Confessions Of A SpookySpy

So I lunched with S today. Actually, I have lunched with S quite a few days recently. I dont know why I go. The very act of it feels like a betrayal to my wife. Feels like a betrayal to S. Of course I havent done anything with her, we are just friends, platonic, but part of me feels as though I am just being friends with her so that people will see us together. Part of me is hoping reports will get back to my wife and make her wonder, take stock of things, get her shit sorted and try and win me back. Will she bollox. I dont know why I torture myself with the possibilities. I feel bad for S because I genuinely enjoy her company, truly, but this shit is always in the back of my mind and why dont I ever learn that others dont look as closely as I do? Others dont watch people in the way that I do, professionally. Others dont give a shit whose eating with who, where and why. its only me that yearns to know what is going on.
So I lunch with her and no one sees us and no one cares if they do. She tells me things about her husband. She hates him, he is overweight he has 'fat sausage fingers' she feels nauseous when he tries to touch her or kisses her. She offers her cheek instead aware that this fuels the fire but unable to help herself, like a gut reaction, like a protective instinct and honestly, the way she recounts their sexual endeavors, she makes it sound like rape. Consentual rape, if that is possible. She is giving me pearls but fuelling my worries all at once. Now she gives my anxiety words and sentences to form into. Now when my wife looks at me before bed I am worried about my fingers, my breath, my body my eyes my torso and if she feels like I have raped her when she has 'allowed' me to make love to her? The trouble is that I am far too aware of the way her skin shrinks back towards the bone when I touch her or cuddle her. I can see it before we have even made contact and I refuse to push myself on a person in that way. I wont force myself in order to release to useless god-given desire to breed. No fucking way will I be reduced to that in the face of a woman that would rather eat pussy, I wouldn't dignify it.
I try and convince S to talk to her husband (how could I not take the poor bastards side...after all, I know how it feels). I try and convince her to see behind his actions and his worry and his mistrust and what am I now Oprah fucking Winfrey come Marriage Councilor? I amaze myself. I try all the same even though I know she is just thinking 'shut up and agree with me. My husband is an arse and you dont agree because your a man'. I can see it in her sighs and roll of the eyes, she is just too kind to turn her honest attacks on me.
She gives me pearls, the real heart of her real life and feelings and I give her bad advice. I dont mention my wife and her indiscretions. I dont mention my daughter and her boyfriend who is 3 times her age. I dont tell her these things because I like to think I have integrity. Even though they dont know that I know the things I know about them, it doesn't mean I can gloat to friends, poor little me, feel bad for me isnt my life a bag of fucking shit? I wont do it and besides, she has her own shit to deal with, namely Carl. Carl is the bloke she is seeing behind her husbands back. Carl is the guy she wanks on MSN to when her husband is in bed.
She eats and talks and eats and talks and sometimes I like to imagine (when going over the conversation in my head) that she is my wife and we arent married and we are just friends. I am my wifes best friend and not her annoying husband. I imagine she confides and opens up to me, saving me the bother of finding out for myself. I imagine that she has respect for me even if she isnt in love with me. Sitting in my office, assistant gone home, this is what I masturbate over. And there is something so lonely that blankets you as the feeling of ecstasy slowly throbs out of your body.

The trouble with kitchen fitters is that they have the tools...they have the right equipment and apparently the knor-how! The trouble with kitchen fitters is that they are normally a metaphor for something else.
Philosophise and we are all more alike than we know. Comforts me. Comforts me when I think how the heart of her home is in the same state as mine, disarray, not as it should be, disfunctional, spilling over into the rest of the home...
Sometimes I dream of a world of people picking up the tools and just doing it for themselves, crafting out the path forward and fixing the old with their creative and skilled hands. I dream of it genuinely I do but I sighing, I sometimes resolve whether our lives are designed to be unhinged and grubby?
For Ellen because through these blogs and this bastard life there is sometimes someone out there notices when you have been away too long. For Ellen because I always liked that show. Funny sad and romantic and I wonder if the kitchen fitters in the real Ellen saga know how much it would mean to one woman to go and do what they know best, fit a few fucking cupboards and get the god damn kitchen up and running, wish I could tell them to go and resuscitate the heart in her home!
For Ellen, because I think she deserves more than a comment in a little box after she has spoken. For Ellen...because sometimes a real fact can make the best metaphor and I know one day that kitchen will be perfect, the envy of the town. x

After a week of absence she gives me this day. After a week of running between our house and the Australians, coming home red in the cheeks and truly happy, she gives it all back to me. For the sake of a day. Fathers day, for the sake of something I am pretty sure Clintons invented to ensure steady trade, for the sake of them, she plays it all out like a tv show for me.
I woke up today to a beautiful breakfast of eggs, mushrooms, toast and veggie sausages. A nice cup of sugary tea. My daughter and son sitting there looking half way excited and half way like bad actors. Little parcels on the table with hand made cards. I kiss the bitch I am so deeply in love with on the cheek and sit down to eat. I cant thank her enough...at least thats what I manage to say through the tight lump in my throat. A glimpse of what it should all be like.
I slurp my tea and watch my daughter swinging in her chair. Her eyes meet mine and we smirk at each other. She's at that age where she sees it all, she knows the deal and we cant hide it from her. Too much Rage Against the Machine and she knows the facade of domestic bliss when she sees it. "Happy Dad day" she says facetiously with that dummy tip of her head to the side. I want to laugh. I really want to laugh and cry. I realise why we connect in that way, because of how angsty I feel, we can almost smell it on each other. The only trouble is that its right for her to feel that at her age and for me...well shouldnt I have grown out of it? Hadn't I grown out of it before all this shit started?
"Thanks" I reply as my son slides over to me, his head on my shoulder as I eat. "Open my present first" he whispers and so I do.
Open the crape paper and what's this I see? Oh my goodness its a giant marble! I do that thing you are supposed to do. I marvel at it with big expressions like a theatre actor. Actually, i admire his choice and I really like it how children dont buy you those conventional dull gifts that you're supposed to get, like socks and shit like that. "Do you like it?" "I love it! You get the best stuff...wonder if i can see the future in this?" I play, holding it out and telling all their fortunes.
"He bought it with his own pocket money" my wife adds and I almost ignore her.
My daughter made a Dr Who Tardis money box! Apparently her woodwork teacher helped her and it really is so cool. She knows I love it and dont have to tell her.
This was my morning. The morning that I deserve for bringing home the veggie bacon. For keeping my shit together and staying loyal and steady for my kids. I deserve this and I enjoy every moment of it, knowing I will wake any second to the reality of my family life.
I look at the cards they made me for too long. I remember them from all their years, birth till now. I think of how precious they are to me and the irony of it is that without them, i wouldnt be a father. I wouldnt be the father that I always wanted to be if it wasnt for the way they love me unconditionally. Today I silently thank them for giving me my position. Thinking this way, i could almost die contented.
By 12.30 my wife is just nipping out...by 1pm i find a packet of rizla in my daughters hoody pocket...by 1.30pm my daughter are sitting in the garden me trying to talk to her seriously and her begging me not to tell her mother about the Rizla. See how they play you. Effortlessly.
By 3pm her mother returns with the australian and I am back at the office on fathers day eating a packet of cheese and onion and thinking of all the other days asleep on the sofa while their wives cook the sunday specialties.

Just got a text from S. She says that she didn't tell her husband about meeting me in the cafe. He hasn't mentioned to her that he tried to hire a private detective and he also hasn't got back in touch with me. I didn't expect that he would either.
Are wives more loyal to their lovers than they are their husbands, are they more honest with them? As paradoxical as it sounds, I think that they are. I wonder if S's husband will descover the text sent and believe I am her lover? I hope not, I wouldn't want to be the cause of another mans pain.
She wants to meet for a coffee tomorow lunch time. I dont know what to say. I have left the text for about an hour now. Back in the office, I cant stand to be among the invasion of my home by that bitch who is probably playing footsie with my wife as they watch TV. She comes early in the day and stays till late, she should be helping me out with the morgage. Evicted from the house, I come here and blog till my hearts content (or at least not so noisy).
I brought my CD player with me down here today and it's feeling more and more like home everyday. Maybe I will bring the dog next. Listening to Ray LaMontagne, I pretend to myself that I am too busy to go back home yet. I pretend that I am swamped with work while I browse ebay and pick up bargains for the kids, while I water my plants and polish their leaves, while I contemplate opening my emergency nuts.
I keep looking at my phone and honestly dont know what to text her back. She probably wants to know what her husband knows to try and get the heads up on him and I wont be part of her cheating successfully on him, no fucking way! Or maybe she wants to be friends like in the old days, catch up, find out what's going on with me? Like fuck does she, she could have kept in touch if she wanted to, after all, our dads still go to the same golf course. I decide to ignore her text and resolve todays dilemas, after all, I already have one unfaithful wife to worry about, I dont need another one.

Tanned and pretty, golden locks, probably dyed, with wisps of red mingled in. Over a sunday afternoon beer she sits on the step and smirks at me. God damn meat eater, I want to throw her and her frozen burgers out of my house! But I dont. I watch as my wife flips burgers for her. My daughter and I both repulsed by the smell, we move to the end of the garden and I smoke a cigarette as I lean on the gate. My daughter looks up at me and says, "Do you think I am as attractive as her?" pointing to the australian subtly. I look over and then back at my daughter in her jean shorts and 'Slipknot' t-shirt. My daughter, with her flushed young cheeks, smiling and chewing her bottom lip. How could there be any contest.
"You are much more beautiful and when you're older, you will be more of a woman than she could ever be" I said quietly trying not to let my venom for the australian show.
"Dont you like her?" she asks me grinning and waggling her foot.
Smiling back, I want to tell her everything, share all my secrets and thoughts with this young lady who is flesh of my flesh but I cant because shattering her world would only bring us all greater pain. "I cant like everyone can I, think of the christmas present list!" I say sarcastically instead.
"Why dont you like her?" she pushes it as kids always do.
'Because she is a low down dirty whore!' I say in my head 'and she is banging your mother behind my back!'.
"Well because...well, I dont know, I guess because I dont think she much likes me either" I answer, examining the old weeping willow.
"Mum likes her though huh?" she asks/says and I am sure I detect something beneath that sentence. Like a hound dog I am almost definite about it. Looking back at her as she hides her eyes behind her fringe and pretends to be engrossed in the stick on the ground. It's one of those heart wrenching parental moments when you dont know what your're supposed to say, embarresed that even your kids can see how fucked up you are...and how much courage did it take for her to actually say that!
"Yeah, I think she does" I reply humbly, putting my arm round her and pulling her towards me. He arms reach around me and she reaches my chest now. God how they grow.
Walking back towards the bbq, the bitch watches us, her eyes low and I know she knows I know, she has to know, otherwise why that evil smirk? I walk right passed her, using my daughter as a shield and it works too because we both know that I have something she doesn't...
As we go into the house, I hear my wife make fake small talk "You really brought that sunshine with you huh" and I know that she thinks her coverse metaphors are undetected by me, I shake my head and bury my daughter under the bean bag playfully. Let them have their fun, I will fantasise that I have the last laugh.

The last client I had on friday had unwittingly sent me chasing around after an old school friend. A very close friend in fact. Unethichal? I hear you.
I didn't recognise her by name, we lost touch when I left school and she went to uni. Apparently she married. I would like to say happily but I hasten to add that her husband had come to us in order to disprove the 'gut feeling' he has that she is cheating on him.
I took the information I needed, filled out the forms I had to and waited till saturday. Her weekly shopping trip, this was a time he thought that she might find to liase with her lover. He had attempted to follow her himself several times but each time failed at the art of anonymity. This had caused rows and he promised he would learn to trust her. But as we know, what is said in a bedroom from someone fighting desperately to keep their love is something quite different from what they know they will actually do. The very next day was the friday he came into my office.
I parked the car early in the car park on that saturday morning. I parked early with my assisting parked on the other level on the look out. We were an hour early but I know from experience its best to get to the location earlier than the suspect and get a good location in the car park. This way you dont have to follow them from the house. Sure it leaves them open to make an unschedualed stop from their home before they get to the supermarket, dont worry I do think of these things. But in my experience people generally stick to the same time frames. Husband texts me when she has left the house, the supermarket is 10 minutes away by car and if she is much later, then next step to follow her from the end of her street because she is clearly going somewhere else.
The last person I expected to see parking her car and taking off her sunglasses was my old best friend. I waited there while she shopped, sure I had made a mistake but when she came out I was certain it was her. Watching her load the boot, I was torn what I should be doing. That feeling of betrayal came back to me hard. But this was a job, what should I do?
I followed her till she parked just off the high street and got out the car. I watched to see where she would go, taking notes of times and snapping pictures frantically. She went into a cafe and 5 minutes later did not return. Tricky. I would have to get out the car and go after her. Which is what I did.
Entering the cafe I saw her instantly sitting at the corner table reading the Guardian with a coffee and a sticky looking cake. She hadnt noticed me. I took my place on the other side of the cafe and watched, taking out my own newspaper. Perhaps she was meeting someone here.
Half an hour later, no one had come and she was still reading her paper. A woman waiting for a lover who was late would surely take out her phone and check it now and then, would surely be looking out the window or calling frantically 'where are you? I'm here' but not this suspect. Strange. A woman under suspicion wouldnt be away from the home longer than she needed to either as this would arouse her husbands worries. UNless she was toying with him, their argument the othernight got to her, she was testing him. Or was she?
Just at that moment, quite unexpectedly she looked casually up at me. Smiling vacantly she looked back at her paper and my heart stopped when with a puzzled expression her eyes looked a second time. She recognised me. Her gaze lasted two seconds too long and her mouth gaped slightly as she prepared to mouth the words "Spooks? Is that you?" I smiled, defeated.

"Oh my God S, I cant believe it's you!" I replied feighning shock.

After another half hour had passed, I drained my third coffee and I had completely forgotten how good it felt to be in her company. She was still just as funny and just as cool as she had been all those years ago! I almost forgot what I was doing there, almost...but not entirely. Leaning back in my chair I watched her take her phone out and ask for my number. This could be complicated. I was aware that this wasnt right but vowed I would call her husband later today and explain all. I would urge him to come clean with his wife and pray that she didnt take it out on me. I gave her my number.
"Whereabouts do you work? If you're nearby maybe we can meet for a coffee one lunch time?" she asked innocently.

"Actually I dont work that far from here" I answered trying not to fidget.

"What do you do now then, I forgot to ask?" she asked. Pause. Pause, too long, speak Spooks God damn it.

"Well?" she asked again giggling slightly. Looking her right in the eye, I said it.

"I am a private detective" that was it, nothing more. I said it, had to be honest. It wasnt my business to tell her anymore, she was a smart girl, the thought had crossed her mind and my trained eye saw the guilt flash across her expression.

"No shit? Your joking me right? I didnt think that existed anymore?" she asked puzzled.

"Well it does still exist. It's just not the kind of thing people say they do, you know, encase word gets around. Most of us say we are in finance or something like that. My wife thinks it's funny when I tell people to watch their expression change" I explained, trying to ignore what I had read in her face.

"Spooks, were you following me?" she asked tentatively.

"Yes" I said before I had thought about it.

"My husband thinks I am cheating on him" she answered with a look of exasperation.

"I know. Are you?" I asked, wondering if she too was incapable of honesty.

"Yes" she replied with an almost smile as the shocked pause led to the both of us laughing. Something about her honesty, her trust in me, that made me unable to feel she had done anything wrong. Is that all it takes? A little bit of honesty and respect and all can be forgiven? I honestly believe it does.
I havent told her husband anything yet. Left a voice message for him saying I couldnt take the case as his wife was someone I recognised from school. I couldnt bring myself to say anything else but needless to say, I have refunded his consultation fee by cheque to his postal address.

So I rushed home on friday night, the way the rest of the world does. Still cant shake that home freedom feeling I have had since my teenage years. Crank up the music on my way home and for the first time in ages, I take The National out of my cd player and play something more...vociferous...I opt for something a bit more back in the day and it seems natural to choose The Clash. Sun mocks me, makes me feel reassured that the early evening brings happiness and I know now that I could never read that sun correctly. So I wind my window down, the fool I am, and I am certain I let myself smile. I am certain of it now I think of it. It felt good and I knew that for the first time in ages, I was actually going home.
The feeling and the music and the should I stay or should I go had rocked my soul so much I think I was almost drunk on it. I stopped at that florist, the one she used to love and I bought her favourites, a whole big blue and white bunch with special pretty paper wrapping. Laying on the passanger seat so innocently and fresh, I wondered how anyone would find the will to refuse such a wonderful gesture. It's fair to say that sometimes I think I love those flowers and that kind of gesture more than the reality of actually giving them to my wife. Why can men never keep flowers for themselves, romance animate.
As I parked the car, the only way I know how, badly, I rushed to the front door with my tummy full of feathers and a smile wanting to twist on my lips. Bounding through the door I had this strange notion that she would sense the romance and poetry in my soul, the way she had done all those years ago, I had the notion she would see it and fall back in love with me again. Visions of a cottage and some sick homely Walton's feelings danced in my mind as I remembered papering the hallway with her when she was pregnant with our first child.
The time it took for me to walk to the kitchen, I had realised that she wasnt home. No one was home. It was a 'note on the fridge night' and in that moment I prayed some disease would cripple that Australian whore for charming my wife away from me! In that moment my blood was acid and the flowers stabbed through my eyes stinging as the mocking sunlight had tried to do earlier. Daughter at her friends (yeah right), son at his granddads and wife...helping her friend unpack...picturing her in scruffy old Levi's with her pale pink vest on. I know that's the one she would be wearing...I picture her with those whisps of hair, catching her eyelashes before she blows them away. Sweating...they would laugh and make love in that mess. Abandoned and am I too old to be an orphan? Am I too old for social services to rescue me and give me to a loving family?
The flowers sat on the work surface and I thought it would be apt to let them stiffen and droop there for her to find them. Only fitting for the bin and who knows, maybe I could get back on with some paper work, maybe the office wasn't the worst place to be on a friday night.
Back to The National and Slow Show for the drive through traffic back to where I had come from in a lot less of a hurry.

I cracked into her email account that first time and I tell you why I did it. I did it because I knew something was going on, first the humming, then the popping to the shops at odd times of the evening to get some milk and coming back with eggs and no milk. I did it because of the way she coiled the phone wire around her finger and pointed her toes when she talked on the phone. I did it because if you have ever been a good lover, you will know how she looks when she is satisfied and how she looks when she is horny and open to offers. I did it because I just knew there was something I should know.
Her password was easy, her maiden name, like everything else with her year of birth. It shouldnt have been that easy but it was. Guilty isnt a strong enough word for how I felt after the buzz and anger had died down. I am an intelligent man, I know its wrong to invade someones privacy but I have been paid to do it since I was 14 (and so my father before me) part of me doesnt wince at it as much as others would.
So I read it, I read the last email she had sent. I didnt recognise the username and so at first I was confused. I imagined some slick frech bloke with rippling muscles. Someone with fire and passion, someone who would argue with her like I never would. Someone who would force her down onto the bed and have his way with her, knowing thats what she wanted. How wrong could I have been.
The email was punctuated with affections and things that she used to only say to me, given fresh life on this new audience. This new audience and how could I compete with, the recipient of the email and the person consuming the attention of wife was a woman. Our sons best friends mother. A single woman with a boy the same age as ours. I had always liked her, funny, charming and seemingly so honest. I never would have suspected. The amount of times we have had her round for dinner, been out with her and her son.
The shock of it slipped into my psyche and became part of who I am. Perpetually caught in the head lights of what she does behind my back. I am constantly and incessantly stunned by it all. And the worst thing is that the email was lovely. How could I expect anything less of my wife. She has always had a charming way of making you feel like the only person to exist.
I read and read and read a lovely letter to death. I read it so many fucking times that I have it memorised, I could recite it at any given moment and believe me seeing them together sometimes I am tempted to. Of course I dont. Of course. This letter made me look at her with new eyes. Something I never knew about her, never knew she could do things to another woman as she detailed she had done and wanted to do. Unashamedly writing things like a free woman, like a woman who hasn't had a loyal husband and partner for 20 years! Part of me thought 'good for you darling' it was almost inspiring the way she wrote. Now with my new eyes when I look at her, I try to picture how another woman (a friend to the family) would fuck her knowing that she is systematically stealing away bits of the soul that I thought were rightfully mine. How does someone do that?

She wasn't one of those typical looking women. She wasn't pretty in the glossy magazine sense. But the kind of beautiful that she is was completely unforgetable. She was and still is unnervingly lovely. Her eyes so dark green they could almost be black, her hair this odd mix of chocolate and cherry. Her skin unfashionably pale, like a painting from some other time. Tall for a woman but still shorter than me, her arms slender carrying too many shopping bags, a baguette poking out and getting in her way. Her figure was different to now, she was plumper than she is today. Soft feminine curve that made me think about becoming a father. Curvy heart shaped arse and breasts squashed into a too small bra for effect.
She hadn't seen me, but aware of the other guys at the bus stop, I could tell she was holding her tummy in. She pretended not to notice me sitting on that bench watching her directly, but I know she did. I pretended to read my newspaper and drink my coffee and innocently we played that look/look away game. We did this for some time, my tummy imitating the tattoo on her arm. Butterfly that to this day gives me shivers.
Once she was safe on the bus and seated she bravely looked directly at me. Right into my eyes with a smirk twist of her thin lips. That electric and you know I am not exaggerating the way it feels when there is something between two people. Like a soft magnetic punch in the heart and you could shriek with joy! You could honestly burst like a star and I am aware how gay that sounds but even now when I think about it, I dont give two shades of shit how it sounds.
Folding up my paper and throwing away the remainder of my coffee, I remember walking down the road and taking note of everything. The time, the road name, the shop names, the bus stop she was at...everything and I wasn't afraid or panicked or sad or anything because I knew (I just knew) I would definitely see her again.
Different to all the other women I have known, I am defined and brought into existence with just one of her looks.

Just as easily, she can take all that away the same way.

I cant help following this guy around. Since I saw my daughters head bopping up and down around his crotch area in his car, I have this wild and quiet vendetta against him. He unknowingly agreed to this when he started fucking my 13 year old daughter.
At first I thought he was her teacher, cliche I know. Then I thought he might be a friends dad, wrong again. He's in a band she went to see. The one she begged with her mum to let her go to. The one we refused to let her go to because it was in a pub and she is way too young. The one she went to anyway.
He plays lead guitar. Credit where its due, he plays it well, the bastard. Credit where its due, he has a nice house and a very un-rock and roll day job. He works for an accounting firm, wears a suit and tie like all the other plebs in the office. He goes to a chicken shop for lunch most days and buys £1 chicken. I'm not a militant vegetarian but something about his lack of consideration for life in all forms assures me how much of a shit he is.
His house is nice too. Not quite what you would expect from someone who thrashes around on stage to lyrics like 'Fuck you and all you have, because it dont mean nothin to me. Fuck you and all you got, coz it dont make up for all that you lost' but its not what I would imagine. His wife seems very houseproud and I am sure his 11 year old daughter loves the amount of space she has to play in. I try not to judge as I watch him play out the front of his house with her. But my nature prevails and I do all the same. Now I know why I watch him. I watch him for the same reason we have CCTV, I watch him because I am worried about what he will do unwatched. I watch him because when someone is letting my daughter play grown ups with him, I want to make sure it doesnt go any further than that. I watch him because I am not an aggressive man and its all I can do to try and protect my family.
I saw how she turned up to meet him. In a blue dress I have never seen her wear before. God knows where she got it from. She looked...well she looked like a wonderful young woman. I cant explain the agony of knowing it was all for him. When I pictured my daughter being old enough to date, I imagined something like this, I imagine how sweet she would seem going out to the cinema with perhaps a 15 year old boy, that teenage romance thats romantic and cool and perfectly what it should be. This gut wrenching image tears through me as he puts his arm around her waist touching her arse. What I wouldn't give to be the kind of man who could easily break his arm clean off his torso!
So he took my daughter into a bar, is that a crime I ask myself? Is age just a number when it comes to love? Has she found her kindred in this 39 year old letch? My baby girl abandoned to the horror in my head of what he must be doing with her and what he wants of her, like something from ancient rome and I betray my wife that I dont tell her. Maybe together we could do something, maybe together she would know what was the best thing to do...