Still Not Getting it. . .

I got into the swing of things with the new job. I was office-based. A pleasure as we approached Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere. I started late compared to dragging myself out of bed at 05h00 to get across the city to a building site for 07h00 where I would work every hour and weekend that I could. This was such a welcome break. This is what I had been trying to get for almost two years. I had not given up and I had worked hard for it. And I had done everything I could to keep Claudia positive and buoyant, her hardships were in her head and I had done everything to try and help her tackle those. Another couple of weeks and it would be the Christmas break. I would be going out to Germany secure in the knowledge that one of us had good work and a base from which to offer the other a bit more hope, opportunity and financial security. I called more regularly but my cheer, while it did not compound her misery as it might, was met with a significant degree of indifference and disinterest. Roll on Christmas, she would feel better after a week together, a few winter markets, evenings by a fireplace and walks in the crisp snow that Germany would offer.

Blinded by a New Job

On the work front, things looked up when I was offered a post in London by one of the agencies that I had been registered with for over a year. They were apologetic, it was fairly menial and not that well paid, but since they had not managed to secure anything better for me and since winter was biting, I decided to get something that allowed me to sit on my bum at a regular job. As soon as I got started, I wanted to go out and see Claudia before I went again for Christmas. I was chuffed, this could be a new start. I booked a weekend flight to Dortmund and called her to tell her. Bad idea! I was in trouble. She was not pleased or surprised. She had arranged to go and see a comedy show with her brother and his girlfriend on the Friday night so no-one would be able to collect me from the airport. How could I be so stupid and book something without checking with her first. I expected a bit of a moan, but not such a flat out denouncement!

I cancelled the trip and booked for Christmas.

Nightmarish November

On my return to London, I found I had missed the start to a few big contracts and the teams I had worked with were going to be busy for a while without needing me. Agencies had nothing and even labour work had temporarily dried up. For a month I had nothing. . . . .nothing. My money dried up and I found myself eating what was left on the 'free' shelf at the hostel. I was walking everywhere because I could not afford a tube pass, I was hand washing my clothes because I could not afford to use the laundromat. I used the money I had for my rent and to keep in touch with Claudia. I could not let her know how difficult things had become for me because she had too much to handle already. Having fought so hard to get my credit card paid off a earlier, it now had to come out again.

After I got to London, I chose not to dwell on my treatment during my visit, but rather focus on bringing about a mood change in Claudia. It was easy enough to do since it was something to hold on to where work had temporarily slipped away. I wrote to her daily - I would go out and buy a card and write something and post it. The card I bought would depend on what took may fancy on the day. I did not want it to seem formulaic, routine or forced, they had to be like a cheeky text message; to instill the smile that I wanted. When I did finally get work, I would leave the hostel an hour early to make time to buy a card, sit and write something sweet and fun or else stand in a Post Office queue to get a small package weighed and sent. I felt I had to maintain the cheer and positive side to things.

Few who have read this far will be in any doubt as to what Claudia was up to all this time. However hard it may be to believe, I had not read anything into her behaviour. Apart from asking her the once, I never thought that she might be opening her legs for someone else. Even that question slipped through more as a coy, you-don't-love-me-anymore type of tease rather than a serious interrogation. She reminded me that I asked her when I later sat in bewilderment at the bombshell that she dropped at Christmas. She didn't have the guts to confess then. It could be that it was the first lie she told me - it certainly wasn't the last.

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.

Great . . (Ahem) . . Times Together.

My next few visits were good. We had a lot of fun together and Claudia seemed to have none of her usual painful episodes. Hmm, yes, a LOT of fun ;-)

She discussed giving up the Pill and I agreed with her. It made perfect sense that, since we only saw each other for a weekend every three or four weeks, she should stop pumping hormones into her body and we would just use condoms when we were together. We were unanimous on this idea. Claudia would stop taking the Pill until we were living together again.

It was fun to be trying different 3-Packs again before we settled on ones that we both liked. I didn't mind it - in fact I would have felt selfish arguing against it. So that was it then. Cool ....... or was this another clue that relates to the last post and others still to come? Something else that I was blind to?

Clap for Claudia - and Me

Once I was in London, I visited Claudia a number of times in short succession. It felt good to be closer and although I had not yet found promising work, I was sure I would. London exudes a glow of optimism and opportunity. Quite possibly this is because one encounters so much scum and so many useless bastards that one feels that if they can make it and find their way, SURELY a great chap like ones-self MUST be showered with offers as soon as the masses hear that one has arrived. Yeah, righto.........!

I was taking advantage of the cheap flights that meant if booked early enough, I could get a flight from nearby Luton to Dortmund, on Claudia's doorstep, for £4.00. Tax would add over £30 to the total and then the appalling rail service to Luton would be two single tickets (No such thing as an open return) of £12 each for standing room only. Never mind, I could go and see Claudia on a Friday evening and come straight in to work from the airport on a Monday. Progress - or so I thought......

Now I am going to relate something as evenly as I can. I would welcome an outsider's insight on this because contemplating it has caused me many hours of anguish and distress.

Claudia still had pussy issues and she still had painful breasts when it was her time of the month - see the early posts from when we first lived together (Here) . This had just been something that we had both coped with. She visited gynocologists and doctors, she changed her diet, her Pill, her exercise, her fluid intake, her skin products, her sanitary products - all to no avail. I visited her one weekend in August 2004 and I had the worst cold I had had in years. Despite my condition, we would have had sex on the Friday, Saturday and the Sunday. On the Sunday, I had an 'intimate' itch that I commented on. I thought that it was perhaps the soap that I had borrowed. On the Monday morning before I left it felt worse and again I commented on it. There was not really anything that I could expect Claudia to say, but it was useful to recall later that I had made mention of this to her. Back in London, I was looking up the addresses of Clap clinics by the Friday, such were my symptoms. On the Monday I was in at one. I gave fictitious details and found it hugely embarrassing. Oh - and painful.... the bit where they push a cell scraper down your urethra and pull it back out........twice!!!...... most uncool! Anyway, after a battery of tests and a short wait, I had the preliminary results which proved I had a Non-Specific Urinary-Tract Infection (they called a few days later and confirmed the specifics). I was in shock and denial - still thinking "it was the soap, it was the soap.." .Bollocks! It was a fucking Sexually Transmitted Disease and I had caught it off my girlfriend, the love of my life, the woman I was utterly devoted to. Jesus Christ! What the fuck..... Denial prevailed. I asked the doctor, a Nigerian chap, if it were possible that this could have been carried by Claudia for six years - ie. her last boyfriend - who was a DOCTOR, but who cheated on her - supposedly only with his ex. He gave me a look that I now define as patronising pity, but then I took it to be serious professional contemplation. His gaze held mine as he said " Um" and then "Well, I suppose...." and finally " In theory...." Well my theory held that, being a healthy and robust chap, I had never been particularly poorly in all the time that Claudia and I had been together (five and-a-half years), however, I had a bad cold when I last saw her and I had been working twelve and fourteen hour days of hard physical labour and not eating particularly well so my condition was poorer than it had ever been when I was with her. It made sense to me that I would have been susceptible to infection in a way that I had not been before. And what do doctors know anyway....

I called Claudia that evening and told her I had an infection and that she should see her gynocologist. I said nothing more specific and I certainly never made any accusations. I never did, even when other matters came to light.

Claudia went to the doctor's, did the tests, took the treatment and claimed that for the first time in ages she felt no pain. Me? I was pleased, genuinely pleased because I thought that after years of pain and misery, something had been cleared up and she felt better. I was very angry that so many doctors had not managed to resolve a perfectly common condition that should have been an ordinary avenue of investigation regardless of the apparent class/ socio-economic status of the patient. I argued that she should have complained, written to professional bodies ..... or at least been indignant. She was none of those things and I let the matter rest. The next time we met, it got only a brief mention and would probably have ended with me being nice and positive and saying "Ah well, the main thing is that it is all sorted and you are not hurting anymore. We won't talk about it again."

Reserve judgement for now and watch how things unfold and then, like me, revisit this episode and decide if I was a fool.

From Scotland to London

After just over a year in Scotland, I was getting browned off. I was not particularly happy, Claudia was not interested in coming over, work prospects were poor for me. It was time to pull the plug on the place. My next move was to London. I would be closer to Claudia, it would be cheaper for us to see each other, I would be able to get better work and there would be more opportunities for Claudia.

Starting to see a pattern here? Well I didn't.

It was tough to make a start in London. To begin with I worked on building sites as a general hand. It was minimum wage stuff and hard work again. Pay rates were kept low by the massive influx of former communists from Eastern Europe. The most skilled tradesmen lived on top of each other in the same way backpackers did and populated all the construction jobs in central London. It was not unusual to be on a site with twenty or thirty tradesmen, none of whom spoke a word of English. I did often wonder how well controlled the tax/National Insurance/ Health and Safety/Trade Guild side of things was, but then we all trust our civil servants to do a great job and I am sure they are doing just that. The site foreman would have a bossboy who spoke enough English to translate what needed to be translated. This leading hand would generally be Russian posing as a Lithuanian/Estonian/Latvian - actually they were very often Georgian or Ukranian - I say Russian loosely. They would have tattoos with orthodox Christian themes, but done in indian ink that had gone a shitty green against fish-belly white skin. They wore gold and often had frontal gold fillings. They worked every hour that God gave and their womenfolk made their lunch sandwiches and coffees in affordable chains like Benjy's or else cleaned hotels and office blocks. Funny lot - those reformed commies. We love them all now, of course; an influx of hard-working foreign tradesmen is just the kick-in-the-arse that the local tradesmen needed to improve their own service ethos - or lack thereof. Places like France have had the local tradesmen pressure the government to keep the foreigners out (isn't that such a typically French thing to do? ) and the Poles have countered with advertising campaigns to smooth the waters.

Enough of all that. I was on these sites labouring for less than twice my weekly rent - see my second-ever post. For me the main thing was that I was out of Scotland and closer to Claudia and I was somewhere where I could smell opportunity and not stale fish suppers, stagnant hope and decaying dreams.