Masters And Lovers 1-4 novel Chapter 3

I slam my pen down on the desk.

Fuck!

I’m educated, intelligent and usually articulate. I have no difficulties expressing my thoughts.

So, how difficult can it be to write a five-minute Best Man’s Speech?

I rose early, wanting a little peace and quiet so I could get on with the most classic of a Best Man’s duties. I’d assumed it would be easy and I would run the job off in twenty or thirty minutes.

An hour later, the paper in front of me remains stubbornly blank.

And my eyes ache.

Surely I don’t need another eye test?

It goes with middle-age I suppose….

There’s no upside to getting older….

I need coffee….

Leaning back against the counter, sipping at my drink, my mind wanders, travelling back in time to my first marriage….

No….

My marriage….

For this wedding, it’s Michael who is marrying her.

But it doesn’t feel like that.

It feels like my wedding too.

And I’ll get it right this time….

This is my true marriage.

Even though it will be Michael who says the words….

Memories….

My wife, Marlene, with her screeching complaints. Never happy. Always complaining there wasn’t enough money, even though I was working as hard as I knew how.

I never asked her to work. I wanted her to be a mother to our daughter.

Where are you now, Georgie?

I slip the wallet from my back pocket where I keep her photo. I’d like to have it on my desk, but I’m never sure if it would upset Charlotte.

She looks out at me. Georgie. Seventeen years old. Beautiful. Becoming a woman. Holding up her exam certificate to show me. Beaming brightly because she’d made it to university.

I was so proud of you….

Am still proud of you…

More memories….

Only a few weeks later: Georgie has flown the nest to her university and the sick realisation settles on me that my marriage, such as it was, is over.

Marlene, screaming for money…. Screaming for possession of everything. As though she’d earned it all.

Marlene…. and the growing recognition that she had someone else….

Was she seeing him before the divorce?

Who cares…

Bitch.

Walking away from her: I gave her the house. The car. The fucking lot. I simply wanted out. An end to it.