"I swear if there's a woman in Bedford, some school tart you used to shag behind the bike sheds, don't bother to come back. Don't think I won't find out either; I can smell them. There won't be any 'Donna, give me another chance' this time."
She went to the bedroom door and shouted, "Chrissy come up here and say goodbye to your dad."
Mike Anderson grimaced but said nothing. He continued to pack the overnight bag that lay open on their bed.
She watched him for the slightest clue he was lying. She was reassured when he put pyjamas, dressing gown, and his slippers into the bag. Then she reasoned it could be a scam. He wouldn't have packed a bottle of Champagne and a box of condoms in front of her.
Donna felt a strange sensation in her chest that she had almost forgotten. Love, she thought. This stupid, stupid man who she loved so much it hurt might be throwing away everything with some shabby one-night fling.
She handed him the T-shirt she'd ironed. The years together and she still got a thrill from the sight of his smooth, sculptured torso. The bulk of his biceps had been a pillow for her head just an hour before.
His daily workout in the gym he'd created in their garage meant if he was not the handsomest man she'd ever known, he was the strongest.
He dropped his mobile phone into his jeans' pocket. "Look it'll be on," he said. "Ring me any time."
"Don't flatter yourself."
He couldn't think of a smart reply so instead pulled her towards him by the belt of her housecoat.
She kept her lips closed until she yielded to the pressure of his mouth.
Perhaps he should cancel the trip, he thought. Some Saturday morning nookie - the only time their daughter could be guaranteed fixed to the television - would sooth both their tempers of the last few days.
"I haven't brushed my teeth," she said pulling away.
"You've got nothing to worry about. I'll be back before lunch tomorrow. Don, I really am going to meet Adrian, his missus, and their three kids."
She knew he was telling the truth about the meeting. She'd spied on his e-mails. But he had got up to enough mischief in the afternoons without spending a night away. Who knows what temptation he might find after a few drinks?
"No more tattoos," she said firmly. The last time he'd strayed - with a Bosnian ballet student he'd rescued from a chip pan fire - he had M and D entwined inside a heart decorate his shoulder. It wasn't his first tattoo.
He kissed her again and this time she'd didn't resist.
"Yuck," said their eight-year-old daughter Chrissy from the door. She was dressed in pyjamas and carried the television remote.
Blonde and pretty she was a tiny model of her mother, he thought.
"Chris, I'm sorry love but you remember daddy won't be able to take you to karate this afternoon." He used the third person-speak with his daughter that still unsettled Donna.
"She'll just have to miss class this week; I'm at the hairdressers." Chrissy didn't seem bothered.
"But daddy will be back in time to take you swimming tomorrow," he promised.
"Why do you have go at all?"
"Well, you've got your best friend Amanda at school. When I was at primary school I had a friend called Adrian who I haven't seen since I was 11 and that was nearly 25 years ago."
"So?"
"You tell him, Chrissy. It's not as though you were best mates otherwise why wait so long?"
He ignored Donna's dig and swept his daughter up in his arms, did two straight-arm stretches bringing her close to the ceiling and nearly kissed her before setting her back on her feet.
"There's this website on the internet that gets old school friends back together. We met through that and now he's invited me to visit him and his family. We all could have gone but it would have been a squeeze."
"Are they going to come here?"
"I don't suppose so."
"Why do you have to sleep there?"
"Enough," he said impatiently. "Go and watch the cartoons and I'll say 'bye before I go."
"Why are you sleeping there?" Donna asked when he was ready to leave. "It's not that far a drive, you could have done it in a day if you'd wanted to?"
"It means I can have a proper drink with him. We haven't seen each other for 25 years. Aren't you impressed? I know I am."
"Why have you got to get pissed?"
"Because that's what men do."
Mike was 20 minutes into a motorway traffic jam when he had his first serious reservations about the reunion. It had seemed such a good idea at first. One of the guys at work had raved about the website and he felt compelled to give it a go without thinking too deeply why.
Adrian Black made contact almost immediately. But their e-mail exchanges were clumsy and boring. Each recalled ancient incidents the other didn't remember. A face-to-face meet-up was called for.
But now Mike was doubting the value of the whole enterprise. They had been in the same class but had never really been friends. They hadn't even gone to each other's birthday parties. What would they have to talk about?
He was still wondering whether to turn back when he reached Bedford.
"A fireman of all things, who would have believed it?" said his host handing Mike a fresh beer before settling down in the garden chair opposite.
"No stranger than you turning out an art teacher," said Mike putting the can by his feet. He had only just opened the one in his hand. He had already drunk more than he cared to for the time of day.
It had taken him a while to find the house. They had exchanged pictures over the net. Mike had been prepared to find Adrian tall, balding, hungry-looking. And his wife Julia, small, mousy (Donna didn't have to worry about this one) and the young children indistinguishable from each other by age or sex in their general scruffiness.
However seeing him in the flesh, Adrian seemed genuinely surprised at the body Mike had built for himself.
"Good God, Jules, if you knew how weedy - I'm sorry you were - Mike was at school and look at him now."
He didn't know if to be flattered or embarrassed, as Adrian seemed to take his wife on a tour of his body. In fact he wasn't certain if Adrian was taking the piss and Julia seemed to be pretending interest.
The two men went off to the local pub an hour after Mike's arrival. The hours and the pints drifted away in empty conversation much like their e-mail exchanges.
On their return Adrian gave him the house tour proper, while the children, unchecked, charged about between them. It was a terrace house much like his own except with an extra bedroom and a much larger garden
Adrian's paintings were everywhere. Bowls of fruit and flowers and fields were just about recognisable. The thick paint looked as though it had been applied by hand. He thought of Chrissy's nursery school daubs and he wished now he had kissed her goodbye.
On the wall of the staircase there was a series of small frames containing drawings of nudes of both sexes.
Above Adrian and Julia's bed hung the largest painting in the house; a nude which he took to be of Julia because of the smallness of the woman's breasts and not because of the abundance of the model's pubic hair.
They moved on to red wine. Mike kept a clear enough head to be glad not to show his irritation when later Julia expressed regret on learning that he and Donna hadn't thought it necessary to marry. It was no one's business but theirs. Donna refused to tie the knot until she was sure Mike had given up his philandering ways. He didn't like to be reminded.
Early evening he found himself gratefully alone in the garden picking the grit of half-cooked veggie-burgers from between his teeth after the worst barbecue of his life. It took the couple an hour to bathe and put their children to bed.
About 9.30 Julia followed them to "give you boys a proper chance to chat." At the same time the men moved from the garden to the living room. There she air-kissed him goodnight. "Thanks for coming; Adrian doesn't bring many friends home."
Mike hadn't expected that despite the amount of booze that had been consumed, Julia's departure made he feel more uncomfortable not less.
Adrian seemed genuinely fascinated he had joined the fire service.
"You were brilliant at arithmetic," he said.
"Fancy you remembering that. I'm a bit of a disappointment to my dad. He wanted me to be an accountant. Somehow it never worked out. I'm happy enough."
"But burning buildings and all that?"
"All in a day's work." Mike was used to people wanting to hear about his job. It would have been easy to impress most listeners with the things he had seen. But he didn't like to. Unless the eyes widening at his stories of rescued children and bodies fished from canals belonged to an impressionable girl, who thought it witty when he brushed her tights saying, "I'd climb up your ladder any time."
But it was Adrian leaning across the gap that separated them to grip his knee and say, "You're too modest, matey."
Mike needed to change the subject. "What about yourself? Captain of everything. Tops in running, swimming, football. And teaching art?"
"My family moved so I could go to a decent secondary school. It had a really good Art master and I found I loved painting. I left the sport stuff behind. Art school and the rest followed - I'm good enough to teach but not enough to sell. All round I bet I'm a bigger disappointment to my father."
Mike was to sleep in one of the kid's rooms when he was finally shown to his bed at around 1am. Until that point Adrian had led their conversation on a ramble over many subjects; from the best place to locate a smoke alarm to infidelity.
"I've never been unfaithful to Julia, not with a woman, man or sheep. Not yet anyways." The remark penetrated Mike's alcoholic haze as a bit weird.
When Adrian said goodnight and left, Mike started to empty his overnight bag, his fingers made clumsy by the booze. He took off his T-shirt so carefully ironed by Donna. It was too late to call. So he sat on the bed and carefully texted her "Love u sweet dreams."
Adrian came into the room without knocking. "I forget to leave you a fresh towel. God!"
"What?" said Mike alarmed getting up quickly from the bed feeling giddy as he did so.
"Your chest - that really is a six-pack and a half."
"I...I like to keep in shape."
"I'll say. Do you shave your chest hair?"
"I suppose I do. There's not much to start."
"Would you mind? No, I'm pissed."
"What?"
"Would you mind if I touched it? Your chest."
Mike heard himself say, "Sure."
Barely grazing the surface Adrian's hand travelled down Mike's body from his neck to his navel and then back to the space between his nipples where it rested a brief moment.
"Wow, that's something. Well, goodnight. Again." He left closing the door quietly behind him.
Mike felt queasy, his knees weak. He sat down heavily on the bed.
In the instant Adrian had touched his skin, memories of childhood penetrated his brain with such sudden ferocity his head ached from a blinding light.
First the only sensation was the smell of chlorine. Then it was almost as though his eyes stung from the water and he could taste its bitterness.
He was 10. In his school's local swimming pool; he was flapping arms and legs in the cold water. He couldn't sink because Adrian was standing next to him, a hand supporting his chest, the other his waist.
Puny Mike, the class joke, the only one his age who couldn't swim. Adrian, both the tallest and the best swimmer, had been told by their teacher to help Mike in the shallow end, while everyone else shrieked and frolicked at the deep end of the pool.
Adrian must have said he was going to join the others, because Mike was crying, taking mouthfuls of water. "Don't leave me, don't leave."
One moment Adrian's hands were holding his body and he was safe, the next they were gone and he was drowning.
In his struggle to find his feet, Mike turned over on his back and through the water he could see Adrian towering over him, laughing.
Mike flipped over on to his knees and Adrian reached down through the water and grabbed his trunks. The material bit into his groin as Adrian hauled him upright until he was standing.
Adrian turned and was off. It seemed to Mike like a superhero from his comics, moving down the pool to join the rest of the class.
He stood alone shivering, holding the gully at the pool's edge. He peed filling his trunks with a pleasant warmth. He wished Adrian was still holding him.
The panic passed. He thought again about ringing Donna. She would think the worst and whatever he said his clothes would be waiting for him on his doorstep. He wanted to leave, to write a note saying Chrissy had been taken ill. But he was too drunk to drive.
It was then he saw Adrian must have put a key in the lock on the inside of the bedroom door. He was almost sure it hadn't been there before. Mike locked the door and went to bed.
He couldn't sleep. He lay on the single bed beneath the Transformers duvet fearful other ghosts from his lonely childhood might rise up from their graves.
Once during the night he thought he heard the door handle turn. He couldn't be certain he hadn't been dreaming. He got up and stood listening by the door. He touched the key erect in the dark. The door must always stay closed.
At 6 the children in the adjoining bedroom started fighting and Mike dressed quickly, had a brief wash in the bathroom, and headed for the kitchen.
By the time Adrian and Julia emerged, Mike had made himself some tea and toast.
"I hope you don't mind but my daughter Chrissy wasn't well in the night and I need to get back as soon as I can."
Adrian walked Mike to his car. "You're sure you're OK to drive?"
"I'm fine." said Mike knowing as soon as he could he would stop on the motorway for a proper breakfast and the chance to clear his head.
They shook hands. "It's amazing, isn't it, what we've done, getting together after all this time?" said Adrian. "You're not at all how I imagined you'd be."
"Nor you me," said Mike.
"We've got to stay in touch."
"Right."
"Look out for those fires."
When Mike arrived home Donna was about to berate him for the heavy drinking session which showed in his weary face but something told her just to be pleased he was back safely.
Chrissy hugged him and begged, "Don't make me go swimming, dad, please."
"Go next door and play with Jane until I call you," said her mother.
When Donna walked into the bathroom Mike had the shower going full blast into his face.
A little later they were lying on top of their bed, he in his bathrobe and she fully dressed.
"Was everything alright?" she asked.
"Of course. Why shouldn't it? Strange bed that's all. I didn't get much sleep and I'm on early shift tomorrow."
"I'll let you have a nap then" She got up.
"Donna, there is something." She held her breath. "Don, I was thinking we ought to get married."
She laughed. "Funny, I was thinking the same thing myself."
Mike and Adrian e-mailed once every couple of months over the next year. Adrian sent a picture of the two them taken by Julia, which Mike showed Donna.
"I like the garden" was the best she could say and she wasn't happy when Mike said Adrian had sort of added his wife and himself to the wedding guest list.
"I could hardly say no," Mike said lamely. But with a fortnight to go, Adrian cried off saying they were moving house because he was unexpectedly changing schools.
That was the last time there was any communication between the men - except for the exchange of a wedding present and a thank-you note.
Adrian sent a coffee-table book of David Hockney paintings. A swimming pool was on the cover. Inside he had written "Wishing you the best splash, Adrian."
"A bloody strange present and why didn't he put his wife's name?" said Donna.
"Don't ask me," said Mike.
Soon after the wedding Donna got pregnant and Mike dismantled his gym and turned the garage into a playroom.
I'm a retired former British national newspaper journalist who hasn't lost the writing bug. Visit me at my blog http://www.grapefruitcrazy.com/ Here I post regularly on my take on the world around me. As for the website's title all is revealed in the blog's profile.
