on their bottoms which are padded with what looks like fifteen nappies and they burst into tears. What’s it about? Why haven’t they got a sense of proportion?
Still, I want kids with Gillian. It seems the natural thing to do. And I’m sure she’ll want them too when the time is right. That’s something women know, isn’t it – when the time is right? I’ve already made them a promise, those kids we’re going to have. I’m not going to be like my parents. I’m going to try and see the point of you, whatever that point is. I’ll back you. Whatever you want to do is OK by me.
Gillian I suppose I do have one worry about Stuart. Sometimes I’m working away up here in my studio – the name’s a bit too grand for the room, which is only 12 by 12, but even so – and there’s music on the radio and I’m sort of on automatic pilot. Then I’ll suddenly think, I hope he doesn’t get disappointed. This may be an odd thing to say when you’ve only been married a month, but it’s true. It’s something I feel.
I usually don’t mention the fact that I once trained as a social worker. It’s another thing people tend to make crass comments about, or crass assumptions anyway. For instance,it’s perfectly obvious that what I was trying to do for my clients was patch up their lives and their relationships in a way that I’d been unable to do for my parents. That’s perfectly obvious to anyone, isn’t it? Except to me.
And even if I was in some way trying to do this, I certainly didn’t succeed. I lasted eighteen months before packing it in, and in that time I saw a lot of disappointed people. Most days I saw damage, people with huge problems, emotional, social, financial – sometimes self-inflicted, mostly just handed down to them. Things families had done to them, parents, husbands; things they’d never get over.
Then there were the other ones, the disappointed ones. And that was real damage, irreversible. The ones who began with such high hopes of the world, then put their trust in psychopaths and fantasists, invested their faith in boozers and hitters. And they’d go on for many years with incredible perseverance, believing when they had no reason to believe, when it was crazy for them to believe. Until one day they just gave up. And what could twenty-two-year-old trainee social worker Gillian Wyatt do for them? Believe me, professionalism and cheerfulness cut very little ice with these clients.
People get broken in spirit. That’s what I couldn’t face. And it came to me later, as I began to love Stuart, this thought: please don’t let him be disappointed. I’d never felt that before with anyone. Worrying about their long-term future, how they’d turn out. Worrying what they might think when they finally looked back.
Listen, I’m not playing this … game. But equally there’s no point sitting in the corner with a handkerchief stuffed in your mouth. I’ll say what I have to say, what I know.
I went out with quite a lot of men before I met Stuart. I was nearly in love, I was proposed to a couple of times; on the other hand, I once went for a year without men, without sex – both seemed too much trouble. Some of the men I went out with were ‘old enough to be my father’ as they say; on the other hand, many weren’t. So where does that leave us? One bit of information and people are immediately off into their theories. Did I marry Stuart because I thought he wouldn’t let me down the way my father had? No, I married him because I loved him. Because I love, respect and fancy him. I didn’t fancy him at first, not particularly. I don’t conclude anything from that either, except that fancying is a complicated business.
We were in that hotel with schooners of sherry in our hands. Was it a cattle market? No, it was a sensible group of people taking a sensible step about their lives. It happened to work for the two of us, we were lucky. But we weren’t ‘just’ lucky. Sitting alone with
Still, I want kids with Gillian. It seems the natural thing to do. And I’m sure she’ll want them too when the time is right. That’s something women know, isn’t it – when the time is right? I’ve already made them a promise, those kids we’re going to have. I’m not going to be like my parents. I’m going to try and see the point of you, whatever that point is. I’ll back you. Whatever you want to do is OK by me.
Gillian I suppose I do have one worry about Stuart. Sometimes I’m working away up here in my studio – the name’s a bit too grand for the room, which is only 12 by 12, but even so – and there’s music on the radio and I’m sort of on automatic pilot. Then I’ll suddenly think, I hope he doesn’t get disappointed. This may be an odd thing to say when you’ve only been married a month, but it’s true. It’s something I feel.
I usually don’t mention the fact that I once trained as a social worker. It’s another thing people tend to make crass comments about, or crass assumptions anyway. For instance,it’s perfectly obvious that what I was trying to do for my clients was patch up their lives and their relationships in a way that I’d been unable to do for my parents. That’s perfectly obvious to anyone, isn’t it? Except to me.
And even if I was in some way trying to do this, I certainly didn’t succeed. I lasted eighteen months before packing it in, and in that time I saw a lot of disappointed people. Most days I saw damage, people with huge problems, emotional, social, financial – sometimes self-inflicted, mostly just handed down to them. Things families had done to them, parents, husbands; things they’d never get over.
Then there were the other ones, the disappointed ones. And that was real damage, irreversible. The ones who began with such high hopes of the world, then put their trust in psychopaths and fantasists, invested their faith in boozers and hitters. And they’d go on for many years with incredible perseverance, believing when they had no reason to believe, when it was crazy for them to believe. Until one day they just gave up. And what could twenty-two-year-old trainee social worker Gillian Wyatt do for them? Believe me, professionalism and cheerfulness cut very little ice with these clients.
People get broken in spirit. That’s what I couldn’t face. And it came to me later, as I began to love Stuart, this thought: please don’t let him be disappointed. I’d never felt that before with anyone. Worrying about their long-term future, how they’d turn out. Worrying what they might think when they finally looked back.
Listen, I’m not playing this … game. But equally there’s no point sitting in the corner with a handkerchief stuffed in your mouth. I’ll say what I have to say, what I know.
I went out with quite a lot of men before I met Stuart. I was nearly in love, I was proposed to a couple of times; on the other hand, I once went for a year without men, without sex – both seemed too much trouble. Some of the men I went out with were ‘old enough to be my father’ as they say; on the other hand, many weren’t. So where does that leave us? One bit of information and people are immediately off into their theories. Did I marry Stuart because I thought he wouldn’t let me down the way my father had? No, I married him because I loved him. Because I love, respect and fancy him. I didn’t fancy him at first, not particularly. I don’t conclude anything from that either, except that fancying is a complicated business.
We were in that hotel with schooners of sherry in our hands. Was it a cattle market? No, it was a sensible group of people taking a sensible step about their lives. It happened to work for the two of us, we were lucky. But we weren’t ‘just’ lucky. Sitting alone with
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