This is from an e-mail sent me a couple of years ago from an expat friend who now works in London Town. It does seem that her experience in the world of educated professionals is NOTHING AT ALL like mine. I'm just worried about my runner getting the daily lunch order right. As for my friend---
I've been having a bad summer.
The back story is that several years ago a gay friend of mine introduced me to his then pupilmaster (they are now both barristers at the same Chambers) on his birthday. This married barrister and I fell madly in love at first sight and had a long-term affair, obviously complicated by the whole married-with-children thing. The next year, on the very same date, the same gay friend introduced me to his friend who is a young, badly-behaved, copper-haired heiress. She and I also fell in love pretty much at first sight (my gay barrister friend is at this point getting slightly bemused). I introduced her to the married barrister and they got along fabulously. All was, if not well, broadly functional.
So you'll appreciate the soap operatic shenanigans that followed. A month ago, my lesbian lover ran off with the husband of the pregnant clerk at the Chambers where gay barrister and married barrister are both based. She is now being all housewiffley off in Zone 4, and the Chambers is in a kerfuffle coping with a pregnant, depressed, wronged woman of a clerk. (Gay barrister friend is wondering exactly how he became the one introducing all of the scarlet women into Chambers life.)
Then, married barrister, who had claimed he had basically left his wife and was merely sorting out practical details, tells me he is going on a hiking trip in the alps with his friend. I have no reason to disbelieve him.
While he's away, my landlady/flatmate tells me she wants me to move out ASAP (I only moved in May, at her insistence) so that her anorexic sister can move in so she can keep an eye on her and make sure she's eating. So I am suddenly frantic to find a new place to live. It is difficult to get in touch with married barrister who is without mobile phone access most of the time because he's hiking in the bloody alps...or so he says.
For no particular reason, I have the sudden revelation that he has lied to me and is away with his wife and kids, not hiking with his mate. I am absolutely certain of this (I do get these occasional flashes of intuition). I'm heartbroken and furious,but I decide I have to get conclusive proof that he lied before I do anything. I stalk his friend online to find his work number, ring it up and then hang up when he answers. Confirmed. I email married barrister and tell him I never want to see him again. (Turns out they're in Italy.) At this point he offers to fly back immediately and send emails to his parents/friends/everyone he knows saying that his marriage is over and he wants to be with me, but it is too late.
So things are bad.
Yesterday, I was chatting with a gay friend who is based in Delhi about the whole thing. He told me I should run away to Paris and have a threesome with our friends Albert and Olivier (both quite attractive Frenchman--Olivier I've slept with already). So I am going to Paris on Friday. We shall see.
I've been having a bad summer.
The back story is that several years ago a gay friend of mine introduced me to his then pupilmaster (they are now both barristers at the same Chambers) on his birthday. This married barrister and I fell madly in love at first sight and had a long-term affair, obviously complicated by the whole married-with-children thing. The next year, on the very same date, the same gay friend introduced me to his friend who is a young, badly-behaved, copper-haired heiress. She and I also fell in love pretty much at first sight (my gay barrister friend is at this point getting slightly bemused). I introduced her to the married barrister and they got along fabulously. All was, if not well, broadly functional.
So you'll appreciate the soap operatic shenanigans that followed. A month ago, my lesbian lover ran off with the husband of the pregnant clerk at the Chambers where gay barrister and married barrister are both based. She is now being all housewiffley off in Zone 4, and the Chambers is in a kerfuffle coping with a pregnant, depressed, wronged woman of a clerk. (Gay barrister friend is wondering exactly how he became the one introducing all of the scarlet women into Chambers life.)
Then, married barrister, who had claimed he had basically left his wife and was merely sorting out practical details, tells me he is going on a hiking trip in the alps with his friend. I have no reason to disbelieve him.
While he's away, my landlady/flatmate tells me she wants me to move out ASAP (I only moved in May, at her insistence) so that her anorexic sister can move in so she can keep an eye on her and make sure she's eating. So I am suddenly frantic to find a new place to live. It is difficult to get in touch with married barrister who is without mobile phone access most of the time because he's hiking in the bloody alps...or so he says.
For no particular reason, I have the sudden revelation that he has lied to me and is away with his wife and kids, not hiking with his mate. I am absolutely certain of this (I do get these occasional flashes of intuition). I'm heartbroken and furious,but I decide I have to get conclusive proof that he lied before I do anything. I stalk his friend online to find his work number, ring it up and then hang up when he answers. Confirmed. I email married barrister and tell him I never want to see him again. (Turns out they're in Italy.) At this point he offers to fly back immediately and send emails to his parents/friends/everyone he knows saying that his marriage is over and he wants to be with me, but it is too late.
So things are bad.
Yesterday, I was chatting with a gay friend who is based in Delhi about the whole thing. He told me I should run away to Paris and have a threesome with our friends Albert and Olivier (both quite attractive Frenchman--Olivier I've slept with already). So I am going to Paris on Friday. We shall see.
My friend has a life that sounds exhausting yet definitely worth recording. She will not, she says, be writing her own autobiographical novel because she would like to keep her job and at least a few friends. Nonetheless, I do rather fancy having her in my archives.
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