by Milton Johanides

Created on: September 13, 2009   Last Updated: September 15, 2009

There was a strange inconsistency between his words and his actions. It was nothing you could detect easily. But to someone with my experience of charlatans it sang a song. A warning. Within two or three days of our association, I no longer trusted him. My wife, Helen, couldn't understand me. She saw only his looks; he was as handsome as they come, and she swooned every time he smiled.

"You're just being paranoid. Rusty is trying to help and you're not letting him."

I couldn't take this sort of feminine soft-soap for very long, and on the third day I snapped.

"You trust Rusty over me, well bloody bugger off and marry him then!"

Of course this sort of tirade was not unusual between us. It had nothing to do with Rusty, only about the disintegration of our marriage. Helen had been a naughty girl and had confessed it to me years before. Not a day passed when I wished she hadn't been so damn honest. I thought for a while I would have to leave her but stayed for the kids, dad with a conscience. And still, despite the nausea at the thought of Helen's infidelity, there were moments when she was the only reason I had for living. There were other moments too, dark, drunken sequences of insanity, when she would come bearing down on me like a demon, dark eyebrows knitted together like horns, tongue lashing out with bloody disdain. Times like that she could have killed me.

Church on Sunday was the usual dry affair. Who comes to the Costa del Sol to join a church? Sometimes I think we have both gone completely mad. We used to have a lot of fun, before church came into our lives. I know this is what is bothering Helen as well. She is trying to do her bit, even helping in the Sunday School, but deep down we're both the same.

After church we sit at the Paradise Bar in front of the beach and enjoy the company of our friends in the congregation. We have good friends here and the talk is relaxed and entertaining, about thirty of us dotted around different tables. Here, with the sun blazing down, a lukewarm March afternoon with another baking summer round the corner, we are glad we made the decision to leave the grey, rainy climate behind. Financially it has been disastrous (Rusty's been trying to help with that) but all the other things we have gained make up for the money, things that defy definition; being at the Paradise bar on Sunday is part of it. We're one big happy family after a good sermon and some hymns. The talk is all about religion and how it can interfere with real

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>