A Twist in the Tale
Four-and-a-half gruelling hours later, I landed back at Newcastle Airport to face a further three hour drive home. The drive wasn’t going to be so much of a problem though. My aching body was thankful to have shed the corset of charter airline seating and be back in the spacious surrounds of my new company car, a shiny red Volvo 940. At least I’d be able to enjoy the drive south free from cramp, if not my mosquito bites and sunburn.
Safely home again, I spent the rest of the May Bank Holiday Weekend detailing my findings to Allie, Rob and Anne. From the outset of our adventure, Allie and I had agreed to involve our children as much as possible in the fact-finding and decision-making processes. Furtive discussions behind closed doors would not shape Rob and Anne’s late childhood. We wanted them to feel part of what was going on.
Anne, as I recall, was bored of the whole idea of moving to Cyprus before my trip began and needed reassurance that Allie and I hadn’t already decided to go whatever my reconnaissance had revealed. Perhaps she believed that her views wouldn’t figure strongly in the final decision, given the obvious strength of her parents’ feelings about a new life in the sun.
In hindsight, there might have been a grain of truth about her uncertainty. Several people said to us at the time, ‘Don’t pay too much attention to how Rob and Anne feel ... Children are very flexible ... Don’t let them stop you doing what you want to do with your lives.’ Perhaps these observations made us think that Rob and Anne would eventually see the benefits in living overseas, no matter how they felt initially.
However, our children’s concerns and friends’ opinions didn’t matter now, because we weren’t going to Cyprus anyway. Instead, we were about to maintain the status quo. Life would go on just as before and soon recover from the recent blip of madness. I would work for the video company, Allie would teach and our children would stay in their schools. Our family would be happy, our friendships would stay intact and our bank balance would suffer no more attacks of stupidity. Life would settle back quickly into its familiar, predictable and safe pattern.
As luck would have it, my return to work on Tuesday 3 May coincided with an earlier than usual business trip north that week. The journey was horrendous; nothing had changed in that respect. There were several accidents and road works en route and I arrived at my employer’s premises in an agitated state. My back was stiff and aching, despite the Volvo’s ergonomic design, a sure sign of the pressure that I was under at the time.
After a strong cup of coffee and a quiet moment to compose myself, I sought out my boss. Summarising the findings and conclusions of my reconnaissance, I asked if we could forget all about my Cypriot aberration. I felt humble and apologetic, silly in truth. I owed him a big debt of gratitude, for his advice to take a week’s holiday and conduct a detailed investigation had saved my family from ruin.
Sadly, I gained the impression from our discussion that matters had moved on during my absence and it was no longer possible for me to stay in my job. Whatever had happened in the past week or so, whilst I was away, my position was untenable, it seemed. My reckless ambition had ruined our previously close relationship. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, therefore I submitted my resignation.
At about four thirty that afternoon, when Allie was home from school, I telephoned her with the awful news that I’d relinquished my job. Allie was devastated. Like me, she had told her employer that morning that we didn’t intend to go after all, and that my big idea had been a bad mistake in reality. The head teacher’s reaction to our news had been sheer delight. In contrast, she was happy and relieved that Allie was staying, and I was envious.
As I told Allie that I’d already begun to work out my notice, a dreadful sense of foreboding washed over me. Stunned by an overwhelming sense of woe, I recall saying something stupid about it being our destiny, perhaps, to move those two thousand miles south. It wasn’t our destiny at all, of course. I knew that deep down. At the time, I was just looking for a quick-fix to my own, self-inflicted predicament. The real cause of my tunnel vision was the same insanity that I’d been suffering for the past six months.
With my unemployment and destitution on the horizon, I was about to turn a minor drama into a major crisis. Thinking only of myself, I panicked and told Allie that I could see no other option now but to change our minds yet again and accept the chairman’s offer. Actually, there were a million and one better options to choose from, all of them with fewer repercussions, but my heart saw its chance to play dirty tricks again on my head.
If only I’d stepped back from the apparent enormity and complexity of my situation and thought laterally, rather than linearly. I’d run my own successful business for three years before joining the video company. I still had many contacts in my industry, a good reputation and a strong record of success. I was young, well qualified and experienced. Even if I didn’t restart my own business, employment elsewhere with another video company wouldn’t have been difficult to find, even in an economic recession.
But no, I was the one who provided for my family. I was the breadwinner. I was the one with the more important career. As time would tell, I was wrong on all three counts.
The ‘only’ way out of the appalling situation that I’d engineered, it seemed at the time, was for me to take the job in Cyprus after all, and for Allie to emigrate with the children when the summer term ended. This would mean Allie reversing the decision that she’d just given to her head teacher, of course. If I’d given this matter any thought at all, I’d have realised how embarrassing the reversal would be for her. It would seem as if a professional person had no control over her personal affairs, let alone the direction her life was heading. Instead, to salvage my credibility from the unholy mess that I’d created, Allie agreed with my reflex decision to accept the chairman’s offer. Her position at work was still tenable, but I was going to change all that in about sixteen hours time.
A day later than planned, on Wednesday 4 May, I telephoned the chairman’s office from a call box in a west Cumbrian town. ‘Yes please,’ I said as one large coin followed another in very quick succession, ‘I’d like to take the job, if it’s still on offer.’ ‘Did I really give you the impression I wasn’t going to accept?’ I said with mock honesty when asked, ‘No, you were mistaken; I was just keeping my options open.’ I tried to appear upbeat, positive and in control; as if Allie, our children and I had taken the decision happily after weighing carefully all the implications; as if this ‘phone call was one part of a deliberate plan. Not that we’d been forced into a fait accompli, after bouncing from one dubious position to another, like a clumsy ball bearing in a pinball machine.
There was no need to call the owner of the rooms in Limassol now. He was expecting me on 1 June anyway. At least my credibility in his eyes was still intact, if in no one else’s.
Safely home again, I spent the rest of the May Bank Holiday Weekend detailing my findings to Allie, Rob and Anne. From the outset of our adventure, Allie and I had agreed to involve our children as much as possible in the fact-finding and decision-making processes. Furtive discussions behind closed doors would not shape Rob and Anne’s late childhood. We wanted them to feel part of what was going on.
Anne, as I recall, was bored of the whole idea of moving to Cyprus before my trip began and needed reassurance that Allie and I hadn’t already decided to go whatever my reconnaissance had revealed. Perhaps she believed that her views wouldn’t figure strongly in the final decision, given the obvious strength of her parents’ feelings about a new life in the sun.
In hindsight, there might have been a grain of truth about her uncertainty. Several people said to us at the time, ‘Don’t pay too much attention to how Rob and Anne feel ... Children are very flexible ... Don’t let them stop you doing what you want to do with your lives.’ Perhaps these observations made us think that Rob and Anne would eventually see the benefits in living overseas, no matter how they felt initially.
However, our children’s concerns and friends’ opinions didn’t matter now, because we weren’t going to Cyprus anyway. Instead, we were about to maintain the status quo. Life would go on just as before and soon recover from the recent blip of madness. I would work for the video company, Allie would teach and our children would stay in their schools. Our family would be happy, our friendships would stay intact and our bank balance would suffer no more attacks of stupidity. Life would settle back quickly into its familiar, predictable and safe pattern.
As luck would have it, my return to work on Tuesday 3 May coincided with an earlier than usual business trip north that week. The journey was horrendous; nothing had changed in that respect. There were several accidents and road works en route and I arrived at my employer’s premises in an agitated state. My back was stiff and aching, despite the Volvo’s ergonomic design, a sure sign of the pressure that I was under at the time.
After a strong cup of coffee and a quiet moment to compose myself, I sought out my boss. Summarising the findings and conclusions of my reconnaissance, I asked if we could forget all about my Cypriot aberration. I felt humble and apologetic, silly in truth. I owed him a big debt of gratitude, for his advice to take a week’s holiday and conduct a detailed investigation had saved my family from ruin.
Sadly, I gained the impression from our discussion that matters had moved on during my absence and it was no longer possible for me to stay in my job. Whatever had happened in the past week or so, whilst I was away, my position was untenable, it seemed. My reckless ambition had ruined our previously close relationship. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, therefore I submitted my resignation.
At about four thirty that afternoon, when Allie was home from school, I telephoned her with the awful news that I’d relinquished my job. Allie was devastated. Like me, she had told her employer that morning that we didn’t intend to go after all, and that my big idea had been a bad mistake in reality. The head teacher’s reaction to our news had been sheer delight. In contrast, she was happy and relieved that Allie was staying, and I was envious.
As I told Allie that I’d already begun to work out my notice, a dreadful sense of foreboding washed over me. Stunned by an overwhelming sense of woe, I recall saying something stupid about it being our destiny, perhaps, to move those two thousand miles south. It wasn’t our destiny at all, of course. I knew that deep down. At the time, I was just looking for a quick-fix to my own, self-inflicted predicament. The real cause of my tunnel vision was the same insanity that I’d been suffering for the past six months.
With my unemployment and destitution on the horizon, I was about to turn a minor drama into a major crisis. Thinking only of myself, I panicked and told Allie that I could see no other option now but to change our minds yet again and accept the chairman’s offer. Actually, there were a million and one better options to choose from, all of them with fewer repercussions, but my heart saw its chance to play dirty tricks again on my head.
If only I’d stepped back from the apparent enormity and complexity of my situation and thought laterally, rather than linearly. I’d run my own successful business for three years before joining the video company. I still had many contacts in my industry, a good reputation and a strong record of success. I was young, well qualified and experienced. Even if I didn’t restart my own business, employment elsewhere with another video company wouldn’t have been difficult to find, even in an economic recession.
But no, I was the one who provided for my family. I was the breadwinner. I was the one with the more important career. As time would tell, I was wrong on all three counts.
The ‘only’ way out of the appalling situation that I’d engineered, it seemed at the time, was for me to take the job in Cyprus after all, and for Allie to emigrate with the children when the summer term ended. This would mean Allie reversing the decision that she’d just given to her head teacher, of course. If I’d given this matter any thought at all, I’d have realised how embarrassing the reversal would be for her. It would seem as if a professional person had no control over her personal affairs, let alone the direction her life was heading. Instead, to salvage my credibility from the unholy mess that I’d created, Allie agreed with my reflex decision to accept the chairman’s offer. Her position at work was still tenable, but I was going to change all that in about sixteen hours time.
A day later than planned, on Wednesday 4 May, I telephoned the chairman’s office from a call box in a west Cumbrian town. ‘Yes please,’ I said as one large coin followed another in very quick succession, ‘I’d like to take the job, if it’s still on offer.’ ‘Did I really give you the impression I wasn’t going to accept?’ I said with mock honesty when asked, ‘No, you were mistaken; I was just keeping my options open.’ I tried to appear upbeat, positive and in control; as if Allie, our children and I had taken the decision happily after weighing carefully all the implications; as if this ‘phone call was one part of a deliberate plan. Not that we’d been forced into a fait accompli, after bouncing from one dubious position to another, like a clumsy ball bearing in a pinball machine.
There was no need to call the owner of the rooms in Limassol now. He was expecting me on 1 June anyway. At least my credibility in his eyes was still intact, if in no one else’s.
posted by Hawkeye at 8:32 am
