The Sweet Man

By Janet Baldey

‘Soul mates.’ 

‘We were made for each other.’

‘You bring colour to my life.’

Well used phrases, frayed around the edges yet they sounded brand new as he looked into my eyes, his hands cupping my face.   They (he) made me feel special.   They (he) made me feel that, at last, I’d found the man I’d been waiting for.

Both married, although not to each other and not happily, he told me about his wife the first time we went out together.   Tucked into a dim alcove of a local pub, our knees touching as a log fire spat and distant laughter swirled towards us, his face was solemn.   

‘Agoraphobic.  Terrified of germs.   She hasn’t left the house for fifteen years.   Her mother used to live a few doors down the road and just before she died, Rachael forced herself to visit.   When she got back, before she entered the house, she stripped off all her clothes and hosed herself down in the back garden.   Then she spent a full hour in the shower, scrubbing herself sore.   I wasn’t allowed to bring her clothes back in - had to burn them.’

In turn, I told him about Aleck.    He was twenty years older than me, a violinist who lived for his music.   I suppose I was sort of trophy wife, someone he could feel proud to have on his arm but then I fell pregnant and it all changed.  When our daughter was born I couldn’t go away on tour with him and when he got back, he couldn’t stand to hear her cry;  he had sensitive ears, couldn’t bear ugly noise, he said.   As she grew older it didn’t get any better, whenever her prattle disturbed him, he snapped like a vicious dog and retreated to his study.   Soon, he began to stay away for longer periods.   I’m pretty sure he had another woman but by that time I was past caring.   Amelia and I were better off on our own.   Even now, with Amelia married and Aleck retired and back home, I still don’t care although I’ve a cold spot deep inside that nothing can warm.

Joe had nodded slowly and sipped his beer.

‘I think we’ve got a lot in common. I’m so glad we met.’

But I hadn’t been.  Not at first.  I didn’t like change and when my previous boss left for pastures greener, I’d worried and asked around.  

‘What’s he like, this new chap?   The one that’s taking over from Bob.’

‘Oh, he’s nice.  You’ll like him.  He’s a sweet man.’

His looks didn’t impress, tall and stoop-shouldered, with pale eyes that had spent too much time staring at a computer screen, he certainly wasn’t the sort to bowl a maiden over.   But, when he smiled it was as if he’d been lit from within and that was all it took to change my mind.

Joe reached across the table and as his hand covered mine, I felt a delicious tingle.  

‘Of course, I could never leave Rachael.  It would destroy her.’

As for me, who could leave a 70-year-old man without a domesticated bone in his body?  

Seven years is a long time and I have so many memories.   Stolen nights spent together when Aleck was on tour and Joe was supposed to be at a conference.   Every Tuesday was special.   I took an evening course in Spanish simply because they were held on that day when Joe was supposed to be at his camera club.   Needless to say, I didn’t progress in Spanish and Joe almost forgot how to take photographs.  Instead, we spent the evenings tangled together in the back seat of the cinema like the couple of teenagers we felt ourselves to be.   Romantic candle-lit suppers long walks in the country, the occasional lecture on ancient history, we were happy just to be together.   And when we weren’t, there were always the text messages.   I learned to live for my Nokia.   In the early years, the little yellow envelope would pop up hourly, sometimes more.   We had long-running ‘themes’ in which we’d each try to outdo the other in frivolity, the messages zipping through the ether like quickfire only falling silent when our imaginations failed.   Once, I remember going on holiday with Aleck and missing Joe so much that I sent him a text.   ‘I’M MISERABLE.  SAY SOMETHING FUNNY’.   I got a one word reply - ‘MARTIN’ -   the name of a pompous colleague we used to laugh at.   And always, last thing at night, those twin messages ‘CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU AGAIN.’

He always said he could talk to me about anything and know I’d understand.   One day in the park, a small boy had fallen over just in front of him.  

‘He just lay there red-faced and bawling with pain and shock.   Without thinking, I picked him up and brushed him down.   I heard a scream and looked up to see a woman running towards me.   She shouted something and, for the first time, I saw myself through someone else’s eyes.   A shabby, middle-aged man who might just as well have had the word‘PAEDO’ branded on his forehead.    I just turned and walked away feeling as if I’d done something wrong.’  

He’d looked at me and his eyes were raw.  

‘I can’t tell Rachael.  It would upset her.’

I’d squeezed his hand, not knowing what to say.  The sad thing was, I could imagine what had been going through that woman’s mind and even worse, I sympathised.   Joe had never cared about his appearance, just threw on whatever was to hand and as he did his own laundry, it tended to be crumpled.   If I’d been that woman maybe I would have reacted in the same way.  

The end, when it came, was insidious.  Foreboding tottering on baby steps towards realisation.  When he could, Joe gave me a lift to work.  I’d meet him at the ‘bus stop so as not to arouse suspicion.   It always gave me a thrill to see his car parked up waiting for me and he never let me down.   One day I got in and started prattling on about something, I forget what now.   He made a slight noise and when I looked at him my world teetered on its axis.   There was an expression on his face I hadn’t seen before.   Exasperation?   Irritation?  Boredom?   I stared.   Then his face cleared, he grinned and was his old self again.   But unsettled, I watched for other signs and when they came, dwelled on them obsessively.  

He told me about a man who fell asleep at the wheel because he’d been texting his girlfriend all night.  

‘All night!’

‘Must have been the start of their relationship.’  

His voice was bitter and a chill worked its way down my spine.   His text messages to me had been steadily dwindling.

His very last was one that read ‘FEEL SO DOWN, SO LOW’.   Immediately, I replied.

‘WHAT’S WRONG DARLING?  DON’T WORRY.  I STILL LOVE YOU AS MUCH AS EVER.’

I never did get a reply.

The next day, I accompanied Aleck on a planned holiday to Venice and trailed around after him, wilting in the heat, my face aching from holding a fixed smile in place.  In the evenings, I sat in silence while he argued with the waiters, feeling sick at heart and worried to death.   I still hadn’t heard from Joe and at last, in desperation, had asked him outright.   ‘DO YOU WANT TO END OUR RELATIONSHIP?’    Minutes, hours, days, my mobile remained dead and I knew I had my answer.   Even so, I couldn’t quell a faint flicker of hope – after all, ‘phones do malfunction.

I thought everyone could hear the thudding of my heart as I walked into the office on my return.   The first thing I did was to look towards his desk.   It was stripped bare and I felt the blood leave my face.     People looked at me strangely when I asked.   Early retirement - it had been planned months ago.

I still don’t understand why.   Had I grown too demanding, perhaps tedious?   Was there really such a thing as the ‘seven year itch’ or was it simply that we’d been on a train going nowhere and it had just reached the buffers?

‘Get it all down on paper.’  My counsellor said.   ‘Write it out of your system and when you’re done, burn it.    It’ll help, I promise.  It’s cathartic.’

I strike a match and hear it sizzle just before I feed it the paper.   The edges blacken and curl before being consumed by the hungry orange mouth and soon only a mound of silvery ash remains.  I reach out a finger and poke it, seven years of my life - the happiest ones.  I wonder if the counsellor is right.  If she is, why am I still crying and why can’t I forget that look on his face?    

 Copyright Janet Baldey