The Final Parting.

Today I am writing this at my desk and able to see what I have written. I have gone into my previous entries and tidied up the spelling and paragraphs and am now able to write, unworried by having Marian in my head. Here is how it unfolded.

When Yvonne and I got back to her house she asked me to sit and have a frank discussion. She told me about her previous relationship and said that she could see that I was not the abusive type. She declared that she was falling in love with me and I kissed her and told her that her feelings were reciprocated. She then said that her lease on the house was coming due at the end of the month and I told her she could move in with me, to which she held me close and told me I was wonderful. I had a full week of appointments as well as the game show so we agreed that I would hire a small truck on the Saturday and move her stuff to mine. There was an empty outbuilding on the grounds that we could store her furniture in.

I got through the work part of the week and Wednesday presented at the television studio. They record a number of episodes in the one day and it took a couple of recordings until I was able to take my place on the panel. We took that opportunity to check that Marian was able to fulfil her promise. When the show started I was only beaten a few times by another contestant pressing their buzzer first but had enough answers to come out the winner. In the final segment, where you are asked a number of questions first and locked in your answers, I answered all of the questions correctly and took out the money. When asked if I would take the money or play on, I played on.

After a short break for me to change, we played the next episode, which I won again, and, in the final segment I deliberately fluffed one answer. This didn’t matter as I was able to come back as the reigning champion the following episode. On Thursday evening Yvonne and I attended the trivia night and out team won again. Saturday I picked up the van and we had a few trips moving her furniture and clothes over to my house, her friends all helping out. My house was carefully inspected and found to be suitable for their friend to live in. We cleaned her place and dropped the keys in with the agent along with a letter to say she was not renewing the lease.

On Sunday we went to a different church, still close to the farmhouse, much to Marians’ delight as it was a more traditional one. Monday and Tuesday we both went to work and Wednesday I went back to the studio. I made sure I had five sets of clothes as I was certain that I would be in all of the episodes today. It all went as planned with me looking like a well-educated engineer and I progressed into the big money. Next week I would be playing for the major prize.

Thursday was trivia night again and we won again, inviting our gang around to our farmhouse for the Friday evening barbeque. I spent the day tidying the garden and the evening was a great success with Yvonne acting as the perfect hostess while I cooked the food. That night, in bed, I proposed to her and she said yes. OK, I know it was quick but I felt that she was my soul mate and that my life would be good with her in it.

On the week-end, to celebrate, we had Saturday night in London to see a show and did some shopping before that. Other than buying her an engagement ring, the project was for me to bring my wardrobe into the current century as well as me getting her some nice dresses. We spent Sunday morning in the Westminster Abbey, a place that I had been told was holy but, other than Poets’ Corner, was filled with tombs of those with money and power enough to be assured of a burial there. I wondered what they thought when they found out that wealth did not equate to being angelic and that all the piousness in the world will not negate a lifetime molesting little boys. I was not taken with the place but both Marian and Yvonne thought it wonderful.

That week I did my work for a couple of days and Wednesday I became a millionaire on the game show. Yvonne had come with me to the studio and we were shown hugging and kissing during the credits. Now that will cause a stir among her friends when it goes to air. I took the cheque and agreed to stay quiet until the show came on the channel and my bank manager got a bit of a surprise when I banked it on Friday. Yvonne and I celebrated my win with a week-end in Paris, getting on the Eurostar at Ashford.

Back in England I continued my business commitments but did tell my clients that I was intending to start working a three day week soon and would not be able to fulfil the more remote development inspections. A month later Yvonne and I married in the little church close to the farmhouse and she became Mrs Yvonne Johnson. We honeymooned in Italy. After we had been home a week or so I told her that I had seen a ghost at a pub in High Halden and she was the reason for my mellow life-style. I said that she showed me that there was some kind of life after death and that, at that time, I decided to enjoy life to the full. I also said that she had told me where and when she was born and died and that I wanted to confirm her story by looking up parish records.

The next day we drove to Tenterden and Marian gave me directions to her old church. Yvonne looked at me strangely when I pulled up and said “This is it.” We went inside and I could feel Marian welling up. I asked if we could look at the parish records for 1922 and soon found the baptism record for Marian Pauline Jacobs. I copied down the details and then we went to the local newspaper office and asked to see their files for mid-1938. It wasn’t long before we found a column headed ‘Barmaid absconds with weekly takings’ and described the landlord claiming that his barmaid, Marian Jacobs, had disappeared along with the weekly takings. I could feel Marian in my head getting ready to scream and said to Yvonne, “Looks like he took the opportunity to steal his own money after he killed her.”

We went back to the church and I asked about putting a memorial in the churchyard and we came to an agreement on a plot I could use. Armed with the plot number we went to a monumental mason and I ordered a small stone inscribed ‘Marian Pauline Jacobs. Born 1922 and slain brutally 1938. An angel of this parish. RIP.’ On the way back home I remarked that if we ever had a daughter, Marian Johnson would be a nice name. Yvonne smiled and said that if our baby is a girl, we had better call her Marian Paris Johnson, because she thought that this was where she was conceived. I found a lay-by, pulled over and we kissed, tears welling in our eyes. I said “Mrs Yvonne Johnson, I do love you with all my heart”. When we had composed ourselves I drove home via a pub near Canterbury for dinner.

Time passed and Yvonne grew bigger. I had been contacted by a couple of other game shows and was back in the studio for more recording. I did quite well but made sure that I was not one hundred percent right. When the various shows went to air I became known as ‘Mr Quiz’ at the trivia night and was banned from entering with any of the teams. The masons got in touch to tell us that our stone was in place and one day we went down to put some flowers on it. As we stood, in silence, Marian whispered “Thank you so much”.

Eventually our baby daughter was born and, as they say, mother and baby did well. After a week they came home and we settled into a family life with the usual disruptions of changing and cleaning up small pukes. At about the three month period it settled down and there was just the odd crying and some sleepless nights.

I was out in the garden when Marian asked me if we could go somewhere quiet for a face-to-face talk and I went to a secluded nook at the back of the garden which had a bench and sat down in the sunshine. I was somewhat surprised when she materialised sitting beside me in a summer dress and looking really radiant. I told her that she was beautiful and she thanked me. She then went on to thank me for putting up with her in my head and I reminded her that I had come out of it a long way further ahead than when we first met. She said that she was glad that the money had not changed me and that she thought that Yvonne and I would live a long and happy life, maybe with a couple more children to bring up. She then thanked me for erecting a memorial to her former self and that it enabled her to put closure on her time at the pub.

We sat in silence and then she said “Martin, I know that your daughter is going to be as beautiful as you say I look now. I predict that she is also going to be very gifted and you are going to have to be ready for special schooling and university education expenses. She will do well and you will be proud of her, I promise you that. I really do thank you for giving me my second life, I can now leave you and fulfil my destiny. Goodbye, dear Martin.” With that she faded into nothingness with a smile on her face.

I sat there for a while and went into the house for a drink as I was now my own man, without the powers that I had enjoyed but with a memory of another life. I went into the babys’ room where she was lying in her crib, waving her arms and legs around a dribbling. I wiped her face and picked her up and held her to my shoulder. I stood there for a moment and then said “I love you, my precious Marian” and my three month old child whispered in my ear “I love you too, Daddy”.

The end.
Marianne G 2020