The Reinventors

Why were there so many reinventors in one place? They were at a weekend retreat, that’s why.

The night before, they had all listened to the welcome speech from the grandiosely named Edgar De Quincy. He told them that life is like the formation of a river. At first, the gentle trickle of water follows the curve of the land, helplessly obeying gravity. Later, the water gathers the power to shape the land to suit itself. Thus they must live. Edgar De Quincy explained that the reinventors should learn from his example. He claimed to have never made a mistake, because every choice in his life had contributed to his being here, and there was nowhere he’d rather be.

One woman, this at the circle time on Saturday morning, suggested that she needed reinvention because her marriage was in trouble and it was down to her. They were seated in a large conservatory, among the exotic plants. Most of the reinventors were sweating, but De Quincy, in a black polo neck, was preternaturally cool.

‘I’m always snapping at him,’ the woman groaned, her nagging easy to believe. ‘I tell him off for stupid things. I used to be so much more relaxed about him going off for golf or just watching The Ashes all day on a sunny day.’

Edgar De Quincy listened with two fingers pressed to his lips. He ran a hand through his luscious grey hair and sat forward.

‘You have sown the seeds of renewal on the cracked earth of your marriage just by coming here, Louisa,’ he said quietly but firmly. He was staring intently at the woman, who was sitting as though she was in a vice. ‘Now you and your husband must water them together. And you will reap the harvest of your reinvention.’

Louisa, stunned by the sage advice, flopped back in her chair and breathed: ‘Thank you.’

Oh, there were plenty of others. A student, who had dropped out three times, never satisfied with his choice. De Quincy’s advice: ‘Ask not what a degree in archaeology will do for you, but ask what you can do for archaeology.’ Wise words, and practical!

Another reinventor said she drank too much. De Quincy was silent for a time, looking at her, and the woman shifted around in her chair so her bones wriggled hither and thither under her skin. Eventually, he said: ‘Life is so precious. You must be alert to joy as well as to sorrow. There is no way to enhance or numb these things.’

In awe, the bony woman closed her eyes and tears dribbled down her face. Edgar De Quincy smiled earnestly inside: reinvention was well under way.

Next, there was a hefty man in black jeans and a black T-shirt, Mediterranean hair silvering at the borders. He probably drove a large Mercedes. He had a deep, slightly growly voice.

‘Ed,’ he began. No one called Edgar Ed. ‘Ed, I was violent towards my wife.’

All in the circle straightened up as though a decorated general had dropped by. My, my, but here was a story!

The swarthy man continued: ‘I held her by the shoulder against the wall with my left hand then slapped her quite hard with my right.’ The precision of the man’s tale seemed to matter to him. Although he was large, he didn’t look particularly strong; many years of rich meals and a light gym regime put paid to that. He looked now at Edgar De Quincy with his palms suppliant, sincerely hoping for help.

Not often was De Quincy speechless. There was the time his first wife told him she was ditching him for her secretary (Edgar did not know whether this was a male or female secretary). There was also the time when he was present for the birth of his goddaughter and she came out as one of a pair of conjoined twins, missed on the scan. This heavy man, too, had silenced Edgar. Never had he been approached with an issue like this. The quiet in the conservatory got hotter. Everyone’s eyes went from Edgar to the confessor like they were at a tennis match.

Finally, Edgar De Quincy looked up. ‘Anthony,’ he said, ‘you need to call your wife. She needs to be here too.’ He nodded for the next reinventor to continue.

The next two around the ring were somewhat cursory in their complaints, but by the third, everyone had simmered down and was listening indulgently to each reinventor and De Quincy’s inspiring words.

Anthony’s wife Caroline arrived that evening. De Quincy staged a private intervention with the pair. He took them into the hotel sauna, fully clothed, and locked the door.

‘Grab your husband by the testicles,’ he instructed Caroline. ‘Don’t argue. Do it if you want to save your marriage.’

Reluctantly, Caroline reached down into Anthony’s back jeans and grasped his testes.

‘Good,’ said Edgar De Quincy. ‘Now squeeze them, getting progressively harder as you tell him how you feel about what he did.’

Caroline did so, stopping having built up to a scream of ‘You bastard!’ Anthony was moaning and perspiring.

Edgar led them into the cool and stood with a hand on each spouse’s shoulder at the edge of the pool. He breathed in conspicuously through his nostrils and whispered, ‘The power balance in your marriage has been restored. You will proceed.’

That night, no reinventor had much sleep. They struggled their sheets into knots and tried to weigh De Quincy’s words with their minds, finding that the more they pondered them, the more they frayed. De Quincy himself slept well, naturally, feeling very pleased with his new method of fixing cases of spousal abuse.

The Sunday of the weekend retreat rolled on much like the Saturday: discussion of the root of reinventors’ needs, exercises in self-renewal and what have you. Then everyone went home, satisfied.

The question now, of course, is: ‘did it work?’ And the answer (don’t be surprised), is yes.

Louisa returned home; her husband was out playing golf. Although she was incensed that he was not there to welcome her back, reinvented, she did not snap when he came in, but hugged him, kissed his neck and said I missed you.

The student in the end chose Art History (near the start of the catalogue), and performed adequately enough to pass the course. Bravo!

The alcoholic stopped drinking and starting gambling, the better to experience life’s moments of greatest elation and deepest dread.

As for Anthony and Caroline, their marriage rumbled on pretty happily. She only felt fear of him very occasionally, a kind of loose burn in her chest when he was angry. But, as our friend Edgar De Quincy would say, ‘Reinvention is always a compromise between what you are and what you could have been.’