You will know if it has happened to you; crazy Love. When it strikes is the only suitable translation for French The crazy love. Even crazier, when, as in my case, it was not reciprocated.

He was in his early 50s, divorced and living alone in a rented flat in North London. To break the work-sleep-work cycle, I signed up with an artistic group for a course of guided visits to the galleries of the capital on Saturdays.

The possibility of meeting a woman of a similar age among my fellow students added an extra touch to my anticipation. And when we introduced that first Saturday, now over 10 years ago, there were indeed a number of suitable ‘candidates’ in the group. That was until I saw Lucy.

She looked as if she had walked out of my sociology class in the sixties dressed in a long white fabric dress that clung to her hips one moment and swayed on her body the next as she moved.

Short, brunette, I don’t remember Lucy as a great beauty, but O, her eyes, her smile, her laugh. Little did I know that a web of lies, sleepless nights, tears, all mine, would be my fate for the next two years.

During the first Saturdays I only exchanged a few words with Lucy. But perhaps because she was by far the youngest in the class (she was 31, she was to learn), she didn’t join any of the other cliques. We started talking about the paintings in front of us as we walked.

On the last few Saturdays, we would take our lunch breaks together with sandwiches. The last evening the two of us had a farewell drink in the pub on the Thames side, near the Tate Modern.

The setting sun bathed St Paul’s; It shone in the presence of an angel.

Lucy was an English teacher at a secondary school in the East End of London, one of the most deprived districts in the country. She had been privately educated.

“On the front line now,” I joked. She chided me for my flippancy and explained that she felt compelled to use her advantage to help young men who had been given a bad start by fate.

The woman was perfect. She was more read than me; she knew more about art, film and theater. Lucy was the kindest hearted person she had met in a long time. There didn’t seem to be a ‘significant other’ and, yes, I was dying to get her into bed. This last consideration was the reason why the “crazy“was added to”love.”

I had told Lucy that I had been divorced for three years and it seemed quite correct to say that I was in a long-term relationship that was on its last legs. I reasoned that if Lucy was going to see me again, she had to make sure that she wasn’t some sex-starved worthless (you be the judge).

I made up a girlfriend Annie (probably after Annie Hall), a neighbor; an ornament I would regret.

We met again. As soon as she could, she intended to leave fictional Annie for real Lucy.

Art galleries on the weekends, some movies during the week. I once took Lucy to a gala dinner at the Royal Academy (she was disappointed that she didn’t put more effort into dressing) where a journalist friend passed me a note: “Introduce me to your daughter.”

But mostly we would meet for dinner in the West End. Reader, take my word; she was beautiful in the candlelight.

Sometimes we were Dutch, but most of the time I paid. As a journalist I earned much more than her and I never had the feeling that I was being used. I talked about taking her to Paris, but she never took the bait. We never ate anywhere that I hadn’t checked the location of the nearest hotel first just in case.

My biggest extravagance was the taxis. When I got around to driving her back to her house and then turning the taxi around to take me home, I told Lucy that she would charge the fees to my work expenses. Getting caught playing the violin meant instant dismissal and I never took a chance.

She refused to visit me; she said Annie wouldn’t understand if we bumped into her. But she always fixed the place up before installing it in case she changed her mind.

Eventually I got to cross the threshold of his little council apartment. He would bring a bottle of wine and we would order something lukewarm to take away, we would listen to music, discuss books and talk. We sat in chairs with a few feet of impassable carpet between us, and hours passed.

I learned how hard it was to be a conscientious teacher in the East End.

There was nothing else going on in my life, so I would talk about Annie. Or Sarah as I once called her with my brain confused by Merlot.

“Who is Sara?”

“Did I say Sarah? I meant Annie. Sarah is Annie’s daughter.” Why not? Expanding the cast helped the narrative. Lucy liked it, for example, when I helped Sarah leave her abusive boyfriend.

A year came and went; It got to a point where I had almost given up hope that Lucy would see me for who he was: a sensitive, intelligent, funny man, albeit older; one still with a man’s needs for all that.

Given her generous spirit, perhaps I could make my way to her affections via a different route by becoming one of the sad cases, lost causes she supported.

Annie and I had a reconciliation; pretty passionate if you know what i mean. Then we broke up again bitterly (hence the tears). He still couldn’t make it through the carpet.

Lucy started making excuses and our dates became fewer. I was even more attentive to the evidence of a boyfriend when I successfully asked myself out. There were no razors or multiple toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet.

One night I took a cab and parked it a few doors down from Lucy’s building. He intended to watch her place behind an abandoned car or whatever. But one look at the dark and threatening streets encouraged me to tell the taxi driver to take me back home.

It started to look like Lucy wasn’t taking my calls. After a dozen tries, one Sunday night she answered.

“I know it’s late, but I have to see you,” I blurted out with a catch in my voice. “I can’t explain it over the phone.”

“I had to get dressed,” Lucy complained as she opened the door. “What is?”

“Annie is a lesbian.” She recited the speech that she had composed in the taxi. I told him how I had been shaken to the core when Annie came out during another argument. How helpless I felt losing my lover to another woman. I mean, Lucy, take me in your arms and make it better.

Lucy made me a cup of tea and said she was pregnant.

I never found out who the father of baby Tomás (without ‘h’) was. Lucy never said it and I really didn’t care. I saw him twice during her pregnancy and once after the delivery and he didn’t seem to be around her.

At first I felt pretty stupid. “You have to get out more; all work and no play,” she chided him over the phone. I had deluded myself into thinking that, without me, Lucy would have become a hermit, or was that a nun? Clearly she was neither.

Dylan or someone sang that you shouldn’t be where you don’t belong. And I had no place in Lucy’s life; certainly not her bed.

But no harm was done. Not even my pride; if he’d had any, he wouldn’t have been such a jerk in the first place. And then I would have missed no fun, no, it wasn’t fun. I would have lost the opportunity to feel alive, alive as a first parachute jump.

The opportunity to make the taxi driver jump every stoplight. The opportunity to stand at his door; the opportunity to remove the cork and stop the wine. The chance to talk, the chance to invent a parallel life. The opportunity to kiss goodnight on the cheeks. The opportunity to leave desperate and frustrated. To stay awake and play the night.

The opportunity to meet crazy love.