There's No Accounting For Love

Chapter Fourteen

"Oh, Clare. Come on in." he said.

"I wanted to make sure you were all right, Alan. How are you feeling?"

"A bit better, thanks." He still looked washed out and there were dark rings under his eyes. She made him sit down on the sofa while she went to the kitchen to make tea. She returned to the lounge with two steaming mugs.

Alan had obviously been sitting at the dining table before she'd called. There was a wedding album on the table, a pair of scissors and a pile of photographs, cut into neat squares. "What on earth are you doing?" she asked, walking towards the table. It seemed ludicrous and slightly amusing. Most other people would have torn them up in a rage and let them flutter all over the place, but Alan wasn't most people; he was Alan.

He answered, "I want to forget I ever met her, that Marie."

Clare picked up the photograph album and put it on a shelf.

"Don't do anymore Alan, you might live to regret it. You might get back together."

"No, definitely not." said Alan raising his voice. "Not even if she crawled back on her hands and knees. I couldn't not after all she's done to me. No! Don't even mention it!"

"I'm sorry. It's none of my business." said Clare "I was just thinking sometimes people do. Don't torture yourself Alan. We all love you, you know that; you're like a brother to me... well you were... once."  She stopped there. 'I'm making a mess of this,' she thought. Alan sat leaning forward from the sofa, his head in his hands.

There was a pause, while Clare considered what to say next.

"I hate to see you like this." she said.

Alan looked across at her, as she settled down into an armchair.

"Thanks for coming, it was good of you, but I'll be okay once I get her out of my system. You are right Clare, I'll take it a day at a time. No other way, really. I'll be at work tomorrow."

They chatted and he told her about the time when his father died and how he'd felt. They'd hardly recovered from his mother's death when his father was taken seriously ill, with heart trouble. He died eight months later, made worse by the fact that Alan's best friend was killed in a motor-bike accident just four weeks beforehand.

"It was horrendous, someone so young, twenty years old losing his life like that. It was a particularly nasty accident. There were masses of people at his funeral."

Clare sympathised.

"I never rode my motor-bike again. It put me off for life. I sold it soon afterwards."

"So your dad did buy you a motor-bike then?" she asked.

"Yeah! I thought the world of my bike."

"How awful! I mean... the accident."

They chatted on about boyfriends and girlfriends and Clare said she'd not had many boyfriends. "Teenage boys are such jerks, I couldn't be bothered." said Clare. "I don't like Americanisms, but I like the word jerk, it seems to apply."

"And teenage girls aren't jerks?" asked Alan.

"Well some are, but I wasn't." said Clare.

"You were lots of things, if I remember rightly." said Alan smiling "but you never were a jerk!"

"Hal was my first love." said Clare. She felt a sparkle come into her eyes as she spoke of him.

"Marie was mine." said Alan "Well not quite, but almost."

Alan fell silent and Clare glanced at her watch. "I'd better be going, I have to cook Hal's dinner. It's my turn tonight. See you tomorrow then Alan, I expect you'll feel better after a good night's rest." She rose to her feet and Alan got up too. It was unusual to see him looking so serious. "You're a good friend, Clare. Thank you." Alan let her out of the door and she said "Good night, Alan" and, under the circumstances, she felt it appropriate to give him a sisterly kiss on the cheek.

As she left the building, Clare thought, 'They're right what they say about Alan, even in the grip of a migraine he looks absolutely drop dead gorgeous!' These thoughts didn't stay with her for long, however. After all it was Hal for whom she was cooking dinner and Hal who was the man of her dreams. There wasn't room for anyone else in Clare's heart.

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The next morning Bob came into their office and said "Alan around? I need a word with him."

"Yes, he's in his office." replied Clare. Bob knocked on Alan's door and went in.

Later in the morning Angie said, "They've been in there a long time, it's unusual don't you think?"

"I think they're talking about Alan's marriage break down." said Clare quietly.

"Poor Alan." said Angie "He's so nice. He doesn't deserve all this."

Clare sighed, "Oh well, mum always says 'Anything can happen to Anybody' and it does doesn't it?"

"She's a very wise woman your mum."

"Yes, she is. I hope when I'm a mother I'm as wise as her."

The weeks went by. It seemed that Alan was coping without Marie, but Angie and Clare kept an eye on him and gave him plenty of 'Tender Loving Care'. He looked nothing like his normal happy self and was pale and thin, they thought.