Excerpt from a review of "Handsome Stranger" written by Michael Idato in "Heaven Sent Bloke", Sydney Morning Herald, December 10, 2007.
"Armitage comes to the village of Dibley as Harry Kennedy, a London accountant in the midst of a sea change. He meets Geraldine Granger (French), the vicar at St Barnabas's Church, and a romance is kindled.
"I suppose he's looking for some peace on a little Buddhist journey," Armitage says. "It's not really explored in depth in the story but he's been working in the city and he's burned out and he's come to the country to find some harmony."
from "Heaven Sent Bloke" - Sydney Morning Herald December 10th 2007
The final part of Harry's story follows. I don't seem to be able to make a border using typepad for this post. Excuse typos - I'm sure there are a number!
17th March 2011
The Vicarage of St Barnabas Dibley
Dear Mulubinba,
I may as well follow on from my last letter to you quickly before I lose my impetus.
At Christmas time in 1998 I was a guest at a large corporate party where I was introduced to Denise. She was an assistant marketing and PR manager for a large company we did the auditing and accountancy for. Like me she was I guess what you would call upwardly mobile – keen to climb the corporate ladder, ambitious - she however had the inner strength and toughness to survive and succeed in the corporate world – something, I later discovered, I lacked.
Denise and I were attracted to one another straight away but it was another year or so before we finally began seeing one another regularly. She was beautiful, intelligent, and stylish – what more could I have asked for. We both worked long hours and therefore understood each other’s commitment to our jobs. We also seemed to share similar values, enjoyed earning money and being able to afford the finer things in life. I began to spend more time at her beautiful flat and less at my own. We settled in to a happy routine surrounding our work and social life. Many of our friends were similarly employed; we all enjoyed an expensive, privileged lifestyle dining at good restaurants, talking business and finance, job promotion and politics. On weekends, particularly Sundays, Denise and I used to get up late, read the papers over breakfast or occasionally go out with friends to a brunch or a lunch. Gone were the days of a simple stroll in the countryside and a picnic. We led a fast paced life and there was little time to sit, relax and read a book. I had always loved books and never wasted an opportunity to read for pleasure right from when I was a boy. An afternoon spent browsing bookshops was a delight for me prior to meeting Denise, but she had no time for leisurely strolls and browsing. There was never any free time – always someone to meet, socialise with, and there was work – always work and promotion. I was swept up in the fabric of her life, loved the hype and excitement that went with it and I was in love with her, so deeply that I began to neglect many of the things I used to care about. My life became deeply entwined with Denise’s and I was so wrapped up in her that I was oblivious to any faults she might have had. In many ways, Denise was moulding me to be her perfect partner – she gave me good advice when it came to getting promotions, her friends became my friends, our holidays were always at resorts she chose, we worked out at a local gym – she even gave me fashion advice. (I know what you are going to ask, Mulubinba, and no, I didn’t dare wear faded jeans and jumpers when I went out with her – maybe permissible at home but not in the street where there may have been the possibility of meeting someone we might know or work with! ).
The nature of our life together meant that I struggled to maintain even the most basic ties with my past and my family. As I spent more time at Denise’s flat, I began to neglect my own. Gone were the days when I lingered over coffee and a good book sitting in my father’s favourite old leather chair in the study I had organised for myself in the flat – it remained cold and untouched. Denise didn’t want to stay at my place that often, always preferring her own. She had no affinity for my love of books, my study that used to be a retreat for me, my taste in furnishings and mementos belonging to my family and my past. She chided me in an affectionate way about being too sentimental and encouraged me to look to the future rather than dwelling on the past. That was possibly the only thing I felt uncomfortable about in the early days of my relationship with Denise – her detachment from past and from her own family ties. Denise was sent to a very select boarding school while her mother and father lived abroad. Her father worked for a large corporation and was sent overseas for three to four year postings. Denise and her sister therefore were widely travelled but had never had much of a home life with the consequence that she considered family gatherings a bit of a bore and avoided them at every opportunity. As a result, I hardly saw my uncle and aunt in the years Denise and I were together unless I took an opportunity to visit when she was away on business.
Rosie continued to use our flat as a base for herself on the days she had off and when she was there, the flat came to life and became more like the home I once knew. She spent a lot of time travelling with her job and our time together began to be less and less. We were always happy to see one another but she insisted on us eating quietly in our flat or going to her favourite cheap Italian restaurant around the corner. I wanted to spoil her, wine her and dine her but she resisted. I found it hard to understand her reluctance to come out with Denise and I to various parties or dinners when she was in London. She would always politely find an excuse not to come. It never occurred to me that she might not be comfortable with Denise, my relationship with her, and my lifestyle. Rosie seemed to always understand where I was heading and what I wanted to do with my life – at least I thought she did. It was only after my relationship with Denise ended that she told me the truth about how she felt. While I was with Denise, and I was happy, she confessed that she pretended that she was happy for me while secretly being terrified that I was growing away from her. Christmas was a difficult time for her, as she knew that if she did not come to one of Denise’s gatherings, she would not see me either, so she buried her reservations and came to our Christmas celebrations with good grace. She never ever quite managed to hide her sadness at these functions, her quietness bothered me but I never thought to really discover the reason – I was too wrapped up in Denise and our life together.
When Denise and I had been together for over 3 years, she was promoted to a higher paid position, which would involve travelling to company branches around Europe and SE Asia. In truth I was a little dismayed as I was doing well in my own job and had started to seriously think about marriage and settling down. The life we were leading had been wonderful – we were both well off, we had good high paid jobs and enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle together. In short for all intents and purposes, we lacked nothing, yet I began to feel an emptiness I found hard to explain. I tried to summon up the courage to talk to Denise about our future together on several occasions but somehow the opportunity never arose, or I lost the courage to speak up. As she began to spend time away from me, I started to return to my own, sadly neglected flat – it was cold and empty but began to be more welcoming the more time I spent there. I began to read again, haunt the bookshops in whatever spare time I had, and work – always work. When Denise returned, I would however be there waiting for her and our life together resumed as normal until the next trip away. She would be away for a week, sometimes two and she seemed to thrive on the life. I felt like a dog waiting faithfully for his master to return with a treat as a reward for waiting patiently. The time we spent together sustained me until her next trip away. Once I waved her goodbye, I would go to work but return to my own flat rather than hers. At first she would ring me every night she was away but the calls gradually became less as her trips became more frequent. I began to realise that my life had become so interconnected with hers that I had somehow lost my own sense of self – our friends were all mutual friends – we all went out as couples. It began to dawn on me that I needed to find interests separate from her if I was going to survive the times we were apart without feeling lost. I found it difficult to motivate myself to even look for an interest – what was I to do? Collect stamps? Learn a language? I therefore spent more time at work, which earned praise from my superiors and it helped fill in the hours until Denise returned home. The hole in my life she left when she went away was becoming like an abyss. Rosie found me one evening sitting alone in my study after Denise had left for yet another trip. I hadn’t expected her home and had therefore not bothered to eat or turn any heating on – I had begun to miss meals when I was on my own. To say that she was shocked at the state I was in is an understatement – in short she gave me a huge scolding. Once she had calmed down, we spent some real quality time together as in times past – I realised that I had neglected her and that it was time to make some decisions about what I was doing with my life.
Denise was to return at the end of the week and after spending time with Rosie, I was determined to talk to Denise about our plans for the future. I needed answers and I needed commitment from her. We had been together almost 5 years by then.
I think I mentioned to you, Mulubinba, that I had spent a lot of time reading when Denise was away. I would never have admitted to Denise at the time that I had started to feel empty, and that I was beginning to question the materialistic way of life we had. (In hindsight, I guess I should have realised that our lives were beginning to drift apart but I wasn’t ready to admit it). I had started to walk the streets in my time alone (pacing perhaps is a better word) – I realised that there was a darker, uglier, sadder side to the city that I had up until now, not wanted to acknowledge. Poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, and prostitution. Denise and I had always donated to various charities, and attended social charity functions, but we had never actually given much thought to where the money was going. I began to read newspapers in more depth (not just the financial sections); watch the news and documentaries and felt the old stirrings of a social conscience that for many years had lain dormant. Whenever I had tried to discuss social justice issues with Denise in the early days of our relationship, she had quickly become disinterested – easier to bury the topic than to pursue it. I knew a fair bit about the corporation she worked for – it was well-known clothing manufacturing company and well respected as far as large companies go. The products they produced were good quality, promoted by high profile sporting champions. (Denise was responsible for the marketing and promotion of the products so she secured the sponsorships, met with the high profile sports people who would wear the product and logo in tournaments). The company had taken much of the manufacturing of its goods overseas in order to cut costs. What I hadn’t known until I had picked up a rather left wing newspaper through the week on my way home from work was that this company was one of the large corporations being accused of exploitation of workers in their factories overseas. It sounded to me as if it was all rhetoric and exaggeration but the descriptions of the working conditions was enough to make me feel deeply uncomfortable. I was determined to ask Denise about their practises on her return when and if the opportunity arose.
Denise arrived home on the Friday evening, immaculate, loving as ever but a little fragile in temperament. That night I told her about my hopes for a future spent with her – she stopped me, tears in her eyes – told me she couldn’t think of settling down, her career was taking off and she had been offered a new job, an executive position with a new company based in the United States. I should have seen it coming of course, in fact, subconsciously I think I did see it coming, I just couldn’t stand to admit it to myself. The emptiness I had been feeling was the chink in our relationship, the augur that we were starting to move apart. Denise of course told me that she wanted to spend as much time with me as possible before she left for good. Was I expected to continue dancing attendance on her as if nothing had happened? My self-defence mechanisms kicked in and I packed my belongings that night and moved back to my flat. She cried of course, tried to convince me to visit her in the States when she was settled, but I was deaf to her entreaties. That was the second night since my parents had died that I drank myself silly. This time however there was no Janis waiting for me at the back of a church – but God, I yearned for someone like her.
Rosie took leave as soon as I told her about Denise leaving and arrived in London to find me sober but shattered. Denise had made several attempts to see me – I had resisted them but was weakening. I took the week off work and Rosie and I left London to stay in a hired cottage somewhere in Oxfordshire. We walked, we talked, and I rediscovered my love for the countryside once again. I was tempted to find a place down there and escape forever but knew I had to move on with my life in London as best I could. I had a job to get back to and I had responsibilities.
I returned to work and threw myself into it even more than before. There were several messages from Denise at the flat and at my work when I returned to London after my week away. She made me feel as if I was behaving like a spoiled child by refusing to see her so I decided to meet with her one more time. Suffice it to say that it was not easy, there was lots of pleading from her initially for me to go with her to the States – I could have gone, of course, but I believed by that time we did not have a future and staying with her would delay the inevitable. Living a life tagging along after a woman who was more in love with her career than me was not what I was after. If I was honest, the whole corporate world was beginning to tire me – I had started to re-evaluate my life journey – there was a little place in the countryside that was beginning to beckon.
I worked very hard for many months after Denise left. I tried to avoid having much time off in order to counter my loneliness. I felt dead inside and began to read books on spirituality, Buddhism, humanism, fiction, spy thrillers…. anything and everything to take my mind off her. I began to drive out to the country to walk and that was where I found most of my inner peace. Rosie spent time with me whenever she could – she was concerned about my health as I was not eating well and working to excess.
Towards December of 2005, my superiors called me in to their office for a meeting. They looked extremely grave and I knew that there was a problem. To be brief, our firm had uncovered a number of irregular accounting procedures that bordered on fraud perpetrated by the company Denise had formerly worked for. They had been creating a number of offshore entities that were being used for tax avoidance and currency movement. My superiors had known about my relationship with Denise and the fact that she had been one of the executives for that company was a concern to them. They stated that should the fraud be discovered by the media, and my former relationship with Denise also be made public, it could seriously affect our company’s reputation. An investigation would therefore have to take place to clear my name of any connection with Denise’s old company or wrongdoing. I was suspended on full pay until the investigation and findings had been completed. Denise’s sudden departure all made sense to me now – she must have known that something fraudulent was happening and had deserted a company that would tarnish her reputation if she stayed. I didn’t think I had much to worry about – the fraudulent practises had started only a few months before Denise left. Still, it was a stress I could have done without – I had more free time on my hands than I cared for, an investigation about my work practises and my personal life, and I was beginning to get seriously tired of the entire London financial scene. I was unable to leave London until the investigation was complete but I had made the decision that when it was over, I would sell up and move to the country. Somewhere quiet and peaceful where I could wear jeans throw away my ties, read, meditate and do a bit of basic accounting to keep food on the table. I didn’t much fancy the idea of having another relationship – if I did find someone, she would have to be the complete opposite to Denise or any of the other women I had dated. (with the exception of Janis, but she was more of a friend and never a lover).
The investigation took a few months to complete – I was cleared of any wrongdoing and was invited back to work. By that stage I was tired and I just wanted to leave for a while. I discussed my options with the senior partners who, not wanting to lose me, offered me part time work. I began looking for a new place to live – I had plenty of money and put my flat in London up for sale. I headed off towards Oxfordshire in the hope of finding the place where Rosie and I had stayed after Denise left. I got hopelessly lost and by chance came upon a little village which just happened to have a cottage for sale. It was what I was looking for.
I left London 2 months later with a promise to return to see some weekend clients for my firm. I felt free at last.
Two evenings after I moved in, I was still unpacking trying to find places for all my things when there was a knock on the door. …You know the rest. I never expected to fall in love so suddenly and so completely after all I had gone through. In my subconscious I think I had deeply longed to meet someone who was a bit like Janis in terms of compassion and ideology – someone who could fill the void that had become my life. I found her in a little village called Dibley.
I hope this all adds up for you now, Mulubinba. I really believe that things happen for a reason. The life I sought as a younger man was not really for me; the love I thought I had found and then lost led me to the one woman who showed me a different, more meaningful way of life, and real love.
X
Harry