Take the Next Road on your Left (8)

She didn’t look like Val, but had that same smile, somewhere between doting and condescending. How long had it been since that final farewell? I walked in and out of that relationship happy enough; relieved too, after the toxicity in severing the two previous serious excursions into Loveland.
She was married and blissfully so – she kept reminding me, as we debated over the value of her husband’s life – in insurance terms. She couldn’t afford a great deal each month but wanted to feel secure that if Bill was crushed in an automobile accident or developed prostrate cancer (“Isn’t there a lot of it about these days?”) she’d be able to cope.
There was a son, aged 15, who was doing reasonably at school but probably not degree material. He’d help too, with board and all that, once he got a job. She kept flitting around the final yes until I took her hand in mine and placed the pen between her forefinger and thumb and pushed it toward the dotted line that begged her endorsement. That touch startled her, so much so that she let out a small yelp, like a dog trapped in a mineshaft 200 feet down.
A week later, around mid-day, she brought in the cancellation forms to the office and asked to see me. Unusually I happened to be there. Office time didn’t generate profit. She explained that she was having second thoughts with the policy and could I run through the benefits again, over lunch, maybe, at her expense?
Perhaps it’s that first thrill, for an addict, of entering unchartered emotion; the first time an alcoholic drink made the fucking world work for once or the first time a winning bet meant you could treat the fucking world to a round of drinks. Val didn’t like drink or drugs or gambling or approve of extra-marital shenanigans, but she was about to make an exception of the latter and couldn’t prevent herself from doing so.
I cannot even remember how we arranged that first clandestine afternoon at a motel so unkempt that Compo would’ve refused to work there. Nothing happened for a fortnight, which was okay with me, but then, unexpectedly, she rang my mobile. Guilt had kept her away but compulsion drew her back in.
The one thing I couldn’t forget was the moment she committed herself.
I parked up in the car park next to her blue Volvo. I spotted it as I came in. I looked across toward her but she was looking straight ahead and continued to do so until I rapped at her window and reanimated her.
“Hello” I whispered almost expecting her to drive away
“I’m sorry” she mumbled “It’s not right is it?”
“It’s not anything yet”
“Would you mind if we…if I?”
“I cancelled a huge client today for this” It wasn’t really a lie. I had just rescheduled him for later that evening.
“I ruin everything – I always do” she began to sob, but delicately, and fished in her purse for a tissue.
“Nothing’s ruined yet”
She dabbed at her eyes several times and said nothing. I stayed silent. It’s the old selling game. After you’ve given them the pitch and there’s nothing left except a yes or no, the first one to talk loses.
“Is it clean?” she enquired peevishly
“Spotless – that’s why I chose it”
“Thanks” she said getting out of the car.
Inside the room I expected another stalling tactic and then maybe a last minute getaway but indoors seemed to pacify her nervous anxiety.
“Would you like a drink first?” This was about as gentlemanly as I was going to get if I was left with a hand job at the end of it all.
“No”
I approached her gingerly and laid my right hand atop of her left shoulder like a father consoling his son after he’d missed a penalty and lost the game for the school’s first eleven.
“Go home, it’s all right” That was a lie and another strategy.
“Have you come far?”
“Not yet I haven’t” and we both grinned at the euphemistic undertones in my answer. Bingo.
“Could we shower first?”
“Together?”
“Only if you’re a good boy”

We met at odd times of the day and always at motels. Funnily enough it had never occurred to me before how every one of these shabby little facilities was positioned, aptly though, on a bloody roundabout.
I never cared whether she and Bill still screwed each other. Looking back these days I was rather careless but she was always immaculately dressed, perfumed and spotlessly clean and, even the first time, always insisted we bathed before and after sex.
The arrangement was fine by me and lasted about three months. I climbed in and out of the bath/bed with her both physically and mentally naked. Toward the autumn I could tell that the liaisons had become tiresome for her. The kick had gone. We met at another grotty motel and she broke the news to me.
“I’m ashamed of what I’m doing to Bill”
It was the first time she’d discussed him since I sold her the policy.
“There’s the boy too”
She was apologetic in a way shoppers are when they bring an item of clothing they’d bought back that didn’t quite fit or they’d changed their mind about the colour.
She suggested we make love as an adios, but I could tell, even as she rocked away on top of me, that there was little there but the semblance of energy and that she was waiting for me to climax before faking her own, which had probably been the case for the last half-dozen times we’d met.
I pondered whether remorse over her infidelity had really proved too much a strain to bear but later that month driving into town I had my answer. Her car was parked outside another motel just off one of the roundabouts on the ring-road.
That was last year and as amicable as the split was I didn’t crave another congress with a member from the other sex that simply consisted of the opportunity of releasing a few million sperm into an unattached, attractive, applicable, secure warm aperture at regular intervals.
Neither was I desperate for a serious affiliation and all the needless complexity that entailed. I was far too busy. I could pull. I wasn’t unattractive and I had money. I only scratched when the itch was unbearable.
I was slowly festering in that bloody room with a coffee so bitter it could bitch for Columbia when my two new police friends came back to pay a courtesy call and tell me they’d been reassigned.
“And me?”
“Someone will be here shortly”
But I was insignificant now.

I left the police station at five o’clock in the evening with little to occupy my mind but thoughts of having to resuscitate my career. They gave me the keys to my car which had been impounded pointlessly for prints, unless they wanted those of the last bird I banged on the backseat. I climbed in and subconsciously moved toward the Sat-Nav then recoiled.
“Bollocks to that”
I drove out of the station and collared the first intelligent looking specimen I could find to give me directions to the Excelsior hotel. As I thanked him and he walked on my attention was gripped by the headline on a news seller’s stand behind him.
WITNESS TO BANK ROBBERY UNDER 24 HOUR PROTECTION