June 1998

It is difficult to explain 1998 without explaining 1993. In October 1993 my Grandma died. It happens to almost everyone of course but I had grown up living with my Grandparents so it was more akin to losing my mother. This meant that my Grandad, who had a stroke in 1991 and could barely walk, was left on his own and this of course led to my returning to my home town of Peterborough every weekend. It cannot be underestimated what this did for my social life. Over the period of the next four and a half years the friends I had in Peterborough dwindled and disappeared and any chance I had of making new friends in London were suffocated by never having the opportunity to socialize at weekends. During the summer of 1997 I had also relied on handouts from my deteriorating Grandad to help pay for food. He would pay for my petrol to come back and forth at weekends plus a little extra that I would use for basic supplies. In January 1998 I saw him for the last time. During spring and early summer I made all kinds of excuses not to travel back to Peterborough. In reality I couldn’t stand it anymore – I had watched him descend into the depths of despair and in some cases what seemed to me to be depravity. The whole situation of course filled me with guilt for not going to see him but I was also angry at how I, who lived 100 miles or so away, spent more time visiting and doing things for him than his two sons who both lived less than a mile away. After four and a half years it was their turn to contribute – they didn’t like it – but such is the measure of desperation of an overly proud and stubborn old man that he turns to his sons when his favourite grandson stays away. It really should have been the other way round. He died in July 1998 on a Sunday after, the rumour is, a Saturday night of whisky and pills. The doctor had visited him on the Friday and told him he was being taken into care on the following Monday which he always said he would never allow to happen. He got his wish of being ‘dead and out of the bloody rotten road’ and seemingly by his own hand as he had threatened a hundred times before. It was a relief. He was not the same person that I was raised by but rather a broken shell of a man destroyed by the grief of losing his wife almost five years before. Upsetting though it was he had made me promise to him when I was 6 years old that I would not ‘cry when he was gone’ – I never did and never have.

Rewinding back to June I had on occasion spoke to Christine and discovered that she rode horses. I would visit the lady who sat opposite Christine every day or so as I sought to make contact as much as I could and as Christines desk buddy owned horses, and I had more than a passing interest having had riding lessons for a couple of years, it soon became my ‘in’. Casual conversations became email trails and we seemed to hit it off. Respective girlfriends and boyfriend were still in the way though but during one week in June we somehow agreed to meet up over the coming weekend. We spent a long day together walking in the New Forest and had an enjoyable time. Jemima strangely enough did not feature as I was still a little apprehensive at the prospect of Christine failing the sniff test. I need not have worried so much.

The following Tuesday Christine came over and met Jemima for the first time. I came through the front door greeted as usual by my crazy black furry girl but I ushered my way inside more quickly than usual. Jemima suddenly saw a new person in the doorway and went berserk – and so did Christine. I felt the relief drain through me as I realized that here was a real dog person that knew all the moves required to entertain an excitable dog such as Jemima. I even started to wonder who was enjoying it more. After watching and enjoying the moment for a couple of minutes I left them to it while I sorted out drinks in the kitchen.

Within a few days Christine and I dropped all other incumbents and ‘became an item’. I confessed my numerical advantage in suitors and promised she would be the only one who would receive my affections. That is other than Jemima who was always to be number one.

Spring 1998

Soon after the first time I ‘noticed’ Christine I found out through a few discreet enquiries that she already had a boyfriend and one of longstanding service at that. I also found out that he was 15 years or so older than her. I sensed it would only be a matter of time before the relationship would end, since she was still only 22, as I imagined she would outgrow him sooner or later. I decided to bide my time. In the meantime though I carried on as before – not really looking around and I was happy in that. It was then that I met another addition to the company who caught my eye.

Up until now I have used everyones real names but in this instance I will use the pseudonym that Alan gave to a particular girl – girlfriend 56. I suppose Alan gave her that nickname as I had been meeting all kinds of girls and bringing them home. It had for the most part been on a friendship basis that I was acquainted with these girls but to an outsider looking in I guess it would look a little like I was playing the field. Truth is I get on better with women and found friendship easier to come by with the fairer sex. Back to the explanation though – the real reason I am using the girlfriend 56 pseudonym is that I was, and still am, ashamed of what I did to her. Not because that anything I did was terribly bad beyond the usual men treat women badly generalisation. No the reason is that she was innocent in every sense of the word and did not stand a chance because of my inability to overcome my failings and show her respect.

Girlfriend 56 went to church every week and was a little inexperienced in relationships which relatively speaking was diametrically opposed to myself. I think she was also very attached to me and tried to fit in with the way she thought I might like things to be. This meant that I had, and knew that I had, the upper hand in how the relationship progressed and on occasion I used this to my advantage. As was usual my yardstick of whether she measured up, namely how she was with Jemima, came into play. Miss 56 didn’t pass the test. She was scared of dogs and obviously uncomfortable with Jemima. This was difficult because Jemima being the over friendly, although gentle, creature that she was would try to play with her but get nothing much back. In fact on one occasion when girlfriend 56 didn’t think I was looking or could hear she actually told Jemima quietly to “please go away”. That was all I could take of the situation really and I should have ended the relationship, but I didn’t and couldn’t as I didn’t know how, and did not want to hurt her feelings.

So I carried on seeing Miss 56 but at the same time started getting acquainted with other girls. In fact I did more than that – I reestablished contact with Anne Marie and girl number 3 from when I found myself in the three way debacle when I was with Catherine. I also had a brief fling with a girl I had known from college who had called me up. So there I was for a matter of a few weeks with more female attention than I had ever had. Needless to say the restaurant bill for that month was rather large – £550 plus. Which probably worked out at around £150 per girl in the end. Add in the times that the bill was split or when I didn’t pay you can hazard a guess that I ate out perhaps 12 to 16 times that month. What I enjoyed with that whole experience however is while there was undoubtedly sex involved it was not my driving force. I would hazard a guess though that all girls concerned would not approve and being older and wiser for it I would agree. Such is the measure of youth though and you cannot legislate against it. In any case I would have, and eventually did, drop all of them for the chance to be with Christine.

Autumn 1997

Alan moving in was a positive event on two counts. Firstly the financial pressure was removed and some normality could be gained. Secondly it meant that I could go out in the evenings when he was around at weekends. Jemima would not be left alone in the house and I could get some respite from the situation. After a couple of evenings out, and some initial attempts at finding another girl, I realized that ultimately I would need to find someone who would take Jemima on as part of the ‘package’. It was a scary thought as I suddenly felt perhaps not too dissimilar to a single parent looking for a new partner. How many women out there would see themselves in a long term relationship with a man who already had a dog? Not too confident a start for someone who a year or more earlier epitomized the image of ruthless womaniser. The truth though was that I never was that person – just someone who had never learnt how to say ‘No’ and to be strong enough to stand by the decision.

The search began in the most logical places, those that I frequented regularly, which in my case was the office. I felt like, and probably came across as, desperate. My own preference was always that something felt natural, free and easy anyway so forcing myself into a positive search was unnatural. In the short time that this lasted I looked at every single girl in the office, who were not too numerous, and tried to figure out if I fancied them or not. Then I tried to work out whether I could see myself being with them for a long time. In all cases I found zero matches. This made me very downhearted for a time as I could not see a way out of the impasse. My next move felt like a comedown for me at first. I phoned Ed.

Ed had been a good friend from my old days in Peterborough Youth Theatre. He had joined after the successful showings of Grease and West Side Story that we had put on and was one of the ‘new’ people that had come along as a result of the positive fallout of those productions. He was different from other kids my age and I got along very well with him. He had a similar view of the world as I did although his capacity for procrastination would infuriate me at times. He also had a number of odd habits and insecurities that were both annoying and insufferable so over time I had purposefully stopped seeing him. He did like to go out though and was more in the zone of looking for women than Alan. So I called him up and we made plans to get out and enjoy London. At this point I had also decided that perhaps looking for ‘the one’ as it’s called seemed a bit pointless. So one Saturday night Ed and I went out for a drink and unbeknown to me he had arranged to meet up with a group of girls through another girl he knew from work. Ed worked at the BBC so I was very interested in these high flying media girl types although when talking to them they seemed normal, if more intelligent than most. The girl that Ed knew from work however was something else. She was an Irish redhead who could talk, was ever so slightly strange, and was completely uninterested in me. Me being me I just forgot the thought and tried to impress myself on another tall girl from the group. Later in the evening we found ourselves in a nightclub at an 80′s night. I really let my hair down as the expression goes. This was my music! After a short while both myself and Ed plus the redhead and another irish girl hit the dance floor and pretty much stayed there. This did it really. My moves must have impressed the redhead as we soon started seeing each other after that night.

Anne Marie was a very cultured and well connected girl in the TV industry and we got on well but it soon became apparent that she was avoiding coming out of London to darkest West Ewell. She knew I had a Dog and I assumed that was the issue although she did not say anything about it. It was paranoia on my part I guess but I set about finding out by driving over one day with Jemima in tow. When I opened the car door Jemima careered out into the street and set about meeting everyone she could see. Everyone except the girl I had brought her to see. The deal was sealed – Anne Marie had no idea about Dogs and perhaps Jemima knew straight up. Things fell apart a short while after that and had nothing to do with the brief meeting with Jemima but more perhaps my intransigence.

The search for a new mummy went on and I explained this to Jemima on numerous occasions. Quite often she would talk back and I took this to mean agreement and compliance with what I needed to do and that it meant that if I found a potential candidate I may not be back till the next morning. This had only happened a couple of times with Anne Marie but I assumed it would be the case on numerous occasions in the future. Strangely enough it only happened again one time until after I met Christine.