Thailand.

Our break in Thailand before we headed to Europe was intended to be a holiday that we knew we would not be able to repeat in the forseeable future. The cost of moving had taken it's toll and an immediate start to work was imperative. My credit card had taken a hammering and I dislike not paying it off in full every month. With the removal costs, flights, some gemstones and a holiday (albeit a cheap one) I was worrying. Unlike Claudia, I did not have family that I could sponge much more than accomodation from and I loathed having to do that, even though I knew that I was most welcome and 'My Room' would be waiting for me.

We headed down to Koh Samui and I was devastated to see that it had changed beyond recognition from my last visit in 1997. There had been so many quiet little spots and cheap, hidden gems that I had wanted to show Claudia, but they were all gone. Replaced by fancy resort developments that had DJs playing all day at the poolside with tanned and tattooed posers hitting on European and Australian women of similar spec. Very disappointing. We trundled round on a couple of hired scooters and still managed to enjoy ourselves. A trip across to nearby Koh Tao led us to some new and quiet hillside chalets where they didn't try to sell us diving trips and where we could relax with a good view of the setting sun, good food and a quiet spot to swim.

Back in Bangkok, I spent some time purchasing a few gemstones. Fossiking was a hobby that some wonderful people introduced us to in Australia. It captivated us and we spent many happy weekends looking for sapphires near Glen Innes in New South Wales and up in the north of Queensland. If you enjoy the outdoors and don't mind a bit of work, it is something you have to try in your lifetime - and go to Australia to do it. Great fun! This interest had led to us exploring the possibility of supplementing our income by trading in stones on eBay. The path to a greater knowledge of gemstones lay in having a good collection that you could compare and refer to. Bangkok is a good place to find any gem or mineral you could think of. (It is a good idea to take a look at things closely, as the quality of the cutting is generally poor and you can spend hours picking through piles of stones before you have a few dozen examples that you would feel comfortable selling or keeping in your own collection.) I was happy to further extend my credit obligations because I felt that I was securing another means of making a living in Germany that did not require extensive language skills. It was also something that we both loved doing and we were both certain back then that the two of us would be able to work very well together in our own business. We already knew that we could happily work with each other every day - in fact, it was when I enjoyed work more than at any other time in my life. We had always discussed spending the rest of our working lives in some enterprise together and it was a goal and dream that we both shared. Now there are not too many couples out there who could claim they get along that well!

At this point I made a mistake. A very grave mistake that was probably the start of The Final Countdown to our disintegration. I decided to fly to Scotland where I knew I could immediately work, stay cheaply and set about paying off my credit card. Naive idiot!

A Telling Episode!

Anyway, the peculiar side to her attitude towards friends was highlighted when a girl I shall call Heike met a Danish bloke. Heike had been a very close friend of Claudia's for years and they kept regular contact. Heike was in Denmark with this new chap and was really excited about it all. The two of them chatted, as women do, about this new man and how wonderful it all was. Suddenly, for weeks I found myself being harassed about what I was like compared to this chap. Apparently Dan the Dane was someone with whom Heike could talk endlessly, away into the night. They had the deepest of heart-to-hearts and it was so great to be able to talk to a guy like that. I, on the other hand....... well, we NEVER talked. We had NOTHING to talk about, we were both just so boring and our conversations together had so little depth and meaning. I was a little taken aback at this, it seemed to me a rather juvenile and shallow observation to make. We had been together for about three years at this stage and were well past sitting up to the wee hours putting the world to rights with our own pet theories and ideas. We knew each other well enough that our relationship had matured to an altogether different level -and that does not mean to say it was boring. We were wonderfully content together and the only issue had been Claudia's problems with work and her self-esteem. We knew and respected each other's politics, we had long since picked holes in each other's world-altering ideas - and besides we had to get up early in the morning. Still, she would nag away about Heike and Dan the Dane and go into a huff when it became evident that I was not going to be moved into an argument. I knew that there was nothing lacking in our relationship, but from the happy stories that she heard about Heike and her new lover, Claudia was not convinced.

A few months passed and Claudia went back to Germany for a visit. She was only going to be there a few weeks and had a lot of people to catch up with. Heike, (who was not so happy with Dan the Dane any more, yet still living in Denmark), was one of the people she had promised to see. I spoke to Claudia most days while she was in Germany and caught up on the news. When the time came around to see Heike and make the drive to Denmark, Claudia backed out. She said it was too far and she was too tired and had not had time to herself since she had been there. She wanted at least a few days where she could relax and did not have to see anybody. I was shocked and I recognised the significance of this. Heike had been heart-broken when things with Dan the Dane ended. Claudia had been quiet about it for fear of attracting any sarcastic remarks from me before she left, but I knew that she had spent time on the phone trying to comfort a miserable Heike and that Heike really wanted to see her because her support had been important. I tried to convince Claudia that she should go, but she would not change her mind. I got the tone of voice that you recognise in a person you have known a while. (It was that certain edge to a few phrases that are perfected as a teenager when telling parents that they just don't understand. And this when they mean "You fucking old wrinklies haven't a clue, now (a)fuck off and leave me alone,(b) give me the money that I need to do this,(c)stop trying to tell me something I have already decided I am not going to do.") Claudia was not going to budge. She had clearly had the same argument with members of her family who would have picked up on the same feelings I had and tried to get her to make the trip to a good friend who needed her. She was having none of it and she may even have hung up on me at the time, I am not certain now, but that is how vehement she was. She had made this decision days before she was due to leave and did not have the decency to give Heike a bit of warning or even think up a good excuse. I was annoyed because it struck me as a nasty way to let a friend down, it was also very rude and it was not only me who was unhappy with her decision. It was also annoying that she was now being shitty to me for sticking up for her friend.

Needless to say, Claudia regretted her decision before she even got back to Australia and tried calling Heike. Heike would not speak to her or respond to letters or e-mails. From what I knew about Heike, that would have been a very difficult thing for someone who is, by nature a very sweet and kind ( and therefore normally forgiving,) person. This was the background to another themed cry-session that would endure from then until the end of our relationship.
"How could I do that to such a good friend. She won't even speak to me!"
I offered to call or write on her behalf and chat to Heike, but she would not let me. Claudia would cling to me sobbing and implore
"I am not a bad person, why did I do that. Why! Why! I am not a bad person. How could I do that when she needed me?"
It was wretched to witness and I could only hold on to her and try to comfort her with empty words. But some years on when she fucked me over, the sobbing and the clinging was identical. As I held her then the sense of deja vu was heightened by the dreamy sense of imminent blackout caused by the shock of what she had just told me. Then, as my blood ran cold and my scalp crawled, it was no longer wretched, only pathetic and despicable, but I still felt her pain then too.

She Wouldn't Have Stayed Anyway

All the time we stayed in Australia, Claudia was firm on one thing. " I can't always stay here. My friends and family are all in Germany and I will want to go back there to live sometime." That never altered and I always respected that, -why wouldn't I? Like many Zimbabweans, my family and friends were scattered to the four corners of the earth and we had largely lost touch with each other as a result. In some deep corner of me there is envy for people who take for granted that the country where they were born should still be a place where they could not merely imagine to live, but more importantly, see a future. No-one with any experience of Africa seriously views a rosy future for themselves or potential off-spring. I had no country I called home, although being in Australia was the happiest and most comfortable that I had ever felt and I could easily imagine a happy and fulfilling future there. Claudia also missed other things about Germany. She knew that the average person had more disposable income over there, she hated the even length of days and nights near the tropics, prefering the long summer nights that Europe offered. (This was something that never occured to me, but then I was born north of the tropic of Cancer.) I think there would also have been an element in her that just missed a bit of 'German-ness" in her life. The cheeses, the breads (OK-breads especially,) and the language. Constantly translating in your head is a pain and you do welcome a time when you do not have to do any of that; when the news, the papers, the tv, casual conversation, the instructions on the packet etc, are all simply understood.

Claudia's relationship with her friends was odd. In the beginning, she missed everyone and I got the idea that she was very close to all of them. Indeed, in the first month she was with me, the phone bill was more than half a month's wages and the second month it was only a hundred dollars less. I never mentioned it to her until we were leaving years later and I found the bills while sorting through old paperwork. When she saw the bills she was appalled and perhaps a little ashamed. It was so important to me that she settle in, feel comfortable and minimise homesickness, that I would never have moaned at the time, -just subtly tried to steer her towards phone cards!

Decisions for the Future

We sat together and discussed what we would do back in Europe. We talked for ages, we looked at websites and worked really hard on getting an idea of what the relative-unknown would be like. I am a bit of a magpie and as we sold off the contents of our home, I retained piles of Macintosh-related books, tools and bits and pieces. We had traded extensively on eBay and I had all I needed. I figured that starting off in Germany was going to be difficult with no language skills. But I thought, using a room in a flat as a workshop and a few ads in windows/papers and I could keep busy repairing the basic hardware and software issues that required minimal German skills. Of all the tea-chests that came to Europe, about half were filled with everything I needed to have a functional mac repair facility and the complete reference library to go with it. Done, I was sorted and ready for a new life in Germany.
We had thought of settling in Hamburg. As a reader of the Economist, I had followed and become a little concerned as I read of the deterioration of the German economy, especially as it looked like we were about to become part of it. Hamburg was, however, in the one state that had the lowest unemployment and highest growth. It would be the place to go and it was where our stuff went.

We left Australia separately, Claudia went to Thailand and I met her there ten days later. I got rid of the last few things, handed back keys, settled bills, dispatched our last boxes and sold dear, sweet, faithful old Helga. I was gutted. We had done 85000km together and she had been so reliable along the most treacherous of routes where we were away from human contact for days on end. Stinky, slow, smoky and noisy, Helga would always get us where we were going. No vehicle stirs emotion in me like an old Nissan MQ Patrol! You can shove your grand old Rolls, your old Holdens or Fords or fancy crap that you might have had on a poster when you were a kid. Helga was the mutt's nuts. I have never been so sad to see a car go, but that may also be because it was the end of so much more too.

The Australian Dream Crumbles

Claudia had that job until we swapped our work visas for holiday ones and began to pack up. Yes, we had to leave Australia. Like all decent people, we got fucked over by a system designed to cope with undesireables. And because we were decent people, we were not going to get a hearing, create a fuss or otherwise attract the attention and support of self-righteous do-gooders. I had gone from being on a regular one-year working holiday visa to a business sponsorship visa, the circumstances of the business changed when it became time to renew the visa again, the business would no longer qualify as a sponsor and therefore I would not qualify as a sponsoree. No other businesses were prepared to got through the hoops that my boss had gone and the industry was in a bit of a dip anyway. I could not qualify for a 'Skilled Migration Visa' because my skillset did not include a degree or diploma. Claudia never worked in the field in which she had a degree and therefore she could not qualify. In retrospect, she should have already been studying in which case we would at least have been able to stay albeit with work restrictions. But as mentioned in the previous posts, Claudia could not be talked into that. In fairness, a major concern would have been money. As a foreign student, any course would have been extremely expensive, but we could have borrowed money and managed. There was another way. A way that everyone told us about and we tried to laugh, but it was not funny. The easy way to stay would have been to start a family, leech off the social welfare system and attract the interest of a civil rights lawyer, but like I said, we were decent people and when our time was up, we sold our stuff, packed our bags, shed tears with friends and left. It saddens me immensely to think that realistically, my life, Claudia's life and most certainly OUR life had seen the sun set on the happiest ever times. Nothing will ever recapture the innocence, the excitement, the friendships, the experiences and the love we had. Anything I ever do now will be measured against those times. Anyone I ever love will not hold my heart in it's entirety, because I know how dangerous that is. The friends we had loved US as a couple as much as they did as individuals and meeting anyone again without being together will feel wrong.

.....But Still Not Happy!

Claudia's complaints about the work were the same as before. One that endures to this day is: "my English is crap." To which the obvious and correct reply is "Oh, come on, your English is perfect" to which the follow-on is "But so-and-so has only been her two days and her English is much better than mine." Well, 'so-and-so' would be just about anyone non-English speaking and she was never correct with that statement. It would be based on a word or phrase that the other person had used that she did not use and it would make her think that the other party had a better vocabulary or grasp of the colloquial. It was infuriating. Early on I had got her to write down every word that she did not understand completely and once she had a list of probably a couple of hundred words and phrases, I sat down and went through them with her giving her examples in the correct context. Probably a full third of those words I had too look up myself because they were words that you would only encounter a couple of times a year unless your reading tastes were very high-brow. Words that you might ignore when reading a book because you got the general idea and were too lazy to get a dictionary. It was an excellent exercise that I really enjoyed because I was learning something too. I felt that if Claudia could use even half the list in confidence, her English would be way ahead of the average English speaker's. Alas, her motivation and interest quickly headed south and that was the end of it. I just had to put up with five years of the same whine on a weekly basis.

The other thing, and this I could understand better, was about where others were with their lives and careers. I had grown used to being older than my peers, I knew that I had sacrificed a career for an interesting life and I never had the option of getting the level of education that I could have attained had I grown up in a country with free terciery education or if I had wealthy, indulgent parents. I accepted what came with all that. Claudia, on the other hand, had great difficulty with it all. It hurt and upset her to see people her age with a career that had already taken them a good few steps up the ladder. She felt inferior when she looked at younger women in business suits dealing confidently with clients and initiatives. She felt she had studied something silly with no thought for it's future application in a structured career. That last one may be true, but it was something she would just have to accept or grab a hold of and build on. She couldn't. While at work she could maintain a wonderful work attitude and be a dream employee, inside her heart was torn and her spirit wretched - because there were people out there who were doing better. All of this went far beyond normal moans and complaints about work. I knew that then, but I consoled myself and her with the same crap your Gran would come up with. "You'll be fine. Something better will come up someday, you just have to keep plugging away." Bollocks, really. Most of us end up having to accept what we have or at the very least we lower our expectations in life.

XYZ Recruitment had a Christmas party at the end of 2003 that Claudia attended with me in tow. It was great to see how well she integrated in a large office environment. Everyone spoke to us excitedly and I got the impression that Claudia had, in the course of a few short weeks, managed to win over everyone in a special way. When people come over and introduce their partner and the conversation goes: "Oh, I have been dying to meet you. So-and-so has told me so much about you and what you have been doing. " or " So-and-so keeps telling me about this wonderful German girl who keeps everyone on their toes, so nice to finally meet you." It was so gratifying to hear and for a short time even Claudia could lap it up, But it would not last. Before the end of the evening she had already complained that she was just a silly receptionist and that all she had to do was smile to visitors and transfer calls and that brought on the tears of misery and frustration at herself again. The evening, fantastic though it was, couldn't end without her pissing on the cake, so to speak. Her friends from that place are still writing and telling her gossip, jokes and how much they miss her, but she can't bring herself to reply. It just becomes another burnt bridge.

New Job......

Claudia got a job for a large recruitment company that specialised in every field from concreters and highway construction men to highly specific IT placements. She was at the reception desk. In no time her smile and charm had won over everyone. She had a way of injecting fun and fire into a place, where she could walk down a corridor and make a cheeky comment to each office or have a cheeky remark made to her. No-one could pass her desk without having armed themselves with a comment to make in passing. I never felt jealous when I saw this sort of interaction. Claudia had never done anything that would warrant any feeling of insecurity in me. Rather, I felt proud. I was proud to be with someone who could inspire warmth and smiles in others with such ease. I was proud that, to other people, Claudia was a happy and extroverted person and no-one would ever have thought anything else of her or worried about her capabilities the way she did. I enjoyed those days again.

It was always great fun to head off to work with Claudia each day. I think it is a special part of one's daily routine that is perhaps never appreciated. To sit, ready for a day's work next to your partner as you head into the traffic is quietly comfortable. Get mad at the idiots on the road, sing something annoying, drop her off and kiss her goodbye, and watch her in the rear-view mirror as you drive away. I actually liked that and I only realise it now.

I am going to have a little moan now. Indulge me. Like most, I have a few quirks. Claudia never shut the car door herself, it was something that I always did, partly because Helga had a crap passenger door and mainly because I was always courteous and chivalrous around her. Anyway, I suppose I have discovered with time that there is no such thing as a female brought up in the First World today who appreciates that behaviour and who can believe that it is automatic in some people. But back then, I thought there was kindness and respect in Claudia at least. Now, I am perhaps not the most tactile man around and I dislike public displays of affection - I find them fawning, cloying, affected and Mediteranean. (Sort of sixteen-years-old-with-cold-sores-and-zits.) To me, making the woman who is by your side always feel like she is some-one special who you love and respect and with whom you have a mature relationship, takes a different approach. Claudia was, however, predisposed to grabbing me and poking a tongue out rather than just exchanging a peck and would then remonstrate with me for not being comfortable with it in, say, the queue at Woolworths. I always took this to be something minor and the annoyance shown to be more teasing than serious. Later on, I would wonder....

Job Hunting Again.

Once again Claudia set about looking for a job. She was a bit more positive now as I think she knew she was good when she got stuck in and she knew she had to push herself to get in in the first place. I just wish she was able to keep that feeling.

She had a false start with a job at one of Brisbane's many colleges. Visit Australia and you will quickly be struck by the number of students there. It is the usual story - a foreign student on inflated fees will cover the gap in subsidy a university has when it admits a local student. Once you have enough of these foreign students, the whole scene becomes a big business. Apart from Universities, there are all the colleges that spring up offering - for the most part- English courses. (I look at all the colleges in London, compare them to life and prices in Queensland and I know where I would want to study. A bit of a no-brainer really.) In a sincere attempt to encourage all these flush and free-spending students to part with their parents' hard-earned cash, the campuses would have in-house travel agents that pushed all sorts of trips to the naive and captive market. I say captive because while it would be quite easy for them to shop elsewhere, there is a tendency to trust what is offered within a familiar environment. Well, Claudia was offered a chance to work as an assistant to a girl who had a sweet deal on a small campus. She had the agency to herself and Claudia could be her 'assistant'. It soon became evident (trial period, no pay) that the girl would just use Claudia to double her personal commission and she would not offer Claudia anything until she had been there a few months, by which time, of course, she would move on to the next sucker. She had done this before, it emerged. The audacity of it was galling. Claudia and I both hated the fact that the world is full of people who run their businesses in this fashion and we had almost become the victim of one. But she was one of those smart bitches - pretty, confident and ruthless- that know when the going gets tough you go down on your knees in front of someone who can smooth the way. I am sure you can all picture one. If you can't, watch an American afternoon soap.

However, we did manage to shrug this one off OK.....

Missed Opportunities.

I had for ages tried to broach the subject of getting into a field that interested her more or going to study further, but Claudia never took any of that seriously. No matter how I broached the matter, I would eventually get scythed down and there would be no more talk of it for a time. I was innovative in my approach. I did the legwork, I made phone calls, I did research on the internet, I had plenty of ideas and suggestions. Friends and colleagues were also a source of inspiration and ideas, but, just as she is doing now, she would shut herself off from everyone and remain firmly seated on the pity pot. I was there, a supportive partner, for whatever endeavour she chose to pursue, I would have backed her as fully as I had over Hervey Bay and the whale-watching season. Australia offers a wealth of opportunity that the "Old World" ran out of centuries ago. We already knew that we could manage on one salary. She could have learnt to look after injured wildlife, done an Occupational Therapy course to supplement her degree in pedagogy or she could have tutored German. Claudia has a creative streak that runs broad. We could have had a stall in a flea market on weekends and sold something she made. She can turn her hand to any medium and produce breathtaking results. Carving rock, painting anything from canvas to walls, restoring furniture, arranging flowers, decorating; you name it, she would attract envious looks and admiration with anything that she did.

But it was not enough. The retort was always the same, "But I can't do anything original, I am too stupid." "That is just copied from something someone else did/a photograph/magazine. I am not original. I don't have my own ideas." I ask you, with the exception of contemporary art where idiots try to be more outrageous than each other, what art is not influenced by another's ideas? But then what do I know. I was just there at times as a punching bag, absorbing blows generated by self-pity, low self-esteem and frustration at her ennui and then catching her when the inevitable flood of tears came and she needed to sob miserably.

Back in Germany three years on, Claudia now bitterly regrets that she did not take more advantage of this period in her life. Perhaps she blames me for not pushing her harder to go and do something, and perhaps in that sense it was me that let us down. At the time though, I felt that I had done all I could.

Return from Hervey Bay

Poor Claudia; returning from Hervey Bay and the wonderful whale-watching season that she had was always going to be very tough. It was made tougher by the difficulty that she had finding work again. For months she moped about and made half-hearted attempts to find something. Her art, which had bloomed while faced with the daily inspiration that the Humpback Whales offered, was neglected again. While she never stopped looking for work, like so many who become disheartened in their search for employment, she looked on-line, in papers and contacted a few agencies. When nothing happened it was just the papers and on-line. Anything that looked interesting or a bit different, she veered away from. An attempt to encourage a different approach or to help her would be rebuffed. In reality, I am sure that it is a situation that many would recognise. Searching for work is a debilitating process if there is no immediate success. I did not think that Claudia was any different to others and while I was disheartened at my failure to inspire her, I thought that this was more me at fault than her. I had always prided myself in my ability to get work whenever I needed it. I was proud that, before the immigration department wanted one off me, I had never had a CV/Resume. My attitude to finding work was to door-knock until you got something, but I knew that this was an eccentricity rather than a particularly good approach. It had meant fifteen years of crap jobs and no real career, -nothing to feel proud of really,- but I did not let myself look at it that way.

When Claudia did get work, it was in a fashion that most people give no real thought to, but for her it was further proof of her inability to do anything. She got a job through someone who knew someone. I knew that the guy who had started up a distribution centre alongside us needed a second person to help him run the business while he chased clients. Simple as that. After a chat with Claudia, he felt that she would easily be capable of running things and of course, he was right. The company distributed two distinctive lines of office furniture, both up market, the one being a very posh modular system developed in Holland. Claudia handled orders, deliveries, the phone and faxes, she learnt the products, she took over roles that had been run by people in the Melbourne head office who had left and not been replaced. She gave the local branch it's smiling face and personality.......... and she alternated between being bored and feeling insecure about it all. What could I do? It seemed to me that Claudia was just going to be that way - always. She had more status and responsibility than she would ever be able to have in Germany without many years more experience and many more bits of paper relevant to what she was doing. And despite this she was not merely dissatisfied, but actively unhappy with her work. Speak to her now about it and all that she will remember is that I got her the job and, when the decision was made a year later to close the place because Melbourne clashed with the local boss and times were a bit tough, her boss left without speaking to her. Those two things. Her boss was a queer old stick and when the place closed, he didn't speak to anyone, he never dropped by again - nothing. It was strange because he had regularly dropped by for a chat in the mornings or a beer at closing time; we had our Christmas party together because it was just the two of them. And then he locked the door and left! Not a word of thanks to Claudia, not a reply to any calls she made requesting a reference - nothing. Bizarre and bad mannered to the rest of us, it was a body blow to Claudia's fragile confidence and I was very angry and upset by the hurt it caused her. Melbourne head-office loved her to bits and she could have gone down there to work, but no, she will downplay all that now.

This whole blog is an attempt to analyse our time together and where the cracks in Claudia showed themselves leading to our ultimate dissintegration as a couple. As a result, at times it looks like our time together was a constant struggle. That is not correct. Together we were a very, very happy couple. We had a great house, garden, friends, our weekends were filled with fun and adventure when we packed Helga up and headed off. We never fought or had real arguments , there were never sulks or moods that dragged on more than a couple of hours, we were always able to keep each other bouyant. All this despite money being tight and our circumstances modest. We loved each other dearly and were deeply commited to each other. I will always remember Claudia as a gorgeous, bubbly blond with dancing eyes and an infectious smile who gave me the happiest years in my life ............before flattening me.