candles in the wind

Elton John's rendition of Candle in the Wind to commemorate the death of Diana, reminds Clover not only of the beautiful woman who was once the Princess of Wales but also of her own life - and that of many other young women - whose lives are nothing more than flickering flames in a dark world ruled by ruthless men.

"To this day," confides Clover, "I still believe - like Dodi's father does - that Diana's death was no accident."

"The first thing I blurted out when I heard of Diana's death was 'they've killed her!' and that gut wrenching feeling remains to this day."

"I'm just an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life," says Clover, "but I know from my own divorce - and the men I met after it - that a lot of people wanted to get rid of me."

"I believe Diana was an incredible embarrassment to the royal family - Charles in particular," says Clover, "and by association the government of the nation was threatened, too."

"You see, it's alright for a man to marry a woman he doesn't love, saddle her with kids and then carry on with a lover on the side," explains Clover, "but it's not alright for the wronged wife to expose him, take revenge and divorce him."

"My marriage paralleled Diana's in that my husband treated me badly and he - and his family - were furious when I took the children and applied for divorce."

"For a while there I lived in fear of my ex-husband - or one of the thugs in his family - killing me," confides Clover. "I don't doubt for a minute that Diana harbored the same fears, but ten times worse because of her public position."

"I felt much safer when I got myself a boyfriend," says Clover, "but this fact in itself incensed my ex-husband and his family even more - and, just like Diana's new lover, my boyfriend turned out to be a rat, too."

"The misery of my marriage was compounded by the misery of a relationship with a rat - a man I loved and trusted and expected to marry and achieve happiness with."

"When I discovered that the new man in my life was no better than my ex-husband I broke off the relationship," says Clover, "and at the time he actually threatened to kill me!"

"Can you imagine how scared I was?"

"I don't know if Diana's rat threatened to kill her, but she had good grounds for believing he would publicly betray her - it must have been like hell for her."

"By finding happiness with Dodi - a Moslem - I think Diana tipped the scales against her," says Clover. "She was the mother of a future king - a future head of the Church of England - and while her relationship with a white skinned Christian rat was tolerated, a relationship with a dark skinned Moslem gentleman most certainly wasn't."

"I think my ex-husband and his family would have reacted similarly had I taken up with a black man."

"I still had the kids with me," explains Clover, "and those horrible people would not have tolerated their bloodline coming into contact with a black man on such a personal level. And the prospect of my marrying such a man and having a child with him might have caused them to hire a hit-man to prevent it happening."

"I know it sounds fantastic," sighs Clover, "but these things do happen. My flickering candlelight could have been put out as easily as Diana's was."

"When Diana died I listened to that song Candle in the Wind and cried and cried, like most damaged young women did," says Clover. "I suppose it reminded us of the fragility of our own lives and loves."

"I never remarried," confides Clover. "The kids are now grown up and so am I."

a kept woman

Cissy and Felix were poor, young migrants in a strange new country when they met in the mid-1970s and they married to get ahead and solve accommodation problems more than anything else.

"I had two jobs and a bit of money saved and Felix had nothing when we married," says Cissy. "He was behind in the rent and I moved in with him and paid his expenses until he got a job and started earning money."

"In those days men earned twice as much as women," sighs Cissy. "It didn't seem fair that I had to work two jobs - day and night - to earn as much as he did, but that was why marriage was so attractive to me. It was the only way a woman could get ahead in life."

"More than anything else I wanted a home of my own - not just because it was such a waste of money to pay rent but also because I missed my home in the old country," says Cissy. "As soon as Felix started a steady job, with regular wages, we used my savings as a deposit on a cheap house and I gave up my second job. We were so happy - we were on our way!"

"Felix and I liked each other and we got on reasonably well," explains Cissy, "but there was no romance between us. We weren't in love or anything like that. Our marriage was a business arrangement more than anything else. We were helping each other get ahead in life - it was the sort of thing lots of young people did in those days, and still do if they don't have a rich family to help them."

"Felix decided to start a business of his own about the same time as I got promoted at work," says Cissy, "and for a time I was earning a lot more money than he was, and then the unthinkable happened. I got pregnant!"

"It was a contraceptive failure - neither Felix nor I had planned on having children," explains Cissy, "but when the pregnancy became known neither of us contemplated an abortion. We just accepted it as one of those things and adjusted our lives to the prospect of a new mouth to feed."

"One of the bad consequences of pregnancy in those days was that I had to leave work," explains Cissy. "I was forced into becoming totally financially dependant upon Felix and I felt ashamed to be a burden on him."

"Felix gave me a weekly allowance for housekeeping and personal expenses for myself and our baby daughter," says Cissy, "and I was made to feel even more ashamed if I could not make ends meet."

"Year after year Felix gave me the same amount of money - no matter how much prices had gone up," sighs Cissy, "and I never complained or asked him for more."

"I became very clever at making clothes, mending things and growing our own vegetables," says Cissy, "and while our daughter never went without anything, I had to accept that there was never going to be anything left for me."

"Felix's business was doing well, but he always complained that it wasn't doing well enough," says Cissy. "I understood that he needed to pour a lot of money into the business - and keep up the image of a successful businessman - so at first it didn't really bother me that he needed to buy a new company car every year, and new office equipment and new suits and things."

"After six years as a 'kept woman' - feeling dowdy and depressed - I wanted to go back to work and be able to earn my own income," says Cissy, "but Felix insisted that his business depended upon my being there for him - day and night - for emergencies."

"He never paid me for the odd jobs I'd do for his business," explains Cissy, "he just took it for granted that I'd always be there to help him, and do his washing and cooking and cleaning up after him."

"I had no idea how much he was making," says Cissy. "He kept all financial records at his office, and the only time he mentioned money was to complain about not having enough. He did this, of course, to make me feel obliged to make the paltry allowance he gave me stretch further than ever."

"In six years I had not seen a dentist or a hair-dresser - far too expensive - or bought myself anything," says Cissy, "and when I got a bad toothache one day I decided that it was time to put my foot down and start looking after myself."

"Felix had never stinted himself on any personal expense - he always had sparkling white teeth, sharp new haircuts and fancy clothes to go with the fancy company car," explains Cissy. "I explained that I had no money and needed to see a dentist immediately and he had the cheek to accuse me of being a bad housekeeper for not saving up for such emergencies."

"Reluctantly, he gave me some extra money to see a dentist, but from that day onwards our marriage was dead," says Cissy. "I insisted on going back to work and when I had saved enough money to take care of myself, I asked for a divorce."

"Felix had obviously planned as much for this day as I had," explains Cissy. "He packed some clothes and left the same day - without any sort of scene whatsoever."

"The following week I received a letter from Felix advising me to sell the house - now worth a small fortune - and I became suspicious," says Cissy. "The house was in both of our names, but I had provided the deposit for the house and had worked my fingers to the bone maintaining it throughout the entire marriage. The last thing I wanted was to give up my home."

"I wrote back to Felix saying he gets to keep the business, equipment and car, I get to keep the house," says Cissy "and that's all I wanted. I knew his business was probably worth a lot more than the house, but I didn't care. I just wanted to be a free woman again."

"As usual, Felix moaned about the business not doing too good, and the expense of having to rent an apartment," says Cissy, "and because he knew I had saved up a bit of money from my new job he actually stung me for half of my savings - which at that time was barely $10,000 - in the divorce and property settlement. After paying Felix and my lawyer, I had no money left."

"It never occurred to me - or my lawyer - to investigate Felix's business and property dealings," says Cissy. "I learned years later that Felix actually owned the apartment he moved to and had extensive investment portfolios that I never knew he had. The property settlement between us had been a total fraud on his behalf."

"For the whole marriage - including the period I was working - I had scrimped and saved and done without while Felix maintained the image of lifestyle of a successful businessman," sighs Cissy. "I kept accurate housekeeping records and when I went back to work I was open and honest about what I earned, spent and saved while Felix remained totally secretive about his financial affairs - but always crying poor, of course."

"Poor fool me for being a mousy kept woman!" laughs Cissy. "I should have demanded ten times as much housekeeping money as Felix gave me, and insisted on being privy to his financial affairs."

"We went into this marriage to help each other - to be partners in every sense of the word," says Cissy, "and if it were not for an unplanned pregnancy, and being forced to leave work, he would never have become so mean, cunning and secretive about money."

"That he screwed me out of half of my hard-earned savings at the end of the marriage means that he must have resented having to support me and a child in the early years and never took into account the net worth of the work I was doing for him at home - and for his business," sighs Cissy. "I needed to keep on scrimping and saving when I went back to work because I knew I'd need the money for a divorce - but I didn't expect to end up penniless. If he had been successful in coercing me to sell the house he would probably have screwed me out of half of the sale money, too!"

"What a mean, cunning louse!"

"Frankly, I'm well rid of him," concludes Cissy. "A liar and a fraud like him will get his just desserts one day. It's all very well wanting to get ahead in life, but only a fool does so at the expense of others in co-operative, trusting relationships."

abusive relationships

Clara, 46, had enjoyed five years of freedom, living her life independently, before she married at 21. She thought she was in control of her life and knew everything when she entered the relationship - as young adults do at that age - but she was so naive that she now blushes in shame at how she was manipulated.

"Up until then," explains Clara, "I only knew about physical violence and verbal abuse. I didn't know about manipulation, coercion, control, possessiveness, jealousy, blaming and guilt. I didn't even know about romantic love - I had read about falling in love, but I had never experienced it - I just thought that it would happen after marriage."

"I married the new boy on the block," explains Clara. "My mom thought he was a wonderful - a good, clean hard working boy - and she did everything in her power to bring us together. But she didn't know, and neither did I, what he was really like until it was too late."

"I did witness slight signs of violence and bad temper in him before we married, but it didn't worry me too much," explains Clara. "My dad had been a violent man and mom had divorced him and ended up happy, so if the same thing happened to me I thought I could always get away - but falling pregnant made me a prisoner in a way I never imagined possible."

"Knowing young women who ended up being bashed by their husbands in drunken rages, I guess I could have done worse," says Clara. "He didn't drink, and when he raged he thankfully smashed furniture and windows rather than me."

"The abuse just started off small and built up to a crunch time," explains Clara. "I felt like a frog being boiled in hot water without the will or wherewithal to jump out."

"I felt bad when he put me down because I'd gained so much weight during the second pregnancy," says Clara, "but I felt worse when he discarded me as 'dead meat' when I was later diagnosed with cancer. The cancer treatment caused me to lose a lot of weight fast - which was good - but when I lost my hair I was shocked and humiliated when he compared my worth as a woman with our young and beautiful daughter with long, golden hair. Imagine how horrible that was."

"Anyway," says Clara, "I survived all this - and got back on my feet - and I only snapped and decided to end the marriage when he started coming home during the day, when my daughter was at school, demanding sex, violently raging at me in front of our little boy and scaring the wits out of the poor thing."

"That was the crunch for me," says Clara. "I jumped out of that marriage faster than any frog has ever jumped!"

"He re-married very quickly and started another family - but he didn't learn from the first experience," says Clara. "Maybe he thinks I divorced him because he wasn't abusive enough with me and needs to try harder next time around."

"My kids still see their dad and tell me that he's worse than ever," sighs Clara. "His behavior is still violent, abusive, threatening, manipulative and diabolically possessive towards those he considers 'inferior' to him - dependent women and children."

"I think it's the way the man is - his genetic inheritance - and the way he was raised to be," says Clara "For most of his life society sanctioned that sort of male behavior towards women and children - but in today's world it is considered criminal behavior and someone should have the guts to report him to the police or force him into therapy. Like all cowardly abusers, he is 'sweet' in public, does his hitting in private, denies responsibility and sheets blame on everyone else."

"That his new wife remains married to him indicates that she's made a decision that putting up with his abuse - towards her and her children - is far better than being a poor single mother," says Clara, "but what sort of marital ideal is she showing her children?"

"These days, one in three marriages end in divorce and probably one in three divorces is amicable with both parents being able to maintain a friendly relationship," says Clara, "but divorces caused by domestic violence never, ever, result in friendly post-divorce relationships."

"The dynamics between an abuser and his victim never change," says Clara, "and it wouldn't surprise me if most of the two in three marriages that don't end up in divorce are kept intact by abused women who don't have the self-esteem to leave their abuser. I wasn't married in church, but for a woman who was she has the added burden of her 'till death do us part' wedding vow."

"I have lived long enough to know that there are two major classes of people in the world - the abusers and the abused," sighs Clara. "Unfortunately, like most women, I fall into the latter category and that is why I need to be careful of the people I allow into my life. I wasn't very careful in the past because I didn't know any better - back then, all women got abused by men in one way or another - but I do know better now."

"I've got a nice relationship with a guy now," confides Clara, "but I'd never marry again. Why spoil a good thing?"

"Abuse is abuse and no woman in her right mind tolerates it, excuses it or willingly puts herself in a situation where she is liable to get more of it!"