Chapter 2.
Jeff's divorce hadn't been finalised yet, but Jeff always referred to Mandy as his ex.
She was a beauty. Slim stunning gypsy style black hair, with big brown eyes, and a 30 year old bitch.
Not having too much ready cash, Jeff was able to scrape up enough money to buy his wife a little red Fiat Panda. She treated it like a mobile ashtray. It was never cleaned, or serviced, and with communications being at their all time low, Jeff hadn't seen the car for a few days, and hadn't asked her where it was. Then one of his friends called him and told him they had seen it in a ditch by Shirley Park Common. He went down to check it out and sure enough it was her car, half laying on it's side. The Windows were either open or smashed, rain water had filled the foot wells. Whilst going through the glove box for documents, he looked round the interior and in the murky rusty water he found her fake but expensive Rolex watch, and her £400.00 gold and platinum bracelet,(He never knew where that came from). It remained a mystery to him, how the car ended up where it did, and what had happened to the car to get in such a state. He wondered why it was abandoned, but by then, to be truthful, he had had enough, and just didn't care anymore.
She liked nothing more than sleeping around, and shagging around, and taking credit cards to their limit, she had eight of them, and an outstanding debt of £16,000. She would buy designer clothes; But during all her spending sprees, she never once bought anything for Jeff. She would wear designer dresses and suits once, and in one of the spare bedrooms of Jeff's three bedroom house, she would just drop them in a pile on the floor. Sometimes they would end up at the dry cleaners. She regularly staying out late at night, sometimes she would roll home at 3 or 4 in the morning. Her whole existence revolved around her own personal pleasure. No one would ever think she was married. She acted as though she wasn't; which was obvious by the state of the house. If Jeff didn't clean the place, the house would never have been cleaned.
It was two years into this disastrous marriage; just before Christmas. Jeff went into his local dry cleaners to pick up his ambulance uniform. The owners were very pleased to see him, and asked him if he would like to take his wife's dry cleaning? Thinking it would only be a few bits and pieces he agreed, and thinking it wouldn't come to more than £5 £6, or £10 at the most. He was horrified when he was told there was over £280.00 worth of dry cleaning waiting to be picked up.
That year Jeff bought a clothes rack, put all of Mandy's dry cleaning on it, wrapped it all up in Christmas paper with a big pom-pom on it, and stood it in the middle of the living room as her Christmas present. "She wasn't too happy about that."
At one time Jeff contracted a Socially (Sexually) transmitted disease from his wife. Even though he knew he hadn't been screwing around he knew it must have come from his beautiful wife. A dilemma. What could he do? If he wanted to keep his marriage together he had to let it slide. What else was he to do? Deep down he knew his marriage was doomed. But a few months later, the straw that finally broke the camel's back "As far as the marriage was concerned," was a function his wife was supposed be working at. She was supposed to go there and give out programs at the door starting at 6.30 pm until 9.00 pm seeing it was in Guildford, about 30 miles from where they lived, she should have been able to get home by 10.30 pm or 11.00 pm at the latest. When she finally arrived home at 09.30 am the following morning, Jeff was in no mood to hear her pathetic excuse that she had a few drinks and ended up sleeping in the car with her three friends, who had also worked at the function.
He did however take time to ask why she hadn't called. She knew he wasn't at work that night, because he had already told her before she left "For Work." "That if she had any problems to call him, and he would have gone down and picked her up." (No Call)
An enormous argument broke out between Jeff, Mandy and her three girl friends. During the heat of the argument, one of the girls let the cat out of the bag. Jeff was right. His wife had been sleeping around.
The parting shot from Mandy came when she was driving away. She opened the car's window, stuck her head out, shouted back to Jeff, “Yeah, and it was bigger than yours, and it was as HARD AS A ROCK.”
That was it. "Adios Amanda Barrington Smyth." (Nye Hurst)
The following few weeks where interesting for Jeff. He went through Mandy's "Good as new, only worn once cloths." Matched up the receipts and tags, put them together, and went into town and returned as many as he could. After telling them his story, most of the assistants took pity on him, and took back the Christian Dior, Gucci, and Prada, dresses, suits, and handbags. He never asked for cash, but thought he stood a better chance if he asked for credit notes. At last he was able to buy some things for himself. He ended up the best dressed Paramedic in town. He was wearing Armani, and Jaeger suits, Christian Dior shirts, and Gucci shoes.