Celtic knot of commitment

~: In The Room With Three Doors - free audiobook: adbl.co/38g6S5g :~

Matt and Jamie face a conundrum. Rhi, a longstanding mutual friend, has decided to take them both as lovers. Nothing is hidden, duplicitous or deceitful in how she does it. All know what’s what, as do other members of their circle, which carries on turning without impediment.

This may be because something of a far greater and truly shocking nature has happened. Carys, Rhi’s twin sister has been hurled from her bike and killed by a minicab at London’s Old Street roundabout, leaving Rhi convinced she now must live and love for two. It’s just how it is for her, an instantaneous commitment, and her stance is not questioned by herself or by anyone else. It just is.

Question is: how will Matt and Jamie cope with their situation? Will one cut and run? Or will feathers fly as one strives to oust the other from Rhi’s love nest? Or will they meekly accept their status as simultaneous equals in her heart, and alternating occupants of her bed.

What do they do? Nothing. They never discuss it. It’s easier that way. And in the end it is left to Jake, another mutual friend, to broach the subject one night in the pub. Incredulous, Jake asks how the one feels about the other being with his woman. The two partners in love solve the conundrum with a look in which they silently agree that everything is fine and will remain fine, that they are at ease with their situation and happy for it to be so and continue to be so. Everything is tacit, understood without any need to be formally shaped into words between them. ‘We love her,’ declares Jamie.

Mention of the L-word signifies Matt and Jamie’s commitment to their new situation �" and comes as a blow to Jake, who slinks to the bar, as though Rhi’s gain marks a loss for him, perhaps even the end of a beautiful decade-long commitment to a shared ladhood of gaming, football, beers, and a complete absence of romantic complications.

Three pints of Stella, please.

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So far so good. Rhi gets her way. But for how long? Gone the days of God in heaven, a job for life, till death us do part. All is �" whatever. Alas ‘whatever’ leaves some, like Jamie, bobbing around in a sea of emotional chaos. So when Rhi gets pregnant … Jamie? Where are you?

Yes, Rhi is a super-dreamer, but she is also a super-realist and the super-realist in her instinctively knows the price of cheese, men being so unpredictable. And so she takes two in the hope that one at least will commit. As to which one…

We sometimes talk of commitment as though it is something we have control over, make a fist. But I wonder. Want of commitment seems to betoken some missing moral vertebrae. Odd in the age of �" whatever. If only we try harder, says coach, go that extra mile, put that effort in. And yet, I can’t quite bring myself to commit to the idea. I’m trying, right now, trying really hard, but…ach!

WORLD CUP TICKETS

Maybe Jamie was still too wedded to being a lad, watching a bit of footie, and a beer on the beach. Lad to dad is a long extra mile for a child of whatever, bobbing around in the wreckage of a failed family on The Sea of WTF.

Archly, Rhi facilitates Jamie’s flight from Com-Mit-Ment by inspiring him to reach under his bed and revive an old dream which turns into a nice little earner, enough to bankroll her business and his purchase of a fistful of World Cup Football tickets and a tournament-long hotel package. Sweet dreams are made of this.

Ahem, on the subject of, shhhh, dreams under the bed: I have a few myself, neatly filed away in purple plastic box files, gathering a crust of dust and the odd corpse of a desiccated spider, legs all contracted tight in the cramp of death. Stories. Dreams. Written and refined with infinite care to be carefully filed �" and carelessly forgotten.

At what point, I wonder, at what exact point does such a perfectly formed dream die? And why? And do they die silently, like the spider which leaves its bones upon them? Or does the hall of dreams resound to the sound of their screams?

Is it, I wonder, a question of commitment? Surely, given commitment a dream would not be left just to �" die? It has to be a want of commitment, surely? But what exactly is…

“Commitment”, according to Abraham Lincoln, “is what transforms a promise into reality.”

There is, of course, a hitch in this as he who dreams is, perhaps, not always the first fly on the pie when it comes to getting things done. Dreamers, right?

May I confess a little something to you? A sorry little failure.

I have failed. Not in the walking around world, but in the hall of dreams. I have failed Rhi. She, fabulous fiction that she is, deserved a far better conduit than I. So yes, I confess, I have failed her. She, of this there is no doubt, would never ever have allowed a dream of hers to end up languishing, and lost in a slim purple plastic box file under a bed, gathering dust and dead spiders. So yes, I confess, I, a walking around reality, have failed the dream that is Rhiannon Smith.

How did this happen? How? The commitment to her creation was there. And she did her part, coming through as clear as gin. Her little story was finely formed, yet here we are. Dead spider city.

To create a thing only to fail that which one creates is a sin. Do our creations not have beating hearts, feelings, hopes. Are they not as we are? Do we not owe it to them to do our best for them? Do dreams not have dreams?

Yes, they do.

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They also have a certain resolve, or Rhiannon Smith does, in keeping with her strength of character. I can feel it now, goading, mocking, whispering. She is very determined, won’t be still. She’s at it now, gnawing away, berating me for my woeful neglect of her pressing need to be. It’s how she is, the Celtic drama queen in her.

What is one do to? Even thinking these things will cost me, for, believe me, Rhi is not an easy spirit to have haunting and taunting one’s being. It is, believe me, in my own interests to bow to her need to be, to put my shoulder to…

There’s another element in all this, too. You, yourself. For, in order to meet my commitment to Rhi’s need to be, I must, I sense, also commit myself to your, what is it now, curiosity, your need for, what’s the thing, artistic nourishment, yes, that’s the thing!

Problem is, though you must judge for yourself, Rhi is, how may I put this without bringing the house down on my head, Rhiannon Smith is not the easiest person in the world to deal with. She can be a little too, determined in her ways. Some might even call her ruthless, though I would never be one of them. No, tis for you to decide. My part in this is done. What happens next in this Celtic knot of commitments is down to you.

Audio samples for Audible.co.uk and Audible.com to be found via the links below. Pls PM me for your free UK or US promo code.

https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B086961CW6/?source_code=AUKFrDlWS02231890H6-BK-ACX0-188044&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_188044_rh_uk

https://www.audible.com/pd/B086963XKZ/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-188044&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_188044_rh_us