The Long Dream (3 page)

"It's great to see you again, I missed you last week," he said.

I raised my eyebrows and smiled at him. "Two of my colleagues were away so we were a bit busy and couldn't come."

He laughed. "Oh, I see. I thought you were trying to avoid me."

"No it's true, I wouldn't do a thing like that," I said reassuringly.

He leant back in his chair and relaxed. "Well it's great that you're here now."

"So what have you been up to then?" I asked.

"I've been down to the farm looking after the horses and I wondered if you'd like to come with me this weekend. We could go for a nice long ride."

I beamed with excitement. "I'd love to, that would be perfect."

He moved in closer and put his arm round the back of my chair. "Well, why don't I pick you up on Saturday morning about eleven?"

I looked into his eyes. "That sounds great."

"Shall we have another drink then now that's settled?" he asked as he leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"You're not backward in coming forward are you?" I joked. "I'd love another, thanks."

We exchanged numbers and I gave him my address, and then headed back to the office with the others. I felt more relaxed and happy than I had in a long time. It felt so right, and once again, my life was about to change out of all recognition forever.

I seemed to have a permanent smile on my face. Everything was new and bright and the world was a wonderful place again. I was floating on air, light, carefree and young again.
Was I falling for this guy?

As I lay in bed that night, I thought of Steve and could think of nothing else. He made me feel so good about myself, and as I drifted off to sleep, it occurred to me that I hadn't thought about Paul for quite some time.

***

I was thrilled to be on a horse again.

"I'll race you to that tree," said Steve as he pointed into the distance.

"You're on," I cried grabbing the reins and we galloped off across the fields jumping over the hedges.

Inevitably, Steve was winning as I was a bit rusty. He reached the big old oak tree first and had jumped off his horse just as I arrived. He grabbed hold of me and we fell on the floor together laughing.

"You look really beautiful," he said as he held me in his arms and gave me our first proper kiss on the mouth.

The horses were gently grazing as we lay looking up at the blue cloudless sky.

"That was exhilarating, I haven't felt so alive for ages. It must be the effect you're having on me," he said as he stroked my hair.

I turned to look him in the eyes. "Me too," I said softly.

We stayed there for a while embracing, enjoying the moment and the feel of each other's warm bodies close together.

After a while we parted and then got back on the horses.

"Now I'll race you back," I said flicking the hair out of my eyes.

I tried to get a head start on Steve. I don't know if he let me but I reached the stable first and won. We stabled the horses and went into the farmhouse to make some tea.

After spending the afternoon at the farm looking at all of the animals, Steve took me to a lovely Italian restaurant where we had an excellent meal. It was a great end to wonderful day.

***

The next five months were a whirlwind with Steve. That first date was really romantic and it will always be a special memory for me. I didn't sleep with him until the third date and it was a complete revelation, after all, it was nearly four years since I'd been with my husband and I'd completely forgotten how enjoyable it could be. I realised that making love with your husband was nothing compared to having a new lover. A husband was safe and comfy, but a new man could take you to new heights of passion, and Steve was certainly capable of that.

The boys also got along well with Steve and I think they were glad to have a man about the house again. They'd kick a ball around in the back garden, cook on the barbecue together and play video games. Steve lived on the top floor of a modern block of flats in the center of town, like a penthouse flat with a small terrace, which the boys loved to visit as they'd never been in a place like that before.

By now, I was attracting attention from other men as well. In particular, there was a guy at the gym who always made a point of talking to me if we were both there at the same time. Although I thought I was in love with Steve, it was still very flattering being chatted up by someone else.

It was around this time that I also met a new girlfriend called Jenny who I had a lot in common with. She was single, having divorced her husband who'd ran off with a 22 year old, and she had two young daughters. We started going shopping together and I really enjoyed my time with her.

I did notice one thing about Steve which I found a little bit unnerving and confusing. He seemed compelled to flirt with every barmaid or waitress, and even though he was with me, he would exchange banter or pay compliments to them, which I found a little embarrassing.

One night, we walked into a pub and he immediately approached a woman sitting at the bar and gave her a peck on the check. I had never seen her before but he obviously knew her and he made no attempt to introduce me. She appeared to be alone and I just thought it was strange. I didn't take issue with him over it as I didn't want to cause an argument in front of everyone. I tried hard to brush my feelings aside and ignore it, but each time it happened, which it did everywhere we went, it made me cringe a bit more.

I didn't know what, if anything, I could do about it, and I certainly didn't want to bring it up with Steve and possibly have a row, which we hadn't had, as yet. I was upset about this trait in his character, but it seemed automatic with him, that whenever even a remotely attractive female was in front of him, he would behave in this way. I told myself to stop being so insecure and stupid and remained silent on the subject, but I certainly felt my infatuation for him diminishing each time it happened. I guess he just wasn't sensitive enough to realise how it made me feel, and he carried on, regardless.

So it was at this point that I started to spend more and more time with Jenny, going shopping and out to lunch and even taking the kids to the park together. She was really good company and the boys liked her girls, even though they were younger and didn't want to play football!

Being divorced, Jenny was not quite so well off as we were, but she had a part-time job in a clothes shop and got a staff discount on all of the clothing and shoes that she bought which was a great help. She was great at managing money, far better than I was, and we saw each other nearly every day which I really enjoyed.

Steve did realise that I was cooling off, as I only saw him once a week now, and he asked me what was wrong. I made various excuses, saying how busy I was with Jenny and the children, but could not bring myself to tell him the real reason and I suppose I felt a little ashamed for him. But if he couldn't figure it out for himself, then it was just too bad.

One day, I invited Jenny and the girls over for the whole weekend, and dropped Steve out completely.

"Look Helen, please tell me why you're doing this. I thought we had a great thing going together. I just don't understand what the problem is," he said over the phone.

"I'm sorry Steve, but I just don't want to get in too deep with anyone right now, it's been too fast for me. I need to broaden my horizons and go out on my own and just enjoy my freedom," I replied, hoping he'd get the message.

There was what seemed like a long silence after this, until he said, "Well, all right then, I just wish I knew what was going on with you. Perhaps we can talk when we see each other in the pub," and with that, the call ended. I felt bad about it, but if he couldn't control his stupid impulses, what could I do about it.

I opened a bottled of wine and sat at the kitchen table with Jenny. "When's the last time you've been out with anyone?"

"God, I can't even remember. I've met no one since my husband left me," she said wistfully.

I poured her a glass of wine. "Well I think it's about time we went out and had some fun."

She looked at me with excitement. "You're dead right. What a great idea."

Jenny and I decided to hit the town that night and visit as many pubs as we could find. She was a few years younger than me, but I was always told I looked much younger than my age so I thought we looked good together. In fact, we were sometimes asked if we were sisters!

Jamie was old enough to babysit Ben and the girls and was quite happy to do so, and they all thought it was a great idea for us to go out and have some fun. It was all innocent enough and we were like two young girls as we tried on our different outfits. Jenny had lovely clothes anyway from where she worked, and I'd kitted myself out quite well as I often went shopping. I was amazed at how quickly I was forgetting about Steve, and when the boys asked about him, I just said I was backing off a bit, which they happily accepted.

We decided to do a pub crawl, and walked into town, going into the first of the numerous pubs that were there. It was packed and very loud music was playing, so we had to shout our order over the bar. We both loved wine, but felt it best to have Spritzers so that we could last longer. That was just as well, as the night turned out to be longer than we thought.

There were no seats available, so we just stood sipping our drinks, when we noticed we were getting some admiring glances from a group of men in the corner. However, as it was so noisy, we decided to leave when we finished our drinks, and went on to the next place. It was much quieter there, and we got a seat, so we stayed for a while and realised we were getting a little merry. This was much more fun than going out with Steve, and I was really getting into it.

We moved on, and were spotted by the same group of guys we'd seen in the first pub, and this time they came over to speak to us. Two of them weren't bad-looking, and one asked if we liked dancing. I hadn't been dancing for years and suddenly felt really excited about it. I looked at Jenny, and it was obvious she wanted to as well, so we both said "yes" simultaneously, which seemed very funny at the time. Apparently, there was a small nightclub in the town, where everyone went after the pubs had shut.

So that's what we did, and we had an amazing night. After a few more drinks and a lot of dancing, we staggered out into the night to walk home. It was totally liberating and I was so elated as we laughed and joked all the way home. It must have been about two o'clock in the morning when we finally got there, and all was quiet inside. We made some tea and decided we were hungry, so we had a toasted cheese sandwich, and then crashed out on our beds.

***

The next morning I woke up at about half past nine and had to laugh to myself about the night before. I could hear the children downstairs in the front room and they had the TV on. I got up straight away and took a look in the bathroom mirror. I'd forgotten to take my make-up off, so I started to do that. I felt great, if a little stiff from all that unaccustomed dancing. There were no signs of Jenny stirring in the spare room, so I went downstairs to see the children. They'd obviously had a fun evening together, and they'd all had their cereal already, thanks to Jamie organising it. I gave them all a kiss and said thanks for being so good.

"We loved it, mum, can we do it again soon?" asked Jamie.

"I'm sure we'll be doing just that," I replied, rather prophetically as it turned out.

Jenny and I had many more nights out like that, and we ventured further afield to neighbouring towns and really spread our wings. Sometimes, we would meet someone nice and go out with them for a while, but never got serious with anyone, as we were hooked on our single nights out, when we were free to do anything we wanted, without the constraints of being on our best behaviour on a date. We were like one big, happy family and the children were growing up together, more like brothers and sisters than just friends.

I sometimes saw Steve in the pub at lunch and was friendly towards him, at the same time keeping my distance. I could see the hurt in his eyes every time he looked at me, but I couldn't get into that again.

One day, Steve rang me up at home and said he needed to talk to me urgently. He sounded very serious this time and somehow different. I hesitated, but thought why not let him come to the house where there would be no distractions for him and he could tell me what was on his mind. So we arranged it for later on that evening, and I was intrigued by this new development. He obviously hadn't got me out of his system yet, and I couldn't imagine what on earth he was going to come up with. Still, it was worth a try, as apart from his flirting, I really liked him and thought I had nothing to lose.

I was loading the dishwasher when the doorbell rang. I'd asked the boys to go upstairs as Steve was coming round for a talk. So I let him in and we had the front room to ourselves.

"Would you like something to drink?" I asked.

"Tea would be lovely," he replied. So I went into the kitchen to make it.

When I came back with two cups of tea, he was sitting on the sofa gazing out of the window. I sat on the armchair across the room so we were directly looking at each other.

He took a sip of his tea and then leant forward, placing his elbows on his knees. "Thanks for doing this, Helen, I really appreciate it. I'd just like to explain that I think I know where I went wrong with you and how sorry I am."

I was completely taken aback. "Do you really? What do you think it was then?"

"Well, I've been talking about us to some of my friends at the squash club, and they might have put me straight. I think I've been really stupid and they pointed out to me about the way I'm always paying attention to other women when you're with me, which I never meant anything by, but they made me realise how it must have been very hurtful to you, and they could see how uncomfortable it made you feel. If it was that, why didn't you tell me?"

"They're right, it was that, but I couldn't say anything without sounding like a jealous bitch, and I didn't want to get into a huge argument with you over it."