Putting your faith in someone to have it destroyed is a damaging experience. The fall out is nuclear. It lasts for a very long time.
Such was the way with the albatross.
With majestic ease my princess had managed to develop and build at least four differing personas. There may be more, who knows? Four was enough for my brain to try and unravel. I was simply the fourth prince charming to awaken her with a kiss. And boy had I awakened something. A spirit so twisted I’m amazed she could lie in bed straight. But lying and lying in bed was a full time occupation for this particular species of womanhood. It’s hard to comprehend how anyone could split their life into such a variety of lies and deceit and remain the very essence of calm and sophistication. But that she was. Even today if she presented herself to me, if I was brave enough to remove my hands from my pockets it’s my own sanity I would feel for, not hers.
This was not so much identity theft as simply theft. She already ‘owned’ the identities. She simply kept them alive and allowed them to mature.
By working abroad during our married life I was an easy target. She knew I wouldn’t be around. There would be no one to question the bank statements, credit applications, catalogue purchases, insurance scams, fraudulent pension claims and god knows what else. Her problems arose when I decided to return.
Expecting a wondrous reception and healthy bank balance I was met with a depressive shell in both departments. As an actress she was and still is superb. She pretty soon had me pandering to her every whim.
As the bottomless pit she had been draining disappeared the pitiful bottom I was to encounter hit me square in the face. The day was fast approaching when she would make it look as if she could not survive without my pecuniary input, and worse, she had the medical records to prove it. The persona she had built around my name would make application to a court for maintenance. She had captured my wallet by batting her eyelids and could legitimise highway robbery without the same effort.
With my sofa as company over the coming year I made excuse upon excuse to myself to try and justify the intensity of feelings and emotions that welled in me.
The bottom line was I’d been ‘done over’ by an expert.
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2 comments:
Mister October. I am enjoying your posts even though sometimes they make me feel a little sad. May I just say though that your paragraphs are coming along beautifully. Keep up the good work.
It's never easy being taken for a ride by someone you've let into your heart.
I had my own smaller version of The Albatross once (perhaps the Budgie of Bad Tidings). In my case, the fluttering eyelashes and tears persuaded certain bank managers to bend the rules and to let her empty the accounts while I was away, even though she'd told said bank managers that our marriage was over. Right after payday too.
Rules don't always apply when a woman tugs on your heartstrings.
Still, we can but try to learn from these little mishaps. I, at least, am still enough of a sucker to keep on trying to find Miss Right!
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