Motiveless Malignancy..?

"You need to move on," New Boss kept saying to me.

I did rather feel this advice was prompted more by his desire to have a quiet life than by any innate concern for my welfare, but nonetheless "move on" is what I have done.

Moving on means working fewer hours (sometimes very few), taking up new hobbies and interests, having lots more time with my husband, and far more laughs with my friends. Now I go to the cinema! Leave work early to go to exhibitions! Mooch around shops looking for nice laundry baskets!

It's been so long since I lived like a normal human being, I feel as if I am on permanent holiday.

But my absolute favourite thing is having lunch with a kindred spirit.

Today I meet up with Lynn Inner Circle. It's a month since I have seen her, but we always seem to effortlessly pick up our conversation exactly where we left off. Lynn has an idiot line manager, and a poorly performing assistant, and is thus caught between Scylla and Charybdis. I don't have an assistant at present, because my last one decided not to extend his contract after Spiteful Manager's appalling behaviour, but on hearing Lynn's account I suddenly feel relieved that I only have Line Manager to contend with.

So we share, and eat, and laugh, and I feel a huge sense of having moved on. Until I start to talk about Remora and feel the anxiety, which I try to keep dormant, tighten in my chest.

I have tried for years - since late 2007 to be exact - to make sense of why my once-closest female work colleague Remora suddenly became so hostile, unpleasant and aggressive towards me. I don't often rehearse the exact circumstances (indeed I have never shared them with anyone I work with) but I do occasionally tell close friends the events which led up to her dramatic change in personality. And I guess I always hope that one of them will come up with The Definitive Explanation.

Jo Inner Circle thinks it is because Remora is "f***ing nuts".
Another friend Gina believed she felt a need to control me.
Jealousy, resentment, some kind of appalling misunderstanding? I have entertained them all.

Lynn thinks it is because I "saw Remora at her most vulnerable" and that her psychological response was to immediately do anything necessary to regain the upper hand. Lynn is a very insightful woman, and her reasoning is so plausible that I seize on her theory gratefully.

Gratefully, because I need a reason.
An answer.

I need one, because the alternative is that there IS no answer...
That like Iago, Remora is governed by "motiveless malignancy".
Which would make her the sociopath that deep down I fear her to be.