Diary of an Agoraphobic Misanthrope - Entry Two

Diary of an Agoraphobic Misanthrope

Entry Two

The last couple of days have been pretty much the same as expected. Jayne is away for work duties in Birmingham for a couple of nights. She is a business administrator for a shoe company and part of her job is to visit other departments around the country. I have been finishing of jobs, including the barn conversion at Evergrove and carrying out small jobs such as installing extra sockets and lights for other customers. At least I can get on and send some invoices out to keep my money coming in. I will do this at the weekend.

I arrived home around 7.30pm after a pretty productive day at work, ate some food and played on the guitar for a bit. I have just recently bought a book which features Spanish classical transcriptions by Isaac Albeniz. I'm trying to learn Sevilla which is my favourite by Albeniz. All transcriptions have been made from piano to guitar and show guitar tablature aswell as the original sheet music. My reading of original sheet music isn't too hot, so am glad with the easier-to-read tablature notation. I'm pleased to have the first part nailed, but the successive parts are more tricky. The tune is pretty much all the same throughout, but changes key which makes some parts a bit tricky to play, well for me anyway.

After I practice playing Sevilla for a while, I decide to hunt out some of the artwork I have made in earlier years to get ready to bring to my next counseling appointment with Marie-Louise. I know the artwork must be stored away under the bed in the larger of the two spare bedrooms. I scrabble under the bed and pull out a load of stuff which belong to both Jayne and I. I see a stack of her own stuff and notice a bundle of Jayne's personal diaries. I remember when we first got involved with each other she used to write in a diary every day. I was 22 years old and Jayne was 21 years old when we started seeing each other in a relationship. I was lodging in Brimpton near the high street and Jayne lived with her parents about 200 yards from town. This was around August of 1995. Jayne had left an unhappy relationship about six months before with a boyfriend who she had been engaged to and said she was very happy to have left it behind her as he was unfaithful to her on many occasion. As for myself, I was pretty inexperienced with women and relationships. I was seeing a woman just before Jayne and I got together, but it was very short lived. Her name was Libby Fox and I met her at a workmate's engagement party in the King's Head in Wells. I thought she had a natural beauty about her. I'd seen her around before somewhere, and since I had had a few drinks that evening I found it relatively easy to pluck up courage to go over and talk to her. The pub was quite full with people and the atmosphere was buzzing. I had been drinking and chatting with my main work colleague for most of the evening. He was the senior electrician at the electrical and engineering company we worked for based in Steepstone Montague. The company was called BCL which stood for Ball Cock Limited. Two companies merged together called Ball and Cock to form Ball Cock Limited. I was employed by Cock before the business merge with Ball. Anyway, back in the pub, I went over and said quite loudly to the lady in question 'Don't I know you?'. She said she did recognise me from somewhere and we got chatting. I can't remember about what, but we both agreed that I would pick her up the following evening and go out somewhere. I think she had probably had quite a few drinks too.

The following evening I picked her up from her home with my little white Ford Fiesta. She lived with her mother in Steepstone Montague. I can't remember where exactly we went that evening, but it was probably a pub where we could sit down and get to know one another. Libby didn't really say very much, but I put this down to being shy on a first date. I was pretty shy too, but managed a bit of chit-chat.

We both met up over the course of a few weeks and still Libby wouldn't say much at all and what she did say came out as noises and grunts. I was getting the impression she didn't really like me very much. She didn't seem interested in any suggestions I would make on what to do or make any suggestions herself. I, on the other hand, felt as if I was falling in love with Libby.

One night we watched a film at the place I was lodging at in Brimpton. Libby seemed like she didn't want to be there and continued with what seemed like a negative attitude toward me. I would ask her if she was ok and she would sort of look at me with a scowled look. I was getting a bit fed up with this behaviour and needed to get out for a bit, so I said to Libby I was popping to the pub across the road to get some cigarettes from the vending machine. I walked across the road to the pub and went inside. There were a few people in the pub and it happened that Jayne was there also. She was with friends. I said 'hi' and walked over to the cigarette vending machine. She followed me over and asked me what I was up to. I said I had just come to the pub to pick up some cigarettes. She seemed quite flirty and then said with a smile 'It was nice to see you and hopefully see you again.'. I got my cigarettes and went back home to rejoin Libby.

Libby and I both finished watching the film which I had left running while I had walked over to the pub to get my cigarettes. I can't remember what the film was. Hardly any words were exchanged between us and I then took her home in my little white Ford Fiesta. Brimpton is about six or seven miles from Steepstone Montague and the journey home with Libby in the passenger seat seemed like a hundred mile drive. Again, no conversation. I wound down the window during the journey and as I did so I could smell the stink of cow-shit drifting through the open window. This is usual, since it is a rural area and there are lots of farms in this part of the world. The smell of cow-shit seemed to get stronger and stronger. At that exact moment, the feelings of love I thought I had felt for Libby had vanished instantly. It was like the smell of cow-shit contained some magical remedy which was analogous to Orpheus's harp drowning out the Siren's voices in Greek mythology. Although Libby didn't use her voice to allure, the cow-shit aroma seemed to douse any feelings I had toward her. I dropped her off at her home and journeyed home to safety. I felt free!

I didn't bother meeting with Libby again, but I did receive a letter from her asking why I hadn't been in touch and that she was upset I hadn't bothered contacting her. I bumped into her mother while fitting an outside light outside the  workshop at BCL in Steepstone Montague. Her mother also asked me why I hadn't been in touch with Libby. I explained to her mother that I had had an offer to go with friends to Australia. This was the first thing I thought of saying, which wasn't really a lie as a friend had asked me if I was interested in going to Australia for a year, but I hadn't really made any firm plans to go. I didn't really want to tell Libby's mother the reasons why I hadn't been in touch with Libby, so I wrote a letter in response direct to Libby explaining that I didn't think she was interested, which is why I hadn't been in touch. I didn't mention I felt her attitude was quite negative toward me. Libby sent me another letter saying that she didn't understand how I could have thought that. If only I had Derren Brown's powers of perception!

Anyway, back to Jayne's diaries. I am sat on the floor resting my back up against the bed in the spare room. I am, of course, supposed to be looking for my old artwork, but I have the feeling I have been guided to Jayne's diaries by some mysterious force - a force of fate which feels like a guiding hand from the spirit world. I look through the bundle of diaries and pick out the ones from years 1995 and 1996. I start with the 1995 diary. In 1995 and at the beginning of 1996, Jayne and I had a few problems regarding our relationship. During the beginning of our relationship, Jayne started to go to places with her friends where her ex-fiance would hang out. I was uncomfortable with this, but Jayne assured me she wasn't interested in him and that she would never be unfaithful to anybody as it is not in her nature. I would get horrible gut feelings because of this, but I thought it must just be me being a bit silly and insecure. A little later, around the beginning of 1996, I had wanted to go and see my sister who was studying at Cardiff University. Jayne was very keen for me to go and see my sister and to go up for the whole weekend. I went to Cardiff for the weekend and had fun with my sister and her friends. While I was in Cardiff, I remember getting these horrible gut feelings, just like the feelings I had when Jayne would go to the places where her ex-fiance would be. I thought I was just being paranoid and feeling insecure. This was my first proper emotional relationship, so these feelings were pretty new to me.

After a fun weekend out on the town in Cardiff, I made the drive home back to Brimpton. I had already arranged to meet Jayne that evening and was looking forward to seeing her. We met up at the place I was lodging around early evening time. I was pleased to see her, but she didn't seem too pleased to see me and said she was just tired and wanted to go home about half-an-hour after arriving. I was a bit disappointed, but I drove Jayne home and arranged to see her the following evening. After I dropped her off, I had all these horrible gut feelings again and I was thinking there's something not quite right.

The following evening we met up and I confronted her with my thoughts and asked her if she was seeing her ex-boyfriend. She denied anything was going on between her and her ex-boyfriend and angrily told me that I was paranoid. She was annoyed and really angry that I could possibly suggest such a thing.

The following weeks were quite rocky, but we seemed to manage to get onto stable ground and seemed to have a happy relationship.

So, I open the 1995 diary and look through the entries from the time our relationship started in August and onwards. I am shocked when I come across entries describing explicit detail of the sexual encounters she has with her ex-fiance. I am stunned, but I continue to read through more entries and find more entries filled with similar content. My heart feels like it is being beaten with a sledgehammer. I close the 1995 diary and move onto the 1996 diary where I find the entries for the weekend when I was away in Cardiff. I am no longer surprised to read what I read.

My heart is still pounding away and it actually feels as if it is going to burst from my chest like the alien from the 'Alien' film. My emotions are mixed. There is a part of me which feels hurt and betrayed by somebody I love or loved. There is a part of me which feels very angry toward her and a rage toward her ex-boyfriend who I feel like I would like to get hold of and torture. I visualise shooting his kneecaps off with a shotgun. There is another part of me which feels relieved and glad that I have found something which will make it easier for me to get out of this relationship. I felt our relationship had gone stale for a long time and had felt as if had fallen out of love with Jayne for quite some time now. I now had what I needed to leave the relationship without a sense of guilt. I guess the coward in me has reared it's ugly head again. I would have felt it very difficult to leave the relationship just because I had fallen out of love. I think maybe I had always known this relationship wasn't right and my paranoia turned out not to be paranoia whatsoever. At least now I can trust my feelings and instincts.

Jayne will be home tomorrow night, so I will confront her with my discoveries then. I don't think I will be getting much sleep tonight.