My Dear George

My dear George,

Thank you for your good wishes. Yes, the weather is lovely, and we have been enjoying it. This afternoon was particularly clement. Annabelle and I sat in the garden for a long time reminiscing about past times and our many such happy years together. In truth, I think I did most of the reminiscing, and I began to talk about how skilfully we organised our lives, each following our own bent yet sharing many interests. I happened to touch on Annabelle’s weekly gymnastic classes.

It was as if I had lit a detonator which released a tsunami of speech, telling me that she had only been to one class, the first. All her other afternoons had been spent with you, in bed with you. Gymnastic indeed. You may well imagine that my reaction was astonishment followed by rage. As I got angry, she got angrier, swearing that she still loved me but she couldn’t help it, she had to have you too.

She burst into tears and ran indoors. I stormed out of the gate. I walked for many hours, trying to calm myself, trying to be rational. In the end, I succeeded. I concluded that I could not tolerate the idea of living without her. If the price I had to pay was letting her run into your arms from time to time, I would accept that.

I returned home to tell her of my decision, turning over in my mind ways in which I could persuade her to accept such an arrangement. I was sure you would accept it – why should you care? It would be something else to brag about.

I went upstairs. She was lying on her bed, as beautiful as I had ever seen her, but dead, cold and dead, beautiful, dead and cold. She was surrounded by empty pill bottles. I knew she took pills occasionally, but I had not known that there were so many pills in the world.

I am just going down town to post this. When I get back, I shall take my father’s .45 revolver from his army days, lie down beside my lovely Annabelle and shoot myself.

So, my dear George, you have managed to destroy two lives. The proper thing for you to do now is to take your own. Perhaps we will all meet in the hereafter.

P.S. I shall send a copy of this to Elizabeth, who I believe is staying with her mother at the moment. Express delivery.