They fell in love and then he went away to somewhere else and he built a house there and he got married to someone else. He lived in the house with his wife for a while and then he had to go to somewhere other than somewhere else and he met the woman he used to love before he loved his wife. They fell in love again. She told him she had a husband and he told her he had a wife, and then she got a phone call saying her husband was dead. She was happy because she had never loved her husband and as time went by she had started to hate him.
   He'd never have told her (the woman he first loved, woman no. 1) about his wife, woman no. 2, if woman no. 1 hadn't told him about her husband. He (let's call him man -- there's no need for numbers now that man no. 2 is dead, unless he's brought back to life somehow) was worried that woman no. 1 would suggest killing woman no. 2 so they could be together again. At first, he didn't know which woman he wanted to be with, but the more time he spent with woman no. 1, the more he loved her. They travelled through the south of France together. They walked along lonely beaches and went to casinos in the evening.
   Woman no. 1 was walking down the street with man no. 1 when he stopped suddenly and said, "If I'm man no. 1, then man no. 2 must still be alive."
   Man no. 2 hadn't really been killed in a boating accident. He had been washed up on a beach. He couldn't remember who he was, and he spent months working as a fisherman. When he was hit on the head by an assailant his memory returned. He went back to his home to find that his wife had left. He tracked her down. She was terrified at first, but he had changed since coming back from the dead. He told her that he had seen himself through the eyes of a simple fisherman, and he didn't like the man he used to be. He was a completely different person, and she fell in love with him.
   She arranged a boating accident to get rid of man no. 1. The plan worked perfectly, but as soon as he was out of the way, man no. 2 revealed that he hadn't changed at all. He had found out about her affair and he just pretended to change so she'd get rid of man no. 1.
   Woman no. 2 arrived on the scene wondering where man no. 1 was. Woman no. 1 told her about his death in a boating accident. They both wanted to bring him back to life, and they thought that a writer would be the best man for the job, so that's when they came to me. The idea I came up with was that man no. 1 should be washed up on a beach somewhere, suffering from amnesia and so forth. They said I was just copying what happened to man no. 2. I pointed out that woman no. 1 had copied this when she arranged for man no. 1 to die in a boating accident, but they said it was my job to come up with something new.
   I struggled with the problem for a long time. Woman no. 1 was getting impatient because she and her husband were tormenting each other. I eventually came up with the following solution: he's found by Japanese fishermen, and after months of slave labour he escapes using a tooth brush. He spends six months travelling through the jungle, completely lost, and he's on the point of death when he's rescued by French nuns, who nurse him back to health, and help him find his way home.
   Woman no. 1 and woman no. 2 were happy with this, but it was down to me to decide which one of them man no. 1 would fall in love with on his return. This was the most difficult problem of all. Both women sent their lawyers to threaten me with legal action unless their client was re-united with man no. 1. In the end I hired my own lawyers to threaten them, and I came up with woman no. 3. She used to be a French nun, but she fell in love with man no. 1 and he fell in love with her. They ran away together. I think this was the best solution for everyone. Woman no. 1 and man no. 2 would go on to lead fulfilling lives killing each other and coming back from the dead. And woman no. 2 was already married to man no. 3. He had been waiting for her at a restaurant.