Waterloo

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I knew that standing under the clock on Waterloo Station was going to make me feel stupid. Do I mean stupid? No, inadequate maybe. In fact, let’s face it, I was going to feel a bit of a tosser. But then that’s unfair to all those who had a good, genuine reason to stand there, who were seeing friends and family for the first time for months, whose faces would light up when Aunt Mabel appeared through the crowds looking a bit lost and they would call out, ‘Mabel!’ and open their arms and give her a big hug. They weren’t tossers. They were just lucky.

 

I, on the other hand, was trying to relive my youth by meeting some strange woman and cheat on my wife.

 

It was the internet that started it of course. I’d be in my study playing around on websites, games, a bit of soft porn, sometimes real business issues about automotive design, while Jen went to bed. That would be 10 30. Always 10 30. She refused to alter her routine irrespective of what alternative interest life might have thrown up. If we were out with friends she would stare at me, willing me to watch her tap her wrist so that I could say, ‘Well I guess it’s time we went. Got a busy day tomorrow.’ There were rare occasions when someone would ask what was so busy about tomorrow and I’d invent some granny that we had to call on. But those incidents no longer occur, mainly because we don’t go out anymore.

 

It was easy to find dating sites, there were dozens of them. But it would have been a soul destroying pastime if you took it seriously. I sent out countless messages, full of lies mainly, and got just a couple of replies. They say you won’t get many responses if you don’t include a photo so I wanted to assume that was the reason. How could I include a photo when I’d no idea who would see it? As time went on though I got more blasé. There were some delicious women advertising themselves, interesting, adventurous, stunners who took pride in what they looked like. All the things that Jen wasn’t.

 

And yet I couldn’t get rid of the guilt.

 

I often sat pondering what it was we’d lost. A gradual fading of the things we loved about each other had prevented us from noticing that they were going, piece by piece, day by day. I married her for a reason and I’d forgotten what it was. We used to have a lot of fun, went to great places and then… maybe we just got bored with each other.

 

‘Well, I’m off to bed now,’ said Jen after she’d watched the 10 o’clock news. ‘Don’t forget to lock up.’

 

I emptied the remains of the wine bottle into my glass. ‘When have I forgotten to lock up?’

 

‘You might do if I don’t remind you.’

‘You don’t say it to remind me. You say it because you’ve said it every night for several years. Say something different, do something different, for God’s sake.’

‘What do you want me to do, sing a song?’

‘Yeah, that’s an idea, entertain me. How about a slow striptease?

‘Terry! Don’t be disgusting.’ And with that she closed the door and clomped upstairs. I downed the final glass of wine and after ten minutes started up my PC. I had an email to reply to.

 

She’d called herself Dreamy Eyes to begin with. Thirty four, brunette. The photo showed her at the coast, the wind blowing hefty wisps of hair across her face. But her laughing eyes clearly showed and her mouth was open in fun loving surprise. A divorceé, she got hitched up to some plonker who wouldn’t work, when she was nineteen. She said she liked pubbing and clubbing, so I said I liked the same. I sent a photo to her private email address and it was after that that things warmed up. She must have liked what she saw.  Her real name was Hannah, or so she said. I suppose I knew nothing about her at all for certain. And she definitely knew next to nothing about me.

 

‘I’m staying up in London next Tuesday evening,’ I said to Jen. ‘One of the guys at work’s birthday. We’re having a drink, and a Chinese, followed no doubt by another drink.’

 

‘That’s good,’ said Jen. ‘I’m around Steph’s anyway.’

 

Jen went round to her sister’s most Tuesdays. It was her only break from domestic routine. Who else could break a routine by creating another one. I was never allowed to go which was no problem. I didn’t much care for her sister anyway. Too much of a control freak, just like their mother. Steph wasn’t married. Scared of losing control I guess. I often wondered how much of our tedious existence was due to her sister’s instructions.

 

I now had a logistical problem to solve. I didn’t want to meet Hannah unwashed and unchanged so I needed a spare shirt and deodorant. It would be too risky to carry them out of the house that Tuesday morning and back again that night and even if I’d succeeded, Jen would notice an extra shirt to wash on Saturday morning. I decided I’d have to buy the stuff and leave them at work until a more convenient day. I was meeting Hannah at 7 30 though I left work at 5. I’d have 2 ½ hours to change, have a wash and shave (a plastic razor would have to do), fold the shirt into a company A4 envelope and leave in my locked drawer then out to get a light snack and a couple of pints. And it was then, during my second pint, that I began to feel like a bit of a tosser.

 

It occurred to me that my Tuesday evening story was the first lie I had ever told Jen, on top of all that surreptitious packing of a dirty shirt and some Boots deodorant. I remembered some quote about weaving tangled webs and all that. Some days, during those times when husbands wish they were single again, just for a day a week, for a bit of adventure, I imagined the excitement of under cover liaisons, of watching from the corners of my eye across the lobby of a Mayfair hotel for anyone famous, of seeing my international playgirl as she smiles and glides towards me. I thought it would turn me on just to arrange an evening like that.

 

My baked potato arrived. I’d ordered it with baked beans. Bloody idiot. I should have ordered cheese. There ought to be a manual for this sort of thing. Never eat baked beans before your first date. And the potato was too big. I have a problem waiting to eat until 8 30. Jen always has something on the table by 6 30. I thought a small bite would keep me going but this eyeless monster was grotesque. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry. I took a couple of mouthfuls and moved the plate to one side. Jen was ok really. Nice person, very reliable. We’d had such good times at first. She used to be quite a looker and it felt good to be with her. It was comfortable. You knew where you were with Jen.

 

I got to Waterloo Station too early. It was either that or a third pint. I wandered round the concourse, thumbed through a few books in Smiths, admired the Dali sculptures or, more to the point, wondered how I might admire them. Behind the sculpture was the international concourse. It wouldn’t take much to get a ticket to Paris on the first available train. I could do that, something outrageous. But then I was already doing something outrageous. Even with outrageous things I had to learn to walk before I could run. It was 7 15. I couldn’t not turn up, had to go through with it. Make your bed and lie on it and all that.

 

And it was then that I saw Jen. There was the absolute familiarity of her hair, the way she stood and held her head and the absolutely familiar surrounding of Waterloo. And yet the two realities did not reconcile. For a moment my mind would not allow them to exist together. Then I saw Steph. Over the next few seconds, conflicting thoughts and ideas flashed into my head all, at one instant or another, seeming the right thing to think or do but none allowing me freedom from the paralysis that had me fixed to where I stood. Had they organised a girls’ night out? The sly old bitch. How long had that been going on? I thought I would confront them but realised that, while I was supposed to be in Soho with some mates, they had every excuse to be here. Jen never said they would stay indoors. But she never came to London, didn’t even like the place, so she said. How was it possible, after all these years, that I never knew her? Two men appeared, smiled and said something. Their body language showed they were not strangers as the four of them walked towards the South Bank.

 

I started to follow them, but then stopped. I turned back towards the clock. Right then! Two could play at that game. Goose and gander and all that. But as I waited for Hannah, for her green leather jacket, as arranged, it still didn’t feel right. The guilt hadn’t gone and was now wrapped in an anguish that was eating my mind. I turned again and made my way out of the station. Jen and her liaison couldn’t be that far away.