Gina Thornton rang the bell and knocked on the door for the third and final time. This was her last call on her first day of community volunteering, and she was not sure if there would be a second day. With both kids at university, Gina thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to get back into the marquee rental business she started with her husband Howard twenty-five years ago. The business was her idea when she discovered the ridiculous charges for renting a tent when she was planning their own wedding. For not much more than the rental, they could buy one and rent it to others afterwards. A business was born and now they had twelve staff and a good selection of contracts and repeat customers.

Gina wondered why her husband Howard was reluctant for her to get back into the business. She suspected he’d become used to being the boss and didn’t fancy sharing decision making again. He’d stalled her by suggesting she try volunteering with the Council welfare services as a community liaison person, as a gentle way back into work. She was going to object, then thought it might be nice to bring a bit of cheer into elderly peoples’ lives for a little while. In reality, it felt like visiting her own mother several times a day; or worse, fast-forwarding thirty years to visit her own future. Gina realised she lacked the compassion necessary to do the job justice.

She examined her reflection in the glass panel of the door. At fifty-one she was still youthful, healthy and attractive. In fact, it quite surprised her when a chap, half her age, eyed her up on the bus the day before. Gina thought he must have a Mrs Robinson fixation as she bore a passing resemblance to the actress in that film. Her black shiny shoulder-length hair framed her full, sensuous mouth and dark eyes.

One of her sons' friends said she was like Katharine Ross in `Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ which was flattering.  When he thought she was out of earshot in the kitchen, he said to her son, “Your mum’s a real MILF.” Ryan told him to shut up, and he apologised. Later Gina looked up MILF on the internet and was shocked at the sites that came back. It looked like older women were very popular with younger men. It was a pity Howard no longer looked at her the way Oliver and the young man on the bus had.

Gina realised that she’d been standing at the door lost in her thoughts for a good five minutes. She turned to leave and was almost knocked over by the big red motorbike that coasted onto the drive. She was as startled as the motorcyclist, who was not expecting to find someone standing there. He put the brakes on and switched off.

“Sorry, are you okay, love? I didn’t expect to see anyone.” The voice was deep and pleasant, in contrast to the sinister outfit he was wearing. Black leather jacket and trousers with red plastic pads on the knees. Black gloves and boots and a red crash helmet. He got off the bike, and stood about six foot two, towering over her five foot seven in low heels. He pushed the visor up, but all she saw were his black aviator sunglasses, which added to the spaceman image.

Gina said she was okay, and he asked if he could help her.

“I’m looking for an older gentleman, Mr Jack McMillan, he’s a widower. I’m a community volunteer for the Council welfare services; we want to make sure elderly people living on their own are okay.”

The motorcyclist removed his sunglasses, revealing the most piercing grey eyes Gina had ever seen. Gina’s own eyes opened in shock and she could tell that the motorcyclist was smiling under his helmet as if he were used to that reaction.

“You’d better come in, Mrs…”

“Thornton, Gina Thornton,” she filled in.

“Okay Gina, let’s see if we can raise old Jack.”

He opened the door and led the way in, and called out for Jack.

“Jack, you’ve got a visitor. A lady. He’ll be down in a moment, please come into the lounge.” He led Gina into a room decorated in the rich colours of another continent. At first, she thought it was North African, but it was not quite right. “Moroccan?” she said.

“Close,” he replied cryptically. Then she heard him going up the stairs. “Come on Jack, don’t keep the lovely lady waiting.”

She smiled as she examined the foreign objects and photographs covering almost half a century. It was only when she looked closely at the photos; she recognised the man with the grey eyes in several of them.

“What can I do for you, dearie?” came a poor impression of an old man’s voice from behind her. Gina turned to see the grey-eyed man now dressed in a black tee-shirt and grey jogging bottoms and flip-flops. His salt and pepper hair and very short beard matched his monochrome outfit. His wry smile added to his attractiveness.

Gina was miffed. “Why didn’t you say you were Mr McMillan?”

“Because you were expecting an old codger and I guess a sixty-seven-year-old motorcyclist would not qualify for whatever support you are offering.”

Gina was surprised again. He looked her age and if he was vain enough to use hair dye, could pass for a few years younger.

“You seem to be pretty self-sufficient Mr McMillan; I don’t think welfare services can do anything for you,” said Gina sniffily.

“No, but you can Gina, you can save me from terminal boredom.” Gina looked at him as if he read her mind. A concerned look came over her face and he saw it. “At least have a cup of coffee with me before you go Gina.” He left the room, and it never occurred to Gina to object. She just followed him out. She wanted to find out more about this curious man.

In the large kitchen, Jack invited Gina to take a seat at the island while he busied himself at the sink. Again, there were warm colours of a foreign land, rather than the antiseptic white or cream of the popular Scandinavian clones. Gina marvelled at how everything was functional, yet stylish. Real thought had gone into the planning.

He took her coat and hung it on the door. While she was admiring the decor, he admired her figure. She filled the white sweater nicely and the dark knee-length skirt had ridden up as she crossed her legs, displaying a few inches of shapely thigh above the knee. She spun and caught him like a naughty schoolboy and he looked away, embarrassed.

“You must give me the name of your kitchen designer; they’ve done a superb job,” she said, blushing. She uncrossed her legs and smoothed an imaginary crease out of the skirt, which was now knee-length again.

Jack moved to the kitchen counter in front of her. He leaned over his shoulder and smiled, “Thanks. That will be me then; I used to do it for a living. Well, interior design anyway. I had a practice, but sold up and retired when I turned sixty.” A comfortable silence covered the sound of Jack setting up the coffeemaker. Soon, coffee ran through the percolator and its rich aroma filled the room. Gina sniffed approvingly.

“It’s Kenyan, a reminder of home, as is the colour scheme. You were close.”

Gina was attracted to the layers of the man in front of her. He seemed an exotic creature, and she felt ordinary in comparison.

He took his place opposite her at the counter and they sipped the rich liquid and let out a mutual sigh of contentment, then smiled at the coincidence.

“Kenya?” she questioned. She could not stop her nosiness.

Jack smiled at her interest. “I was born there. A Scottish father and English mother, both working for the Colonial Service of the British government before the war. He was a district administrator, keeping the peace between the rich white farmers and their poor Kenyan workers, and she was a schoolteacher. They were fair-minded people and thought everyone should be treated the same, so I attended the local school with the African kids. I guess I’ve always had an outsider’s attitude.”

Gina took all this in, thinking of the contrast with her own conventional Home Counties upbringing. Jack was a guide to a life she could never imagine. “Looks like you’ve had quite a life, Jack.” She could not keep the regretful tone out of her voice.

“Don’t sound so sad. I’m sure you have a good tale to tell, and I’ve got the time to listen.”

Mention of the time made Gina remember that she had chores to do that afternoon, and she looked at her watch.

He looked up and gave her his full attention. Those eyes. Her chest felt tight. Suddenly she felt unsafe about her interest in him. “Jack, it’s been lovely to meet you, but I have to go now.”

“That’s a shame, Gina. When will you be coming back? I am a vulnerable pensioner all on my own,” he teased, looking nothing of the sort.

“Jack, I’m not sure this visit is for me. It’s all too—”

“Old?”

“Does that sound mean?”

“No. You are too young for it, and so am I, whatever it says on the bus pass. Perhaps you could do something else for me?”

“I don’t know, what are you thinking of?” said Gina. Her pulse rose, and her face flushed. What was going on in her imagination?

“You caught me admiring your figure earlier and I apologise if I made you uncomfortable, but it was a professional appraisal.”

“That’s one way to describe it.” She blushed and avoided his eyes. She’d be safe if she did that.

“Okay, I guess you’re right, but I used to be an artist, trained at Central St. Martins when I came to the UK in the early nineteen-sixties. Would you pose for me, Gina?”

She reminded herself he had not said nude, despite what her imagination heard. She looked at him sceptically, and he told her to wait there and left the kitchen. He returned a couple of minutes later with several small watercolours. She recognised the garden and two pictures of older people who she assumed were his neighbours and even a dog. They were good.

“I need to practice, but I haven’t found a subject to inspire me until now that is. If you like what I do, I could make you a present of the finished work; perhaps your husband would appreciate it.”

Gina considered his offer. It might be an exciting diversion. “Okay, I’ll do it,” she said, feeling the need to do something out of the ordinary today. If Jack could produce something that would rekindle Howards’ interest, so much the better. Enjoying Jack’s company had nothing to do with it, she lied to herself.

“Good,” he said. His wide smile was an accomplice to his eyes. “I will need to do a few sketches to find a pose you are happy with and get you used to sitting. When you are comfortable, I’ll start painting. It will take a few sessions.”

“I think I could manage that,” said Gina, smiling. An hour before she had been regretting volunteering, but now it seemed like it could be the thing she needed to shake up her life.

That evening she had to remind Howard she started the community visiting. “How did it go? I hope there weren’t too many toothless oldies smelling of cabbage,” he said uncharitably.

“As a matter-of-fact none of them did. In fact, there was one who you would not—” She cut off. She did not want to explain Jack to him. She told herself it was because the painting was a surprise, not that she met an attractive man who was interested in her. Not that at all. She had no intention of anything happening. Anyway, Howard was only half-listening, with one eye on the TV, and did not realise she had dried up.

Gina did not sleep well; her dreams punctuated by erotic thoughts brought on by a combination of the appreciative looks she had got from Jack, her son’s friend, the young man on the bus and the pornographic images from the MILF websites she stumbled across. She awoke aroused and wet. Howard was snoring and her first thought was to play with herself; something she had not done in years. But the idea of him waking and catching her was embarrassing.

She wondered if she was a prude. Although she enjoyed sex, she was never an initiator, and she had little experience before meeting Howard. He seemed content enough with things as they were, and it puzzled her why she was suddenly asking herself the question. She went back to sleep but her dreams found her on a modelling catwalk, posing in swimsuits, day and evening wear that was part of the `hot MILF collection’. She could hear the enthusiastic comments from the male audience and responded provocatively, rolling her hips as she walked in high heels, tossing her hair and pouting. The men cheered and whistled.

This time Gina woke with an urgent pulse in her groin. Her light blue silk pyjama trousers had a dark stain between the legs and her erect nipples ached as the thin silk caressed them. She looked over to Howard lying on his back and ran her hand over his crotch. When they were courting, Howard was always pestering her for early morning sex. She enjoyed it, but not the feeling she still had a knicker full of him at lunchtime.

Another minute of her gentle teasing and he was hard, and she threw back the covers as he woke. His six-inch cock rose like a flagpole from the fly of his pyjamas. He looked at her, at first puzzled and then with a smile as she pulled her pyjama bottoms off. He was about to speak, but she put her finger to his lips and mounted him. She was so wet that he slid in easily and they both gasped.

“Just fuck me, Howard,” Gina said. She rarely swore, so the words were a real turn on for him. Gina rose and lowered herself on his cock. Her outstretched arms and hands rested on his shoulders, trapping him beneath her. Howard was panting and moaning. “Harder Gina, fuck me harder, you sexy bitch.”

The last bit took aback her, but she had started it. Howard undid her pyjama top and pushed her hands away. She fell forward, her breasts in his face, and his mouth moved from one nipple to another, sucking greedily. Gina was lying on his chest now, and Howard pumped into her with more vigour than he had shown for ages. She felt her orgasm building and had the urge to sit up and feel him engulfing her. She ground her hips against his groin and he moaned, “Oh Munchkin” and slid his hand between them, circling her clitoris with his thumb. This was not something she remembered him doing before, but the combination of external and internal stimulation was delicious and she felt tremors building. Then it was upon her.

“Oh God, Howard, I’m coming.” Her hips jerked on his groin as if she’d had an electric shock, and his thumb continued to tease more spasms from her until she could stand no more and she slumped forward on him. She lay catching her breath for a minute before she realised, he was still hard inside her.

“I always last longer going uphill,” Howard said with a smile. “Now it’s my turn.” He thrust again. The strength had gone from Gina’s legs and she just lay on top as he pounded into her. This violent penetration was so unlike him, and Gina felt both turned on and shocked by it. His hands reached behind her and slapped each cheek of her bum in time with his thrusts. Gina moaned in pleasure and pain. He had never spanked her before, never even suggested it, but here he was, taking control.

She felt her cheeks glowing. “Please, no more Howard”. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He reached behind her and felt him spreading her cheeks. The index finger of his left hand teased the sensitive opening of her bum hole. They had done nothing like this before. It surprised her how stimulated she was, both with fear and desire that he would enter her there.

She felt his balls twinge and knew he would come soon. He seemed thicker and longer than ever before. These new things were turning him on. As he came, he slid the tip of his index finger into her bum and the combined stimulus of the double penetration plus the feel of him coating her womb with spurt after spurt of come, triggered another orgasm. She cried out `Oh Howard’, but the face she saw behind her closed eyes was Jack. She was having the urgent sex she thought she would have with a man like Jack. Not that she ever had the intention of doing that.

Gina slumped off Howard and they lay for a minute listening to their breathing before she felt gravity taking its course. She got off the bed and did the funny cross-legged shuffle to the toilet that always made Howard laugh; except this time, he slid back to sleep after his exertions. Gina sat on the loo, trying to make sense of what happened. They had just made love. No, to be honest, they fucked, with a passion neither of them had shown for a long time.

She wondered what had inspired Howard to try these things. It embarrassed her how turned on and disgusted she was with herself for responding to his spanking and bum probing. She realised she had a strong prudish streak, but Howard had shown her a new side of herself. To improve their relationship, she needed to be more willing to experiment with her husband. She did not need the dangerous diversion of Jack, or the lustful looks of young men. Gina went back into the bedroom and snuggled up to her husband. She pulled his arm around her shoulders and lay her head on his chest. Howard mumbled. “Not so soon, Munchkin, Howie needs to sleep for a while.” Gina froze. She never called him Howie, and he had never called her Munchkin. Gina knew where Howard had learned his new moves. Howard was having an affair.

***

Gina fretted all morning about the identity of Munchkin. She was certain it was someone Howard met through work, and that was why he was so reluctant for her to get involved with the business again. Either it was someone at work, or he needed to get away from the office to meet this person and he did not want Gina around to clock his movements. She felt angry about the impact this interloper had on their relationship. This woman had made her husband a more skilful and attentive lover, which challenged Gina as a woman, and she felt guilty. She responded so enthusiastically to his advances. How long had this been going on? Did he want more sex? Different sex? Or just sex with someone different?

That afternoon she called into the office unannounced to see his reaction, but there was only him and Jim working on proposals. All the on-site teams were out on various jobs. She picked up their latest brochure and scanned the faces. “Is this everyone we’ve got working for us these days?” she asked Jim. He had worked for them for years and Gina knew him well, but he seemed nervous.

“That’s everyone on the books. Then there are the interns,” he added. She looked puzzled. “We have a couple of undergrads as unpaid trainees here for work experience.”

Gina had the awful thought. Howard was sleeping with someone younger than their own daughter. “Have we got any female interns at the moment?”

“No. We prefer men because of all the lugging about when we set up, but we can’t say that of course. The girls prefer the catering and corporate hospitality companies we work with.”

Gina instinctively knew that was where Munchkin had come from. Howard had been practising his new moves on her premises. But there were so many event hospitality companies within fifty miles of their Chichester office. It would be difficult to track Munchkin down.

When Howard came to bed that evening, he found Gina bathed, perfumed and wearing a lace negligee he bought her from an Ann Summers type shop years ago. She had only worn it once to say thank you for the gift because she felt it made her look whorish. But if that was what he was looking for, he could get it home. His eyes lit up at the sight of her in the black almost see-through garment, and he was soon hard. She leaned over and took him in her mouth, something she was not fond of doing, but tonight she felt dressed for the part.

Howard moaned in bliss. “Last night whetted your appetite did it, love? Do you want to try something else new?” Gina nodded, afraid he wanted to take the bum sex to the next phase. When he asked if he could come in her mouth, it was a relief, even though she’d never been keen on it. He instructed her to nibble the head and tease the sensitive glands and squeeze the base, and she realised he’d had enough blow jobs to know what made a good one. Gina felt like she was the intern being given a lesson in cock sucking by proxy from Munchkin.

After he came, not as much as in the morning, but still enough to make her gag; he went to climb on top to return the favour, but he looked tired. She felt unstimulated by the entire experience and was happy to leave it there. He promised to make it up to her in the morning.

Gina lay awake listening to him sleep. She knew she could not keep him plied with sex morning and night if he was interested in sleeping with someone else, but what could she do? Several times in the night Gina felt like waking him up and confronting her suspicions, but she did not want to risk the consequences without having evidence of his unfaithfulness. Even if he confessed, what did she want to happen? Did she want to divorce him, or just scare him? What if he just admitted it and said he would change nothing, what would she do? She slept fitfully; so different from the erotic dreams of the night before.

 Gina overslept and Howard had already left for work by the time she woke. There was a post-it note stuck on the clock. It just said, `I own you one.’ She recalled his promise from the night before. It looked like his sexual appetite had increased, but she didn’t want more sex for its own sake. She wanted affirmation that he still loved her, and while he was carrying on with someone else, that could not be the case. She remembered she was due to do another morning of visits to the old folk and then see Jack in the afternoon for the painting session. The surprise present seemed a waste of time now. She would phone him and apologise. She realised she would let him down, but she could not do it. Not now. She searched her papers for his phone number and then the phone book. Nothing there. Good manners prevented her from just not turning up. She would have to apologise in person.

Having decided that she would not go through with it, the image that stared back at her in the mirror half an hour later was a surprise. Showered and lotioned, hair shining and lightly made up, she looked ready for a social function. `I am not going on a date,’ she said to her reflection. `I’m going to let Jack down gently’. She changed her first-choice dressy outfit for a floaty white linen skirt and black tank top with a blazer style jacket on top. On a whim, she took a straw hat, as it looked like a sunny day.

She arrived at Jack’s house in the early afternoon, geared up to make her brief apology from the doorstep and bid him goodbye. That fell apart when she saw a note on the door inviting her to come through to the garden. She pushed at the open side door and closed it behind her.

Jack was not in his garden, but she saw a fence panel at the end had been removed. She could hear chopping coming from the other side. As she got closer, she saw Jack in shorts and boots swinging a heavy axe into a substantial tree. He was three-quarters of the way through. She looked at the muscles flexing on his bare back and legs. His deep tanned skin was covered in a light sheen of perspiration. There was something violent and primal about the way he worked, and she watched him in the same lecherous way that men on building sites eyed up women passing by. She must have been there for a few minutes before he turned around.

“Caught you,” he said, giving her his lop-sided smile. She was as embarrassed at being found out as he’d been two days earlier, but she noticed his appreciative gaze and how good it made her feel. Gina changed her mind. She would do this painting for herself.

“I’ll be with you in a minute, Gina”. He went around the other side of the tree and gave it a few hefty chops, and it creaked. “Stand back Gina, I’ve got wood here.” She shook her head at his awful joke but retreated as he put his foot against the tree and it crashed over. He tied a rope around its foot wide base and positioned four smaller logs as rollers. Jack grunted as he lifted the dead weight of the tree trunk onto the first roller. Gina watched him strain. The muscles in his back and legs danced under his skin. He put the rope over his shoulder and pulled the tree trunk towards the gap in the fence, grunting and flexing, as he took the weight.

Gina thought he looked like a caveman dragging an animal he had just killed back to his cave. Jack broke into her thoughts. “Don’t just stand there eying me up, Gina. Pick up the rollers and put them in front of me.”  

Gina tutted, but did as he asked. As she bent overlaying new track, he was looking at her cleavage. She did not look up. “Perhaps it would be safer if you concentrated on where you were going, Mr McMillan.” Jack’s laugh was his confession.

Fifteen minutes later, having thanked and been thanked by Mrs Silverman for the gift of the dead tree which was now lying slain on his patio, Jack sipped the tea he’d persuaded Gina to make.  

“Next time you see this it will be something artistic but functional.”

“Yes, you’ll get a lot of toothpicks out of that one.” Gina laughed and Jack scowled at her joke.

“I was afraid you would change your mind, Gina.” 

“I had.”

“What happened?”

“I changed it back,” said Gina with a smile.

“I’m glad. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again.”

How could she refuse that smile?

Gina dispensed with her jacket and was lying back in the reclining garden chair. “I love this heat.” She undid several buttons on her skirt to let the sun get to her legs. She saw his appreciative gaze and this time she just smiled.

“You’re not making this easy for me,” said Jack.

“Looks like you’re making it hard for yourself,” Gina joked. Jack crossed his legs away from her.

They enjoyed a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Jacks’ company and his home had a calming effect on her. She knew that the more she came here, the less she would want to go home again.

“Is this like Kenya, the heat I mean,” said Gina. Jack laughed

“Maybe on a chilly day at the coast in Mombasa. The heat inland is something else. It shimmers above the ground, making everything float like you are drunk.” Jack had his eyes closed, drifting back more than half a lifetime. “The heat and the smell of Africa is something you never forget. When I was fourteen, I spent my savings on an old army surplus motorbike and I travelled for a few days across the country until I found what I was looking for. The great trek of wilder beast and other animals making their annual migration across the Serengeti in search of water. I drove amongst them, the sound of their hooves and shrieks even drowning out the noise of the engine. I felt connected to something ancient and primal.” Gina looked at him, trying to see that impetuous boy.

“Later that year, I dropped out of school and lived in the bush with a family of natives. We ate when we had food, staved when we didn’t. My parents to their credit did not go mad. They understood and let me stay. When two of the family’s kids were ill, I sold my motorbike to buy medicines. The little boy made it, but the girl didn’t. After six months, I could not take it anymore. I walked back to my comfortable British life. I could play at what those people experienced, but I could not understand it. Not when money could have prevented their suffering.” His face clouded at the memory.

Gina listened transfixed as Jack described events from over fifty years ago. She wished she had been there with him, experiencing sights and sounds far removed from her comfortable, quiet upbringing. “Did you get close to any wild animals,” she asked, leaning close to him and smelling the faint fragrance of the suntan lotion she had persuaded him to put on.

“A few; lions, hypos, jackals, hyenas.”

“That scar on your arm, was that from one of them?”

Jack leaned closer and removed her sunglasses. She thought he would kiss her, and she was determined to resist. “Oh, that. Yes, I got that from the most dangerous big cat I have ever seen,” Jack teased. Gina’s eyes opened wide, waiting for more. “It was 1964, and I went to a wedding reception in Notting Hill with my mad Greek girlfriend. I started talking to another girl and in a fit of jealousy my girlfriend picked up the knife to cut the wedding cake and tried to stab the other girl. I got in the way and got this for my trouble.”

Gina was not sure if he was making it up. In her confusion, it was too late to take avoiding action, and Jack kissed her on the lips. She responded as she had wanted to ever since she arrived. Then her conscience kicked in and she broke off.

“Oi, you chancer! I’m not sleeping with you, Jack.” The words jumped out of her mouth without conscious thought.

“Thank you for letting me know. I’m knackered from chopping that tree, and I don’t think I would be at my best right now. I would hate to disappoint you.”

Gina fumed as she struggled for a retort, then gave up, knowing he would make a joke of it. “It’s getting too hot for me. Let’s go inside painter man, and you can do a couple of stick pictures of me.”

 ***

In the cool living room with the curtains drawn, Gina sat in a leather wing-backed chair in half profile while Jack perched on a stool with a pad and charcoal.

“Did you marry the Greek girl?”

“No, I married the other one, but we got divorced three years later.”

“Why was that?”

“It may surprise you Gina, but at twenty-two years old I was not the world's greatest husband.” He ignored her smirk. “Besides, I noticed she was getting the same expression as the one who stabbed me and I thought it would be good to get out before she put thought into action.”

Gina laughed.” I don’t suppose a man with your talents was without female company for long.”

“How would you know Gina; you’ve refused to sample them?” Gina blushed with embarrassment. “Unless you’ve changed your mind again.” She gave him a scolding look.

Jack had been scribbling all the while and held up his pad filled with quick cartoons of Gina’s various expressions. 

“Jack, stop messing about.”

“I’m just getting used to your looks. I need you to relax. Forget you are being sketched. Here, look at this.” He pulled out an old and well-used photo album. “As you’re such as nosey parker, you will enjoy these.” Gina gave him her indignant expression before turning the pages.

“Is this your wife and kids?” she asked, examining an early nineteen-seventies picture of Jack with a blond-haired youthful woman and a young boy and girl.

“Yes, my second one. You would think I’d have learned, hey? Dianne was an artist; the daughter of a client when I was working as a builder. I designed their lounge and kitchen and did the decorating on a prestige project. The customer was thrilled. She came home from college at Easter and saw my work. She encouraged me to reapply to St. Martins, and I finished my Art degree ten years after I started it. I owe any success I’ve had to Dianne; she encouraged me to start the business. I only wish I had been more appreciative.”

Gina’s ears pricked up at this. It seemed to mirror her current predicament. “What did you do?”

“It was a real partnership at the beginning, but then we had kids, and in the late nineteen-eighties everyone seemed to become interested in design. We prospered, and the business boomed. In those days I had a roving eye and a dick that followed close behind. Looking back, I am ashamed of the way I screwed around, but I was younger and foolish. Thank God Dianne put an end to it when she did.”

Gina’s heart was thumping. It was as if he had been living in her head for the past couple of days. “What did she do?” Gina heard herself say in a croaky voice.

Jack looked up from his pad and realised the conversation was close to home. “She gave me no choice. The day after our youngest, Alan went to university, she said she’d only put up with my shagging around until the kids were off her hands. Dianne told me she was taking a sabbatical from our marriage. Taking a year off to do what she liked, see who she wanted to, stay where she liked. She would come back afterwards and tell me if she still wanted to be with me.”

Gina’s hand went to her mouth and Jack could see she was having trouble breathing. He left the room and got her a glass of water. When he came back, Gina was drying her eyes. He held her trembling hands as he passed her the glass. He sensed it was not the time to ask questions.

“I fell apart, Gina. Then I got angry. I tried to screw all her friends and succeeded with a couple, but it did not make me happy. I did not know where she went or what she did, and it drove me mad. She stayed away for the entire year. It took the wind out of my sails. When she returned, I bluffed. Said I would not beg her to come back, but then she stood up and I begged her not to leave. She laughed and said she was only going to the toilet. I’d surrendered without a fight, and she took me back. We had fifteen marvellous years after that.”

“How did it end?” Gina asked, guilty she had to know.

“Lymph cancer. We’d were in Portugal, retired for a couple of years when Dianne went to the doctor complaining of a lump. She did not tell me. In fact, she got me looking for this place and then doing it up to get me out of the way while she had tests and treatment. She knew I would not stay in Portugal without her.

By the time she told me, she was too far gone for chemotherapy to make any difference. We had three months here before she went quickly in a hospice.” Jacks voice broke at the end and Gina jumped up and put her arms around him. She felt his shoulders shake as he sobbed. He seemed such a strong, resilient person, but his vulnerability now made her want to comfort him and drive his pain away. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I should not have kept asking.”

“That’s okay. I want you to know. There should be no surprises about me. When you come to make your decision.”

She looked at him sharply, but there was no point in arguing. They both knew where things were heading and that she would need to decide at some point.

Sat on the couch looking at the sketches, they laughed at the caricatures and she sulked about how cruel they were. Of the proper studies, they both agreed it was the worried face that captured her essence. “We are not ready to paint yet,” Jack pronounced. “Good,” said Gina, and they both smiled.

She passed him the photo album and a loose photo slipped out of the back and she picked it up. It was a picture from the nineteen-fifties of a group of people at a social event overseas. In the corner was a handsome teenage Jack staring at someone else in the picture. Gina moved her thumb and got a shock. The young, dark-haired woman looked like a younger version of her.

“Who is she, Jack?”

“Oh, her? She was the love of my life. She was the reason I had to leave Africa.”

Gina looked at Jack. How many more layers were there to this man?

“I was nineteen. Edith was the second wife of Geoffrey, the owner of one of the biggest tea plantations in my father’s district. When Geoffrey’s first wife died, he married Edith, who had been nanny to their two young children. Sounds like something from a film, doesn’t it? But Kenya in the late nineteen-fifties was like England in the nineteen-thirties.

Edith was twenty-two, almost twenty years younger than Geoffrey, but her parents were all for the match; no doubt influenced by the size of his estate. I had wanted her since I was sixteen and pursued her full of passion. When she married Geoffrey, I got so drunk at their wedding reception I drove home in a rage, hitting a goat and almost killing myself.” Gina’s hand went to her mouth, even though events happened decades ago.

“I was in a coma for two days and when I came out of it, the first person I saw was Edith. She told Geoffrey she would not go on a honeymoon until she knew I was safe. We tried to keep away from each other, but before their marriage was a year-old, we were secret lovers.” Gina made a disapproving murmur.

“We thought we were being clever covering our tracks, but one afternoon Geoffrey caught us in bed at the house of a friend we confided in. There was a fight that became brutal. I was fit but Geoffrey was a sizeable man and I am sure he would have killed me had the neighbours not been alerted by the noise.

The police arrived and carted him off to jail and me to hospital with a broken arm and three cracked ribs. It was one scandal too many for the British colonial set. The Mau Mau uprising throughout the nineteen-fifties has already damaged the British reputation, and Geoffrey had been cruel putting down insurrection amongst his workers. Losing face because of his wife’s infidelity undermined his power.

By the time I left hospital, Edith had been sent back to England and my father told me to drop the assault charges, for the good of British interests in Kenya... pompous arse. I left within a month, coming to England to find Edith. But I never did.” Jack sighed.

Gina looked at him. ‘He sees me as the love he lost,’ she thought. She sat on her hands to stop herself from embracing him.

“That’s it, Gina. No more surprises. That’s the story of Jack McMillan. Everything you need to know to make a choice. Oh, there’s just one more thing.” Jack pulled her toward him and kissed her. She responded to his passion, running her hands through his hair. She was not thinking, but this was not the time for thinking.

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Care in the Community concludes in part 2.