Of course he’d have to get her file from HR and see when her birthday was, but it might be worth the effort especially if the garage, where he filled up most weekends, sold carnations and after all… what woman didn’t like Dairy Milk?
Janet on the other hand, had decided unilaterally that her boss ought to be taught a lesson. Rachel Cox deserved more than the miserly limit set by her husband for her present, so as she read out his card details to the florist, she upped the value of the bouquet from ten to fifty pounds and asked whether they could also deliver one of their larger boxes of Belgian chocolates.
“All done.” She said with a look of satisfaction, as she handed Tom his card back. “They’ve guaranteed that everything will be delivered to your house on Saturday morning before ten am.” But Tom had begun to have second thoughts.
“You don’t think the Dairy Milk was overkill, do you Janet?” He’d asked in his most earnest professional voice. “I mean we don’t want Rachel thinking we’re having an affair. She’s a very jealous person you know… I mean I was going to ask you if you would accompany me to Paris but then I thought… well you know… I mean you wouldn’t want a weekend away would you?” Tom asked without having the decency to actually look at Janet.
“Let me think about it for a moment.” She said walking to the door. Tom’s head lifted from his paperwork in anticipation… he’d never thought she would but hey if you didn’t ask...
“Nope sorry, I’ve just remembered I have to poke my eyes out with a blunt knitting needle this weekend and I couldn’t forsake that for a dirty weekend away with you… sorry.” Janet flounced away without a glance back or a word of contrition.
“A simple no would have sufficed!” Tom had shouted after her, as his office door banged closed. “I knew it…” He murmured whilst shaking his head in disbelief. “…she’s another fucking lesbian.”
By the time he’d reached his front door, the neighbour’s tomcat was returning home from its nocturnal shag fest, the birds were just starting to offer their advice on the day ahead and the street lamps were going out like a Mexican wave at a football game.
It was only when he’d opened the door and sneaked inside like some weary thief that he’d remembered Rachel was staying over at her friend’s house until the Saturday. She’d told him the day before that the girls were all going out celebrating… but for the life in him, as he stood in the dark, desolate hallway, he couldn’t remember what it was they had to celebrate and anyway he didn’t care… all he’d wanted at that moment was to collapse onto the bed and catch a couple of hours of sleep. If he was lucky, he’d have enough time later to finish preparing for the meeting before catching the three o’clock flight to Paris. The meeting had been scheduled for a nine o’clock start and as if there wasn’t enough pressure already, the firm’s client had warned Tom about the consequences of being late…
“Tardiness Tom is unacceptable whatever the reason.”
He woke feeling not much better than when he’d arrived home and a quick look at his alarm clock told him why. Six o’clock… he’d been back just two hours and had one hour’s fitful sleep. The fifteen minute shower worked better than the short cat nap, but it was only as he was leaving the house that he remembered to leave the note about being in Paris over the weekend and he knew that if he didn’t let Rachel know, she’d only worry about him and waste money buying food for the weekend… food that he’d not be there to eat.
Rachel,
Last minute change of plan. Gone to Paris on business. Back sometime over the weekend. Will call when I get chance.
Tom
p.s. Remember to turn the lights off and don’t leave the central heating on when you go out.
He read it again and thought he’d covered all the bases. It told her what she needed to know and left it vague enough for him not to over-promise too much. Perfect… except there was still a nagging doubt in his head that he’d missed off something important. Something he should have said or at the least mentioned. He went through his own list once more just before he slipped out of the door… money, ticket and passport. No, he had everything he needed for the trip.
But as the latch dropped and the door locked itself, Tom felt certain that if he had forgotten something, it couldn’t have been anything that important.
Approaching the station, his mind turned to less cerebral matters. As he showed his season ticket at the gate, he fervently hoped that the blond bimbo, who lived round the corner, chose to sit opposite him on the train. The last time she’d sat in the seat across from him, the forty minute journey into Waterloo had flown by. Of course, it hadn’t been her conversation that had caused time to pass so quickly, rather the sight of her smooth, sun-kissed legs that started at her Manolo Blahnik shoes, disappeared under her knee length pencil skirt and finished somewhere that Tom could only imagine was as near to heaven as he could ever hope to get.
But his hopes and expectations were dashed on the rocks of disappointment, as the girl of his fantasies, walked passed him without a second glance and sat next to a swarthy, young man who wore his designer stubble and the dark Hugo Boss suit with equal style and aplomb.
Then if that hadn’t been a sufficient enough reason to think that the signs didn’t bode well for the day ahead or his weekend away, no sooner had the girl started to giggle in a way that screamed … ‘strip me naked and fuck me right here, right now’… than the seat opposite Tom’s had been taken by the fat, sweaty accountant from Acacia Avenue. Suddenly, as Tom stared across the narrow gap to the man, Daniel’s malicious comments about Rachel came back to haunt him.
As his eyes danced in their sockets, like the lights of a pinball machine, he glanced repeatedly between the young girl and the fat accountant and just as the train jerked forward, Tom decided that as soon as he returned from his trip, he would have to tell Rachel to start that low carb diet, which she was always banging on about, because if people were going to be as disgusted with her appearance, as he was repulsed by the fat grease ball sat opposite him, then there was no way he wanted to be seen out with her.
The flight had been short and easy. The only problem with his arrival was that by the time he’d cleared the airport and picked up a taxi, they’d hit the Friday night rush hour traffic. Fortunately though most of the cars were heading away from the city and out into the surrounding suburbs and countryside. But even so the journey from Charles De Gaulle was tortuous and expensive. As the driver had finally pulled up outside the small hotel, close to the Arc de Triomphe, Tom had become convinced that he’d slowed deliberately, as they’d approached each and every set of lights, just so they would have to sit and wait for the fare to climb steadily. The only tip he left the driver, who was of African descent and who couldn’t speak a word of English, was to drive quicker and buy a sat nav.
It wasn’t as though he’d planned to see Lisa. He’d just bumped into her outside the hotel. It was one of those surreal moments when in a city the size of Paris, two people who hadn’t seen each other for a year, just happened to be in the same place at exactly the same moment. Ironically, if the cab had stopped for just one more red light on the trip from the airport or if the hotel’s receptionist hadn’t been engaged in some personal conversation with her boyfriend that had meant he’d not checked in when he had… then either event and countless others, could have meant that they would have passed each other on the pavement and never been any the wiser. But it hadn’t happened like that, he’d walked out of the hotel with the intention of finding a bar and stepped straight out into her path.
“I’m here for the weekend… on business.” He’d quickly added and then didn’t know why. “If you’re free we should… catch up, dinner? How about dinner… if you’re free that is? Tonight?” But Tom had been disappointed, Lisa was already on her way to meet her dinner date, so as enticing a prospect as Tom’s offer was, she’d declined, given him a peck on his cheek and left him standing disconsolate on the steps of the hotel.
Instead, he’d
found a quiet backstreet Irish bar, which was showing a Friday night football game and steadily drowned out his disappointment with copious amounts of Guinness. Then, his first night in the city of romance and culture had been topped off with a MacDonald’s burger and large fries, doused in copious amounts of ketchup and mayonnaise, before he’d staggered back to his hotel… his bed… and his dreams of the blond girl on the train... and those legs. God those long, bronzed legs!
At two am, with a mouth that was as dry as a vacuum cleaner’s dust bag, he’d fallen off the bed and stumbled half-asleep into the bathroom where, as he’d stood valiantly trying to direct the stream of yellow alcohol laden piss into the toilet, the awful truth had suddenly dawned on him.
What had caused him such dismay and an ever increasing pool of warm urine to spread across the tiled floor, was the stark realisation that he’d fallen into an alcohol-fuelled sleep on the top of the bed just as the pay-to-view film, which he’d bought on his return from his night out, had reached the point where the long-legged blond had been stripped naked and pushed over the bale of hay by the swarthy young stable-hand who had a dick the size of a donkey.
“Shit, shit, shit!” He screamed injudiciously, as he tried to mentally rewind the previous couple of hours in a vain attempt to remember just how much his failed exercise at masturbation had cost him. But before he could wallow in a bout of self-pity and bitter recrimination at being sent alone to the ‘love’ capital of Europe, the bilious contents of his stomach rebelled violently against his semi-conscious gyrations and covered the floor in a foul acrid soup of partially digested burger, lettuce and chips.
The following day, with a head that felt it had been in a vice all night and all thoughts of breakfast left in his bathroom sink, Tom was thankful that his clients merely thought he might have been coming down with the flu rather than nursing the hangover to beat all hangovers.
Concluding the meeting around three and with his head pounding like a bass drum, Tom decided to try and make the last flight of the day rather than spend another night drinking himself into oblivion in the company of pathetic men, who were happy to sit around some dingy bar all night, farting and drinking Guinness, which only made them fart more.
If he was lucky, he’d calculated that he could still make last orders at his local, and still have time for a fish and chip supper.
“Monsieur!” The receptionist called out, as he walked hurriedly across the hotel’s small foyer. “Monsieur, a lady came by earlier and left this note for you.” She said with only a trace of an accent and a beaming knowingly smile.
Tom warily took the envelope, looked briefly for somewhere private to read the anonymous correspondence and then bowed to his own insatiable curiosity and simply ripped open the unsealed note where he stood.
Tom,
Sorry about last night. I live at 234, Rue Chambarde, Montmartre… drinks and dinner at 7.00pm, don’t be late.
Lisa
If that hadn’t been enough to grab his attention, Lisa had added a beguiling postscript…
P.S. Bring a toothbrush!
“A Toothbrush!” Tom had said more loudly than he’d intended after reading the note.
“Pardon monsieur?” The girl asked politely. Being a dutiful employee, she’d already opened the envelope and read the note but her mischievous curiosity couldn’t help but ask the question.
“Do you wish to buy a toothbrush?” She teased provocatively.
“What? A toothbrush... no thank you I have one, I was just wondering…” He let the question trail away to nothing, as he remembered the last time he’d spent a night with Lisa.
He’d just returned from the shambolic holiday in Alicante, when they’d found themselves working late in the office and before he’d had a chance to ask her if she’d been tested recently for genital herpes, they’d been at it like a pair of rabbits who’d just heard the nuclear three minute warning.
Christ it has only been a year but he’d forgotten how sexy she was… until he’d bumped into her outside the hotel. Well she’d looked just as good then as she did the first time he’d first seen her. Her body was still slim, petite and… and seven o’clock couldn’t come soon enough.
“You were wondering monsieur how we say toothbrush in French… brosse á dents.” The girl continued her game. If nothing else, it relieved the boredom and she found Englishmen such easy targets.
“No… I wasn’t… but thank you anyway. Could you order me a taxi?” Tom asked as he hurried across the tiled floor towards the lift.
“Certainly monsieur. Six forty-five going to Montmartre.” She added without a second glance at Tom.
It was only as he turned the key in the lock of his bedroom door that he wondered how the girl knew the right time and place, but his interest in the mystery lasted only as long as it took him to get inside, strip off and jump in the shower.
Washing in all the right places… just in case he hit lucky, his mind fantasised about what delights the night ahead might hold. Of course he knew he’d have to delay his flight but Janet had booked an open ticket, so catching a later plane would present no problem and anyway he couldn’t think of a single reason to rush back. If he caught the first plane on Sunday morning, he knew that Rachel would only expect him to have his usual Sunday altercation with the lawn mower, followed by her usual burnt offering that she cleverly disguised as lunch, culminating in an evening down the Dog and Duck, where after a few pints, the night would end in yet another inane discussion about the government, the trade deficit or the immigration situation.
The only bright spot in an otherwise dire evening would be Tira, the pub’s new Latvian barmaid, who managed to squeeze more into her skimpy T-shirts than most girls, and whose amateurish attempts at pulling pints had more to do with eroticism than the Campaign for Real Ale.
The thought of Tira pulling and stroking the beer pumps had just about convinced Tom to forget Lisa and take the next available flight when the shower’s erratic water supply suddenly did a sharp U-turn and doused him in a deluge of cold water. Jumping from the icy spray, any thought that Tom might have had about going home was forgotten about in a trice and like a randy tom cat on the prowl, his thoughts turned once more to Lisa.
Dressed in nothing but the cheap towelling robe that had been provided by the hotel, Tom lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. In a flash, he was transported back to his first dalliance with Lisa and wondered if it really could have been twelve months since they’d worked late and had been alone in the office.
The storeroom hadn’t been the most romantic place for an intimate moment, but it was the only place the cleaners never ventured and it was one of the few rooms that could be locked… and Lisa had been so inviting… so receptive… so demonstrative… so loud… so… Tom’s eyes shot wide open.
He looked down at the increasing bulge in his robe and marvelled at the reaction merely thinking about Lisa stripped naked and draped over the filing cabinet had produced. If an old memory could make him spring into life like that what, he wondered, would happen when he saw Lisa in the flesh… well whatever the evening held in store Tom took the pragmatic view that it seemed a shame to waste his current moment of sexual excitement and he’d always subscribed to Tira’s old Latvian proverb that promised all chicken farmers…
‘A cock in the hand now, is better than nothing at all later.’
Lisa opened the door wearing so little that Tom had immediately wondered if it was safe to cook in nothing but a silk kimono, unless all that she’d got planned for the evening was raw steak, sushi and salad.
But all thoughts of food and safety had disappeared in a flash, as Lisa threw her arms around his neck and pulled him so close that he could feel every contour of her body push into his own.
If the hors d’oeuvres were sumptuous, the main course and pudding had been out of this world. The evening hadn’t been so much a raw snack but more a banquet where the euphemistic sound of champagne corks popping had lasted all night and well i
nto the following morning.
After a night in the company of Lisa, time, Paris and all thoughts of Rachel had taken the earlier plane and flown completely out of Tom’s head. Completely that is, until he’d checked-in at Charles de Gaulle, sat relaxing in the BA lounge with a vodka martini and a smile as broad as the Cheshire Cats’ and slowly began to replay the weekend over in his mind…
The meeting couldn’t have gone better, even Daniel would have to begrudgingly admit that he’d done well and then the rest of the time… well that had been such a whirlwind even he wasn’t sure that it hadn’t all been some dream. Had he and Lisa really made love fifteen times? It wasn’t as though he’d been counting but fifteen? God that was his own personal record. Normally he was lucky if he managed it twice with Rachel….
The smile evaporated in an instant, as he suddenly remembered what it was that he’d forgotten, as he left the house on Friday morning. Everything came bursting back into his head in glorious Technicolour with digital Dolby Surround. It couldn’t have been clearer, had the woman on the airport tannoy been announcing the extent of his marital inadequacies…
‘This is a security announcement. Would all passengers please note that Tom Cox is a lowlife, cheating bastard who has forgotten his wife’s thirtieth birthday because he’s been too busy shagging an old friend… Fifteen times… can you believe that? What a miserable rat.’
“Holy Mary Sweet Mother of Jesus!” He said a little too loudly in the quiet of the business lounge on a Sunday and in a country that was still predominantly Catholic. He looked round and duly noted the shocked disgusted looks, which were a sufficient rebuke for him to mime his apologies to all those who were interested.
Stranger at the Wedding Page 3