Skeleton and Demons part III by Carol Naylor

"Oh shit, shit, shit!" He reached for a double whisky to numb his senses, downed that one and reached for another.

When Jane phoned him he felt too inebriated to answer or listen to her message on his voicemail. He undressed, then carelessly threw his clothes onto the floor and fell into bed hoping to wake up sober enough to deal with it all. What a mess!

Saturday was another chilly day as Dave wrapped up warmly and rushed to King's Cross station. He felt absolutely lousy and regretted the whisky. It hadn't solved his problem or made his life any easier. The dark clouds overhead made him feel tense. He knew that the next few hours would be crucial for his marriage, his own sanity. He did not relish the thought of Jane finding out. Perhaps Sue would excuse herself from the reunion and he would escape from his overburdening sense of guilt? Perhaps, perhaps? He just couldn't face the truth, that was the reality of it.

He would be meeting Jane and his daughters soon and he would try to pretend that everything was fine, just as he had done in the past, so many times before. He drifted off into a restless and fitful state of semi-consciousness, hearing Jane's voice bellowing:
"You bastard! How could you do this to me? To us?"
She was screaming through her hysteria. A softer voice pleaded through a flood of tears:
"But I love you, you can't leave me now. Pete doesn't mean anything to me...I love you."


As Dave's train pulled into the station, a dishevelled woman entered Jane's hotel room, blowing into her handkerchief, trying to stifle her tears. Jane was getting ready to meet her husband. She had left Jo and Steph shopping and the four of them were going to meet up and have some lunch together. She had felt refreshed after a peaceful night's slumber in that four-poster.Dave had left her a message to say that his train would be arriving about 1.0.p.m. She wanted to greet him by telling him how much she really loved him. She was feeling calm, happy even. It must be the change of environment she conceded.

As soon as that door opened, Jane's illusion of happiness crumbled into despair.
"Jane, can I talk to you?"
Jane withdrew into a shell to protect her fragile ego from destruction.
The look of anguish on Sue's tear-stained face startled Jane as she blurted out,
"I don't know how to tell you this....,I feel absolutely awful about this....I've told Pete...he's walked out on me and taken the kids to his mother's till he can think straight."
As Jane collapsed onto the bed screaming," No! No! It's not true!" she was haunted by Sue's revelation,
"I love Dave and he loves me......."

Her voice trailed off as she crept out of that room, into the lift, out of the entrance and across into the station to meet him, feeling that she had every right in the world to be there.............

Copyright 2013. Permission to use this story must be obtained from the author.


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