Chapter 1
‘Hello, George.’
‘My word. Harry. Got a cheek showing your face here, don’t you think?’
‘Ah, still burdened with grudges are we. That bitterness is wasting you away George, after all these years.’
‘Bitterness? No, not bitterness Harry, indifference maybe, but the bitterness passed a long time ago.’
‘It has been a long time.’
‘Not long enough if you ask me. What respects have you come to pay then? You had none when she was alive.’
’She was my wife once George…’
‘Your wife? You have no idea what the word means man, the way you treated her.’
‘What the hell would you know about the way I treated her.’
‘You really are something! It may as well have been you shoving her off that bridge, don’t you realise, or is it more a case of “who gives a shit” with you and everyone around you?’
‘Look George, if you are implying that I have had anything to do with her death, then your way off the mark. I haven’t seen Sue in…nine bloody years, nine years it’s been, so how can any of this be down to me?’
’Oh piss off back to where you came from, you’re not welcome here, not after what you did, you pushed her to this, nine bloody years or not, this is all your doing.’
‘What the hell are you talking about? You’ve hated me from the minute you met her, why; I have no idea, I’ve never interfered in your relationship with her, I don’t think that Sue and I have ever even discussed you, so where you get your ideas, or hatred from, is beyond me, and how dare you accuse me of being cruel to her, you obviously have no idea what our marriage was all about…’
’I know all about it, how you ditched her, left her high and dry for that secretary, oh yes, I know all about that Harry, so don’t come playing the innocent with me, Sue was miserable the day I met her. And you know what? She never ever got over it. It, you, ruined our marriage. We never had a chance. It was always three people in our relationship and that spelt disaster from the word “go.” That’s why she’s in that casket right now, because of you.’
‘You’re mad! You have no idea George. Sue and I divorced…we ended our relationship amicably; whatever drove her to do this had absolutely nothing to do with me.’
‘We’ve had nine years of misery because of you. You were always there, in the background, she didn’t even have to mention it or discuss it but you were there, and how do I know, because she wouldn’t come clean and admit it, that’s how I know, and anyway, her friend let it out even before we were engaged; how you had treated her, so we didn’t need to talk about it. Best thing was not to mention your name to Sue at all.’
‘George, it makes little difference to me what you believe, I sense your hatred and as soon as I leave this chapel nothing in my perspective about Sue or even you will change. You can if you wish spend the next nine years blaming and hating me, but it is a misplaced hatred, born of a wild supposition, a creation in your own mind. Believe me, for your own sanity man. Look, what I am trying to say; is that in our own way we did love each other, it wasn’t enough for Sue and we therefore both went our own way looking for a richer, better love. Maybe she didn’t find it either. Sue and I came to a mutual understanding. There was a love between us, but it simply was not the right love, she…well she quite rightly wanted…had expected more. That was all George, we both came to an understanding, nobody abandoned anyone else, or forced the issue…’
‘You dumped her.’
‘Who did you say told you this?’
‘Her friend from work, I forget the name, it was ages ago, we weren’t even engaged then.’
‘What did this friend tell you, exactly, exactly as far as you can remember?’
‘She said that you “Old Harry” had dumped Sue for your secretary, so deny that now why don’t you?’
‘George, “Old Harry” was Harry Bannon, Sue’s boss at Smithson’s, not me.’
‘Are you trying to say that Sue was miserable for the last nine years because she got dumped from her job at Smithson’s?’
‘No George, I have absolutely no idea why Sue may have been miserable for the last nine years or why she would decide to end things, I just know that it had absolutely nothing to do with me.’
‘You men are pathetic, you must be the pre-ex-husband; Harry. And you must be George, the recently widowed? Well I’m Mrs Bannon? The secretary Sue was dumped for? Sorry to listen in dears; you didn’t exactly keep your conversation private; this is a place of worship after all, not a men’s club. But in fact you are both wrong. My Harry died six-months ago, and your darling Sue had been seeing him on and off for the past, what…twelve years. That’s what pushed her off the bridge; she didn’t get him you see, not totally, not in the way she always wanted, and intended.’ Now pay your respects.
