He edged the silver Mercedes into nervy traffic going Eastbound towards the City. Red brake lights sparked all around, as uneasy drivers were spooked by the downpour they were locked into at sixty miles an hour.

It was only after a period of acclimatization to the conditions that Jacob noticed the opposite carriageway, where there was no traffic at all. It wasn’t much further before the cascade of ominous blue flashing lights exploded into view. Here he had to be even more wary, because drivers’ attention on his side was distracted, trying to rubber-neck a chaotic scene they could barely make out.

He noticed the catastrophic damage to the upside-down vehicle, the unusual colour of which made him peer more closely than he should have. In the magnetic spell of the image, he only just avoided the fast approaching back end of a container truck, hastily applied brakes causing it to fishtail a little. He managed to stop within a whisker of his own disaster.

A foul journey compounding a disappointing day where, for the first time since their arrangement began, she hadn’t shown up. He didn’t know what that might mean. There had been no last-minute message and when he tried, there was no response to his calls to that special phone she kept, just for him. The last message he had received—only yesterday—had confirmed the meet was on.

Usual place. Usual time. Three years to the day. One night only.

Their home had been rented out since the split, but only on 3-year contracts, with one month short. He had made that very clear in the agreements and no one had complained. In fact, on two occasions, the departing tenant had taken a month off abroad and signed up again, once they were done with their two days together.

But not this time.

Maybe it had run its course; maybe her husband had found out somehow and put a stop to it. Something wrong with one of her kids. Maybe she had decided it was time to move on and simply call it a day, once and for all.

At this stage, he had no idea.

He tuned from the usual mix of banter and pop music on the late afternoon national radio to a local station for the weather and traffic news. They were spouting clichés about the heavy rain and atrocious driving conditions. The news was thick with delays and accidents throughout the region, like the one he’d just passed. The one he’d forgotten about almost immediately.

He refocused on getting home in one piece in the even heavier traffic building up as he neared the city and the rush hour kicked in. The trip was never an hour nowadays, like it was back then.

After they first met on the party cruise on the Thames, they were rarely apart. Six months of parties, exotic travel and erotic nights led them to the swifter than logical marriage. And there on the sunset beach in Antigua, with just the few friends and family they paid for, the knot was tied.

They decided that the then manageable commute was better than living in the city. With her love of dogs and horses and his for fishing in the quiet, slow-moving river at the end of the garden, the property was chocolate-box idyllic. Oak beams, honeysuckle caressing the front approach and the so romantic thatch had provided them with their perfect home for the first years.

But whether they fell out of that new love as humdrum set in, or the difficulties they had in starting the family they both wanted, it simply wasn’t to be. They agreed—amicably, sensibly even—to go their different ways.

§§-§§

The place had been as he expected. The expensive specialist cleaners came in right after the tenant left last week. It had to be perfect for their occasion and it had taken him a while to find a team who could fix the place up exactly as he wanted it. The 400 thread Egyptian cotton placed on the bed as she always liked. Immaculately cleaned. For their two days, it could easily have been an extravagance.

For three years’ worth of new memories it wasn’t, but maybe, after the no-show, it seemed so.

He’d waited and waited.

The Krug was chilling perfectly in the fridge set at exactly the right temperature. They would have one glass before and finish the bottle afterwards, in the glow of their embraces and warmth. Then dinner at the familiar restaurant down the road and back to recreate again the passion of their very early days together, just for that one night, before returning to their real worlds.

§§-§§

It had been seven months after the split before they met up again, ostensibly to tidy up the legal and financial details. They were both wealthy enough to not have to fight, but even though they were both seeing new people, silent secret signals between them in that lawyer’s office, triggered a mutual agreement to find a room that very afternoon.

They knew they couldn’t be together permanently, but they could not be without each other, just once in a while, so that is what they decided, there and then, spooned together under the duvet of a four-poster in a country house suite close to where they had signed themselves apart.

“Let’s do this again,” they agreed together.

And so they did, every three years on the same date, without fail, for the last fifteen years.

Until today.

He’d been there at their usual 2 o’clock. Nervously peering up the lane of ancient exclusive and expensive cottages, nowadays only affordable by the wealthy. Refurbished with their Agas, Mieles and Villeroy and Bochs.

Simply perfect for the imperfect lives of people, just like Jacob and Emila.

His next two relationships failed because he’d spent all his emotional energy in Emila. What he had left wasn’t enough to satisfy the dreams of the two women who wanted him. His emptiness at losing her meant he could not find enough passion with anyone else again.

But every three years, he found it returned for a few fragile hours and apart from the occasional nights of release that he found with the right sort of women, he saved himself—his unburdening of love—only for Emila and the triennial sacred tryst they shared.

§§-§§

He rarely saw anyone in his apartment block, what with busy couples hardly ever there, to distant owners secreting assets in bricks and mortar far from the prying eyes of their homelands, it was a cold, cold place in the sky.

His phone warbled as he opened the multi-locked door of the loft overlooking the river. The very tone of the voice which asked him to identify himself answered all of his questions in those moments.

Now he understood the stopped traffic on the other side of the motorway. That little something that told him to look across, despite the danger and the slivers of azure blue paint on what was left of the ancient soft top she cherished.

He found the estate agents number.

“I have a lovely place to sell, down by the river. Available immediately.”