Golden Memories: The Psychopath

When I first met Paul he was a quiet, shy and polite kid, well turned out by his rather elderly parents. But still waters run deep and things changed out of all recognition as the years went by.

The first sign of an underlying trickiness appeared when we played chess together. He began to use a series of shameless strategies to distract me, ranging from tuneless loud whistling to releasing his pet budgies to flap and excrete around the room. He even stooped to the old standby of 'accidently' nudging the board when a losing position was detected. But this was just the beginning.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he somehow managed to burn his garden shed down with my new racing bike inside, but my faith certainly wavered when his mum's white cat developed a row of brown scorch marks on its back. Paul had 'inadvertently' toasted the creature in the grill pan where it had apparently spent the night.

Further similar stories were recounted by my other friends as time moved on and as a young man he became notorious for drinking other people's beer while they were watching darts matches. I stupidly agreed to be his best man in 1973, but observing his immediate stag night infidelity, I decided to call it a day.

The last time I saw him, he told me his father was in a care home and he couldn't wait "for the old bugger to die".

The mysteries of change and motivation.