Writer's Notebook

My feeling of buoyancy didn't take long to evaporate. And, once gone, it left me with a bitter feeling of loneliness and wretchedness, parallel to the way I sometimes felt when left alone after a particularly boisterous party and a lot of drink.

What had I done?

I spent the next thirty minutes battling against this question which kept laying siege to my mind. The last thing I was in the mood for was to face up to the reality of my situation. But eventually I succumbed. I guess I never really had any choice. Yet, my ego stood out against this eventuality for a fair amount of time before finally bowing to the inevitable.

Pictures of Morgana flashed through my mind. Morgana at the typewriter. Morgana patiently pointing out my mistakes, explaining how to say things correctly. Morgana and me playing tennis with ideas one of us had had, sending them back and forth with a bounce.

I had succeeded in alienating one of the best friends I had ever had. I had wounded and humiliated her. After all Morgana had done for me, I wasn't capable of showing any kind of understanding when she so obviously needed it. And now she was gone. There would be no one to help me with my French, to type all those official letters I hated doing, no one to laugh with during coffee break, no one...

And this final no one brought me up with a start. For the first time since I first met her, I realised what Morgana really meant to me; and it was something far more than a secretary or an office help I could rely upon more than anything else. Morgana was my friend. One of the truest friends I had found. She was someone I could trust, someone with whom I could be myself without fear of being rejected.

And now, she was gone. I had driven her away. I had been incapable of giving her that same understanding she so often lavished upon me. And it was now that I slowly started to understand her mysterious behaviour of the past few weeks... : her conduct after the meeting over the mayor's speech; the secret almost conspiratorial whisperings; the subtle hints
Thérèse occasionally dropped my way. There could only be one explanation. And fool that I was, I had destroyed the one person who loved me most, and whom, I now realised, I was beginning to love in return.

There was nothing for it. I had to see her at once. I had to show her I was sorry. It probably wouldn't help very much after my appalling conduct but she had to know I was sorry for everything I had done to her.

Yet, how could I show her, how sorry I was. Flowers, chocolates, a glass of wild honey - I knew she loved honey. No, I had to go as I was. No gift could replace what needed to be done. Humility and genuine sorrow were my only allies as I slowly made my way along the street towards her house.