A Shout From The Attic: The Esmé Years - 1
"The problem with living with a closed heart is that it leaves too much to be guessed at, and unless one has extraordinary insight and perception, one is liable to guess wrong.'' writes Ronnie Bray, telling of a difficult time in his life.
These were difficult years for several reasons. Principally, I was some way off from maturity, and lacked insight into my shortcomings to some extent, although not altogether. I tried to keep a balance in life, but did not always get the help I thought I needed and expected from a wife.
The things of most worth from this period are Andy and Curt. The worst things were the pains of betrayal, the structures of deceit, the alienation, the loss of my sweetheart and children, and the descent into insanity. Compared with these, the confines of prison walls were minor irritations that were easily dealt with.
I put all my love in one place when I married Esmé, and little felt and never dreamed that she was inconstant, flighty, and faithless. Perhaps she dreamed of an easy life with roses around the door of a cottage in a lush green place. I don’t know, because she never really opened up her heart to me. She kept herself reserved and apart. I know that she was desperately unhappy at home because she wrote “I can’t wait to get away from this place!” I was happy to help her, not alone because I loved her, but also because I too had been unhappy at home as a child, and also wanted to escape.
The problem with living with a closed heart is that it leaves too much to be guessed at, and unless one has extraordinary insight and perception, one is liable to guess wrong. I frequently guessed wrong, and that added to the burden we both began to feel, but I could only tell that I was alone in trying to ease it.
We tried living together, and we tried living apart, but there was always a pull to some extent from each of us to make as go of our marriage, especially after we had the children. Then, the day came when Esmé stopped pulling, and the whole world fell apart. There was less and less to talk about, and the coolness and distance developed into Arctic proportions. Something was going on of which I was not made aware. I even apologised for voicing a vagrant opinion that made her cry. I was looking for answers, but she was looking for the door that would take her to another, someone who had already, by that time, shared her bed many times.
Eventually, she wrote me a letter saying how unhappy she was and that she had found someone to make her happy. “I have not deceived you for long,” she wrote, “You know my conscience is too strong for that.” She provided no name, no dates, no plans, and no other details. It was simply, “Your time is up. It’s over!” I was distraught, made a feeble attempt to kill myself. I was taken to the Military hospital at Netley, reconstituted into something of a human being, and discharged from the army and the hospital to take my anger out on an innocent world.
