The sun hangs low in September.
The Michaelmas Daisies have bloomed.
Mushrooms have sprouted on the lawn and the conkers are forming.
I live in-between two other cottages.
Mr. Fenner, the blacksmith, resided in all three, over the centuries it morphed onto 1, The Forge, 2 the middle cottage and number 3 a modern development built by a stylish couple.
The young custodians have the most beautiful view, two delicious children and a back pocket full of generosity.
Drills, circular saws and men in hard hats, have been shaping our landscape. The tree surgeons have pruned and, lopped, and let the light in.
Where the lawn was in shade we now have full daylight. I sat on a wooden garden chair and bathed in the low afternoon sun.
I decided the fridge was too full of shrivelled leaves so I chopped up the red cabbage, a red onion, an apple, cloves of smoked garlic, added vinegar, brown sugar and black pepper; the kitchen now smells of Christmas.
Then I chopped up a big savoy cabbage, carrots, potatoes, onions and half a scotch bonnet pepper, the two saucepans are boiling next to each other on the stove. A testimony to my energy that I stood and chopped in the silence with only a twinge of discomfort and mellow thoughts for company.
The kitchen table is like a very bad Jan Baptist Weenix painting from 1601. Where a lute should be, or a dead swan, there are unctous oils, a green bowl of red tomatoes, a cutting from the ok tree – which I’m going to fashion into a bonsai, candles, a blue bowl of purple plums, a pharmacy of homeopathic remedies from ignatia to aconite and a bowl of pinky nectarines.
The little pilules have got me through the past three months. Aconite for – the shock, Ignatia for the grief and a sleep remedy which has been about as effective as a chocolate teapot.
The aconite helped though. Last night I thought he was coming in through the door. Not so.
It was a very late deliveryman shining his torch through the window. The exhausted Amazonian driver came to the wrong cottage.
Life, however, has taken on a new rhythm.
Monday, Wednesday and Friday start early. Out the house by 7.45, listen to ‘Thought For the Day’ on Radio 4 then when Anna Foster comes on I change to Radio 3, Anna irritates the shit out of me. Sorry.
Into the dialysis unit for three hours of discomfort, Home by 1.00, and then the rest of the day recovering from having the very life force drained out of me. Tues,Thursday and the weekend are free.
If I have any energy I take my drugs and sit in the garden. I’m very slowlytgetting back into reading. Bedtime is tricky. Doesn’t matter how loud I shout the old git is not coming back. Surfing the tsunami of loss takes courage and looking at reality between the eyes.
Last night I pulled his pillow over to my side of the bed.
His are hard, my pillows are soft. If I fashion his pillows into an ‘L’ shape I get a bolster, and when I need to I can bury myself in goose feathers.
His death left a bureaucratic hole.
I have received three letters from the department of work and pensions.
I owe them money they overpaid the dead man.
They can whistle for it. The inefficient nature of the world of pensions disgusts me.
I had to dismantle our joint bank account. Change passwords, get codes so I can pay the bills over the ether.
But the truly magnificent journey of his ISA, takes the number one slot.
It took nearly two months to sort.
The actor opened an ISA when he was alive and kicking.
HSBC told me there was some dosh to claim.
A dedicated team of bereavement tellers kindly take your calls.
July arrived. I had to send in his death certificate, a copy of the will and a signed form so they could release the funds.
Called the Will people and they said they needed a death certificate, proof of my existence – driving license-
and evidence that I lived and paid my bills from my existing address.
The dawter made copies of said documents.
Mid July and I called the Will folk back. A New Zealander Calle Quinn apologised but said the copies were ‘unraydaball.’
So I copied them all again and sent them by snail post.
August.
They hadn’t received them – the old address was no longer the new address.
I copied them again.
Mid August the will arrived in the post.
I contacted HSBC and sent the death certificate the signed Will, with another document saying I was indeed the grieving widow and all the old gits money was to come my way. There would finally be a top up to my state pension.
Five to ten days and I would be in the money.
Straight into my banking account. No longer joint. My very own widows pot.
The letter arrived.
My benevolent ‘oosbind left me the princely sum of £13,260 pounds.
Only I read it wrong.
Not in the thousands, not in the hundreds but a flat £13.26pee.
Now you know why my table is full of pills.
50 years of a dedicated marriage to a brilliant thespian has ended in pension credits an a box full of spanners.
Would I have preferred to live with a man of wealth? Makes no never mind. We come in naked and needy and we go out naked and needless.
Anyway I’ve now got an extra £13.26 to spend on luxuries.