The Way Back Ch. 09

"Allan, it's me, Jenny."

I mustered a remnant of energy, "Hi, Jenny. What's up?"

"Just to say that I think you're going to have to come here. Generally it went all right, but they've got some weird ideas."

"OK. We can talk about it when you get back."

"Had a bad day?" she asked, perceptive as always.

"I've just got in. I'm not really built for eighteen hour days."

"Oh, sorry, darling. I'll let you get to bed."

"Thanks."

Tuesday was little better. I felt like death when I awoke. I got in late and found more problems when I eventually arrived at work. I was still working at seven when the phone rang.

"Allan, you've forgotten."

"Oh Ann, I'm sorry. We've had two dreadful days. Where are you? I'll come straight away."

"Is Jenny there?"

"No, she's on her way back from Newcastle, first solo flight."

"OK. Well I'm sitting outside your flat."

"Ten minutes."

"OK."

I got in and Ann went to the kitchen while I showered. The plate of beans on toast she made was welcome. She waited in the living area, while I ate in the kitchen area. I dumped the plate and joined her.

"Allan," she said, "I think this may be a bad idea. You're tired."

"No, You wanted to come tonight, and it's my fault I'm late."

"Greta's babysitting."

"Fine."

"So I haven't got long."

"OK, then let's get started."

She sat forward. "You said Derek had been to see you."

"Yes, and I've been to see Stephanie Fanshaw."

"Oh?"

"She has the evidence of Derek's adultery."

There was an insistent ringing of the doorbell.

"Shit" I said, and went to open the door. Jenny stood there. I stood back. She swept through into the living room.

"Oh," she said, "Hello Ann. Am I interrupting anything?"

"No, Jenny," Ann answered, "We were just going try to sort things out."

"I didn't know," Jenny started to look embarrassed, "I told Peter to come and apologise properly after his performance on Sunday."

"What happened?" asked Ann, "I've not heard about this."

"He assumed that because Jenny and I stayed an extra day in London, we were having sex," I intervened.

"And were you?" she asked, and I could see she regretted the question immediately.

"Negotiations," I snapped, "He burst in here and accused me of taking Jenny back."

"He'd left an angry message on my answer-phone," added Jenny, "saying he was waiting at your flat. That's when I came running over."

"A misunderstanding," I soothed, "born of ignorance and inexperience. Don't be too hard on him."

"I just wonder if I can cope with his jealousy," she turned to Ann. "He really laid into Allan on Sunday about us staying an extra day in London. He assumed Allan and I were, well you know."

"You have to understand, Jenny," said Ann patiently, "that Peter is very insecure about you. He can't believe that someone as hot as you could really be interested in him. He probably thinks in his worry that you're using him in some way, and will move on to someone else soon."

"I'm sorry," said Jenny. "It may surprise you but I'm new at the dating game. Allan will tell you the whole story one day. I never thought for a moment of leaving him. I am more and more attracted to him all the time. He's a real catch."

"So," I interrupted, "do you tell him that? He needs to hear it over and over."

"No," she said thoughtfully. "I have a lot to learn, Allan. You were so easy to be with; I didn't need to try very hard."

At this Peter arrived. He was no sooner through the door when Ann pounced.

"Come on little brother," she ordered. "I've a bone to pick with you, in the bedroom."

He grinned sheepishly and without a word followed her out of the living room.

Jenny and I discussed her visit to Newcastle University. She thought I needed to go as some of the specifications they wanted seemed too complex and delicate, and in one case contradictory, to work for long. I shrugged and hoped not. I hadn't really stopped to reexamine it, and I wanted to think.

After about half an hour, the siblings returned. Ann looked satisfied and Peter gazed at Jenny with rapt admiration. Then he remembered where he was.

"Allan," he said, "I must apologise for the way I treated you on Sunday. I don't know what came over me."

"You do," interrupted Jenny, "Jealousy."

"Yes, you're right, but I normally just slink away when a girl throws me over for someone else. It was the anger I don't understand. Anyway, I'm sorry."

"Forget it," I said. "Shows you really think she's special, shows a bit of lust as well, but it helps to talk to her first."

"Ann's been telling me. She's right, I am insecure. I just can't believe that Jenny is interested in me."

"God Peter," Jenny said. "You don't realise how attractive you are. I'm a lucky girl to have found you. Why you aren't already married I don't know. I'm not going to let you go; and I'm not interested in anyone else. You're more than enough for me."

"I'm very, very sorry Allan. I promise never to mistrust Jenny ever again."

"I hope so!" I replied, but I still made up my mind that Jenny and I would never again give him cause.

"We're off," said Jenny. "Sorry to mess up your evening,"

"And Peter," I said as a parting shot, "remember: trust your woman."

He nodded and off they went.

Ann looked annoyed.

"I'll not stay," she said, "You'll be tired, but I want to know what's going on, what these people have been saying about me and Derek."

"As soon as possible," I said, "but you won't like what you hear. It'll keep."

"Suit yourself, you're good at giving advice to Peter about trust. Pity you can't take it yourself," she snapped, and left.

I sat down heavily, astonished.

------

FORTY-THREE

I didn't have long to be astonished. Within five minutes Geoff rang to say the Newcastle lot had asked to see me to discuss their ideas. I was testy. I asked if they'd never heard of conference calling, or emails. He apologised and said they had plans on paper, and would I go the next day, early.

"How early?"

"There's a train from Piccadilly at just before seven, get in about ten. They'll pick you up."

I went to bed and woke when I needed to, but long before I wanted to. I woke as I went to sleep, angry.

I was angry all the way to Newcastle. I restrained myself, at least part of the time, talking to physicists who seemed to think that everything was as possible in real life as in theory. It was a question of how long they were prepared to wait while we worked through their specifications. They wanted it quickly. Tough.

I had a contract for them, Jenny had drawn it up and it was perfect. They promised to read it and see me the next day. I crashed at the hotel immediately after dinner. The next day they agreed with a few minor quibbles and all was finished by eleven that morning.

I toyed with the idea of going home straightaway, but decided to stay over that night as well and think through what had transpired in my life.

I retired to my room and worked my way through the 'tapes' from all the conversations I'd held with 'the three', with the PI in York, Derek and Stephanie. Then I reprised them and added David's and Viv's. I talked my way through the conversation I'd had with the next-door neighbour.

Everything seemed to fit together. Derek met Ann at the party. In the year that followed, at some time, they struck up a friendship. They were seen together. Derek claimed they began an affair, and Stephanie's evidence bore that out, emphasised by Derek's reluctance to bring Ann into the divorce proceedings, which on thinking about it reflected well on him.

Then when I disappeared Ann was devastated. I could understand she loved me a great deal, but wanted Derek and his sexual technique as well. So losing me put her off him for a while, probably from guilt. She thought I had cheated with someone else, and realised how guilty she was in her turn.

So the affair cooled while she longed for me to return. She could forgive; she had sinned as well. Perhaps she may have met him for comfort when the children were at school. Our neighbours certainly saw him at the house often enough. Finally she was able to move in with him and settled down, even if, as the children seemed to think, she thought him second best as husband material. The sex must have done it for her.

I could understand her anger at me when I first made myself known. She was under a misapprehension, and her vehemence seemed to show her love for me, her sense of betrayal. She had stayed with me during her affair, but I had left her and the children high and dry. I was much more guilty than she had been, but she still wanted Derek, and my return complicated her life.

This showed after she knew the truth about me, her guilt forced her to try to re-establish our relationship but she longed for Derek's body and it showed in her constant siding with Derek against all the evidence. That stubbornness was surely more than just a hunch he was innocent? It was as if she desperately wanted him to be innocent. The only reason for that had to be that she lusted for him, while discovering she still loved me in every other department.

So would she go back to him after the trial? Her repeated returns to him in spite of protestations that she was finished with him seemed to bear that out. The last two occasions she slept with him seemed to reinforce what Derek said, she loved him more than me; she wanted him and couldn't stop having sex with him and she felt guilty and pitied me. Stripping for him seemed to indicate more than a sexual farewell to a long time lover. Perhaps she was in love with each of us in a different way?

I mentally shrugged my shoulders. Ann would be confronted with the facts and I would hear her side, though I wondered how she could possibly have any reasonable explanation that showed she wanted me back, as she kept asserting she did.

The evidence of Derek's guilt seemed straightforward. The three assailants were part-time employees. O'Malley admitted leading them to me, or me to them to be accurate. His connection with Derek was straightforward. Those three were definitely guilty.

Then there was the payment. That was a clear link to Derek: his money. Then there was his forged letter and his previous affair with Ann. Motive: either to get Ann herself or her money. He got the former but failed to get the latter.

Behind all this, there remained a niggling feeling that I had missed something. What was it? Where was it? There was certainly this mystery go-between, the tall man who organised the attack and paid the men off. Did the tall man also recruit the PI from York? The tall man wasn't seen again, and no one saw him with Derek. O'Malley thought he was a friend of Derek's, but that was conjecture based on a supposed sighting some years before.

That man hadn't been traced by the police. Derek certainly wasn't helping there, he denied all knowledge of the man, according to Colin, but he would do that wouldn't he? Was it possible that the man was paid by someone else and the money out of Derek's account was a coincidence? But the payees were fictitious. Could it be Derek squirrelling away cash before he went bankrupt? Against this the amounts were the same as those paid to the three and to O'Malley. No, it was his money all right.

I played through all the conversations yet again. Still nothing. I had the feeling it was staring at me and I couldn't see it. I gave up. Ann was guilty. Derek was guilty. Just the final showdown with Ann to go. I felt sadness. I was already very fond of her, nay more, attracted to her. It had grown as my memories returned, memories that we had a good life together for all those years. It seemed that only the latter part of that good life was a lie.

I had a thought and left the hotel. I went to the pub frequented by the staff at the hospital. Perhaps someone would be there.

I bought a pint and was about to find a seat when I felt a hand on my arm.

"Aled? I mean Allan, silly me."

I looked round. Oh, yes!

It was Sue. Now I had a terrible memory for names, but hers shone like a beacon lit by lust!

Sue. There are women's bottoms which one could stare at for hours, so perfectly shaped are they, seeming to invite touching and fondling, breasts that are not huge but balance perfectly the inward curve of her waist. A long neck, and long, long legs. A face you just can't tear your eyes away from -- except to gaze at her arse. Beautiful long flaxen hair. That was Sue.

She shepherded me to the table where a few of Trish's and my friends were sitting, and the night became perfect. Of course, they got my history since I left. They were by turns sympathetic and envious and happy for me. Once that was over, the stories and jokes flowed, and the drinks with them. At the end, we all stood to leave and Sue came and stood by my side.

"You're single then?" she asked, tucking her arm in mine.

"Yep!" I reposted, feeling full of the cheerfulness alcohol engenders, as we arrived on the pavement outside the pub.

"My day off tomorrow," she said, "I've always wondered about you. Your hotel near here?"

Suddenly I knew I didn't want what she was obviously offering. She was exquisite and she was offering it to me, but I didn't want to have sex with her. Was it that she was so totally confident that any man she offered herself to would obediently follow her to her bed? A sort of arrogance born of her certainty of her own attractiveness? Did that put me off?

She pulled her arm away. "What's the matter, Allan? Have I said something?"

Then I had a flash of memory. Trish upset because she'd had casual sex with that medic.

"Sue," I said. "I'm sorry, I don't do one night stands. You're one of the most beautiful women I know, but I'm not into casual sex."

"Oh," she said, disappointed.

"I've been told that I was completely faithful to Ann for twenty years, then I was faithful to Tirsh for those months we were intimate, and I was faithful to Jennifer, the last girlfriend I had. My friend David says it's in my genes. I just don't do casual."

"I see," she said. "I think that's nice."

"Sue," I said, "I don't understand this. My face is not pretty," I laughed dryly, "but you wanted me. Why? There are lots of good looking blokes out there, why me?"

She stood in front of me. Looked hard at me. And smiled.

"It's not your looks Allan! You're sort of transparent. There's no affectation; you don't try to impress. You have dignity and strength, and you put up with your injuries with humour and cheerfulness. Makes you sort of intriguing.

"You know, it's actually weirdly flattering that you think enough of me to turn me down. Well, must go."

She pulled my head down to her and gave me a scorching kiss, which I returned.

"Hmm, good kisser too!" Then she laughed. "Well, this evening's been different!"

"You're quite special Sue, you know that? I've had a great night. Thank you."

"Love you too. Goodbye," she said and turning, strode off, attracting a good number of male eyes to gaze on her swaying hips and that prize-winning arse outlined in her tight, tight jeans.

I wandered back to my hotel, had a whisky in the bar and went to bed where I masturbated vigorously to Sue's bottom's memory, and then fell into a deep and satisfied sleep.

I love travelling by train, and I was able to assess the Newcastle contract and find it satisfactory, to review what I had learned, and what I needed to know about Ann's dalliance with Derek before my attack, and to decide what I would do about it when I returned to the flat. All that and gazing out of the window at the fields and houses flashing by.

I also did what I hate other people doing on trains, I used my mobile phone, but I did my phoning in the toilet. I had to bring Geoff up to speed since I would not be returning to the office that afternoon. I was going to relax in my flat.

'Man proposes, God disposes' as the saying goes. Perhaps He/She (perhaps Both/Neither?) was miffed at my boozy activities the night before. God was on the side of my daughter that evening, and rightly so as it turned out.

I had a plan. I re-recorded Stephanie's conversation with me, and also Derek's, burned a CD and had it ready for Ann. She could listen to the evidence and then explain herself. Then I went to bed for an hour. It might have been longer if the doorbell had not gone and forced me up to answer it.

There, standing in front of me, were Greta and Ann. I stood back as an invitation, and they went through to the living area.

"Greta was wondering if she could stay with you this weekend," Ann began, "The boys have gone to stay with Peter. He's taking them to a football match tomorrow, and to some junk food place tonight."

Greta was trying not to look hopeful but failed. I sighed.

"I'm pretty bushed, I'm afraid," I said, "Newcastle was very busy and exhausting,"

Greta looked disappointed and downcast and dear old Dad couldn't bear it.

"If she's prepared for me to fall asleep," I continued, "she's welcome to stay."

Greta's smile was all the reward I needed. Then Ann followed it on with, "I wondered if we could talk while I'm here? Save the delay in making another appointment,"

I immediately felt angry. She was trying to catch me unprepared. No way.

"No, Ann," I said, "I am dead beat and couldn't concentrate. We agreed we'd make appointments and we'd have these meetings alone. I'm not talking to you with Greta here, the flat is too small, and what I've found out about you, I don't think you'd want to talk about with her here."

"What?" she said, angry in her turn.

"No. No more," I said, "but I have something to give you," I picked up the CD.

"Listen to this, and when we meet we'll really have something to discuss."

"Bring her back Sunday afternoon before the boys get back," she snapped, "And be prepared to talk. I'm sick of being constantly put off."

And she turned and swept out, slamming the door behind her. Greta emerged from 'her' bedroom.

"What's going on Dad?"

"Mum is annoyed with me because I won't talk to her now. I'm going to talk with her on Sunday."

She was satisfied with that. "Dad, we don't have to do anything. I've got my laptop and games and books. I just needed to get away from Mum for a while. She's been very edgy and snappy -- bad tempered. With the lads away, I'd have been first in the firing line. Finding fault with everything."

"OK," I said and off she went.

We did go shopping on Saturday, or rather we started out shopping together until she saw three friends and that was the last I saw of her until quite late. She had rung to tell me not to keep a meal for her.

On Sunday we ate out for lunch.

Over lunch: "Dad?"

"Yes?" what, I wondered, was coming.

"I don't know what's going on between you two, but it isn't doing Mum any good. She's always flying off the deep end at the slightest thing. I hear her crying after we've gone to bed. I'm worried about her. Please relax your rules a bit and talk with her."

This was yet another side of Ann. Why was she crying? Ask the daughter.

"Have you asked Mum why she's so upset."

"No, she's so touchy."

"Look, if you hear her, go to her. Give her a cuddle, and ask her."

"Um," She said thoughtfully. Then she smiled lovingly and hugged and kissed me, leaning across the table. "I think it's you she's crying over, Dad, she wants your cuddles not mine."

There was no answer to that. It's hard to watch a daughter having to grow up too fast, hard to think of her as a woman. She's needs to be a girl for a long time after she's a woman.

We collected her things from the flat and I took her home, ready to meet Ann. The final showdown?

------

FORTY-FOUR

As we drove into the drive, Greta said, "I've got to make myself scarce while you and Mum talk, but she wants me there in case I can help with information."