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Mary1 never did meet David1. No. He dumped her before they met. David1 said Mary1 had no heart. Mary1 was clearly only interested in herself. Mary1 wouldn't save her own child if push came to shove; she would rather save herself. Clearly David1 had never met Mary1. No-one messes with Mary1's offspring. Ask anyone. Especially the girls' school, they cannot wait for Mary1's last born to graduate; it will have been 18 years on the trot that a Mary1 girl child has been a scholar at the one school. Poor school.
David1 was charming. Utterly charming. He had a voice to die for; jaw-droppingly delicious, that 'come-to-bed' purr was perfect. A great phone-sex candidate. David1 was French. He was a widower. His one and only son and heir lived abroad. He had come to South Africa to start over again. Does this sound familiar? I wonder if David1 is related to David2?
David1 was based in Johannesburg and owned a large construction company. One of those huge ones which builds office blocks and uses cranes and steel rods and the workers wear hard hats and overalls. He also had project interests in Cape Town and reportedly spent half his time in Cape Town. Perfect. We would have just enough time together so as to not drive me mad I thought extrapolating into the future as one does. David1sent me lots of photographs of his projects in Cape Town, he told me where they were and explained what he was planning on rolling out in the future.
We spoke a lot. And often. David1 was very attentive and a man of his word. He called when he said he would call. He was warm, positive, pleasant, interesting and best of all, he was interested in me. What more could a girl want. David1 was booked to come to Cape Town in a few days. Mary1 was very excited.
Then out of the blue David1 went AWOL. Literally evaporated. She called. She whatsapp'd. The messages were not delivered. One tick only. The calls went straight to voicemail. She emailed. For two long days she was not able to contact David1. She was worried. This was unusual.
Then as fast as he had disappeared, he reappeared. There had been a disaster on one of David1's building sites up north. He had been on site when there was an explosion. He had dropped his mobile telephone in fright when the explosion took place and it smashed. He took two days to get a new one and hence the hiatus in communications.
Worse than this though was that in the explosion a couple of his workers had been killed. David1 was mortified. To make matters worse, he explained how he had the dependents of the now dead workers on his doorstep wanting money. He needed to give the workers' families money to transport the bodies, facilitate the funeral arrangements and so forth. "Are you sure that is the company's responsibility?" I enquired wearing my management hat. I asked if that was a benefit offered by the company. I asked if that was a contractual responsibility as it certainly didn't sound like a familiar company requirement. He mentioned something about the unions and whatnot. I told him to let the Human Resources Director sort that out. He seemingly didn't want to do so.
A day later David1 asked me to help him. He needed to pay the dead workers' families and the company didn't have enough cash on hand to do so. A huge construction company. No cash. And the overdraft facility? Bridging finance? Company reserves? I asked a few questions but David1 said I wouldn't understand. It was corporate finance and I would not be able to follow as it was very complex. Really, David1. I told him sweetly that I had taught corporate finance to employees of large financial institutions and that he should try me, I may just understand. He just needed R 75 000. That's all. That would sort out the dead staff's families. "That is peanuts for a big company!" I explained to David1 and said that if his company which uses cranes and steel rods was battling to bridge such a paltry sum then heaven help them. #cash-flow-crisis!
David1 was very upset with me. Very. In fact he was as mad as a snake with me.
He went through the five steps of grieving in a textbook fashion: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Mrs Elisabeth Kubler-Ross of grieving fame would have loved David1.
He was clearly in denial when he kept banging on to me about the money. And his love for me. Our future was rosy. We would never want for anyone or anything here on out. This turned to anger when I said I really didn't have the R 75 000 on call to lend him. He said he knew I did. I said I don't. He said I clearly did not love him. I was only ready to take from him but not to give an inch to him. Then he started bargaining. He said that I could liquidate some of my equities for him. How presumptuous. But of course he was correct. I could have done so. But I did not. He then got grumpy (depression). And verbally abusive, he made some horrible ego-shattering statements about me. Fortunately my egoic self is rather contained. And my ego is under strict rules so it was not affected in the slightest. David1 then disappeared. His acceptance was obvious.
He accepted the fact that I was not to be had. This time.