Awful October.

By September 2004 I had managed to get away from labouring and was being a bit better paid installing the data and telecoms infrastructure in office blocks. This was not where I wanted to be, but the pay was better and I felt I was making progress. It was something that I had learnt to do as part of my work in Australia - I would never have imagined that I would end up doing it as a full time job one day! I got to work at some fascinating sites and quite enjoyed it. I was so comfortable with things that I took ten days out at the end of October and went out to stay with her.

What a ghastly visit that was. I was treated like shit from the day I arrived. I remember the time quite distinctly because during the visit the American Presidential election took place and, of course, Germany was rooting heavily for the guy who lost. Claudia was cold, sullen and avoided all contact. She was too miserable to be coaxed into telling me what was upsetting her other than to say it was just the combination of all our difficulties getting to her. I stuck to the jocular, cheerful, understanding and supportive bit and did not get annoyed at the off-hand manner I was being treated with. I complimented her on the striking depth of her sunbed tan and the wonderful new pubic topiary - (finally done the way I always wanted her to try it). The arguments she tried to start, I deflected; the general shittiness and bitchiness, I ignored, I would not rise to any of it. Claudia did not take any time off work and so during the week she went off to work and I hid in her room. I always got up with her in the morning when she was working even though it might have been bitterly cold and pitch black; it always struck me as being a little gesture that would be another affirmation of my love of her. (Will I ever meet a woman I am not wasted on?) I would pad downstairs while she got ready and I would prepare the breakfast and something for her to eat at lunch. She had stopped carrying a backpack and suddenly started with a handbag, which was very odd, but then to me it only made it more difficult to sneak in a small treat or a note for her to find later. I would go out and de-ice the car and wave goodbye. Then I would retreat to her room; bewildered, confused and unsure about many things, yet certain that the best I could do for my partner was to continue with my present tack. Be cheerful, be upbeat and be there when she wanted to talk about it.

On her return in the evening she would be rude to me, rude to her parents and need to be treated with kid-gloves until she needed a cuddle. (Just a cuddle mind you, no hanky panky! For reassurance, perhaps?!) She wouldn't talk to me and tell me what was on her mind, she attributed the little changes to attempts on her part to make her feel better about herself. I even asked her once if there was some-one else. She said no. I never asked again mainly because it had never really crossed my mind as being a possibility. We were very, very close after all, what an unfair and downright offensive question.

It actually only struck me on the way back to London what a fucking nasty piece of goods she had been all the time that I was there. Claudia's behaviour caused the first ever brief wave of anger and resentment sweep over me in all the time we had been together. She never once made an effort to get a grip on herself or get off the pity-pot in the whole time I was there. Not once. Now I really was hurt, bewildered and confused.