Wistful Thinking

by Suzanne Readsmith

tune into such trivialities, usually. It was in this period of checking that she had noticed an email on his Blackberry. It was from a recruitment agency, which was strange. Jake wasn’t looking for a job, far from it. Perhaps he was trying to help one of the lads from the firm that he’d had to make redundant. There was a series of emails from a woman called ‘Bea’ which she had presumed was short for the name Beatrice. Within some the woman’s messages the manner had changed to encompass light hearted banter in a veer away from an initial professional stance. It had extended to her making the comment ‘how about lunch?’ After that no further e-mail's had been exchanged between the two of them.

  So what? Lunch! It was nothing. If she’d had a nervous breakdown about every successful and attractive female business associate that Jake met up with in life her own life wouldn’t have been worth living. At that moment her anger had been towards Barbara the untoward messenger. Like a cat she had placed a ‘kill’ at my feet, which forced me somehow to have to deal with it, and at that moment in time she didn’t want to.

  In the end it was the scent of the beautiful Bea that had insidiously kept wafting her way. It seemed corny in this day and age of technology that the ‘good old things’ give unfaithful beings away. It was in his hair! It smelled different, sweet and musky conjuring images of harems and winding spirals of smoke dispelling from brass implements. Taking notice of Jake in such detail caused her to feel disgraceful. She had then seen a scratch on his back, a small one. It was broken up like a track and such a strange shape, like a snake. It was as though it had been gouged on him while he was moving. He obviously didn’t know it was there and as he showed me so much of his back lately it was as though the ‘Beautiful Bea’ as she had internalised her to be, had scored it onto Jake’s skin to send a particular message to his wife. ‘Seek and thou shall find, for he is mine now,” it seemed to say. The Bea had marked some kind of territory on him, which meant only one thing. She felt Jake to be hers.

  Her thoughts returned to the hub of her kitchen, which was her world. Jake wouldn’t be able to get the car out of the garage, nor down the lane even if he could. It was the downside of living so far out of the village and away from the city. His efforts to get to his new love would be hampered. The snow couldn’t interfere with her own plans as her bags had already been packed and she had dropped them off at Penny’s days ago. When she decided to leave she could go on foot. His forbidden fruit however might have to wait.

  Jake sauntered nonchalantly into the kitchen and smiled at her lovingly, which still served to confuse her. She did know for sure that Jake was having an affair with the woman Bea because she had followed him to their love nest hotel and even waited downstairs in the lobby until it was over, their deed! It had taken them two hours. Strangely in that period she had become quite numb to everything. She had disassociated herself from her body and flown up to the ceiling to watch the hotel receptionist go about his work in his brown uniform with turquoise stitching. He was graceful and had the fingers of a pianist. His manners seemed sincere and he looked quite unloved. She couldn’t allow herself to think about what was going on between Jake and the woman somewhere in a room high above because that caused pain to surge through her at an excruciating level. Her heart and soul could not take it. It was enough that she had found the strength to carry this sortie out. Eventually they had passed her on their way out without so much as a cursory glance towards her as they had been so wrapped in each other. They probably wouldn’t have noticed a riot. She thought of herself sitting there in disguise wearing Penny’s glasses and a wig in an outfit she wouldn’t be seen dead in. It was ridiculous, funny even, fit for a comedy sketch, but yes she had lowered herself to this act because she had needed to know for sure.

  As her thoughts came back to the present, Jake reached across to kiss her briefly on the lips in his usual morning hello. And she had responded quite naturally for a second, her heart missing a beat. He could still do that to her and she could understand someone else loving him. People did. Jake was easy to love, he was handsome and uncomplicated. He was a self-made man and a millionaire twice over. They had started off together with nothing money wise and the small empire they had built up meant even less in comparison to her feelings and marriage. It was Jake that mattered. He had gone from her a way that they had been one and now he had introduced a threat to their relationship. Their relationship was now flawed, like a priceless antique plate, chipped and damaged. They were no longer a unit. They were … what?

  Her chin was low seeking refuge near her chest and stupidly she thought of how that might make her look in his eyes, which was pathetic. Oh God, when could a woman relax? Vanity was the deadliest of sins and now the world was infected with it. It was hard to keep ‘trim’ when Jake insisted on a good table and good wines but somehow she had managed it. She had all the equipment, an exercise bike, dumb bells, and membership to an exclusive gym but although one might, perhaps at a pinch, compete with youth, no one could compete with newness. What everyone craved in an affair was for something to be different; to conduct a chase and create a new beginning. Some might even crave the difficult endings that affairs often created. Whatever twisted surge of excitement it did give for others there was one thing she knew for sure, she didn’t need it, because in Jake, her children and her life she was content. As boring as though that appeared even to herself, there was a twist, because deep within herself she had often felt a little smug which was a feeling, when it surfaced, that she had always pushed right back down, ashamed of herself. She had lucky meeting and marrying Jake whom she loved fiercely. They had settled down quickly and had three children who had grown and left the nest. They now had two grandchildren, Jessica and Agatha, identical twins and beloved by the whole family. Jake lived for them. For some people love at first sight did happen and for others it didn’t. People make mistakes sometimes choosing the wrong partner initially. What does that lead to? That they should covet what lives in another couple’s relationship and seek to destroy it in order to have a slice of that kind of love or themselves! In a non-virtuous way she had carried three children, which had taken its toll on her. She didn’t wish to become a discarded shell of a woman!

  “Hey daydreamer come back to earth. Have you seen the snow? It’s going to be a six-footer. Fantastic! Fancy a snowball fight?” Jake was in high spirits.

  She did of course, although stones would have been her preferable weapon of choice. One thing was for sure she could never get Jake right, because he wasn’t irritated about the snow at all, he seemed thrilled. He was excited and rubbing his hands together with glee like the small boy she had always seen in him. He was fifty-one years of age yet he looked about forty. She smiled at him wistfully forgetting all their troubles for a moment. Well her own troubles really because Jake hadn’t a clue that she had discovered his secret and she held in wonderment his ability to be so joyous in his domestic life when he was so obviously happy in his mysterious life too. How had he managed to split himself that way? He was putting on his wellies. “I’ll be late tonight Kate, I’m going for the tree”.

  Last year she would have thought to herself at this point, he’s going shopping for my present because he always left hers to the last minute, the tree an excuse. Today his words felt cruel and she felt mocked. All this charade about Christmas! She marvelled at his joy. She didn’t know what was real anymore. Was it that he felt so pleased at having his cake and eating it because so obviously he wasn’t in angst? He was still in the thralls of it all. He didn’t know how things would go, he wasn’t thinking that far ahead. She had always sorted things out for him and now she felt obligated to sort out the new mess he had created which was the worst mess of his life. It was certainly the end of his life, as he knew it today!

  “What’s up love?” Suddenly he had sensed something wasn’t right. The northern accent he’d lost after four years at university and twenty years in Lond
on returned as it always did when he was frightened or upset. She hated him for what he was doing. For what he had done! He’d had everything. Why had he wanted more? Why did he want to destroy all that was theirs? She felt babyish thinking this way but she couldn’t help it. She loved him so much and he was no longer hers. Startled suddenly by Jake she jumped out of her wits as he stated in a raised voice “I’m talking to my bloody self here!” Now that was anger. His mood had turned. Suddenly they were in ‘no mans land’. She didn’t feel sure-footed.

  “I won’t be here tonight.” She said.

  It was a simple statement and she knew he hadn’t understood the implication of her words. He had taken it that she was going out and wouldn’t be home by the time he came back. Going late night shopping or something. This would mean that she wouldn’t be in when he dragged the tree past the Aga as though he’d travelled to Scandinavia to chop it down personally and carried it home on his back.