JIMMY
Forty years is a lifetime. I didn’t really mean it, you know. It was just a last resort. an attempt to reconnect to something we once had. I loved her. God, I didn’t want to lose her. But that’s what happened, you see. No one to blame but myself with my stupid ideas. We’d been fighting, well, we always seemed to be fighting. I was afraid to ask if she still loved me. I didn’t want to hear the answer, coward that I am. So clever Jimmy here thought “trial separation” that should do it. Give her a scare, force her hand, she’ll cry, we’ll hug and Hey Presto love conquers all. Jesus, what soppy movies had I been watching. My thoughts were unclear, the bottle does that to you. I know. I know drink is no solution. But I could forget when I drank. Forget the fights, the withering looks, the disdain in her eyes. Disgust even of my drunken self but unable to control it. I was losing her, slowly, surely, she was slipping away abd this pathetic lump couldn’t or wouldn’t see it. She’s gone now. the solicitor’s letter did the trick alright but not in the way I had imagined it. Eileen was stronger than I gave her credit for. I’d given her the way out, you see, with that stupid letter. Separation and reconciliation, that’s what my addled brain pictured. I have nothing left now. Nothing except the craving for the next drink. Oh God, she was my world. I miss her. Forty years is a lifetime.

EILEEN
Forty years is a lifetime. I was so shocked when the letter came. I didn’t know Jimmy was thinking like that. Couldn’t believe I was actually holding a solicitor’s letter in my shaking hands. I didn’t know what to do. There was no point talking to him. Those days were long gone, buried under the bust ups and booze. The ever present or well hidden bottle. Oh God, we were so young, young and inexperienced. Too young for marriage and settling down. Did I ever really love Jimmy? Did I even know what love was at that tender age? I thought he loved me. In fact, I know he did. Too much. That was part of the problem, you see. I was put on a pedestal, worshipped, and I retaliated by pushing to see just how far I could go with him. But I’m not taking the blame here. The drink appeared much earlier than I knew. I was too naive to notice, too unused to alcohol to recognise the signs. I’d say right from the beginning there was a problem, maybe before. You know those lines ” When we were good we were very, very good but when we were bad we were horrid.” That was us. Things could have been good perhaps if I had tried harder. If he had sought help. Forty years is a lifetime.

MARIE
Forty years is a lifetime. I refused to believe the news when I heard it. Just gossip, couldn’t happen to Eileen and Jimmy. Devoted to each other they were. I had lost touch with my good friends for a while and now I was hearing they weren’t together anymore. Separated. No. there must be some mistake. I got in touch with Eileen right away and heard the resignation in her voice over the phone. I watched as the men loaded the furniture van. I watched as the drop leaf table went one way and the sideboard the other. Things shared now separated, like my two friends. I have known Eileen and Jimmy for years, a loving couple. There was no doubt he loved her, worshipped the ground she walked on, he did. You could see it in his eyes every time he looked at her. Hear it in his voice when he spoke her name. He touched and hugged her all the time. Oh God I’m going to cry. Such a shame. It shouldn’t have happened. There was no doubt he loved her. He drank her in but unfortunately she was not all he drank in. I wasn’t behind closed doors with them but I knew. Had gone through it myself, you see, with my own husband. Eileen didn’t twig on, not for a long time but then it got worse and couldn’t be missed. She couldn’t take it anymore. No violence or anything like that. Jimmy wasn’t like that. But the slurred speech, the falls and the empty bottles hidden everywhere got her down badly. She keeps telling me it was Jimmy who sent the solicitor’s letter. What the Hell was he thinking? If he thought at all after the fourth or fifth vodka. He unknowingly gave Eileen the way out, she needed the push. I met Jimmy one day, some time after the separation. A broken man, he sat with me and cried, sobbed sorely more like.
“Marie,” he said. “I miss her so much. I love her and always will. I have nothing now. What have I done?”
Oh Jesus, I’m sobbing now, A lovely couple, broken by life and circumstance. Forty years is a lifetime.