When Rose Fidelity returned home she felt guilty, but, in a way, ecstatic. She had never done anything like that before, and being nearly midnight, she couldn’t even remember a night when she had been home so late. Approaching forty eight years of age, Rose suddenly realised a new woman was emerging from over twenty five years of marriage.
As she entered her living room, Roger, her husband, said: ‘You’re late,’ a hint of worry in his voice. And his alarm was heightened when Rose took off her coat, revealing her, and Roger’s, favourite plunging neckline.
Roger was taken aback by this. Rose had kept her youth well, and was still a desirable woman. ‘What on earth have you been doing, dear?’ he asked, puzzled.
Rose thought of an easy way to say it, but was suddenly lost for ideas. Holding her head up, she said: ‘I’ve been with Bradley. ‘
‘Oh, I see,’ said Roger. ‘And what do you mean by with?’
‘Having sex, husband, dear,’ said Rose. ‘I’ve been having the most exciting lay of my life.’
It took several seconds for the news to sink in; and perhaps a couple more for Roger’s first-tear to flow.
In a way, he’d been expecting it. Things hadn’t gone right for some time now. It was the next morning and Roger Fidelity tried to think it all out as he walked to work. He even knew what the final straw was …
‘I’m moving out,’ Jonny, their youngest, had said a fortnight ago.
Roger had been rather pleased by this declaration. Their daughter, Amanda, had already gone, and was happily married and heavily pregnant. Now that Jonny had felt the need to fly the nest, he and Rose could finally get on with their lives.
Rose had felt different, of course. ‘But all the bills, the responsibility. You’re so young.’
When Jonny had finally left, he’d kissed his mother on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry mum. You’ll still see me a lot; and I love you. ‘
But no matter how much Roger tried to instill a feeling of new life, Rose simply looked around an empty house and thought: ‘What now … ‘
Well, thought Roger, we know what, now, don’t we? Bradley, that so called family friend ….
‘How could you?’ he had asked the previous night, as the news sank in.
Rose stroked her husband’s face. ‘I never wanted to hurt you,’ she said, ‘but I have needs.’ She walked to the cupboard; took out the family photo album. ‘Look through it, Roger. Tell me what you see.’
Roger flicked through the album. ‘I see a loving family; a family happy with itself, and with life.’
‘And that’s true,’ said Rose. ‘But the family’s gone now. And take that away and what’s left?’
‘I don’t understand,’ Roger objected.
‘There is not one single picture in that album that says we are a couple. That went when we had kids. And I’m not sure, after all these years, we can recreate it.’
Roger was approaching work now. He was a successful office manager, and had a boring, normal life to go with it. Until now, of course. But then again, could it be that Rose was right?
‘Morning, Mr Fidelity,’ said Jessie, his secretary, as he walked into his office.
Roger returned the greeting, aware of the look she always gave him; aware of what this not unattractive woman thought of him. After all, she had played up to him enough. And it was to his eternal shame, he thought, that he often fantasized of actually having her.
But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? He was getting on; the body was beginning to fail … he couldn’t. He was happily married. But suddenly he remembered that he wasn’t. And because he had had these fantasies, perhaps he hadn’t been happily married for some time …
‘Jessie,’ he called, ‘can you come in here, please, I’ve got something for you.’
Roger and Rose fidelity packed at the same time that night. What the future held for them both, neither of them really knew. Perhaps they were both too old to begin again, but it was clear to them that neither could continue as they were. There was a huge vacuum in both their lives, and even Roger, as he made love to a girl twenty years younger than him, realised this in the end. Indeed, he had never performed so long, and so frantically, in his life. As the slowly developing pain in his groin testified.
Of course, Roger and Rose kept in touch over the following months – they were still good friends – but they had new lives now; lives which they were determined to enjoy. But to every dream of happiness, there is a cloud …
‘Well I think it’s disgusting,’ a heavily pregnant Amanda said as she slumped in her father’s new flat. Jessie was hovering about, picking up the hostile glares from her lover’s daughter.
Roger limped over to his daughter. ‘But our marriage is over, dear, please understand. And try to be happy for us.’
Amanda snarled. ‘Happy? You must be joking. Look at you?
You’re not a young man, and you’re wasting away in front of my eyes.’
‘That’s ridiculous, Amanda, and you know it.’
‘Don’t come that tone with me,’ Amanda retorted. ‘Your life is pathetic, and no way do you get the respect for a father from me.’
‘And do you speak to your mother like that?’
‘Mother?’ queried Amanda. ‘Some mother, rushing over to see me to check that her make-up is alright. For God’s sake, you’re both nearly fifty. Start acting like it, and not a bunch of twenty year olds.’
She was, of course, correct.
When Rose had raced to her daughter for help, it had not been the whim of a twenty year old Amanda had thought. She had known Bradley to be a smoothie, but that didn’t matter a damn, at the time. He took her on a roller-coaster of ecstasy, and that was all that mattered. But now, several months down the line …
‘I’m getting bored, Rose,’ he had said. ‘I don’t how much longer we can go on. ‘
And to stop boredom, Rose Fidelity sold her soul to the devil. And she rung every ounce of desirability out of herself that she could.
Roger was having problems of a different kind. Jessie was demanding, and despite the doctor squeezing his testicles and advising a truss lay in the future, he knew what he had to do to keep her. And even the Viagra only worked for a while.
The lies had come out on the afternoon they had bumped into each other and decided to have a quick drink. ‘How’s life,’ Rose had said to Roger.
‘Brilliant,’ he replied.
And vice versa, the lies continuing as Roger limped away and Rose hid her face to sniff back the tear.
But to every sad tale there must be redemption.
The sounds of Amanda’s screams filtered into the waiting room as Roger and Rose sat expectantly. Rose said: ‘It’s going to be a girl, you know.’
Roger wasn’t having that. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, ‘it’s so obviously a boy. Listen to those screams.’
They both laughed at that, and both were touched by a familiarity of old. Somehow it seemed so right. But how could it be other than a stupid, temporary feeling? After all, they had been through so much of late.
Within hours they were stood by Amanda’s bed, greedily passing the new born amongst themselves. Finally, the midwife came in. Said: ‘Time for mother and baby to have some rest now.’
Roger and Rose Fidelity walked out of the room awkwardly. Outside the hospital, they stood, not knowing, really, what to do. Finally, Roger said: ‘Your car or mine?’
Rose smiled, and said his. Gran and Grandad drove home, the vacuum filled by their grandson; and another new life to begin.
© Anthony North, April 2008
