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Extended Work
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| Confessions of a site secretary - part 9 | |
| By teddy | ||||||||||||
| 12 September 2006 | ||||||||||||
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Comments very much appreciated. Paul stood up and walked to the window. ‘No, no, this is impossible. Adi would’ve never hidden this from me.’ the facts didn’t want to sink in. ‘Well, she did try to tell you but you were too busy bedding your women.’ a guilty feeling overtook the anger that had started mounting up. ’No, that’s not an excuse, she should’ve tried harder.’ he disparagingly shook his head ‘She was terrified, can’t you see that?’ He started measuring the room up and down trying to restrain his feelings. He was confused of what they actually were: was it just anger? Frustration? Or maybe there was more, maybe there was penitence as well. For not being there for her when she needed him most. ’How could I? The last time I saw her she told me that she hated me.’ Even after all this time he could remember her every word brutally thrown in his face the night he confronted her about Mark. He was confused at first, and then appalled. The hurt came at the end. ‘Why, Adi, why did you have to do it? We could’ve put things behind us. Just one gesture, one single word, the smallest sign of remorse would’ve been enough to make me crawl back to you. That was how much I loved you. Then things would’ve never got into this mess.’ He remembered storming out that night and jumping into his car. He drove off not knowing where he was heading. It must’ve been an hour or even longer when he came back. He needed to talk to her, he needed to know why, why she was there if that was the way she felt about him. He knew it wasn’t his money. Adi had never demanded anything from him. She had always refused his offers to support her financially. She used to laugh embarrassed: ‘Paul, I’ve got a job, you know, plus, I’m quite lucky, I don’t need to pay any rent. Or bills. And you buy me lots of nice things. And pay for everything else. So thanks, but you do enough for me as it is.’ He just wanted to make sure she was happy, that she had everything she needed. Few times he offered his help to promote her artwork. ‘Let me help you, Adi. This is a very competitive field. You’re very talented, you deserve to break through.’ ‘Then let it happen because of my talent not your contacts.’ she refused every single time. ‘If it wasn’t the money then what was it?’ he kept torturing himself. He needed to know. Maybe she was just upset, she didn’t know what she was saying. How could she possibly hate him when she was always so doting to him? He tried to recollect things from the past to reassure himself that she couldn’t have possibly meant all those words. There were nights when he had to stay up late in the study, working. She always used to come downstairs and stay with him, usually curled up in the chair opposite reading a book. ‘Adi, why don’t you go to bed?’ he would ask her. ‘I can’t sleep. Am I disturbing you?’ ‘No, no,’ he used to say, he liked her being there, ‘I’m just thinking that you have to get up early tomorrow morning, you should get some rest.’ ‘And so should you.’ she used to look at him. It was almost as if she was feeling guilty being in bed while he had to work. Or maybe she couldn’t rest without him next to her. She liked falling asleep curled up in his arms. Sometimes she would come downstairs with only one of his old shirts on. She loved wearing them. ‘They made me feel important.’ she used to laugh. She looked cute, like a little girl dressed up in her mummy’s clothes. Those were the times when she would come and sit on his knees, wrapping herself around him. And then he would forget about his work, he would take her in his arms and his hands and mouth would start teasing her body until he would hear her moan with pleasure under his touch. That would be enough to convince him to swap the study for the bedroom. Once, when he twisted his ankle in a cricket game, he decided to work from home for few days, just to give his leg time to rest. She took time off work too, just to be there, devoutly nursing him. She wouldn’t let him do anything then. ‘You don’t need to do this, Adi.’ he used to gratefully thank her. ‘But I want to.’ she would give him a candid look. Then there were times when he had to work late at the office. ‘Don’t wait for me, Adi. I’ll be late.’ he would ring her. But she wouldn’t listen; she would always wait for him to come home. She seemed always just happy to be there with him, for him. No, she couldn’t have possibly meant what she said. ‘Adi.’ he called her when he got home that night. All the lights were off apart from the one in the vestibule. He walked into the kitchen. On the half set table there was a note: ‘Dinner’s in the oven’ ‘She must be upstairs.’ he thought. ‘Adi.’ he shouted her name again rushing up the stairs. She wasn’t in the bedroom. He looked around. He noticed that the photo of her family that she used to keep on her bedside cabinet was missing. Frantically he opened the wardrobe’s doors. Her things weren’t there anymore. She was gone. She meant every single word of what she said to him that night. She really hated him. Otherwise she would be still there waiting for him to come back. For weeks Paul didn’t know what to do with himself, he felt ill. He had bad dreams about her almost every night. He had to go back to his old pills to help him sleep. And then slowly he tried to push her out of his mind. And his life. But there was George as well. Deep down he knew he had been so unfair to his old friend. George had always had his best interests at heart. One day George asked to see him: ‘Paul, this is in my resignation’ he said while handing him a sealed envelope. ‘Ok. Consider it accepted.’ he tried to stay composed, without being able to look at George at all. More than twenty years of pure, truly friendship were about to be swept under the carpet. He wished he could do something about it. But he couldn’t afford that because every time he saw George he remembered about Adi. ‘Paul…’ George turned around and looked at him when he was just about to get out of his office. Paul could see the anguish on his friend’s face. ‘I’m sorry, George, but I have to finish this paper work by one.’ he sharply cut any attempts of letting his own emotions come out. For the first few weeks after Adi left he dreaded the end of each day when he would have to go back to an empty house. He started again to go out most nights. And then he looked for feminine company. He needed it to help him get over her. There had been many women since; for some of them he couldn’t even remember their names. He would date them for a while and then dump them. Because he knew he could never feel again the way he felt about Adi. Now he was aware that reading her notes had let the old feelings to creep back in. Had he ever stopped loving her? The emotional torment he felt inside was telling him that he hadn’t. Many times after she was gone he wondered how she was, if she found someone else. Was she happy? ‘I need to find her.’ he thought. ’I need to know what happened.’ Has she kept the baby? No, she must’ve changed her mind, something must’ve happened, otherwise she would’ve tried to talk to him again. ‘Just read the rest, Paul, there must be more in there that you need to know.’ * Now I wish I’d listened to Tina. Then I wouldn’t need to force feed myself again. And cry myself to sleep. But that’s me, stupid idiot, always doing things on a whim, regretting them the minute after. No wonder I always get myself into mess. ‘Adi, what happened?’ my dear auntie asked me later that night when I got home. ‘Nothing,’ I said trying to hide the tears that kept bothering my eyes. ‘Did you see him? Did you tell him?’ she wanted to know. ‘’No, he wasn’t there.’ I lied. I couldn’t possibly tell her. She would’ve worried too much then. ‘Don’t get upset, Adi. There’ll be other times.’ she tried to encourage me. ‘No, there won’t.’ I thought. ‘Paul has moved on, he doesn’t need to know now. I messed up his life once, I don’t want it to happen again, do I?’ George rang me up few days later. ‘Hi, Adi. Have you managed to speak with Paul yet?’ ‘No.’ I impassively replied. ‘Oh, ok. How come? Have you changed your mind?’ he asked worried. ‘No.’ my voice kept its apathetic tone. ‘What’s wrong, Adi? You don’t sound happy at all.’ Now, why the hell would I be happy, eh? Have I got any reasons for that? The only man that could possibly make me happy is gone forever. Worse, he has another woman in his life already. And I’m carrying his child. ‘Adi?’ George tried to find out if I was still there. ‘Yes.’ ‘Listen, I’ll came and take you out for dinner tonight. Would that be ok?’ ‘If you wish….’ I agreed indifferently. ‘Come on, Adi, tell me, what happened?’ George asked me later that night when we were seated inside a small Chinese restaurant that we found in the area. I threw him a miserable look. ‘I went to see Paul.’ ‘And? What did he say?’ ‘I didn’t talk to him. He wasn’t alone.’ ‘You mean he didn’t know you were going.’ ‘No.’ ‘Oh Adi, I’m sorry, you should’ve told him.’ Yeah, I know that now. Too late though. ‘Don’t give up, please.’ he pleaded. ‘You need to try again.’ ‘I’m sorry, George, Paul’s moved on. He’s found someone else already. Telling him about the baby now will make things even worse.’ ‘You can’t be sure of that, Adi. Just because you saw him with another woman it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s in a relationship with her.’ ‘What are you talking about, George? She was there, in his bedroom. I’m sure he didn’t ask her back to his place to play cards. She must be his new girlfriend.’ I gave him an irritated gaze. ‘To me they looked pretty cosy together.’ I said instead. ‘Adi, don’t jump to conclusions, there are things about Paul that you don’t know.’ ‘Yeah, what’s that then?’ I sceptically raised my eyebrows. ‘Listen, Adi, I’m being very serious now, up until he met you he’d never been in a proper relationship with another woman, he had many casual ones but he never loved anyone before you.’ ‘What?’ I looked at him stunned. ‘You don’t make sense, George. This is impossible.’ ‘I know Paul never talks about this but I think you should know: when he was only fourteen his brother died in a car accident. He was an alcoholic. Well, he started drinking a lot after his wife left him. And all had something to do with Paul, I don’t know exactly what happened but I know that Paul blamed himself, and her, for his brother’s death.’ George took a deep breath before carrying on. ‘I was there when all this happened and I felt helpless watching him go thorough hell. It was extremely distressing. He needed counselling for almost a year until he could get over it. After that Paul changed completely. And he just couldn’t get close to any woman anymore. Until he met you.’ ‘Oh God,’ I kept staring at him horrified ‘he must hate me so much now.’ ‘Don’t be silly, Adi, of course he doesn’t.’ George reassured me. ‘You don’t know the whole story, George.’ I distraughtly shook my head. He waited for me to continue. ‘We had a heated argument when he questioned me about Mark. And then I said things that I should’ve never let out. I swore at him, I called him names, told him that I didn’t love him, in fact, that I hated him. I didn’t mean it, I was just too upset, I never knew how he felt about me until that night and it was all too much. If I’d known before, Mark and I would’ve never happened. He was hurt, George, I could see that in his eyes. And I just left him there, letting him believe that all I said was true. I’m such a bad bad person. I messed everything up.’ I felt the pain coming out in big tears rolling down my face. ‘Adi, please, don’t get upset. You’re not a bad person, if you were Paul would’ve never fallen for you, trust me.’ He moved his chair next to mine and cuddled me. ‘Come on, Adi, please, this isn’t good for you. And the baby.’ ‘I loved him, George. I really did.’ I sobbed while he was holding me, leaving wet marks on his immaculate shirt. ‘I still do.’ That was the first time when I opened my heart to someone else other than myself. ‘Sshhhh,….I know you do, honey, I know.’ he warmly stroke my hair. ‘Oh, Adi,’ he sighed, ‘you’re too young to be going through all these. You should be out there, enjoying yourself with other people of your age.’ I think he felt really really sorry for me.
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