One Week in May

One week in May

Monday 6^th May 4:15 a.m.

"Bugger the book group!!"

I find myself bolt upright in my bed. Did I just yell that out? I patted the bed beside me; no Bridget. I am still clearing my head. She has not been home for over a week and I have no idea when she will get home. It seems to have become habitual for her to make promises she does not keep. It was going to be Friday, then Saturday and she has not showed. I stop for a minute and listen. Shit I hope I did not wake Lily with that yell. I pull the bedclothes back, lean out and tip toe while feeling my way in the dark colliding with the door jamb. "Shit," I say in a loud whisper (If there is such a thing). I feel along the gloom of the hall. Lily's door is ajar; there is no stirring from her cot. I tip toe back to the bed missing the jamb this time.

I sit on the edge of the bed, rubbing my head, wide awake. I ponder about a stressful week that seemed to be building.... to a something, I don't know what. I simply do not know what is going on in my life, my wife and my work.

I had a bloody restless night. The yell seemed to be part of some nightmare I cannot remember. It's not surprising that the invective should be aimed at Bridget's book group. That, if anything must be the root cause of the growing instability in my marriage. I think of Bridget and my marriage and what gave the book group the power.

Bridget and I met when we were both completing an MBA course. I had been doing it part time, she full time but as it happens we completed at the same time. We were both in a small group engaged on a combined project, in fact our last. We both had a couple of things in common besides the MBA; we were both from Christchurch and incidentally her father, Alf, had been the Dean of the Engineering School when I was completing my Masters of Engineering; although I never met Bridget in those days. Everybody called him Alf, even Bridget, but it was not his real name. He had been disappointed that I did not carry through to a doctorate as I had intended. I was his star pupil with a passion for seismic design.

It was my father who talked me out of the doctorate; he passionately advocated a business trajectory. He had grand plans for passing some of his business empire over to me at some time in the future.

Oh, there was another thing that drew Bridget and I together, we both loved children. Again by coincidence we were both the oldest with a spread of younger children. We both had to take responsibility of our younger sibling's welfare and both enjoyed the experience. Bridget's family was quite large for this day and age. The fact that they were spread was due to her parent's careers, I guess. I imagine Bridget was quite a bit older than the rest. I suppose she was an 'oops,' but being Catholics they weren't averse to a real family when the opportunity arose.

Christchurch has a very conservative old money set. Both our families were for, better or worse part of that set. Both of us went to private schools but as Bridget was a few years younger, neither of us could remember meeting in our younger days. So here we were by circumstance meeting up in another city at another university

Bridget and I fell hopelessly in love virtually from the first workshop meeting in our group. I had a few girlfriends over time, even lived with one for three years but the feelings I had for Bridget made me question what I had ever felt before. I thought I was going mad. I was obsessed with Bridget. She became a constant part of my conversation with friends who got sick of hearing about her. When we were together we could not keep hands off each other. I got a nickname for a while, "Getaroom Gallimore." I could not get her out of my mind. I pined when she was not there. I couldn't sleep properly if she weren't with me. Best of all she felt the same so it was not long before we got married. Unfortunately in the process Bridget was already pregnant, much to the horror of her parents. We didn't mind.

Wellington is a government town. Bridget had been working with Government departments and was now a project manager. Her MBA was sponsored by her latest employer. Her positions as project manager were on a contract basis which meant they were for a finite duration. I had a permanent position with a consulting firm GCON. Its headquarters were in Auckland, New Zealand and had for a while been breaking into the Australian market with little success. I was building up a team of specialist engineers. It was early days but I was lucky that with the right team we were winning lucrative contracts.

So what could go wrong?

Over and over I thought about our life. Our baby was born in Wellington. Right from the start Bridget showed how good a mother she could be. We did not totally neglect each other on the altar of babydom. I made sure of this. I am a list taker, a planner and a problem solver. All engineers are, aren't they? We organized our lives. We had "just us" nights where Bridget would express a little milk, have someone look after the baby and we would go out, we actually took a swing dancing course and we would go to a function once a month.

We also had a plan. The idea was that Bridget would get three sprogs out in reasonably quick succession. In the meantime I would concentrate on maximizing my breadwinning. As the family became manageable I would throttle back and Bridget would revitalize her career. I also took care not to be consumed by work outside of the home and we shared home and baby duties. We had our ups and downs but we were doing it by the book and we were in love and happy with our lot

Family life was smooth but all Mothers like to be close to their own mothers so when an earthquake flattened Christchurch we found the opportunity to move back to our home town. This was a win-win. The shift became the corner stone of my illustrious career and the closeness to our parents and old friends enabled us maximum support.

When we arrived in Christchurch we managed to find a relatively undamaged house with the help of our parents. We found a swing dancing club. After the earthquake social events were limited but some of Bridget's old friends invited her to join a book group; this was the first time that Bridget had followed an interest without me. I was not allowed to join.

The women in the book group would be what I would call right wing feminists. Whether they would admit it or not they seem to have a take-no-prisoners power struggle going on in their minds with men. Now, I am entirely sympathetic with equality and in fact do a lot toward encouraging women into the engineering profession. But these women were beyond equality and into power. Knowing them, I figured they all had in common a high level of dissatisfaction with life. Bridget seemed the odd one out in this respect.

Although twenty somethings, two of them were already divorced, a couple were struggling with their sexuality, one was overtly gay, three of them were the sort whose appearance is not attractive and by principle seem to willfully make themselves even more unattractive. This, so they can bitch and moan like the martyrs to the cause they were.

All of them have an IQ of 125 and above and no common sense whatsoever. And into to this blindly follows an innocent, my own Bridget.

Nothing much happened for a while. Lily was growing older and Bridget continued with the group. I did read the books she brought home for a while but I got sick of those feminist trigger words people put in place of a real argument. I suppose it is just a vehicle to pour scorn on all that they are hopelessly biased against. Trigger words divide; they reaffirmed their companionship as part of an 'us' group. The net effect is to nauseate the others including any of those who would normally like to be sympathetic to their cause.

That's OK, it doesn't sound like it, but I do respect people's beliefs except where it negatively affects my life. Since they seemed to use every opportunity to criticize me, they were affecting our marriage and my life.

It dawns on me when I am thinking about this that these people underestimate the reality of biology and this leads to their life of suffering and bitterness as they wallow in their own lonely mud hole.

I survived by learning to bite my tongue which I was eventually to regret even more than my father talking me into doing a MBA.

Still my career was going great guns. I managed to establish a very highly sought after international consulting group. It was built around heavy industrial and alternative energy plants. This included geothermal engineering. It seems amazing to me that I achieved it in a relatively short time but I will give my MBA a partial factor in that but it was also the opportunity that arose with the influx of international attention on the Christchurch rebuild. It was also the network that I had in the academic world through my old alma mater, not forgetting Bridget's father.

It did mean I had to take the odd trip overseas but as I was managing the team I was mainly getting the work and schmoozing the clients. The guys that actually maxed the work output did the time in foreign climes. So I did not have to spend vast amounts of time in steaming jungles and the like.

During this time I noticed Bridget getting a little restless. Whereas she used to be very proud of my work and brag about it I found her increasingly putting it down and acting as though she was resentful. Especially after attending book group meetings. She let slip of some of the negative comments from her so called friends. In their view I was blocking the advancement of women in my success. But they had never met or talked to any of my engineers which were well represented with women.

It was all based on their bias and they never wanted evidence. Once I invited them to come to my work place for a presentation from the women in the engineering group. They refused. What especially hurt was Bridget who often came to my work, attended functions and quite often just popped in, just stopped coming.

She never said anything to me. I tried to ask her but there was always an excuse and no explanation. What really hurt was that I just loved seeing her come through the door with Lily in her push chair and waving. The cry of Daddy, Daddy would go up and Engineers would pop their heads above partitions and there would be smiles all round.

When Lily was around two years Bridget unilaterally decided that she would ditch our plan. She apparently discussed it with her book group but not me. It was the first real argument we ever had. I had that terrible word 'patriarchy" fired at me. Bridget announced that she would go back to work and already one of the book group members had organized an opening for her.

Suddenly there was no plan. An alternative objective did not come with this change of direction.

Initially it wasn't too bad. She was on a contract that only took her out three days a week. It was for a project in her old arena, a government agency. When that contract finished she obtained a position in a private business consultancy. That's when things began to get serious. That could take her out of the home for 80 hours of the week from time to time. She did travel occasionally but that was bearable.

I found I was doing far more than my fair share round the house and it was making it difficult at work. She came home tired and lacking energy for any home duties. Lily was into her terrible twos and was a handful. But the thing that was really worrying me was that the fantastic mother that she had been seemed to be disappearing.

I had a great relationship with her family and they had noticed what was happening. They saw less of her. I was at her parents with Lily one night for dinner. Bridget had begged off yet again. Her mother collared me. "This is not her," She said, "Even as a girl she was motherly and domestic. She loved cooking and used to help me with the kids. She is not built for an intense career. She never seems happy." I agreed, I said, "She is very influenced by her peers at the book group. None of them are domestic in any shape or form."

"They are all too intellectual for that," I added ironically.

Her Mother replied "Poof!" they are convincing her to be something she isn't. Why aren't you doing anything about it?"

"I try to talk to her," I said, "But I cannot criticize what her peers say in any way. Their opinion is always sacrosanct. Mine is apparently always wrong."

This sounds as though it was all bad. It was not. We still loved each other, we were devoted. We slept together, we still had our "just us" nights and our sexual life was steady. That is until things got on top of her and of course the temporary drought over the blow up about the cessation of baby making.

I had a heart to heart with her one day in the company of two of her sisters. Her explanation was that she had just started and was proving herself. She was giving it a year. She avoided stating what her objective was but I instinctively knew. She had the ambition bug. I believe her book group peers were encouraging her to compete with me. They had an objective. She was to win. To me they were a bunch of psychopathic bitches that did not have one iota of empathy for us. They were using her.

Then a curious thing happened. She came home to say she had been head hunted.

"What who?"

"They are international consultants, "Revacon". Their New Zealand arm at the moment is building a project management base. I will have to travel next week for a final interview, but they are telling me I have it in the bag and it will only be a formality. "

"I know of Revecon internationally, I did not know they are in New Zealand. What sort of project management are they doing?"

"Construction and property."

"You've never project managed in the construction industry."

"A good project manager will be able to manage in any sphere."

"Yeah, Nah!"

"What! Are you jealous of my success?"

Bridget was getting angry so I backed off rather than rain on her parade.

But I did think of it as a joyous occasion for me. I thought it would take her out of the sphere of the bitches at the book group. She claimed that there were real opportunities for her as the consultancy was establishing itself and her position will enable her to manage her time better. She said that there would be some intensive work and travel for the first months until they were set up. Then once over that hump we can plan our futures.

Well it sounded good. We got out a bottle of bubbly and played some music. Lily gurgled from her cot. I got her out and swung her round to the music, her little chubby arms waving. Bridget took her over and swung her round, put her down so that Lily continued to stagger to the music. Meanwhile Bridget took my arms and we danced a little swing.

"I know!" I had an idea. I fumbled with the Spotify. When Bridget and I had just started getting serious we went to Christchurch to see her parents. Bridget's dad had an old vinyl collection and her father played a track of a best of Moody blues album called "Nights in white satin." We were utterly and tastelessly in love at the time and we made it our song. Privately, if we were ever feeling romantic, it was on the playlist. It would always make us dance close, like, really close, like feel my hard on close. This night was no different.

Now, I sit there on my bed thinking, 'that was the last time we got anywhere close.' Even at her last job we had made time for one another.

When she started the job she would often come home and talk about her boss Anthony. She seemed to regard him with some reverence. It got to a point that she would be wide eyed and smile as she described some clever strategy or idea that Anthony talked to her about. She talked of the marvelous things he had achieved in the states. I finally asked her not to talk about him. It disturbed me as it sounded like she was infatuated with him. I tried to talk about it with her but she passed me off as jealous. After that she did not say anything significant about him or her work which seemed even more ominous. My mistake, I guess.

Well I sit here on my bed pondering this. Lily would be stirring soon, I need to shower, get her ready and drop her off at her grandmas.

I wonder what surprises I will have today. Last week was a wonder. I really do not know where GCON is going. It seems we are under a takeover and who is doing it. Revacon! And who is apparently a wheel in the New Zealand arm of Revacon, My Wife! What is going on?

Last week started with Bridget leaving home and flying up to Auckland on the Sunday night. She was really mysterious about that one. Her spin was that it was commercially sensitive. She said tapping her nose, "But," she said, "There will be wonderful news for us coming." What would that be, I wondered.

I flew out to Melbourne first thing Monday morning for two days. Lily was with Grandma as usual.

Not a lot to report on that trip. It was known that GCON was struggling in Australia and a serious drag on the business. Now I am not a financial man in that I do not juggle the international funny money that corporate organizations like to indulge themselves in. My financial experience is tied to the projects in hand.

We do well in my little unit. We do little marketing but our clients generally come to us as their choice. We have clients who pay on time and they keep coming back unlike the rest of the business. I am proud of it, indeed I am passionate, I am the champion of our approach in our sector. So I was invited as a guest speaker at an in-house seminar; largely a ra-ra for the troops.

There was not a hint about what might happen later in the week. At that seminar I mentioned one of our clients and a significant project that we were negotiating for.

As the day was breaking up one of GCONs senior Australian managers, Julian Saks collared me. This guy I hardly knew but by reputation he was not doing the company much good. I found him smarmy so I usually kept conversation with him to a minimum.

This time he seemed to be particularly interested in the project alliance I had been developing with a Malaysian group KLCON. KLCON had originally set up as part of GCON but eventually it was bought out by its Malaysian employees. KLCON continued an association with GCON and was really our long time stepping stone into Asia. The alliance was for a mega industrial development in the Philippines. I wondered what his interest was as he seemed to be officious about it and the Australian arm had never formally been involved with my side of the business.

"Tell me Alwyn, have you got this project in the bag yet?" he asked.

"Done and dusted Julian, Done and dusted," I replied, keeping the comment short.

I really had nothing much I wanted to say. Actually the glib remark was not exactly true. Nothing had been signed. That was all for the next week.

"Bloody great," said Julian, "Well done." That was rare praise from Julian; I wondered 'What's got into him?' He had never volunteered praise for me before.

Then he continued, "Oh by the way, I ran into that wife of yours at a function in Melbourne last week. Lucky Man, Alwyn, lucky man. She's quite a doll."

'Melbourne last week? First I've heard about it,' I thought. 'What the fuck is she doing now?'

Julian was looking at me; I was kind of stuck for words. The worst thing was the evil grin he was developing his face as I turned away.

I exited the room beating myself up for not saying all the things I could have.

The truth is, I did not know where she was at that time. When I try ringing her I am lucky to get a one reply over several days.

And so it was silence until Thursday. That day several of the senior staff were called up to Auckland from Wellington and Christchurch for a grand announcement.