Remembering a life

It was one of those days when you just knew it was never going to get really light, the sky was full of grey cloud and it cast a dreary all encompassing shadow onto everything. The rain was drizzling continually and it only added to the general misery of the cold day.

He could see the group of people across the other side of the cemetery, some with umbrellas raised to try and garner a modicum of protection from the rain, others standing like dejected penguins unable to find anywhere to go because the situation offered nowhere.

As Pete made his way over toward the others, the occasional gusts of wind turned the raindrops into shimmering missiles which penetrated the fabric of his suit like silver darts, he had never been an overcoat man but at times like this he really wished he was. He still had some reservations about being here and he still wondered why she would even want him here, when he got the call though, he knew he couldn’t resist despite everything that had gone before.

He was about fifty yards from the group now and he could just see her face between two shoulders belonging to people who were standing near her, she looked awful, devastated but still beautiful in her own inimitable way. She glanced over at him and managed a half smile which he immediately knew had cost her something to deliver, she was suffering and that at least made him believe that his reservations about coming were unjustified, she needed him there.

She left the group and walked towards him, he embraced her, kissed her on the cheek and then let her go. It occurred to him that during the embrace he had felt nothing, he used to love to embrace her but those days were long gone and the last few seconds had emphasised that. She put her arm in his and they began to make their way slowly towards the other people.

*                             *                                  *

He had first met Lisa at university, they were both buying stuff at one of the campus shops and he had kicked the basket which she had left on the floor while she examined frozen food in the freezer, he had hurriedly apologised and said sorry repeatedly to cover his embarrassment, she had burst out laughing as the packet of tampons had shot from the basket and landed at the feet of the elderly man serving in his spare time.

He had been about to retrieve the package but chose to kick it under a nearby rack of vegetables rather than be seen handling such gender specific goods which didn’t match his profile. Pete and Lisa ended up looking each other in the eye and laughing together behind their hands and trying not to look a part of the situation.

Pete introduced himself and apologised again, Lisa said it wasn’t a problem and after paying for their goods in turn they left the shop together, The mutual attraction was obvious and over the next few weeks they spent the majority of their time together, going out in the evenings, working together during the days, missing lectures to make the most of their empty student dwellings and generally falling in love.

For the rest of their time at Uni they were inseparable and 3 months after graduation they were married, it couldn’t be said that either set of parents was delighted but they set up their first home together and for a while everything was sweet.

*                             *                                  *

They all stood graveside, opposite Pete were David and Hannah who were probably the closest friends he and Lisa had known during their married time together. They would be out as a foursome each weekend and had been on holiday together a few times, now though, they wouldn’t even meet his gaze.

 In the usual way the vicar began to eulogise and talk about the life of the man in the coffin, his name was Gordon but Pete didn’t recognise anything the vicar talked about apart from the man’s name. He remembered him as a flash type of man who had died when his flash car had hit a large articulated lorry head on whilst overtaking a slower vehicle on the A46. It was a known accident blackspot but details like that didn’t worry Gordon, apparently the braking system on his flash car ha proven inadequate when Gordon had pushed his luck too far and tried to get out of the overtaking manoeuvre.

Pete had seen details about the accident before Lisa had phoned to tell him, even so, it was a shock to hear her voice.

*                             *                                  *

After four and a half years of marriage Lisa and Pete had come a long way, they had opened up their own specialised office equipment business which operated from an industrial unit in Radford and although the work was difficult and demanded the full time commitment of both of them, all seemed to be well, they were pulling together and had ambitions, expansion plans, an impressive list of clients and a database full of potential new ones to feed their growth. The future looked bright.

On that particular day in August though, Lisa had left early complaining of a headache and Pete had stayed to mind the office and catch up on some admin which he had neglected and left lying in his IN tray. At around 5:45 pm he left the office and drove the fifteen minute journey to their house in Sherwood. He knew something was wrong the second he entered the house, the atmosphere was charged with something he couldn’t put his finger on, the television wasn’t on, his nose told him nothing was cooking on the stove, there were no sounds at all and something just wasn’t right.

He walked along the short hall and peered into the lounge, it was empty. He turned right and continued toward the kitchen and Lisa sat facing him at the table, as he cleared the doorframe he caught sight of a shape off to his right and as he turned he saw Gordon standing facing him, all 6 feet 5 inches and seventeen stones of him.

Pete looked at Lisa in anticipation of receiving some kind of explanation, the one he got turned his world inside out. This was Lisa’s new lover apparently. She explained that she and Gordon were going to live together across the other side of town, her bags were packed and he shouldn’t attempt to stop her because Gordon was here to make sure there was no trouble. He could have the house for the time being because she and Gordon had a nice rented place in West Bridgford so until the divorce was sorted out he could do what he liked with it.

Pete was stunned, he began firing questions at Lisa but she declined to answer anything, she spent the time running backwards and forwards from room to room collecting things she was taking while Pete followed her around closely shadowed by Gordon. On the one occasion he tried to grab her arm to keep her in one place while he talked to her, he found himself thrown into a corner with Gordon standing over him, fist retracted to discourage further actions. “If you’ve got any sense you’ll stay down” he said. Pete went for the sensible option, it seemed like Lisa has already made the decision so perhaps time was needed before he should try and talk to her.

Lisa and Gordon left in Gordon’s flash car and Pete set about pinching himself to see if he had dreamt what had just happened but apparently he hadn’t, she really was gone.

*                             *                                  *

The vicar was winding down now for the big finish, he had eulogised enough for one day. Gordon’s family were in pieces, his Mother was being supported by Gordon’s older brother, his Father had died a few years back and her boys were all she had, now she only had one of them. Pete felt sorry for her, she hadn’t asked for this, she really couldn’t be blamed for the kind of man Gordon turned out to be and as much as he didn’t want to feel any sorrow, he couldn’t help himself.

A few people threw a handful of earth into the sodden hole and the grave men arrived to fill it in. The people began to walk away from the grave and Lisa turned to Pete and asked him if he wanted to come back to the house. He declined and Lisa nodded in understanding, thinking perhaps her invitation had been a little tactless under the circumstances; Pete actually would have loved to have gone, purely for the thrill of watching all of his former friends squirm because when Lisa had left him they had melted away and picked up the friendships with Gordon. Not one of them had even called him and he suspected they possibly knew the situation long before he did.

It would have given him the greatest of pleasure to see them unable to look at him and to be so obviously embarrassed and uncomfortable in his presence, not now though; maybe he would have that pleasure later.

*                             *                                  *

On the night she left he spent the hours between her leaving and him deciding it was time to go to bed thinking about what had transpired. He drank copious cups of coffee despite the temptation to go for something stronger and he wondered how it had come to this, had things been so bad between them without him even noticing? The more he thought about it the more incredible it seemed to be, they had always been able to laugh together, to discuss things, to share their daily experiences and just to get along and he simply couldn’t recall that changing.

As midnight approached he decided to get some sleep and try and think things through in the morning, whatever happened he was still going to need money coming in so it was vital to get up and get to work as usual, he could make all the phone calls he needed to make from the office, it was no use him even thinking of moping around at home and letting everything else fall to pieces around him, he had to hold it together whilst he dealt with this.

He was up at 6am after a fitful night where the sleep he desperately craved seemed to do everything to evade him, he rushed the standard morning ablutions and headed downstairs to see if he fancied breakfast, he decided he didn’t and drank several cups of coffee instead before leaving the house at his usual time of 7:15am.

He pulled into the industrial estate and rounded the corner to park in front of their unit and almost lost control of the wheel when he spotted Gordon’s flash coupe parked there, he pulled alongside it, switched off his engine and got out the car. As he approached the unit door the office window came open a few inches and he heard Lisa’s voice. “Its all over Pete, I have started a new company and I am writing to everyone today to tell them about the changeover from the old one to the new one,    I ‘ve got a cheque here for you to the value of half of what’s in the old bank account, you need to bank it today in your personal account because if the money hasn’t gone in seven days then everything in that account will be transferred to the new one so it’s up to you”.

Pete couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing, “let me in Lisa we need to discuss this” he remonstrated. “This company is as much mine as it is yours; you have no right to….”   His sentence was cut off as Gordon’s voice boomed out from the window, “take your cheque and get out of here, she doesn’t need you anymore”

Pete kicked the door and demanded to be let in and at that Lisa seemed to get frightened, she stepped back away from the window and Gordon appeared there instead, he threw the cheque out of the window, closed it and walked away.

Pete banged on the door again and Lisa opened it a few seconds later, Gordon was standing directly behind her as she began to speak in a voice which Pete hadn’t heard before, it was one which emphasised her obvious discomfort at the situation but also conveyed a tone of finality. “Just take your cheque while its still available, there is nothing more to say”.  She closed the door before Pete could even speak; he picked up his cheque and went back to his car. He now knew the situation really was serious, Gordon seemed to have managed to steal his wife and his job.

*                                            *                                                 *

The rain had eased off a bit but the wind was still whipping across the cemetery and Pete pulled his jacket collar up to try and avoid the worst of the squally weather, not that it would make a lot of difference after having been standing out in it for the past half an hour listening to the vicar talking intimately about someone he never met, it just made him feel proactive for once to be trying to actually do something to alter a situation rather than be subject to it.

He heard a voice behind him calling his name, he turned and saw David running after him. He faced forward again and carried on walking, a wry smile on his face. “This could be interesting” he said to himself.

David’s footfalls could be heard now and Pete turned to face him, “you do remember my name then” he said. David stopped and looked away.

 “What are you doing here Pete?” he said with a hint of venom.

“I was invited” said Pete “But I’m sure you already knew that”.

“Invited or not, you didn’t have to come, you knew it would make things awkward and that’s the last thing Lisa needs right now” David was getting into his stride now, Pete would have to put a stop to that.

“So you are an authority on what’s good for Lisa now are you? Some might say it’s a shame you didn’t take on that role earlier. Actually David, perhaps you have been spending so much time recently looking after Lisa’s interests you didn’t think to consider Hannah’s” Pete looked him in the eye and watched for the reaction.

“What’s that supposed to mean” David demanded, “What are you on about”.

“Ask Hannah about Gordon’s flash car, the rear seats in particular” said Pete, enjoying every syllable of the sentence.

The blood seemed to drain from David’s face and Pete took a step forward to go for the kill.

“Never did know who your friends were did you?” he said, “You were always a prize idiot”

He knew David would dissolve; he wasn’t the confrontational type under any circumstance.

Pete continued the diatribe. ”Your mate Gordon moved in on Hannah less than a month after he took Lisa from me,  I should know, I was obsessed with him and his antics, I followed him all over the place for a while, I even phoned Lisa and told her but of course she didn’t believe a word, she thought I was just badmouthing him because of what he did to me”.

“Not only was he having affairs with Lisa and Hannah, he was seeing Beth from the pub as well, he was a real hero was our Gordon”.

“You’re lying” blurted David.

Pete smiled at him “sorry old son, you backed the wrong one. Personally, I think you deserve everything you get for being such a weak willed shit when he appeared on the scene, obviously your friendships are as transient or absent as your courage. Live with it”.

Pete turned and walked away leaving David in pieces, not even a hint of remorse plagued him and he thought he might even treat himself to a pint now, a decent mornings work had been done.

*                                  *                                  *                                  *                                  *

Pete picked up his cheque and walked away from the business unit door, he got back into his car and drove home to wait until 9.00am when he could go and deposit it. He set out for the bank and was actually quite surprised he managed to drive anywhere based on his state of mind but he did arrive at 9:00am as planned but sat seething in his car because the listening bank apparently wouldn’t be listening until 9:30am today due to staff training.

After depositing his cheque he made his way home and slept downstairs in a chair for a couple of hours, it wasn’t intended to be that way but the previous few hours had caught up with him and he needed to rest, recover and formulate some kind of plan to survive.

He did survive, albeit not quite as planned. He did speak to Lisa on the phone a few times over the next 14 months, notably when she wanted to put the house up for sale, when she wanted to sell the car that was in his name and on a further few occasions when he was needed for something. At all times he was reasonably pleasant and didn’t argue or kick up a fuss, after all, what would have been the point? She was gone, he had rebuilt a life and he wasn’t going to allow anything to spoil his plans this time.

He got himself a nice new apartment in the centre of town aided by the proceeds from the house sale but even that threatened to faze him for a while. The Estate Agent phoned to say the house had been sold, Pete thought that was strange based on the fact no-one had been around to view it but took it to mean that someone had bought it for development or something. After Pete moved out and the sale was completed, he was informed that the house had in fact been acquired on behalf of a Mr Gordon Oliver, the one and only Gordon who then moved in with his fiancé Lisa. So Gordon now had his wife, his job and his house.

Pete took it in his stride and went about earning a living via a number of temporary jobs while he found what he really wanted to do long term, luckily, an opportunity presented itself via a former customer who he happened to bump into during a night on the town. At the time he couldn’t possibly be aware of how remarkable that night out was, he would only come to appreciate its significance later.

*                                  *                                  *                                  *                                  *

The first pint hardly touched the sides, Pete ordered another pint of Marstons while he was still standing at the bar from purchasing the first, he glanced over at the door just in time to see Hannah’s head come through and survey the scene, she saw him and came over to the bar, Pete ignored her while he paid for his drink.

“Still Vodka and tonic is it?” He enquired. She didn’t answer.

“Why did you have to do that” she said “Was it absolutely necessary for you tell David everything”

She sounded calm and Pete was quite pleased about that, purely due to the potential embarrassment factor if she had kicked off in the pub, he wasn’t actually concerned whether she was upset or not.

He walked over to table and sat down, Hannah followed as he had anticipated.

He put down his pint and looked at Hannah, “to answer your first question, no, it wasn’t necessary to tell David, the fact is, I wanted to”.

Hannah looked expectantly, she obviously wasn’t thinking it was her turn to say anything and wanted Pete to continue, so he did.

“You, me, David and Lisa had been friends for years, when Lisa left you and David treated me as if I didn’t even exist anymore, I accounted for this by believing that for some reason you thought I was the cause of the problem that had forced Lisa to look somewhere else for happiness, we used to go on holiday together, we went out together every week…yet… not even a phone call to see if I was ok, why Hannah?

Hannah looked down onto the floor, “It wasn’t deliberate, we didn’t really like what Lisa had done but she had been my friend since long before you ever met her, it would have seemed like betrayal for us to talk to you despite everything”

Pete thought that even she didn’t sound convinced by her explanation and he certainly wasn’t.

“That is a really crap excuse Hannah, also, I suspect that after a month had gone by you were too busy with your own affair with Gordon to worry about me, in fact, based on the very fact you had an affair with Gordon you were seemingly too busy to be loyal to Lisa anymore either”.

“I didn’t mean that to happen” she said and looked into his eyes for some kind of absolution, she found none and looked away again.

“As far as I am concerned Hannah, you and David are the worst kind of friends and that is why I did what I did, you deserve each other and all the shit you now have to wade through, now get out of my sight, you’re sending my pint sour”.

Pete wasn’t normally like this and Hannah was shaken by how nasty he was being, she got up and left without further comment, Pete sat back in his seat and began thinking about all that had transpired since that fateful day in August when Lisa had left work early with a headache.

It occurred to him that things happen in the funniest and weirdest of ways and that the irony of some situations is so difficult to contemplate. If Lisa had never met Gordon, he would still be doing the same thing day-in day-out at his former work, he would never have discovered what an idiot David was, what kind of lying betraying whore Hannah was and most poignant of all, he would never have re-trained as a specialist motor mechanic and learned the ins and outs of the braking systems on flash cars.