Ghost (4 page)

I tell you this because I am falling in love with you, I want our love to be right and a good thing, not some sordid encounter played out in hotel rooms or back seats of cars …(though I’m not ruling either of those out as options, should we manage to reach heads of agreement !!!)

I admit to some bad qualities….I can be a bit jealous…I do think overall that jealously is a wasted emotion but unfortunately I struggle to practise what I preach. I’m a bit selfish…I like to make plans and stick to them - spontaneity is not my strong point but on a plus, my plans are usually good fun for anyone involved.

Anyway, despite my… reputation… I hope the little time we spent together will show you that I am capable of emotion… and feeling… and thought.

I know this because since meeting you I have experienced little else but emotions, feelings and thoughts.

I cannot stop thinking about you. I want to ask you so many questions I only hope that soon I can ask some of them. For now though, rather than quiz you, let me tell you a little more about me.

I have absolutely no idea why you would choose to be close or confide in someone like me. You could have anyone you desire, certainly there are a host of people with more attractive dispositions than I.

However, for whatever reason, you are now in my life and for that I am truly thankful. I don’t know for sure what is going on in your head at the minute, but I am here for you whenever you are ready to tell me. If you are saying that you want to be with me, I want that too. If you are worried about your children, I’m worried about mine too, but I promise to do whatever I can to reassure you that you don’t need to worry.

You asked me to tell you what I’d like to do with you and to you… How long have you got?

The day you came to the meeting? I wanted to fuck you. Right there, right then. My office was next door. I wanted to take you by the hand, lead you into the room, close the door and then push you up against it. I wanted to kiss you so fucking hard that you couldn’t get a breath. I could see the outline of your bra under your blouse. I imagined ripping every fucking button of that blouse to get your tits into my mouth before pulling you onto my desk, watching the papers fly as I reach to pull your knickers off. So desperate to be inside you, I would not wait. I would fuck you on that desk, quickly and as hard as I could, not stopping until we both come as loudly as possible, not caring if the door opened, or if anyone overheard us. I just wanted to fuck you like crazy.

So now you know… Any problem with that?

As our sex life is… I have yet to fuck you, but I’m glad you came in my bed and though I simply can’t understand what happened, until you explain it to me in full, I’m glad you didn’t have to do it yourself.

I want to know everything about you, every memory and every dream. I want to make them come true if you will just let me. I want to breathe you, and drink you. I want you to come to me and never go away. Stay in my arms and lay your head on my shoulder forever.

This is the first line of the first chapter of our story. Want to write some more????

R xx

#

Monday morning saw an early start and a day crammed with meetings lay ahead. He knew work would be busy, but as each day passed that he knew her, he felt good about life for the first time in a long while. When his phone rang and he saw her name on the screen, he smiled as he answered.

“Hi, it’s me, I need to see you” she said. Page’s smile faded, he knew from her voice that something was happening and that something wasn’t good.

“Tell me what’s wrong” he said and he closed his eyes preparing for the worst.

“I read your letter. For safekeeping I put it in my bag and thought I would bring it to work where I could read it again in peace. When I opened the envelope it was filled with blank sheets of paper… He’s found your letter, he must’ve taken it.”

“Fucking hell! And he said nothing?”

“Nothing! He must have read your words… I can’t believe he could be silent, especially with what you wrote about us in bed…”

“Well, your husband knowing what has gone on between us kind of forces things one way or another I suppose”

“That he knows is terrible and the holiday is supposed to be this week. God knows what’s going to happen!”

“What do you want to happen Lucinda?”

“I don’t know, I still want you, I just don’t know. I’ll call you tonight when I get home and see what he has to say. Don’t text me, he reads my texts and I don’t want to make things worse than they are.”

She hung up and his day of meetings and visits now seemed like a life sentence which he would endure until that night and whatever that might bring.

By midnight he was pacing the room and had drunk at least two bottles of red wine. He contemplated driving to her house but the prospect of losing her and his licence in the same night was too much to risk. Eventually he fell asleep fully clothed on the floor of his apartment.

He woke and his head thumped as though a marching band had taken up residence there.

He glanced at his watch and saw the time was 6.30 am. He checked his phone. No messages, no missed calls. He wouldn’t be able to ring her for at least three hours when she would be in work.

#

Page dialled the number at 9.30 and the phone rang for what seemed liked minutes. He hit redial, and again it rang out. He repeated this every minute for the next few hours and nothing happened. He feared the worst. Had something terrible happened? Good God! Had he hurt her?

Page spent most of the day sitting in a small corner of his apartment, more often than not his eyes full of tears.

#

That evening, he checked his Blackberry for what seemed like the millionth time and as he held the phone in his hand, the Blackberry beeped. The incoming message was from her, but unlike those other times when he smiled at seeing her name, this time he was numb.

He read the text and found himself fighting through tears, struggling to take in her words. “Hi R, I am sorry to tell you like this, but I can’t see you anymore. Last night was terrible, he was so hurt he just sat and cried all night. I felt so sorry for him. He has asked me to go on holiday as planned and to talk about the future. I can’t do that with you in the background so, I say goodbye. Just know I always spoke the truth and I meant every word from my heart and the moments I spent with you I will always treasure. Your shoulder will always be my most favourite place in the world and I just ask that you don’t hate me. Please no more calls or texts. Remember when we lay in front of the fire and the movie Love Actually was on the television and the guy had to finally give up on Keira Knightley? What was it he said, ‘enough, enough now’ and then he walked away. I know in that film, she came after him and it was all so wonderful, but I don’t think I can do that bit. I’m truly sorry. I’m asking you to walk away now Robert, please.”

For the first in a long time Page was sobbing uncontrollably. He felt as though a hood had been put over his head, he was being dragged into a dark place and was being smothered, yet there was no one to fight off. He lifted his empty glass and hurled it at the wall. He flinched as the glass smashed and rebounded towards him in shards of a thousand pieces.

He was unable to take in or process what she had written. How could she do this after all she had said to him? How could he exist without her? He saw a shard of the broken glass on his bed and stared intently at his wrist. Lifting the glass he pressed the sharp edges against his skin.

Having cut into one wrist and with blood flowing freely from the wound, Page’s head began to spin. As his gazed dropped he saw his tears falling onto the blood on the bathroom floor, making small patterns. And then he thought of his children. To this point in his life they had been his heartbeat and his reason for living. As he cried even harder he put the glass shard down and slumped against the wall. Reaching for his phone he called an ambulance.

#

Apart from an uncomfortable chance meeting three years earlier, and his occasional drunken texts, Page had no more contact with her.

#

After Lucinda, there had indeed been others, not just at work or in bars but through internet dating, and everywhere else that someone desperate to be loved chooses to search.

In the end Page simply gave up. He was becoming a caricature of himself, his life experience diluting into mediocrity… It was time to stop. He still loved his job, he still had friends and whilst out for dinner one night he even confided in his closest friend that he wanted to end all the hurt, once and for all

Love was destined to avoid him forever, he thought. For all his books and his music, the poems and the plays, he thought he knew what love was. He was going to be one of those who reached out for love but could never hold on to it.

It was time to let go.

              Page went home and poured himself a large Bushmills. He logged on to his computer and proceeded to delete every dating agency account, every message from his phone and cleared out all his old emails. He was determined to exorcise every one. He stopped deleting as he reached his final message.

It was an email from a female politician asking for help in securing a Royal visit to her constituency. He glanced at her name, meaning nothing to him he typed it into google and clicked search.

“
Oh fuck
!” said the voice, as her image appeared, “
not again.
”