Betrayal
by Jilliana
Ranicar-Breese
The phone rang.
I saw Stella’s name come up on the phone.
Stella was an intimate friend since we were 19
living in Manchester. ‘Stella’ I cried
out down the phone excitedly but her voice did
not hear me because she had not intended to phone
me. It was a ghost call.
Betrayal in a word. Stella bad mouthed me for 20
minutes. I timed her to the second. I could hear
the clink of the coffee cups and her Russian
friend grunting in the right places as the one
way monologue went on and on. It was a call from
beyond warning me that she was not my friend.
It was not the first time I had broken off our
long friendship. Years earlier I had been a
London member of the American motivational
speaker Tony Robbins ‘Yes’ group in
London and ended up volunteering, speaking in
French, in Brussels helping in the motivational
workshop ‘UPW’ ‘unleash the power
within’. The highlight was having the
courage to walk on hot coals. I was the only
volunteer who had not attended the UPW workshop
and experienced the fire walk.
I was terrified when the leader announced we
would all have to do the fire walk to get into
the mood! My legs were trembling noticeably so
that a colleague came and said ‘you can do
it’ several times to hypnotise me.
Then I surprised myself and walked on the glowing
coals as if mesmerised.
Later I wanted to ring Stella, who was a
psychologist, and tell her of my achievement but
she didn’t want to hear about my experience.
I broke off my friendship without confronting her.
She just said she didn’t have the time to
listen. I never called her again but somehow she
had heard that my mother had died and, like a
good Jewish girl, phoned to give her condolences
saying that she instinctively knew I would not
contact her again.
We agreed to meet and I recall I wrote a speech
on how I felt but I never read it out and so we
went out for dinner after the confrontation and
had a pleasant uneventful evening.
Over the coming years I didn’t see much of
her as she was living in London and I in Brighton.
The telephone was the only thing that symbolised
our ongoing friendship.
Once in a while I would stay on her living room
couch when I went to visit her. She was also a
professional jazz pianist and composer. I later
realised she used me for my constructive comments
and criticism.
I wrote to her telling her I had heard her
negative words on the ghost phone call. Ages
later I got a typed letter, signed by her, with
no apology and the nerve to say that she loved me!
That was preCovid and she is out of my life
forever. I heard via the grapevine that she was
upset that I had broken off our friendship.
Written
for Isabelle, psychologist Nightingale 5/9/24
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