Yours Unfaithfully (14 page)

Sophie came out of the bathroom wearing a towel around her head and another wrapped around her bust, tucked in to keep it up. It wasn’t long enough to cover her thighs and he couldn’t resist sneaking a look at what she had already declared as forbidden territory, before turning away, frightened that she would see what he was up to.

“Do you have any plans for tonight?” she said, as if reading his mind.

“Well, I might go over to the Globe and talk to Tim. I’m in new territory here, Soph. I’m not sure what happens next.”

“Just take your time and don’t go back there bashing the door down or anything. That’s just gonna make it worse, OK?”

“I won’t, I’ll think long and hard before I go and talk to Nina. At this moment I wouldn’t know what to say to her.”

He got up and headed for the door.

“Ben, wait, I’ll get you a key. That way you won’t have to wake me when you come in.”

Half an hour later he was perched on a bar stool alongside his best friend.

“I don’t understand Ben, what do you mean, she threw you out? Look at you, you’d take a lot of throwing out of anywhere, and Nina is a lady after all. If you left, you must have done it on your own two feet. What really happened?”

For the second time in two hours, Ben related the details of his row with Nina.

At the end of his story he owned up to having misunderstood Sophie’s invite. Tim, I’m just crashing down there. I thought she was inviting me, well properly, but she’s made it clear that her room is right out of bounds. I’m a good foot longer than that bloody sofa, Tim, how the hell can I sleep on that? I’ve screwed up again, out of the fire and straight into the bloody frying pan. Do you think Nina would listen to you? She’s always holding you up as a paragon of virtue; why can’t you get a proper job like Tim? Why can’t you do this like Tim? Why can’t you do that like Tim? Are you really so good Tim? I bet Mel doesn’t think so.” He smiled at the irony of their wives’ views on their relative merits.

“I don’t know, Ben, about Nina listening to me. I’ll try, of course, but you know what’ll happen as soon as she opens the front door. I’ll get a list of all the things you’ve done wrong in the last twelve months and then get told to piss off. I’ll be like a Christian to the lions. Do you really think it’s a good idea? What if I just make matters worse?”

“Well I don’t see how that’s possible, frankly, Tim. I mean, I’m chucked out of my own house, sleeping on a sofa in a flat with a gorgeous bird who insists on keeping a wall between us. How much worse can it get?”

“OK, I’ll see what I can do, but I’ll have to tell Mel what I’m planning to do otherwise I’ll end up upsetting her again and we’re not exactly top drawer ourselves at the moment. I feel like a bloody tight rope walker with two women just itching to see me fall from a great height. It’s Saturday tomorrow. I’m not working so I’ll be around all day. I’m going to do a few jobs to keep Mel happy and I’m going to tag along wherever the kids are going, you know, violins, recorders, dancing, canoeing. You name it, I’m going to be there, right by her side. I’m a caring, doting father from now on. You should try it Ben, it might be better than sending me in as your envoy.”

“Yes, but I can’t dote or care if I’m not even allowed back in, can I? Please Tim, go round and talk to her tomorrow and tell her I’m not having an affair with Sophie, unfortunately ...so would it be all right if I came back. He laughed at the hopelessness of his situation. Tell her I intend to dote and care and point out to her all my good qualities. She’s got to be reasonable about this after all.”

Tim laughed at his friend. “Remind me again, Ben, what are your good qualities?”

“It’s not funny Tim; I had a vision earlier of me, a year from now sleeping rough, like a tramp. Ring me as soon as you’ve spoken to her, please, and if she says I can go back tell her I’ll pack up my stuff at Sophie’s in two minutes and be on my way.”

“I’ll do my best, Ben, but don’t expect a miracle.”

On the walk home from the Globe, Tim examined the situation surrounding him. His wife was barely talking to him and his best mate had just got himself thrown out of his wife’s best friend’s marriage. Somehow he was expected to sort all this out, even though he rated a pretty low score with his own wife and probably a lot less with Ben’s wife. To his surprise Melanie greeted him warmly as he walked into the lounge, where she was sitting alone.

“Nina’s just gone back round. I suppose Ben’s told you what he did?”

“Do you mean about Nina throwing him out?”

“That’s just like you Tim; you’re both bloody chauvinist pigs. He insulted her, he humiliated her with that hussy from the pub and now he’s walked out on her, after all she’s done for him.”

“Well that’s not quite the story Ben’s telling me Mel. There are two sides to every story, right?”

“Right! ...Ben’s and the truth.”

“That woman is beside herself, Tim, I’ve had her crying most of the evening. She’s crying for her husband who’s walked out on her and for the kids who’ve lost the day to day contact they had with their father. He’s an irresponsible shit and if you don’t want to upset me still further don’t come in here preaching his side of the story, or how hard done by he is.”

“Mel, I’m not taking sides, I just want to get them back together. Ben is desperate to get back if Nina will just let him. He’s not having an affair with Sophie, she is simply letting him stay at hers tonight, but he’s on the sofa, Mel. He’s asked me to try to talk to Nina. What do you think I should do?”

“Talk to her if you want, but if you think she’s going to just say, OK he can come back, I think your dreaming. She was already fed up with him before he took off with that girl. Nina is convinced that Sophie is a trophy hunter and wants Ben as a notch on her bedpost. Once she’s succeeded she’ll throw him back to Nina, but there is no way she’ll ever have him back then.”

“Well I’m just glad I’ve got you, Mel. You know I’d never look at another woman, don’t you?”

“Yes Tim, we make a lovely couple, right?”

Tim wondered why the look on her face didn’t correspond with what she’d just said. It was so difficult to understand her. Even after twenty years she was a mystery to him more often than not.

Saturday morning started sunny again. Tim waited until just after ten before deciding it was now or never. He went around to the back door and knocked, before opening it just enough to call out, “Nina, are you about?”

Nina appeared from the lounge, surprised to see Tim holding the door open. “Come in Tim,” she said, “I suppose you’ve come with news of my husband?”

“Yes, Nina, he’s asked me to come and talk to you. He’s told me pretty much everything and he wants you to know exactly what is happening. He’s hoping that you’ll let him come back.”

Nina didn’t say anything as she led him into the lounge and sat down. She motioned for Tim to sit and he did so. Nina had a way of making you feel like a client meeting the lawyer to discuss your case, he decided. She could be quite intimidating and she left Tim in no doubt as to who would control this exchange. They sat staring at each other. Tim waited for her to say he could begin but she remained silent. She was practised at interviewing people and she was accomplished in the court room. She was as good as any man at dragging evidence from reluctant, sometimes hostile witnesses. She wasn’t about to capitulate to Tim’s efforts to relate Ben’s rather sordid little story.

He stuttered his introduction to his recital of Ben’s unfortunate fall from grace. “You see Nina, he wanted to show you that he isn’t weak. He knows you don’t respect him and he thought that by just laying down and pretending to be dead when you were attacking him, you would lose what little respect you had left for him. He tried to be strong and to stand up to you, but now he wishes he hadn’t. He knows he’s just made things worse.”

“So he’s told you that I was attacking him, has he?”

“Well, I don’t know if he used the word attacking, but he said you were pretty angry when you threw him out.”

“Tim, you are an intelligent man, I’ve always thought of you as a lot brighter than my husband and certainly more capable, capable of working hard, thinking hard and using reason to work out what is right and what isn’t. For example, I could never imagine you behaving in such a course or lewd manner towards Melanie as Ben has done to me. How, therefore, do you deduce that I threw Ben out of this house? Isn’t it obvious to you that Ben left this house of his own free will?”

Tim could see where this was heading. She would destroy every argument he put forward in Ben’s favour, logically, one by one, before finally throwing him out as well. This was going to be humiliating, and then to cap her victory she would tell Mel how she had made mincemeat of him.

“I said as much to Ben, Nina. I agree he went of his own accord but I’m trying to explain why. You made it impossible for him to stay and at the same time retain his dignity. What was he to do?”

“Tim, Ben doesn’t have any dignity to retain. Nevertheless, he could have behaved properly. He could have got a decent job like you. He could have held onto any one of a dozen jobs that he’s had in the way that you have held onto your job year in and year out. He could have said no to that little tart from the pub who enticed him to go and ‘work’ if that’s what they do, together, and finally he could have stood his ground and made some resolutions, some statement of his intention to be different. I warned him that this was his last chance.”

“Nina, you need to know that Ben is not in any kind of relationship with Sophie, no matter what you may think of her. Yes, she’s a bit... I suppose you could say common, but she has a good heart and she’s taken Ben in like she would a sparrow with a broken wing. He’s sleeping on her sofa. He told me himself, that she made that very clear when he turned up at her door.”

“Tim, you are a much more sensible person than Ben will ever be, and definitely more sensitive. Surely you can see that no woman would tolerate what Ben has put me through in the last few days, let alone the last three years. Since we moved here, at the same time as you, how many jobs has Ben had and lost?”

“I don’t know Neen, quite a few. Some of them he lost through his own fault, he would be the first to admit that, but some of them have been lousy jobs, jobs no one could hold down. If you give him another chance I can help him to get a job you’ll find acceptable and I can help him to keep it. In fact Neen, I’ll let you into a secret, one I haven’t told Ben yet, mainly because the time hasn’t been right, but there’s a job going at our place; storeman. It’s not brain surgery, but it pays quite well, the hours are normal and I would be able to keep an eye on him. If you’ll take him back, Neen, I’ll convince him to go for the job and I’ll talk my boss into offering it to Ben. Then all I’ll have to do is make sure he doesn’t bugger it up, because if he does he’ll make me look pretty stupid as well, but I don’t think he will. He wants to be back here with you, Neen, and if you give him this chance I know we can pull it off, that is, he can pull it off with my help.”

“Tim, you are a good man. Ben doesn’t deserve a friend like you. I don’t know what you see in him, but clearly you see some quality that I have yet to discover. I’ll do it for you, because
you’ve
asked me to and Ben had better understand that it’s only thanks to you that I’m taking him back. But can you also tell him that he’ll need to be a very different man from the one who walked out of here two days ago. I don’t need him financially, Tim, and if I can be brutally honest at a very personal level, he’s not very good in bed. He’s just about average as a father and he’s less than reliable in all other matters of importance. He couldn’t organise anything and he is not particularly good company. Can’t you see, Tim, why I don’t love him anymore?” Nina had lost her cocky court room attitude and was now slumped forward in a dejected manner.

“Neen, you know deep down you love him, you’ve spent all those years together, just like Mel and I have. You can’t not love him, he’s the father of your children and he’s been in your life for that long, you know how it is, you’re just going through a sticky patch, a bit like Mel and me. She moans about everything I do, it’s never good enough for her, but I try to do my best. Do you know the other night I took her to The Walnut Tree? We had the most amazing meal and it cost me a fortune, but I was chuffed to bits to take her there. All she did was spoil it. She set out to spoil it from the moment we arrived there until the moment we got home. At one point she even said she didn’t like my trousers and she used that as an excuse to get at me. I sometimes think she doesn’t love me anymore, but then I think of all we’ve been through together and I realise she can’t stop loving me any more than I could stop loving her.”

Nina looked at Tim and started to cry. “Why is it so hard, Tim, to stay happy with someone? You do your best for Mel, but it’s never enough. I’ve carried Ben for years but still he doesn’t make any effort to please me”. She got up and went to grab the box of tissues. Tim reached to get them for her and they collided. Nina reached out to stop herself falling and in doing so put her hand on Tim’s chest. In the same second he put his arms out to break her fall. They ended up in a bear hug, but instead of breaking away in an instant they held on to each other. Nina put her head onto his shoulder and wept like a child. Tim put his arms around her waist and held her tight. He experienced a wonderful feeling of being needed, something he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

They clung to each other with enormous compassion, one friend to another. After a few minutes of comforting they pulled away and looked at each other. “Thank you Tim she said, you are a lovely man. I just wish Ben could be more like you.”

Tim made ready to leave. As he neared the kitchen door he turned and, with arms outstretched, reached for Nina again. She responded as friends do before a lengthy parting, but Tim only lived next door.

The next few days kept Tim busy as first he tackled his boss about employing Ben and then, with this arrangement secured, set about selling the idea to Ben.

“But I really love my job with Mick, and you know I’m pretty good at it. For once I’ve got a job I like and she wants me to give it up.”