Infidelity for Beginners

by Danny King

  “What are you talking about? Everybody likes you!” I exclaimed.

  “No they don’t. Nobody does; no one at work, my friends, my mum and my dad? They all hate me,” she shook, gasping and wobbling into my ear.

  “Oh Elenor, Elenor, Elenor,” I sympathised, squeezing her tightly and carefully stroking her back. “Now that really is silly. You’re without doubt the nicest, prettiest and loveliest girl I’ve ever met in my life,” I lied, spreading it on perhaps thicker than she deserved, but this wasn’t really the time for cold hard truths. “I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather have as my editorial assistant. And if I wasn’t married and ten years younger, I’d be chasing you all around these woods until you were mine.”

  I have to admit, this came out sounding slightly rapier than it was meant to, but Elenor didn’t seem to mind and continued to sob all over my collar.

  It occurred to me at that moment that Elenor and I lived our lives on very different frequencies. Elenor’s life sounded as if it were full of ups and downs, highs and lows, adulation and misery, pandemonium and loneliness, whereas mine – up until recently – had been pretty plodding by comparison; calm and steady, cosy and domestic, easy and peasy, comfortable and uncomplicated.

  Which of us had the better life?

  I guess that’s a subjective question. The grass is always greener on the other side and that whole quandary. I didn’t know and I couldn’t tell you. Not least of all because I was pretty sure Elenor enjoyed some fantastic and memorable highs when the music was pumping, the Cava flowing and me and Sally were in our pyjamas and three hours into bedtime. Yep, I don’t think there was any doubt about that. All I really knew was that I wouldn’t have traded my lot for hers for all the green tea in China because I was spectacularly happy with my plodding calm, steady, cosy, domestic, easy peasy, comfortable and uncomplicated life. It had just taken an utter calamity for me to realise it.

  Now, all I wanted was to have it back. If only I could.

  I pulled Elenor from my neck and looked into her puffy red eyes.

  “Elenor, you have no idea how lucky you are, do you? You’re such a lucky girl,” I informed her. “You’ve got it all; looks, personality, sex appeal and youth. You’ve got the world at your feet and you don’t even realise it. Don’t go getting yourself worked up about things you’ll be laughing about in a few weeks time. Honestly, life’s too short,” I told her, running out all the old tried and tested lines in absence of any wisdom of my own.

  “I just want people to like me,” she muttered apologetically.

  “And they will. I do. But the main thing is you should like yourself first. I reckon that’s the secret to life. Find that and everything else will fall into place,” I reasoned.

  “And if it doesn’t?” Elenor asked, not unreasonably.

  I thought about this for a moment because she was quite right, there was a definite flaw in my argument.

  “Well,” I pondered, “you’ll have the most important piece of the jigsaw in place so what does anything else matter?” For a moment, I though Elenor was going to ask what sort of answer was that, but instead she just wrapped her arms around me and gave me a grateful hug.

  “Thank you, Andrew,” she simpered.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” I said, then turned my thoughts to her injuries. “I think maybe while we’re at it, we should probably get you to a doctor’s and get your cuts cleaned up properly. Just to be on the safe side.”

  Elenor was about to say something in reply when a voice came at us from behind and told us both to pack it in. We looked around and located an elderly lady decked out in tweed who was walking her dog on a nearby path.

  “I say, you there, these are public woods. They have children playing in them, so stop that immediately, it’s indecent,” she was yelling. “Why don’t you go home to do that sort of thing?”

  This was so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but laugh. Elenor soon joined in and the tweed lady strode off purposefully, either to report us or to go home and do her own indecent thing.

  “Do you want to get out of here then?” I asked Elenor.

  “Yes, let’s go,” she agreed, then stole a quick kiss before I could do anything about it.

  “Just for keepsakes,” she told me and smiled.

  Sally’s Diary: July 26th

  I don’t know how to feel about my last session of Taxol. I’d been counting down the weeks, but now that it’s come I can’t help but feel anxious. I’d developed something of a love/hate relationship with my drip. I hated it because it sapped me of strength and knocked me for six, but I loved, or at least, had come to depend on it because it was my treatment. And my treatment was what was helping me fight my illness and lower my CA 125 count. I’d always feared the day when my illness spread out of control and the doctors said, “I’m very sorry Mrs Nolan, but there’s nothing else we can do for you. Next patient please”, and that’s how this feels.

  I know it’s stupid and that all my test results have come back to show that my cancer is in remission, but I’m still nervous about being cut loose. Of course, I’ll have regular check-ups but my check-ups won’t be every three weeks, so the trick is learning to believe that my cancer has gone for good and isn’t just waiting around the corner for the doctors to turn their backs.

  Andrew thinks returning to work will help me slip into my old routine again and Carol agrees. She says the children keep asking after me and this in itself gives me a lift every time I hear it.

  I have the rest of the summer to prepare so I can put off any final decision for a little while longer but I’m pretty sure I’ll go with Carol’s advice. She’s an exceptional lady and has always been an inspiration to me.

  Perhaps now it’s my turn to be an inspiration to others.

  Chapter 22. Back to School

  I drove Sally to school her first day back. She could’ve walked but I wanted to be with her when she picked up her life again. Her last session of Chemotherapy had been back in July and now here in September, with the leaves turning brown and the streets full of children in school uniforms, the world had a comfortable ring of familiarity to it once more.

  Tom had come too, which meant we were both going to be late for work this morning, but Norman had given us his blessing and sent his own good luck message to Sally.

  “What is it with you and Norman these days? Anyone would’ve thought he’d adopted you or something?” Sally asked, unclipping her seat belt as we pulled up outside the school gates. I’d always had a bit of a blind spot for Norman in the past, I’ll admit, although this was probably just because he represented my job and my little station in life. But Norman had acquitted himself magnificently over these last few months and I couldn’t have asked for a more understanding boss or a better friend. Of course there was a reason for all of this, as I’d consequently discovered, and it was the same reason his wife’s picture hadn’t changed in twelve years. Her fight had been with breast cancer and sadly it had been a fight she’d started too late. But this was something I would keep to myself. No good could come of sharing Norman’s motivations with Sally. Better she thought they were driven by pure benevolence than fear. Still, Norman had been Sally’s strongest champion and I owed him a debt I could never repay, but which I’d spend the rest of my company days trying (although this didn’t actually stretch to my doing his report, as Tom pointed out).

  Carol was waiting for us at the gates when we arrived. She came strolling over as we climbed out of the car and gave Sally a welcome back hug she’d clearly been saving up all summer long.

  “You’re here; the children will be thrilled,” she said.

  “What, at being back at school? Are you sure?” Tom replied, making Sally laugh and Carol purse her lips in a prickly matronly way. This was Carol’s domain and woe-betide any man for suggesting the kids might not actually want to he here as much as she did.

  I interjected, telling Sally how lovely she looked to prompt Carol and Tom to do the same before they
went for each other’s throats and they duly bit with a dozen compliments of their own until Sally was well and truly swamped. Still, it wasn’t just to defuse the moment, I truly meant it. Sally did look amazing right now. She’d always been beautiful but in the depths of her treatment she’d been but a paper-thin version of herself. Now with the Chemo ended her glow had returned. The colour had come back to her skin, her eyes again sparkled and her hair had grown almost an inch, enough for her to discard her summer bonnet. She could even fit into her old jeans again, the ones she kept around for motivational purposes, all without having to fork out for [and then cancel] another year’s gym subscription. All told she could’ve almost passed for one of those skinny, cropped Parisian catwalk models – if it hadn’t been for the bag of books on her shoulder.

  “You run along love and I’ll see you tonight,” I said, giving her a kiss that belonged more behind the bike sheds than outside the school gates. “Have a great day.”

  “They all are,” she said, giving Tom and I a little smile as she headed on into the playground with Carol to ring the bell.

  We hung around to watch her go inside before climbing back into the car. Well I climbed in, Tom grunted and groaned. After a summer of arduous physiotherapy Tom now walked like John Wayne in tight trousers with a choc-ice melting in each pocket. It would take a few more months before he was totally grunt-free but there was no rush. The Camberley 5K Fun Run was still some months away and there were plenty of places – which was possibly why Tom still hadn’t got around to filling in that entry form I’d picked him up.

  “She’ll be fine, she’s a trooper,” Tom assured me unnecessarily and I didn’t doubt it. Sally had resources of strength I could only dream of. Only a few months earlier she’d been told she would never have children and yet here she was returning to a job where she’d be surrounded by them all day long and the school board couldn’t keep her away. They gave her the choice of postponing her return until after Christmas but they would’ve had more chance of convincing Godfrey to turn down his new job on a porno mag to stay with me on Caravan Enthusiast than they would’ve at keeping Sally at bay. She’d been a force of nature this morning and I couldn’t wait to get home this evening to hear about her day.

  “Are you popping over later?” I asked Tom, but he said he couldn’t. Kate was coming over this evening and he was taking the phone off the hook. In days gone by he might’ve given me a suggestive little wink but it wasn’t like that with Kate. She was different. She was special. She – he’d even gone so far as admitting to me – was ‘the one’.

  Well Kate may have been the one for Tom, but she’d been just one of two hundred to Martin who drank in the Duke of York. He’d pulled her, shagged her and dumped her all within the space of a forgotten weekend, but that weekend hadn’t been forgotten by Kate and when she’d finally bumped into him again, out shopping with his wife, life caught up with Martin with a horrible vengeance.

  “I guess his wife did mind after all,” I said, starting the car to take us both to work.

  “Well fuck me, wouldn’t you?” Tom replied, and I tried to make out if he’d intended that to come out as some little dig about Elenor, because that’s how it had felt, but I let him have it in any case, only too aware of my own passing lunacy.

  Still, Tom had bagged Kate on the rebound and things had gone from there. She’d given him a confidence he no longer needed to display and he in turn had restored her faith in men. Really, him? It’s funny isn’t it how sometimes we need to be broken before we can be fixed.

  “And how is Elenor?” Tom then asked out of the side of his mouth.

  “See, I knew that was a dig,” I said, turning onto the A30 to take us down to the motorway.

  “No dig, just a question. How has she been around you?” which in itself could’ve been a dig.

  “She’s been fine actually,” I told him. “It’s helped that Godfrey’s left so there’s no one to pull the wings off any more, but by and large she’s been okay,” and she had. We’d talked things through on our way back from Lincolnshire and reset the thermostat to a temperature we both felt comfortable with. Elenor was mortified to have exposed so much of herself to me, both physically and emotionally, but she’d learned something about her own needs and limitations in the process so I guess it had been a worthwhile experience for her. It had certainly been for me so we made a pact that we would never talk about it again, not to anyone (not even Tom), and this oath of secrecy had helped cement a new found friendship.

  And did I ever regret not taking Elenor up on her offer?

  No, of course not, because I would never have been able to look either myself or Sally in the eye if I had’ve done. But that’s not to say I no longer found her attractive. Her body had been all I’d imagined it to be and every now and again, on occasional slow work days, the memory of Elenor in her underwear would tip-toe into my cubicle to give me a glimpse of what I’d passed up before sauntering away again to rejoin Abigail and in the furthest recesses of my mind.

  Well I am only flesh and blood and Nicorette patches you know. To have claimed otherwise would’ve been a lie. But I was no longer tempted by her. No longer gutted. No longer wondering what I’d missed out on because I now knew I’d not missed out on anything. I’d found a soul mate in Sally, the woman I’d spend the rest of my life with and we’d share the wine and roses and bumps and bruises together come what may. I was finally content that I was exactly where I wanted to be.

  But it’s funny, if things had worked out differently it could’ve so easily been Tom instead of me and curiosity once more got the better of me.

  “So go on then, in the spirit of honesty, tell me, what did happen between you and Sally back at University?”

  Tom looked over and raised an eyebrow. He’d rebuffed me before and I expected him to do the same again but instead he just shook his head and smiled.

  “You really want to know?” he asked.

  “Nothing you tell me’s going to change the way I feel about her,” I replied. Tom shifted awkwardly in the passenger seat before finally shrugging and shaking his head.

  “Okay. I told her I loved her,” he said, and this was so unexpected I thought it had to be a lie.

  “Come on don’t muck about. Seriously, what did you do?” I urged, figuring he must’ve tried to stick something up her arse at the very least but Tom was steadfast.

  “That’s all I did, after just one night together I told her I loved her,” he almost laughed. “What a plank!”

  If I’d been asked to take a stab at the least likely explanation as to what had gone on between them it would’ve probably been this. Tom wearing her knickers or Sally fleeing after being led through to a waiting glass coffee table I could’ve almost seen, but this? It boggled the mind and threw up all manner of questions, the most obvious of which was clearly: “And so do you?”

  But Tom just shook his head again. “No of course not. Well, obviously I love her to bits but not the way you mean. Sally’s just a friend, nothing more,” and I half-expected him to say, “you know, like you and Elenor are?” but he declined the chance. I guess he was too wrapped up lamenting his own foolishness to turn the screw into mine.

  “But you did at the time?” I pressed.

  Tom just stuck out his lip. “No, not even then. Not really.”

  “So why did you tell her you did?” I asked.

  “Because I was 19. And because she was the first girl I’d gone to bed with. If I’d banged you that night I might’ve said it to you too,” Tom shrugged and I could see his point. We all said and did things we didn’t mean when the wine and hormones were flowing and at that age who knew love from the real thing? Not me, that was for sure, and some might uncharitably argue I still had problems in that area so who was I to point the finger? “Besides,” Tom continued, “I did you a favour in the end, mate.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Well – and don’t tell Sally I told you this – I reckon she only went
out with me to make you jealous,” he said, finally proving the world was more topsy-turvy than I could’ve ever possibly imagined.

  We joined the motorway and headed into town. Somewhere up this road desktops and documents, caravans and colleagues were waiting for us but they’d only prove a temporary distraction.

  At the end of the day I’d come home along this same road again.

  Back to Sally.

  And to the life we shared.

  ###

  “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” – Robert Louis Stephenson, 1881

  ###

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  BOOKS

  The Burglar Diaries

  The Bank Robber Diaries

  The Hitman Diaries

  The Pornographer Diaries

  Milo’s Marauders

  Milo’s Run

  School for Scumbags

  Blue Collar

  More Burglar Diaries

  The Henchmen’s Book Club

  The Monster Man of Horror House

  The No.1 Zombie Detective Agency

  A Four-King Cracker

  TELEVISION

  Thieves Like Us (2007)

  FILM

  Wild Bill (2012)

  STAGE

  The Pornographer Diaries: the play

  Killlera Dienasgramata (Latvia)

  DANNY KING

  Danny King was born in Slough in 1969 and later grew up in Hampshire. He has worked as a hod carrier, a supermarket shelf stacker, a painter & decorator, a postman and a magazine editor and today uses this smörgåsbord of experiences to dodge all of the above. He lives in Chichester with wife, Jeannie and two children and divides his time between writing and wondering what to write about.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks to Jeannie King, John Williams, Clive & Jo Andrews, Katie Finnigan and Simon Fellows and for each helping me with this book. Also to eagle-eyed Jon Evans for spotting a few wanton typos in an earlier edition. Many thanks to you all.

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