Talking about Stalking

Last year, Clare Bernal was shot dead on the spot in her place of work: a cosmetics counter in one of London’s most famous department stores. The perpetrator was her ex-boyfriend Michael Pech, himself a former Harvey Nichols employee (a security guard, no less), who made his motivations perfectly clear: “If I can’t have you, nobody else will”, he said, before turning the gun on himself. Bang! Two people dead, in the name of … please, don’t call it love.

Pech was officially a stalker – a term which these days loosely translates as ‘a nutter we can’t do anything about’. Someone, somewhere had at least tried to do something to prevent this horrific tragedy; Pech was awaiting sentencing for ‘inappropriate behaviour’ towards Bernal and a restraining order preventing him from contacting her had been issued. As a result, a few flighty pops at the inadequacy of Britain’s legal system fluttered aimlessly on the aftermath breeze. But by and large, the story grabbed national attention due to the location of the crime (Harvey Nicks: the St Pauls of retail therapy) and the emotionality of the situation: Claire had ‘dumped’ Pech; he felt ‘rejected’ and suffered ‘months of agonising heartache’ – the same feelings I’ve experienced since hearing three separate women coming up with the same response to the Pech/Bernal case: “wow”, they said; “he must have really loved her”.

Just as we’ve all become accustomed to using the term ‘domestic violence’ to soften the blow inflicted on many thousands of women throughout the UK every year, ‘stalking’ has become a misunderstood and misused term, beloved of the Trisha Show and synonymous with glamorous international celebrities. Like most major league spectator sports, stalking tends to be a male activity; sure, there are women who convince themselves that Brad Pitt is sending out secret ‘marry me’ messages via paparazzi photos in Heat magazine, but in the main, the guys tend to put themselves at the heart of the headline grabbing stalking action … and in the main, most of these guys tend to be reeling from a rebuff.

Many women flee to refuges to escape men who claim to be unable to live without her (even though breaking her nose at the same time as he breaks her heart is a bloody funny way of showing it). Of these cases, the vast majority of the men they leave behind have been clearly and concisely ‘dumped’, with good reason and, often, the court orders to prove it. But even if
they’re the dumper, there are many men who don’t allow logic to get in the way of self-righteous self-pity, downright indignation and sheer obsession the moment a woman ‘moves on’. Men and women have different ways of dealing with blows to the ego; that tired old scenario of tearful, Chardonnay-soaked girls having mascara-splattered conversations with their mates about ‘the one that got away’ may be a bit of a cliché, but unfortunately, so too is the image of Pech loading his gun and setting off on the lonely journey that leads to the ultimate ‘romantic’ denouement. And on both sides of the cliché coin, the soundtrack offers further proof. Consider the message behind the wheezing of ‘Every Breath You Take’: it may be soft on the outside, but a truly sinister sting in the tale lurks within – quite possibly the ramblings of a madman, and the closest thing to crazy that you’ll ever hear. Compare that with Gloria Gaynor’s enduring, definitive chickfest anthem ‘I Will Survive’, and we see, in popular culture terms at least, what’s really going on.

Ask a woman in a violent relationship why she stays, and she’ll probably start talking about love. Ask a violent man to state his reasons for his behaviour, and you’re likely to get the same response. So, if love is at the heart of the matter, why is a very violent, blood-splattered battle of the sexes still raging? The United States of Male Behaviour may harbour some extremely self-destructive weapons of emotional mass destruction, but the only way that the Kingdom of Womankind is going to counteract such activity is to reinterpret, once and for all, what they mean by love.