Just Another Friday Night In Memphis Part 10

?????.bad news over the phone.

On Saturday morning Janet was a bit nervous and she said that 'Michael'
was calling with a pair of trousers that she said she had offered to
take to a tailors near her workplace to be altered for him. I thought
that this was a pretty weak reason to be calling; he was a grown man
for Christ's sake, why couldn't he do this for himself?

'Is he staying for breakfast?' I enquired.

Looking a bit sheepish she replied, 'Well, he's sort of invited
himself.'

'Right, well you can just un-invite him because if he stays, I
go!'

At that point Sarah arrived and could see there was a problem. She
asked me why I appeared so annoyed and I told her what was about to
happen.

Looking at her mother in disbelief she said,

'Come on mum, you can't expect George to sit round the breakfast table
with him!'

The doorbell rang and Janet went to answer it, closing the lobby door
behind her. A few minutes later she re-appeared holding a carrier bag
and said she'd told him he couldn't come in. Breakfast was very
strained, Sarah left early and I grilled Janet about 'Mike' as she had
started to refer to him as.

'He's been chasing me for weeks', she said.

'And he's finally caught you, hasn't he?' I replied.

'He's a nice man', she said, 'and I like him.'

I spent the rest of the weekend agonising over her, I didn't go to work
on Monday and by Tuesday decided to end the relationship before I got
hurt any more than I had been already. I wrote a letter and called by
Wally's shop in Southend (Wally was one of our dear friends and a
regular on Tuesday nights), and asked him to give it to Janet that
evening, as I wouldn't be going to the club.

At 10.30 in the evening I was in bed feeling very sorry for myself when
the phone rang. I almost always ignore the phone as it's rarely for me,
and in any case being a bit deaf I don't actually hear it (I don't have
a bedroom extension). Jean got up and went downstairs to answer it
coming back almost immediately.

'Sarah's on the phone, she says she has a water leak at her bungalow
and would you speak to her.'

I was still feeling slightly hostile but got out of bed and went
downstairs.

'What's the problem Sarah?' I said rather wearily.

'Oh George, thank god I've got hold of you, I've had to pick mum up
from the pub, she's in a terrible state. Will you come over to talk to
her? Please!'

I reluctantly agreed and went back upstairs to dress; Jean was fast
asleep!

I drove the 10mls to Sarah's bungalow with mixed feelings and when I
arrived Sarah met me at the door.

'I'm so glad you came George', she said, 'mum's in the sitting room,
you go and talk to her and I'll make you both some coffee.'

Walking into the room I saw Janet sitting on the edge of the sofa, her
make-up a mess she had obviously been crying and she looked at me with
desperate eyes. I walked over and stood in front of her, looking down
into her face I felt indifferent, although part of me was angry and
part of me curious.

'Oh George, I'm so sorry, I only did it because I thought you didn't
care', she said in a shaky voice.

'If you thought I didn't care Jan, why didn't you ask me instead of
cheating?' I snapped, feeling the anger rising.

'How far did it go? Did you shag him?' I said, meaning to make her feel
awful, and make it sound as sordid as possible.

Her face dropped and in an almost inaudible voice I heard her whisper,
'Yes.'

I went cold, thinking about all the things we had done together, how
she held onto me so tightly and cried out at the critical moments when
we made love, knowing that she had done the same things with someone
else behind my back. Finally I sat down, shaken to the core and
speechless.

She repeated, 'I thought you didn't care'.

'Well I bloody well do', I said.

She reached out and took my hand and I could feel her trembling.

'Will you have me back, can we start again?' she pleaded.

I didn't say anything for a few moments but just stared at her, my mind
was mangled and all I could think about was her naked, enjoying another
man's body.

Could I cope with this? Could I forget about it? How much does this
woman mean to me?

Finally I put my arm around her and said, 'It doesn't have to be the
end, it depends on you.'

'I'll never do this again George, I promise, if you'll just give me
another chance', she whispered.

'Ok, we'll give it another try', I said, and she breathed a big sigh of
relief.

Sarah brought the coffee in and after an hour I went home and Sarah
took her mother home.

For a while the affair was still hard to cope with and would frequently
spill over into our conversation. On one of these occasions Janet tried
to pretend it didn't amount to much and on one particular occasion said
to me, 'There wasn't any real sex anyway, his dick didn't work
properly!'

'Oh that makes me feel really good' I answered, 'His dick didn't work
so you came back to me because mine did!

'It wasn't like that' she protested.

'Oh it wasn't? So what was it like then?' She didn't answer!

Over the next few weeks the other guy turned up at the folk club and
sat opposite us in the bar and tried to make Janet feel uncomfortable,
staring at her all evening, and apparently at the Sunday jazz club he
made a few nasty remarks to her. Eventually I had to tell him to find
another pass-time on Tuesdays and Janet told me her friend Tony Scott,
a member of the same jazz crowd and a classmate from her schooldays,
would speak to him if necessary. In mid-October Janet had arranged to
go to Las Vegas to stay with a friend she had worked with years earlier
and who had married an American. We had talked about going together but
she always said 'You don't have the balls to go.' In a fit of pique I
booked a holiday to America for the following month, leaving two weeks
after Janet returned. The Tuesday before she flew out I took her home
from the club and we stopped for a chat and she brought up the love
thing again.

'Tell me you love me', she said in a panicky voice.

'What's brought this on', I said.

'I'm flying to Las Vegas on Sunday and the plane might crash and I'll
never hear you say it', she replied.

'In that case it won't matter will it?' I answered.

I admit this wasn't the best thing to say and she got very agitated,
and I could tell she was going to make an issue of it. After a bit of
to-ing and fro-ing I could see she wasn't going to be satisfied until I
said it, so to put an end to what looked like becoming a senseless
argument I said the words she so badly wanted to hear! Because she felt
she had to force it out of me it didn't have the effect she wanted and
I tried to explain that it's no good making people say what you want to
hear, you have to let them say things because THEY want to. I didn't
see her between Tuesday and Saturday when I arrived for breakfast, but
as her daughter had stayed the night there was no chance for any
privacy. She told me she had told Peter that I was taking her to
Gatwick in the morning and I had to pick her up at 6am. He wasn't very
happy about this, but to a large extent Janet was the boss and he
didn't go so far as to try and stop it.

I turned up in the dark the next morning; Janet was looking out of the
window and came out with her case as I pulled up in my work van. I put
her case in the back and as we pulled away I saw the bedroom curtains
part and her husbands face watch us go down the road. Janet said to not
look at him and when we were out of sight of the house she told me how
much she wished I were going with her. We arrived at Gatwick with time
to spare and I parked near the lifts in full view of the departure
lounge across the dividing access road. We got out of the van, and as I
opened the back to retrieve her case she pushed me in and climbed in
after me.

'Ok', she said grabbing a dust sheet, 'block out that window, I'm not
getting on that plane until I've had all you've got to give!'

'Are you nuts?', I said, looking to see if anybody was watching.

'Do as you're told for once!' she said carefully removing her smart
business suit and hanging it over the front seat.

She lay on a pile of dustsheets in nothing but her bra, knickers and
suspender belt and said, 'I want to take a part of you to America with
me, please, I'm desperate.'

For the next 15mins or so the van was rockin'n'rollin as we both went
for broke!
Whatever the people across the way must have thought I don't know but I
have to say I loved it.

For two weeks I didn't hear a thing, I thought she might have sent a
card or something but she never even phoned Sarah to arrange a phone
call to me at her bungalow, and I was very upset, it was the longest
two weeks of my life. I was so relieved when she came home but I knew
in two weeks I was going away, so I tried my hardest to see as much of
her as I could. I was actually going on an organised coach tour on my
own and had mixed feelings about this. I had booked this particular
trip as it was going to Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans, all music
places that I had always wanted to visit. It was only a small group of
travellers, mostly married couples plus two pairs of men and a couple
of ladies, twenty-three people altogether. Mostly they kept to
themselves; in fact some couples didn't speak to any one for the whole
trip, which I found unbelievable as we were on the coach for ten days!
I eventually made friends with a couple from Wales, Norman and Pat
Christopher, who just happened to be sitting across the aisle from me
at the start of the trip (we have since become good friends and I see
them regularly, phoning each other in between times) and we spent most
of the trip in each other's company. They both had a good sense of
humour

The worst bit about the trip was the nights alone and in the event I
was arranging early morning calls (2am and sometimes 3am) so I could go
to the phone in the hotel lobby and phone Janet. A lot of these times I
was in tears as I missed her so much and in 10days I spent ?40 on phone
calls. The last time I called Janet before I came home she said that
she and the girls were going to come to Gatwick to pick me up. This
made me feel really good and when I walked through the arrivals gate
she was waiting for me, a big smile on her face, I desperately wanted
to sweep her up in my arms and squeeze her so tight but felt I couldn't
in front of her girls and in public. Before we went to get a coffee I
introduced her to Pat and Norman and said a fond farewell to them,
promising to stay in touch. Pat cuddled me so tightly and I knew we
would always be friends. Although I enjoyed the holiday I couldn't wait
to get home and have a cuddle from the woman that I had become so
attached to.

During the early summer of 1999 I went to a jazz day held on a farm
near Southend and Janet introduced me to her friends, in particular
Tony, and she walked off leaving him talking to me. I could tell he had
more than friendship on his mind when he asked me what my intentions
toward Janet were.

'I wouldn't want to see her get hurt', he said.

I felt a little indignant that he thought it was any of his business
what was between Janet and I, but I assured him I wasn't going to hurt
her. She had told me previously that Tony was the only one of the group
who knew about us and to prevent any suspicious looks treated me
off-hand and didn't spend any time talking to me. I was very hurt by
this and wandered away and sat on the grass listening to the music.
Eventually I felt awkward and without saying anything walked back to my
car and quietly left thinking it had been a mistake to come in the
first place.

Around this time Janet and I agreed to go on holiday to America, she
wanted to see some of the places I had been to last year and as I felt
I had missed a lot I was more than happy to re-trace some of my steps.
Sarah had been aware of our relationship for a long while although
Adrienne, the elder girl, knew nothing, she thought we were just good
friends. When Sarah was told about the trip she asked me if there was a
really special hotel in Memphis, one of the main places we would be
visiting. I told her about The Peabody which is an old style southern
hotel, that claims to be the last grand hotel left in the Deep South.
Smiling, she asked me to get her the phone number and said she was
going to treat us to a night there. I tried to tell her it was
expensive but she said she didn't care; nothing was too good for her
mum! She eventually booked us in for a night, she said she tried to
book three nights but they didn't have a vacancy for that long. As it
was it cost her $300 for one night and the plan was I wouldn't say
anything to Janet and when we got to Memphis I was going to show her
round the place (I had been there the year before) and whilst there I
was going to phone home and Sarah was going to tell her mum we were
staying the night. We were both excited about the trip; Janet in
particular couldn't stop talking about it. I told Jean I was going to
Memphis, she didn't ask if I was going alone and I didn't volunteer any
information, although if she had asked I wouldn't have lied. Janet on
the other hand told Peter that she was going to Spain with her friend.
The night before we left I took her out for a meal to 'Simply Blues',
one of our favourite restaurants in Southend, we had a lovely evening
made all the better for knowing we flying off on holiday in the
morning. I had already packed my case and left it at Sarah's place as
she had let me stay there the night while she was at her mums. In the
morning Sarah was bringing her mum to her place and picking me up and
taking us to Gatwick. In the morning there was a bit of a cock-up and
Janet panicked and let the cat out of the bag to Adrienne who was quite
shocked about the whole affair although she didn't disapprove. As the
plane took off Janet squeezed my hand in excitement and said she had
never been so happy in her life.

tbc