by Wood, C
I got clean for you; when I won the money, that wasn’t a lie, and I vowed to make it up to you, any way I could. I made you fall in love with me again, I never lied to you CC, you were only ever going to be the one for me, and I never slept with anyone other than you, ever. I hope you can forgive me; I was a fool, and as I write this, you’re sitting in the car outside, and were heading off to, well to buy into our future. I know, I don’t know, when you will be reading this…
I hope that It’s when were older and greyer, and that you never have to actually read this, because I have hopefully, spent the rest of my life making it up to you. Knowing my luck, I get clean live honestly, and I have died without making it up to you as I intended to, and if I don’t manage, then, for that I am truly sorry. I love you baby; and always will, but if the man at your side is Jack… Then he’s the one who loves you the most, and has always loved you more than I ever could. Remember though, TT has always loved you CC and always will sorry. X”
I looked at the Jack, and ran out of the car, I ran, and he followed. I screamed at the sea, as I ran into it. I looked a right lunatic a proper raving loon, Jack followed, he held me tightly as I screamed at the sea, I kicked the water, a screamed and shouted some more then pushed Jack over. He gulped the seawater and came to the surface gasping for air, and proceeded to throw me further away, I screeched as he sent me flying through the air, as I came to the surface spluttering he was laughing.
“I dread to think what the blessed holiday makers make of the old couple, having a teenage water fight Carrie Wright?” As we, both sloshed out of the sea and back to Harry’s car, I laughed, I had sand in my knickers, not had sand in my knickers since Jack threw me in the sea to stop me being hornie, an age ago!
“Err; what do, I do now, then Jack, seeing as Carrie Wright is officially the worst picker of Boyfriends, Fiancés, and bloody Husbands?” He laughed, and as I stripped off and changed into some dry clothes at the side of the car, he looked on in amazement.
“What like you haven’t seen all this before, stop being such a prude, Jack?” He blushed.
“It’s been quite a while since I last saw that particular body, in such detail!” I um as I climbed in the car.
“There are a few things I brought back for him in the boot, he’s not worn any of it, and you look like you both wear the same stuff!” He stripped off, and I for once did not ogle, I turned the other cheek. I did not need a man, what I wanted were my children speaking to me, and my hotels to be a success! I went back to his place and within half an hour my things were in the boot of Harry’s car.
“If, I have forgotten anything, drop it of at mine, oh hell you don’t know where mine is?” I went to write it down, and as I did, he caught my arm,
“Why are you running away from me, Carrie? I don’t bite and I don’t tell lies, what you see is what you get. I would like to talk, get to know the new Carrie, you look good. Sorry if I didn’t tell you that before.”
“Thanks Jack, lost weight through diet and exercise dropped 150Llbs of useless fat, and had surgery to trim the rest, new teeth to replace the ones Peter knocked out and new bum and tits, that’s all folks!”
“Oh, great weight loss, how did you do it?”
“Easy divorced the idiot, then trimmed the rest, got the money, and well the results what you have seen. Jack, much as I would love to talk to you all night my feet are killing and thanks to the madness of the swim in the sea I’m coming down with a cold.”
“I think, we need to get you warm, has Tom got hot chocolate in, and you used to like that with squirted cream on and a flake in it! Do you still drink it?”
“I wouldn’t feel right drinking it in there, not now would you?”
“No, I was thinking of a hotel, we need to see what Ben wants to do. With the money he won’t be wanting this place, he can buy a bigger place, may buy it off you both, I have some happy memory’s here, very happy memories.”
“I’m not going there Jack, I went there with Tom and look where that got me, used and upset and damn near wanting to kill someone who is already dead, I can’t cry for him, because I am so angry. Where are your bags? Your stopping at mine, Tom never stopped at mine, in all the time we did spend together, it was mainly here, and besides I have the room. It’s only up the road; do you want to join me at Carrie’s cottage?” He looked at me with that look, the one he did, when I’d asked him a question, and I already knew the answer too.
“I need to shut up here and grab my bag it’s in the boot of my car, give me a second.” He dashed checked the place and locked up, grabbed his overnight bag from his car and jumped in the front.
“You sure about this Carrie, we have to talk, we have a lot of catching up to do, and I know this will be a pain for you, because just a few weeks ago you were doing the same thing with Tom, so I can appreciate, you don’t feel like doing it again. I am a patient man, being a Paediatrician; I have to have a lot of patience with my patients, love saying that.
I want to get to know you, properly, after what Tom has done I don’t suppose there is much chance of that, is there? I have always wondered what happened to you, what you were doing, what had life thrown at you, seems a lot from the conversations we have had in a few hours, I don’t know where to start.”
“I have a headache and to be honest with you, I think we need to get the funeral out of the way and see where it takes us, I had trust issues before, and now they are even worse than they have ever been with me. I really can’t begin to tell you how confused I am, right now. When I came back finding you was way on top of my list, now I don’t know what I want other than my children back in my life and my hotels up and running.”
“I, Carrie have a couple of weeks off, to sort through some of the issues, and I am sure by the time we bury Tom, we will have sorted through some of them. Can we just take this slowly; I would like it, I know walking away from you all those years ago, was the biggest mistake of my life. That and allowing him to take you home that night, but his brother was watching me, and I had to get Sarah to the hospital, she was barely breathing. Yes, I asked the hospital to do a rape kit, and to take a sample of my blood to rule me out, which they did.
Sarah was a mess; no memory, her bits apparently rubbed raw and clean, and her clothes were all going through the washing machine, she’d showered, or he did it for her, and her hair brushed.
Whoever did it…? Well, we know now, but back then, he had washed everything away. When her parents came to the hospital, asked who had done it, I actually thought it was Tom, and said I didn’t know.
I told them the truth; I was just putting my coat on the bed, and the coats moved I found her dressed her in clothes from the lads room and took her straight there. I called after you to stop and wait; but hell, you ran so quickly out of there, and then after that he guarded you like a bloody Rottweiler.
I didn’t see you after that apart from the football field thing, I was hoping, you’d come down and kick my arse. You’re crying; I heard that through your window, on the field, I decided on university of Birmingham, that night. He threatened me with you again, and again he said you’d pay, if I didn’t leave. Given a taster of what he said; you would get, which was fucking painful.
The night of the awards was my last night here; I was leaving for four years. I got a knock back and well. His brother Paul; beat the crap out of me for going to see if you were alright, having warned me off, saying you and Pete were an item. Pete didn’t share his women; I knew it was a lie, so went anyway and he dragged me out of the school at knife point and well, let’s just say it hurt, he said you were going to be treated like a queen, and no harm would come to you!” I laughed then cried, pulled up outside my hotel home, and watched as he grabbed the bags, Uncle Harry came out of the hotel and gave me the once over.
“You young lady, best answer your phone in future; I have been trying to get hold of you all day, to see if you’re alright?”
“You fuss more than Jack does; my phones dead sorry.
I’m fine it looks like I had a narrow escape, Uncle Harry. He wasn’t the man I thought he was, or whom, he had me believe, I thought he was? Oh, I’m going for a bath, show Jack to the quite back room suite, he will be here for a while, thank you, we will eat after we have a bath and change cloths Jack. Uncle Harry was the car totalled. If so, I need a new one white, smaller, an Audi I think. No big and flashy from now on.”
I ran to my room with my bags; and I flopped on the bed I let out a cry, some of Tom’s clothes were still in my room. His shoes on his side of the bed, and god his aftershave lingered in the room. I grabbed a bin bag, and threw the clothes, the shoes, all remnants of him; I tossed away in the bag. I cleaned I hooved, I dusted, and I stripped, and changed the bed and then threw all the things, down the laundry Shute. I showered and changed into my comfortable joggers and went to join the others.
“Having a spring clean Carrie? You should have said Aunty Lou is here she could have cleaned your room, Linda is coming home too, she thinks you will need her shoulder to cry on?”
“Always glad to see Linda; but Uncle Harry I am all cried out, I think I am all used up in the men stakes, I don’t need the flaming grief they have caused me.”
“Aunty Lou and I are going for a nice meal out, do you need the car?” I laughed.
“Take a couple of thick towels I went for a swim, and the seats may be wet.” I got the look; I always had when he caught me with my hand in the sweetie jar in their shop, never once did he believe me I was just testing them.
“Oh, alright and tomorrow we have to go and register Tom’s death, or will Jack be doing it, the undertakers have him. They need the paperwork, they dropped of the forms you need to take, and they will be needing, a suit, and shoes for burial?” I, let out a deep sigh.
“I was his official next of kin, he made me it, I want nothing to do with him, and he was lying all the time. Uncle Harry and I can’t feel anything for him but pity, and considering yesterday, my day started and ended with him, I can’t believe, how stupid I was. He had me fooled; and I believed he loved me, but I was the fool. You can’t turn the bloody clock back, so I did it with bloody surgery, did it that way got a great pair of tits and a brand new ass, do you think I can pay to get the shity thirty years, I had put in a surgical waste bin somewhere, and have new memory’s put in?
Ones were I’m not a fucking victim, one where I do the arse kicking? Not too much to ask, that I get something good back in my life? Have I been such a fucking cow in my past; that this is all I deserve, the fucking rug constantly pulled from under my feet?”
“Carrie, he had me fooled to, I think he did love you, and as much as it pains you to hear it, you loved what you had thirty years ago, a friend, a friend who told you what you wanted to hear, that you were the Carrie he loved way back then but right here and now!” Jack came in as Harry started the speech, and smiled.
“I have always loved you Carrie; as did Thomas, but the difference is, I don’t expect you to forgive me. What I did was unforgivable; I left you to him and for that, there should be no forgiveness. I will try to make it up to you; as your friend, I don’t expect more because I don’t deserve more.
I should have taken you with me to Birmingham; ignored your father, and just took you, you would have been sixteen, and been able to marry me, in just four months, four months and your whole world would have been so different.”
“No dad; wouldn’t have stopped you, he liked you, he knew how much I loved you, he would have said yes, you didn’t ask him, why are you lying Jack? Have I not been hurt enough these past couple of days?”
“Carrie; George, did say no to Jack, Jack came to ask if he could take you away the night of the award ceremony. He said no, you were too young, and Jack was just too old for you, yet too young to be having a young wife, around university with him, you would soon lose the attraction he felt for you, and he would dump you and leave you broken hearted. He didn’t want Jack the older boy to hurt his little girl.”
He had asked dad for permission to take me away and dad had said no, god what would my life have been like with Jack, even if it was just for a short while it would have been better than what I got long term. Oh hell, I needed a stiff drink and the bar was about to be hit hard tonight.
“I didn’t know I thought you were with Sarah; I was grounded, for ages after I got drunk that night. Oh, why did you not just do it Jack?” His shoulders shrugged, as he looked at me, not going there, not, not, going to do it again ever. The cuddle he have as I cried, said something else though.
“Uncle Harry; take Aunty Lou out, spend a fortune on her, and have a blast, the best meal, the best champagne, the best room in the hotel, stop over and enjoy her birthday, and put it on the card please my treat. What would I do without you two?” He asked if I was safe, and I laughed, with Jack yes always, with Jack I was safe. I just had to start all over and take it as slowly as I could, get to know him as a friend again, but with him and me, it was lust at first kiss. I smiled inside; he looked lost, as I picked up the phone and ordered a whole load of food from Mr Ming’s Chinese dynasty takeaway.
“I think the alcohol will take some soaking up Jack; I intend to get hammered, please join me, and talk to me tell me how, Jack Thompson, didn’t get to play for England and Torquay united, and ended up being a kiddie doctor? That’s if you care to join an ex, who is drinking out the bad memories and toasting in the new ones?”
“I think that sounds like a good idea; but no funny stuff, you were murder to calm down when you were worked up, and we aren’t going down that road tonight, not any night soon either.”
“Are you really a virgin? Looking like that, you’re really still a virgin. Go on, Tom had me believe he was too, I’m only asking because well, you don’t look the virgin type? No; hot nurses to play, hahaha doctors, and nurses with?”
“No, as I said, I took a vow of celibacy, I will only sleep with the girl I marry, and hard as it is to believe I haven’t found anyone to replace the girl, I did promise that to, you!” I poured a large brandy and coke and offered him the bar, scotch on the rocks his, preferred drink, I threw myself on the couch and he joined me, we did as we used to do and sat on the couch feet touching and toes playing.
“Well, why are you not playing football? You, were so good at it, the football scouts all had their eyes on you?” He looked and smiled.
“I had my leg broken and after that, I couldn’t play, I was in traction for a while, had it re-broken, re-set and a few surgeries, but after that, it was far too damaged to play on. I can just manage a fierce kick around with Ben’s lads now.”
“Oh, I’m, sorry, how did you manage to break it then dumb ass?”
“I had it broken, I didn’t choose to break it Carrie, the brothers Hutchinson’s final shot, broke my leg, and damaged the other. On the night of the awards ceremony, Carrie, I had no choice that night but to leave you. Then you seemed to choose him; and it broke my heart, I left, and never came back. I didn’t know; about, about the rape, the terrors he made you suffer, I just well, I don’t know. I didn’t fight hard enough for you, and I should have, I should have Carrie Constance Wright. You were my life and had been for all that time. It ended when Tom told me you were busy with Peter, that night. Paul broke my leg to make me toe the line, I had already decided to go, and I didn’t want to be here without you, so I ran and started over.”
“So; because of me you lost all your dreams that night, me, the football your longed for big family, I am so sorry Jack, I wish I could turn the clock back but I can’t.” With that the Chinese was delivered, he jumped up and paid for it.
“I have the money Jack, really, and talking of money, what you heard in the bank…”
“Stays in the bank? I don’t kiss and tell Carrie, you know that.”
“I don’t want Tom’s money or the house, I will split it between you and Ben, I figure his pride stopped him leaving it to you, but he knew I had no need and would give it to you, so that’s what I will do make sure hi
s brothers have his money, seems he owes you both that much.”
“Carrie, I lead a good life, I don’t need his money that’s why he didn’t leave it me.”
“Well, take it, take it and give it away, you doctor types all have a charity or two you support, take a year off and do the doctors without borders thing, just take it Jack, it is what I want, please?”
“Fine I will; but I do the Medecins San Frontiere’s every holiday I get, I love doing it, and in fact I am going there for a month, next month. So, thank you it means I can take much needed supplies to Africa with me, instead of begging the hospital for them, thank you, now eat.” We agreed to talk, which we did and we drank, quite a bit too, he stopped me drinking.
“When did you get so bossy mister?” We sat and talked more; we were two very different people, to those two teenagers that we were an age ago. Yes, he was handsome; he was buff, tanned and the typical stud doctor, which would have all the nurses falling at his feet! I didn’t believe for one minute that he was celibate, not with the testosterone-fuelled body, he had going on. Sex was running through his body, god I wanted to just touch him to see if it was still there, but I resisted, really I did, one Thompson boy was a mistake, two was simply stupid. We drank and talked into the small hours, I, yawned Jack smiled.
“Bed time for you Carrie, we have a busy day tomorrow, I can’t see us being up before lunch time.”
“Yes Sir, I am sleeping down here, too tired to travel, all the way up those stairs. I need a lift putting in, for moments like these; drunkenitis, I have the dreadful disease of, drunkenitis, legs don’t work, and my head is sore, my sense of judgment is all out of synch, and I think I feel sick? I in fact know I feel sick.” Jack laughed. He’d had as much as me, and he was sober as a judge, um, I think he’s cute when he laughs. I’m going there, damn it. I want Doctor Studily. Yes, I am that stupid it seems.
“Jack, I’m doing that thing again, that thing I used to do a long time ago, I want your body, and now! However, you’re celebrated and don’t do that do you the sex thing; you’re a non-sex doing doctor who is a calibrated, thingy, no, you don’t do it any more, trust you to get the timing all wrong Jack, Jack I want you… Back…” I passed out, I must have, because I woke with a steaming headache in my bed, alone bummer, with a sick bucket by the bed and still in the clothes, I had on, but oh, hell the room was spinning and way more than it needed to.