by Guy Lilburne
Thank you for being there,
Love Louise XXX
The letter made me sad. I was sad for Louise and sad for myself. We had become close and hadn’t even kissed. She was so unhappy in her marriage and being cruelly neglected by her husband, but she was going to stick with it.
It always amazed me as to why these women stick with their partners, even when they are being physically abused, and put up with it. Although Louise wasn’t being physically abused, it was the same sort of mentality. Part of me admired her though. What a wonderful wife she was, even though she was unhappy she wouldn’t give in to temptation. She had no intention of being unfaithful. She was going to try again with her marriage because… well, because that’s the sort of depth of character and amazing qualities that made Louise who she was….Louise.
I decided there and then that I wouldn’t contact Louise again. It was only right to respect her wishes. I would never get the chance to talk sense into her. I felt disappointed. In the few short times that we had seen each other she had made a big impact on me, but it wasn’t to be. She was out of my life, and I just had to get on with it. Loneliness had been a close companion of mine throughout my adult life and, once again, we were reunited and I was left staring up at the stars, alone! Over the next few weeks I started going out quite a lot and ended up doing a lot of one night stands. (Well, Louise did say in her letter that some lucky lady was going to have me! Well, quite a few lucky ladies did.) There was nobody special and it’s not something that I’m proud about. I don’t know if I was angry or just frustrated with life, but at the time I just wasn’t bothered about who or what I did. I didn’t know if Louise was thinking about me at all, but I was having trouble getting her out of my mind.
About a month later I went out and I saw an Asian girl. She was standing alone and looking over at me. When I saw her looking she smiled at me. She reminded me instantly of Louise, but only because she was Indian/Asian. She was attractive and had a nice body. I went over and we started talking. She was quite pleasant, but definitely not Louise. I ended up sleeping with her that night and we spent the weekend together. We had a lot of sex in a lot of positions. After that weekend we saw each other every day. I really got to like her and within a month, in the September, she moved into my house and I found myself agreeing to marry her. My kids hated her. Within a week she had arranged the wedding for the following July 2000, booked the reception and organised the whole thing. She had taken over my life. I think that she had got me at a vulnerable time in my life. I couldn’t believe that I had agreed to it all. I had drifted into my first marriage, and now here I was doing exactly the same thing all over again. Even worse, this time I was actually thinking about someone else. Every time I made love to her I was fantasising about Louise. I just couldn’t carry on with it and a couple of weeks later in October I just said to her.
“I’m sorry. I can’t marry you.”
“My God! You are joking. I love you.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t love you. I just can’t do it and you don‘t love me. You just love the idea of getting married.”
“Look Graham, we can work through this.”
“No we can’t. It’s over, and I need you to get out of my house……before the end of the week. Please.”
“How can you just change like this? What’s happened?”
“I haven’t changed. I was just going along with it all because I was lonely. But I’m not happy.”
“Is there someone else?”
I didn’t answer. I was trying to think of the right thing to say.
“Oh my God! There is. Who is it?”
“Look” I said, “it’s not what you think. I’m not seeing someone else, but there is someone else who is in my heart and in my mind.”
“Who? Tell me.”
“I can’t tell you. It’s private. You’ll think I’m stupid. I’ve never even kissed her. It’s just someone that I met once, a while ago. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Are you still seeing her?”
“No. I never was.”
“And you never kissed her?”
“No. We never got the chance to.”
“You’re right. I do think that you are fucking stupid. I think that you are making it all up.”
After that we didn’t speak to each other very much and, a couple of days later, she moved back out of my house. For the next three months she rang me constantly. Sometimes she was abusive. Sometimes she was calm and just wanted an explanation. But I could never give her one. I just didn’t love her. That’s hard to tell someone and it’s hard for someone to comprehend, especially if they don’t want to and they don’t want to listen. Sometimes she would just ask me to try again. Each time I just told her very firmly that I was sorry-- but no. And I kept telling her to stop ringing me. Eventually, after three months, she stopped……and guess what! In the July 2000 she did get married. Everything was as she had arranged. She just married a different man. I was so right. She just loved the idea of getting married! She was just a bit upset because, when I dumped her, it was a blip in her plans.
I think she would have been even more upset if she had known the whole truth. I knew that I had used her as a substitute for Louise and, in doing so, I had played with her emotions. I wasn’t a very nice person.
It had been twelve months since I had met Louise. Maybe it was because it had been just a year that she had come back into my thoughts so much. I know that I had promised myself that I wouldn’t contact her again, but I started to justify it to myself. Maybe I should just ring her and see if she was OK. I would be happy just to know that she was happy. Just to let her know that I still think about her and that I hadn’t forgotten her. I was still her friend and that I was still there for her. Just to hear her voice would be wonderful. I agonised over it for several days and then rang her, but the line was dead. I couldn’t stop myself. I had to make sure that she was alright. Well, at least that’s how I justified it to myself. I knew I was wrong, but I went round to the house. I knocked on the door. A woman answered and told me that they had bought the house off Louise and Nick and moved in the previous October. They had no forwarding address. Louise had gone and who knows where. I felt sad all over again. I had thought about her so many times, always hoping that one day she would contact me to tell me that she had made a mistake. Now she had gone forever and, as crazy as it sounds, I felt hurt that she hadn’t told me where she was going. Of course I knew it was none of my business. I also knew that it was for the best. Now I could stop waiting for Louise to contact me. Now she could become what she should have been all along; just a fond memory of a very special person who I had met once.
Suddenly I felt comfortable with the whole Louise thing. It had disturbed me as to how affected I had become with her. Going to her house and finding her gone was the closure I needed.
This is one of life’s coincidences but, on Sunday 30th July 2000, I went to a family barbeque. I didn’t usually bother with these things, but on this occasion I went along and we all sat chatting and drinking and generally had a good time. Several hours into the barbeque my brother Tony suddenly said.
“Oh yes, you. Who’s Louise?”
“What!” I said, slightly stunned.
“I was doing a computer course at the college a couple of months ago and a girl called Louise asked to be remembered to you. She wrote her name and address down on a piece of paper, so I wouldn’t forget and asked me to give it to you.” He pulled the piece of paper from his wallet and handed it to me.
“I haven’t seen you for a while, and I kept forgetting to ring you. So who is she then?”
“Just someone who I used to know.” I sounded calm but my heart was banging away in my chest.
“Did she say anything else?” I asked, trying to sound not really interested.
“No. She
just asked if I was your brother, then came back to me later with that piece of paper and said “Don’t forget to remember me to Graham.”
I didn’t sleep very well that night with thoughts of Louise dancing in my head. I was excited, but I was also apprehensive.
The next afternoon I drove to the cul-de-sac where she lived and looked for number 10. It was a detached house on a private estate. I stopped outside and sat in the car for a while. What do I do now?
I went and knocked on the door. I waited for what seemed like a long time and then Louise answered the door. Once again her beauty, her very presence, took my breath away.
“Hello” I said.
She didn’t answer straight away. She just looked at me, a mixture of surprise and shock on her face. Then she broke into a huge grin and there were tears in her eyes. She hugged me and held onto me for what seemed like a very long time on the doorstep, before she let go of me again.
“Oh my God! How are you? Come in, come in.”
I followed her into the house and through into the lounge. To my horror her husband, Nick, was sitting there along with another woman, who I later found out was Louise’s best friend Angela. Louise had already told Angela all about me but, of course, I didn’t know that at the time. I was a bit alarmed as to why Louise had invited me into the house when her husband and her friend were there. Why didn’t she just tell me at the door? My brain was spinning around like a tumble dryer trying to think of a reason why I was there, other than I just fancied the pants off Louise.
“Nick, you remember Graham the supermarket manager?”
“Area manager” I corrected.
“What?”
“I’m the area manager, not the general manager.”
“Oh! Please sit down. Look at me. I’m all scruffy. I’ve got my old glasses on. Trust you to come now.”
“You are looking good. How are things?”
I could hardly believe that we were talking like this. I sat down. Seeing Louise again now after 12 months made the previous year just melt away. It was as if I had only just seen her yesterday.
“What are you doing here?” she beamed.
I didn’t really know. She had sent me a note with her name and address. Maybe she had just wanted my brother to remember her to me and expected no more than that. I suddenly felt very foolish. What the hell was I doing there?
“You took some finding.” I was trying to think of a reason and was buying myself more time.
“Did your brother tell you that I had met him at college?”
“No” I lied.
“Well, how else did you know where I live?”
“Oh yes! That’s right. I think he did mention it.”
“And did he give you the note I gave him with my address on it?”
“Yes. Now I think about it, I think he did.”
“Well, I’m very happy that you came to see me.”
Not surprisingly, nobody knew what I was talking about and I realised that I was shaking. The electricity was just flowing between Louise and me. Her friend was just smiling at me and I kept thinking ‘Jesus, everyone is going to realise what’s going on here. Just keep calm’. Her husband said he was going to get his stuff ready for work and disappeared upstairs. Her friend then also went to leave and Louise showed her to the front door. I heard her friend say “he’s lovely.” Louise came back into the room.
“I’m sorry for just turning up like this” I said.
“Don’t be silly. I’m glad that you did.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Do you want me to ring you sometime or not?”
“Yes. That would be good.”
We quickly exchanged numbers and I started to walk towards the door. Louise grabbed my arm.
“This time I will ring” she said. I rubbed the back of my finger along her arm. “Make sure you do.”
I drove away almost bursting with excitement. I really was delighted to have seen Louise again. She looked beautiful and I had realised how much I had missed her. The next day, Tuesday 1st August, she rang and left a message on my mobile. We spoke later that night for two and a half hours on the telephone. I told her that I hadn’t been able to forget about her, and she said that she hadn’t stopped thinking about me. It was exciting and the chemistry between us was intoxicating. We were like a couple of juveniles falling in love for the first time. She told me that she had driven up and down my road on lots of occasions looking for my car, because she didn’t know my house number. She told me that she had missed me and that her marriage was a joke and that she and her husband were a couple in name only. She told me that she was going to divorce him and that she would have left him anyway, even if I hadn’t turned up again. When I put the phone down I was elated. She really did care about me. She had missed me and she was prepared to give us a chance together. I couldn’t believe my luck. How could someone as amazing as Louise be interested in someone like me? She was gorgeous beyond belief and had a heart as big as a bucket.
Her husband must be an idiot. How could he neglect her so cruelly? He didn’t deserve her and I was going to take her away from him. I was going to rescue her from her life of loneliness and make her happier than she could ever imagine. I had waited all my life for someone like Louise and now was the “other time, other place” that she had spoken of in her letter, which I had read so many times. I was a happy man.
The next day when I got home after work there was a letter from Louise, which had been pushed through the letter box. It read;
Graham,
Well, what can I say? Actually this is now my third attempt to write something in ten minutes. There is so much I want to say that it’s coming out in a jumble. Third time lucky hopefully!
In the space of 24 hours you’ve managed to plunge me into an unknown world, not knowing where I am, where to go, how to act or what to do. I’ve got that trembling feeling in my stomach you get when both fear and excitement mix together. All I do know is that I want to explore this new world. But you will have to help me find my way around Graham. I’m still not 100% sure that I’m doing the right thing, but I feel pretty good at the moment, so that must be a good sign. Like I said on the phone, I really can’t promise you anything, but I want you to know that I think you are lovely and I want to get to know you better. If I was a single woman I think that we would already have had 12 months together, if that says what you need to know.
I was thrilled and shocked to see you yesterday. All the days, weeks and months I’ve sat alone at home and you had to pick the one day when Nick was at home and my friend was visiting. It’s a wonder that Nick didn’t see me blushing. I didn’t quite know where to put myself. Why? Because I have thought about you a lot in the last 12 months. Tried not too, admittedly, but all the same I did. I hope that you don’t mind me talking to Angela about you. She’s the only true, real friend I’ve got and I need to talk to someone. She’s always said that I should have run off with you when I had the chance. I trust Angela with my life, so please don’t worry about her knowing about us. Am I getting a bit carried away here….us?
I’m going to be brave now. I wish that you were here with me now. I don’t know, but now I’ve actually told you, I want to see you. I keep listening to the cars going past, wondering if you’ve popped out for a little drive. Daft eh!
Graham I have no idea whether this is going to turn out a platonic relationship or a full blown love affair, but I need to know that you know what you are taking on here. I am married, unhappily, but married and you know that I have two boys. I doubt that I’ll be able to pull the wool over their eyes, so I’ll have to be extremely careful about what I say and do around them. I haven’t got a regular babysitter and no family to look after them, so I don’t know how we are going to manage it yet, but where there�
�s a will there’s a way. It’s nice to know that you are a bit of a night owl like me. Then there’s always the possibility of you popping around when the boys are in bed, maybe. I hope I’m not sounding presumptuous here, but I want to give you an idea of how it is going to be, how difficult. I don’t want you to start on this dream of mine unless you know the ins and outs. It’ll be easier for you as you’re single (though God knows why!) and your children are older.
