Romance The Long Way Round

I'm not sure exactly when I fell in love with Jenny. I suppose it must have been quite early in our acquaintance.

We actually started with the company at more or less the same time. I was a graduate trainee, very proud of myself in my shiny new Burtons suit; she was simply one of the nameless plebs who used to push the post trolley around the building three times a day. She was just 19, killing time between leaving college and starting her own more junior traineeship with us. Tall and slim with her long chestnut hair worn in a ponytail, even then she was considerably more stylish than the usual breed of dull-eyed troglodytes who were taken on for that sort of work. Dressed under the standard brown overall in skin-tight Levis adorned with flecks of glitter, impractical wedge heeled shoes displaying toenails painted a different shade every day. Her passage through our office invariably attracted glances and the occasional ribald comment from my older, more self-assured male colleagues.

That huge wooden post cart of hers nearly cost me my manhood. Rushing around a corner towards a meeting one day I ran head on into the thing. I managed to twist sidewards to protect my knackers from being crushed, but as my hip slammed bruisingly into a metal handle the styrofoam cup I was holding spilt scalding coffee onto the crotch of my trousers. It was entirely my fault, but tears of embarrassment sprung to the poor kid's huge eyes - that was when, quite incongruously, I first noticed what a pretty cornflower blue they were. Apologising profusely, she dashed around the cart, squatted before me, and began rubbing vigorously at my damp groin with a cloth! Suddenly realising exactly what she was doing she rocked back on her heels in shock, her hand flying to her open mouth as her face turned as crimson as her toenails. Grabbing her trolley with one hand she yelped "Sorry" again and hurtled round the corner like a scalded cat. The lads would have laughed like drains at that story, but I was too embarrassed myself to tell it to anyone!

She disappeared from the mail run shortly after that. Then one day I had a problem with one of my invoices and I went along to Accounts to sort it out. That was when I found out she was Jenny McAlpine, a fellow Londoner despite the name, and the squiggle who had been signing off my figures lately. Greeting me with a bright smile she said, "I hope you're not permanently scarred!" It took me a second to realise what she meant and, while the penny dropped, she took the invoice from me and glanced at it. Then, looking back at me with a mischievous glint in her eye, she exclaimed, "Oh, so you're the Mr Douglas the girls are always talking about." Later, of course, I thought of all the snappy, witty answers I could have given her. At the time, thrown completely off-balance by the remark, and by the expectant amused silence of her colleagues around me, I just mumbled an explanation of my query and, feeling my face burning, turned and fled, pursued by shrieks of female laughter.

I saw Jenny quite often after that. When there was something to discuss about my accounts; or in the pub whenever someone in the department had a birthday or was leaving, Christmas time, that kind of thing. On those occasions there always seemed to come a point when Jenny and I found ourselves slightly apart from our colleagues, heads bowed together as we chatted about this and that, an amused smile on her face as if she knew some big joke nobody had let me in on. This isolation wasn't intentional on my part -- not consciously, anyway -- but I began to eagerly anticipate each new social evening. On days when I felt particularly fed up I would use the slightest excuse to arrange a work meeting with Jenny, just to see her sunny smile, and hear her throaty chuckle as I cracked jokes and we shared the latest gossip about this or that colleague.

We got to work together properly about 18 months after the trolley incident. I was picked to be part of a small team to work on a special project, and was told I was entitled to an assistant. I immediately suggested Jenny, with no idea if she would be interested. She accepted, and there we were -- eight of us, in our own little suite of offices on a two-year deal. Jenny was into power dressing by then -- colourful business suits with short skirts and shoes with four-inch stiletto heels, which combined to emphasise her long, shapely legs. We shared a room with two other blokes, and the four of us quickly developed an easy-going, jokey camaraderie. The work was interesting and challenging, and I prided myself on being one of those rare blokes who could have a good friendship with a woman without the issue of sex raising its ugly head. Not that that explained why Jenny's tinkling laugh so often echoed in my head on the journey home after work, or why she was the first thing I thought about every morning.

I really have no idea why it never occurred to me to ask her out. Subconscious fear of rejection I suppose -- after all, I was good enough looking, but Jenny was a real knock-out, truly special; and not wanting to put a cloud over a friendship I really valued. Besides, there was some long-term boyfriend somewhere in the background, although she never really talked about him. Not that I wasn't seeing girls at the time. I regularly went out on the pull with my mates, I just seemed to have a genius for picking the wrong women: the relationships rarely lasted past the first date. In fact for a while it seemed as if my romantic disasters were the main source of entertainment in the office. My male workmates would guffaw as I told my tales of woe, while Jenny shook her head at me in mock despair and chuckled to herself.

Away from the strictures of head office we'd got into the habit of team visits to the pub after work every Friday. Nothing heavy, just a couple of drinks and a chat to ease us into the weekend. Jenny and I generally found ourselves sitting together on a velvet-covered bench seat and one evening, as we rocked with laughter at a particularly tasteless joke, our heads cracked together painfully. Jen laughed it off but I saw stars. Immediately concerned, she took my face between her hands and fixed her baby blues on mine, asking in a worried tone if I was okay. Embarrassed at suddenly being the centre of attention I launched into a couple of bars of the old Elvis number 'Hard Headed Woman'. Giggling with relief, Jenny sank back in her seat.

After a couple of minutes I became aware of Jenny's hand lightly resting on my thigh. I thought she probably didn't even realise it herself, but as she laughed at another joke her fingers curled into my leg, and as she sat forward to pick up her drink her hand stroked along my upper leg. Instantly I developed the stiffest hard-on of my life. Alarmed that Jenny might notice my trousers doing their impression of a circus big top I quickly excused myself and headed for the gents. Once there I slumped against the wall and loosened my tie. It wasn't a hot night but I was sweating like a man with malaria! Stumbling to the urinal I forced my still stiff member to point down towards the bowl.

Seconds later our boss Jim, a short jovial Scot close to retirement, was standing at the next urinal. Staring at the wall, as you do, he asked with forced casualness, "So, how's it going between you and Jennifer?" Something in his tone made me wary: Jen and I had been getting on great, she surely couldn't have said anything negative? I replied guardedly that the work was well on target. With a smirk he said, "Actually, I was thinking of outside office hours." Picking up on my evident bewilderment, as he rinsed his hands he said in apparent surprise, "Paul, you don't mean to tell me you're not giving her one? We all took it for granted -- Christ man, she's gagging for you!" Shaking his head and chuckling he waddled out of the toilet.

I was perplexed. If a beautiful, sweet kid like Jenny was making a play for me I thought I would have been savvy enough to notice. When I returned to the bar she was standing buttoning her coat, looking out for me. "Paul, I just wanted to make sure you really were okay before I go." With a straight face I asked which of the two of her had said that. Giggling, she feigned to slap me but instead took my face between her hands again. "Fool! Oh Paulie, I seem to have a special talent for hurting you, don't I. C'mere, let me kiss it better." She pulled my head gently towards hers and placed a tender kiss on my temple. Her jasmine perfume filled my nostrils. Behind her, Jim gave me a filthy leer and raised his whisky tumbler to me in mock salute. Releasing me, Jen put an arm round my waist, gave me an affectionate squeeze and left. Oh shit, I thought, there's that stiffy again! I spent an unsettled weekend trying to get my head round the situation. Jen and I had always been jokily affectionate, but she couldn't seriously be interested in a twerp like me -- could she? Sod it, long-term boyfriend or no, on Monday I was going to ask her out. I could do it in a humorous way and if she wasn't up for it, fine, we'd still be mates, but at least I'd know where I stood.

My timing could not have been more impeccable. I arrived at work to find Jen had already been called away to head office. She returned at lunchtime, flushed and excited. It seemed the new Glasgow office was looking for a bright young prospect to fast-track, and Jim's and my glowing reports of Jenny's work, plus the business studies diploma she'd studied for in her own time, had convinced someone that she was the one. She had relations in the area, it meant an immediate salary hike, a lot of new responsibility, and a mapped-out path up the career ladder. It was a brilliant opportunity and everyone else was thrilled for her. Personally, I felt as if someone had just taken a chainsaw to my guts.

As soon as we were alone together Jenny came and sat at my desk. Looking searchingly at me, she said, "Paul, I haven't definitely said yet that I'll take the Glasgow job. I'd like to know how you feel about it. I mean, if you think I should stay here..." Yes, I know, sometimes I can be the sort of bloke who wouldn't recognise a million quid if someone dropped it in my lap. I felt absolutely bloody miserable about the prospect of her suddenly being hundreds of miles away from me. But at that moment all I could think was that I couldn't put a selfish fantasy -- which was probably all it was -- ahead of the career prospects of a close friend who I knew was ambitious. So I did the British thing and presented her my best stiff upper lip. With an encouraging grin I told her it was an amazing offer and if I was in her shoes I'd grab it with both hands. She'd probably come back to London as my boss one day. If I hadn't been so lost in my own little world of tragedy I might have heard the edge in her voice as she said, "Oh well, thanks Paul, I'm pleased you're so happy for me to be going."

For about 10 seconds I considered putting in for a move to Glasgow too. But it was a small office then, and even if I wanted to leave London for the frozen north, unlike Jenny I didn't know a soul there, and she hadn't actually invited me. In fact, she might think it was distinctly creepy for me to follow her there out of the blue. She was due to start the new job the following Monday, and she was quite distant with me for the rest of the week, which felt like an extra kick in the guts for me. I thought she might be feeling guilty at leaving the job unfinished, so I told her there wouldn't be much of a problem getting her successor up to speed, but that just seemed to make things worse. I was as miserable as sin at her leaving do. For want of something to say I asked how her boyfriend felt about the move. She looked totally confused for a second, then suddenly upset. "My...Paulie, I haven't got a boyfriend, there hasn't been anyone for months. I thought you knew that."

We promised to keep in touch, and she e-mailed me a few times with news. Not feeling able to reply as I would have liked - begging her to come back to London, to me -- I replied with jokes. She did actually say in a couple of mails that she was coming down for a few days to see her folks, and would I like to get together for a drink. Each time I said I had other things on. Much as I would have loved to see her, I didn't see the point: she was there and I was here, besides which I didn't want to hurt myself even more by seeing her face and hearing her laugh again, rekindling all the old feelings I was trying to bury, then waving her off back to bloody Glasgow. After I turned her down for the second time the e-mails stopped. And not long after that, my life changed dramatically.

I wish I could honestly say I ever really loved Melanie, but the truth is I drifted into marriage almost without noticing. She was someone I'd known slightly at school, short, curvy, blonde, passably pretty, not exactly the brightest light in the room -- completely different from Jenny in so many ways. Mel was sweet-natured and affectionate; yet as early as our wedding night, when I rolled off her and she lovingly traced her lips and fingers across my chest, I lay back staring at the ceiling knowing I'd made a dreadful mistake, and probably ruined both our lives into the bargain. Jenny couldn't find the time to come down south for the wedding -- I'm not even sure why I invited her; she sent me a very sweet card though, saying she was dead jealous, and she hoped Mel appreciated how lucky she was. Oh, and by the way, if I changed my mind at the last moment give her a call. Not that I took any of it seriously of course.

Jen's career was soaring in Glasgow, and I saw her name occasionally in the staff bulletin: promotion, heading up a new project, company rep on a local business committee, another promotion...The one that knocked me sideways, though, six months into my marriage, was when I read 'Jennifer McAlpine (Special Projects) has announced her engagement to prominent Scottish financial journalist Nicholas Flower'. I knew nothing about the guy, except that the article said he was 12 years older than her, but I instantly hated the bastard's guts. That was probably why I went on a solo drinking binge before going home that night, provoked a huge row with a completely blameless, tearful Mel, and threw up on the new front room carpet.

You know your marriage is in trouble when your cute blonde wife is squirming beneath you on the end of your cock, and behind your closed eyelids you're re-running old movies of your forehead being kissed better by a woman you haven't seen for the best part of two years, who's just got engaged to another bloke at the other end of the country. Everything about Mel irritated me -- her wheedling voice, her inane conversation, the way she never argued with me about anything, even the feel of her hands on my skin. I got especially ratty on the rare occasions she called me 'Paulie' -- only one other person had ever done that. So, after eight months of wedded unbliss, I left my sobbing, uncomprehending wife standing on our front step and moved into a smart but soulless bedsit flat to try and rebuild my wife. When, a month or so later, Mel forwarded the invite to Jen's wedding I tore it into tiny bits and got drunk again.

Over the next 18 months I buried myself in my work. Before long I had a promotion, glowing performance reviews, brilliant account balances, and no social life whatsoever. One of my managers told me I needed to lighten up, otherwise wouldn't live to see 40. That seemed quite ironic when, three weeks later, he dropped dead with a massive heart attack on the golf course at the age of 46. About a week later I was told I had a new boss. Guess who? Strictly speaking Jenny was my boss's boss, but he was sleeping his way to his pension so it was me who had to 'interface' with Mrs Flower on almost a daily basis. Her bastard husband, as I thought of him, had arranged a transfer to his paper's London office in order to move with her.

The first time we met again I felt my guts lurch with emotion. She told me she had heard my marriage had broken up, and how sorry she was. She had sadder eyes than I remembered, and she looked quite upset on my behalf, which I thought was touching. At first she tried to re-establish something like our old jokey relationship, but I just couldn't make myself join in. I tried to maintain a polite but cool detachment, and over time an almost visible wall of distance built up between us. It wasn't my prediction of her becoming my boss coming true that got to me; it was everything else that had happened since that evening in the pub when she kissed my temple.

The truth was, I couldn't bear to be in the same room with Jenny. Any thoughts that I might have got her out of my system went straight out the window. The team would be sitting around a conference table, and all I could concentrate on was the swish of her hair, the graceful curve of her pale throat, her pretty laugh, the occasional whiff I caught of that jasmine perfume - and the hollow feeling knowing that she was going home every night to sleep in another man's bed. A couple of times I was caught out apparently daydreaming in meetings, and I saw Jenny glancing at me, sometimes with irritation, at least once with what looked like concern. After a couple of months I couldn't take it anymore. I knew that I had to get out of there: to another company, another city, whatever, just away from the woman my heart was breaking over on a daily basis. So I started putting out a few feelers, and calling in one or two favours.

Things really came to a head one Friday evening when Jenny and I once again found ourselves together in a pub. Well, us and about 40 other folk, celebrating my manager's long overdue retirement. I was lined up for his job, so I should have been in cheerful; but after an entire afternoon closeted with Jenny and a couple of other colleagues, inches from her as we went over some figures, I really wasn't up for a joyful celebration. She had seemed unusually moody in the meeting too, which hadn't helped. So she was propped up on the bar with some fellow managers, I was hunched at a table well away from her with a couple of other miserable sods. As the evening wore on I couldn't help noticing Jenny's voice getting gradually louder, and more strident. Every time I glanced in her direction she seemed to have another glass of something in her hand. When I'd known her before, a single glass of fizzy white wine in one sitting had been about her limit. I hadn't intended to stay late, but just before ten I was still there when one of the managers sauntered over and squatted beside me. "Jen's going it a bit strong tonight Paul. Look, you've always got on well with her. You couldn't have a word, could you, before she makes a total prat of herself?"

My immediate thought was, why me? I wasn't exactly sober myself by that time, she was surrounded by fellow managers, and I wondered what planet this guy had been on if he thought Jenny and I were getting on well. But despite everything I knew I couldn't sit by and watch her humiliate herself. So I insinuated myself into her group, sidled up to her and asked, as discreetly as possible, if she thought it was maybe time to switch to lemonade. She reacted like a caged tiger - a very loud one. "Cher-rist Paul, who the fuck do you think you are, my fucking mother or something? Sod off - if I need advice from a junior member of staff I'll send someone to look for you."

Her roar rendered the entire pub silent for a moment - quite a feat on a Friday night! I felt my face flush with anger and my eyes prickle with tears of utter humiliation. Shouldering my way through the knot of colleagues staring awkwardly at the floor, as nervous laughter began to resume in the bar, I headed straight for the exit. It was a foul night, with cold, hard rain teeming down: exactly matching my mood. As I scrunched down into my inadequate jacket and stalked towards the tube station, over the sound of the rain I heard the clopping of female shoes running along the pavement, and my name being called. A pale hand with long red fingernails grabbed my arm and pulled at me. I whipped round in a fury and spat "Look, fuck off will you Jen? Just...fucking fuck off, okay?"