91Èȱ¬

I had a boyfriend at University who was a bit of a waster. Whilst my time was spent writing essays, working split shifts at a local hotel and taking minutes for the Students Association, his strengths lay in rock climbing, smoking dope and listening to Captain Beefheart records. He used to think of himself as a free spirit, a child of nature who felt in touch with the earth and eschewed the corporate dollar. In reality this meant that he signed on whilst his mum paid his rent. Working was for mugs. Why give the b*st*rds the satisfaction of working you to the bone, when you could be skimming stones, pitching a tent or looking at rainbows?

We met at a friend’s party. Our eyes collided, the thunderbolt of lust hit, his girlfriend dragged him off, sulking. Two days later he skateboarded into the hotel reception whilst I was on duty. The wheels rattled alarmingly on the parquet floor, hit a brass runner and the board flipped over, sending him headlong into the desk where he landed more or less at my feet. He gazed upwards with his sky-blue eyes and pleaded: ‘I love you. Please go out with me’.

When he put on his wounded puppy face, there was not a soul alive who could say no. He was, probably still is, charm personified. When his eyes looked deep into yours, you were the centre of the universe; but not just any old universe – his universe. The unfettered joy he took in living everyday was tempered, even honed, by a public school upbringing. He would open doors. He was always courteous and polite, happy to carry your bags for you. Old ladies loved him.

I was lured and willingly captured. I found him electrifyingly sexy. Strangely though, he was not exactly good-looking – sandy, thinning hair not long for this world, prominent nose. Glasses. Not much taller than me. Nice tight behind though.

Every time he was unfaithful to me he would throw himself into an agony of self-recrimination and tortured soul-searching. I would tell him I never wanted to see him again. He would cry, write heartfelt letters of apology, leave the country and go on long treks through politically unstable regions of the southern hemisphere whilst I fretted that my selfishness and conventionality had driven him to such extremes. After weeks of worry and desperate longing on my part, he would turn up on the doorstep with a handful of crushed wild bluebells or a beautiful shell. He would be unshaven, grimy and stinking and I could not resist him.

It ended one morning when I woke to find a much-folded note under my door. He was sorry, he had written, but he had met an old friend, they had discovered they were soul-mates and were getting married. The newly engaged couple were leaving town immediately to escape the malicious tongues of those who did not understand and wished them ill.

A year later, he was married with a child. Two years later, so I heard, he was divorced, working in finance, playing golf and doing a lot of cocaine. After a year or so in Australia, wife number two became one more piece of debris on the path of relationship destruction. He had, it was rumoured, found God.

And now? After nearly 20 years, he has contacted me. Living in Tibet and married to a beautiful Chinese peasant girl (of course), he works as a professional photographer and is concerned with healing the earth once more. His email was accompanied by a pretentious Rush lyric and an obscure line thanking me for ‘the gift of books’. What, books in general? Something I’d given him as a Christmas present? I have no idea. At the bottom of the message was a link to his web page where his photos could be viewed and bought for an extravagant price. Unless of course they were needed for an environmental cause, in which case they were free.

I have decided to err on the side of dignified silence – he will not be getting a reply!