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Non-Fiction
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| The betrayal | |
| By Snodlander | ||||||||||||||
| 10 October 2006 | ||||||||||||||
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This has been the hardest thing for me to write ever, though it has been helpful to put it all into words. Though it may read like a short story, it's not fiction. Contains some strong language. She was dozing on the bed in the afternoon. As a two week break at home, this was not going to be the most exciting holiday of my life. Up till now. I stroke her into wakefulness. “I’m going out for a bit. I thought I’d go for a ride on the bike. It’s the last of the summer, it’s a lovely day, shame to waste it, and I only ever use the bike for commuting. That OK?” Was I over-explaining? She looks a little puzzled. “Of course. How long you going to be? An hour?” “Maybe two.” “OK” and she turns back over. Downstairs at the PC I take a deep breath, then screwing up all my cowardice I type in the Private Message window: “OK. I’m about to leave. See you in an hour at the car park”. The first stop is Asda’s. I had had the snip years ago, but in these uncertain times a man was expected to act responsibly, especially on such an irresponsible endeavour. They’d be in the toiletries section somewhere, surely. Please don’t tell me they’re behind a counter somewhere where I will have to ask for them. Top shelf. Pack of 12… pack of 24… pack of 36… 36? Who buys eighteen months’ worth of condoms? There, a pack of 3. Why don’t they sell individual ones, for dirty old men that get lucky once in a life time. “Just the one condom, please. No, don’t bother with a bag, I’ll wear it now.” And so to the checkout. Choose one with a short line. No kids. I queue behind a woman doing her weekly shop. I put my shameful pack of 3 behind the ‘next customer’ block, and place the spare block behind that. Another woman’s weekly shop starts to be piled behind that. 2 weekly shops, and sandwiched between them my lone box of 3. It looks stupid, obvious. Might as well put it out over the tannoy. “Man cheating on his wife on checkout 7”. I decide to add a pack of mint gum to the conveyor belt. There, much better. What could be more innocent than a middle-age man buying condoms and fresh-breath gum? This was the first time in 26 years of marriage I would be unfaithful. I didn’t know the etiquette. Would the gum be necessary? Is it considered acceptable to kiss on the first shag? She had said that she was 4 feet 10, and I am 6 feet 2. Would kissing be physically possible? The checkout girl passes the items over the scanner. Beep beep, and that was ‘forsaking all others’ erased. Feignights. I had my fingers crossed. Forsaking all others unless I get lucky. She looks me squarely in the wedding ring and said “£3.79” I dig in my pockets. I had £2.50. Shit! Shitshitshit! I would have to use my debit card. She always went over the statements line by line, balancing the family books. And she would look up puzzled and ask, “What did we get for £3.79 in Asda’s?” And I would answer, “Oh, I know. That was when I threw away our quarter century of marriage and bought some condoms. And some chewing gum.” Or possibly, “That afternoon I went out on the bike. I was thirsty and stopped off for some drink.” And she wouldn’t say “A bottle of Coke for £3.79?” or “But it’s only 2 minutes up the road. Why didn’t you get some here?”. No, she loved and trusted me. She didn’t know what an utter bastard I had become. She would say “Oh, OK” and go back to her sums. “Do you want a bag with that?” “No, it’s OK. I’ll wea… No, I’m fine.” And I stuff them into my motorcycle jacket and stride off as quickly as I can. It is a nice day and it is the end of the summer, so I take the pretty way to the rendezvous, winding down steep country lanes to the lee of the North Downs. My stomach is bunched tight with nervous excitement. My arms are shaky. I chew at the gum furiously. Suppose I can’t get it up? Suppose I can’t finish? Suppose I finish too fast? Why am I even doing this? “Why not?” I answer. If she doesn’t know, it won’t hurt her. Everyone else does it. And what does it matter anyway? We are but grass, nothing more than chemical reactions drawn out over three score years and ten. Get your enjoyment where you can. It’s not wrong, exactly. The only crime is being found out, and that’s hardly going to happen. What a weak excuse for a man I am. I even lose the argument when I argue with myself. I pull into the car park and stop in a bay near the entrance. The car park backs onto a proper park, with grass and seats and trees and everything. I take off my helmet, nonchalantly lean against the parked bike and casually look at my watch. Jeez, but I’m early. I’m vibrating with nervous energy and fear and excitement and I have to stand here for another 30 minutes. Perhaps I should see the lay of the land. Case the joint. Recce the battlefield. The car park has a few cars spread over it. A couple have small knots of ugly, old seedy-looking men. They stop talking and stare suspiciously as I pass. Why? Because, I’m an ugly, old, seedy man too. They’re checking out the competition. There’s a middle-aged couple on a bench in the park. They are in quiet conversation. They hold hands tucked down between them, as though the TV remote control might be lost there. As though they don’t really want people to see they are holding hands, but don’t want to admit that to each other. We avoid eye contact. There’s a small wood. There’s someone standing in there. I look away. I go back to the bike. This sordid little park is obviously a meeting place for secret assignations between lonely men or married (not to each other) couples. I feel dirty. But still I stay. My jaw aches with the gum action. My legs appear to have grown an extra knee that throws my co-ordination out. I feel like the first night of a school play. Why am I doing this? Because she had said those three little words every man dreams of hearing: “Fancy a fuck?” And I love my wife and I never was good at casual sex, even when I was single, and on the web cam she looks like a dog. But she asked me, and my fragile stupid over-inflated ego preened itself under the attention. And she’s convenient, barely 5 miles from home. And I’m a shallow, stupid man. I can’t do this. Others can. Don’t wait up for me lads, I’m going to pull that bird over there. Not me. Even if I wait and she turns up and we exchange awkward greetings and she takes me off I won’t be able to perform. Not for her. Not like this. Not me. I take out the mobile phone and dial her number. No credit. Shitshitshit. I phone the operator, get £10 put on (“Oh yes, and then I noticed I had no phone credit, so I put some on while I was queueing up for the £3.79 drink”). She answers. Her voice is nothing like I imagined from seeing her on the webcam. I make some lame excuse. Can’t make it. Sorry. She tries to arrange it for Saturday evening. Nope, sorry, can’t get away, family stuff. Maybe later? Maybe, don’t know. We’ll see. I despise my cowardice. Why can’t I just say “Go away. It won’t ever happen”? “Yes, catch you later. Bye” And when I get home it gradually occurs to me that I have lost all my foundation. Of everything that I was or did, there were two underlying building blocks. My faith and my family. And they were crumbling beneath me. I was undergoing a crisis of faith. What if there was no God? If all of life, of art and ethics, emotion and logic, if all we pride ourselves in our superiority over nature, if all of it was just random chemical and electrical reactions. Then none of it counted for anything. Not promiscuity nor chastity, not good nor bad, not left nor right. It was all pointless. Pointless. And how could I say that I love my wife if I was so close to betraying her? When part of me regretted not seeing what sex with someone other than her would be like? And every kindness and soft word from her compounded my guilt and self-loathing. Now I’m normally one of those irritating chaps that tap-dances into the office on Monday morning singing the day’s praises, and this without coffee. Occasionally I have dark moods, but they never last more than a day. Now I sunk into a black hole that lasted nearly two weeks. I saw my life as being like a carrier bag you sometimes see just below the surface of the sea, neither sinking nor floating, just continually half-drowning as it gets carried helplessly in the currents. I took to going to bed late, after she was asleep, so as to avoid contact with her in the bedroom. To avoid the masked disappointment on her face and the questions. Twice a day she would ask what was wrong, and I’d shrug and say “Nothing”. I went back to work, and was filled with apathy and boredom for a job that I had previously loved. What was the point? On Wednesday evening she came to me as I lay on the bed in the dark, too early for sleep. She asked what the problem was, and would not take “Nothing” for an answer. “Is it work? Do you want to take a couple of years out to study for a degree or something?” You don’t realise the enormity of that suggestion. She thinks a five year plan is terribly short sighted. She worries over every bill that comes in, every penny that goes out. Everything must be planned well in advance. And here she was suggesting that I throw my career away, to drop the family income with one daughter starting university and a son at school, just to make me happy. I broke down in tears. What a complete and utter bastard I was. Gradually I tried to tell her how I felt. I earn my living by speaking articulately, by explaining complex principles in easy-to-understand terminology. I spluttered and stuttered over my explanations, starting sentences and then dropping them over again, while she just sat there stroking my arm. And finally I told her of my betrayal, of the whole sordid temptation and how I had failed the test. And how she should now hate me for the shallow liar I was. At the end she asked one question: “Did anything actually happen between the two of you?” “No, I swear. We never even met. I still have the unopened condoms in my bike.” And then she hugged me. And as she stroked my head she told me of the things that she was going to do to get us back closer, and the things that we were going to do together to rebuild our marriage, and the things I was going to do because I needed to look out for myself sometimes (like spend some time each day writing). I betrayed her in my heart and she reacts like this. I am the luckiest, most fortunate, most blessed person that ever lived. For I found a woman that is everything I could hope for, and a million times more than I deserve. She is my rock, my anchor, my very present help in times of trouble. And I love her and am lost in wonder that she loves me.
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