“So, did you have a great time?” Neeta asked excitedly the evening after we returned from Cyprus. “You’ve got a good colour. Lots of sun, sea and sex, eh?” I told her I’d had a great time, despite Jake getting burned the first full day we had and not really leaving the room until the Thursday. “That sounds like Jake,” Neeta laughed. “Stubborn as a mule, just like all men. So what did you do while lover boy was cooling himself in a cold bath?” And that was when I told her about my day with Oliver. “Sounds like you fancied him rotten.” Trust Neeta to lower the tone of any conversation. I tried to explain it wasn’t like that. Oliver was very polite, very gentlemanly and just good company. “But you did fancy him.” It wasn’t a question but a statement. “With Jake out of action I bet you wouldn’t have said no if he’d made a move.”
“I’m married.” I said indignantly. “He’s married. The situation would never have arisen. But,” I hesitated briefly, “if we’d both been free, I probably would have fancied him.”
“If I’d been you and Jake had been such a jerk, I’d have gone for it. I’m sure he wouldn’t have needed much encouragement." That was Neeta. “So, did you tell Jake about your Oliver?” I hadn’t, of course. I’d told him I had lunch at the harbour and went to the Tombs. Jake didn’t ask if I went alone and I didn’t offer any other information. When I’d left Jake in the morning, I was feeling extremely annoyed with him. By the time Oliver had dropped me off at the hotel, I no longer felt even a little annoyed. I felt relaxed and forgiving. I knew Jake would get angry if I told him I spent the day with another man. He wouldn’t believe I hadn’t given Oliver encouragement or that Oliver made no move on me whatsoever. In some ways, he was more like Neeta than me. I felt recharged and ready to nurse Jake. The fact that Oliver knew which hotel I was at and still made no attempt to contact me reinforced my opinion that he was just a very kind man with no ulterior motives. For me, that confirmed my decision to say nothing. Even Neeta admitted it was probably for the best.
Neeta was my best friend – tall (a little over five feet ten inches), slim with boobs most men lusted after, and long blonde, shiny, hair. She was younger than me and was dreading her thirtieth birthday in a month’s time. Life was passing her by, she complained. She wanted to be married like most of her friends, like me. She was beginning to feel like an unwanted guest when out socialising with her friends and their husbands. But for a slightly large mouth and a small flat nose I thought men would have described her as ‘beautiful’. Due to these small blemishes, I considered they would reduce their assessment to ‘very attractive’. She had no difficulty attracting men, but they always seemed to be the wrong sort. They were either afraid of commitment, confirmed bachelors or, most often, married and wouldn’t leave their wives. She liked the effect she had on men; enjoyed the flirting and the thrill of the chase. Whether she felt she was doing the chasing or being chased wasn’t always obvious, but she enjoyed the period when the chase was over even more. But few relationships lasted more than a few weeks and none, to my knowledge reached even reached the six month mark.
We had met when Neeta joined the window replacement company I was working at. She was 19 and had just finished a secretarial course. She loved the way the men lusted after her and was always ready with a quick reply when they passed comments as she walked through the factory, which, for her first two years there, was at least twice a day, collecting details of the progress on outstanding orders. It was little more than a week after she’d started that we were having our lunch together in the little kitchen we had. Her lunch was a salad with a small pot of olives. “Want to try one?” Neeta asked when she saw me looking at the olives. I’d never tried them, but other friends I knew didn’t like them, so I assumed I wouldn’t. “You’ll never know if you like something until you’ve tried it,” she continued, pushing the pot towards me. Hesitantly, I picked an olive and put it in my mouth. She was so right. If I hadn’t tried it, I’d never have enjoyed one of my favourite foods. It was slightly bitter, slightly vinegary, but so delicious. I stopped at the supermarket on the way home and bought a big jar.
At the time, I was going through a bad patch with my then boyfriend and, a few weeks later, she found me in the loo one afternoon in tears. He had told me we were finished. I was devastated. Neeta was brilliant. She made me smile, then laugh and then convinced me I could be better off without him. “Go and get yourself a new man,” she advised me, “and screw his balls off. You’ll soon forget the loser. It doesn’t really matter who the man is. The point is you forget the last one and get your confidence back, just like falling off a bike.” She kept my spirits up during the week and invited me out with her and several friends on the Friday. I had a great time. I didn’t take her advice even though two men invited me to go home with them. It boosted my ego no end, but I just couldn’t, I wasn’t that sort of woman. However, over the years that I’ve known her, she had never failed to heed her own advice.
It was indirectly through Neeta that I met Jake. One of the girls I’d met through Neeta was having a birthday party and I was invited. I thought Jake was the best looking man there and when he caught my eye and came across to talk to me, I couldn’t believe my luck. He was witty, flattering, chatty and it was as if we were the only two there. When I wouldn’t go home with him, he seemed shocked, as if no one had ever turned him down before. He phoned me the next morning and we went out together for a couple of weeks. When I still wouldn’t have sex, he stopped asking me out. Neeta couldn’t understand my attitude. If I liked the guy, what was wrong with sleeping with him? He phoned again several weeks later. He couldn’t get me out of his head and wanted to meet up again. For the next couple of years, we couldn’t stay together and we couldn’t stay apart. We would have some great times together and then for almost no reason, we would have a blazing row and split up. There was no pattern to what caused, or who started, the rows. It seemed the smallest incident could escalate in an amazingly short time and it could take days or even weeks for peace to be restored. Slowly we realised that we could always get over the rows and making up was one of the best parts of our relationship.
It was on my 26th birthday that he proposed to me and suggested he should move in with me. I had my own place, while he rented. The rows still happened, but less frequently. Neeta was my matron of honour. The wedding was held eighteen months later in a registry office, as neither of us were the least bit religious and we honeymooned in Cornwall. Three years later, following a substantial bonus at my work, we decided to go on holiday abroad. Jan, the girl at whose party I met Jake, had been to Cyprus for her honeymoon. She was so enthusiastic I booked the holiday without even discussing it with Jake. I quickly realised that wasn’t a good idea when we had another blazing row over it. The next day, he came home from work telling me what a great place Cyprus was.