My Mother telephoned today. I didn't take the call.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down on the stairs for what I thought was only a moment. When I tried to get up, my legs wouldn't work. I had been sitting there for three hours.

Immediately after Ann's funeral, I went to France: a few weeks with just the dogs. Tomorrow, the three of us are going again. It sounds churlish, but I can't bear any more kindnesses. I can't understand why my friends aren't totally fed up with me.

Fuck all this.

I have an image of Ann from when she was learning to sail.

We were in a Wayfarer (a dinghy), when there was a sudden, vicious squall. Boats all around us were knocked down. We were slammed right over but, somehow, we didn't capsize. The wind ripped our hoods from our heads and boxed our ears, while the rain stabbed at our faces with a thousand, numbing botox needles. I shouted to Ann.

"We need to get to the shore!" She nodded her agreement. I watched as she fumbled with the tiller and mainsheet, her lips framing silent instructions to herself as her slitted eyes gauged angles.

"I think I'd better take the helm" I yelled, struggling to be heard above the cacophony of wind and cracking sail. Ann shook her head; once, emphatically.

"I can do it!" She responded, her voice failing to disguise her indignation at what she perceived to be my patronising suggestion. A second later, she had the little boat under control and was bringing her up into the wind, the bow swinging round to point at the distant clubhouse.

The Wayfarer heeled hard over and accelerated like a released gun dog.

I swore under my breath and quickly slid my feet under the toe straps, leaning out backwards over the side in an effort to balance the little craft. Ann hauled in on the mainsheet and we flashed past a straining motor cruiser, her lower decks bulging with sodden day-trippers. Ahead of us, choppy wave crests exploded in spume as the stem of the boat punched through them.

I swore again and leaned out further, my arms outstretched and the back of my head in the water. Recklessly yet deftly, Ann helmed the narrowest course between exhilarating speed and disasterous capsize.

We had covered perhaps half the distance back to the shore when, suddenly, I heard her scream.

Immediately, I raised my head and glanced to my right. Ann sat high above me, her body angled towards the bow and the wind. Her back was arched and her chest was thrust forward like an art deco figurine. Her hair and waterproof jacket streamed out behind her. Her cheeks glowed a vivid pink beneath the wind-whipped tear tracks which fled from the corners of her shining eyes. As I watched, she threw back her head and cried out again.

But this time, I knew it for what it was: a scream of sheer, elemental, joy.

There was a real, physical pain in the love that I felt for Ann in that moment.

And now... and now, that same pain is with me every moment of every day.

I have no pictures of Ann in a storm. Here she is on a boat though.


This will be my last Blog until I return from France. I don't have access to the internet there.