Who Stole My Life?

by C. P. IRVINE, IAN

  I wait patiently, for what seems like an age. Then finally he sits forward in his chair, taking his pipe out of his mouth and grasping it tightly in the palm of his hands.

  "Then given what you've just told me, son, wherever he is now, I would just tell your friend this: tell him to find this woman. If she exists. Tell him to find her, wherever she is. To find out if the love he has for her is real, and if she, in return, has love for him…But be prepared that if she doesn't exist, to accept the new life he has now. Tell him to embrace this new life and live it to the full. No,… not to forget the old life. But to realize that it has passed and that it no longer exists. The past is gone, and only the present and the future is important now, and by that I mean, the present that he can see, touch and feel all around him wherever he is now."

  He turns to me, looking me straight in the eyes.

  "You see son, a man, a true man, deals with whatever life throws at him at any point in time. A man cannot control his life, he cannot plan it, only a fool really thinks he can. No, the true mark of a man, is someone who accepts that life always changes, and that the most he can do, is to accept the changes that life thrusts upon him and endeavor to learn to live with them, in the best way he can. To accept the life he has, whatever life that may be."

  He leans forward and touches me on my knee.

  "Son, only you know what is real. Only you. What is real to me, is not the same as what is real to others. What we perceive as reality is forged by the experiences we have had. The experiences that make you who you are, are different to the ones that have made me who I am."

  "You are asking me for my advice son. Man to man, father to son. Don't get me wrong. I love Jane, I always have. And your mother and I love the children. But we know that for a few years now you have not been happy. Something, I don't know what, isn't right between you both."

  He pauses for a moment, rising to his feet and moving over to the drinks cabinet in the corner. He takes out a bottle of malt and pours two large glasses, handing one to me as he returns to his seat.

  "Put down that cocoa rubbish and take this. You'll need it. Son, I'm going to tell you something now, something that no man should ever tell a son, but something which I think you should hear, because I want you to know that I understand what you are thinking. Something that you must never ever repeat to anyone else, either tomorrow or at any time in the future when I'm dead and gone. And something which after tonight we will never ever refer to or mention again."

  He looks at me now, his eyes suddenly alive with emotion, but his voice ice calm and steady, urging me to confirm the pact.

  "I promise." I reply, already nervous of what he wants to tell me and wondering if I am ready for it.

  Holding the glass in both hands, he looks deep into the orange liquid, his eyes searching the depths of his mind, reliving something from long ago.

  "Son, I know what it is to dream of someone else. I know what it is to yearn for something that you can't have. I know all of that, and I can never forget the feeling. You see, about thirty years ago, I had an affair..."

  My jaw drops open. What? My father…, my dad, an affair? In a second, the perfect image of my father that I have always treasured in my mind is shattered. In an instant everything that I thought my father stood for is gone, …changed. My father…an affair? How? Why? My parents have always had one of the strongest relationships I have ever known. They practically define marriage. Or at least, I thought they did…

  Dad stops for a second and looks over at me, seeing the shock in my eyes.

  "I didn't ask for it to happen son. It's not something I'm proud of, and it's something I can never forgive myself for. And there are no excuses. But, I was young, stupid, and a fool."

  "Did mum ever know?" I hear myself asking, not wanting to believe a word of what I am hearing.

  "Your mother? God no! If she did, she would have left me immediately. No, I made sure she never found out."

  "How long did it last for?" I ask.

  He gets up from his chair and stands in front of the fire, looking deep into the flames.

  "A year," he replies slowly.

  "A…a year?" I stutter back, raising my voice.

  "Shsssh!" my dad says, turning and waving his hand at me. "You'll wake your mother."

  "But, I thought you and mum were always in love…I thought you were the perfect couple…"

  "And we were, and still are. But things are never that simple. Just like what you're going through now, things happen, life gets complicated. But it's up to us to manage and take responsibility for everything we do." He says, coming back over to his chair and putting his hand on my shoulder. "The fact is James, I loved this woman. Don't worry, I loved your mother too, and I knew that I would never leave her, but it took a long time for me to end it. And when I did, I did it because I had to, because I knew I must."

  I look over at my father, and realize with a shock, that I have never really truly understood who my dad was. I have never really known him. And there is still so much about him that I have to learn. It suddenly dawns on me that I have only ever seen him from one point of view: him being my dad, and not someone who was also a man. A man with feelings and needs and emotions, just like myself. Me. James Quinn.

  And then I understand that my dad and myself are more alike than I had ever realized before.

  "James, the thing is…" he continues, not waiting for me to fully recover from the shock, " …the relationship you have with Jane is not the same as what your mother and I have. I love your mother, but you don’t love Jane. When I stopped seeing the other woman, I never stopped loving her, but I knew I didn't want to lose your mother either, and at the end of the day, your mother, and my children, were more important to me than anything the other woman could ever give me. I had too much to lose. But you don't. The love is already gone. And I would hate for you to spend the rest of your life longing for something else that you can't have. James, you only get one life to live. Life, as they say, isn't a practice run..."

  I sit in silence, just staring at the man before me, trying to take it all in, trying to understand.

  "Son, I would never have believed that it was possible to love two women at the same time, but unfortunately it is. But, ...I learned that it is not possible to simultaneously have relationships with two women. You have to choose. I know you are married to Jane, and I know that I have always drummed into you how important it is to work at keeping a marriage together, ...but what I would say to you now is that since we only have one life, I would never want you to stay together just for the sake of it,...to spend your one life in a loveless sham, like living a prison sentence from day to day. Love is the most powerful force in the world, and we have to work with it, not against it."

  "You want my advice, son? Fine, I'll give it to you. It doesn't matter whether I believe your story or not. In your mind, you love another woman. Another woman who is as real to you as I am to you now, right? Then son, the way I see it, you only have one option. If you believe all of what you told me, then you have to find out if what you think you feel is true. And to do that … you have to find this woman."

  "No matter what it takes son. If she's real, and she exists, …wherever she is or may be…you have to find her."

  PART THREE

  Chapter Twenty Two

  .

  .

  It's hard to take it all in, … almost too much to digest.

  Getting back into my car, I drive around the corner from my parents' house, park in a neighboring street and switch the engine off. I sit there in the silence and the dark, trying to organize my thoughts and to accept the revelations my dad has just unleashed on me. I am angry.

  I think of my mother, and the pain she would have felt if she had found out about the other woman. And I wonder if perhaps she knew, after all, but put up with it, letting the affair run its course. Or perhaps she never knew. All those months of lying, all those months of deceit.

  Yet, it worked itself out in t
he end, and in spite of what happened, my childhood was only full of good memories. For all the years I can remember, my parents succeeded in bringing me up in a happy home. A loving home.

  For the first time ever, I think of my parents as two people, people who have feelings, and emotions, and their own lives to lead,… just like myself or Sarah. I see them in a new light, as people and not parents, and I realize that there is still so much I have to learn about them, and from them.

  Eventually, I smile, and the initial anger I felt fades and goes away.

  Although I am shocked by what my dad has just told me, I also feel strangely honored by the fact that in my time of need, he trusted me enough to tell me a secret he had kept quiet all his life. A secret that will remain with me, and one which I will never speak of or mention again. He has trusted me and I will honor that trust.

  Anyway, what right do I have to be angry that he had an affair? Wasn't I lusting after Jane when I was with Sarah?

  Switching on the engine and starting on the journey home, my thoughts turn back to myself, and to the self-revelation of my own hypocrisy.

  What is it in the make-up of a man that creates in him the ability to stray from a loving home and wife? Why did I ever start to look away from Sarah?

  I find myself starting to ask myself some searching questions about my relationship with Sarah and why on earth I should feel unhappy with her. Which, let’s face it, MUST be the case, somehow, even if I can't see it myself just now.

  What is wrong with our relationship? Have I been running away from something? And if so, what?

  Now I am angry with myself for not having asked these questions long, long ago, and I know that I have to understand the answers before I find Sarah again.

  A fox runs across the road in front of me, distracting my attention and breaking my chain of thought as I watch it disappear through the crack in a fence into someone's garden.

  Coming to the end of the road and turning slowly into a new street, my thoughts turn back to the advice my dad has given me about Sarah.

  'Find her', he said.

  So where do I start?

  London is one of the largest cities in the world. It takes an airplane ten minutes just to fly over it, it covers hundreds, maybe thousands of square miles, and is home to over seven million people. And that's assuming she even lives in London.

  As I drive back to my house in Effingham Road I consider the task my father has just set me, and am resolved to accept it.

  I find myself in a rather strange predicament. One that has no explanation, that makes no sense, but is, nevertheless, real.

  The past I know and the past I am meant to have are not the same. The wife I married is not the same person that I sleep with every night, and the children whom I do my best to tolerate, are not the ones I fathered. And yet, they are.

  A sane man would not be able to resolve this puzzle, but I realize that I can no longer consider myself a sane man. There is probably no other single person on the planet who would claim that which I do, or insist that their past and their present are in no way connected by any single strand of continuity. There is no doctor of the mind who would understand me, and no physicist who would be able to make sense of what I know to be true.

  By all definitions of the word, I must be insane.

  Yet, I know now, with more certainty than I have ever had about anything before, that Sarah and my children are real. The problem is, paradoxically, that Jane and my new family are real too.

  So, if Sarah and Keira and Nicole are real, where are they now? And how can I find them?

  As I turn into the drive and open the door to my house, I am confronted by the fact that, for the moment, I have more pressing problems.

  "Where have you been? I've been worried sick!" Jane shouts at me, as soon as I close the door. "The children have been asking for you, and I didn't know what to tell them." She is standing at the bottom of the stairs, in her dressing gown and slippers. It doesn't look like she slept at all.

  She begins to cry, then turns her back to me, as if to walk away towards the kitchen. With one foot raised, as if she were about to take a step, she hesitates, her hand resting on the banister of the stairs. Then slowly she turns and walks back towards me, stopping a few inches away, her eyes looking up at me questioningly, sad and confused.

  "James, what's going on? Where have you been?" she says in between sobs.

  Before I can speak, she wraps her arms around me, and starts sobbing onto my shoulders. Her body shakes against mine, and I can feel the emotional release within her. Looking over her shoulder, I see little Allison is standing on the stair landing, looking down at us, and above, little Elspeth is gingerly walking slowly and carefully down the stairs to join her. Allison has her thumb in her mouth, silent tears rolling down her cheek.

  "Come here, all of you," I say. "Don't be worried. Daddy just spent the night at Granny and Grandad's. I didn't call you because I didn't want to wake you up. Now, let's go and make some breakfast? Pancakes anyone?"

  "Me daddy. Me," shouts Allison, her tears drying up instantly, and jumping down the stairs and running into the kitchen.

  "'ee, Addy. 'ee Addy," mimics Elspeth behind her, and following just as fast as her little legs will carry her.

  Jane looks up at me and looks into my eyes. I reach out and wipe away her tears.

  "James,…" she starts to speak. Then the light in her pupils changes, as if a decision has been made. She swallows hard, wipes away the rest of her tears, and pulls herself up straight. "Your parents? Okay... Okay, fine. As long as you are okay. As long as everything is alright." She pauses. "Come on, let's get breakfast."

  She turns and walks away.

  Is that it?

  What about the interrogation? What about the endless questions and the anger? Where is the angry confrontation?

  As I bend down to undo my shoes, I hear Jane shout after me.

  "And James, hang up your coat please, and put away your things. When you came home last night - before you went to your parents - you left your clothes in the shower-room. You know how I hate a mess."

  In that moment I understand Jane a lot more.

  She suppresses problems and avoids confrontation. Last night I upset her. I ruined her evening, but now she's just brushing it away, forgetting it happened. Better that than confront me over it. Like my affairs with Margareta and Claire, which she no doubt knows all about, but just pretends aren’t happening. She creates her own reality about the marriage and doesn't face its problems.

  Instead of facing me and her worries and emotions, and probably because she knows she won't be able to control me, her outlet is to channel all her unhappiness and anger into controlling the state of cleanliness and order in the house. Nothing is allowed to be out of place. Dirt, or mess, or disorder of any sort is not tolerated. The only real control mechanism she has over me is to nag me constantly about hanging up my trousers, putting away my shoes, not leaving a book on the table in the front room, making sure the pictures are straight on the wall, the books on the shelves are in a perfect line. There are never any dirty dishes in the kitchen, never any old newspapers lying on the sofa. Even kitchen waste seems to be itemized and recycled according to strict guidelines.

  I live in a museum. Not a house.

  We do not live. We exist.

  We are visitors in our own lives.

  As I sit in the kitchen and talk to the girls, helping Elspeth with her pancakes, I make up my mind that things are going to change.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Where to start?

  Monday

  .

  I feel guilty about Jane.

  I sense the pain, the anger, the distrust that she carries around within her, and I know that I am the cause, at least, I was the cause. The more I learn about myself the more I realize that I must have treated her badly in the past. The man she has known as me has been deceitful to her, …and in spite of myself, the man she knows now is in danger of deceiving
her again. But what can I do?

  As the weekend passes, I do try hard, but in truth I find that I am only going through the motions of spending time with Jane and the children. My mind is elsewhere, my thoughts a one-track process, trying to figure out how I can go about finding Sarah. Yet, no matter how hard I think, my mind draws a blank. It seems a hopeless task.

  The chances of bumping into her in the street are millions to one. In all the time I've lived in London, I have only ever accidentally bumped into about five people I know, none of whom were really close friends. So what chance do I have now of accidentally coming across Sarah, my wife?

  None.

  By Monday morning, I am beginning to feel the enormity of the task, and a mild depression is descending upon me. What hope do I have?

  As I sit on the train into Waterloo, it hits me just how completely ironic this all is. Instead of looking at other people and wondering at what lives they lead and what jobs they do, I am sitting wishing for my old life back, and wondering if I'll ever get to be me again. Nothing fancy this time. Just me. Plain, old, boring me.