Back to the waste of space that was Fred 3, or as my family named him ‘the unmentionable’. Deep down I knew what he was, but chose not to see it, at first. Within weeks he had all but moved in. He just stopped going back to his flat. He was entertaining, I will give him that. But soon he ‘lost his job’ as he put it and seemed in no hurry to get a new one. I offered help with job applications, but he never seemed to get any interviews let alone offers. He occasionally took casual labour jobs, but even those didn’t last. I paid for everything, even giving him money to go out with his mates just so I could get some peace and quiet.
Most people may consider this evidence of my gullibility, but the sequence of events didn’t all happen at once. It snuck up on me in stages over a few months until I was trapped. He needed fixing, he had a lot of issues. Boy did he have his issues.
Some years later, I’m afraid to confess, I had finally had enough of his ‘thinness’ – thin in mind, thin in ambition, thin financially, thin physically and thin-spirited. Luckily for me Fred 3 aided my escape plan by pinning my friend up against a wall and trying to kiss her whilst her boyfriend and I were ahead of them walking into a pub.
A week later, over dinner, my friend confessed what had happened. She had told her boyfriend straight away and they had agreed I needed to know. They were right, although interestingly they waited until after we had finished eating the homemade lasagne, followed by the shop-bought lemon tart I had served up to everyone. I’m not sure, maybe the alcohol I had plied my guests with had loosened tongues as it so often does.
I kicked Fred 3 out of the house that night. Sobbing on the doorstep he had tried everything. “But I’ll get a job”, “But I will get counselling”, “But I was going to ask you to marry me,” he claimed. That was the last straw and I slammed the door on him.
If any of what he said had been true he would have done it before now. If it were true, he wouldn’t have cheated on me. If it were true, he wouldn’t have run up massive phone bills calling sex lines whilst I slept in the room above.
At the end of the day it didn’t matter if it was true or not. It was over. I was done. The mockery of a relationship was finished. Until now I had not realised how angry I still was about all that. Let it go.
Back to the present
Thinking back on disastrous relationships was doing me no good. It might be passing the time but it was not good for my mood or for my mental state. If Ed calls now, I thought late on Tuesday evening, I certainly will not be the best company.
Luckily by the time he did call I was feeling much better, given I had been watching a comedy on the TV and wishing Ed was sitting on the sofa next to me and laughing at the programme, and also probably at me.
We spoke, Ed and I, every night that week, finding out more about each other, deepening our bond. Every day a rollercoaster of anticipating the call, the ecstasy of the call, the pit of emptiness after the call finished and the prospect of a lonely bed and another twenty-two hours before we spoke again. At least I managed to sleep that week, some much needed, blissful sleep, and for once work was a dull roar rather than all-out panic stations.
I’m an organised person. I like to plan out my work to ensure I hit deadlines and, as much as possible, even out the work flow so it’s never feast or famine. But that never seemed to work out in this job. Despite planning out the week there was always some crisis that would come crashing down and throw everything into disarray. I had long since learnt to distinguish between hard (immoveable) and soft (moveable) deadlines.
This week seemed calmer than most. I’m not sure if that was due to Ed’s influence, or because I was looking forward to the weekend so much that I was not letting anything distract me from the pleasure and anticipation of what was to come. I sailed through the week, completing tasks, being proactive, being busy and always smiling.
My colleagues were noticing that something had changed. By Thursday I could see they were getting close to interrogating me. Not that I’m usually miserable or unfriendly, I get on well with everyone, but they could see there was something I was not telling them and yet I felt ready to burst. I thought about skipping lunch, but I knew they would make time to find out what was going on if I didn’t join them, so I did.
Lunch in the canteen was always a bit of a risk. Not because it made you ill, it was usually very tasty. It was more a case of pot luck. I liked to try to stick to a light lunch, so salad, but sometimes the prepared salad either had some strange protein like goat’s cheese or it was full of carbs like potato or pasta. On those days I had to hope one of the hot options was low carb and I could pair it with vegetables. As long as I felt full I could make it through the afternoon. The temptation, if not, was always to break the diet and go for some terribly delicious and totally sinful cake mid-afternoon.
Lunch on that day was good – a healthy, hearty salad bowl topped with salami – and as the sun was out we took over a couple of the picnic tables on the grass outside.
There was a moment’s silence as we picked up our knives and forks. Not a moment of silent prayer or contemplation of the food we were about to enjoy, more a girding of the loins before the interrogation began.
Sarah was the first to break the silence. “So, are you going to tell us what’s changed this week or are we going to have to…?” she asked inquisitively, a forkful of jacket potato hovering near her mouth for dramatic effect, but now uncertain how to end this line of enquiry in this politically correct world, she popped the food in her mouth, cutting herself off.
My other colleagues gave each other furtive glances and then turned to me. “Well?” they all chimed, not quite in perfect harmony, but with friendly smiles illuminating their faces and their eyes.
I took my time finishing the mouthful of salad I was eating, building the tension. No one, I noticed, had eaten anything else. I suddenly felt like I was back at PGL camp, huddled in the middle of our tent in the Brecon Beacons telling ghost stories to pass the time, my fellow campers, and friends, huddled around me, spellbound by the eerie tales.
Yet here I was all these years later, at work, in the sunshine, about to embark on another tale. Whether they would be spellbound was yet to be determined.
I clinked my knife and fork down onto my plate for dramatic effect, making it clear I was preparing to start. As I did everyone else resumed eating. Lucky mine’s a salad, I thought.
“What do you want to know?” I teased, and was met with raised eyebrows that told me they wouldn’t be fobbed off, fooled or made to wait any longer.
“His name’s Ed,” I beamed, deciding to get right to the point given I would give up the information eventually and lunch was only an hour long. “He’s a policeman, gorgeous, intelligent, funny and we’ve only just started seeing each other so it’s early days but I’m very, very, very happy.” I finished with a flourish and picked up my cutlery to resume eating my lunch.
“That we can see,” Sarah said. “So how did you meet? I didn’t even think you were in the market for someone new, not after the last one…” Again she trailed off. Everyone around the tables knew how that had ended – bitterly. Tears. Frustration. Anger. Despair. Betrayal. Another cheater, another one who let me save them only to abandon me when I needed support myself. But he was not going to ruin this moment like he had done so many others.
“I know, I know,” I began slowly, still reeling from the memory Sarah had invoked, but picking up speed as we returned to Ed. “That’s the strange thing, I wasn’t looking and I certainly wasn’t looking where I found him.”
Everyone around the table looked confused.
I had finished eating and sat back a little on the bench, settling in to tell a synopsis of what had happened. These were work colleagues after all and some things were better not shared.
“We actually met many years ago in a club in Nottingham and then didn’t see each other again until a couple of weeks ago when we bumped
into each other whilst I was out on a walk. We’ve been on a couple of dates since then and it’s amazing, he’s amazing. He currently lives too far away for us to see each other during the week, but we talk every night and he’ll be moving down here soon for a new job.”
“When are you seeing him again?” Fiona asked.
“This weekend,” I said, almost squirming with delight at the thought that he would be arriving on Friday evening and I was so ready for him. All of which I kept to myself. It didn’t take a genius to work out that if he lived too far away to see him during the week then it was probably too far to travel up and down for each date, and therefore the question of where he would be staying would inevitably be on everyone’s mind. Luckily they were all too polite to raise the issue or ask the question.
Mine, he’s staying at mine, I yelled in my head, but no one heard it. I may tell them in time, but for now some things are just for me and Ed.
“We’ll be expecting a full report on Monday,” Jess said with a knowing smile. A couple of the team giggled nervously and then conversation broke out between smaller groups and continued until we had to return to our desks.
My conversation with Ed that night was animated. We were both clearly excited about seeing each other. There were no mind games, no playing it cool, just good, honest, open conversation. As I fell asleep that night it struck me that whilst technically I had only known Ed for a couple of weeks it felt so, so much longer.
Without wanting to enter cliché alley – and at that point it really was too early to tell if he would be my soul mate – right there, on that night, I couldn’t imagine being without him, let alone being with anyone else. Oh, I hope this lasts, I thought as I turned over in bed, readying myself for sleep. Just one more peep [sleep] to go, just one more.
*
I have no idea how I got through Friday. It was a blur from the moment the alarm brought me starkly into the new day.
I kept myself busy at work. The only way to make time pass quickly is to work through it. I must have had lunch, talked to my colleagues, driven home, but I don’t remember any of that. I just remember my focus: get home, get changed, get ready.
Ed had told me on the phone the night before that he would head down straight after his shift so was hoping to arrive about eight, have a quick shower, change and then out for a late dinner. I couldn’t wait.
To my surprise, as I arrived home I saw a car just like Ed’s, a silver convertible BMW, parked on the lane beside my house. My heart skipped a beat as I pulled up onto my drive and saw him sitting on my front doorstep with a massive bouquet of bright yellow and white flowers in hand. He was in his uniform, and what a sight he made.
I leapt from the car, barely remembering to put the handbrake on and lock it. As I ran over to him he eased himself up from the step. I flung myself into his embrace, drawn in by his powerful arms and large bouquet in a bear hug to end all bear hugs. Before a word was spoken we were locked in a passionate kiss. It was like we had been apart for months, not days. We kissed like our lives depended on it. We kissed like the other person’s lips and tongue were the oxygen our bodies needed to survive. It took all of our willpower not to sink to the ground right then and there. However, eventually propriety and our proximity to the street, not to mention my neighbours, made us pull apart.
“There you are,” he said, smiling down at me.
“And there you are,” I replied, shaking with excitement. “I didn’t think you were going to make it until later this evening.”
Ed cupped my face in his hands and planted a single kiss on my lips. “I know, I changed my shift and started early so I could get here in time to meet you from work,” he explained as I reached into my massive bag, now regretting its size and the difficulty in finding anything in it when I really needed to. All I wanted was the key to the front door, so we could fall inside, to hide from the outside world, to return to the safety of our cocoon.
I stopped scrabbling around inside, took a deep breath, focused, opened the bag wide and retrieved the key. As I stood in front of Ed, opening the front door, his body was so close I could feel the buttons on his uniform pressing into my back, the warmth of his body, the heat between us, his hot breath on the back of my neck.
I unlocked the door and as I stepped forward, over the threshold, he gently tapped my right bum cheek with his hand. I smiled to myself as I held the door open for him. Yes this is going to be a very good weekend, I thought.
*
Some considerable time later, we lay in each other’s arms, sheets tossed and crumpled following the passion that only a short absence had created. We didn’t speak, we were happy just to be in this heavenly embrace. Happy that we had found each other.
It was too late to go out for a meal now, but we needed to eat, so whilst Ed finally took that shower I busied myself in the kitchen rustling up a quick omelette with onion, bacon and cheese – not exactly healthy, but quick and filling.
Ed came downstairs wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, pulled tight across his flat stomach. I regretted giving him a large bath towel. If I had known he would appear wearing it I would have selected a much smaller member of the towel family!
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, wearing nothing but the towel and a mischievous grin, “but I’ve got dressed for dinner.”
I laughed as he pulled me back into his arms and kissed my neck provocatively as he continued, “Besides, I don’t think I’ll be wearing it for long.”
I draped my arms around his neck, bringing my flimsily covered body in close to his and whispered in his ear, “I think you might be right about that.”
I kissed his cheek and reluctantly pulled myself out of his arms, taking a seat next to him at the breakfast bar, our thighs touching as we ravenously ate what turned out to be a much better meal than I had anticipated. Whilst I’m a great baker of cakes, biscuits and all things a diabetic on a low-carb lifestyle should avoid, I lacked the basic cooking skills for anything other than my trademark lasagne and from time to time a half-decent cottage pie.
After I had cleaned up the dishes we took a couple of glasses of wine – well, it was a Friday after all – and curled up on the sofa, facing each other, cupping the large glasses in our hands, mirroring each other’s body language.
Even though we had talked about the proposal and of how proud Ed was of Dan and Emma, we talked about it again. Ed was clearly very excited and wanted to share it with me again, face to face. And sitting there watching him happy and animated made me happy. I only interjected at key moments with appropriate noises, affirmations or questions if required. When we had finished the wine and the story had run its course, Ed reached over and took my glass, putting both wine glasses gently on the large, solid oak coffee table before him.
He leant forward and we kissed, slowly at first, then with increasing vigour and passion and heat. He pulled me down the sofa, under him, and again we were lost in the moment. It felt like nothing else existed, there was just us and the moment and that was all that mattered.
*
The next morning we woke at 8am. I don’t think either of us intended to wake so early after such an exhilarating and exhausting night, but the windows were open and at 8am one of the neighbours’ children had clearly decided it was time for piano practice. Plink, plonk, plinkedy, plonk, plonkedy, plink – on and on it went, endlessly. I don’t think either of us would have minded if it had been either in tune or even a tune, but it was neither. If I had been on my own I would probably have been annoyed at the selfishness of the intrusion and wondered why the parents had not seen fit to put a stop to it. Clearly they were neither conscious of other people’s feelings nor cared about them. On and on it went.
Luckily I was not alone. We didn’t move, lying there face to face, smiling, then giggling at the ridiculousness of the situation. We inched closer together and were once more transported to a
world of ecstasy, a million miles away from the plink plonk of the piano.
When we were finally sated, glowing not just from the warmth of love-making but also the sweat glistening on our bodies, we laughed at the realisation that the piano had been replaced by equally bad violin playing.
“I think it’s safe to say that is the end of our lie-in,” Ed said, somewhat stating the obvious. “How about I go and brew some coffee?” he suggested, leaping from the bed and into a fresh pair of boxers, but not quick enough that I couldn’t take an appreciative look at his toned and beautiful body.
I showered, threw on my makeup and dressed before joining Ed in the sunshine on the terrace. The delicious smell of a freshly made cafetière of coffee wafting through the house had drawn me downstairs.
At times like this, I thought, I wish I’d invested in a swing seat. How nice it would be sitting together gently swaying back and forth whilst enjoying a strong, reviving coffee. But it was not to be. Instead we were sitting in separate teak chairs, next to each other in front of the large garden table and still close enough to touch, and occasionally our fingertips found each other’s and entwined, bringing smiles to our faces.
“So, what shall we do today?” Ed asked, turning towards me, giving me the chance to admire his handsome face and wonder again how I had been so lucky for someone like him to be in my life. I guess I had kissed enough frogs (indeed some toads) to eventually deserve a prince. Just to be sure, I thanked my lucky stars, the heavens, whatever celestial being had brought him to me.
Loves Lost and Found Page 8