Followed by 'Old and Sad'? No... I am not old nor sad. I am forgotten, yes, but so is she and I did nothing to accomplish that. Well, nothing... If agreeing to make her happy helped to accomplish it, then that was my little share. But not on purpose.
Knowing what I know now, I definitely wished I had my share in her end but the stupid fool I was, did not recognise the signs.
Please accept my apologies, I know I sound confusing but that is exactly what it was.
Let me start at the very beginning. When we met, we were young and I felt attracted to her because she was the opposite of what I was. She was beautiful and full of life. She liked partying, dancing and laughing and had many friends. Her energy was almost unbelievable and to me like a glass of sweet bubbly wine.
The bubbles found their way to my heart and brains; I entered a whole new world and I loved it.
Still I never understood why she liked me enough to live with me. I was astonished when she asked me to dance with her on a party I never wanted to be but dragged to by a few friends who thought I needed to have some fun. I hated the crowd, the cigarette smoke, the make up of all the girls and I hated the Charleston. The latter because I do not have a feeling for any form of rhythm.
I hated her make up too but my heart decided to fall in love with her and the pace of my life changed.
We married, moved to her house and continued partying. With her money! I gave up my job and did not even feel ashamed. In those days you were a gigolo if you did not earn the income and your wife provided the money. That she clearly insisted was a good excuse but I should have known better...
And when I started to enjoy myself, surrounded by her friends, celebrating her way of life, spending her money on parties and travelling, she announced out of the blue she was sick and tired of this way of living and wanted a change.
At first I tried to persuade her to skip a few parties and going to bed earlier but she said this was not going to change much. What she needed, she said, was a different life, a total change.
I talked and talked but had to give in to her ideas of changing.
She (not we) sold her house and bought a house in France of all places!
Did she understand that her friends stayed in Derbyshire? Yes, she did but knowing them they would come over for holidays for sure.
What ever I said, she always had an answer and off we went, driving in front of the removal van packed with our belongings.
And indeed friends came to visit us but thought it was less fun than at home. They asked me what was wrong with my wife as she was less fun too. I explained she was tired and things were going to change for the better. But it did not.
She got more and more demanding and bossy, hardly smiled and took a great effort in commanding me. Soon came the day that friends stayed away, local visitors didn't come by any more and going out stopped. We became prisoners in our own house. Pardon, her house.
I longed for a life of my own but with any attempt to go out on my own, she reminded me I was going to spend her money. And she never failed to remind me that I lived in her house.
Silly me, where the average spectator would have noticed long ago that I was treated as a doormat or almost a slave, I still tried to see the bright side of life and still believed that one day she would become her old self again.
It never occurred to me she successfully took control over my life. She humiliated me until I was nothing more than an insect under her shoe. An insect to play with, to pull it's wings out.
Cruelty enjoyed her, it even made her laugh again but what a horrible laugh.
It started with a smile of which I thought was the beginning of her recovery. It took so long to realise she only smiled when I suffered but at this point I could not reverse our life's, let alone mine.
Her control over me was beyond the point of change.
Maybe it was a blessing what happened next, when she asked me to bring her suitcases from the attic. She said she hurt her back working in the garden and she suddenly decided we needed a break.
I was relieved and pleased and hurried upstairs while she was preparing a meal.
I hoped we were going to leave soon and took all the suitcases to our bedroom, starting to fill mine with my clothes and carried them to the car in the garage behind the house.
We had a lovely meal and for the first time in years she behaved normal. She even kissed me for carrying the suitcases and asked me to come to the garden to view all the work she had done so we could leave the garden on its own until we returned.
I kissed her in return and followed her happily, looking forward to our unexpected journey.
We walked through the garden and admired the flowers until we ended up at a large hole, hidden between roses and hedges. She stood still and with a smile explained she wasn't finished yet, the hole was for the pruned branches and old leaves. If I was kind enough to inspect it being large enough?
Happy to please her I bowed and inspected the hole. Therefore I did not see it coming, the blow on my head that knocked me inconscious. Even worse, the blow that killed me but not before I heard her last loud laugh that scared the crows in the trees. The crows that screamed my death song.
But there is no rest for the wicked and wicked she was. She filled the hole, replanted it and walked back to the house. She took a shower, put her cloths in a bag in her suitcase with her other cloths.
She carried the heavy suitcases downstairs, all on her own and to the car.
When she tried to unlock the car, she noticed that she had left the keys upstairs and went to get them.
To her anger, they were not upstairs and she was very certain they were not in her pockets when she undressed. The only thing she could think of was that she accidentally packed the keys in one of her suitcases.
Annoyed about her own stupidity, she left the bedroom to hurry downstairs; she wanted to leave the house as soon as possible. But this was a mistake. Instead of walking down the stairs, she started to run and already on the second step, slipped. She tried to hold on to the banister but could not reach it any more. Her scream was an echo of that of the crows earlier that evening and ended abrupt when her head hit the tiled floor.
 |
| Photo: @urbexsud (Instagram) |
The car and the suitcases still wait to be collected, covered in thick layers of grey dust only disturbed by spiders catching their food in large webs.
Word of thanks: the photo of @urbexsud (Instagram) inspired me to write this story and I was given permission to use the photo as an illustration for which I am very grateful. Merci beaucoup!!
Link: please visit the beautiful Instagram account of @urbexsud
Note: the story is pure fiction! A figment of my imagination!
Helen
No comments:
Post a Comment