Table of Contents
The Serenity Poem
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Letters from Tracie
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Recommended Reads
A Virtual Affair
Tracie Podger
Copyright © 2016
Tracie Podger
All Rights Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, places, events and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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You can contact Tracie via email to [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns.
Table of Contents
The Serenity Poem
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Letters from Tracie
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Recommended Reads
Grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking this world
as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that all things will be made right
if I surrender;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life;
and supremely happy
forever in the next.
Do you know what hope smells like? Let me tell you…
First, I have to explain where I am. At the bottom of my small garden is a gate. A plain wooden gate that needs one hinge fixed. Beyond the gate are a few steps carved into a grassy bank. It’s down those steps that you can reach the beach.
The Atlantic Ocean pounds the centuries old cliffs, the rugged shards of black rock snake their way into the sea and the coarse yellow sand whips around my feet. I breathe in deeply. The smell of exposed seaweed and salty air fill my senses. That is what hope smells likes.
For a long time there had been no hope. I was at the bottom of a well, in the worst place I could be. I couldn’t see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I felt nothing but sorrow and sadness. And pain, so much pain. It has been a long journey but I need to take you back a couple of years, not quite to the beginning but to a pivotal point in my life. A time when I thought everything was going to be okay, when I thought my life was turning around. A time when I had plans and I believed I had the future I longed for. But I was wrong. It’s only now that I have hope.
And what am I hoping for? A reply to an email I have just sent.
It was on a cold, blustery and wet January day in 2014 when my best friend, Carla, asked me a question that was to change my life.
“Please, Jayne, think about it. Or rather, don’t think about it. Let’s just do this. I need it. Can I use emotional blackmail? That’s okay, isn’t it? Because we are lifelong friends, and lifelong friends do this kind of thing.”
She smiled at me in a silly kind of way, and batted her very long fake eyelashes.
We were in the local coffee house, The Blue Cow, when she landed her grand plan on me. When I say coffee house, it doubled up as an art gallery. The walls were adorned with paintings, some hideous, and some of my photographs.
“Jayne? If emotional blackmail isn’t going to work, then can we try pleading, begging perhaps? You’re going to be forty-five this year; that’s halfway through your life. It’s my present to you.”
“I wasn’t listening, what did you ask? And that’s more than halfway through my life,” I smirked at her.
She sat back with a scowl, folded her arms over her chest, careful not to crease the cream Chanel lambswool and whatever cardigan. I think it was the over description of her latest purchase that had me tuned out.
“I’m kidding. I heard you. You want me to run the risk of unbelievable anguish, the wrath of him indoors, the arguments that will lead up to and after a holiday with you.”
I rested back in my chair and folded my arms over the ten-year-old blue knitted cardigan, probably from a charity shop, and with mismatched buttons. I batted my short stubby eyelashes, a result of not removing the previous day’s mascara, at her.
“Yes,” she simply answered.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Fuck, you gave in way easier than I expected. I spent a fortune on this bribe as well,” she smiled and laughed, then handed me a lovely decorated paper bag with red ribbon handles.
“A gift? I should have held out a little longer.”
“Open it.” Carla clapped her hands and bounced on her chair a little.
I deliberately pulled the ribbon bow open slowly. Carla was a ‘rip it open and throw the wrapper on the floor’ type of woman, I liked to tease her. I heard her sigh but she wasn’t going to bite that time. I opened the bag and peered inside. Whatever the gift was, it was wrapped in red tissue paper. I reached in and pulled it out. A Victoria’s Secret sticker held the tissue paper closed.
“If this is underwear, I’m not opening it here,” I said.
“It’s not. Now open the bloody thing.”
I ripped through the tissue paper to see red material. My cheeks coloured the same shade as I held up one of the items. A scrap of material that had two plaited ties on the edges masqueraded as bikini bottoms.
“My arse won’t fit in that,” I said.
Carla laughed. “It’s your size, and it’s not supposed to cover your whole arse, which is not large at all.”
“That will just about cover one cheek.” I picked up the top. “And that will cover just a nipple,” I said with a laugh. The bikini was gorgeous, there was no denying that, but the
last time I’d worn such an item I was pre-teens.
I placed the items back in the bag and sighed. “Thank you, but you need to stop buying me things. You’re making me feel like a charity case.”
“Jayne, I’ve known you my whole life. I want to do this for you. I want you to get away from him, if only for a couple of weeks.”
Him. The wonderful, best friend to everyone but his wife, the adulterer, the cold-hearted-didn’t-care-took-every-moment-to-humiliate-me husband that went by the name of Michael.
I looked through the steamed up window and out over the village green. People were scurrying to and fro, going about their day and visiting the local shops. I’d lived in the village for almost twenty years and loved everything about it; the gossipy old women that sat on tables near us to the kindly old man who ran the pharmacy. Although everyone knew everyone’s business, there was something comforting about the village.
“He’s going to burst a blood vessel over this,” I said quietly.
“And do you really care?”
I thought for a moment. I’d never done any of the things I’d planned when I was younger. Michael wouldn’t allow it. I did care though; that was the point. Michael would make my life hell from the moment I told him to the point of leaving, but I needed the holiday. Carla needed the holiday.
It had been two months since her divorce had been finalised, two years of battling her ex-husband after discovering his affair. I remembered the day Carla had called me. She was sobbing and it was hard to understand her. It was only that her name showed on my phone, otherwise I would not have recognised the caller. I jumped in the car and drove straight to her house. Thankfully I had a key; she was in no state to even make it to the front door. I found her curled in a ball and crying on her bed.
It seemed Charles, who worked with Michael, had decided to spice up his already perfect life with a little secretary sex—clichéd but true.
The secretary had decided she wanted more and deliberately got pregnant. Outcome? One miserable secretary, one screaming baby, and Charles much lighter in the pocket and property portfolio thanks to a wonderful female judge.
Carla had forgone her career. For as long as I could remember she had wanted to be an architect. Yet she’d done nothing but dead end jobs, such as shelf stacking in the local supermarket at night, to help support Charles while he trained in the money markets. His affair had devastated her, but the fact that he had fathered a child had destroyed her. Carla couldn’t have children and the thought that Charles was to become a parent, the one thing she so desperately wanted, tore her heart apart.
“So?”
I turned back to face my best friend. “Let’s do it.”
We left the coffee house and walked the few paces to the travel agency. Ten minutes later we were flicking through brochures for the holiday Carla had in mind.
“That’s it,” she said, pointing to a page.
“I can’t afford that,” I replied.
“You’re not paying, I am. Or rather shit-head is,” she said with a smile.
“I can’t let you pay for that. That’s the Maldives, that’s bloody expensive.”
“I know, and I am.” She turned to the assistant. “Can you book that please.”
“Carla, we need…” She cut me off with a raised hand.
A half hour later, our holiday was booked and paid for. We were to leave in two weeks. I panicked.
Wrapped up in our coats, hats and scarves, we started the short walk back to my house. Although Michael wouldn’t be there, my stomach always knotted the closer I got to home. It did a triple knot on that day.
I loved my home. I’d fought, and for only the one time, won the battle to live in that house. Prior to that, Michael and I had lived in a sterile apartment in London, but when our second child came we had no choice but to move. Kent, close to a motorway and train station, was a compromise I’d fought hard for.
As we reached the front gate, Carla gave me a hug and made promises to call me that evening before climbing in her car and heading home herself. I walked the path to the front door.
Before I’d even managed to close the door, I was assaulted. Twelve stone of muscle leapt at me, tongue licking and tail wagging. Houdini was the only one that was always pleased to see me. I knelt to give my dog a hug and thanked my lucky stars I had my coat on. His slobber was everywhere.
“Did you miss your mum?” I said, burying my face into his black fur.
He followed me to the kitchen. I shrugged out of my coat and put the kettle on. The wind howled, rattling the single pane windows in their rickety frames. The house was listed and we couldn’t replace them with the plastic double glazed ones Michael had wanted, thankfully.
I sat at the kitchen table with my cup of tea and opened my laptop. I googled the Four Seasons in the Maldives. They owned two islands, ours, Landaa Giraavaru, was the more exclusive. A bubble of excitement started to chase that knot away.
“Guess what? I’m going to the Maldives,” I told the dog.
I had many conversations with Dini; he was my second best friend and disliked Michael about much as Carla. Dini and Carla got along famously as long as he didn’t go near her. Slobber and Prada never seemed to mix well. I sat for ages looking at the pristine beach, the beautiful azure coloured sea and read everything I could about the island. Then panicked again.
I had nothing to wear. I had the red bikini, of course, but not one item in my wardrobe suitable for a five-star island. And absolutely no way of purchasing new clothes for a holiday I knew Michael was going to disapprove of.
Each month I had to produce a set of fucking accounts, every purchase I’d made had to be accounted for. He’d question every item from the amount of panty liners (he didn’t think they were necessary) to the bag of dog food (he didn’t think the food or the dog were necessary).
As I passed the telephone in the hallway to make my way upstairs, I noticed the red light blinking; I had messages.
“Mum, your phone is never on, I really don’t know why you have one. Anyway, I won’t be home this weekend; some friends have invited me to the South of France. I’ll tap dad for some money and see you in a week’s time. Can you collect my laundry for me?”
Casey, my daughter and most definitely a clone of her father, had left the message. I sighed. She was in university, thoroughly spoilt by her father who believed her to be his protégé and, as much as I loved her, a rather stuck up young lady. I had no intention of collecting her laundry. I blamed his parents for her attitude. Whether or not they truly were the upper class they portrayed themselves as, it was rubbing off on their granddaughter. They favoured her over my son, Ben, and that irked me.
I headed for my bedroom. Dini climbed on the bed while I pulled clothes from the back of drawers and storage boxes hidden in the wardrobe. There had to be something suitable among them.
I didn’t care about the black hairs that would be left on the duvet; it was my bedroom. Michael had taken himself off to the spare room a year ago, citing my insomnia as his reason. After an hour of rifling through old clothes, I sat heavily on the bed. Dini laid his head on my lap, his dark brown, sorrowful eyes looked up at me.
“I know,” I said. “It’s all shit.”
Michael thought nothing of spending over a thousand pounds on a handmade suit and yet my bedroom floor was covered in clothes more than ten years old, and mostly charity shop finds. I’d managed to unearth two sundresses, a couple of pairs of shorts and some vest tops. From my knickers drawer, I dragged out a swimsuit so threadbare the white of the elastic could be seen through the black material. I wanted to cry.
I lay down on the bed and snuggled against Dini. How the fuck had my life ended up that way?
Michael and I had only married because I was pregnant. He’d spent a month berating me, trying to convince me that an abortion was the only option. He was an up and coming money trader, he didn’t have the time for a child he’d told me. But he did what he thought was the decent thing a
nd we married, lying to everyone that Ben was born premature when he arrived seven months later.
I loved my son from the minute I found out I was pregnant and threw myself into being a stay at home mum. Michael wanted a nanny, wanted as little disruption to his life as possible. Over time I became all the things he wanted—the cook, the cleaner, and the nanny. Somewhere along the way, I lost myself.
I wallowed in my self-pity for an hour or so before reaching for my nightstand and taking out my journal. I’d kept a diary for years; it was always the one thing I looked forward to at Christmas time. My parents, my wonderful, loving, working class parents, always bought me a new diary for Christmas and it would be the first gift I’d open. I smiled when I thought of my parents. They lived nearby in Crinkly Bottom as they called it. It was a complex for the elderly. Each had their own little bungalow and a community hall where they played cards one night a week.
They were the best grandparents as well. When I found myself pregnant for a second time, I sobbed on my mum’s shoulder. For whatever strange reason, I stayed loyal to Michael and never burdened them with my troubles. But my mother knew. She knew my husband didn’t love me, he never had.
We were both in a relationship we didn’t want yet neither had the courage to do anything about it. Many times over the twenty-five years we had been married, I’d wanted to leave, but I could never bring myself to do it and I knew why. I was scared of being alone. My self-esteem wasn’t just on the floor—it was digging its way to Australia. For years, from day one I guessed, Michael had chipped away at it. I was never good enough, I didn’t cook as well as his mother, I couldn’t socialise with his colleagues and their wives because I wasn’t as intelligent. I remember the words that killed any feelings I’d had for him.
“You can take the girl out of the gutter, but not the gutter out of the girl,” he’d said.
Michael believed, by marrying me, he’d done me a favour. He’d dragged me up from my working class roots and spent years trying to mould me into the trophy wife he wanted. For a while, I complied. I did the lunch with his colleague’s wives thing, but there was only so much talk of shoes and handbags I could stomach. They were great for walking in, for carrying the keys in, but an hour discussing the merits of the new Prada over the Louis Vuitton bored me shitless.
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