I feel better now
At least I feel better now - Christina Preston
Chapter One
Bill and Arthur have enjoyed a friendship that has lasted now over forty years. Now in their 80s they met in the Chamber of Commerce and as professionals organised all kind of activities, social and business with great success and have remained friends in retirement.
Arthur Parsons had been married to Beatrice for the last fifty years and showed no interest in exchanging her for a younger partner. Bill meanwhile had left a stormy marriage 25 years before and set up with a charming partner, Betty, although they lived in separate houses. Betty’s husband had died very young and left her with limited resources. Bill paid her grocery bills and managed her garden but he would not help anymore and after twenty years and in financial straits she left him to live with her daughter in North London, humiliated.
Arthur and Beatrice had suggested to Bill that losing a perfectly pleasant partner in his seventies might not be a good idea and advised him to organise a better financial arrangement at least. But Bill refused, although he had several million in the bank. He wanted to leave this to his four daughters although she had well paid jobs in the law. In fact, Bill was not prepared to recognise how much Betty had been doing for him.
Peter started looking immediately for a new paramour. Still good looking, young at heart and very fit, Bill was targeted by neighbours of the Parsons who ran a Marriage Bureau for the over sixties. These agencies were very short of suitable men.
The women were rich as well so Bill’s meanness lost its disruptive power. He dated several powerful women. But he came to the Parsons for advice because all the women were targeted on marriage. They had paid very high fees to find a new husband and they felt it was their right. Marriage was anathema to him – which did not please the highly paid representatives of the marriage bureau either. Of course, the men do not pay fees as they are a scarce commodity- but they are expected to pay the game.
A partnership cemented at St Paul’s
Gradually the cracks began to appear. All overtures of marriage were repulsed by Bill. So Gill, who had contacts at St Paul’s Cathedral, tricked Bill into attending a ceremony at the altar overseen by a priest where they took vows of eternal partnership ‘til death did they part’.
Gill had asked for an eternity ring from Bill at Xmas that now in February was blessed by the priest as a symbol of their eternal bond. Gill was in a shimmering grey outfit with a grey hat trimmed with netting. Bill did not believe in God anyway and went along with this farce just to keep the peace in darned tweed sports jacket and crumpled slacks. But they were alone in this tryst, and Bill did not tell his family, or the Parsons and their friends about this afterwards.
To Bill’s embarrassment, however, Gill put the photo of them at the altar on Facebook and announced their lifelong partnership vows to everyone she could, waving the eternity ring under their noses. As you would expect all the friends and acquaintances were delighted to hear about this late flowering of love in their eighties. Gill made sure all the evidence was on Facebook along with pictures of the couple in restaurants, visiting monuments and at charity events. They were still each living in their own homes but seemed to spend most of their time in happy jaunts. They displayed boundless energy for their age and even took off for India for three weeks.
Unwittingly the Parsons came to the rescue again. Bill was always invited to their soirées where he set up a relationship with Gill, a widow also in her eighties. She had obviously been a great beauty in her youth and still dressed well and sparkled socially. She had been big in the charity world and gained all kind of gongs for her selfless dedication to people in need – quite a catch, although the Parsons all might have expected Bill to go for someone younger. But to be honest it looked to the Parsons and their social group like a partnership made in heaven.
Gillgate
Beatrice was the only one who was uneasy and looked for an opportunity to ask Bill how he felt about this increasing commitment to Gill. Bill was often at the Parsons particularly picking Arthur up for their Tuesday pub lunch. This had become a tradition in their retirement and they had invited along another couple of men friends. So one Tuesday, when Bill was waiting for Arthur to put on his coat, she said quietly, “Where is Gill today, Bill while you are out? How is it all going?”.
“Funny you should ask,” said Bill. I had a dreadful row with here this morning because she wanted to join the pub lunch. I explained to her this this was a Boy’s Own but she was very angry and said that going out with the men threw my loyalty to her into doubt. What I said was I’ve been meeting my friends for lunch on Tuesdays for the last thirty years and was not going to spoil this tradition for some weird idea Gill has about loyalty.
So there you are Beatrice. I know Gill is very possessive, but my Tuesdays are sacrosanct”.
Beatrice was somewhat mollified by Bill’s vehement defence of his freedom to do as he wished. But then lockdown was announced and gave Gill just the opportunity she wanted to isolate Bill from his friends. She insisted that Bill should live with her so she could look after him – although neither of them can cook. Once she had Bill under her roof, she asked all his friends to copy their emails to her as well on the grounds that he was not ‘compos mentis’. She also took the handset away when Bill was talking to Arthur and would not let him speak.
Beatrice was alarmed and spoke to one of Peter‘s daughters, Caroline, who is a solicitor. She was already clear that relationship was abusive and coercive. Caroline spoke kindly to Gill saying that her father was clearly too much of a burden and should come home with her. At first Gill said he would need a full time carer as she was doing so much for him. Then when this did not work, Gill insisted that she was very ill and needed Bill to look after her. Nevertheless, keeping up a front of studied politeness but firmness, Caroline managed to take her father home with her.
But Bill is lonely and admits he enjoys the excitment of being fought over. Gill and Bill have resuscitated the relationship three times since he left her in lockdown. As a result there have been several escalations of this situation recently.
Gill is very keen to be admitted into Bill’s friends‘ activities and embarasses everyone with effusive greetings and unwanted gifts of her old possessions. Beatrice generally smiles a thankyou and sends the latest gift of a cassette or an old blanket to the charity shop.
But now a more sinister thread has appeared. Gill has begun to send long and abusive emails to her professed ‘very dear Beatrice’, accusing her of having an affair with Bill. These emails are also copied to Bill and Arthur and to their friends. Nothing seems to stop Gill from accusing Beatrice of this dalliance: not her denial, not Bill’s denial, nor conciliatory emails trying to elicit the reasons for the attack, and even some proof?
Finally, Beatrice, who has tolerated this abuse for the sake of Bill and Arthur’s friendship, decides she has had enough. Gill has been demanding the return of a silk evening coat that she had forced on Beatrice when she admired it. So Beatrice wraps it up in a parcel and includes the following letter that took her a couple of days to write. When it was completed and the parcel sent, recorded delivery, she felt as if a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
Chapter Two - The letter
11th August 2020
Cc Arthur and Bill
Dear Gill,
I had an epiphany last night. So much were your accusations weighing on my mind about my affair with your escort, Bill, that I forgot to put out the bins.
My husband, Arthur and myself have replied with kind and conciliatory replies to your abusive emails but this has not mollified you over the weeks so I have decided to tell truth to power. At least, I am thinking, putting my point of view will make me feel better.
Telling truth to power is my profession. Do you know that I am a researcher of international repute with many awards to my name? In this spirit I thought I would analyse the facts you report in your torrent of emails to Arthur, my husband and me as well as the sequence in which you change and alter the ‘facts’. My forensic study of your treatise on the subject of the ‘affair’ make interesting reading. I have extracted the different themes from your confused and contradictory narrative as I would do in the reports I have written for governments all over the world. And like many government reports it is hard for the reader to believe the facts they are presented with.
Your telephone ‘apology’
Firstly, I made a special study of the email ‘apology’ you sent when even you thought you might have gone too far in your groundless accusations. I added to my study the transcript of your ‘apology’ phone call the next day which I recorded. Either you have never made an apology before, or you have no idea how to make it convincing when you do not mean it.
The main issue is that your apology makes no reference to the suffering you have caused Bill, Arthur and I over the last two years. The text is all about you and your efforts to exonerate yourself from the blame for hounding us. The most imaginative part of your ‘apology’ is the reference to your fall in the park with Bill last Sunday. When I would not let you gate crash the men’s lunch on the following Tuesday, you blamed your fit of temper on the extreme pain you were in - not pique that Bill was lunching against your express orders. Worse these orders were issued without consulting him on email to all his friends after he had left your house that morning.
I must say this next passage is particularly heart wrenching,
“Then on Tuesday in moving around so much making breakfast, intense pain set in. I thought of calling an ambulance, thinking my spine was in danger. My Doctor was very reassuring, sent me strong pain killers and now keeps checking. The injury is, in fact, mainly to the coccyx”
So it turns out not to be a broken spine, but a pain in the butt. What unusual restraint you showed in not reporting this terrible pain to Bill when you fell on Sunday and when he was with you on Monday. You continued not to mention your pain when he left you on Tuesday morning!
But after he walked out of the door after a row about where he was having lunch, you called in hapless witness to prove how long-suffering you had been. Poor Phil, one of your many minions,
“called in on Tuesday to check on his telephone connection work and can confirm the pain I was in as this was before the medication had arrived.”
What a clever dramatic twist highlighting your amazing self-control. All credit to you, , that with great bravery you did not reveal the real reasons for your anger on Tuesday until Thursday when all the other excuses you had made did not work with us. I think to say you should have been an actress rather demeans your achievement - your vocation was definitely to write the scripts.
Hacking Bill’s emails
However, the main cause of your downfall was trying to threaten me with two ironic emails I had sent to Bill, copied to Arthur, on one of the times when Bill left you, or was it you left him? Hard to keep up. To those of us on the sidelines these antics of a woman who is almost ninety are amusing. But you made a bad mistake telling me you had kept copies to threaten me, as you began to realise.
So, between a rock and a hard place, you tried to blame a ‘well-wisher ‘ for forwarding my emails to you - even implied this was my husband, angry about my affair with Bill. When I explained that this forwarding was technically impossible without revealing the email address of the offender, you called in your own technician. In your staged ‘apology’ phone call you explained, in an innocent little voice, that a technician who had been called in on Thursday had inadvertently lost all your emails. Oh how convenient.
The actual reason for your call was to tell me that you had arranged for all the evidence to be wiped before my university legal team and technicians impounded your devices…But sadly, paedophiles and other criminals are horrified when they find that the evidence they think they have wiped can still be found in a mirror store on their devices and in the Cloud.
But I hope you are now sufficiently warned not to send any more abusive emails, or to phone us as your call will be recorded. But, of course, all our friends have copies that you sent to them. You tried to enlist their involvement on your behalf when you could not force your will on Bill. This was a step too far. Our friends are embarrassed and bemused. What were you thinking of?
Holding hands on a charity walk
But for me, the most serious of your crimes against Arthur, me and Bill is that I now hear that you started the rumour about Bill and I having an affair as a result of gossip that we had been seen holding hands on the Rotary Charity ramble over two years ago. This final revelation about starting this rumour about Bill and me has been the last straw. Or was this the famous ‘well-wisher’ again, the same clever one who hacked into my emails - or was it Bill’s emails? - and sent them to you to reveal the steamy affair we were having. This would all do well in a detective film. Have you been watching too many in lockdown?
If you, again, cite a 'well-wisher’ on the charity walk I have a photograph of all your young and impressionable followers on that day walking to raise money for your Azoor charity. I will systematically ask each one of them if they reported this hand-holding to you. I will also find out who else knows about this shameful lie in order to hound down the culprit.
Serial abuse
Arthur and I will be celebrating our fifty years of faithful marriage next year. Bill who will be at the celebrations is an honourable man whom you have abused in several ways. Your constant reference to the blessing of your partnership with Bill in St Paul’s Cathederal is somewhat undermined by the fact that Bill says he does not believe in God and attended the ceremony to keep the peace.
On the other hand, you say in various different ways, and I quote:
Our vows have made us a couple – partners for life’ ….‘ It has never been a good practice, Tina, to interfere with other people's partnerships or marriage.’
Reading these protestations it is hard to understand why you would go through a fake ‘marriage’ ceremony at St Paul’s with Bill who, according to you, is having an affair with me!
To think this calumny has been deliberately circulated to anyone at the mercy of your keyboard is more than even my patience will put up with. Find a more positive use of your energies.
Attempted suicide
In my opinion, in fact, you do not understand your own furiously jealous instincts. I do not think that your real problem is the belief that Bill and I are having an affair. I think you object, viscerally, to the close and loyal friendship over more than forty years between Bill and Arthur. It is a delight to see them chatting, often in German. This friendship gives them great pleasure in their old age. But this friendship is anathema to you because it excludes you when they are together socially. Think about it.
I know you will not read the sequential facts in this letter. You are not capable of rational argument as you are so busy changing the facts to suit your own apparently very high opinion of yourself.
I suspect beneath all the bluster and self-aggrandisement you actually have low self esteem - but this is not my problem since you have attacked my integrity and my marriage. As I have said the best I can suggest is some serious therapy with a professional with whom you are prepared to tell the truth - but I am pretty sure you are not well acquainted with the truth in this instance.
I have a worry though. If these confections about your pain and suffering do not propel Bill back into your orbit, I fear that your next move will be to stage another health emergency or to fake suicide in order to get sympathy. I suggest you do not prove me right as I will then have won the contest between us.
Nevertheless, I have, as you know, asked Rotary heavyweights to keep an eye on you. Do not complain. This is for your own good. I have told them I have serious concerns about your mental health and do not wish my refusal to accept your ‘apologies’ about hounding me to be another reason to stage a scene.
Legal issues
When I explained in detail that it is a crime to hack into other people’s emails and keep copies to threaten them with you replied:
I have decided not to answer this email fully now, without the advice of a legal adviser.
If I were you I would not waste your money on legal fees in an argument you cannot win, as you have been so unwise as to record your muddled thinking on emails to many in a way that does not augur well for you. Evidence is evidence. Since all your exonerations of yourself do not hold water you are not in a strong position. In a legal battle the lawyers will obviously make use of my research into your dubious grasp of facts. This letter, with your emails attached, will make a better case for Arthur, Bill and me than you for yourself against us all. How ridiculous that you have allowed this attack to become more important to you than the pleasure of friendship and the peace you should be enjoying in your last years.
What Bill does is his own business. But neither Arthur nor I want anything more to do with you. You have successfully upset us when we have many particular health challenges and family issues. You have shown no mercy also in the pandemic when everyone has serious matters to address. Yes, growing old is not for wimps and we are all in pain in one way or another. Just find some more good works to do and leave us alone.
Your emails to Arthur and myself will be blocked and I have notified my university that for the time being the situation is hanging. But I have asked the legal and technical services to keep the matter on file.
Our preference is to hear nothing more from you. Try to find a better way to use your undoubted talents in the future.
Warning
Don’t mess with me, Gill. If I suspect that you are bad mouthing me I will publish this research report on one of my websites entitled, Well, now I feel better!. I will then use my extensive social media presence to draw the attention of your friends, associates and connections to this article: a few will not get the point, others will be shocked at your perfidy, some will find it sad and some will find it all highly amusing. You do not want to know which category those who know you fall into, do you?
Some indeed will think it cruel to bait a little, old lady. I thought about this, but decided that it is an equal contest when it is one little, old lady fighting off another little, old lady.
Just to reassure you that you have not done as much harm as you would like to have done: domestic harmony is restored and our bins will go out next week.
Stay well, but well away from us.
Dr Beatrice Parsons
Professor of Power Politics
By the way, there is a disjointedness about your prose as well as a confusion about facts and sequences that you may want to have checked. You might want to use a grammar checker in the future. Your use of commas and full stops leaves a lot to be desired.
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