. Barry realises that, in fact he told me that this morning. He knew that was true last night when David made me see the truth."

"I think we'd all better go and sit down," said Maurice. "The hallway is no place to discuss anything."

Once seated, Helen and I on the sofa and the parents in armchairs, Kathleen started off again.

"What I don't understand is why you take his word for all this. He's making it all up. He can't marry you and he's making sure on one else can."

This was not my problem and I felt no need to intervene. This was Helen's show and Maurice already understood Helen could handle it, at least I thought he did, though it was interesting to be discussed as if I were not there.

"Mother, weren't you there last night? David produced official documents - official birth certificates. They proved without any shadow of a doubt that I have a brother, that he lives in Australia and therefore David and I are not related. So the whole reason for us being apart is gone."

"But you made a promise to Barry to marry him-"

"What you don't know, mother, is that when he proposed, I told Barry the whole story about David and me, how deeply we were in love, and how the discovery of our being brother and sister made it essential we part and never meet again. "Barry knows that there's no way our marriage would have survived if David were available."

"I don't see-" Kathleen began.

"Darling," interrupted Maurice. "We understand how upset you are that the wedding is off, but just cast your mind back to when we met David and saw how Helen and he were together. They were so close, they even looked so alike, that's what made us think they might be related! It is true, the evidence proves it, independent of what David says, that there is now no reason to keep them apart."

"And there's another thing," added Helen. "I made a terrible error of judgement when I 'found out' about the brother and sister thing. As David told me, the right thing to do would have been to talk to him first. I still don't know why I didn't do that."

"But you were so upset-"

"Mummy, it only took him a day and a half to find the truth. He did what I should have done - heavens, Mummy, I'm a lawyer - I should have checked, or he would have done it with me. He knew the truth ages ago, but we kept him away. Yesterday was the first and only chance he had to tell the truth, and I'm so grateful he did, and come to that, so is Barry."

"I don't see why he had to interfere," said her mother. "If he'd just kept away as we wanted him to, you'd have married Barry and that would be that."

"Mummy, you're not listening. When we came to see Barry this morning, Barry said to David, 'If we'd been married, you wouldn't have said anything about this, would you?' And David said 'No, I wouldn't come between husband and wife.'"

"So why didn't he leave well alone? You'd never have known."

"But that's the whole point, I would have known eventually. Don't you understand? Peter, my real brother, was already researching his ancestry. It was only a matter of time before he discovered me as his sister and contacted me. It might have been a month, or a year or five years. I could even have started a family!

"Can't you understand how I would have felt then? Trapped by my own mistake? Knowing it could have been different because David was out there all along, that if I'd known I could have been his wife?

"Worse, Barry knows my feelings for David and he would then have had to decide whether to try to live with the knowledge that David was available for me and would always have been my first choice, or divorce me to set me free for David? Mummy, Barry was relieved we found out in time."

"Just accept it, Kathleen," Maurice urged her. "In the long run, this is the best outcome. It's painful for Barry now and also for Helen," here he glanced at her and she nodded. "But later it would have been so much worse, and what you're forgetting is that it's been very painful for David as well. He's known for months and been unable to put it right."

Helen's mother sighed, then smiled with some embarrassment at me. "Yes, I suppose you're right. It's a shame it's come out so late, but that's our fault, isn't it? So what do we do now?"

"If I might make a suggestion?" I asked them tentatively. Nods all round.

"You have people coming from far and wide. You've already paid for the reception. How about asking Barry and his parents and family how they feel about going ahead with the meal and the party?

"No one's done anything wrong here; nobody's cheated; everything that's happened has happened because people love each other, that's why there's been so much pain all round. Barry has done a wonderful thing in giving her up. Why not celebrate his generosity and compassion?

"Barry and Helen could tell the assembly how, out of love for each other, they have decided to part. They could celebrate the love of their parents, and the love of good friends and relations. A salvage celebration - making the best of it."

I could see they loved the idea, but I could also see why the parents were hesitant.