On the last day of my life, I heard her call my name as she brushed past Rebecca who had answered the door. Rebecca had never before met my “wife” and so was a little confused as to who this woman was. I am to blame for her not being able to recognise “mein frau”. The fact that I shredded every single photograph I owned of us together and of her on her own when in a drunken frenzy may have a played a part in that. It was quite funny though, that in that frenzy, I awoke next morning to discover that I had re-organised my entire cd collection so that now it began with Zappa, Frank and ended with ABBA. However Rebecca understood who it was when she heard the English accent. I was not expecting any other woman to come over from England to visit me, except perhaps the queen coming to give me my MBE for my contribution to journalism over the years. Alas that never materialised. 

“Hello love, how are you feeling?” she looked down at me like she would a child, then sat on the high backed chair she had bought.

“Well LOVE, like any divorced, recovering alcoholic, terminally ill man on his deathbed does I suppose. How are you?” 

I immediately knew that my response was completely uncalled for.

“Listen…..I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that, it’s just….No I have no excuse, I may be on my way out but that’s no way to speak to you….Thanks for coming”

Charlotte looked down at her shoes and then up at me again, with a half-smile she shook her head:

“I understand Will, I understand. I don’t understand what you’re going through but I can imagine that you’re in pain and it’s easy to react.”

“Thanks Charl, How’s your Mum. God I haven’t spoken to her in god knows how long?”

“Fine, fine, she wanted me to tell you that she’s sorry she couldn’t come, she said that she wouldn’t be able to look at you in this state. She didn’t mean it in a bad way….”

I know, I know, Julia is a lovely person. If you wanted a mail order mother in law, she would the woman arriving in the post”

Charlotte’s mother was indeed a lovely person. I remember visiting their mansion of a house near Old Windsor in Surrey for the first time. It must have been a month into the “relationship”. We were greeted at the door by a butler! Well Cecil was a jack of all trades really, one minute he’s butler, next driver, gardner, cook, the list goes on. Charlotte’s father Sir Robert Bell was quite unbearable. A Scot with a serious case of little man syndrome and a miserly one at that. Cecil was the only employee of the house even though it was comparable in size to a small hotel. There was no shortage of money either. The man of the house had just procured a stamp for £20000 3 weeks before our first meeting. We arrived by taxi from maidenhead, having stopped off on the way to visit an old friend of Charlottes. Cecil welcomed back ‘Ms. Charlotte’, politely greeted me and welcomed me to Thurston House. We moved into the lobby where both her parents were posing like manequins. Her father seated by the fire with his philatelic collection, her mother standing by the piano sipping on what looked like a Long Island Tea.

“Dad, Mum...I’d like you to meet Will” Charlotte said this with a big grin. Julia approached:

“Well Will it certainly is a pleasure to meet you”

“Likewise Lady Bell, May I say you have a wonderful home”

“Why thank you Will, call me Julia…….Dear come meet Will” Julia looked towards her husband who hadn’t even looked up in the time I was in the room. 

“Hello Will…” he said cautiously while looking over his spectacles at me.

“Hello Sir Bell, a pleasure to meet you” He got up, all 5 foot nothing of him and walked towards me.

“You’re Irish are you?” he looked up at me.

“Pity that” I half laughed as he turned and walked away, he did not.

And So, that was my first meeting with my future in-laws. I thanked god she had no siblings, a brother stroke sister in-law resembling Lord Bell in demeanour, would have been too much. I married Charlotte a year later in her local St. Multose church. She wanted a church wedding, I wanted a beach one. The reception was held in the gardens of her house later that day. My father, a very quiet man at the best of times, approached Lord Bell and introduced himself. Lord Bell muttered “Hello..” and then walked off and headed into his house. He wasn’t seen for the rest of the evening. I really hated that man.

Rebecca kissed my forehead and said goodbye. I asked her to stay a little longer as I suspected I was going expire later that night. Now I began to feel the pain in my abdomen again. Good old Becs deflated me with a shot of morphine. I felt cloud like if there is such a thing, as in how a cloud with emotion would feel drifting in the sky. At 2347, I asked Charlotte to put on my dying song. I was torn between two eighties classics, the obvious “Show me Heaven’ by ‘Maria McKee’ but I thought this irrelevant as I wasn’t going there, so I settled on ‘Give it up’ by ‘K.C and the Sunshine Band’. A very cheery song, it’s one of those tunes that you can’t help dancing to or at the very least tap your foot to if you’re in a public place. I remember my very last moment quite well. Charlotte could sense I was going and called in Becs. They both began to cry heavily. I couldn’t speak, I just stared at them and then looked up at the ceiling. I had only painted that room the previous Summer and I could already see cracks in the paintwork appearing, must have been the god damn dampness, that room was next to the river, that must have been the cause. It was very strange, how the trivial matter of the paintwork on the ceiling seemed to consume my last moments. I began to feel myself drift away. I looked over again at my two ladies and tried to construct a smile. My face must have done something because at that, they both left out a gasp and cried even harder. At this point my eyes became blurry and both women merged into a blob of regret. The last words I heard were K.C and his Sunshine Band in fine form belt out:

“Can you give it, can you give it, give it up. Come on baby I…”

I then checked out of Hotel Life a disappointed patron.