I've already mentioned that there was an element of uncertainty in my mind as to what Marie really thought about me at the time, and that had I been a little more forceful perhaps things would have been very different indeed.

However for whatever reason I never was and living in Manchester I had a life there, more so than any which may have existed 'down South' as most northerners would say.

Whilst I never stopped ringing or wanting to see Marie whenever I could, I had started a relationship with a Spanish girl who had come to live in the next apartment to me.

She was, and still is a very beautiful, intelligent and strong woman who I am very happy to say is still my very best girl friend.  I don't intend to dwell too much on the story of her and me, as this web site is about you, Marie and me, but my Spanish friend did play a central part in the way things turned out.

At this time, and again I'm not too sure of the year, but there was a time when I had started to see my new girlfriend but was still visiting Marie and you.

At about the same time Paul had started to play an increasingly important part in Marie's life again.  I knew that throughout a lot of the period that Marie was having problems with her first marriage, Paul had been very supportive for you both and eventually Marie left Mitcham to move in with him.

I would ask Marie a number of times about her relationship with Paul, in order to try to understand whether he was just being a good friend or if there was more to it, but I never got a satisfactory answer.  But what I did know was that he had been a very good and supportive friend to you and Marie and as far as I was concerned that could only be good for you both.

So in all probability, I had started a very good relationship in Manchester and Marie was probably re-kindling her former relationship with Paul, so we both had our own little agenda's going on in our respective parts of the world.

Despite this, we still phoned each other regularly and I know that my girlfriend was aware of this, so it's probably fair to assume that Paul also knew what was going on, especially as he would spend many days of each week in other countries with his work.

One particular evening I was sitting at home in my apartment with my girlfriend and the phone rang.  I had a kind of premonition about this particular call.  I was sitting on the sofa with her, watching the TV and as soon as the phone rang I thought it might be Marie.  It was.

She was sitting at home listening to the radio and a particular tune came on which, at the time, we both identified with quite strongly.  It was a singer called Oleta Adams who had a song called 'Get Here'.  If you listen to it you'll understand why we adopted it, but it's about people in love being separated by distance.  So I answered the phone and all I can hear is this song being played down the telephone.

There was nothing I could say of course, because there was no-one at the other end to talk to......at first anyway.  Imagine how this might look to the person sitting next to me, who already suspected that I was still seeing Marie (she knew of Marie's existence and the highlights of the story of our relationship).

From the moment Marie came on the phone she knew immediately that I was not alone and it was something of a difficult conversation from that point on.

Well the end result of that was that I had an ultimatum from my girlfriend.  Marie or Me (My Spanish girlfriend was not only very astute, but a very direct person, being a trained Lawyer, and not accustomed to being treated as second best to anyone).

Well, a turning point had presented itself to me.

With so much time having passed between then and now I may be mistaken in my logic, but the way I remember it was that Marie was not yet divorced from her first husband, her first husband would always remain in the picture as 'your father', she was living with Paul (I think), it was likely to be some time before her situation resolved itself and I was very much taken with my new girlfriend, who lived next door.

I decided that I should respect my Spanish girlfriend and withdraw from contacting Marie.  I even think that Marie and I had a discussion to this effect.

So that is what I did.  No matter how often or how much I might have wanted to contact Marie, I resisted and for some time we didn't speak.

Just for the record my Spanish girlfriend and I remained lovers for some time (maybe 4 or 5 years) but she moved to Brussels with her work and eventually the distance and infrequency of contact took its toll and we stopped seeing each other.  At the time of writing ( and I hope for the rest of my life) she remains my very best friend and confident and I value and treasure her friendship greatly.