Fifth Business -- a Conclusion to Dunstable\'s

Fifth Business -- a Conclusion to Dunstable's Memoir

It seems, try though I might, that the over-riding theme of my life has been women. I did not set out for this to be so. I would have been perfectly content to remain a normal boy, doing normal boyish things and then to grown into a man with a normal family, a normal job, and normal friends and associations. The pleasures of suburbia would have been quite enough for me, and I would have found them pleasant indeed. But fate had another role in mind for me, put into motion from the very moment Percy's snowball hit Mary Dempster. From that moment on, my life, my actions, and my very psyche would be defined by women.

You may wonder at this, Headmaster, because you already know that I was relieved when my parents died, as I would no longer have to be under their control, and that I rejected an offer of marriage during the war because I did not want another mother figure in my life. But, try as I might, I could not get away from the influence of women. I may have escaped their control over my physically, as I had done with my mother, but psychologically, they were always the ones pulling the strings.

My guilt over Mary Dempster lead me to be per protector and champion for her entire life. I may have fancied myself in love with her for a time, but what we really had was an unhealthy attachment to each other that could never be broken except by death, and that attachment was based on guilt, loneliness, and the need for redemption on both of our parts. We were the only ones who were completely accepting of each other. My guilt over her situation also lead me to search for her son Paul and to try to help him. In so doing, I became drawn into his twisted world, when I would have been just as happy, if not more so, to be left out of it.

My love of Leola, who was probably the only true love of my life, kept me attached at the hip for most of my life to Percy (well, "Boy," as he later preferred to be called), another man whose life was somewhat twisted and based on bizarre psychological needs that few had the ability to fulfill for him. I became an inexorable part of his dark world only because of my attachment to Leola. Had I been able to escape Percy when we were young men, I probably would not have been in the position in which I am in today. In fact, Headmaster, I may very well have succeeded in my ambition to become head of the school and not merely a teacher, as without Percy, I would have qualified as normal and stable, not the eccentric you see before you today.

My frustrations over my mother, Mary Dempster, Diana Marfleet, and Leola all culminated in my dealings with Liesl. Goodness knows if I'd been a normal man with a normal upbringing and a healthy relationship with and view of women, I never would have abused the poor girl as I did. But her total acceptance of me was too much for me to bear, and all of my pent-up anger and frustration came out on the one person who should never have seen it. She had experienced enough hardship in her life. But she accepted even the abuse, and that has always amazed me. Liesl is an old soul, and very wise. She gave me the wisdom I needed to more fully become myself. It was through her that I finally became a man, at last.