Alex and me were just getting out of the car after our Friday night curry, when Anni, smart and sassy appeared next to us in the orange glow of the street lights, fizzing with excitement about the Forum she had spent the day at. She was carried away with her own enthusiasm and clearly needed to talk to someone about her wonderful experience. It’s hard enough to concentrate at times, I find. But even harder as the wind is biting into to you, when you have the dogs on your mind and you are just looking forward to going to bed. Anni was not to be diverted and when Alex invited her in for a coffee I thought well at least two of my three issues will be resolved.
I brought in some coffee having calmed the dogs. Anni was in full flow in our front room and we were compelled to listen. The story unraveled bit by bit. What we were dealing with was a broken heart, a woman let down, someone looking for answers. Anni runs the coffee outlet and little shop at our local train station and in the course of her work she meets lots of city types on their way to work. They open up to her and tell her about problems they are having with their wives, their bosses, their mothers, their children. Anni is a sociable gregarious type, a real people person and she takes an interest in all the people she meets and can greet them by name every morning and get their coffee just the way they like it.
That was how she met Andrew two years ago. They got talking over coffee and slowly got to know each other and one coffee led to dinner and eventually breakfast, I presume. But Anni felt that there was a lot she didn’t know about Andrew. He had two phones and she was NEVER allowed to call one of them. Often, when she called, his phone was switched off and she might not hear from him for a day or two. Anni and Andrew seldom went out for dinner. Never to a concert nor a walk in the park at the weekends. In fact the only times she would see him was late at night with about 30 minutes notice. She would get a call and he would ask if he could come over and bring a bottle of wine and she would say yes. Because she loved him. He touched her heart like no other.
Anni is a bright, worldly, articulate woman who has been left disconsolate. She has just paid out £350 to spend three days with 149 other people in a hotel function room near Euston station to listen to a motivational speaker. Can this speaker tell her what kind of person Andrew is? Can he help her understand that sometimes in life, we are foolish. Sometimes we end up with really unsuitable people. We are driven perhaps by desire, mistaking it for love. We are at a point in our lives … and then, wham, someone unavailable like Andrew appears. This adds to the urgency and to the intensity, high emotion. And the frailty of the human is that we sometimes want the unattainable. My wise friend, Suman says – People think the grass is greener on the other side. When what they should be doing, is watering the grass on their own side. Kernels of wisdom come from experience and learning from that experience.
Anni will be all right. She will wake up one day and eventually realize that who she fell for would have been a disaster. Andrew, like so many, is a selfish man who would never put her first. She deserves to be put first. The other person who will be all right is that motivational speaker at the Forum. He stands to make £52,500 for 3 days work. Hmmm. Troubled people are big business!
