By Arnold Jansen op de Haar

I’m 53, and my first relationship, which lasted about as long as WW2, has just broken up. It sounds like the opening line of a novel.

Heavens, you may think, it took him a long time to meet someone (correct) and it wasn’t all plain sailing (exactly). All of you at home naturally have much more experience with this sort of thing, and you may well be able to fill an entire coach with exes, but it’s all new to me.

I’m not going to say anything unkind about her, because we already have exchanged harsh comments. You know what I mean, and besides, who wants to hear all this misery? And it was often very lovely; however, it’s now well and truly finished.

It’s kind of strange that there is someone out there who I know inside out, and who knows me through and through, but who I may never see again. Because we’ve ‘broken up’. Well, we’ve done that about ten times before, but this time by ‘mutual agreement’. We had actually promised each other to stay just friends, but even that didn’t work out.

So, she lives on the other side of the North Sea and I on this side. This has been the situation for a while now, but until recently there was still the emotional support.

So now I wander through London’s parks muttering to myself things like: ‘It’s for the best.’ Or: ‘The world is full of other wonderful women.’

It puts everything in a different light. Recently, someone asked me to write a Valentine’s card to her daughter, so that she wouldn’t recognise her mother’s handwriting. So I wrote on the card ‘Be My Valentine’, ‘Guess who?’ and wrote the address I was given on the envelope. You could say I was just ‘the right guy for the job’.

Last Sunday, as a diversion, I visited the oldest church in London, St Bartholomew the Great. Its foundations were laid in 1123. A marvellous church, hidden away down an ugly street in West Smithfield, in the City.

Inside, pride of place was taken by a gilded (24 carat) statue of St Bartholomew, created by Damien Hirst. From the personal collection of, indeed, the Damien Hirst. It reminded me of The Golden Calf, not the Dutch Film Award, but the scene from Exodus, the adoration of the golden calf. It’s quite special, finding such a statue in a church.

A bit later, the man from the ticket desk came along to tell us that St Bartholomew the Great was featured in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral – well, not the saint, but the church. ‘At the fourth wedding,’ he added. (The one with ‘Duckface’.) ‘That’s very fitting,’ I muttered.

After leaving the church, just around the corner, I came across the site where William Wallace, aka Braveheart, was executed. Well, he was first dragged naked through the streets behind a horse, and afterwards hanged. Subsequently, while still alive, he was castrated and his intestines were burned before his eyes. Finally, he was beheaded. They didn’t take half measures.
 
It was a dull Sunday afternoon, and not many people were out in the streets. My love affair had ended, and the country was in disarray due to the European Referendum. A few frayed plastic Scottish flags fluttered near Wallace’s monument.

I suddenly yearned for something to cheer me up. The Eurovision Song Contest, for example, with a delicious Greek entry dressed in just one big shoelace. But regrettably Terry Wogan has died too, was my next thought.

Luckily, on my way back I came across an old-fashioned sweet shop which sold Dutch liquorice. Consoling liquorice. Yet another thought occurred to me: finding Dutch liquorice in London is almost as rare as finding a delightful girlfriend. If it’s going to take as long as the first time to find a relationship, the next time I will be 98.

© Arnold Jansen op de Haar
© Translation Holland Park Press

Previous columns:
On a Knife Edge
A Very British Secret
End-of-Year Chat
A Cigar in Brussels
Burning a Catholic
Ted or Sylvia?
Unsuitable for Class War
England-bound
The Weather in Arnhem
Accident & Emergency
The Plumber and the Little Prince
A Trojan Horse
Pilloried!
Portobello Hipster
A Celebration Every Day
Diana is Back
Loved by All
Cooking in Peacetime
A Bit of a Genetic Mess
Email a Fairy
A Peeing Neanderthal
Fictional Brits
Bare Burka
Is Van Gaal a Turkey?
An Estate Agent in High Heels
A Boy from Westminster
Adventure in Amsterdam
Amalia & George
Cheering Quietly
Human Waste
D-Day for Poetry
A Dog in London
Van Gaal and Wurst
Baby King George
The Virgin Train from Birmingham
Nuclear Hospitality
Vladimir the Viking
Ski Girl with Moustache
Phoenix
Message From the Bathtub
A Consistent Resolution
Nigella’s Law
Selfie
Cowboy in the Kingdom
An Angry Philanthropist
Oligarch with Red Umbrella
The Lives of Others
Uproar in the Czar Peter House
A Postcard Home
An Angry Ladies’ Hairdresser
Syrian Football
The Man Who is Always Late