Eventide

Prologue

Though the most famous was so disgraced, the Jews seem to have no
problem calling a great many of their daughters 'Eve'. So why not then
Adolf for their sons?

*

I have had three wives to go by the name of Eve, whom I married in
1966, '78 and '90 respectively. They all left me for sound reasons. And
when they did, each time, I
remained in the house I have lived all my life. The house in which I
welcomed and waved off each 'Eve' was the house I myself was brought up
and the house in which Nathan, my only son, was born. It is everything
to me.

The house I refer to was paid for mostly by my mother, Evelyn - who was
fairly rich for a communist - and so I have never had to pay rent or a
mortgage. I was rather sheltered in that way. Also, the various Eves
were good enough to provide for me during our married years, while I
dabbled occasionally in philological research and spent the pocket
money I earned from jobs on drink. (I always used to say that if
Philology was good enough for Neitzche, then it was good enough for me,
but as the years went by, I stopped. Neitzche was more successful in
his field because he was prepared to work a lot harder.

Yes, I may not have been clever, industrious or able please a woman,
but I was always sure to get out there and pick another rich one,
should a wife leave me. I was like United in the sixties. Okay, so I
may have let in a few goals, but it never mattered, because I could
always score more. That was how my mind worked.

Here is just one instance of the luck that has served me so well.

One freezing cold afternoon in 1975, my first Eve stood in the doorway
screaming. I had been unfaithful once too many and she was leaving me
for good. Despite my protests and poor attempts to stand in her way,
she hauled her heavy suitcase back over the threshold of our home and
made to leave immediately. "The next time you see me," she said, "I'll
be in a coffin and you'll be begging for my forgiveness". Eve was
pre-occupied with staging her own death, and was forever threatening
suicide. But first, she was off to get a divorce. Most importantly, to
have me taken out of her will. Naturally, I panicked, but there was
nothing I could do. Eve stomped down the driveway and got into her car,
hollering about solicitors and custody. She was still huffing and
puffing when a pedestrian slipped on the icy road only yards away,
causing a number 44 bus to swerve straight into her Saab. She was
killed instantly; at only 29. Some weeks later, my heart gave a little
jump as I was named the sole beneficiary of my first wife's estate: she
was the only daughter of a very successful, deceased, golfer. I always
wonder what would have happened if she had left me in the summer.

I am more vulnerable than I was then. Now, growing old, I realise I
have never achieved anything, that I hate being alone. That I don't
feel so lucky any more. I can't even say I learned anything, though I
know I am an intelligent man, or at least used to be. Though Evelyn
made sure I was well educated and spoke three languages from an early
age, in the end, I failed entirely. Given the choice of doing something
or nothing with existence, I chose nothing. It is a life that could
have been so much more.

Some things I ached for. For example, I always wanted a large family,
but it never came. In fact, I wanted to fill the house with children,
one in every upstairs room, but it was not to be. My first wife died
after we had Nathan, my second wife hated children and refused to have
any and my third wife wouldn't even let me in the bedroom, so the
question of children wasn't one I could raise. She said that she
wouldn't touch a dick that had been in two wives and a hundred
mistresses on the same bed, though I tried to explain that I'd had the
mattress changed several times. She said that wasn't the point.

So, I have not lived the life I wanted to, but it has not all been bad.
And I talk as if that life is over, but it isn't. At least not yet. I
stand at this moment on the cliffs at Dover as many have done before
me, looking out onto the English Channel, on a clear blue day, just
wondering. Wondering what I might do next. I am much calmer than I have
been lately, but I keep coming back to the day we gathered in a circle,
saying goodbye to Evelyn.