‘My cards were marked long before I met Margaret and in the end, it was too much for her to bear’
SADLY, I have to say that the woman I love and I have split up. Margaret stuck with me for more than 10 years, and in that time I was on the outside for all of 13 months.
It seems that all I was able to give her was torment, pain and tears.
I loved her, yet all I managed to do was hurt her. I would have rather died than put her through the agony that she had to endure. It was just part of my life. It seems that if you get close to me, you get hurt. I can’t explain it.
My cards were marked long before I met Margaret and in the end, it was too much for her to bear.
I am sad, and I will always love her, but my life is a sinking ship, and I cannot ask someone I love to drown with me. To do so would be to turn on the very love that brought us together. I don’t want to lose her, yet I know I must.
To hold on in the face of the nightmare of a life is self-centred and cruel.
Margaret has stuck with me when I have done stupid things. She has stuck when people wanted to kill me. She stuck when I was inside. There is no-one as loyal as little Margaret. If most of the two-bit crims had her dash, guts and courage, they would never tell tales out of school in police stations. She has more guts than most gunmen, more loyalty than a blood relative.
Margaret has been a part of me for so long that it is like losing part of myself. But to try to hold on to the love under the circumstances would be to poison it in the end.
Even if I win my legal battles, there is no promise that things will ever change for me. This is not the life for a woman like Margaret. She has so much to offer and is so full of life that she shouldn’t waste it on a legal loser like me.
She bullied and nagged me and gave me hell, all because she could see the truth about other people and how they were using me. She was so frustrated that I couldn’t see that some of my so-called friends were out to take advantage. If I had only listened to her then perhaps I wouldn’t be sitting in Risdon Prison now. I’ve had a lot of time to think about that lately.
We had a new start when I left Victoria. We had some money and the chance to settle down. We could have lived the quiet and contented life in Launceston. But I ended up with some people who tried to manipulate me and live off me. It was Margaret who saw through them but I was too much of a fool to listen. She put her whole life into trying to make my life better, but it never worked.
In return, I only hurt the one I love.
I now know that if there was a next time it would probably only be more of the same, so it is time to end it, no matter how much it hurts. Margaret has gone back to Melbourne and taken our dog, Mr Nibbles.
I’ve lost my girl and my dog. Now if that ain’t pain then I don’t know what is. She told me once that I was the man of her dreams, but all I ever gave her was a nightmare.
Sorry, darling. I will always love you, but it was doomed from the start.
She’s gone away and left me,
Yes, she’s calling it a day.
We both know it’s for the best,
But I really wish she’d stay.
She was the one who held my hand,
When there was no-one there at all,
She watched me climb the mountain,
And then she watched me fall.
Take care darling, in whatever you decide to do,
And remember there’s someone here,
Who’ll never stop loving you.
I wish I could return and go right back to the start,
Baby, it’s hard to explain the tears from a broken heart.