Graham, Just One Shade

by Guy Lilburne

  A couple of days into the holiday and, much to Raz’s horror, the Dutch babe and her mates turned up at the beach. They said hello to Raz and generally hung around. Later on in the afternoon our usual group of friends were sat around the bar, drinking and relaxing in the sun, when one of our other Dutch friends just said.

  “Razzzon, have you been having sex with the Dutch girl with orange hair?”

  Raz choked on his beer. I burst out laughing and everyone else waited in shocked silence for his answer.

  “No. I haven’t.”

  “Yes he has” I countered.

  “Razzzon, she says that you have sex with her, and now don’t talk to her.”

  “No, we were just friends. I’ll talk to her later.”

  Everybody just burst out laughing, including Raz. Just then the Dutch babe walked past us and towards the sea carrying a pink lilo bed under her huge fat arm. There were a few real beach babes floating on airbeds, gently rocking on the still sea, topless and taking in the sun’s hot rays. They were slim and sexy and looked fantastic. It looked comical to watch Raz’s Dutch babe wading out to join them. We were all laughing and people were making jokes about battleships, whales and tidal waves. We couldn’t wait to see how she was going to get to lie down on the airbed, but she didn’t. She just leaned her body over its middle and the two sides shot up in the air.

  “Fucking hell! Are those her arms or the airbed?”

  It was our second or third night in the Bambola Bar; the days and nights were racing by. The weather was fantastic, the sea was warm, and me and Raz were having a great time. I think that the Bambola Bar was the best club on that part of the island and we were on nodding terms with a lot of people in there, because of our nightly visits. I was standing talking to Raz when I suddenly became aware of a very pretty blonde girl looking over at me. She was with another pretty blonde girl. The first one said something and they both looked over. The first girl maintained regular eye contact with me and even smiled at me occasionally.

  “Raz, I think I’ve pulled.”

  “Who?”

  “The blonde girl over there.”

  “Oh! I’ve been making a lot of eye contact with her. I think I’ve pulled her” he said in all seriousness.

  “Are you fucking cross-eyed or something. She’s looking at me.”

  As if to stop any argument the two girls moved over to where we were standing. Her friend sat down and the first blonde girl smiled at me and waved me onto the dance floor.

  “Oh! I think she is looking at you after all mate” Raz conceded.

  I danced for a few records with her. She was pretty and slim and smiled a lot. I couldn’t hear a word that she was saying because of the loud music and I doubt whether she could hear me, but we chatted away and smiled and nodded a lot. After a few more dances she gestured to me to join her outside for a cigarette. Once outside we lit up a cigarette and we carried on chatting. It was amazing to discover that she was foreign and didn’t speak a word of English. What on earth had we been saying? We managed to work out that I was English and she was from the Czech Republic. Her name was Anna. She was really quite lovely, and it didn’t seem to matter that we couldn’t speak each other’s language. We used a lot of hand gestures, and spoke in our own language. I think we just seemed to guess what the other was saying and, anyway, we liked each other and it didn’t seem to matter very much. Anna was 23 years old and I was 39. We couldn’t communicate very much in words, but we spent the rest of the holiday together and it was very romantic. We ate out together, walked along the beach at sunset, explored the island together and made love a lot. We spent a lot of time just looking into each other’s eyes, but that suited me because I couldn’t speak Czech. On the day I was leaving Anna cried a lot. She had another few days before she went back to the Czech Republic. Our final goodbye was very emotional. I think we had fallen for each other.

  I didn’t expect it to become anything more than a holiday romance, but Anna kept in touch with me. She enrolled on a course to learn English and, with each letter, I could see that she was getting better. As the months passed she openly declared her love for me and I was missing her too. I told her that I would visit her in the New Year and I went to Prague in January 2000.

  Anna met me at the airport. She looked happy to see me, and we kissed affectionately and for some time at arrivals. To my absolute amazement, in the four months since August, Anna had become fluent in English. I had booked a hotel for four days in the centre of Prague and we got a taxi to drop us off. We made love all afternoon and into the evening, just stopping for food and the occasional shower. At 10.00 p.m. Anna went to sleep.

  The next day we explored Prague. It is truly a beautiful city and one of the romantic cities of the world. It was very, very cold in January and snowed a lot, but Jazz musicians played in the snow and people sat out drinking coffee, wrapped up against the cold. I loved it, but the cold was freezing me to my very bones. The buildings are masterpieces of architectural design. It’s steeped in history and I would be happy to live there. Anna looked beautiful, and we were happy to be together. Anna’s English speaking voice was gentle like a whisper, and very sexy. She made the sweetest gentle moaning sounds when we made love, which we did morning, noon and night for the four days that we were together. At 10.00 pm every night Anna went to bed to sleep. I wanted to discover the night life. Most nights found me lying in bed next to her, wide awake at 2 or 3 o’ clock in the morning and thinking of sneaking out to a club, but I never did. By the time I left Prague I liked Anna even more, although her ‘early to bed early to rise’ attitude could have worn me down after a while.

  Once again Anna kept in touch and then, in April, she arrived in England and got a job as a home help down in Swindon, about three hour’s drive from where I lived. Every three weeks she would catch a bus to come up and stay with me from Thursday to Sunday. Although we had a good time I knew I wasn’t in love with her. I also knew that she was in love with me, and I didn’t think it was fair on her to carry on the way we were. Like the coward I am, I told her on the phone two days before she was due to come and stay with me in the August. She cried a lot and told me that she loved me. I felt terrible. I had told her not to come to England on my account, but she had come anyway. Although I really liked Anna, I wasn’t in love with her. To hear her so distraught on the phone broke my heart. I said I was sorry. I have finished with girls before and then been plagued by them for months afterwards, but to Anna’s eternal credit, and despite being over a thousand miles away in a foreign country, she never bothered me again.

  She did ring Raz and he listened as she poured her heart out. They ended up keeping in touch. She returned to the Czech Republic and, in 2002, Raz went over to visit her. They became lovers and it was a love affair which lasted for a few years. They visited each other every few months and I think Raz loved her. At one time they were even talking about getting married, but it never happened and the romance eventually faded and died. Maybe she was looking at Daz in Bambola after all!

  Chapter Nine: A broken heart is not so funny when it’s your own!

  In July 1999 my life was pretty settled. I hadn’t been drinking or smoking since I got the house back. I couldn’t afford to, I was paying off a lot of debt from the divorce. I never seemed to go out and all my time seemed to be taken up between work and running the house and looking after the kids, but it was a very happy time.

  I was working on a Saturday afternoon when someone came into the store and asked to speak to ‘someone higher up than a manager’. I took the phone call and went down to the shop floor to see what help or advice I could offer. The person who wanted my help was a woman called Louise. She was a beautiful English born Asian girl and I fancied her immediately. I introduced myself and I was aware that we smiled at each other a lot. I took her into an interview room. She smelled fantastic. Her long black hair casca
ded over her shoulders. Her skin was dark and she had the biggest, most beautiful brown eyes that I had ever seen. I found out later that her father was Indian and her mother was English. She was 27 years old, twelve years my junior.

  She started to tell me a story about her deceased grandmother, a nursing home, and a dispute over the amount of money that the nursing home had spent at our superstore on her dead mother’s credit card. I made some notes and asked a few questions and generally tried to sound knowledgeable about these matters.

  I really just felt happy to be sitting there looking at her, and listening to her speak. My eyes were flicking from her beautiful eyes to her perfect mouth, the shape of her lips, her teeth, and the way her mouth moved. I watched the way her breasts swelled and deflated with each breath. Her speech was interspersed with smiles. I was hooked. I wondered if she could notice me melting in front of her. If she did notice, she didn’t let on. She was charming and really quite lovely. I wanted to help her. I told her that I thought it was probably a police matter, but she was adamant that she didn’t want to involve the police. I didn’t ask why. I took her details and promised that I would look into the matter and sort it out as best I could. As she was leaving she said “My husband works away all week, but he is home at weekends. I’m at home all the time, so you can contact me any time.”

  I didn’t know if it was a come on or not. There seemed to be a lot of information in the sentence about absent husbands. Knowing Louise the way I do now, it would have just been a very innocent comment, but I was excited about the thought of seeing her again. I ‘worked on the case’ for the rest of the weekend. I contacted the nursing home and passed on my customer’s concerns. I was motivated by the thought of seeing Louise again. I had sorted it out as best I could, with the nursing home agreeing to refund over £100 to Louise. At mid-morning on the Monday I went to see Louise at her home address. I knocked on the door and looked up and down the terraced street as I waited for a reply.

  The door opened and for the second time in just a few days she took my breath away with her sheer beauty. She was wearing just a white towelling bathrobe. She looked stunning. When she saw me her face lit up and she smiled a great big smile “Hello you. Come in.”

  I followed her into the lounge and we sat opposite each other on the leather three piece suite. Before I could say anything her husband walked in from the kitchen and Louise introduced us. I tried to hide my all too obvious disappointment that he was there. I told them the outcome of my telephone conversation with the nursing home and they seemed delighted. Her husband didn’t hang around to listen any longer and returned to whatever he was doing in the kitchen. The conversation between Louise and I changed from official talk to small talk and we flirted and smiled at each other. I didn’t want to leave and Louise kept asking me to stay longer. We told each other about our life histories. We drank a lot of coffee and her husband, Nick, kept coming in and out, but ignored both of us and we ignored him. It was a strange situation. Things were going on between me and Louise and he was either too stupid to see or just didn’t care. I was taking in her whole body form, from her painted toenails, her long slim legs, her dark smooth thighs disappearing under her white bathrobe. I looked at her delicate hands, long elegant fingers, beautifully manicured nails, her cleavage and the swell of her breasts, her smooth neck, her beautiful face, her shiny black hair. I started to feel very conscious about how long I had been there - nearly three hours!

  “I had better go” I whispered, nodding towards her husband in the kitchen. “I’ve been here too long already”.

  “No. You don’t have to go” she said, almost pleading.

  “I really should. He’ll think something is going on between us.”

  Louise smiled and shook her head.

  “It’s OK really. It’ll all be going straight over his head. He won’t even realise.”

  “I think I had better go just the same.”

  Louise took me to the front door.

  “Well, that’s it” I said. “I’ve got no excuse to see you again.”

  “You don’t need one. Call round anytime.”

  “OK. I might just do that.”

  “Bye” she smiled. She stayed at the front door and waved to me as I drove off. I thought about Louise a lot. I really wanted to see her again, but thought that it was probably best not too. After all, she was married and had two young children. I thought that it was a shame that we couldn’t just be friends at least. I knew that we liked each other and I had enjoyed being in her company. A week passed. On the following Monday morning Louise rang me. She sounded a little nervous. She asked me if I wanted to call round for a coffee. I was too busy, but I told her that I was off work the next day and we agreed that I would call round.

  I went round the next day at lunchtime. She had already told me on the phone that her husband wouldn’t be there. Again, she looked fantastic and, without her husband around, she was a lot more animated and just sparkling. I stayed there all afternoon and we talked about a lot of things, but mostly she told me about the poor state of her marriage and how unhappy she was. We had become trustees of each other’s secrets and confidences. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Here she was, a beautiful, sexy, intelligent woman and Nick was married to her and didn’t even know that she existed. Why do the blokes who don’t deserve them always seem to get the woman we all dream of getting?

  She told me he worked away all week and only came home at weekends. She said that they hadn’t made love since 1996. Over three years ago! They had a lot of arguments because he was running up big telephone bills by ringing the 0898 sex lines. She told me that they had split up for a short time, but had got together again for the sake of the kids. She said that she had loved him very much, but it had been very bad for a number of years now and everyday things between them seemed to get worse.

  It made me feel really sad. How could someone so lovely and so beautiful be so unhappy? It never ceases to amaze me how many terrible marriages there are out there and everybody just assumes that everybody else is happy in their marriage. Life is too short to be sad. I didn’t think that her husband deserved to be married to this beautiful woman. I thought that I deserved to be.

  I left three or four hours later. We made no arrangements to see each other again. I think it was just assumed that I would go around and visit her again, but I never did. I wanted to alright, and I thought about it quite a lot. Louise had become my friend and I missed her. Maybe she just needed someone to talk to. Maybe we were both a bit worried that there was too much chemistry between us. She was married and someone was going to get hurt. I thought that if she really wanted to see me again she could always ring me. She never did.

  Two weeks later I was walking into a shop in the town centre as Louise was coming out. I was delighted to see her and she looked happy to see me.

  “I can’t believe that you haven’t rung me” she said.

  “I wanted to, but I didn’t know if you wanted me to.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I’ll ring you later then.”

  “Make sure that you do.” She kissed me on the cheek and squeezed my arm and walked away into the crowded street.

  The meeting was as brief as that, but it made me feel so good. I was excited and I was buzzing all day. I rang her at 9.00 pm that night and we talked for over an hour; mostly saying how much we had enjoyed meeting each other and how much we wanted to see each other again. I wanted to say to her that, if her husband wasn’t making love to her, then there was no doubt that he would be fucking someone else, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. There was a gentle naivety about Louise. I don’t know if she had even thought about it, but it was so obvious to me.

  “Louise” I said, “if we carry on seeing each other, you know that we will become lovers.”

  She paused for a long time. “Yes I know”
she said.

  “I’m just warning you!”

  “Thanks.”

  The phone call ended with us agreeing that Louise would ring me with a time and a place when we could meet. We agreed that it wouldn’t be sensible for me to go around to her house again. When I put the phone down I was elated. Louise was a wonderful woman and I already knew that I could easily fall in love with her and love her like she had never been loved before. There was a sadness and a vulnerability about her. I knew I could protect her and make her happy. Maybe things were looking up for me. I think I needed some love and romance in my life. In fact, the only thing I had ever wanted all my life was love and romance. I wanted to find my perfect love, my perfect romance! Louise never rang me and a few days later I received a letter addressed to me at the superstore. It was dated 19th July 1999 and it read;

  Dear Graham,

  I hope you don’t mind me sending this letter to the shop, but I don’t know your home address and I had to get it to you somehow. I have been to see my Doctor and he has put me on anti-depressants for six months and referred me to a counsellor to help me sort out my emotional problems and the state of my marriage. The tablets have made me feel quite ill; hence this letter and not a phone call. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I have taken the coward’s way out by writing this letter. Graham you will never know how special you made me feel by showing an interest in me. I think that you are the kindest, most understanding and caring man that I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. I only wish that I had met you a long time ago. My mum always said that I would need an older man to understand me and make me happy, and although I agreed with her, I never found one, until now. The trouble is Graham, as you know, I am married and although I’m very unhappy in that marriage, I’m not ready to give up on the vows that I made. My head is a complete mess and I have to sort it out before I do anything else. I have to see if I can sort out the problems with my marriage once and for all, to try to make it like it used to be for the sake of my boys, if nothing else. I don’t know if my marriage made me miserable or my misery ruined my marriage. That has to be clear in my mind. I felt so comfortable talking to you and, although I’ve only known you for a short time, it was becoming, or would have become, a bit dangerous to carry on. I was beginning to see it as a very appealing way out and that’s not how it should be. For the last week since our phone call I’ve thought of nothing else but what you said. I really wish with all my heart that it was a different time, a different place, where I could have been lucky enough to have been with you. I’m just not free to venture down that path yet. I owe my marriage one last try. I’m sure that you’ve got the gist of what I’m trying to say Graham. We can’t be anything other than passing friends right now. Even that seems too hard to cope with, too tempting for me at least! I don’t think it’s fair or wise for any of us to contact each other again. I hated to think of you waiting for me to call you. I want you to know Graham that it will take me a long time to get you out of my mind. Some very lucky lady is going to get you Graham, but it can’t be me. I’m sorry I had to do this by letter, but I really couldn’t face talking to you in person. Please understand why I had to do this. You are a very special person and I wish you all the luck and love in the world.