Categories: uncategorized
Date: 05 November 2007 12:24:50
Back in the spring of 2000, life was very different from how it is now. I was working as a database programmer for a small IT consultancy although we were in the process of being taken over by a much larger company. A company I'd worked for previously for a number of years. I was 35 years old, single and carefree. I'd been sort of seeing someone for a while but it hadn't really gone anywhere. As I only had myself to worry about, most evenings were spent in the pub with my mates.
On April Fools Day, a lady from church was having a party to celebrate her 73rd birthday. I wasn't too enthusiastic about going and to be honest, when I arrived it was pretty dire. Soon after I arrived, I spotted a very attractive lady of about my own age wearing a low cut top. She was being chatted up by some seedy old geezer who was probably already middle aged in the days of Queen Victoria.
After a while, I decided to go outside for a cigarette. The lady joined me. I think she'd been trying to find an excuse to get away from the elderly gent.
So, that's how I met V - sharing a cigarette on the balcony of a council flat in Streatham. She was an artist, specialising in murals and she lived in the same road as me The following weekend we went out for dinner. This was to be the start of a short but very passionate relationship.
We were together just over three months, but looking back now I'm surprised it lasted that long as we were so different in so many ways. Politically, we were poles apart. I'm a Guardian reading lefty and she was a Daily Mail readimg Tory. In fact, some of her opinions were bordering being blatantly racist. There was the faith thing too. I'd had girlfriends in the past who wouldn't have described themselves as Christian, but we'd always manged to meet half way. V however was a militant atheist and couldn't, or wouldn't, understand why my faith is so important to me. Well, they say that love is blind. I suppose I thought I might have been able to convert her to my way of thinking. Besides that, we couldn't keep our hands off each other!
My work at the time took me away from home a lot. My trips were usually within the UK with the occasional trip to Ireland, and I was rarely away from home for more than two or three days at a time. Since being taken over by the larger company though, some of our contracts were larger and further afield. One Friday afternoon in July, I was offered the chance to work in Dallas for two months. I had to make my mind up quickly though as the trip was to be only ten days away. I jumped at the chance.
That evening, I went out with V. I said I had something important to tell he. She had something important to tell me too. I told her about my forthcoming trip to Dallas and she told me of the offer of a contract she'd got working in Oxford, so it seemed we were both going to be away from home for a while.
The following day my choir was performing a concert. As Concert Manager, it was my job to make sure all the chairs were in the right place and to organise refreshments for the Interval. I'd roped V into helping serve the interval drinks. That afternoon, she had a meeting with the guy who was setting up the job she was going to, so we arranged that she would call for me when the meeting was over. However, she didn't show up. It got later and later and I got no reply when I tried to phone her, so eventually I went on the the concert venue without her, hoping she'd made her own way there. She didn't show up there either. I spent the rest of the evening worried sick, wondering if she'd been in an accident or something.
The following morning, she phoned me and explained that the meeting had gone on longer than expected and they'd ended up going for a meal. We'd arranged to go out for the day, but there was definitely an atmosphere. I asked what was troubling her. She insisted she was fine, but it was obvious that things weren't fine at all and I had a strong suspicion what it was.
When we got back to my flat, I asked "Did anything happen last night that I should know about?" at which point she burst into tears. She told me that she'd been to a nice restaurant with this guy, that they'd snogged but they hadn't slept together and that this was the man she wanted to be with, so it was over between us.
Once she'd left, I phoned a friend of mine and arranged to meet him in the pub. I felt betrayed and just wanted to get drunk. I also had to get my brain back in gear though as I had a week to plan my trip to Dallas.