January 1998

The events of 1997 had left me bare chested in all manners of the phrase. But there was hope. A now one year old Black Labrador had seen to that singlehandedly. The attention that a young dog required gave me focus and the blind devotion that a Dog gives their master filled my need for love many times over. Catherine was flushed out of my system more quickly than previous girls and replaced with a sense of belonging that I had not had for years. Over the difficult months that had now passed I gradually rediscovered myself once again and felt at ease in my own skin. I became very aware that this was primarily due to Jemima and I grew very attached to her very quickly. There was never a need to argue or to question or to understand – we just coexisted with no hangups or misunderstanding. It was bliss! Because Jemima was there I didn’t feel the absolute need to be in a relationship. I felt more emotionally free than I ever had been. There were still drags on my life but the financial freedom and friendship I had obtained by Alan being around and the emotional freedom from having Jemima made me feel like a person perhaps for the first time. It was at this point in my life that the next big story began to take root.

There were a number of new staff in the office and amongst them were three new girls around my ‘target’ age bracket. Amongst them was Christine. The best way to describe the first time I noticed Christine is to tell it how it happened. The company had been bought by the corporate giant that was GE the previous September and we were just beginning to see the effects of being taken over. One day the company was invited to attend a presentation and some kind interactive staff training game where we had to pass a ball between everyone present as quickly as possible. Everyone had to touch the ball once and our target was to do it inside 30 seconds. When the rather large group of people, myself included, were given the go ahead to start organizing ourselves for the task the first person to stand up and raise their voice was Christine.

“Why don’t we start by getting in two lines facing each other?” She addressed everyone present, numbering around fifty people, but was ignored completely in the melée of people itching to stand up and walk around. “Or maybe not…” she added after a few seconds making some kind of resigning gesture and then sat down again. I had noticed though and I remember smiling and thinking to myself “very interesting”. Another ray of hope and one that was completely unexpected.