Today, The Sunday Gleaner publishes the final instalment of its series of excerpts from Beverley Manley's new book, The Manley Memoirs.

Gradually, I began to suspect that Michael was having an affaire with a married woman on the periphery of our group of friends. I threatened him, saying that if he was having an affaire with her, I would leave him. I'm not sure why, but for me, this was the last straw. We had had heated discussions in the past about his affaires, and the condition for my staying with him was that he would no longer have affaires with women in our immediate circle.

He assured me now that he had no interest in this woman. But one day I answered our home phone, which we kept for calls to each other, and she was on the other end, as shocked as I was. With proof that he was having the affaire, I stopped being committed to my marriage. I knew it was only a matter of time before I left, and I told him so. He didn't take me seriously. In his entire life, he told me, no woman had ever left him.

Protective wall

I was in the middle of research for my master's and wanted to do the Ph.D. Perhaps this was the time to begin to think of my two young children and myself. Michael and I talked about it. I shared with him how I was feeling about our marriage: how empty, how ex-cluded by him I felt for the first time since we had met. He seemed to put up a protective wall around himself so that no one could see his personal hurt and his despair. He was like a zombie. And so, throughout 1981, he wandered alone. I felt left out of his life, and spent most of my time either on the UWI campus or alone at home. I also looked to Marxism, the early Marx, to see to what extent dialectical methodology could help me understand the process Jamaican politics had just gone through. It helped, but not nearly enough.

I enjoyed working with D.K., and was amazed at how he, in contrast to Michael, handled the electoral defeat. He did not take it personally. He said that he and Michael had discussed several times that a defeat was highly possible but that what was important was preserving the integrity of the movement. I began to admire this in him. He was shorter than Michael, and darker in complexion, with greying, wavy hair slicked back from his face. He was younger than Michael by 16 years, and slim, with an Afro and a beard - the beard made his face appear long and pointed and rather revolutionary-looking, I thought. He always wore a cap or tam.

Hopelessly in love

We grew closer, and before I knew it, we were falling hopelessly in love. D.K. told me that 12 years earlier, he had seen me in a television advertisement on JBC and knew that one day we would be together. When he got involved with the PNP, I was already Michael's wife, and D.K. recognised that the goal of democratic socialism was bigger than any individual. I was critical to this process if Michael was to succeed. Once Michael turned his back on the struggle, however, there was no longer any need for D.K. to keep his feelings secret.

I was confused and needed a relationship that would guide me. D.K. provided that love and clarity. He did not break up my marriage. He came into my life at a time when I knew I could no longer deal with Michael's infidelities, a time when I could no longer deal with the strictures of being Mrs Michael Manley, a time when Michael's age - he was 17 years older than I - was beginning to be a problem for me. And he had changed. Suddenly he looked and acted so old. I was lonely and needed to throw off all the constraints and shackles of public life and just be reckless - if only for a while.

D.K. and I made arrangements to meet every day. We delighted in each other. We were still involved in party meetings. D.K. was still living with his wife. We assessed the situation over and over again, knowing we were being irresponsible and reckless - and yet we couldn't help ourselves.

It was inevitable that Michael should find out. Someone wrote him an anonymous letter detailing our affaire, even revealing the house where we would meet. When I came home from the PNP secretariat one day in 1982, he called me into the bedroom for one of our talks.

Confessed immediately

I knew it was serious because I noticed the way his jaw was twitching and how he was trying to control himself. He took the letter out of his pocket. He began to read: "Comrade Leader, you need to know that your wife and Comrade Duncan ... ." I stopped him and pleaded with him not to read any more. I confessed immediately and told Michael the truth: that I had fallen in love with D.K. and that he had become my life.

I told him how burdensome it had been for me not to tell him and that I was actually relieved that he had found out. By this time we were both in tears. I reached for my suitcase high on top of the clothes cupboard. He asked what I was doing. I told him that I was leaving, that I would go to my mother's. I knew this would be hell for me, but I had nowhere else to go. Michael took the suitcase from me and told me that I wasn't going anywhere, that we would work it out.

Discreet

His response surprised me - I knew how much he was hurting. As we lay in bed that night, he held me in his arms. He fell asleep quickly, while I lay awake for some time, confused by his reaction, wondering what was next.

The following day, he said that if I felt I had to continue with the affaire, he would ask only that I stop meeting at the same place and that I be as discreet as possible until I got over it, for he knew I would get over it. An affaire, he said, was hardly a reason to end a marriage. Whatever I had to sort out, he hoped I could sort it out within our relationship. He didn't want any more marriages. He had already made up his mind to grow old with me.

And so, the affaire continued. Michael's approach did not have the effect he had intended. The more I got to know D.K., the more I was sure that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Michael tried everything, including inviting certain party members to talk to me.

He even arranged for Freddie Hickling, a psychiatrist and later a member of the Participatory Research Group, to come to the house to find out why I was leaving him. I will always remember Freddie's parting words: "I do not fret for you. You are obviously a woman of power to be having a relationship with the party leader and his general secretary at the same time." Freddie saw my relationships as part of a power struggle. I was shocked that I myself had not seen them that way.

Powerful decision

... About a year after I moved out of Washington Close, I returned for the last time to retrieve my clothes and make the break permanent. I remember that we were standing on the steps leading to the kitchen when Michael uttered the words, "You will never make it without me." I was very conscious in that moment of all I had contributed to him, his family and the People's National Party, and I reminded him of this.

As he looked down on me, his thin lips trembling in outrage, I thought of the women across the centuries who had taken powerful decisions about their own lives. I knew there was a price to pay for what I was doing, but I had to escape from the shadow of this man who had dominated my life from the moment we met. I had to.

Four foibles of Michael Manley