“You’re starved of
… shall we call it affection,
aren’t you?” Trish, my counsellor, said.
She had hit the nail squarely on the head. “Big time,” I
said.
“How long has this been a problem?”
“Probably two or three years.”
“And you’ve done nothing about it?”
“I won’t say I haven’t been tempted, but no, I’ve done nothing about it.”
“Do you mind my asking how long it is since you and Liz made
love.”
“Seven years, give or take.”
“Why so long?”
“Because I always felt I would be abusing her.”
“Because of her condition?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever ask her if she wanted to make love?”
“I can’t remember. There are a lot of things I can’t
remember.”
“It’s because you’re blanking them out. It’s commendable
you’ve done nothing about it, and it’s also quite surprising. A lot of men
finding themselves in your situation would have strayed by now. Probably long
since, in fact. Is there some reason why you haven’t?”
There was no point holding back now we had come this far.
“Yes, there is,” I said. “It goes back to something that happened when Liz and
I were twenty nine. I met someone in Finland on a business trip. It resulted
in Liz leaving me and my not seeing her and the children for four months. Why I've done nothing about it stems from a promise I made her at the time.”
“How long had you and Liz been married?”
“Seven years.”
“What happened?”
“I had only recently joined the company and as
part of my training they sent me to Finland to visit the pulp mills we were
agents for in the UK. The guys in Helsinki took me to a nightclub on the second
night I was there, and I met this woman. She was a Swedish-speaking Finn. She
was tall, blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful. Her name was Harriett, and I had
several dances with her. The next day my colleagues took me off to visit the
mills and we were gone for the rest of the week. When we got back to Helsinki on the Friday
evening they took me out again because it was my last night, and Harriett was
there again.”
“And you danced with her again.”
“Yes, several times. The problem began when I jokingly asked
her if she was coming back to England with me and she said only as your wife. It frankly blew my mind. I went home the next day and couldn’t get her out of my
mind.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“No.”
“Did you want to?”
“I didn’t sleep with her. Okay?”
“What happened next?”
“I’d been home about a week when Liz asked me what was
wrong, and like a fool I told her I had met someone.”
“Why did you do that when nothing happened?”
“I’ve asked myself that question until I’m blue in the face.
I don’t know why I told her. It was a stupid thing to do.”
“What happened then?”
“The first thing that happened is she went through my
wardrobe with a pair of scissors. It’s a good thing I caught her at it,
otherwise she would have ruined everything in the wardrobe. As it was she’d
gone through my ties, several of my shirts and three of my suits. And that was
just the beginning. I was at the office a few days later and my secretary told
me that Liz had just called and asked that I go home. When I got home, my
parents, and Liz’s parents, were waiting for me. Liz had called them in. She had
told them I was having an affair with a woman in Finland. My mother went
ballistic.”
“Did you admit you had met someone?”
“Yes, I wasn’t going to lie to them.”
“Did you tell them nothing happened, and that you weren’t
having an affair?”
“Yes, I did. And my parents told me later that they believed
me. But Liz was having none of it. My father said later he thought she was
playing the tragic heroine.”
“What happened then?”
“Had you made contact with Harriett since you got back to
England?”
“No, I hadn’t.”
“Did you have her phone number?”
“Yes, I had her phone number.”
“Why hadn’t you thrown it away?”
I didn’t answer.
“You wanted to see her again, didn’t you?”
Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true
story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of
my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com
Twitter: Maximillian19
FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom
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