My Lost Love

Andrew Lee-Hart

 

My love is out there somewhere; maybe in Paris, maybe in Rome or maybe skipping from one place to another, free and happy. I cannot believe that she is lying dead in a garden her beautiful clothes rotted away, and me totally to blame…

We met at work; in those days I was the theology librarian at the University of Nottingham. I had been there for ten years; the job was okay, a bit dull but not difficult and I had a small team who worked hard enough and who I got on well with without being particularly close to anyone in particular. I assumed that I would be there for the rest of my career, hopefully getting the occasional promotion, but I had no wish to either leave the university or Nottingham, both of which suited me just fine.

Every summer the university employs people to help reorganise stock, they have to move books about, update records on the library catalogue and other basic tasks. It was usually students on their vacation who took the work; they got paid reasonably, it was easy and the atmosphere laid back, well certainly in my department.

That year my regular members of staff were redeployed to the economics department to help with some project that had European money behind it. So I was left to supervise our three summer assistants; Tarquin and Dave who were both studying history and seemed friendly and relatively hardworking and Rebecca.

It was her eyes you noticed first as they were so expressive and slightly larger than normal. She sucked you into her stare and you felt all this longing and suppressed passion, which seemed endless. She was older than most of our summer assistants, being in her early thirties, only slightly younger than me. She had dyed blonde hair, quite short and very stylish, whilst her skin was pale and looked flawless. She was studying nursing through the university being based at Queens Medical Centre in the city. Her southern accent also set her apart, I later discovered that she was from Brighton and had lived there most of her life, her mother still lived there, but apparently they did not get on.

The summer assistants could wear what they wanted, but whilst Tarquin and Dave invariably wore denim shorts and t-shirts it being a hot summer that year, Rebecca dressed quite smartly; with trousers and often a shirt, even a bow tie on occasion. I could see that fashion was important to her which normally puts me off people a bit because I don’t really care for such things myself, but I really liked what she wore and from the start found her extremely attractive. She had a lot of clothes I later discovered some of which she had made or adapted.

At times she would make my heart melt she was so beautiful. And from the start she would appear to be the centre of wherever she was; it was as if her beauty and vitality swallowed everybody else up. Certainly whenever I was with her I unaware of anybody else, she just outshone everybody.

In retrospect it was the right (or wrong) time to meet an attractive woman who showed an interest in me. I was going through a bad time with my wife Marie; maybe we were just bored of each other after fifteen years of marriage or she was under pressure after getting promoted to deputy head at the primary school where she had been teaching for most of our marriage. Whatever the reason, we argued more and more, it was not usually over anything special; just over little things which seemed to become important and would fester for days on end. I would lie in bed next to her our bodies not quite touching and wondering whether to talk to her but suspecting if I did it would just make things worse.

Our lovemaking became a point scoring exercise; she began to treat it as a duty whereas she had always enjoyed it when we were younger, at least as much as me. And she seemed to hold herself back, rarely reaching orgasm and then silently reproaching me with it. I soon stopped bothering initiating any kind of intimacy and that gave her more grounds for complaints.

I hope that if Marie and I had been happier that nothing would have happened with Rebecca and me, but not only did I find Rebecca attractive we also got on extremely well, so god knows….. At the time I thought it was a meeting of minds; that she was my kindred spirit, and in all honesty and I still do. I just felt so comfortable with her from the beginning; as if I had been waiting for her all of my life.

Even on her first day showing her and the other two round our little department I found Rebecca so easy to talk to, as if we had developed an intimacy without having gone through any preliminary stages of actually getting to know each other. Throughout that first day I often found myself chatting to her, and again there was this sense of being at ease with her.

At the end of their first week the three assistants decided to go out to the pub at Friday lunchtime and Rebecca invited me to go with them. Normally we would not allow drinking during a working day but so long as we were careful there seemed to be no harm and normal rules did not seem to apply during the summer vacation.

Rebecca and I sat together and shared a plate of sandwiches and drank a pint of lager each, whilst nearby Dave and Tarquin planned their evening. They were going to a concert together apparently. The pub was quiet with just a few old blokes muttering quietly to each other in another corner. Quite a contrast with term time when this particular pub was a favourite with both students and staff.

Rebecca and I had already got to know a fair amount about each other over the week but this was the first time that we had an intimate talk without interruptions. I told her more about my marriage and how unhappy it was becoming. I did not really have many close friends so it was good to chat to a sympathetic listener about how miserable I felt. Perhaps I exaggerated a bit; I remember her holding my hand at one point so I probably did lay it on a bit thick.

Rebecca told me about her boyfriend Mike; they also seemed to be struggling, she confessed that they had not had sex for several weeks.

“We used to do it all the time” she said “when we first got together, never out of bed. But the last couple of years he just seems to have gone off me.”

I gave her a hug because it seemed natural to do so. Feeling her pressed against me, I felt a calmness I had not known before. I could smell the perfume she was wearing, something sophisticated and subtle, as if I were in a salon in Paris rather than a student pub in Nottingham.

Later that afternoon we found ourselves together in the library stacks down in the basement. It was quiet as it always was. I used to love going down there; it was a haven and I loved the smell of the old books although unfortunately we had been told to dispose of some of the less well used of our stock, for no particular reason so far as I could see. I was showing her some of the books we were getting rid of when almost by an exterior power we found ourselves in each other’s arms. We kissed long and passionately, exploring each other and she pushed herself against me and I stroked her buttocks through her trousers. It was the first time I had kissed anyone except Marie for almost twenty years.

We broke apart.

“Sorry” I muttered “shouldn’t have had a drink at lunchtime, made me a bit amorous.”

“What are you saying sorry for? It was lovely. First time that I have been kissed for ages.”

So we did it again; stood between two shelves of books, John Calvin looking down upon us disapprovingly. She was passionate; more passionate than I have ever known anybody before. Thrusting herself into me with abandon. We would have had sex there and then I think if it had not been for the prospect of discovery.

In fact next Wednesday we did make love; Mike was unemployed but did voluntary work twice a week; Wednesdays and Thursdays, at a local nursing home so we went to her house and had frantic sex on her bed. She only lived ten minutes’ drive from the library in a small rented house which had a pub on one side called The Rose and Crown.

The love making was as frenetic as I had expected it to be, the fact that we only had an hour before we had to be back at the library gave it an urgency and intensity which made it all the more exciting and addictive. Rebecca was like a tiger who has been held captive for all of her life and is suddenly given the chance of freedom; she was a bit unsure at times but also besides herself with the sense of freedom and new experiences and territories to explore.

This became our habit; every Wednesday and Thursday we would leave the library as quickly as possible and she would drive us to her house and we would make love. On occasion there were other days when we could manage it, if Mike was busy doing something for a friend or was spending the day in the library. Once we both took a Thursday afternoon off so we had more time and that was one of the loveliest afternoons of my life. I worried about her neighbours; surely they had noticed my arrival, but apparently most of them worked during the day and kept themselves to themselves; Rebecca did not even know their names. I did wonder if the regulars at The Rose and Crown noticed our surreptitious goings on.

We did not really have time to talk much during these sessions, just expressions of love. But we did talk a lot when working together. The other two students got on well so it seemed natural to let them work together whilst Rebecca and I did the same. No doubt James and Tarquin realised that something was going on, perhaps they did not care, or perhaps the thought of the fusty old librarian having a secret affair was just too incongruous and they thought that we were good friends.

When I think of that time I think of her laughing; she had a beautiful laugh like a bell and she would almost convulse with hilarity which would set me off as well. Often she was laughing at me; I am quite clumsy and often dropped books or bumped into things. When I did this at home Marie would just sigh with exasperation but Rebecca found it infinitely amusing. I can still her laugh now as I write this.

We talked about myriad things; ourselves of course but everything else. We did really have a lot in common or perhaps she was similar to how I was before I got married. She loved Bob Dylan and other stuff from the sixties which I used to listen to, we both loved art and the same kinds of films which Marie had no interest in whasoever. She was also creative; writing short stories which sometimes got published on the internet. I read them all of course and enjoyed them; I think I would have appreciated them even if I did not know the author as they had a dark, disturbing quality that I liked and they never ended happily.

She told me about her depression; how she had suffered with it since she was a teenager but she said that it had eased of late, hinting but not quite stating that her new found happiness was to do with me.

“It is just a darkness; I as if I have been engulfed by something and just cannot be bothered to do anything. Everything is awful.”

I asked her if she had thought of suicide and apparently she had.

“But it is so difficult; I suppose if it were easy loads of people would do it. The only really effective way of doing it is by shot gun and where am I going to get one of those from?”

I did not know what to say. I had always regarded myself as quite a stable chap; never having extremes of emotions either way. This affair with Rebecca was the strangest thing that I had ever done. Rebecca seemed to live life more on the extremes than I had ever done. And it was that wildness that I partly liked about her; with her anything was possible and the future was without boundaries.

I did feel guilty of course; I had always found other women attractive but never tried to have any sexual or romantic relationship with any of them, but then this had happened. Occasionally I actually felt proud of myself; I was attractive enough to have got a lover, it was as if I was in a French nouvelle vague film. But mostly I felt awful and sorry for both Marie and Mike. I hate secrets and now the most important part of my life was just that.

Rebecca claimed not to feel bad about Mike.

“It is actually helping us” she claimed; “less pressure… I feel happier with him, less upset that he is not very loving.”

On another occasion she said “I think he knows. He just does not seem bothered. He seems happy reading his books and helping out the old people at the nursing home; I just don’t think that he is a very sexual person.”

Once, however after we had made love, we lay together and I realised that she was crying softly.

“What’s the matter” I murmured with half my eye on the clock as we had to be back at the library in twenty minutes.

“Oh nothing, it is just a bit odd that is all. Don’t worry.” She slapped my thigh, I kissed away her tears and we got up.

“Are you sure everything is okay?” I asked her as we drove hurriedly back to the university. “We can stop” I added, only half believing it “just be friends. There is no point if it is upsetting you.”

“Don’t be silly. I love it, love it with you. Why would I want it to stop? We aren’t hurting anybody?”

That was Thursday. She said goodbye to me at the end of the day; gave me a hug in the car park, as she always did, and she drove home fast and recklessly again as normal. I watched her red Nissan Micra move out of sight, and then got into my own car. So far as I am aware I have not seen her since.

She was not at work by nine the next morning. As she was always pretty punctual, especially since we had begun our affair, I was slightly worried. I got on with some paperwork in my office keeping an eye out for her whilst Dave and Tarquin shifted books about quietly, they clearly had fallen out as they were barely speaking to each other. I felt uneasy and wondered what had happened, half expecting her to turn up but feeling deep down that she would not. By ten she was still not at the library so I called her on her mobile, but it just rang and rang before going to the answer phone. I left a message and hoped that she was on her way.

At lunchtime she still had not arrived so I drove round to her house; it looked empty and sad. I wondered if I really should ring on her doorbell, but was so worried that I thought, sod it and did so. I stood waiting, feeling uncomfortable in the August heat. Eventually the door opened and a man dressed in jeans and t-shirt answered. I had never met Mike but had seen photographs of him round the house, even one in the bedroom which was rather disconcerting, so that I knew it was him. I looked at the man who I knew so much about; he was tall and quite dashing, better looking than me and fitter.

He looked at me enquiringly and to my mind nervously.

“I was just wondering if Rebecca was okay. I work at the library.”

Mike looked me up and down and did not say anything for a while.

“She is at her mother’s” he eventually got out. I was surprised that he had a Scouse accent; Rebecca had not mentioned that he was from Merseyside. I realised that I had no idea how they had met and why they had ended up in Nottingham.

I looked at him curiously. Why had she not told me that she was going to see her mother? And I felt that he was lying; he seemed upset and a little nervous. He was clearly not going to volunteer any further information, just stared at me, a challenge in his look. I drove back to the library feeling even more uneasy and concerned.

The rest of the day passed slowly; I felt as if there was something that I should be doing but was not sure what it was. I kept my mobile phone by me just in case Rebecca should ring or text me but there was nothing from her, just a message from Marie saying that she would be out when I got home, something that was happening with increasing frequency of late.

I had a solitary tea with William Byrd playing in the background, but I was hardly aware of the music. Perhaps I was being silly; after all her mother might have been ill or there was some other family emergency, these things happen but surely if that was the case she would have telephoned me or at least sent me a text. I was about to ring her again when Marie returned home looking flustered and smelling as if she had just had a shower. She said that she had been swimming with a friend.

By Monday I still had not heard from Rebecca although I had tried to ring her several times. I was therefore not particularly surprised when she did not turn up for work. I had this forlorn hope that she would appear with a smile on her face and a mad explanation about her mother being taken ill and her phone not working. But nothing. Tarquin and James, now friends again, looked at me curiously but did not ask about Rebecca.

I had a chaste lunch sitting in the university gardens picking at a salad sandwich and watching a mother with three children feeding ducks. I wondered if Marie and I had had children this would not have happened. We had discussed it when we first got together and agreed that we would like them in the future but the time never arrived and we seemed to drift and accept that it would not happen. Perhaps we should have a go; we were both thirty-seven, it was hardly too late. And then my phone made a ‘ping’ and all thoughts of children went out of my head. I knew it was Rebecca even before I checked it.

“Sorry had to leave. Forget all about me x”

I rang back immediately but the phone just went to voicemail as it had been since Friday, so I texted her;

“Where are you? Can I see you? I love you.”

There was still no reply by the time I went back to the library.

Two days later Marie left me. She was waiting for me when I returned home from work.

“I’ve met someone. It is going nowhere with us, and Pete is all you are not; kind, caring and loving.”

There was more, but that was the gist of it. She left the house almost immediately having packed a couple of cases whilst I was out at work. She said that she would collect the rest of her stuff soon when she could get something sorted. She kissed me on the cheek as she left. She already seemed alien as if she belonged to somebody else and I was just a casual acquaintance.

Of course I was shocked but realised whilst I had been engrossed with my affair with Rebecca that Marie also had been involved with someone. I could not complain of course and I suppose that I felt that I deserved it. Over the next few days I carried on with my work; barely noticing the disappearance of the rest of Marie’s possessions a couple of days later. She said that I could keep the house as Pete was apparently rich. I never found out how she had met him or for how long the romance had been going on. In fact I rarely think of her and do not know where she is, or care.

One of the first things that I did was to text Rebecca to tell her the news. I wondered if it might have an effect on her; bring her back to me. But still nothing more from her. Then the following week, again at lunchtime another text.

“Gone away, moved to Paris. I am sorry about your wife.”

So I went to live in Paris.

Not straight away of course, but when a few weeks later I saw a job advertised in the Library Association Record for a librarian in a school for the children of rich English people in Paris, called The English School in Paris. I went for it. The interview was held in London in a musty old office amongst government buildings in Whitehall by a three members of staff from the school, the headmistress and two teachers. The interview was conducted in English which I was slightly disappointed about as my French was pretty good even then, and I was disappointed not to have chance to show it off. I must have done well enough though because I was invited down for a second interview a fortnight later and then offered the job.

I texted Rebecca “Moving to Paris. I will let you know my address.” In fact I had quite often texted her over the previous weeks, but she had not replied since telling me she was in Paris. I hoped that she was reading them and thinking about me. I resigned from my job at the university and put my house with an estate agency to put it out to rent. My colleagues knew of the break-up of my marriage so were not entirely surprised, but my closest friend there Simon, librarian in the English Lit library, did ask if I was not rushing into things. He wondered if I needed some stability in my life rather than rushing off to France. But of course he did not know about Rebecca.

I had a look at Rebecca’s house a couple of times before I left. I did not knock on the door or anything, just looked to see what I could see. I had assumed that Mike her boyfriend would have had to move out as he would not be able to afford the rent, but there was no sign of his leaving even though it had been four months now since she had left. Perhaps he had another source of income.

And then I was in Paris. The English School helped me find an apartment in the outskirts of the outskirts of the city which was most congenial and whilst it was some distance from the school it was to reach by bus. The school was better than I had expected; while some of the children were spoilt brats with an exaggerated sense of their own entitlement most were lovely and polite. The teachers were also friendly and considerate. There was none of the condescension that librarians suffer in schools and universities in the UK, perhaps because we were all strangers in a strange land.

In fact I soon loved living in Paris. I had visited several times in my life; the first being as a teenager with my parents, but living somewhere is completely different from being on holiday. I loved sauntering through the boulevards and parks of Paris, thinking that I am here in one of the loveliest cities in the world. I had not forgotten Rebecca; as soon I had acquired my apartment I had texted her with the address and got a “xxx” in return, the first time that I had heard from her since she had let me know that she was in Paris.

Whenever I was out I always kept an eye out for her; and most of my trips out I would come to a halt after seeing someone who looked just like Rebecca, but who on closer inspection turned out not to be. I often went miles out of my way following somebody who had her build and colour hair, but then it was a good way of discovering Paris, and often I was just walking aimlessly anyway. Of course it was a long shot, to say the least. My main hope was that she would call on me one evening as she had my address, or ring me. Countless times I walked to the door of my apartment thinking that I had heard a knock on the door but only to find that there was nobody there, or checked my phone when I had had it by my side all day.

My feelings changed; some days I thought that I was bound to see her, that it was only a matter of time, but other days I was pessimistic. After all if she wanted to see me she would have done so by now. Usually after I was giving up hope I would get a text from her; nothing long, just a couple of words such as “missing you” or “maybe soon”.

And yet slowly I began to make a life in Paris; socialised with my colleagues from the English school, and made a few other friends and attended concerts. Then I met Juliette who occasionally came into the school to teach art. She was a couple of years younger than me and a Parisian having lived in the city all her life. She was a blonde, like Rebecca, and with an endlessly amusing sense of humour. Slowly we became friends; going out for coffee and attending plays together. She gave me wonderful tours of the Louvre and the Musee D’Orsay; her particular interest being the paintings of Goya.

Eventually we ended up in bed and it felt right. It was the first time since Rebecca, and afterwards I did feel as if I had betrayed my lost love. A few months later we moved in together in her flat, and that is where I am now. I have not told Juliette about Rebecca but I still think about her, and sometimes I see somebody on the boulevard who has that look of Rebecca and I follow her, but it is never her.

A week ago somebody sent me a cutting from the Nottingham Evening Post about the gruesome discovery of a woman’s body in the garden of a house in Nottingham. It was thought to be that of Rebecca Bushell who had disappeared a couple of years ago, apparently the police were urgently wishing to speak to her former boyfriend Mike McGuinness who was thought to have returned to his native Liverpool. At the moment they were not sure if they were investigating a murder or an unreported suicide.

For a couple of days I just went round in a daze. I suspect it was suicide and that Mike covered it up and eventually buried his lover one dark night. Presumably the guilt got too much for her. Or maybe she confessed to Mike and he bumped her off. In the end whatever happened I cannot evade responsibility; if I had not had an affair with her she would still be alive, working as a nurse, saving lives.

A week later I got a text from Rebecca’s phone saying “I am still here”. And perhaps she is alive somewhere, and perhaps one day when I am having coffee in one of those small cafes in Paris that I love so much, we will see each other and she will come over and I will buy her a drink and we will talk and hold each other tight, and not let each other go.