by Adam Colton
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“My name is Chris Took. I am 55 years of age and I work in an insurance office. I first met Maria in the Wise Owl Bookshop where she worked. I'd popped in to see if they had the biography of some actress for my wife's birthday. It was an unusual store that stocked lots of non-mainstream books. I mean, they had even tracked down a copy of a book by an author my cousin had met in an isolated pub up on the North Downs. Colton or somebody. It's a job to remember now.
Anyway, I found the assistant, Maria, to be very helpful and an interesting lady to chat to. Somehow we had got onto the topic of product placement on television and how unfortunate it was that commercialism was invading entertainment, when there are far too many ways for them to infiltrate our thoughts with advertising already, without having to dream up convoluted methods to get brand names into scripts.
She seemed to share my views, and I decided to pop back into the shop the following day.
Over the next few months we expounded on all kinds of topics, and I began to think of Maria as a friend. As my home-life was more of an ordeal than the relaxing environment that I needed after the daily grind at the office, I had come to value these chats during my lunch break each day immensely. We frequently discussed books we had read, from classic literature to philosophy and psychology, but in all that time we had disclosed very little about ourselves.
My wife was away visiting the grandchildren in Devon one weekend, and due to my stupid job, I had a business meeting that I couldn't get out of on the Saturday. Strong willed as ever, Angela had decided to go on her own. So in a moment of blind opportunism I had asked Maria if she would like to join me for a meal on the Saturday evening. 'Why shouldn't I have some company while my wife frolics about on Dartmoor?' I thought to myself.
Having lived on her own for so long, Maria seemed delighted, and I already realised that perhaps I had set myself on a course that would result in disaster for one, two or even three people at minimum.
However, the meal went ahead and I enjoyed a fine lobster thermidor. It was when Maria began to talk about her religious upbringing that I knew that if I mentioned at all that I had a wife I risked losing this friendship, as she would probably not speak to me again for fear of rocking the boat.
When our taxis arrived at the Piper's Hotel I went to kiss her on the cheek, doing the usual informal 'goodbye' thing, but somehow her face moved and things became far more passionate than the simple gesture I had intended. Let's just say the two taxi drivers were somewhat terse, having sat patiently throughout a series of impassioned embraces.
From that day on she would enquire as to when we could meet again whenever I popped into the bookshop. The days of wistful chat about thought provoking tomes was over, for she was under the impression that this had been the first of many dates. But of course it could never be, so in the end I had to tell her an inconvenient truth.
Well, they say it is a small world, and when I told her my wife's name, it became apparent that she already knew her from a 'keep fit' class she attended.
It was a Wednesday lunchtime and 'keep fit' took place at the town hall every Wednesday night, as a kind of midweek work-out, before the journey along the downhill slope towards the weekend gathered momentum. Knowing that Maria would still be raw from yet another let-down, I had no idea what she might blurt out at the 'physical jerks' session, as I call it.
My fears were justified. Angela had left at 6.30pm with a smile and returned at 11, red-faced and with tears in her eyes. Maria had told her everything.
Now, normally Angela gets back from 'keep fit' at around 9.30, so in that ninety minutes of waiting, I felt that the problem was increasing in severity with every moment that passed. She had been to see her friend Stephanie for tea and sympathy and then called round at the local supermarket for a bottle of wine on the way home. She either intended to drown her sorrows or hit her husband over the head with it!
It was in the superstore car park that she spotted Maria's blue hatchback. Immediately, she felt guilty for having stormed out of the class without even thanking Maria for her honesty. After all it was me and not Maria that Angela viewed as the evil protagonist, and to a certain extent she was right.
The passenger window was wound down just enough for Angela to get her hand in, so she returned to our silver estate car and opened the glove compartment to search for a paper and pen. One of those sticky notepads that I often swipe from the office fell out, so she hastily jotted a note to Maria with a pen that I had also purloined from the office. After peeling the note off from the pad, she leaned through the hatchback's open window and tried to attach it to the glove compartment, but alas, it fell to the floor. She hoped her friend would still see it.
I am not sure what would have happened after this. Maybe Maria would have dumped her shopping bags onto the floor and not even noticed the note. Maybe she would have found it at a later date. Either way my wife hasn't seen her since.
We are trying to get our marriage sorted after this curious sequence of events, but let's just say things are even less pleasant now than they were before I started calling in at the bookshop. It has been a real struggle. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth sticking with something just because it is familiar, or if it's better to cut your losses and take a gamble on an unknown future.
Sometimes I try to find reasons why things work out the way they do. After all, if you believe in fate or destiny for the good things in life, you have to believe in it for the bad things too, and I don't believe that anybody would have wanted to cause this amount of grief for the three of us over a momentary misunderstanding that night when leaving the hotel. I mean, everybody makes mistakes.
Well, I have never been religious, and maybe Maria finds comfort in her beliefs, and I wouldn't criticise her for that, but when it all ends up like this, I find it hard to think there is any greater power in control of things. I mean if there was, what exactly is he doing up there?”
