From Husband to Manservant

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The New CEO

September 2011

The world changed for me the day Wesley Broderick, the owner of the software company employing myself and my husband Dennis, died.

I was not to know it at the exact moment of transition, but when his Indian wife, rather than sell to the highest bidder, took over at the helm everything I considered I knew about myself as a loving wife and a straightforward woman was about to be challenged and reset.

In its entirety.

The above, of course, applies to Dennis also.

And in ways as demeaning as mine were elevating and that can be said with some certainty to have my husband viewing his current situation in a far less positive light than that which illuminates my own perspective.

But, before I jump too far ahead of myself, allow me to wind back to the week following on from the arrival in our Ludgate Circus offices of Amrita Broderick as the new owner and CEO of Broderick Solutions.

Given that we knew next to nothing about her, and what we did know came from Wesley’s long-term secretary, Jean, our expectations were not high. Wesley had, he confided in Jean – not being the most handsome man on the planet and downright ugly to those less caring and concerned with the feelings of others – entered into an Internet romance with a woman “not English.” Apparently, he was sending numerous emails between his penthouse in London’s Docklands and, what we all assumed and later found we were correct to do so, the more humble Hyderabad abode and birthplace of Amrita…

Apologies, but her Indian surname remains unknown to me still, despite our closeness and to this day I still think of her as “Mrs Broderick.”

As well as in other, more intimate, ways.

To continue though, it was not long, according to the notoriously gossipy and surprisingly ultra-efficient Jean, before things between them had grown more serious and email had given way to Skype before the addition of a webcam had allowed the two would-be lovers to see each other for the first time.

Wesley Broderick’s less than appealing features, it transpired, having not deterred his subcontinent paramour.

Not in the slightest, as a matter-of-fact.

A tolerance Jean took the view of meaning our employer’s would-be Indian bride was either as physically off-putting as her boss or was simply – Jean being married to a somewhat cerebrally challenged UKIP activist and sharing many of his moronic and populist views - making the most of the association that it might enable her to become the latest Indian visitor to our “beleaguered” shores.

The view I take is the latter. For though she certainly couldn’t be said to be a looker in the true sense of the term, there was certainly… something. And, if a new life in the UK was the main impetus for marrying Wesley, then it certainly turned out well for her.

As, it must be said, and by a more indirect route, it has for me.

After a week in which she took the time to speak with each of her staff – secretaries as well as executives and software engineers and sales people, such as my husband, the changes began.

Her husband’s former secretary being the first to be let go – and with a generous package and gushing reference assuring she went with a minimum of fuss.

And her replacement?

None other than Mrs Dennis Bennett herself..

My husband, whose secretary I still was at the time – it was how we had met, after all, shortly after his first marriage had collapsed and he had been cleaned out by the ex who cited his adultery to a sympathetic female divorce-judge and was, consequently, awarded virtually everything apart from his less than coveted collection of eighties vinyl – had not been best pleased at the disruption to his working life and had even gone to see the new CEO to protest.

And probably wished he hadn’t – even if what occurred would have been sure to have taken place at some time in the near future whether he had walked into her office without waiting to be told to enter on that fateful day or not.

Put simply, he was told she had evaluated the performance of different areas of the company and felt that his area of excellence could just as easily be covered by others in the company whilst saving a considerable amount in salary and outlay in the process.

Not only that but, and unlike Jean the gossip, the package he was offered that he might go without a fuss was the bare minimum required to be paid by employment law.

He was outraged and very, very, angry.

Understandable reactions that would shortly be joined by devastation for the loss of a position he had convinced himself would be for life given the solid relationship he had formed with the late Wesley.

Or at least until such a time as he had no further need for it.

Sorry. Did I not mention that my husband, as well as being a cheat and a chauvinist, was also something of a dreamer?

Anyhow, dreamer or not, you can only imagine the invective that fell from his lips towards my sensitive ears when we arrived home on that evening as he made his defence of me and my position as his secretary the sole reason for the loss of his job.

Invective that became no more mild when I told him of the substantial rise in salary - far more, in fact, than Jean the gossip had been paid by Wesley Broderick - that went with my elevation to the position of the CEO’s personal-assistant and that we would at least be able to get by until he found another position. Insisting, as he did, that the “half-crazed Indian goldigger” was about to ruin all Wesley’s hard work in making the company what it was. Ending by saying that his departure was a blessing as he really didn’t want to be there when it all went down the pan.

Actually, within a month, and despite the misgivings many had professed for one taking over the helm who was so inexperienced in business and software matters, as well as being from a… different… background, Amrita – apart from the no longer in situ Jean and my husband – had won her employees around and seemed to have a healthy knack for delegating and allowing those who were good at what they did to go on doing it without unnecessary interference.

In short, and even more than it had during the time of the late Wesley and my departed husband, the company went from strength-to-strength.

At this point, it’s probably as well to tell you something of my background and appearance that you may, where I’ve failed, understand what Amrita saw in me from that very first “get to know each other” meeting in her late-husband’s former office.

I was twenty-seven when I first came to work for Dennis at Broderick Solutions and we married not three months afterwards. The speed with which he wood me and popped the question making me suspicious despite being flattered that such a handsome and seemingly self-assured older man – my boss – felt such a way.

Suspicions that firmed up a little when we moved into our first rented home together – we were still renting when Amrita came on the scene given my husband’s parlous finances after his divorce – and it became obvious to me that, despite holding down an exacting job of my own and working the same hours at the company, I was also expected to take care of all domestic chores.

My ready acceptance of such an imposition going a long way to explaining just how flattered I was that such a handsome and important man wanted me for his own.

At least then.

You see, for although I’ve been blessed with shapely legs and breasts to match on a somewhat hour-glass, if prematurely matronly, figure, facially – and in common with Amrita – I’ve never been what one might describe as a “stunner.”

At just over five-and-a-half-feet tall the most striking facet of my looks above the waist has always been a crown of fiery red hair that belied my amenable temperament. My nose is a little too narrow and my mouth and plump lips somewhat too large – even if Amrita describes those looks as “sensual” and I suppose the green eyes giving evidence of some far distant Irish ancestry do compliment the hair perfectly; even if those eyes are ever so slightly crossed and detract from the effect a tad. But the truth is that - and I always laid the blame at the door of my slightly wayward eyes - I had never been much sought after by the opposite s*x until the on the rebound Dennis took an interest in me.

He told me how much he liked me over drinks one night after work and I was so ecstatic to hear such a declaration from his lips that I ignored all the other warning signs to which his recent divorce should have alerted me. I was so pleased to be with him back then that nothing else mattered. And was even happier a month or so later when he told me he loved me and proposed.

No doubt doing so simply to have someone to share rent on a larger apartment and gain himself a cook, cleaner and bottle-washer into the bargain.

But then, and unlike Amrita, I was not impervious to the undeniable good looks and charm that runs in tandem with the low-grade cleverness and cunning many self-involved men seem to develop as they go through life and become more manipulative in the process.

Until, that is, and I refer to Amrita, they meet their match.

In short, things were not perfect, but I did have a handsome man on my arm who just happened to be my boss and this made it a pleasure to make infrequent visits to the family – a family I confess to not having much time for - who had assured me I would end up an old maid and confound their expectations.

Even if these few infrequent drop-ins became a thing of the past as my dislike for them remained the same and the novelty of showing my husband off to them soon lost its novelty.

When Amrita let him go – and I did try to intercede for him without, obviously, much success – he did, in fairness to him, immediately start searching for another position.

Without any joy whatsoever.

He was a jobless man in his mid-forties during a vicious and worldwide recession. His money and what few savings he had were rapidly running out and he had been forced, for the first time in his life, to accept welfare – such as it was. This for a man who had been brought up to believe – even if he only paid lip-service to it when he considered it convenient o that it was a man’s place to provide for his wife. And here he was, knowing that he would have gone under were it not for the new and enhanced salary I made from working for the very person who had precipitated his fall to financial dependency.

Hardly surprising, then, when lack of success turned initial enthusiasm to lethargy. Before lethargy found itself joined by self-pity and hatred for the “Indian b***h” who had let him go and who was now, effectively, my boss. This until such a time as lethargy, self-pity, and too much daytime TV led him to start venting his frustration upon me.

This despite the fact I was still picking up around the apartment as if he were still in work and my being employed by the “ugly Indian guttersnipe” who had let him go, and at a higher salary that at least enabled us to get by, had changed nothing.

An “ugly Indian guttersnipe,” it turned out, who was about to make a proposal to the young wife he was riding roughshod over that would change their lives.