The Personals. Brian O’Connell

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Название The Personals
Автор произведения Brian O’Connell
Жанр Зарубежный юмор
Серия
Издательство Зарубежный юмор
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780008321352



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our own place and the story began from there.’

      From the age of 17 onwards, Betty had always had it in mind to get married, but life events got in the way. ‘The plan was we’ll do it this time, or we’ll do it that time, but something always came up. So, I think now it’s our time. Food is booked, music is booked and we’re going to have a lovely day.’ I can’t help wondering though, for a couple who have been together so long – for decades, in fact – what difference will it make getting married?

      ‘I’ll tell you now, he’s my best friend,’ she says, ‘and I’m quite sure I would be his best friend. He understands me and I understand him and we just adore the children and the grandchildren. It has been a lifelong dream of ours and we just want to fulfil it.’ If Betty doesn’t shift the dress, she says she will donate it to a charity. I meet her fiancé briefly as I’m leaving the house, and it’s endearing that he’s not afraid to show his affection for Betty in front of a stranger. She says she’ll tell him all later, as I scuttle towards the exit. Some weeks later I drop in and we laugh and chat about it.

      Her first wedding dress, by the way, is still for sale.

      Hand-wrought platinum wedding and engagement rings for sale. Brilliant cut diamonds in a channel setting. Matching set. €7,500. DoneDeal, August 2018

      As a single mother with a busy work life, Paula had originally planned that her brother would sell her two platinum diamond rings and that she would give him a commission in return.

      She liked the distance this gave her from the transaction, and couldn’t face the thought of walking into one of those ‘cash for gold’ outlets and handing over her jewellery to be examined and valued. She lives in a small community, and felt doing that would make something deeply personal and traumatic become too public.

      Initially in the months after her marriage ended, Paula spoke to the shop where the rings were bought, and floated the idea of the shop buying them back. Both rings had been custom made but she had thought she could get them turned into something else, or that the jewellers could recycle them into a ring for another person. These were Celtic Tiger-era rings bought for a significant sum so the materials carried value.

      ‘I had a fair idea of what they cost,’ she tells me. ‘I didn’t know the exact figure, but it was substantial. They meant much more to me than monetary value. I am not really into jewellery but I suppose they were particularly significant in what they symbolised. Now though, they are the opposite of that. They are just metal and stone and I wouldn’t want to even pass them on to my daughter. I just think now they were given to me under false pretences. People always say, “Love is blind”, but now I know what that means.’

      Initially, Paula says her husband was very apologetic and reassured her that the phone messages meant nothing. He was proactive in terms of addressing the issues he had and he seemed genuine about doing whatever it took to keep the relationship going. ‘I thought, OK, we’ll go for counselling and it will be fine. Looking back, I was so stupid,’ she says.

      Paula thinks her husband loved her for periods of the time they were together, but that commitment and monogamy weren’t a priority for him. ‘Maybe he didn’t want to continue the infidelity. I think actually, looking back, he probably had a sex addiction. That was just one more addiction to add to his list of them.’

      This was something I could relate to personally. Fifteen years ago, I had gone into rehab, mainly for alcohol issues, and I subsequently wrote a book detailing both my relationship with alcohol – and Ireland’s too. My life had gone off-piste when I walked into a rehab centre in west Cork called Tabor Lodge. Through intensive counselling and with the help of some fellow addicts who shared some of their journey with me, I began to piece things back together bit by bit. I have been lucky. The closest I have come to a slip was a Baileys’ cheesecake at a wedding a few years ago, and in the decade and a half since rehab I’ve always been drawn to addicts and their stories. It’s tough being an addict anywhere, but it’s perhaps doubly tough in Ireland, a country which arguably stigmatises sobriety far more than active addiction. The bar is set incredibly high for someone to identify as an addict in Ireland. In fact, if anything, all the societal impulses are telling you that you’re not really that bad. As the writer Conor McPherson once told me, walk into a bar in Ireland and the guy at the counter drinking Ballygowan, that’s the alcoholic!

      ‘According to him, I was the only problem he had in his life,’ Paula says, reflecting on her ex-husband’s outlook. ‘He would probably sit you down and if you didn’t know he was my ex, you would believe everything he says. He is almost a split person. He can be an amazing, charming and really kind person, and then he is awful. So it’s the total ends of the scale, and unfortunately, there was more of the awful behaviour than the nice person as time went on.’