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....