Nobody's Fault, Derek Haines [mobi reader txt] 📗

are you prepared to pay per week?’ This was before you had even had a chance to look at the dump! Rental property is always expensive. In 1985 it was extortion.
After two weeks of fruitless searching David and his girlfriend found an almost new townhouse. It was fresh and clean, and comfortable. Most of all it was available. They signed up immediately and paid their bond and rent in advance. It was expensive, but they at least had a roof over their heads. It was nearly a two hour drive in peak hour to David’s office, but luckily his new sales territory was on the side of the city his new townhouse was so it was in Sydney terms, convenient. Within a few weeks David settled into his new job, and his girlfriend found work for a software company a half an hours drive from home. They both applied themselves to their new positions, and very quickly established new friends and social engagements. Their busy schedules, and especially David’s allowed for little time for the relatively new couple to have time to develop their relationship.
He would admit it to no one, but David was missing his children, In Perth he at least had his access visits on weekends. In Sydney he had his weekly telephone call. It was no substitute for seeing their drawings from school, or being able to go to their school concerts, or play an inane game with them. In between phone calls David drank. He would never drink alone, because he thought that was the preserve of alcoholics. He preferred companionship when he drowned his sorrows. In Sydney he found no shortage of willing drinking partners. Outwardly he was friendly and smiling to his various bar friends. It would only be late in the evening, if they were sober enough to notice, that the sadness would hang heavy in David’s face and eyes. Luckily for him, no one stayed sober enough to notice. His girlfriend did. Although she would get angry at his late and drunken arrivals home at 1.30a.m. or later, normally mumbling something about, ‘Sorry I’m late I got caught up with some clients,’ she knew he was feeling a loss. When she discussed it with him in the sober moments of a Saturday afternoon, he would scoff at the suggestion. It would be a long time before he admitted his loss and even longer before he would admit it was really guilt that was driving him deeper into depression.
The painful memory of his tearful wife, shaking with fear, with a young screaming baby daughter in her arms, and his four year old son holding the hem of his mothers pale green dress to his mouth, pleading and sobbing, tears streaming down his young and innocent cheeks, ‘No Daddy, No Daddy, don’t go Daddy. Please Daddy, please don’t go…..please….Daddy….Daaaaddddyyyyyyyyyyyyyy………..’
David couldn’t tear this memory from his mind. The guilt ground away unmercifully and incessantly. It consumed him. It corroded him. It was destroying him. This was something David could never run from. It lived inside him. It was him. It would always be him. It would sit as a small thirty second movie playing on auto replay in his mind’s eye like his own personal internal twenty four hour continuous cinema. It was the same horror movie over and over and over and over. The screaming of ‘Daaddddddyyyy...’ echoed until the movie started again.
Eighteen months in Sydney was outwardly successful for David and his girlfriend. His sales figures were impressive, achieving over one hundred per cent improvement in sales for his territory since his arrival. His company was very pleased with his progress, even if he was a little difficult to manage. His sales manager let him have a free rein, his sales figures were proof he was working his territory well. It was common knowledge to his managers and work colleagues that he didn’t need any excuse to have a drink, a game of golf, a lunch or a dinner, but he was young, aggressive, well liked by his customers and most of all he was a profitable addition to the Sydney sales team. By the end of his second year he was the highest selling salesman in the Sydney office. His company had him earmarked for promotion.
His girlfriend was doing equally well in her job. She quietly went about her progress with little notice or support from David. She was bright, intelligent, educated and talented. He was fully self centred in his own success and self destructive in his guilt. Nevertheless, she loved him, and understood and was sympathetic to his outward expressions of missing his kids. He had had a rough time of it with his divorce, which had not been long since finalised she thought, but had very little idea of the depth of the guilt he suffered, or the waves of depression that would engulf him. She saw and loved what the rest of the world saw. A brash, confident, successful man, climbing his ladder of success. His lack of education was more than made up for by his seemingly natural talent to sell. This was a skill in demand. She assured herself that he would settle down in time. In this she was right. It would just take far longer than she could have imagined.
‘Congratulations David, you have earned it. I’ll see you at the next management meeting in Melbourne.’ And with that, David’s managing director shook his hand and boarded the plane back to Melbourne. Driving back to his office, David let the events of the day wash over him. He was very pleased and even if one can be, proud of himself. He was now sales manager for the Sydney branch. It was only two years since he had moved from Perth, and his climb up the corporate ladder had begun in earnest. In being appointed to the position he had leapfrogged many more long serving salesmen. He was a rising star in his company. At twenty nine years old, he was the youngest man to have held the position. He arrived back at his office and went about the task of finalising his duties as a salesman. It was Wednesday. On Monday, he would move from his desk near the photocopier and telex machine in an open plan office of forty two people, to his own office. It was the second largest in the building. Only the state manager had a larger one. He would have a sales team of nineteen men to manage from there. He was too excited to be daunted by it at that moment.
For all of his faults and inner confusion, David had an exterior persona that shone. He started his new position without fanfare. Just relocated offices on that Monday morning and started work. Within a few weeks, and as many sales meetings, he had the confidence and support of all bar a couple of the salesmen. Most admired his sales ability, and fell in behind him easily. He was not overly concerned about the two who had not quite accepted his promotion. He understood why, and decided to let time solve the small problem. It was not affecting the rest of the salesmen, and the only outward sign was the aloofness of the two at sales meetings. Their grievances were simple. One, a hard nosed pressure salesman in his mid thirties had his nose out of joint because he thought he should have got the position of sales manager. The other, the eldest of the salesmen, thought the same. It was just human nature. A natural reaction in David’s mind.
As time went by, the situation with the two had not really improved, so David thought after tolerating this for four months he had better confront the problem. He tackled it head on. He arranged a time for them both to meet him in his office on a Tuesday morning at 9.00a.m. They arrived. Entered his office, and were about to sit down in the visitors' chairs. Standing at the office door, he said, ‘No, don’t sit down fellas. What I would like you to do, is sort out between yourselves, which one of you will be sales manager. When you have done that, the successful one can sit down in the big chair behind the desk, and write out my resignation letter. I will be back in twenty minutes to sign it.’ With that he closed the door and walked to the coffee machine, smiling a wicked grin. Before he had made his cup of coffee, two apologetic creatures appeared at the door of the small kitchen.
With his imaginative sales ability David delivered to his company a twenty two per cent increase in sales for his branch in the first year of his tenure as sales manager. Fifteen per cent over his sales budget. Profit had risen from twelve per cent to seventeen per cent. He took pride in being able to report the result to the management meeting at the head office in Melbourne. Smiling faces in a board room are a welcome sight. At dinner that evening with the senior management of the company he bathed in his own glory. Arriving back at his hotel after the dinner had concluded, he opened a can of beer from the mini bar, lay down on the bed propped himself up on a couple of pillows, turned on the TV, and relaxed. Then as usual, whenever he relaxed and emptied his mind of the day, his internal cinema took him over. His guilt trip began again. ‘Daaadddddyyyyyyy…………’
Weddings are planned events, special days to be cherished. Every detail planned for months in advance. The culmination of love and commitment, truth and devotion. The one day of a woman’s life she is a very real princess. A day lifetime promises are made.
‘Well, it’s more than likely I will be transferred to Victoria’, started David to his girlfriend. ‘If we are going to get married, we should do it before then. All your family are here, mine are in Perth. It would be a pain to have it later down there. What do you think?’ he said in a question that sounded more like a decision to his girlfriend.
‘When would your company want you to move?’ she asked.
‘Probably in about three months.’ He replied.
‘Well, I suppose we could organise something. I’ll check what can be arranged. I would like a church wedding you know.’ trying to have some authority in this decision.
‘Ok, see what we can do.’ he replied, seemingly ending the subject for the time being.
David in his single minded approach to what he thought was a logical thing to do didn’t notice the look in his girlfriend’s eyes. He wouldn’t have had to look too deeply to see that he had missed something important. Four simple words would have filled the saddened look in her eyes. He had forgot in his planning to say, ‘Will you marry me?’ He hadn’t asked her. He had told her. And made a deadline for the event to suit his own business time frame.
The bride and groom enjoyed a one night honeymoon at a Sydney hotel. Work for David was very busy. This wasn’t his last selfish act.
‘You’ve turned into a complete wanker. Do you know that David Holdsworth?’ was the welcome home David received from the now Mrs Holdsworth of three months standing. ‘You’re a drunk and a selfish, conceited, self obsessed arse hole. God you shit me!’ she continued, then stopped to run to the bedroom and cry herself to sleep. It was 11.30pm. David was drunk as usual. Sitting on the sofa he waited. His internal movie started right on cue. ‘Daaaaddddyyyyyy………’ He sat and let the tears run down his cheeks. He felt the urge to runaway. From himself.
There was silence at the breakfast table. It