You'll know if it's happened to you; mad love. When it strikes it's the only adequate translation for the French L'Amour fou. All the more crazy, when, as in my case, it was unrequited.
I was in my early 50s, divorced, and living alone in a rented apartment in north London. To break the work-sleep-work cycle I signed up with an arts group for a course of Saturday guided visits to the capital's galleries.
The possibility of meeting a woman of a similar age from among my fellow students added extra spice to my anticipation. And when we met up that first Saturday, now more than 10 years ago, there were indeed a number of suitable 'candidates' in the group. That was until I saw Lucy.
She looked as though she had stepped out of my Sociology class in the Sixties dressed in a long white cheese cloth dress which one moment would cling to her hips, the next sway from her body as she moved.
Shortish, a brunette, I don't remember Lucy as a great beauty, but O, her eyes, her smile, her laugh. I wasn't to know a web of lies, sleepless nights, tears - all mine - was to be my fate for the next two years.
For the first couple of Saturdays I only exchanged a few words with Lucy. But perhaps because she was by a good way the youngest in the class - 31 as I was to learn - she didn't team up with any of the other cliques. We began to discuss the paintings in front of us as we walked round.
By the last few Saturdays we took our sandwich lunch breaks together. The final afternoon the two of us had a farewell drink in the Thames-side pub close to Tate Modern.
The setting sun bathed St Paul's; I glowed in the presence of an angel.
Lucy was an English teacher at a secondary school in the East End of London, one of the country's most deprived boroughs. She had been privately educated.
"On the front line now," I joked. She chided me on my flippancy and explained she felt driven to use her advantages to help youngsters to whom fate had dealt such a poor start.
The woman was perfect. She was better read than me; knew more about art, film and the theatre. Lucy was about the best-hearted person I'd met in a long time. There didn't seem to be a 'significant other' and, yes, I ached to take her to bed. This last consideration was the reason the "fou" got added to the "amour."
I had told Lucy I'd been divorced three years and it seemed so right to say I was in a long-term relationship which was on its last legs. I reasoned if Lucy was to see me again, she had to be reassured I wasn't a sex-starved no-good (you be the judge on that).
I invented a girlfriend Annie (probably after Annie Hall), a neighbour; an embellishment I would regret.
We did see each other again. As soon as I could I intended dumping fictitious Annie for flesh and blood Lucy.
I was in my early 50s, divorced, and living alone in a rented apartment in north London. To break the work-sleep-work cycle I signed up with an arts group for a course of Saturday guided visits to the capital's galleries.
The possibility of meeting a woman of a similar age from among my fellow students added extra spice to my anticipation. And when we met up that first Saturday, now more than 10 years ago, there were indeed a number of suitable 'candidates' in the group. That was until I saw Lucy.
She looked as though she had stepped out of my Sociology class in the Sixties dressed in a long white cheese cloth dress which one moment would cling to her hips, the next sway from her body as she moved.
Shortish, a brunette, I don't remember Lucy as a great beauty, but O, her eyes, her smile, her laugh. I wasn't to know a web of lies, sleepless nights, tears - all mine - was to be my fate for the next two years.
For the first couple of Saturdays I only exchanged a few words with Lucy. But perhaps because she was by a good way the youngest in the class - 31 as I was to learn - she didn't team up with any of the other cliques. We began to discuss the paintings in front of us as we walked round.
By the last few Saturdays we took our sandwich lunch breaks together. The final afternoon the two of us had a farewell drink in the Thames-side pub close to Tate Modern.
The setting sun bathed St Paul's; I glowed in the presence of an angel.
Lucy was an English teacher at a secondary school in the East End of London, one of the country's most deprived boroughs. She had been privately educated.
"On the front line now," I joked. She chided me on my flippancy and explained she felt driven to use her advantages to help youngsters to whom fate had dealt such a poor start.
The woman was perfect. She was better read than me; knew more about art, film and the theatre. Lucy was about the best-hearted person I'd met in a long time. There didn't seem to be a 'significant other' and, yes, I ached to take her to bed. This last consideration was the reason the "fou" got added to the "amour."
I had told Lucy I'd been divorced three years and it seemed so right to say I was in a long-term relationship which was on its last legs. I reasoned if Lucy was to see me again, she had to be reassured I wasn't a sex-starved no-good (you be the judge on that).
I invented a girlfriend Annie (probably after Annie Hall), a neighbour; an embellishment I would regret.
We did see each other again. As soon as I could I intended dumping fictitious Annie for flesh and blood Lucy.
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