‘I have to go,’ she fibbed, clutching the door frame because all of a sudden she was desperate to close the door. Hearing about Howard from a stranger had left her discombobulated. ‘I’ve something on the stove.’ Couldn’t she think of a more original excuse?
And she closed the door just like that before rushing to the side where she was out of sight if Faye peered in through the glass.
Oh, she’d been so rude. And Faye seemed as lovely as Howard had always said she was. Faye, along with Margot, another lady in the group, had been the pair Howard mentioned most often. He must’ve thought a lot of them and he would be devastated if he was here to see how she’d treated someone he’d come to like, someone who had brightened his life.
She should go back, open the door again, and yet she couldn’t. Her legs, no longer like jelly, now felt as if they were refusing to work and she stayed in her crouched position leaning against the wall, trying to focus on breathing in and out.
Would Faye come to the cottage again? Or had she frightened her off for good?
A tear strayed down her cheek. What had happened to her? Was this the way she was now? A miserable, cantankerous woman who didn’t want to be disturbed?
She went through to the back room again and looked out at the view she and Howard had never stopped appreciating. As the days of September rolled on, each one held a little less warmth but the weak sunshine and clear sky highlighted the pots dotted about the garden. They all needed attention, none of them held anything other than dead plants or weeds inside.
When her tummy rumbled she remembered she had to eat. Even that wasn’t something that came easily right now.
In the kitchen, she took the bread from the larder, and dropped two slices into the toaster. She found the remaining portion of soup she’d made yesterday in the fridge and went through the motions of making herself a meal.
While the soup was warming and the bread toasting, she picked up one of the grief books that kept getting shunted around the cottage, as if leaving them in a different place might urge her to pick one up. They were at the end of the kitchen table now.
She opened up the book on top, but was only halfway through one of the initial pages when a phrase jumped out at her, claiming that grief would visit again and again.
This was never going to stop.
It was already flooring her. She didn’t need to be reminded that that would never change.
She turned off the gas beneath the soup pan when it seemed hot enough, flipped up the bread from the toaster, and after buttering it she sat at the table and eyed those books with distaste.
She went into the back room, sat in Howard’s soft leather chair and closed her eyes, going right back to the happy days after she met the love of her life.
Howard once told her that he found it fascinating watching her get lost in her painting or drawing and likewise she loved to watch him read. He was always so engrossed it would take a lot for him to look up.
Two months after they met, Howard had been for a browse in the library while Bonnie stayed outside to finish her can of cola. When Howard emerged from the brick building, he’d handed her a book.
She looked at the cover.The Thorn Birdsby Colleen McCullough, but shook her head until the way he was looking at her had her take it from him.
‘It’s popular,’ he said. ‘I was very lucky to get a copy.’
‘Then I’m afraid it might be wasted on me. I won’t appreciate it nearly enough.’
As they began to walk he took her hand. ‘It’s been described as an Australian version ofGone With the Wind. A love story. A powerful one at that. Not as good as our love story, but you might enjoy it if you try. Give it a go, for me?’
She couldn’t resist his request but had to point out, ‘You know this is like me making you draw a picture.’
‘I don’t have your talent for drawing, but I know you can read.’
‘All right, I’ll try.’ She’d do anything for Howard.
When they were together the weekend before that she’d had the desperate urge to sketch out a picture of the fields next to the bed and breakfast where they were staying. They’d gone for a walk and while she sat on the fence taking in everything she could see in a way she always did before she committed anything to paper Howard had run back to the accommodation for her little bag filled with her art supplies and his bag with his book. You see, while Howard never went anywhere without a book, she rarely went anywhere without a sketch pad and tin of pencils. She was going to be a nurse, a job she loved, but this was a different part of her that she couldn’t ever give up.
As Howard sat on one side of the stile leading into the field and read, she sat on the other with her sketch pad on her knees and tin of pencils balanced on the fence. The scenery here was incredible. In the distance was an old shed. Sheep dotted the hills. There was a beautiful gate a little off centre, and a stone wall to the left, which ran higgledy-piggledy all the way to the top of the hill.
When her neck ached from leaning down over the pad of paper she’d put a hand to it but almost as soon as she did she felt Howard’s larger hands taking away some of the strain with a gentle massage. ‘It’s coming on,’ he’d said, looking down at her sketch so far. ‘I don’t know how you manage it.’
She flipped the paper over. ‘Give it a go.’
‘Me, no.’ He climbed over the stile so they were together again. ‘I can’t draw at all.’
‘Have you tried?’
