Now every good story starts at the beginning. Everybody knows that. But what you might not know, or shall I say understand, is that not every beginning begins at the beginning. In fact, there are many examples of beginnings that start in the middle. There are even those that begin at the end and move back towards the beginning - but I couldn't possibly begin talking about those as it is neither relevant to my beginning nor would it be conducive to a good narrative.
Needless to say, there is very little point in my beginning at the beginning, for it would contain a lot of inconsequential information that, whilst possibly relevant to anyone wanting to understand the intricacies of human relationships, is not immediately crucial to the flow of this particular tale.
It is, for example, important for you to know that my wife is named Marjorie. What is not important is that the name Marjorie is a derivative of the name Margaret. Do you see?
What is also not important to this particular story is the manner in which I met, married and spent many happy years with my wife. You do not need to know, for example that I met my wife in Blackpool, which invariably marks the absolute beginning of our story, and that our first encounter occurred as a result of a rollercoaster, a suspicious dinner of crab and slight bout of nausea on my part. You also don't need to know that my wife used to be a nurse but, after several years of our relationship, she gave up this career to become an administrative assistant to some dull, window-cleaning company (a career move that was a great shame as my wife makes an excellent nurse).
If I were to go into more detail about the beginning, I suppose I would have to describe our wedding day and how my newly acquired parents-in-law, who for some unfathomable reason neither approved of or liked me, spent most of the day scowling and cursing whilst wiping wedding cake out of their hair. I suppose I would also have to explain how I got into a fight with a rather drunk member of Marjorie's family, who threatened to 'tan my arse' - whatever that means - and ended up sprawled in a rather undignified manner next to the pond at our wedding venue. By some miracle, after I'd removed the large fish that had gotten itself embroiled in my inside jacket pocket, Marjorie decided against walking out on me along with the rest of her family, and instead put her superb nursing skills into practice once again.
And I suppose, if I were being really, really thorough, the beginning might also include how I developed my curious strain of OCD, whereby I became consumed by the need to not only have precisely what I needed for my daily work life, but also have numerous duplicates of everything - just in case. Thus it is that my wardrobe has four of the same work suit, a cheap number from a local department store, as well as two exactly matching blue Italian suits that I wear for special occasions such as weddings or my fortieth birthday.
This curious fascination with duplicating would also account for how it is I happen to have six pairs of matching shoes, seven identical, leather, combination-lock briefcases, and six ties that depict Albert Einstein punching an elderly uncle in the face shouting 'Everything is relative'. This also explains why I have three filing cabinets filled with precisely same lesson plans and materials for my daily classes. Marjorie thinks that I'm going overboard with the filing cabinets, but I tell her: 'It's just in case one of them develops a fault.'
Anyway - I digress.
In short, that is the beginning - not my beginning, but the beginning of my relationship with Marjorie. And whilst it would be interesting for someone to peruse all these intricate details that make up my life, it would perhaps be much more efficient and simpler for me to simply begin at the middle. Thus I will skip all these extraneous details and get right down to the point and simply say that my long and happy relationship with Marjorie began to strain with the certain knowledge - on my part - that my loving wife may be having an affair.
YOU ARE READING
The Brief-Case Affair
HumorOr the story of the man who went looking for adultery and came back with a lemon. When a man suspects his wife, Marjorie, of having an affair, there are only two things he can do: assume her guilt and find another wife, or go to a private investigat...
