When Robert Left Helen

Robert and Helen timed their summit meeting to coincide with the girls’ summer brownie camp. Helen, armed with a notebook and wearing a thin – seductive ? - floral frock, sat down and set before her husband a list of observations and concerns about the state of their marriage. Operative words - morbid, unbalanced, mid-life crisis - flew across the dining room table before she slapped down her notebook and offered her piece de resistance: the incident with the vending machine which had led to Robert’s dismissal from his teaching job.

To Helen’s chagrin a smile decorated Robert’s face from the beginning of the meeting and continued throughout his twenty-minute response. Animated, evangelical in the certainty of his reply, he simply agreed with everything she’d said. How could he offer up a defence to her charges ? They were all perfectly reasonable. Yes, a change had occurred. No, he wasn’t the same man that he’d been twelve months ago. Yes, some kind of mystifying psychosis had engulfed him, severing him from his loved ones. He was well-aware that he’d spent the past two months ‘lounging around at home’ (Helen’s phrase) when any half-decent man would have long since dusted himself down and waded into that swamp we call everyday life, kicking and scratching for a job – any job!

   Robert took a deep breath and decided to give it to Helen straight. ‘I’ve decided to fulfil a long-standing ambition and become a full-time writer.’

   Helen stared at her husband. ‘A writer ?’ She began to shake her head in a fevered manner.

   ‘Have you any objections to me becoming a full-time writer ?’

   ‘No, Robert…it’s just that…well, it’s not the most secure of professions. Have you written something ?’ she asked. ‘A best-seller ?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘Have you been commissioned by a reputable publishing house ?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘Then I’m worried. I’m worried about the mortgage and the car and the girls’ riding lessons. My salary alone won’t pay for everything.’

   ‘We’ll downsize’ he said and pushed a sheet of A4 paper towards her. It showed a small, isolated country cottage without either electricity or running water that was currently for sale.

   Helen looked – quite justifiably – dumbfounded…more so when Robert declared that his existence had forever been governed by misplaced concerns about security and domesticity when all he really wanted to do was create literary art. Soon he’d be thirty-six – thirty-six! Chekhov, he reminded her, was dead at forty! Finally, he mumbled something about growth and space denied, and their slow, imperceptible drifting apart.

   ‘You need therapy’ Helen said. ‘You’re still in shock following your dismissal. Darling, you’ve got to be strong. You can weather this storm.’

   ‘I don’t need therapy!’ he said. ‘I’ve decided – I’m going to be a writer!’

Helen’s face took on the sheen of a disparate, far-away world. Then, as if she were about to be consumed by a mountainous wave, her eyes filled with tears and she ran into the bedroom to call her mother.