Three in a Bed

Mon dieu! A few interesting days of speculation and intrigue. After the swift, ungainly exit of evil librarian, my social spotlight was back on the quiet affair of Melissa and Paul.

A brief explanation, if you want: the day we went to lawn bowls (The Amber Social), Paul and Gill (who was the unnamed co-worker, if you recall) chatted about the 'incident' in the pub a couple of weeks back. It was resolved as much as two drunk people could resolve a drunken incident. (Remind me never to drink too much. Really). Anyway, when we went to the Chelsea after lawn bowls Melissa, who is pretty good friends with Gill, started ranting at me about how wrong the whole incident was and 'bragging' about how she knew Paul suspected that she knew about it but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing for sure.

As I wrote previously: "Paul was up to his usual tricks, this time with Melissa. My question is whether he uses pool to feel up his underlings or whether he was just completely drunk again and this is his true nature coming through. Melissa, for all her posturing about what happened the last time (she was told about it), didn’t exactly tell him where to go. Paul is a sad, sad drunken man."

In that paragraph I seem to place the onus on Paul. I have since found out that this was unfair because Melissa is just as much to blame. A week after that night, the two were once again seen sitting very close, speaking very intimately, in full view of a number of people in the pub. This meant that the incident went beyond a one-off. Melissa, just for extra sauce, is engaged to be married to Shaun in December. Shaun plays soccer with us on Sundays (when it's on).

Since then, they have been quite careful and I've not seen anything particularly untoward. However, last Friday night (while three of us were speeding up to Newcastle), Sarah, our new receptionist, saw them canoodling outside The Oaks in Neutral Bay as she drove home. (For the record, Paul and Sarah both live in Neutral Bay and yes, that is the same pub as the one we went to after lawn bowls). On Monday, Sarah, not knowing the relationship history of either party, happily remarked to a group that also contained Nick and Lizzie, "geez you guys were out late on Friday!" Apparently Paul went icy cold and clipped the conversation short. So... something is up and he doesn't want anyone to know about it.

Dougal, who is an acquaintance of Sarah's (and also witnessed the second pub incident), kindly informed her of the situation. And what a delicate one it was. Sarah got angry that Melissa was conducting an affair but had the discretion to keep quiet about it, vowing to find out more from Paul. I await her update in his words.

Anyway... on Thursday I caught the train a little later than usual. I sat on the upper level at the very back of the carriage. I was just staring blankly into space when I saw a guy in sunglasses standing in the vestibule on the mezzanine level on the opposite end of the carriage (ie, slightly below me but about 20m away). I thought it was Paul but convinced myself it wasn't because he doesn't catch the train - he lives in Neutral Bay where there are buses (and no train station). Then I got suspicious. If Paul was around, perhaps Melissa was around? Unfortunately I had a view of the backs of people's heads.

The train stopped at Chatswood and he was gone (he was standing by the door). A line appeared at the stairwell and there was Melissa. I said 'hi' and we chatted about how it was weird that one never saw all that many people on the train, considering that so many of us catch it at the same time of day. As we were walking towards work, Kevin joined us off the same train. Melissa mentioned that she actually missed a train and had to catch one to North Sydney and wait for another to go to Chatswood.

We reached our building and Paul held the lift for us, as he had been walking ahead. As we were bitching about the train (it paused for a rather long time at Wollstonecraft) he mentioned that he caught the train today. Nice, I thought, get it out in the open to alleviate any suspicion. Melissa posed 'really? I thought you usually caught a bus?' (another nice open/throw off remark). I asked him which station he got on at. He replied 'North Sydney'.

Okay. I don't know about you, but I'm adding two and two and getting 'affair' here. Two people who know each other well cannot - CANNOT - get on the same carriage of a train at North Sydney without noticing the other. For starters, the train beyond North Sydney is practically empty, and so is the station platform. Why would Paul catch the train? He would have to catch a bus to the train station and then the train instead of one bus. Why would Melissa catch the train to North Sydney and change? She catches the train from the city, so the next one would go to Chatswood, saving her from changing. I'm speculating pre-work liaison or something.

Last night I accepted an invitation to play poker in the boardroom after work. Shaun came along (and won both games, dammit!). Interestingly, Melissa sat herself opposite Paul rather than Shaun. Shaun sat next to Paul. Nothing particularly suspicious happened, although there were a couple of times when Paul and Melissa went off together in (otherwise) perfectly innocent circumstances, such as when they went to the bottle shop together to get more beer. The other thing I noticed is that Shaun is a lot like Paul in a number of ways (I won't enumerate their common traits here). Then it got me thinking - are they in an open relationship?

So I got home at around 12:30am. I had a shower and during that time my phone recorded 6 voicemail messages. I picked them up - they were all accidental calls from Melissa's phone (my name begins with 'A' so I get a lot of accidental calls if people haven't locked their phone). In at least three of them I could hear Paul's voice as well as Shaun's and Melissa's. That got me thinking - are the three of them going home together? Did I just eavesdrop on a preliminary conversation before a menage-a-trois?

Aaargh! I don't know what to do! They are obviously together to some degree. They obviously wish to keep this liaison hush-hush. Unfortunately, it affects myself and the other people who know about it (namely Sarah, Dougal, V1 and V2 - maybe other isolated persons who we haven't identified yet). It affects us because we don't approve of it and yet it is technically none of our business, so in trying to remove ourselves from the affair we change the dynamic of our working relationship with either or both. So it is our business. Can anyone tell me what I should do?