From: Elise Waterford ([email protected])
X,
You bastard. Elise 7: X minus 1.
Elise
Elise met Jim early on Tuesday morning at the ice cream bar in Harrods. In person he looked just like his picture, tall and willowy with a hint of muscle in the arms, blond locks sticking out waywardly in a tousled mass on his head. If he’d just kept his mouth shut he would have been a perfect date.
After half an hour with him Elise could entirely understand why women never spoke to him more than once. It wasn’t that he was a chauvinist, quite the opposite in fact, he was just so opinionated and crushing of everything that didn’t agree with his world view that he unintentionally put her down several times. After having something she said utterly rubbished without any reasonable premise or explanation for at least the fifth time Elise could feel her temper flaring and decided to change the subject before she said something in anger and quit the whole project.
She asked how he got on with the kids at the school. Suddenly he changed and warmth seeped into his tone as he discussed the kids. He didn’t particularly enjoy his job and very quickly his tone became unbearably pretentious as he discussed a musical he was composing for the school play but it had been there...a brief flash of warmth underneath the arrogance and bluster. It gave Elise pause for thought.
After another painful half hour she stopped him and asked for some names and details with a vague idea in mind of what she was going to do and left him in the shop to get busy.
It turns out I was right to be scared. Jim may be a handsome chap but in person he’s as smooth as the offspring of a porcupine and a rusty cheese grater. After an hour in his company I couldn’t bear to go back to his house as I had with the others and left him at the place we had coffee to come straight back to my computer to get to work.
He was utterly crushing. Everything I said that didn’t agree with his beliefs was just dismissed or trashed without explanation or logic. I have never before met anyone as vocally narrow-minded as this man. It was weirdly childish in a way, like when a boy declares that girls are stupid with no real understanding of why or how he thinks that. There was no arguing with him because there was no logic there – you couldn’t debate the premise of anything because each thought or idea was just cut dead in its tracks with contempt. It was bizarre.
And then we moved on to the utterly ridiculous. In a desperate attempt to find something he couldn’t be rude about I asked him about his job. There was a brief flash of something human under his glacial exterior and then he spouted the most outrageous tumbling of pretentious drivel I have EVER heard. It seems he is writing a musical to be performed by the kids at his school all about the ‘emotional response of special needs children to music of the 21st century’. I just about snorted ice cream through my nose. What man in his right mind would write a musical for a bunch of 5 to 7 year olds on a topic like that? I can’t even begin to describe the mental images scrolling through my head but I can tell you they involved toddlers in togas with stick-on beards. Worse, can you imagine the total bemusement of parents coming along to watch the school play and being confronted with a group of such young kids trying to portray such a concept? If it hadn’t been so earnest I’d have been laughing out loud, but as it was I left feeling grumpy and irritated and in need of a hot stone massage.
This week is going to be an epic challenge and, strangely, possibly just as emotional as the last two. I say this because of that tiny little flare of humanity that came to life when he thought of the kids. Somewhere underneath that glacial, rude and abrupt exterior is something warm and alive and it needs to be brought out of its shell.
Many years ago I read somewhere that the persona we present to people is not necessarily who we really are. We all wear masks as a result of our upbringings and childhoods. They’re protection against the world we live in and not a true reflection of what lies beneath. The saddest thing is that most people don’t realise that. There are few people I know that have been on a journey of self-discovery to understand themselves and even fewer who have truly faced what lies within. I personally have been through the counselling process and I can tell you honestly that it’s a brutal process. To understand how you came to be who you are, you need to strip yourself right back to your basic components and look at how they were formed together to make you. You need to accept that you do have faults and that, in some instances, your own complacency allowed others to shape your personality in a way that’s not for the better.
To understand who you are you need to understand how you came to be.
I believe that Jim has been through some things in his life that have forced him into a caricature of himself. I don’t believe that anyone can be so glacial and arrogant without having been forced to be that way because of some great hurt or trauma in years past. I know that underneath his obnoxious exterior there is something warm and fuzzy dying to be nurtured. What I don’t know is if I, personally, am strong enough to change him.
It’s one of those awful situations where you have to be cruel to be kind and what I have in mind is going to hurt him. It’s going to be a journey that takes him to the darkest places of his own mind and forces him to re-evaluate everything that he believes about himself. I know. I’ve been there. I wanted to give up. And now I want to inflict that on someone else. However prettily I wrap it up and however much I know and accept that it is for the best and will help him, I just don’t know if I have the guts to hold his hand on the first few steps of that journey.
Will seeking out his demons to slay them awaken my own?
***
To: Mr X ([email protected])
From: Elise Waterford ([email protected])
X,
I don’t really know why I’m writing this email but you seem like a kind and good person and I don’t really know who else to speak to about it. My boyfriend just agrees with everything I say, my boss will support whatever will help me get through the feature and I don’t even know if my friends back home are reading my blog. Whoever you are, you seem genuine so I’m going to go out on a limb and trust you. I’m really struggling this week. I never thought it was going to be easy but I certainly never expected it to be so emotionally challenging and draining.
I didn’t expect to see so many facets of myself in these men, especially Jim. He was so horrible, so abrasive. It scared me on a very deep level that I could so easily have turned out that way if I hadn’t had help right when I needed it most. I’ve never talked about my experiences to anyone other than a counsellor and now, here I am, expecting him to confront his issues for the sake of some silly magazine feature. It seems so painfully hypocritical that I don’t know if I can live with myself right now. I’ve spent the last hour crying over my stupid blog post. Are you there? Can we talk?
Elise
To: Elise Waterford ([email protected])
From: Mr X ([email protected])
Elise,
Firstly, you can trust me absolutely. These conversations are entirely confidential and will never be seen by anyone other than me. Secondly, I have to be honest and say my leaning is to push you to stick with it because I enjoy reading your blog. It’s funny and heart-warming and you’re really making a difference to these guys. That said, if it’s affecting you on this level then you need to do what is best for you. If it’s getting too much, and this is not because you’re tired or a long way from home, then hand in your notice. I said I would be here for you to talk to and I meant it. I’ll try and give you an unbiased opinion.
You’ve obviously been through some dark times in your life and this project was bound to stir up some long forgotten feelings. It’s hard not to see yourself reflected in the people around you. We’re human. It’s how we identify ourselves...by looking for the familiarities in the people around us. It makes us feel at home. Sometimes those familiarities aren’t positive. It’s how you deal with the situation that defines you, not the fa
ct that you recognised the darkness in you.
Ever yours,
X
To: Mr X ([email protected])
From: Elise Waterford ([email protected])
X,
I don’t believe in asking people to do things I wouldn’t do myself, so if how I deal with this situation is what defines me then here is my confession.
I married young. I was 19 and we’d been together for 6 years, all through senior school and college. We did all those things that young couples do...started saving for a house, talked about starting a family. It was like some advert for marital bliss. Two years later Max was killed in a car crash. He’d been drink driving and none of it made any sense because he told me he’d been working late. I found out at the funeral that he’d been having an affair with not one, but two of my ‘closest’ friends. I stood there watching them put him in the ground and all I could think was that I wasn’t just losing one person, I’d lost four. I’d lost my husband, my ‘friends’ and myself. They say that once something is seen it cannot be unseen. I lost my innocence that day. I couldn’t believe I’d been so duped and so stupid. I wanted to crawl inside my own skin, driving myself crazy wondering how many of the people I had surrounded myself with knew about it, how many of them had been laughing at poor, stupid, loyal Elise behind my back.
At first I was angry and ashamed and then I ran the whole gamut of emotions from denial right through the grieving process. To accept it, I had to learn how I could have been so self-destructive that I ended up in that situation in the first place. It was a brutal process. I had to re-evaluate everything I thought I knew about myself and look at it deconstructed in the cold light of day. I nearly didn’t make it through. Suicide crossed my mind more than once over those long and dark months but in the end I resisted the temptation and somehow came through to be the woman I am today.
I don’t regret it. It’s the only thing that’s keeping me going this week. What I went through taught me the value of life and of love. I’m a stronger, better, more resilient person for having been through it and most days I’m glad I chose life.
There. I’ve said it. I have trusted you in the same way that Jim will have to trust me. I hope his journey is as healing and strengthening as mine was and I hope I can do him the justice that I had when I was going through it. I don’t know that confessing it helps, but I suppose I feel closer to him now that we’re in the same boat. Maybe that will help me help him. Who knows?
Elise
To: Elise Waterford ([email protected])
From: Mr X ([email protected])
Elise,
I don’t know what to say that won’t sound like a cliché. Thank you for your honesty, for trusting me with your secret. Suddenly your empathy and insight make more sense.
All I will say is this – you have to understand and experience the darkness to truly understand the light. I won’t pretend I know what it’s like to walk through the shadows that you have, but I can tell you that to stand beside you is to bask in the radiance of your goodness. You overflow with light. Whatever you feel, and however much you regret or reflect that dark time in those around you, that’s not who you are any more. You have more joy in your heart than almost anyone I’ve ever met in my life and in a strange, twisted way that’s something to be thankful for.
You should go call someone you love, someone in your family. Eat some cake or, if you haven’t got cake, eat chocolate. Get warm and feel loved. You need some downtime. I’ll be up all night and I’ll leave my computer on if you want to talk again.
Ever yours, in darkness and in light,
X
When Nathan stopped by that night he found Elise crying in the bath. There were empty chocolate wrappers all over the bathroom floor and a cold cup of tea on the side.
“Oh my God!” Shocked he grabbed a towel from the radiator and pulled her up into his arms. The water was freezing. She must have been sat there for a couple of hours at least. “Elise, what’s wrong?” He lifted her bodily out of the bath and hustled her into the bedroom where he briskly towelled her down and pulled a dressing gown around her. “Speak to me sweetie, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t think I can do it.” She sobbed. “It’s so cruel.”
“Do what?” Bewildered he helped her through to the kitchen and sat her at the table while he put the kettle on.
She explained through her tears that she had decided to organise an intervention for Jim. She had contacted all the women who had spoken to him online and asked them for a brief video account of why they had no interest in speaking to him again. Before she could help him she needed him to understand what the problem was, that his manner was too awful for anyone to want to love him. Only by accepting that he needed to change would he accept the help she had put into place for him and the manner of his accepting had to be so deep and profound that there was no way to do it gently. She had spoken to his parents and discovered that he had changed after a particularly messy break-up at the age of eighteen and that they thought a broken heart was the cause of his current attitude problem.
The only way she could fix him was to play him the videos of these women telling her exactly why they didn’t like him and then put him through counselling to challenge the basis of his being, to try and change his way of behaving. But the videos were harrowing...the women were both blunt and honest and Elise knew that she wouldn’t have the strength of character to sit and listen to anyone saying those things about her. And then the counselling...it would take him right back to the darkest days of his life and force him to examine them in detail.
“I can’t do it to him. I can’t.” She wept over and over again. “Those videos are so hurtful. I can’t do it. Not for some stupid magazine article.”
“Listen to me.” He gathered her into a hug. “You’re not doing it for the article. You’re doing it for him. If he hadn’t been so lonely in his life he wouldn’t have been internet dating in the first place. He’s looking for a companion and you are trying to help him get one. No-one said that was going to be an easy or pleasant process and you know yourself that the last two weeks have been massively emotional for all concerned. The way I see it he has three choices. He either accepts the help you’re offering him and goes through this process now, he continues the way he’s living and faces it ten years down the line when it’s so much more ingrained and inclined to be a lot worse, or he spends the rest of his life alone. Of the three of those I think your way is the least cruel.”
“But I have to break him.” She sobbed. “He has to be a broken man before I can put him back together and it will take weeks of counselling. I can’t just do it over two days and then leave him to fend for himself.”
“Can he afford the counselling?” Nathan asked and Elise shook her head.
“The magazine is paying for it. I’ve set it up through the expenses for the feature.”
“Then you’re not leaving him to fend for himself.” It seemed simple to him. “You’re still talking to Mark and Dave aren’t you?”
“Yes.” She snuffled but her tears seemed to be slowing down.
“So why should this be any different?” He reasoned. “He’s going to continue getting the help he needs and you guys will still be speaking a week or a month or even a year from now. This is the opportunity of a lifetime for him.”
“What if he hates me?” She snuffled, the sobs almost completely stopped by now.
“He might resent you at first.” He wasn’t going to lie to her. “But eventually he’ll come to realise that you did the best you could for him and when he meets a woman he’ll realise he has you to thank for it. You just need to make him understand before he starts that it’s not going to be an easy process.”
“That’s a difficult conversation to have.” She said quietly. “I don’t know that anything I can say will prepare him for it.”
“As long as you try.” He rocked her gently, kissing the top of her head. “You’re a goo
d person Elise. He’s in good hands.” She took a long, deep and shuddering breath and then some of the tension flowed out of her. “Why don’t you go and get into bed?” He suggested. “I’ll bring you a cup of tea through. Do you want me to stay over?”
“Yes please.” She still sounded miserable but she wasn’t crying anymore and she obediently went through to the bedroom. A few moments later he heard the hair dryer start up.
He was just fishing the tea bag out of the mug when her mobile rang. It was charging on the kitchen worktop and she clearly couldn’t hear it so he picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Nathan, it’s Taylor. Is Elise there?” Nathan squashed down his jealousy.
“She’s just drying her hair. I’ll ask her to call you back.”
“No it’s okay. I just wanted to check she was okay. Her blog post wasn’t her usual cheerful self.”
“She’s not.” Nathan gritted his teeth. “I came in to find her crying in the bath surrounded by empty chocolate wrappers. This feature is really taking it out of her.”
He could hear Taylor blowing out a long breath. “I had no idea.”
“She’ll be fine. I’ll stay with her tonight.” Nathan flexed his neck. “She’s almost halfway through. This week has just been a tough one.”
“Okay. Take my number from her phone. If it looks like it’s getting too much then call me and we’ll work something out.”
“I will do.” He had no intention of doing anything of the sort but he wasn’t going to say that out loud. Taylor hung up without saying anything else and Nathan sighed, setting the phone back on the work top. He didn’t want to wish the time they had together away but he would be glad when this first six weeks were over.
Summer Loving Page 12
