MY LIFE

I was warned at the beginning what the end would be like but I don’t remember what they said so how was I to know?
Three of us ran back along the red-painted brick corridor, through the doorway led to beneath the back of the stage.
‘Quick, quick,’ I said holding the door, ready to close it in her face when she tried to follow us.
We laughed at the silver wig we’d persuaded the last in line to wear as we climbed the stairs to the ground level floor where small clusters of people chatted shaking hands, saying, ‘Hello.’
At the top of Colston Street, a van pulled up alongside a small white car. She was there and started loading the car, saying to the man who came towards her carrying a cardboard box, ‘Come on, come on,’ irritated.
‘Where you going?’ I said, hoping it wasn’t London and I’d be jealous.
‘West Wales,’ she said. ‘Somewhere remote,’ tears in her eyes. ‘He’s got family there.’
She’d loved me, and only after she’d gone did I know I loved her too.
She’d worn a tuxedo to my party but I was more interested in free-basing coke in a room at the top of the house than giving her the attention she needed. She left when she saw me kiss the woman was to be my first wife and the mother of my daughter.
A Jehovah’s Witness she moved into the Grove bringing a sack of brussels sprouts that she finished within the week. ‘I like sprouts,’ she said.
I liked her, and we got to sitting up into the early hours talking God, not-God and duty to family and friends.
I said I’d put my parents in a home when the time came and she said she’d have to nurse hers all the way until they died.
‘What about your life?’ I said.
‘That would be my life.’