It wasn’t until my husband was in hospital, that I finally allowed myself to cast my mind back. I knew he wasn’t coming home, my protector, my best friend, my rescuer. The phone would ring every day, a doctor keeping me updated, and I am thankful for that, for the compassion he showed, the unendurable shock of not being able to visit my husband, to sit with him and stroke his hands, hands that used to be so strong, hands that could fix anything, including me.
I woke up at 2:13 a.m., my dream still vibrant and alive in my head. In it my husband was kissing my forehead, as he was always wont to do, looking into my eyes with tremendous love. It wasn’t my husband as he is now, at eighty, but my husband as he was when he was young, his hair that bright ginger, his nose covered with freckles, his grin lighting up his face like sunshine. “You will be fine,” he said. “I will always look after you.” I woke up, and knew he was gone.
Six months later, and I am fine, if still adjusting. I am not sentimental. I sent all his clothes off to the charity shop. What on earth would be the point in keeping those closets filled? I gathered his shirts, his ties, his beautiful suits, and took them myself. I couldn’t ask Tally; my daughter would have been horrified.
Since he died, I have started working again. Coiled pots and vases, some sculpture, but small, simple, not like the large ones I did twenty years ago, the ones with which I made my name. I have arthritis now and my hands don’t have the dexterity they used to, so I keep the sculptures manageable. I take daily walks through Hampstead village and photograph scenes that might inspire me; the windows of the little shops that line Flask Walk, the people sitting outside the Spaniards Inn, the ducks on Whitestone Pond. I come back and sketch ideas for sculptures and pots at the kitchen table…







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