Love and Punishment

by Unknown

  “Uh . . . thought you might like this.’

  Francie looked up to see Gus, the designer, scratching his neck and holding out a cup of coffee.

  ‘Thanks, Gus.’ Francie gratefully accepted his offering. ‘Look, I’m sorry about not being here this week.’ She knew that without her P.S. was woefully understaffed. Gabby would have tortured Gus and he would have had precious little time for his favourite online pursuits.

  ‘Forget it. Doesn’t matter. Shit happens,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Well,’ Francie went on, ‘I also want to say that I hope you can trust me, because a whole lot more shit is going to happen.’

  Francie looked up at Gus with his iPod plugged in his ears and wasn’t completely sure he had heard anything she said, but then he surprised her.

  ‘Yeah, well, whatever. I always trusted you. I’m sorry you’re leaving. We all are. You should have got the editor’s job. We all know that. Everyone likes you. You should remember that. So good luck. One day you’ll look back on all this and see it was all a fuckin’ joke.’

  Gus turned to shuffle back to his desk and Francie knew she’d had a farewell speech containing more heartfelt sentiment than any executive on mahogany row could ever manage. His punchline, however, wasn’t quite so gracious.

  ‘And, hey! Way to go with the scissors! I always fuckin’ hated that slag.’

  Francie began sorting through the hundreds of emails, letters and faxes which had been sent to her during the past week.

  She estimated that about eighty percent of them were from wronged women who were supportive of her stand and another fifteen percent were from women on the other side of the debate—accused husband-stealers and home-wreckers who were defiant and wanted to throttle her.

  Francie’s admission of wanton vandalism had also encouraged every unbalanced nutcase in the world to come out and confess. The itemised list of damage was astonishing—cars, clothes and CDs were the main targets of rage. They had been scratched, smashed, slashed and bashed, melted, burned and, in one alarming case, dropped into a river by crane. And it seemed that most of this had gone unreported to the police. The victims had taken the attacks on their property as just and rough punishment for their crimes in love. Francie saw she was now the poster girl for destructive revenge.

  And then there were the paybacks which didn’t involve crude destruction of property but were even more hair-raising. The possibilities of the internet had inspired a whole new level of shameful behaviour. Nude photographs, intimate details from diaries and love letters had all been circulated for a keen international audience. Some hapless individuals had been bombarded with information from websites touting Viagra, explicit pornography, penis enlargements, hair replacement and all manner of cosmetic surgery. Others had been signed up to gay and lesbian dating agencies and, in one particularly venal instance, a Kenny G fan club. It seemed that the world wide web was a new war zone where transgressors in love were blogged and bagged, blamed and shamed. What was it Jessie had said? How much human wreckage has been created in the name of love? It’s a battlefield out there, baby. And so it was. This outpouring of anger, resentment and outright cruelty was just another campaign in a war which would never end. It was fiercely and relentlessly waged despite the fact that none of the combatants knew what the outcome was supposed to be.

  Francie was reminded of a message she’d once read on a noticeboard outside her mother’s church in Blackburn: The person who plans revenge should dig two graves. That’s what she’d done—dug two big holes. She was lying in the bottom of one and Nick and Poppy were in the other, just their arms and legs sticking out from a pile of dirt.

  Francie continued to trawl through the debris. The men who wanted to tell their stories were a grab bag of adulterous or abandoned husbands. There were also three marriage proposals and a couple of nasty polaroids of anonymous genitals. Yikes! She trashed those and the ones which began: ‘I think if we could all just be less judgemental . . .’ Those, as any journo would tell you, were death to a lively letters page.

  She chose the letters carefully. She decided the best way to handle this was to give both sides an equal hearing. The spokeswoman on behalf of the wronged wives and mothers said:

  From: Jasmine@hotkey.com

  To: ssingle@SunPress.com

  Subject: Infidelity

  Dear Francie,

  I cannot adequately express to you my thanks for sharing your heartbreaking story in this week’s paper. All the pain, grief and rage was there for everyone to see, and while you didn’t actually say it, I know you regret what you did.

  But what you said about women who prey on other women’s men is true, true, true!!

  I had nine-month-old twin girls when my husband was stolen. I know she stalked him. I could see, even when I was pregnant, that she had marked him out. I can’t help feeling that what happened was no better than the primitive law of the jungle.

  I would have fought like a tiger for my man if I wasn’t weighed down with my two precious babies. She was a younger and fitter tigress and waited until she could see I couldn’t defend my family and hunted him down.

  Why can’t women see that robbing two children of their father is wrong, utterly wrong? No better than an animal act.

  Well, now my girls are in school and this tiger is back to her old ferocious self. I will raise my cubs to be stronger than I was. They will be wary and watchful. And woe betide the lone huntress who tries to take what is ours.

  Roooaaar!!

  Love from Jasmine

  To head up the opposing camp, she chose an equally heartfelt letter:

  From: D.Montgomery@Pressall.com

  To: ssingle@SunPress.com

  Subject: Mistress

  Dear Francie,

  I am sorry that you are so upset, but what you wrote this week doesn’t do you any credit at all.

  You make out like women steal men, but the truth is that men leave and often there is a woman driving them out the door.

  I met John at work and could see straight away he was a very unhappy man. We got talking and he told me his story. His wife gave up on him after she had her third child. He said he didn’t feel like a husband anymore. He felt like a sperm donor who had done his job and wasn’t wanted.

  In the six years after his first child was born, she put on fifteen kilos and they only ever had sex when she wanted another baby. The rest of the time she slept with the kids.

  When I met John they hadn’t been out to dinner or to the pictures in three years. They didn’t talk anymore unless it was about picking the kids up from school or driving them to sport. We started to have lunch together and one thing led to another. We fell in love.

  Do you know what it’s like to be the ‘mistress’? Well, it’s hard, really hard!!! After years of sneaking around, being alone for Christmas and birthdays and feeling so damn guilty, we have finally been able to move in together.

  The hard work has just started. We have his kids with us every other weekend. His wife hates me, his family hates me and so do the kids. I get no thanks at all for running around after them all weekend. It takes me two weeks to recover and then they are back with us again.

  But through all this I know that it’s worth it. John is my soul mate. We are destined to be together. I will make our relationship work if it’s the last thing I do.

  You could break into my house and cut up my clothes, smash everything I own and it wouldn’t stop me loving him.

  You should learn a few facts about life. Love doesn’t obey the rules we make for it. It’s a force of nature and will always find a way.

  Di

  Francie also considered one of the proposals she’d received. Although this one fell far short of marriage.

  From: Darryl.M@uhu.com.au

  To: ssingle@SunPress.com

  Subject: Slaveboy

  Mistress Francie,

  i am waiting here 4 U. Cum and cut me with yr scissors. i have been bad. i deserve pain. i must be taught a leson.r />
  Yr servent Darryl.

  Ahem! Francie hit ‘delete’, then dropped a letter from a single woman into her page:

  From: Kerryn@blah.com.au

  To: ssingle@SunPress.com

  Subject: Revenge

  Dear Francie,

  I think you are really brave to tell everyone what you did. I don’t think people talk enough about the trauma that can happen when a relationship breaks up. People tend to think that listening to some soppy love song can make you better!

  In my case I was so devastated when he left me for my best friend that I couldn’t face the world for months. I lost my job, crashed my car and got evicted from my flat. My world fell apart.

  People kept telling me that I should get over it, but I couldn’t. In the end what friends I had left just gave up on me.

  I really did want to kill myself and I even got hold of some pills to try. In the end my mother dragged me along to a doctor who said I was clinically depressed. I did get better but it took me years and even now I am frightened to get involved again.

  Maybe we should learn about this stuff in school. Maybe the subject of mental health should be as much a part of our education as geography or maths.

  The topic of lover’s revenge is always treated as if it is funny, but it’s really about tragedy. If your story helps people realise that the brokenhearted need serious care and attention then it’s a good thing.

  I wish we could all take more care in matters of the heart and realise the pain we can cause each other.

  I hope you now realise that you are not alone. I hope this gives you the strength to go on and love again one day.

  Best wishes,

  Kerryn

  And then, because Francie was determined to be fair, she selected this one as well:

  From: Sophie.S@mindgames.com.au

  To: ssingle@SunPress.com

  Subject: Stalking

  Francie,

  What you have done is a criminal offence! Do you have any idea at all what it feels like to have someone creepy like you hanging around?

  When I started going out with my new boyfriend, his ex made our life hell. She rang at all hours of the night and day and broke into our house and left disgusting notes in our bed. In the end we had to change our phone numbers and the door locks.

  She sat in front of our place in her car and every time we went outside she shouted obscene things at us. She called his mother and stole my underwear off the clothesline!!

  She threatened to kill me and I was too scared to go out by myself. In the end we had to get a restraining order put on her.

  How can you try to justify what you have done? You are only encouraging people to do the same and making people’s lives a misery!

  I hope Poppy Sommerville-Smith does report you to the police. Stalking is a crime. You have a sick mind and you need professional help.

  I hope any woman out there who is thinking of doing what you did thinks twice about it when she reads your pathetic whingeing. Shame on you, Francie McKenzie! I will not read your page ever again!

  Sophie S

  PS None of her tactics worked and we are getting married. If we survived all this, we can survive anything.

  By late afternoon Francie had assembled all the letters and forwarded them to Gabby. She watched as Gabby scanned her computer screen and then, not unexpectedly, marched from her office to Francie’s desk. She didn’t take up her usual roost, but instead stood tap-tapping her spiked heels in annoyance. She narrowed her brown eyes, folded her arms across her black bosom and gave Francie the fiercest look she could muster. Francie was supposed to be terrified, but instead found Gabby’s stagy pose quite comical. Gabby tossed her hair and looked about as terrifying as a yappy Pomeranian. If I throw a stick will you leave?

  ‘Yes, yes, well it’s fine as far as it goes!’ Gabby barked. ‘But where’s the rest of it?’

  ‘What “rest of it”?’ Francie played dumb.

  Gabby huffed with annoyance and waved her claws. ‘The rest of it! The bit where you say how heartened you have been by the response. The bit about how you feel, and that you had no idea feelings were so strong on the subject. How you’ve had a hard time, but you’d do it all again. Blah, blah, blah!’

  Francie dropped her head into her hands and pushed her fingers into her temples as she spoke. ‘Well, I wouldn’t do it all again. I wish no-one had ever found out and it’s been the worst experience of my life.’

  ‘So?’

  Francie looked up. ‘So . . . what?’

  ‘So, you’re a journalist, for fuck’s sake, make it up!’

  ‘The letters say it all. There’s nothing else to say.’

  ‘Francie, there are thousands and thousands of women waiting for closure on this. You can’t just light a bonfire and walk away from it. They need to hear from you . . . God knows why!

  ‘If I have to write it myself, I will. You know I will. So put your blonde bird brain in gear and get on with it. And I don’t want any mea culpa, woe is me crap. We’re here to write a newspaper, not to provide you with a private therapy session! I want it in an hour, I have to get away early.’

  Francie watched Gabby totter away on her high heels, pausing only to hand a bollocking to Gus, who was unlucky enough to be in her path. Just once! Fall off your fuck-me shoes just once!

  Turning back to her screen, Francie read all the letters again. It was quite obvious what had to be done. She sat and wrote her copy exactly as Gabby had ordered. Her opening paragraph was vintage tabloid fodder: A memo to all you would-be home-wreckers, husband-stealers, man-eaters and mistresses out there. We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!

  The piece went on in this scintillating fashion at some length. Francie knew what to write to get Gabby excited—a lively collage of personal revelation, opinion, half-truths and spurious statistics finished off with an outrageous conclusion. It was not unlike baking a spicy casserole with a crunchy, cheesy topping. It was all aimed at generating water-cooler talk. A wanky term the esteemed national editor of P.S. liked to throw around to show she was media savvy. Would Francie’s article become a subject of discussion by office workers standing around a water dispenser, paper cups in hand? Francie thought that the P.S. liftout was more likely to be used to soak up the mess from a leaky tap.

  As Francie had predicted, the article hit the mark with her boss.

  ‘Yes, yes, oh yes! It’s perfect. Just perfect. Couldn’t be better. Too good!’ Gabby was almost salivating on her keyboard. Francie wondered if she was this voluble during sex.

  ‘I’ll sign off on this exactly as it is. I won’t change a thing.’ Gabby was about to hit ‘send’ when Francie shouted.

  ‘WAIT!’

  ‘What?’

  Gabby was impatient to get away to her vitally important appointment which, Francie had been informed earlier, had been made two months ago. Gabby was heading off for two fun-filled, free nights at a luxury spa. Somewhere, even as they spoke, some perfumed slave was mixing a herbal scrub for her bony arse.

  ‘Um,’ said Francie with studied casualness, ‘there’s something I’d like to change in that last sentence. Would you mind if I just jumped on your screen and did it?’

  ‘OK, fine, but send it across as soon as you can. I’ve gotta run!’

  Gabby slid off her chair, collecting her honey coloured suede coat and matching squashy handbag on her way out.

  When Francie could see that Gabby was all but gone—her Chanel perfume still lingering in the air—she locked the office door and sank into the soft hide of Gabby’s chair, still warm from her tiny designer-clad derrière. She wondered, not for the first time, what it would have been like to sit in it on a more permanent basis. It was such a luxurious little corner, surrounded by bottles of free champagne, perfume and scented candles, and lorded over by a pinboard covered with glossy A-list invitations.

  Alas! Francie would never know. After the escapade she was planning came to light, her security pas
s would be confiscated. The only place she’d be plonking her backside would be in the middle of the street outside the revolving glass doors of the Press offices.

  She hit ‘control + A’ to select all her copy on Gabby’s screen, and then ‘delete’. The pages went blank. Her story was consigned to a toxic-waste dump in cyberspace. This time Francie would write the truth. Not a fanciful concoction which came from a confused place of fear and anger—the place from where Faith had said most of Francie’s thoughts had emanated for a good part of her life. Instead, these words would come from a place in her heart which she felt she was only just discovering. A place where Francie felt calm and in control. Francie bent over Gabby’s keyboard and typed: A Letter of Apology to Miss Poppy Sommerville-Smith.

  The truth was, Francie owed a lot of people an explanation. She could have written Poppy a private note, but in the end she had to acknowledge something Gabby had said—that she was responsible for igniting this public conflagration and she had a duty to put it out. (She also had a sneaking suspicion that any private missive to Poppy would end up in the papers anyway.) And then, call it her journalist’s instinct, or her own ego, she knew what she had to say deserved an audience. The words came surprisingly easily and Francie knew it was because somewhere in the back of her mind, while her fury had raged out of control, she understood she would have to say them, one day.

  She re-read her message in a bottle three times and then, with a click on the ‘send’ button, threw it into the ocean.

  Twenty-Three

  Francie had decided she wouldn’t watch tonight’s Talkfest. She was lying back in milk-and-honey scented water observing plumes of steam drift lazily towards the cavernous ceiling of the bathroom in Elysium. She should have been feeling like the Queen of the Nile; instead she was anxiously wondering on which shores her message would wash up.