'To keeping silence I resigned.'

The flight to Trinidad & Tobago was quick and painless, fortunately it was not fully booked so I didn't get stuck with somebody wanting to talk in my ear the whole way. I was met off the plane by the local equivalent of Andrew, Phillipe who was a transplanted French Guinean, although he spoke very good English. Accommodation had been arranged close to the airport, we were a ways out from Port of Spain, the Capital City, although the area we were in, Arouca, appeared at 9:30 pm at night to be a pretty descent size. Tomorrow we would be making our way to the City of San Fernando where the Company that was hiring us was located, this was all new to me so I nodded or commented as required as Phillipe reeled the information off.

Phillipe dropped me off and in the same efficient way that Andrew did, made sure that everything that was meant to be organised, had been and once he was satisfied with the answers he got from the front desk he bade me goodnight and left. I had not turned my phone on and when I did I noticed a text message from my wife, opening it it read, _'where are u? wan cum dancin? me an patrice at fellows niteclub. hurry.' He went to answer the text, looked at the screen for a long moment trying to compose something, he was too pissed with her attitude to even want to get into that conversation about themselves, nothing really came to him for another minute then he said what he really felt outside of his anger, 'I miss our kids. i miss my family.' _He choked back the emotion with an 'ahem' more or less to himself, weren't anybody around anyhow, shook his head and walked to his room. He collapsed onto his bed staring at the ceiling fan. He spoke to no one in particular, “ah well tomorrow's another day.” He could see his wife's smirking face and her issuing a comment like 'No shit Sherlock!'

I opened my eyes to the daylight streaking in through the curtains that did a poor job of eliminating the entry of the damn light. My eye's focused on one of the other bodies occupying the room, She looked like she'd spent the night inside a tumble dryer, her hair was a mass of strangled boffiness and she was barely able to fit on the two-seater she had managed to squeeze herself into. Without looking I moved my arm across to where my Husband's sleeping body would be, my hand hit a whole bunch of nothingness. Maybe he'd gone for an early morning swim, now there was a good idea. Well it was a good idea right up and until it wasn't, my simple brain had started to filter some of what I was remembering from last night and it wasn't pleasant, any of it, there was big gaps in it as well and I didn't know whether that was something I should be concerned about or not. I raised myself up and swung my legs off the bed, I looked at my body and realised somebody must have undressed me and put me to bed, my bra was off but my panties were still intact, god looking at myself, how the hell did I get so filthy as in dirty, not depraved, although the latter may have a very slight ring of truth to it. I can't figure why my head doesn't hurt, guess luck must of played a part, I know I remembered being pretty drunk last night at the end of the nigh...... oh now I remember, I think I threw up, yeah I did, a lot, oh my god in a car, oh god...... all over Patrice.

She sat turning things over in her brain, trying to recall what happened. During a moment of clarity, one thing occurred to her now that stood out above all else, at some stage she had lost her dress, she thought that was all that she'd lost, no wait, she lost one of her shoes too, she remembered looking for both and then someone gave it back to her. ANDREW! Thats right Andrew was there. She sat mulling that over. Oh god no, Andrew was there. That thought and others she didn't want to think about carried her off to the shower, She needed to wash off last night and try to best understand what happened to her, she'd wake Patrice later and see what she knew.

The first tears fell while she stood in the shower, What an idiot, why didn't I just stay home and make love to him, last full day today and we're probably going to end up tip-toeing around each other. She ended up making a deal with her maker that if her husband could see himself being able to forgive her for her little indiscretion and it was just that nothing more, well she was reasonably sure, then she would promise never, ever to go down this road again. 'Please God, just please let him forgive me.'

Once refreshed, well she was at least felt physically clean, she decided to get rid of the dirty sheets. She didn't recall him being here when they got home, oh she didn't really know, she was guessing, wait maybe he didn't get home at all, his clothes weren't by the bed, was that a good thing? maybe it was. Maybe, just maybe he'd gone out and got drunk and he'd ended up .....know wait that's not worth thinking about either, really, it just exacerbates things to further problems. Maybe though between our two indiscretions there is some common ground that will allow us to fix things, to make thing's right, to build around a common forgiveness, yes, correction by misdeeds, we were both just humans, not faultless, but forgiving.

As she pulled the dirty sheets off the bed and started to work into her day, with a renewed confidence that they both could fix their problems together to rebuild a newer stronger relationship, two things happened which were about to torpedo her plans. She walked past the low table where she spied a new note, on top of what was her note to him, however it wasn't the note that had attracted her attention, it was the bright round golden object that sat on the note, the ring she had lovingly slipped over his finger when they were married. She stood and stared at it and as the tears came to her, the second torpedo was about to hit when she felt Patrice's arm rap round her shoulder and she spoke, “Honey, I know it's bad but we'll get you through it, we'll help you get him back.”

The tears flowed and they both knew she needed time. Once she'd got a semblance of order back, she asked, “Patrice, what happened last night? Tell me, I need to know what happened, was it as bad as I think it was?”

“Honey, it wasn't as bad as what it could have been, thank god Andrew found you, well us actually. I ended up screaming the walls down when I finally found you and Andrew happened past at just the right time, he'd been looking for us, well you all night since he'd...... Ah yeah he found us and dealt to the guys who **** you.”

“**** me, what like in my ......oh god I remember now that Griff guy bought me a drink and I ....... oh god I'm a complete idiot, I never suspected a thing, I thought....”

“Andrew didn't think it was a heavy ****, you weren't comatose or anything he found the stash on them and got a look at it, but that's all I know. Anyway they had carted you out to the front door when one of the bouncers thought he'd seen both of us arriving, without partners. By that stage they were all out the door and heading up the road. He was calling the police when I got to the door, that girl Sadie said she saw you go out with a group of guys and by the time I asked the bouncer he pointed up the road so I ran down the road screaming at them to let you go. They had taken you into an alleyway and I was still screaming and pointing to anybody that cared that my friend was about to be ****. That was when Andrew went screaming past me in his car and stopped next to the alleyway. By the time I got to you they had got your dress off, but that was as far as they had got. Oh you kicked one of them in the balls and lost your shoe, I know that, Andrew said he never touched him, he was bent over on the ground on his knees holding onto his balls. The other three are lucky to be alive, well I think they're alive, anyway they certainly paid a heavy price. Andrew, your friend, he...” She stopped, she knew what she had seen, it wasn't like she could unsee what she'd witnessed, she just didn't feel the need to share it with her friend.

“He was clinical in dealing with the situation.”

I went to ask Patrice what she meant, but with the look and the little head shake she gave me, well I decided not to press her for any more information.

“Okay, so Andrew bundled us into the car, he talked to the Police that turned up, they all seemed to know him well, but the funny thing was they didn't hang around long, just like talked, picked up the guys and took them away, no witness statements or anything, just 'they're the bad guys over there, see ya later' and gone.”

“We were on the way to the medical centre when you threw up all over me, thanks for that by the way,” Patrice chuckled and I looked away and down, ashamed was how I felt despite her attempt to minimise the situation. I had certainly underestimated and undervalued this Lady, she saved my life and rescued my dignity, I owed her a lot.

“So the medical staff said while it wasn't ideal you'd obviously purged a lot of the **** out and I'd have to say a lot of what you'd eaten in the last week. It was to late to do anything about it but They wanted your condition to be monitored which Andrew and I did till when ever, this morning, Andrew woke me at six and said you were stable and no bad symptoms or abnormalities and that he'd be available today if needed.”

“Oh one other thing, he never contacted your husband, however he said that the police more than like would, today, honey he was just letting you know the situation okay, he said there was only so much he could make go away and some things were not in his control. I still don't know how he managed to get what he did smoothed away so easily.”

“Honey I, no we both saw the ring on the note, no we didn't read it we both knew the significance of the ring, I guess Andrew even more than me, he took ....” she stopped talking, she hoped her friend was enough not listening to everything she said just sound-bytes here and there. Anyway she wasn't getting any please repeats.

Patrice decided she had just dodged her second gaff, even though she had pulled herself up she didn't look at her friend lest she see the panic in her eyes. God she didn't care how she found out that her husband was no longer in Aruba just as long as it wasn't her having to tell her. With that in mind, she decided a withdrawal maybe in order, Oh she knew she was coming back, she just needed a regroup, a pause and a coffee or preferably a strong Gin. She would be back in an hour or so, Patrice figured time enough for her friend to read the note from her husband, maybe find out some truths and let her prepare for the emotional roller-coaster, well both of them really.

After Patrice left I felt very alone, Oh I knew what was in the note was going to hurt me one way or another and Patrice was allowing me some privacy with it, I picked up his ring, held it in my hand, went and sat at the table and prepared, would of murdered a coffee but then decided it would more or less not stay down anyway, I really didn't want to read his note, I knew I'd broken his heart and I really didn't know how I was going to unbreak it, finely I looked down at his handwriting on the page, and read.

I awoke early, my day was laid out for me, I had tasks or set tasks to achieve. Frank and his team would be on their way today, he still would not be aware I was here, hmmm don't know that he's gonna take that situation all that well, we'll work through it though. My main task was to lay down a basis that Franks team could work off of, highlight our main agenda and our common goals, brief outline of the integration process, and an even briefer set of examples. It was important not to get weighed down with details, that was the job of the team. What stood in our favour was the involvement and practical example set by Blindstaple-Magnusson, as well as some minor integration between the Companies. Actually I needn't of worried at all, as the CEO of the new consortium said, it was nothing more than a clear-cut decision to accept our programme, it countered a lot of the production integration problems, procedural and training problems they had identified. As well as that and with the assist of B-M their computor wiz's had an early grounding in our programme what they were really interested in was the extent that we could customise their programme without falling foul of compatibility with B-M's programme. That I freely acknowledged was out of my realm but I told them that the team arriving had the where with all to do exactly that, customise to suit. By mid afternoon I was back at my motel awaiting Frank and his team.

When They arrived I guess one word emphasised Franks feeling as to what his partner was doing here, perplexed.

Actually it may have explained his feeling, it didn't however explain his mood right there or then. A gesture of a simple finger point towards one of the motels conference rooms saw us both heading there. What followed was what could best be described as a verbal admonishment concerned mostly either around me pulling my head out of one or of my orifices or alarmingly his orifice or horror of horrors my wife's orifices. Well after listening to him for fifteen minutes and nodding appropriately he told me I needed to sort out my personal problems and stop using the 'damn' business as my own 'damn' bolt-hole. Finally we both stood looking at one another, he obviously wanted an answer of some kind. I looked at him said “Sorry” and walked out the door.

I briefed his team on what progress I'd made today and what would be expected of them all tomorrow and in turn they took it upon themselves to be both impressed and relayed in pretty expansive terms the game-plan to Frank.

After all that talking I decided we were all going to get drunk, they all spied the black card pulled from my wallet and handed to the bar manager. To a man, well and woman, two of Frank's team were women, excellent at what they do, single and loving it, if the rumors were right, anyway they had the goal set for them for tonight and so they undertook it with gusto. I was just getting into the rhythm of things when my phone rang, the number was one I definitely didn't know and when I asked who it was the answer I got was definitely not what I wanted to hear. It was a Police Officer calling from Aruba and once I identified that I was who I said I was, and yes I was no longer in Aruba, also I verified the name of my Wife, well that immediately panicked me and then relieved when he told me she was well and living, then panicked again when he informed me she had been indecently assaulted. I was just about to tell him not to give up his day job after that because he damn well sucked at this one but decided that it probably wouldn't help with getting the right answers out of him, so I let him explain.

Thank God for Andrew, that man is invaluable and by the sound of it Patrice as well. What wasn't good was my Wife's ability to get so well and truly duped by her would be attackers. What angered me most that despite my warnings she thought she knew better than me, I am not negating the point that I was wrong, I should have told her what was going on, but the position she placed herself in reeked of stupidity or the fact she just didn't care, one way or another like I said I was angry at her attitude, did I really want to fix this situation or just accept that walking away maybe the best situation. If she felt that I was interfering then this more than like would happen again. The other thing that worried me was this incident occurred damn near twenty-four hours ago, most probably while I was in transit so why had she not contacted me? Why was it an Aruban Police Officer that had let the cat out of the bag? More to the point what was the situation with her right now?

The text I sent left no doubt as to what I wanted to say to her and at this stage I really didn't give a toss what her feelings were, 'why am I being told you were ****, ****, sexually attacked? and why being told by an aruban police officer ringing me up, why would you not contact me yourself, obviously you must still be a big girl, who still doesn't need my help. I will bow out then, hope you have a safe flight home, kiss my babies for me if its not too much of a inconvenience and i'll see you when i get back. your husband?' That was it, I was done with her nonsense, I had nothing more to say.