After vacating our table in the café Mike and I set-to wandering around the shop and gallery at Fisherton Mill. There’s always the weird and wonderful on display here, pockets need to be deep for some of it but by no means all, and it’s always well worth a visit.

After about forty minutes we decide to head back into the city. It’s around about 1.45pm and the outside air is fresh but not really seasonably cold; it’s raining gently though, and the lights of the shop windows are reflected in the pavement and wet shiny bodies of passing traffic, giving a slowly moving Christmas display that keeps pace with us as we walk along.

It’s very crowded with people all in a hurry to get somewhere, but we don’t rush, adept now at dodging our fellow pedestrians like two slow-motion rugby players on an up-field charge intent on avoiding the opposition.

We head directly for St. Thomas’ Church, central in the city. It’s here that my sisters’ funeral was held in January 2005- 19 years! Dear God where did that time go?

 Sue was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years or so before her death, she would come here sometimes on her lunch break from work. She never spoke of her thoughts then though I can well imagine what they were, but I do know that, to some extent, she was a believer at heart.

Death, either the possibility of or the probability of, was not a subject she could deal with very easily and she always had kept a certain distance when it came to Elaine’s on-going condition and treatment. We of course were well ‘baptised’ by now and I must admit to finding difficulty in Sue’s reluctance to talk of her own situation, though she did once say to me when undergoing chemo’ herself “Now I’m beginning to understand a little just what you two have been going through”.

To this day I’m grateful for her words, but I still wish she could have been closer during those difficult times. 

The church is light and airy and happily void of that looming melancholy that some buildings of its age and purpose develop. Mike leaves me to pretend at looking around (again!) whilst I walk through to the far end of the building where, on the right, there is an area that seems to encourage intimate prayer and imaginings. After sitting down on a polished and unforgiving pew I spend the next ten minutes or so thinking about my sister, our parents, friend Ian and of course, Elaine.

I contemplate the cross and try to remember the message of the man who died on it, who’s ‘birthday’ is so close at hand; and I wonder why? Why am I still here remembering them, why aren’t they here remembering me? Even so, I voice my private prayers, there is a bit of a believer somewhere inside of me too I guess.

I’m glad to re-join my friend who is sat in the nave looking up at the aged paintings that adorn the upper walls. As I sit beside him he speaks without looking at me pretending not to notice my drying tears.

“All ok?”

“Yeah, about the same as last year I reckon, they didn’t have too much to say.”

We both openly laugh and I can’t help thinking to myself that if God hasn’t got a sense of humour- like so many of his ‘children’- then ultimately we’re all fucked!

Leaving the world of organised religion behind us we head out into town to hunt down some last minute Christmas cards. It’s noticeable how few give any recognition to the birth of Christ these days; sad really, the rollercoaster of consumerism seems unstoppable as we all become cogs in the machine.

Our last stop is the Haunch of Venison Inn.

Probably the most famous public house in the city this Old English chop house seems to defy the passing of time (and gravity)! It was a favourite watering hole of our great pal Ian and Mike and I always call in this time of year in honour and memory of that friendship which endures despite his passing some 32 years ago.

Ian was a genuine bon viveur who enjoyed a drink and his friends in equal measure. He was also the good company, the glue if you like, that held so many friendships together. He and I met the day we started school aged five and had been friends and enemies on and off, as kids are, over many years.

In later times we were the best of friends and I am proud that I was the last of his mates to see him alive just scant hours before his glass ran dry for the last time.

It was through Ian that I met Mike; aside from so many great memories he could not have left me a greater legacy.

This place is a strange old pile of a building. Echoes of so many memories and past times feel trapped within its crooked walls and tiny staircases. Held prisoner they search blindly for the door but rarely do I feel they ever find it. We certainly have been the parents of many of those memories and yes, there is a comfort to find them still trapped here once again.

It’s not too busy this afternoon and after buying drinks we settle in at a table close to the welcoming fire in the main bar. We raise our glasses to Ian and absent friends and then Mike breaks the thoughtful silence that briefly follows.

“I hope I’ve not been out of turn today Mark.”

“Out of turn?”

“Yes you know, when I said about you being lucky and all that over breakfast, and later at the Mill. It’s just that I think it’s true, though I concede that it must be hard for you to view it that way. I’m not meaning you should now be turning completely from the life you knew with Elaine but there are new chances for you now and I’d hate for them to pass you by while you’re stuck looking for answers in a past that can’t return.”

I toy with the glass in my hand as the four men sat in the window erupt into laughter as one of them finishes a joke. Glancing at the man sat close to us on his own, I notice he has two drinks before him. He is mumbling into his phone but I’m sure there is no one on the other end of it; all walks of life bouncing off of each other time and again.

I look up at Mike and reply, quietly contemplating each word, “I’m not looking for answers Mike; to be honest I don’t really know what, if any, the questions are. I suppose why couldn’t Elaine and I have had longer together would be one, but then that’s assuming there is someone or something to ask the question of. I’ve asked myself a thousand sodding times but still have no answer.”

Mike looks as though he has thoughts to share but remains quiet.

We drift into silence. My mind begins to wander from the room. I’m back home again, it’s the morning she died. I’ve had to leave her-her body- at Forest Holme and return alone. Alone.  Julie is following-on a few minutes behind. I’ve unlocked and walked blankly through to the lounge. There was a guilty sense of relief, relief that she was free, free of the fucking cancer, the fucking treatments, free of it all, but the price of that freedom was our separation and I knew then I would be paying it for the rest of my life.

I stared at the Christmas tree, I think I later described it as ‘embarrassed’ and it was, and so was I, embarrassed to still be alive whilst she lay newly dead. So many things here just as she left them never to be touched by her again all now left to me, yet all I want is to be with her.

Numb, the word describes it, the feeling inside, but still it does not touch the sides, nothing can. That feeling of naked horror right then will stay with me forever. Never before had I felt such utter and hopeless despair and complete, silent loneliness. 

I stood alone, the only living thing in a totally dead Universe, and no God anywhere to come and rescue me. Julie arrived just then, and I realised I hadn’t even been able to cry. Numb!

Laughter around me, it’s the guys in the window again and I’m back with Mike in the pub.

The word Numb is still in my mind as I pick up our conversation.

“There’s a certain consolation that Elaine accepted what was happening at the end, but I was numb, mind, body and soul and to a degree I still am and think I always will be. Sometimes it’s as though I’m adrift on a sea of memories, open water with no land in sight, unsure which direction I’m supposed to paddle in. I still live where she did, where we did, others may visit then they return home but I’m still there a target for those memories time and again”.

“Only if you continually stand still for them.” Mike’s words come out quietly, almost like a slightly too loud thought not meant to be voiced.

I sense criticism in them and it stings. Childishly I want to snap back, to feel the righteous indignation of the wronged, and maybe a while back I would have done, but not now. It’s as though he just rapped on my skull with his knuckles and shouted, WAKE UP!!

 Like it or not my mind has to open to my faults as well as my blessings and once realisation is present there can be no going back, because to do so means returning to a lonely living death. Staring at that fucking Christmas tree for the rest of my days will get me nowhere.

 Yes, I’ve been the captain of the boat for the last three years or more now, going round in endless circles, caught in a whirlpool of my own creation. But I can see now that it’s up to me to pick a direction, any bloody direction, and just GO! Whichever way  is the right one because it’s down to me to make it so; that shore, that dry land, it’s the place that Elaine spoke of in her last words of her book.

 I can’t help myself or serve the memory of my beloved wife by wasting the time I have left in the pointless indulgence of constant grief. I’ve always really known it, felt it to be the right way but it’s taken until now and an eight word sentence from a man I’d trust with the life of my greatest love, let alone my own, for the curtain to be fully drawn aside and the true light to come in. I am making myself the target for all this and its’ gone on long enough now.

That this should happen in this place. I can sense the spirits of Ian, Elaine and Sue smiling close at hand and saying in chorus, “Now you know, don’t turn your face to death any more there’s nothing there for the living, we can look after ourselves. The love will remain, eternal, untouched by your time, on all sides. Remember us as we remember you but don’t forget to live, its’ what you’re there for. Move forwards, and the unknown will become the familiar to you; let life in and it will quell the numbness and dispel the dark.”

I’ve been staring at the fire as this all comes to my mind. It’s like floodgates opening and realisation pouring in forcing me to acknowledge the good, the luck that has been mine since Elaine died. That morning when I stood staring at the tree and felt the despair and emptiness overwhelming me there was something else with it, and I can’t ignore it any longer.

I knew it was now down to me, everything in my life henceforth would be my responsibility. No longer could I rely on Elaine to sort things out, to get things done, it would have to be me and though I felt dreadfully afraid for myself, that something else was telling me I could do it, that if I made the effort things would move and fall into place before me; and they have.

 I’m like the horse that at last has managed to shake-off his blinkers and see fully around for the first time in years. To see the good that is around me still despite the greatness of the loss endured. A new love, great friends, new opportunities as new doors appear, opening up to take the place of those that have closed or are doing so.

I have to accept her death or risk dying slowly because of it.

I accepted her life all those years ago when we got together as she fully embraced mine. We had a love on this earth that would be, possibly still is, the envy of many and I was the lucky bastard who lived it all beside her.

I would not change a fucking thing, not even the pain if took away one second of what we had. But I now have to accept that if I don’t make the effort to move forwards in life then I’ll be paddling in circles for the rest of it. No one can do it for me, not even Elaine.

For me to allow myself to slowly die because of her, would stand as completely unacceptable to Elaine. It’s just as easy to smile at the memories as cry at them, at least it is now, and whether I laugh or cry she’s not coming back.

I can and will remember, but not allowing myself to live I now see as the greatest wrong I could do in the memory of Elaine.

 I have a strange feeling that perhaps after all I was not stood facing the Christmas tree alone that morning, maybe she’d gotten back home before me.

To be continued…

It’s a short walk down through the restaurant to the counter where I order two fresh Cappuccino’s and offer to wait while they are prepared. Looking back up the dining room to where Mike is sat with his back to me, I ponder on what he has just said over the last few minutes.

Instinct alone tells me he is right, that it’s up to me to take control now of my own life and that that has been the situation for almost the last three years. But I haven’t wanted to see it because, I think, I inwardly view it as saying goodbye to Elaine and the life we knew together, goodbye to the ‘what was’ that I know so well and love so much.

Mike has made me realize how lucky I have been and continue to be, but it’s a bitter pill to swallow. I know it can only do me good but there is a strong pull and a comfort in staying put where I believe Elaine to be, even if it means ultimately I suffer for it.

I know in my heart that it is wrong to tie the hands of the future with the cords of the past, but I never would before have contemplated how difficult it was going to be to have the faith in life to cast those cords aside.

 The ‘Leap of Faith’ will be stepping forwards and believing that somehow I can carry Elaine with me, or at least enough of her in memory to assure myself that she will always be there in my life and heart, and not forgotten.

Some more customers’ edge through the door, the place is getting busy and I cast an unusually interested eye over those around me. A cross section of people, of life I suppose, all on different paths and byways dragging their heels to the same unavoidable destination. It pushes into my thoughts that it is not actually the destination that matters so much but the journey to it, it’s what you do with your time along that road that really counts; not everyone believes in a spiritual terminus anyway and with no proof one way or another ……

Right now I am aware that I stopped walking a while back and have been treading ground ever since, but time is still moving forwards heedless of my immobility, mocking me in its tireless velocity.

“Two Cappuccino’s?” The words are smiled across the counter at me, and taking the cups with their hot frothy contents and voicing my thanks I turn and negotiate a path back through my fellow journeymen to my friend, who sits oblivious to any journey right now other than the one that brought us here.

We seem to know instinctively, as good friends do, when a subject is closed- at least for the time being- so over our coffee we decide where to shop first and what, if anything, we are looking to buy. Then we leave the warm confines and welcome of the restaurant and plunge forth into the all-embracing cold and hustle of the city.

Salisbury is not a very large city but it punches far above its weight with its historic architecture, especially the world famous cathedral at its heart with its four hundred and four foot spire, giving God a physical platform to stand and watch over this small area of his creation.

My sister Sue is very much in mind as we start out. Salisbury was her home for the last twenty-five years of her life. She worked for many of them just a few minutes’ walk from where we stand; she loved it here and I always feel close to her whenever I visit.

It’s crowded this morning with the usual suspects franticly Christmas shopping, but it will be quite fun and distracting to become part of it all, at least for a while. I love Christmas as did Sue. We were blessed as children. Both our parents came from relatively poor backgrounds where there was no spare money for presents etc even once a year, but as adults they made up for this through us.

We enjoyed magical Christmas’s as we grew-up and though mum and dad themselves had little spare cash for indulgences Sue and I wanted for little or nothing come December 25^th. It instilled in us both a love for this time of year that even the death of my wife, so close by, cannot extinguish it.

I’m glad of this, as Elaine too loved Christmas even though her family did not celebrate it. In our later years together she strove to make Christmas as special for me as it had been in my childhood. I had to explain that she would never achieve it as it was what it was then, and this was now. Our Christmas’s together were special enough, there was no need or point in attempting to emulate a lost past. Another lesson for me today maybe.

Mike and I brace ourselves, then become absorbed into the seasonal ‘scrum’, dodging from shop to shop and back again until later we find ourselves heading for the Fisherton Mill gallery and café.

A few minutes’ walk from the centre of town Fisherton Mill gallery and café is just what the title suggests. Housed in a converted mill building and stretching over two floors all types of artisan work is here to view and buy, plus an excellent café area is on the ground floor.

As we enter Mike spies an empty table close by, “Fancy another coffee and cake maybe?” I need little inducing so it’s coats off and we settle down into the scene around us.

We order our drinks, and yes cake too (just because Elaine would expect it of course) then as we are waiting a voice to my side breaks into our idle chatter.

“It’s Mark isn’t it?”

I look up. A tall, lean be-spectacled man is beside me. “Pete, hello how are you?”

“Fine thanks, we thought it was you Greg’s here with me, over there”. He points across the room where the seated figure of his son raises a hand and a smile.

I met Pete, wife Isabelle and their family some two years ago, when on a recommendation from friend Penny I went to do some work at their home in Wimborne. I am honoured to think of them as friends now and introduce Pete to Mike. We talk casually for a while then I go over with Pete to say hello to Greg and wish him Happy Christmas.

Walking back, I’m reminded of the times that Elaine and I came here together, then it occurs that she never knew or heard of Pete, Isabelle and Greg, I never got to tell her about them, they are an aspect of my life in which she plays no part. This has been the situation for almost three years and I’m fully aware that deep within I don’t wish to acknowledge it.

Re-taking my seat opposite Mike I see the coffee and cake have arrived in my absence. He is finishing his first bite as I sit, “You looked miles away then as you came back”.

“Did I? Was just thinking really”, and I tell him my thoughts as I pour most of the contents of a cafetiere into the waiting mug.

Mike sips gingerly at the steaming flat white he has picked up as I talk, then re-unites the cup with its saucer looking across to me as he does so.

“I’m afraid that’s always going to be the case from now on mate all that you do cannot directly involve Elaine, only perhaps the memory of her and you can’t alter that nothing can. Brutal to say it Mark but she’s dead to this world that we’re still in-that you’re still in- and whether you eat that cake or not” he glances down, “she is still going to be dead, you have to accept the fact or break on its rocks, and forgive me, but she wouldn’t want you to break especially not for her sake”.

“I know” is my somewhat hollow reply, “I know”, and for a moment I stare sightless across his shoulder into the room, briefly wishing inwardly that I was Scrooge and could go back in time to witness my memories alive again with the ghost of Christmas Past.

We eat and drink in silence for a while then Mike breaks into my visionless contemplation with a new question.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Fire away brother.”

“If Marilyn hadn’t been there do you think by now you’d be on the lookout for someone else, a new partner to be with I mean, rather than being on your own still?”

I ponder his question for a moment or two, it’s an interesting one that I must admit has crossed my mind on more than one occasion. Eventually I form an honest answer.

“I don’t think so, not actively at least, it’s not really me dating sites and stuff like that, isn’t that how people meet these days? Anyway I was too raw for a long time and Mar’ was there, right from the start.”

Mike catches something in my reply and field’s it back to me.

“So, is it just because she happened along from the start that you stick with Marilyn now, because her presence in your life has been propping you up in the face of losing Elaine, and, if you come to terms enough with that loss will you no longer need Marilyn and want to move on?”

“Fuck me, Mike, have you got a crystal ball hidden away somewhere cos’ I’ve long ago given up on trying to guess what’s in the future. Strange you should ask though because Marilyn has voiced similar concerns several times. I know she’s afraid that having gotten this close I may want to bow out and she’ll be hurt and on her own again.”

“It can’t be easy for her Mark, Elaine is a hell of an act to have to follow and she’s bound to fear the comparison.”

“I know. The first time she visited back home with me she sat on the settee looking very uneasy. I asked her what the matter was, and she replied that she was aware this was Elaine’s home and that she was a strong woman. I knew then the comparison was in her mind and that she was thinking that it would always be in mine.”

“And is it?”

“Honest answer? No, I can assure you that I don’t, and never have, weighted Marilyn against Elaine or vice-versa it never has occurred to me to do so Mike. To me they are totally unique people. There are similarities of course, likes and dislikes etc, but I fell in love with Elaine for who she was- who she still is to me I guess- and Marilyn I love for her own sake there’s something special about her, I think I’ve always known that and it has a chance to be recognised now and I’m certain I don’t want to fuck it all up between us by making Mar’ feel like she’s always going to be the second prize in a two prize raffle.”

Mike smiles across the table at me, he knows me well enough to know my answer is from the heart and voiced as honestly as I can put it; he speaks again whilst toying with his now near empty cup.

“Well my friend to my mind there has to be a measure of give and take on both sides for this relationship to work.”

I want to hear what he has to say and encourage him to continue, “Go on.”

“Neither you nor Mar’ are spring chickens Mark, you’ve both had the majority of your lives and spent that time with other people so I reckon you must make the most of the chance you have now with each other. You’ve been friends for a long time which stands you both in good stead for this to work out now but you Mark have got to learn to loosen your grip on the past, Elaine will always be there no matter what- or who- comes into your life from now on, you’ll never lose her, but as I said earlier on your life cannot directly involve her in the first instant any longer. Marilyn has to be number one in this world from now on or you risk her always fearing that comparison with a dead wife.

 “In dying Elaine pulled the trump card, her position is unassailable in your heart but if you truly want this to work with Mar’ you have to make room for her too. She doesn’t deserve to be hurt, I’m sure Mark, and her feelings, I’m sure, too are genuine, or there’s no reason for her to have stayed around as she has.”

I know he’s right, I’ve been far from the easiest person to be close to these last three years but Mar has stayed the course all the way. Again my friend has made me see how fortunate I continue to be.

He takes my silence as his cue to carry on.

“It’s a two-way street though mate, Marilyn has to accept that your love for Elaine will always be there though it’s up to you not to let it come between you and her. She may not feel she’s big enough in your eyes to fill Elaine’s boots, only you can assure her that her boots are the only ones that count from now on.”

I can’t help but laugh at this last comment- both Mar’ and Elaine love(d) boots.

Smiling at his wisdom I reach for the last piece of cake on my plate, “You know Mike, Elaine used to joke as to which of her friends I’d end up with after she’d gone.”

“Well she got it partially right, it just looks to be one of your friends instead of hers… sorry, maybe that came out a bit clumsy.”

“Not at all, but remember it was Elaine who asked me to contact Mar’ shortly before she died and I can’t help wondering……”

“Mark you’ll never know for certain what was in her mind, but any guess you make will probably be closer to the truth than anyone else’s.”

We fall silent for a while and as I look around I see a lot of fellow shoppers have come in since we arrived. Seeing we’ve finished our refreshments some are hovering close by hoping to grab the table when we leave.

What would they make of our conversation had they been a-party to it? Would they cheer me on with words of encouragement? “Forwards into life, don’t look back” (at least not too often!).

Would they tell me to forget the love that has been, lest it destroy the new and drag me down?

Would they recommend a hair shirt and a darkened cell and hope on an eternity that none can prove exists?

If we took a poll would they vote from their hearts or from their heads; or would they not care unless they too stood where I do?

It makes me realise all the more that I must choose my own road.

If I fuck-up then so be it, at least it was my choice and I think I can possibly live with that. But if I fuck-up taking someone else’s advice that went against my own thinking and instinct then that’s a double blank and would, I reckon, be very very difficult to live alongside of.

Mike breaks into my thoughts, “Ready?”

“Yeah, let’s see what’s on offer.”

We gather up coats and bags and vacate our temporary haven as others, gratefully smiling, reach to move in.

For the time being I know our converse on this subject has closed, but something tells me that it will open again before this day is over.

To be continued…..

First off my apologies for the lateness of this post. It was supposed to follow-on quite closely from the last but I’m sorry to report that the ‘Hand of Shite’ has intruded into my world again and I have been quite unwell for a while. I’m on treatment and better now; more of this another time.

(I touched on this night in the post FRIENDS, now is the time for more detail.)

January 2021.

It’s Saturday night and I’m sat here in the creeping darkness of this brightly lit room. A room that over several decades has been witness to the best and worst there possibly can be of me. Or has it?

Right now even the familiarity of my surroundings is lost on me, but then I’m all but lost now anyway. I feel hollow, empty, if indeed I’m feeling anything at all and I know this is only the start of it. It won’t be any easier tomorrow, “A good night’s sleep and you’ll feel better in the morning” has no meaning here.

The darkness lurking in this room, congregating patiently in the furthest corners, does not belong to the room; it belongs to me. It has life because of me and because of what’s happened.

Elaine my wife and love of the last thirty years is dead. She died at the start of the month, and save for two cats I’m home alone. Right now I can’t see anything, any hope any future, beyond the confines of these shrinking walls.

For many years now we always made an extra effort of a Saturday night. Prepare and cook a bit more of an elaborate meal than usual, open a bottle maybe and just enjoy being together, something we’d gotten really good at.

Though she’s gone I’m trying to carry on this tradition, a way of keeping her close perhaps, but it’s a forlorn hope. No matter how hard I try she’s just not here. There’s no comfort this night in the familiar, and I’m afraid.

(As I write this nearly three years later sitting in the same room, the edge of that fear is still too intimate to make easy memories.)

Why afraid? I guess its fear of the unknown, of what’s waiting ahead for me and knowing I’ve to face it alone. I’m afraid of tonight too, I might just give-up. All sorts of mad ideas are now offering themselves as rational solutions to my situation.

Yes there are friends I could call. Mike, my best pal, will always have my back and be there for me. There’s Julie or Bob and others too; our friend Paula lives only a short distance away, I know I’m always welcome and there is reassurance in this. But to contact anybody now, is to me, admitting that I cannot cope, that I need a shoulder or two to cry on. I do feel that I need some form of help but I just can’t face the admission and a darker part of me is disturbingly suggesting “Give-up to the grief.”

Anyway all these friends knew Elaine. I don’t mind talking about her, in fact I want to, but it would be preaching to the converted, they know it and have heard it all before. Sitting here even hope is rapidly deserting me. At least Pandora had that left in the box, right now I haven’t even got a sodding box. 

And then the phone rings.

8.45pm-“Who the fucks that?” Do I really want to talk? Yes I do, even if it’s a wrong number just to hear another voice, even that of a stranger right now at least that would mean I’m not entirely alone in the world.

But the voice that answers my “Hello” is far from strange to me.

“Hello? Hi Mark It’s me Marilyn. Tony told me what’s happened-about Elaine I mean I’m so sorry Mark, I really am. I was just sitting here wondering how you are.”

Her words tumble out like she’s been practising them and needs to say them all at once in case she’s cut off.

Marilyn is one of my longest running friends ever. It has been a while now since we met or spoke but I’d know that voice anywhere. Tumbling down the phone line with it comes over four decades of my past. But to try and explain this we’ll have to travel back now to 1981.

                                                                           ***

Early summer, a Thursday evening, and my friend Ian and I head into the most popular pub/restaurant in town-The Dormers. But it’s quiet tonight and as we push through the front door a near empty bar stretches in front of us. Stood behind it is a young woman who looks to be in her mid-twenties or so and who smiles warmly at us as we approach her. She’s very petite with brown eyes and short cut hair which is the deepest shade of auburn/ chestnut red imaginable, an unmissable feature as it’s burnished in the glow of the powerful overhead lights.

Ian knows her, I don’t but I have seen her around town on many occasions and remember her from school where, a few years older than me she wore that deep red hair down to her waist. It suits her stature so much better now cut short. I soon learn her name, Marilyn.

She serves us our drinks and we stay at the bar and, as it is a quiet night she stays around and chats with us in between serving an occasional customer.

I always have remembered that Thursday night because although we’d never met properly before Marilyn and I soon found common ground between us.

Her favourite aunt and uncle lived in the road next to the house where I spent my first ten years. When visiting she’d prop her bike against our garden wall and wonder who the children were playing behind it. In the mid-70’s her younger sister Pauline and my sister Sue worked alongside each other in the same Wimborne office, and Marilyn remembered my dad from childhood visits to the livestock market then situated in the town.

That night passed quickly with little clue as to its significance for a future as yet so far away.

Weeks passed, my work frequently took me away but not so weekends. A group of us started to meet early on a Saturday evening with a view to go on later to a pub or club out of town. The Stable bar at the back of the Dormers was the chosen place to meet.

 It was Marilyn who opened that bar at 7pm and usually worked it alone.

I never have liked being late so would arrive early and often Marilyn and myself would be the only ones there until others drifted in around 7.30ish.

I can’t explain it any better but it was during this time that a real bond of friendship began forming between us. We would talk about everything and nothing, make each other laugh and share a silly secret or two. I soon came to admire her quick wit, obvious intelligence, and the (misplaced) self- depreciating sense of humour.

I learned too that she was married with a young son.

Having seemingly been born with a taste for alcohol I started going into town more often, alone and with friends, and inevitably would meet or run into Marilyn either working or out with her friends. We soon became an integrated part of each other’s social lives, were pleased to encounter one another and always got on well in each other’s company.

I eventually met her son Simon and husband Jeff too. Jerry, a workmate of mine, often came to Wimborne to play darts at the Smiths Arms pub where I would meet him for a drink or two. It was a place Jeff visited also and we too became friends.

I think of those years with great affection. There were lots of happy times. I met new people, many through Marilyn, some of the friendships formed still standing firm today.

But change is inevitable and time moves on. The Dormers closed for long-term refurbishment. Marilyn went to work in the Albion pub around the corner. I called in occasionally but never really liked the place (or many of those who frequented it!) Later still she went to work at a venue outside of town and as my work now meant my often being away in London we saw less and less of each other.

But if we ever did meet up it was as though no time had passed. The friendship endured.

                                                                        ***

Summer 1990, I’ve changed jobs and fate brings me one ordinary Tuesday morning to my first meeting with Elaine.

Strange, but as it had been years earlier with Marilyn, we just started talking and laughing and found common ground. If you’ve been following the blog and/or read the book you know the rest.

I didn’t encounter Marilyn very often now as I went out and about less and less, even more so after Ian died in November ’91; and as Elaine was still with her first husband during our initial couple of years or so together we didn’t go anywhere where we were likely to be seen, so Wimborne and the immediate areas were all strictly no-go.

Here I’m going to pause as I’ve a point to make.

I’m no saint but neither am I a total sinner, Elaine was the same. But life is life and we all have choices though you can’t always keep control of those choices or the consequences thereof.

 Yes, I knew she was married, so too did she, but we couldn’t help our feelings for each other and the affair started between us and continued.

I don’t make a habit of moralising at others and hope that no one wastes effort doing it to me. We’re all human and there are skeletons in every cupboard, I don’t give a fuck about the ones’ in yours so leave mine to rattle in peace.

 I am not a particularly biblical person but I do love the words…”Let he who is without sin amongst you cast the first stone” says it all; more people should heed its meaning today.

Of course close friends knew about Elaine and myself, including Marilyn, though when the bubble eventually burst and the truth came out it was a blessed relief to us both. We could at least now be seen together and even go out with friends.

The first time Elaine and Marilyn met was when Elaine and I were out one night with friends Paula and Martin and we called into the Oddfellows pub in Wimborne. They were interested to meet one another but as we never really socialised much in town they never did get the opportunity to know each other to any great extent. They probably met on no more than a dozen occasions or so, sometimes with me present sometimes not.

And it’s this simple fact that made all the difference when Marilyn rang that Saturday night.

She did not know Elaine.

It was so good to be able to talk freely and openly about my wife to someone who listened with genuine interest, who could question as a stranger would, but who retained the standing of a trusted friend. In turn, Marilyn began to tell me of how her life had been since losing Jeff some seven years previously to cancer.

Our conversation that night afforded me an opportunity not available through just about anyone else I knew. The call couldn’t have been better timed. I gather she had put off making it on a number of occasions unsure as to what my mood may be or as to what reception she would get, until her son had said, “Oh for goodness sake mum just call him.”

I’m bloody glad she did.

We spoke for well over an hour and at the end she promised to call again.

When we hung-up I sat and looked around the room. The shadows were still there, in the corners, against the blinds but something had lifted, they were no longer quite so menacing. They were to gather again and return with a vengeance in the near future, but this was tonight and I was only capable of living then a short spell at a time.

I realised then too how quiet it had become and in that quiet Elaine’s words to me, spoken in this very room shortly before she went into the Hospice, came drifting clearly back.

“Mark, I want you to do something for me.”

“Anything, what?”

“I want you to contact Marilyn and tell her what’s happening here.”

“Why? I can’t really see much point to that.”

“I can, when this happens (meaning her death) you’re going to need all the help you can get. Please do it for me.”

I said I would but to my shame I never got around to it. Everything began to move so fast as the fears and the shadows that had haunted Elaine and I for almost three decades suddenly became real and solid.

Elaine never explained any more or mentioned Marilyn again. Why she saw it as so important to make that contact I do not know- at least I didn’t then.

I couldn’t see any future that Saturday night and the present was a bloody bleak place to be. But somehow with that phone call the past stepped forward to fill the gap and stand ally with me, shoulder to shoulder, at least for that night.

At the time I thought it was just for that night or maybe another odd occasion or two to come; but I was wrong.

On the television once, a guy stated that in the unobstructed darkness of space, the human eye should be capable of detecting the light of a single candle flame at a distance of one million miles. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know now, that night, a long distance away in my world a tiny light- a little star if you like- flared up, flickered a time or two, caught its breath and began to burn steadily.

Gradually, slowly but surely that little star has pulled closer and closer to me, and me to it.

That night I was not capable of realising the significance to it.

 But then, like you, I’m only human, aren’t I.

I didn’t grasp the significance, at the time, of a simple Thursday night drink, early summer, 1981.

                                                                              ***

Given to the memory of Colleen, who was there for Elaine shoulder to shoulder throughout some of the darkest most difficult times xx.

I don’t suppose that many of us go through life without experiencing at some point or another, an event that causes us to stop in our tracks and consider. A jolt, either physical or mental, perhaps both that results in our taking stock as it were of what we are doing and where we are heading in life.

Ultimately I guess we all know where we are heading, but I know only too well how easy it is to just drift and carry on doing so without noticing that time is moving forwards regardless of whether we are ‘present’ or not.

That jolt may be to bring us back into reality and force us to recognise that our clock is ticking away and not one blind second of it can ever be re-claimed or re-lived.

For me Elaine’s death was not this type of moment, but I believe that that event threw me so completely out of balance that since it happened I’ve needed something to snap me back into realising that I was still drifting two years or more after losing her, and that I now needed to be taking hold of the oars and pulling purposefully for the shore less I drift too far out in the ‘Ocean of Grief’ and could not get back to the act of living before my time ran out too.

I’m very good at drifting. Even before Elaine died I could find it very easy to just sit and day-dream and let time pass me by. She was the opposite, always busy, mostly I think because she could never be certain how much longer she had to be busy in, and thus wanted to cram as much into life as she could.

I never have suffered that clarity about my own time. I’ve always taken it for granted that I’ll wake-up the next day (however much in the last two and a half years I didn’t want to) until that is a recent event forced me to look much more closely at the road ahead and to seriously start considering how long- or short- that road may be for me.

The photo’s that are with this post are of the hand basin in my bathroom. The damage was done by me but not intentionally.

A Sunday evening and I decide to have a hot bath. Mostly these days I shower but I do so love a hot bath and resolve to treat myself. I love to relax in the water and read, maybe write a bit or just doze and so the decision is made to do just that.

Now here I must admit something.

I have, and as far as I know always have had a rather low heart rate. I found out by chance through hospital visits that my ‘normal’ beats per minute is around 50-51 about 10 below the lower end of the scale for an adult my age (60-100). Everyday it doesn’t cause any problem but I have noticed throughout my life that getting up suddenly can make me a bit woozy and light-headed especially if I’m hot.

 Also I’ve eaten very little today and drunk even less.

So I’m in the bath and the water’s about as hot as I can bear it to start with and I enjoy a nice soak, read a bit then doze. I’m aware of my heart speeding up then slowing again on several occasions, which seems to me about normal, then later still I glance up at the clock. Nearly 7pm, and remembering my evening meal needs to be in the oven, I stand up quickly and step out of the tub.

Big Mistake! I’m engulfed in a wave of awful nausea and my head is full of bricks. It makes me stagger, and fumbling for a towel I wrap it around me but it’s just instinct, I cannot think. Lurching over to the chair in the corner I sit but can’t comprehend what is happening to me and I feel utterly vile.

Then suddenly pain on my shoulder arm and face, I’ve fallen sideways to the floor making contact with the laundry box en-route.

 Managing to stagger upright I’m still unable to grasp just what’s happening to me. Through the Fug the words heart attack come to mind and panic begins to set in. Feeling I must lie down I stupidly grasp the door intending to step out onto the landing to get to the bedroom.

There is a strangely comforting sense of falling, a muffled cacophony of noises and a ‘thick’ sensation at the back of my head. Then nothing.

For just a few seconds-nothing. Then there’s a handful of tiny stars in the night sky and suddenly I’m wide awake. I feel fine, heads clear as a bell well almost but something is wrong, I’m on the floor with what appear to be chunks of broken china around me.

Staring at the busted basin I can’t quite take in what has happened so I kneel up and splash my face with cold water then stand, re-wrap myself in the towel and head downstairs. Physically I feel okay except there’s a dull ache at the base of my skull, and my face left shoulder and elbow hurt.

Downstairs I sort the meal and pop it in the Rayburn; the cats have detected movement in the larder and appear in search of food as if conjured from the walls around me. I sort them then pour myself a cold beer and take a look at my bruised face in the mirror.

I can’t help but say aloud “Did that really happen?”

So I go back up to the bathroom and survey the wreckage. No need to describe it the pictures do that better than I can.

At first I’m just pissed at the damage. Thinking it through I realise why I blacked out (first time ever)  then I start feeling angry with myself for being such a jerk, but sitting on the edge of the bath other thoughts come to bear.

The back of my head obviously smashed the basin but I missed the cold tap by scant inches; one of the iron support brackets too. If I’d fallen to my right there’s the radiator to greet me, forwards and the edge of the steel bath would have done the job.

Worse still (maybe!) if I had managed to step through the door onto the landing there’s a good probability I would have pitched head first down the staircase.

No one would have found me in a hurry, injury disablement or even possibly death may have been the result, and what a bloody stupid way to go, can you imagine Elaine’s face and words of greeting.

“You Twat Ted, you know not to get out the hot bath too quickly you’ve gone and wasted it all now, and there were things you needed to do and be.”

“Oh fuck it, I didn’t think, haven’t always been able to since you died.”

“Don’t blame me that wasn’t my choice, I told you as much.”

Indeed she did and here I have to diverse a little….

*****

My sister Sue died of cancer in early 2005; a few weeks after her death I met her in a dream.

I say a dream and yet it wasn’t. I was perfectly wide awake within it and aware that my body was sleeping. Unlike a mere dream my recall of it is perfectly clear. If any of you reading have had similar experience’s you will understand immediately what I mean.

I was stood on a busy pavement, people were all around but no one seemed to notice me then Sue walked up and stopped just over an arms distance away.

She was wearing a long skirt and blouse in predominately purple shades and patterns, her hair was dark as it had been when she was younger but she looked very sad. I spoke first.

“I wish you hadn’t had to go.”

“So do I”, was the total of her reply and she turned and walked back the way she had come and I knew that I could not follow.

A few weeks after Elaine died I had a similar experience.

I was stood this time in a room. All around me was in shadow so I cannot describe it to you but Elaine came walking up towards me and, as Sue did, stopped just more than an arms’ length from me.

She seemed to be wearing jeans and a light coloured shirt, her hair was as it had been when we first met in chestnut ringlets framing her face; she was younger than at the end of her life.

It was unsaid between us, but I was aware we could not touch.

Again I spoke first “Why did you have to go?”

“It was time.”

Just three unemotional words and I knew the conversation was done, then I awoke.

So why not me? As I’m sat in the bathroom contemplating what has occurred I can’t help thinking “Why the hell didn’t I just die this night,” victim of a simple domestic accident.

Recently I had coffee with friends Sue and John, they are both lifelong Christians.

I was telling them what I’ve related here and repeating that I could not grasp why Elaine had run out of time yet it was still afforded to me.

Sue put down her cup and stared thoughtfully at it for a few moments before looking up directly at me.

“There is a reason Mark, a reason you’re still here I mean. You may never know or understand what it is but if you follow you’re intuition you may well recognise it when it comes your way.”

“But what if it’s a punishment, to be living here without her?”

“Is that what your instinct tells you?

“To be honest no, I don’t really feel that at all.”

“Then don’t try and force what isn’t there to be your reality; that she’s dead is not your fault that you still have time is not your doing either, at some point you have to accept it and step forward. Elaine’s time has ended yours’ is still running, don’t let it run out thinking too hard about it.”

Carefully I collect up the pieces of basin and put them aside. I’m going to repair the bastard if I can but for now it’s into my clothes and back downstairs for food and another drink.

                                                                    *****

Despite the evidence upstairs as I sit and eat and feign watching TV, doubt begins to creep over me.

“Just an unfortunate incident, no hidden agenda here sort it and move on.”

Then just as loudly doubt swings the other way.

“You’re bloody lucky not to be lying dead, broken or crippled. There’s meaning here. Listen!”

Later that night I’m recounting the incident to Marilyn on the phone. She’s very concerned and starts mentioning hospital and A&E ETC. I say I feel fine, which I do, “Just a small dull ache at the base of my sku….”

Oh! My hand has strayed upward as we speak, the back of my skull where it meets the spine is wet-Blood!

Saying nothing to Marilyn I feel around in my hair. There is something there alien to me, small sharp hard and as I pull it out very pointed, a sliver of the basin is between my fingers. The bleeding stops shortly after its removal under pressure from some wet kitchen towels.

Later that night I’m sat again in the bathroom, this time in semi darkness; it helps me to think.

I’ve become accustomed to treating my time with a certain contempt as if it were an infinite commodity but this smack to the head has suggested to me that I start looking at things in a different light.

The piece of porcelain embedded in me has had the most profound effect of all. What if it had pierced the top of my spine or the base of the skull?

Had I died as a result of this incident then that would have been it- you’re out of time matey, game over! A couple of years or so ago I wouldn’t have cared too much, I didn’t want to carry-on without Elaine beside me, couldn’t see any fucking point.

But now there are points; little points of light have broken through the darkness that’s been holding me like so many tiny stars, and they continue to do so. They flicker gently and they’re getting brighter. Sometimes they are like little whispers- life, unexplored chances, opportunities…hope! Other things too, change and new ways of living.

The past cannot be altered by my trying to hold on to it. But I can if willing, use it as a foundation to build a present and possibly a future. That foundation will never vary but will remain ever present throughout the rest of my time however long or short that may be.

“We’re all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars” was a favourite quote of Elaine’s by Oscar Wilde; and if she could speak now?

“Stand on my shoulders Mark and reach for those stars. Better those than the darkness- cast it off, let it go its time is done; don’t waste your time to it any longer.”

The nemesis of my neglect could be my running out of time whilst I’m sat thinking about it. The grief I’ve lived with since losing my darling has tried on so many occasions to overwhelm me and cloud my judgement but has never quite succeeded- otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.

Always something or someone has been there to pull me from the rabbit- hole (Elaine’s phrase).

We’ve settled into a sort of stalemate now and though I am accepting that there will be no actual end to the grief for me there really must be an end to the grieving.

Perhaps best to find out what those stars are whispering about and the only way to do that is to reach up to them and to keep reaching.

In amongst those whispers there’s one other thing I haven’t mentioned before, but did hint at in an earlier blog.

I had not reckoned on this or seen it coming or even expected it, nor would I ever have believed it could find me out again in any form… love!

A couple of weeks after my last blog came out a lady named Hazel posted a comment to it.

It is a long comment but I realised possibly many people would miss seeing it, which would be a shame as I believe it is written from the heart and holds numerous interesting points and parallels with Elaine’s own history. Also as I attempted to form a reply I found there was more I wanted to say; so what I’ve done is to put Hazel’s comment in full here followed by my reply to her.

I hope everyone who reads finds some common ground with one or the other of us or better still both.

Hazel: “Where to start? I was two thirds through reading “A Horse, A Husband, and Cancer” when your latest blog arrived in my inbox. I started to read it and immediately recognised myself as the friend to whom Julie had spoken about the wider distribution of Elaine’s (and your) book. I decided to pause reading the remainder of the blog when I sensed your anger and frustration at my not having read the book and surmising it was because I knew the reason was because Elaine had died and it was therefore like reading the intro and then skipping to the final chapter without reading “the bit in the middle”. I have since finished the book, and have read your blog fully and carefully, have left it for a while, and have felt sufficiently moved in so many ways that I must respond to your blog. To begin with, let’s get the context right of the conversation I had with Julie about the wider distribution of your book. She had asked whether I thought the book should be sent to someone newly diagnosed with cancer. Despite the fact I had not read the book at that time, my immediate and emphatic response was no. And now I have read the book. And I have been very moved by it in many ways. And my view of sharing the book with someone newly diagnosed remains unchanged. As I have read your work, and considered it, and the feelings communicated within, please do me the honour of taking the time to read what I have to say. To start with, I never met Elaine, nor have I met you, but I have known Julie for around 15 years, and I have known of Elaine through her, as Julie has shared with me her own sadness at Elaine’s repeated cancer diagnoses, the ups and downs of her treatments, the anecdotes that illustrated Elaine’s cracking sense of humour, and of course Elaine’s passion for horses. And I truly couldn’t summarise the book any better than Paul, the publicity officer from Forest Holme. I wholeheartedly endorse absolutely everything he has said. You should be very proud of the book, and although you say you are not the eloquent wordsmith that Elaine was, you are doing yourself an injustice. Your writing is absolutely from the heart, it has the power to move me as a reader, and the dark humour that comes from these situations shines through, as well as the obvious deep love you and Elaine had for one another. But – yes, I’m afraid there is a but… As you know from Julie, I too have had breast cancer. At the time I was diagnosed, some 20 years ago, I was not long divorced, and just 3 years into a new relationship with my now husband, Toby. I honestly believed I wouldn’t see the daffodils come out the following Spring. My cancer was very aggressive, Stage 3, it had spread to my lymph nodes, and the picture was bleak. All our hopes and dreams that were just starting to form, were dashed. And to compound things, Toby was involved in an awful, life changing, accident, just a few weeks after my diagnosis. It is perhaps a tired cliché to say that everyone’s “cancer journey” is different, but it is true. The wheel is not reinvented with every patient, so there are many parallels and overlaps, and this is what bonds those of us who have been inducted to this club, even though we did not ask or wish to join. But by the same token, as we are all flesh and blood our bodies react in different ways, as do our minds. So as I read Elaine’s story, I was vividly reminded of the brutal surgery I underwent, the drain with it’s (not very) fetching bag, the horror of coming to terms with my mutilated body, the long dark nights awake, the dark thoughts and deep holes… And then there were all those insensitive comments made by people who felt entitled to tell me that “the treatment for breast cancer was so good nowadays” and I would nod whilst screaming inside “it’s f***ing cancer, not an ingrowing toenail”. Boy, did I find out who my friends were, the house was like a florist for months, and a very dear (male) friend arrived on the doorstep one day with a very large melon in each hand. I don’t think he had really thought through the connotations of his actions, but we laughed and laughed. Like Elaine, my humour, my very good friends, some old, some new, and my parents kept me afloat amidst the dark times. As I read on, I was then reminded of the horror of the cool cap – gosh I really had forgotten that little gem. And what a waste of time that turned out to be. But hey, once I’d got over the absolute devastation of losing my hair, I dug deep and learned to see the benefits of not having bad hair days for 18 months. Oh yes, I remember how the nurse told me, as I made my way to the loo with the drip of docetaxel, to be careful, as I wouldn’t want to get that on my clothes as it would stain. Hello, I thought, it’s not my trousers I’m worried about or this blouse that I only ever wear for chemo and will never wear again, but you’re putting that stuff straight into my veins! More unwelcome reminders of the collapsed veins (still a problem for a simple blood test), the marking appointment for the radiotherapy – yes, I also have those little tattoos – the feeling of vulnerability whilst waiting in the hospital in that flimsy gown with all those other folks in their gowns as we waited for our turn and wondered silently but didn’t really want to know too much about what their cancer was… And who indeed ever thought that counselling at the h-o-s-p-i-c-e was a good idea? I never asked what the chances of recurrence were, I didn’t want to be told as I knew I’d focus on the negative, and saw my survival as an act of positive thinking and absolute reliance on my faith in the team of people around me. I spent the first 10 years in survival mode, and was undergoing treatments of various sorts for the whole time. Then I was cast loose from the medical world, on my own with no safety net, and spent quite a lot of the next 10 years looking over my shoulder, expecting, waiting for something, being reminded all the time of other people, Elaine included, who weren’t as fortunate as me in not having a recurrence or second diagnosis of any sort in all that time. It’s been a third of my life now and to this day no one has ever told me I am in remission, or have the all clear, or any these commonplace phrases that are bandied about, and I had to work out my own way to get back to normal, whatever that was. Like you, Mark, I’m still getting on with my “bit in the middle” although it’s taken an awful long time for me to come to terms with the dark thoughts that maybe I had cancer as some sort of punishment for something wicked I had done in a previous life – I just hope I enjoyed whatever it was… They say life begins at 40. It was certainly a very different life for me and a little black dog has accompanied me more than I would have liked. The deep hole into which I was plunged that day I was told I had cancer has been a hell of a climb and it truly changed me as a person. But I have laughed and loved and lost along the way. I have had some proper bugger it moments, like the day I chose a sports car over a nice sensible hatchback, and the day I married Toby in a fabulous red dress that made me feel a million dollars. There have been so many good things that have happened, including lots of daffodils, whilst I have been keeping a watching brief, and not a few losses too, as friends not as fortunate as me have died. But – again that word – had I not had cancer, I wouldn’t have met some truly amazing people, wouldn’t have made some very special friends, and whilst I wouldn’t have chosen to have had cancer, I see them all as a beautiful compensation for a truly horrible life experience. For me, reading A Horse, A Husband, And Cancer was all that Paul and Dave said. But it was also a very unwelcome reminder of the darkest of times in my own life. You did the whole cancer journey with Elaine. But you will know yourself that the vast knowledge of information you gained over 30 years was passed to you both on a need to know basis, a drip, drip of information. Had I been told on day one, or even within the first year, some of the things I learned as my own personal story unfolded, I would have been so very shocked, if it could have been possible to be any more shocked than that day I was told I had cancer. I simply could not have taken it on board, I wouldn’t have wanted to know, would have questioned how I could deal with it, and some of it would have proved to have been irrelevant in the end. For these reasons, I remain of the view that I would not recommend a newly diagnosed person to read your book. I do however, feel that it would be an invaluable insight for a spouse, loved one, friend, sibling, anyone who wants to try to understand the horrors of a cancer diagnosis. And also to see that a life can be lived, whilst walking hand in hand with cancer, that it’s not curtains right away, that there is still a huge bit in the middle to be embraced. It’s been an emotional time, Mark. -Hazel”

Hello Hazel, firstly my apologies for not replying sooner to your heartfelt and so beautifully constructed comment to ‘The Bit in the Middle’.

 I haven’t been 100% these last couple of weeks and only recently came across the email telling me it had been posted; and of course I am willing to read whatever you have written. Hopefully I’m neither foolish enough nor naïve enough to assume that everyone is always going to agree with my opinions or points of view.

Neither am I angry or frustrated but, I am a bit sad to think that Elaine’s book may become somewhat side- lined as it incorporates her death when I fully believe that it has so much to offer to all readers whatever their circumstances may be.

As I stated in the last blog, Horse Husband and Cancer is a book primarily about Elaine’s survival and the way that she accomplished this over almost three decades despite the odds against her. This to me is the whole core of the work and the message of optimism, when facing those odds, that I hope it puts across.

Hazel, reading your history (I won’t say ‘cancer history’) I see many parallels with that of my late wife.

The hopes and dreams dashed or at the least sacrificed on the altar of necessity. The ill thought out comments from friends, who don’t know what else to say or exactly how to react, and the meaningless prattling of others and givers- of-good-advice at any one time. Also those dark thoughts that always wake you in the early hours, setting your mind spinning, and preventing a return to the blessed oblivion of sleep.

And the constant fear of possible recurrence, whether you ask about it or not.

As far as I remember (Julie may recollect different) Elaine was never told that she was in remission at any given time. She/we came to accept that she either had active cancer or dormant cancer; black or white really, though often grey became the ‘new white’.

She underwent genetic testing via Southampton Hospital early this century, and it was they who confirmed that it was something she was born with; no fault of her own. They told us her lifestyle was helping to keep the cancer at bay and also that her mental attitude and outlook counted in her favour a great deal too.

I hope her writing conveys fully to the reader just how much her strength of spirit and mental defiance helped her to carry on living notwithstanding the confirmation of her fate, and the fear that brought with it.

She forced herself to take an active interest in her illness and the multitudes of treatments for it. She became fully involved, and was never prepared to just be ushered along, side-lined or left without explanation by the various medical teams who came and went throughout it all. As much as was possible she ‘steered the bus’ and I have no doubts that this too aided greatly in her staying alive for so long.

Hiding away would have just meant the cancer hiding too, and growing in the dark. I hope all this comes across to her readers, as do her fears and love for life.

There is defiance and fire in your words too Hazel. I think that you and my late wife have much more than just cancer in common. She would have loved your ‘two fingers’ to fate in that choice of red wedding dress and the sports car.

I have tried, since reading your comment, to imagine how Elaine would have reacted to the book had she not written it but been given a copy as a new cancer patient herself. It’s a difficult one to gauge, but I think she would have been shocked to think that this may be the road she too was heading down and may well have stopped reading, and left it for a time, but I know she would have ultimately taken it up again and read on.

She would have recognised that it’s telling one persons’ journey and how they dealt with that journey as it unfolded for them. It doesn’t follow that everyone on similar journeys will have the same experiences along the way or even encounter the same ending but, I think she would have found real value to her situation within the pages.

Elaine believed in preparation, and in being forewarned and forearmed as much as possible. We always asked for the truth, no matter how bitter, but I have to acknowledge that this is not the wish for everyone (my own sister included) and that each must make their own choice.

You mention your thoughts about your situation possibly being due to transgressions in a previous life; that made me think. Elaine did believe that she had lived before and that we two had been together at some other time. She did wonder out loud sometimes if what was happening was indeed a punishment, an ordeal if you like, for former wrongdoings.

Maybe that’s the case and if it was well debt re-paid, but if so what’s the point in our fighting back or holding on unless the lesson is within the struggle and not the outcome.

Whatever it is, one way or another, as I sit here now I honestly don’t give a damn; I love her unconditionally and wish to God that none of this hell had ever occurred for us.

Today cancer can no longer hide in the shadows as well as it did when Elaine was first diagnosed. A victim of its own success, its being gradually dragged out into the light. With one in two people now expected to become sufferers the battle to defeat it is now happening in the open and not in the trenches.

I reckon it will be defeated, bit by bit in its various guises, but people will still get ill and afraid.

This is where I think Horse Husband & Cancer has a place. As I said in ‘The Bit in the Middle’ death finds us all but we don’t have to throw up our hands, sit down, and wait.

 I believe that Elaine’s story can inspire others to carry on living; showing that it is okay to do so, to resist, push back against and question that which was once seen as unstoppable.

My personal belief is that the truth is out there and better if known. It’s how I would play it for myself. I have come to believe also, from my experiences alongside Elaine, that most if not all, of human beings possess a far greater strength within themselves than they often are aware of and, that the most adverse of circumstances bring forth those strengths when they are most needed for that individual, and those around them.

I think you are the living proof of this Hazel.

We have affinity on more points than we don’t but on those, we are free to differ. Same destination maybe, just a different route.

My thanks again for your time and words and also your kind comments on my writing abilities (I still think Elaine has more than an occasional hand in it all!!)…Mark.

A few weeks ago I was talking with Elaine’s best friend Julie; we were discussing Elaine’s book and possible ways of bringing it to a wider public. This had been the subject of a previous conversation between the two of us and Julie now mentioned that she had since been speaking with a friend of hers who has had cancer, now follows the blog, but has not bought a copy of the book.

Why not? Well, because Elaine dies, and she does not wish to be dwelling too much on how this could be the fate awaiting her also.

Julie could see her point and thought others may think in a similar way and, as we talked I was swayed to think the same too, after all who wants to be prompted that death lurks constantly in the shadows. But something didn’t feel quite right to me and I’ve since thought a lot harder about the whole reason and being of the book and I now believe that this line of thought is by-passing the point of it completely, a bit like reading the intro’ then jumping to the last chapter missing out all that is in between.

I encouraged Elaine to write about her life and the struggle with ever recurring cancer because I thought, as she came to also, that to read about her survival over nigh-on three decades with an illness which should have killed her long before, would be an inspiration to others facing a similar situation; showing the world that it is possible to live a fulfilling life despite all that that life sometimes throws at you.

The keyword here to my mind is SURVIVAL. Horse, Husband and Cancer is not a book about Elaine’s death; it was never intended as such, but it is a book about her survival.

She didn’t write about her death that was going to be left to me (though neither of us realised it at the time), she wrote about her life whilst being honest enough not to ignore that the end of it was inevitable at some time or another. But then isn’t that the case for all of us?

Stop reading this and for a moment or two look around you. At your family if someone is close by or a pet maybe. Glance out of the window, can you see birds perhaps, or trees plants and grass; can you see your own reflection?

Every living thing you just acknowledged will one day die, that is the only absolute in life and it comes to all, and unless you face execution or plot suicide you just don’t know when that ending is going to be.

I somehow doubt many of us could live comfortably if we were born with an exact expiry date tattooed on our foreheads. But though it is the only sure thing, to dwell on the inevitable ending is not to live, and like it or not, we’re stuck with it so have to make the most of the time we have.

Elaine’s death came at the end of her life, not the beginning or the middle but the end, yet the pages of her book sparkle with her words of wit and humour telling about her life so far; no punches are pulled the good and bad wherever and whenever they occur are laid bare, though always with hope too, standing immoveable on the side line.

She could have written about this some fifteen years previously, “How I’ve Survived Cancer Three Times to Date” would then the fact that she now is dead make such a work less worthy of reading?

Death and life are inseparable (on this earth at least), two sides of the same coin no matter how thin you beat the metal. Elaine and I both came to believe that it’s not about the length of time you live, but what you do with that time that counts.

Between birth and death comes the ‘middle bit’, whatever time that is it’s ours, and down to each of us how we live it.

“You are not responsible for the hand you are dealt, but you are responsible for how you play it.”

 Elaine wasn’t really a great one for watching films but one that she did love and watched on several occasions was The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise. With all due respect to Mr. Cruise it was the storyline that she loved (I hope!) especially the ending where Cruises’ character faces the Emperor as they talk of the now dead Samurai leader they both admired for differing reasons.

“Tell me how he died” asks the Emperor.

“Let me tell you how he lived” comes the reply.

This to me sums up Elaine’s story and the book. It’s her telling of how she lived that is more important than my telling of how she died; but, two sides to a coin, they are inseparable and both voices have their place in the story, though to my mind at least there is nothing to fear in either of them. Hear one hear the other, they cannot harm you, only your own fears can do that.

                                                                              *****

I was sat with Marilyn one evening when out of the blue she asked me “Mark, are you afraid of dying?”

“No”, was my straight forward and honest reply.

“Perhaps I may worry about the manner of death but I’m not really fretting about the event itself. Elaine came to see it as the beginning of a new adventure, I try to see it that way too; what’s the point of my living in fear of death, it’ll come whether I worry about it or not.”

My answer wasn’t meant to be offhand or flippant in any way but I’m still somewhat numb around the edges about it all. Elaine and I lived pretty much constantly with  possible death ticking off the years in our attic and, to a certain degree, just got used to it being there. It’s no longer there now, though I will admit to having strongly considered the option of inviting it back on several occasions since her passing. But I have reached the conclusion that unless I am prepared to bring it about myself I have no right sitting around on my ass wondering if it’s just around the corner for me; fuck that, Elaine would be the first to say “Get living, you’ve a bit in the middle still to complete.”

As far as death is concerned for me, my bag is packed and it’s next to the chair in the hallway by the front door; but I’m not going to be sat there waiting with it, oh no, if he calls and I’m out then Death can sit in the chair and wait, or come looking for me as he pleases.

Whenever and wherever he catches up with me (and he will) I won’t be afraid, we’re old acquaintances after all. I hope we can shake hands like gentlemen, I might even be able to say “Thanks- for taking the scenic route” but I’ll be okay in his presence as he’s my ticket to Elaine again, though what she’ll have to say about all that will have occurred since she left, well…

                                                                          *****

The near certain  knowledge that one day death was going to part us had the positive effect of drawing Elaine and I even closer together and a trusting relationship of love, firmer than a promise freely given, was the result.

Did that love gain strength as time progressed? Yes I do believe it did. Due mostly to two souls determined for as long as possible not to be parted, thus causing the fire between them to burn brighter and fiercer.

Besides everything else we were allies; bonded together to fight a common foe our strength far outweighing the sum of our parts.

Deep within we both knew that though we were winning many battles the enemy only had to be victorious once to win the war; and make no mistake it was a war, a war of attrition. As I have stated before our lives became battlefields but oh! when the guns briefly ceased and the smoke cleared the views were beautiful.

“I wouldn’t change anything Mark, not even the cancer, if it meant we couldn’t be together.” Some of her last words to me in the hospice, and despite whatever it did or is still doing to me, neither would I.

It is an ongoing comfort to me that nothing and no one can take a single second away from what Elaine and I had. Neither death nor time can alter any of it, it stands above them both proud and defiant. It knows no ending.

                                                                         *****

To be quite truthful I have been far more afraid of living than of dying since I lost Elaine. Despite all that was going on in her life she remained a rock steady influence in mine. Knowing when she died that that influence was gone, at least in the physical sense, was and is, one of the hardest things I’ve had to bear.

I remember so vividly that last breath, then my standing up from the bed and just gazing at her there, so totally still; the anger and fear vying inside of me as to which would break out first.

 Hopeless despair beat them to it.

I arrived home from the hospice that morning a few minutes before Julie joined me. Time will never erase the utter and total feeling of dread at that moment; I fear its memory even now two years later. Walking into our lounge, the vacant chair before her computer, now mine, an unwanted legacy like everything else around me that I can never give back.

The room itself a cold empty void, but nothing compared to the one inside of me.

Quite how I’ve managed to place one foot in front of the other since that moment I will never fully understand, but I have and will continue to do so.

“Fill in the middle bit Ted, you must fill in the middle.” She never said it as such in life but shouts it every day since she died.

With this post I am not trying in any way to belittle the genuine fears of others, far from it. But I do want to show that Elaine’s final and only book is, despite some of its content, an uplifting and inspirational read. It is deserving of being exposed to a wider audience, and that audience deserve to hear of its author’s hopes and fears’ in equal measure as she fully intended when she wrote it.  I know there are friends of hers who have not bought a copy, sighting that they knew her anyway or don’t need it to remember her, so there is no point.

“Yes there fucking well is!!”

If you don’t want to buy it for you then bloody well buy it for her. I witnessed the huge effort she made to get it finished during the last year of her life in spite of increasing illness; and no, you did not know her as you thought, no one did, not even me.

I have since read was is not in Horse, Husband and Cancer amongst other writings never published and, putting that with my unspoken knowledge of her I can honestly assure you all that the book only scratches at the surface of what she, and I, lived through, but boy, some of those scratches run deep and are well worth exploring and passing on.

Paul is the publicity officer at Forest Holme and has read Horse, Husband and Cancer. We had coffee and I asked him for his honest opinion on it as someone who never met or knew Elaine.

 “It’s terrific Mark, I don’t even like horses yet from the first few pages I was hooked, I want my wife to read it. I can’t believe it’s the work of a non-professional writer. Her zest for life and strength of spirit leap out at you. I felt that I knew her, what a gift to do that to a reader. When I got to your part although it was written as a series of blogs, it gelled so perfectly, I got to see Elaine from a completely different viewpoint; and your love blossoms through it all. It’s a stunning work.”

Dave (name changed) comes to sweep the chimney at home and maintain the woodstove. He is ex-marine SBS, a softly spoken man but I feel a deep one. He met Elaine a couple of times but did not know her well. Last year he saw a copy of the book here at home and he later bought his own.

He was here again just before Christmas and I asked him if he had read it.

“I left it for a while as I was too busy or too tired to start. Then one night I went to bed a bit earlier as I had an early call next morning, so I thought I’d give it a quick glance through. I couldn’t put it down, honestly Mark I couldn’t, I was still reading at 12.30 in the morning it’s so compulsive, you just have to know more. She’s a brilliant story teller and I love her ability to draw you into that story, I felt I was a part of it, like I was a witness to all that was happening.”

Elaine did not hide away from either life or death. Of course she wanted to live as much as any other also there were times when she just wanted bury herself away in the dark and forget; but the light within her, that WAS her, would not allow that to become the norm. She knew deep down as her words show that hiding away makes no difference, insomuch that spending time avoiding is wasting that time which could be better employed elsewhere.

She faced that which she lived alongside of for so many years determined still to have a life, a ‘middle bit’, and in spite of it all she bloody well achieved just that, I know I was there, and though she left this world over two years ago you can still join her on the journey through her life and experiences, anyone can, through the pages of her work; take a chance on that journey and I very much doubt you’ll be disappointed.

                                                                                   **                                                                     

This book can’t cure neither can it kill, but it just may help if when trying to face down the darkness within, you realise that someone has shone a light and trod there before you.

Find the book here: Amazon UK Amazon US

It’s a bright fresh and beautiful morning. The sunrays caressing the wet landscape give everything an edge of unnatural clarity. Every blade of grass seems edged with crystal bringing out the colours of nature as though they had just been created; it is a joy to drive through.

This is a day in waiting since Elaine died, one I knew I’d be facing at some time or another and I want it to be on my terms and not a chance encounter.

It is about fifty miles from home to Devizes. I can’t now remember the first time we did the vintage fair there but it was one of our more recent venues. Our best fairs’ were consistently those in or around London, Kempton being the best of all, but I always enjoyed travelling in the opposite direction (west that is) as it meant not driving mile after mile on boring motorways, and the countryside is so much nicer.

I always drove. Elaine would sit, phone in hand, checking some social network or other, mostly work related stuff but not entirely, especially after she started to write more and more. I remember the light from her phone screen would distract me if it was still dark; oh for that distraction now.

Later we would chat about the day to come and other things or just sit quietly. When you are so close with another there is no embarrassment in the silence.

I have told no one of my plan for today. This is something private to me, but make no mistake it is still a big undertaking.

Why?

Well inside of me in my heart and spirit whatever and wherever that is, she is still alive somewhere though I know the physical woman is no more; but since her death I’ve struggled with, resisted even, that fact. Despite the near ever presence of death Elaine was a great force of life (perhaps partly because of it) and since that was taken away I’ve felt an urge to seek it out, see if it’s still present in this world, somewhere we knew together perhaps.

From my experiences over the last two years I know that she’s not waiting in hospice, hospital, burial ground or our home, so what am I looking for today?

 Well I’m looking for re- assurance that she was.

That she was my wife, my lover, my world and we actually did share a wonderful life together.

It may sound mad but sometimes I’ve caught myself doubting it. I read once about a man whose dreams were so vivid and real that he couldn’t differentiate between being awake or asleep.

I was living in this house alone when I met Elaine, I’m here alone again but three decades have passed and sometimes it feels like I dreamt the lot away. That by chance I met this fabulous woman and we became friends and fell in love; she came to live with me, we married and had lots of adventures some good some not so, but we were always together there for each other, and then and then…..I spoiled it all by fucking waking up!

I have to know I’m not dreaming now. It doesn’t work at home it’s all too familiar I have to try away from there.

Re-visiting A&E with Marilyn has helped me to grasp this concept; Elaine wasn’t there but the echoes of what had been were, at least they were for me.

That was a chance encounter, today is planned to see if those echoes live elsewhere too. This is a crucible I want to pass through, part of a process that may allow me to live the life I have left in a worthwhile manner, allow me to carry my past proudly before me rather than dragging it like Marley’s chain throughout my remaining years.

We must have done hundreds of fairs in our time. Devizes wasn’t the most lucrative but it was a friendly venue and well run. Elaine sold literally tens of thousands of items in her life, she was a born seller who would have had no problem selling water to a drowning man.

She bought from auctions, boot sales, shops and private calls but was always most pleased when something came her way for free.

I remember as I drive…

We’d been invited to a dinner party near Oxford but there was no room for us to stay so Elaine booked a hotel for the night a short drive away. I don’t recall the town but the hotel was a Georgian building fronting the main road with parking to the rear where there were a number of guest chalets, though our room was in the main hotel overlooking the road.

The road was wide and on the opposite side a row of small houses and cottages one of which had a large rubbish skip outside. We arrived late PM and on looking out of our first floor window Elaine made a discovery.

“Maaark – look on top of that skip is that a meat safe?”

I did look and indeed it was a meat safe, a pine Victorian meat safe.

“They obviously don’t want it” she continued looking up at me, “what do you think?”

I had to agree it was a good chance, but knew from past experience you have to be cautious asking for something others regard as crap or they become suspicious that you know something they don’t – which we did.

We reasoned there was no time now to act, we had to get ready and go and the cottage looked shut up with no car outside; just walking over and taking it would not be such a good idea either as people were about in the street and technically it was still another’s property.

Returning late that night we decided we would sus’ out the situation next morning.

We were first down for breakfast, the dining room facing the road; as we ate a car drew up next to the skip the sole occupant going into the cottage.

Elaine could barely contain herself; breakfast was hurried and no other guests had appeared as we crossed the road to try our luck.

She knocks the door as I hover by the skip. A rather bemused looking man appears and Elaine fixing him with a beaming smile hardly gives him chance to think.

“Hello-we’re-staying-across-the-road-and-noticed-the-old-meat-safe-in-your-skip-if-you-don’t-want-it-can-we have-it-please-we-might-be-able-to-do-something-with-it-and-you’ll-have-more-room-for-other-stuff?”

He looks from her to the skip then me then back to her, she is still fixing him with that smile.

“Yeah…. yes take it if you want, fine by me but it’s a bit knocked about.”

“Oh thank you so much, my husband’s good at repairing things he’ll soon sort it out.”

She moves towards me when, “Do you want the other one as well?”

“Other one?”

“Yeah there’s another, still fixed to the wall out back, only going to chuck it anyway.”

“Can I come and see?”

“Sure.”

He turns back indoors, Elaine looks at me eyes wide I motion her to leave the door open as she follows our would-be benefactor into the cottage.

She’s soon back.

“It looks good, bit smaller than this one, he’s going to unscrew it.”

Five minutes pass, then another five and again; loud noises and ill muffled swearing filter through the building to us, Elaine goes to investigate.

She returns in a minute or so. “He’s got it unscrewed from the wall but it seems to be fixed to the floor too.”

Another ten minutes and he appears, hot and sweaty, carrying a slightly smaller version of the first one though it’s a bit more battered, but Elaine is pleased and thanks him profusely as she takes it from him.

 He still looks bemused as each with our separate prizes we turn back to the road.

Traffic has built-up considerably and as we wait kerbside we both look over to the hotel. It seems that near everyone is now down for breakfast and that we are the object of their collective interest.

Many eyes follow as we negotiate a path across the road. They continue to do so as we make our way along the side of the building into the blind spot of the car park.

We think it’s over but no, the chalets all seem to be changing guests and we now become the subject of their scrutiny and whispers as we walk the gauntlet to our pick-up truck at the far end of the car park.

Setting down our goods we each automatically go either side of the back and begin unfastening the cover. Elaine starts to laugh and smiles smugly over at me.

“Sod them, they can have their amusement, these two are going to pay for most of this trip.”

And after a few ‘skilful’ repairs, they did.

Other fun times spring to mind as my odyssey continues and then suddenly I’m on the outskirts of town; Devizes, not a large place but very pleasing to the eye, I would recognise it had I just been dumped here.

The road curves into the town centre the Corn Exchange appearing on my left and I turn down the road beside it, following along and into the car park left again as the shallow hill levels out.

‘Our’ parking space is vacant, waiting, so I back in and switch out the engine; didn’t realise I’d been holding my breath as I exhale deeply. Last time I was here Elaine was alive, how often in my remaining days will I go somewhere and that thought occur to me.

I sit in silence for a while; there’s not many people about and thankfully no one takes any notice of me, but I’m not here to sit so I go buy a ticket for the car then walk my way back uphill towards town.

I go via the far side of the road, not the familiar steps through the car park (I’m not sure why) and soon I am alongside the Corn Exchange building.

The blue side doors, that’s where we unloaded and loaded again later. Parking out front is limited so many of us had to double park and work quickly. It didn’t seem so much like fun then why do I remember it as such now?

I walk to the entrance, everything feels so familiar, and without hesitation I go straight on in. The foyer is busy but I carry on into the main hall. It’s not too crowded and although it’s a craft fair it could easily be a vintage one, the stalls are colourful and glittering many heralding the coming festivities of Christmas and New Year.

We always had the same spot nearly opposite the inside of those blue doors.

A young woman occupies it now. She’s selling hand knitted goods which all look very bright and cheery; she stands knitting and smiles warmly at those passing by.

Maybe it’s her smile that triggers it, Elaine always smiled, I can’t rightly say but suddenly it’s the vintage fair again just before opening.

Elaine is stood phone in hand taking pictures of her stall, meticulously set up to best effect. She walks around for different angles and shots to go on Facebook etc later on. She has crammed as much as possible into the available space; each object seems to flow seamlessly into the next, the colours some vivid, some fading with years vying with one another for the beholders eye. Solid memories of the past to hold today.

My heart melts.

Opposite is our great friend Lynne, her stall as ever a stunning array of wonderful items and desires arranged to tempt the senses. To our side the couple who sell mostly Art Deco pieces, all beautifully restored.

I’m just fetching a cup of tea for Elaine from the small kitchen. As I stand and watch myself in such a familiar role, I want to call out; “Hold her you fool and don’t stop holding her ever; there’s so little time left, make every second a prisoner, make every second a lifetime, make every second for ever!”

A passage from Dickens A Christmas Carol comes to mind; “These are but shadows of the things that have been, they have no consciousness of us.”

Elaine is smiling, chatting to other stallholders, putting down her tea and forgetting where she’s left it, laughing with Liz about the music playing in the background, looking forward to the day.

As I watch the vision fades, and feeling totally alone no one notices as I blot away a tear that’s claimed freedom from the corner of my eye.

I would give a lifetime just to hold her once more, just for moments to turn back the clock and live it for real all over again; but if I’d had the certain knowledge of today back then would I have acted differently towards her and would those actions somehow have spoiled that which we did live and enjoy together?

Cradling my heavy heart I walk around the hall for a while then leave and take a few turns around the town visiting many of the shops and places that I used to; not much has changed.

Later I return to the fair and after buying a small knitted Christmas stocking decoration from ‘our’ stall I claim an anonymous corner to stand and think.

Has today been worth the journey?

 Yes without doubt I believe it has. I did not come here looking to lay any ghosts; just as well as I didn’t find any. What I did find, much to my comfort now I think about it, is that the past is still somehow available in the memories and the echoes that are all around us.

They can be seen and heard and more importantly felt if that is what you want at a given moment; available to be ‘tapped into’ especially should you return to where they first had life and were known as the present.

Should I return, even if years pass, they’ll still be here just as bright and real as the memories on her stall.

 Wherever we were together the echoes of what was live on, to be ‘listened’ to again or maybe just remembered. Elaine is still alive to me in them but I must learn now that standing still and ‘listening’ for too long will not help me to move forwards in life.                                                                                Elaine can no longer move but I have to or the unchangeable past will overwhelm my present time, take it over if I let it; and should that happen I will become the victim having forged my love into the bullet and Elaine would not easily forgive me.

“You’re going to have to move on Mark, in everything I mean. You’ll have to be strong, or you won’t be able to live.”

Her words in the hospice coming back to me.

Driving back that afternoon I think on how it’s nearly two years since I lost her. There will be no more fairs together just undying echoes of the ones that were. I’m trying to be grateful for what we did have rather than be bitter for what wasn’t, but must admit that it is not always easy to do so.

Somehow I must now learn to trust and loosen my foot off the brakes; trust that there is a road ahead for me to travel even though I cannot see it too well.

It might not be clear but at least I’m pretty sure now that it is there waiting for me to begin a new adventure.  Allowing myself to do so is now the difficult part.  

Continued:-

It’s a short walk up the road to the car. All okay, no parking ticket so that’s good. I hang around a little just to breathe the air and munch some crisps from a bag in the shopping I’ve on-board from nearly five hours earlier.

Time to go back, but I take the cut through rather than return past the Harbour Hospital. In a few minutes I’m in the pharmacy at Poole.

I sit down and wait, not too hopefully as some of the people waiting were here when I left twenty minutes ago or more. But, after about fifteen minutes Marilyn’s name is called and I collect her drugs; then re-trace my steps to A&E.

It’s very crowded here now. The inner receptionist leaves the safety of her desk and screen to work the keypad allowing me back to bay 4 and Marilyn.

“Busy night?” I say to her as she presses the buttons.

“Always busy nights here” comes the weary reply.

She holds the door for me and I glance back at all the people behind us. It’s a complete cross section of society, old, young, affluent and not so, all here with one common purpose to get help for themselves or a loved one.

There’s been talk of closing this place down, of moving it all to Bournemouth Hospital some miles away, across roads regularly choked with traffic. I can only assume that those proposing this idea have never spent any time in A&E or had to witness a loved one of their own doing so.

We need more of these places not less, funds should always be available for them. Hope is to be found here for so many, and who has the right to take that away from them. Why do we have to suffer so many bloody fools in authority in this country and see so much money wasted by and on box tickers and pen- pushers holding down lucrative non- jobs?

Deep breath Mark, don’t get wound up it’ll only unsettle Mar’.

I’m soon back at bay 4. Marilyn’s pleased to see me, her heart rate is coming down but it’s still a slow process not aided by her growing tension and anxiety. It’s easy for me to forget that she just is not use to this environment whereas I am well baptised in its pace and procedure’s.

I continue to tell her about the last time Elaine and I were here and the people we came across, and promise to read her Elaine’s blog of that night.

Josh has gone off duty and we have a new consultant though I cannot now remember her name.

We both like her, she is very thorough, in- fact the care here is excellent from everyone we deal with. They don’t rush or shout or get flustered but are very professional and re-assuring at all times; I remember it as being like this on previous occasions though everybody is new to me now.

The bay opposite has a new resident, a lady of late middle age who looks to be in a lot of pain. We assume the rather bored looking man with her is her husband. He looks to have lost a lot of weight recently as his clothes are all loose and baggy. She is doubled over on the bed and wants morphine.

“Just need some details first” chirps the young nurse beside her.

A few mumbled replies come to her questions then she addresses the husband, “Has this happened before?”

“Forever” is the tired reply and he busies himself from then onwards with his phone.

Staff come and go and I guess she got her morphine as later she perks up and behind closed curtains a nurse questions her about recent bowel movements, “ No, not exactly runny but quite wet and a lot of bits in it; I’m not usually like that.”

Marilyn and I look at each other, her face tells me she doesn’t fancy a sandwich right now. A just reward awaits he who invents the soundproof curtain.

Our wait continues.

Mar’s heart rate is consistently lower now but does keep rising again especially as she keeps looking behind her at the monitor.

“Stop looking round you’re winding yourself up.”

“I can’t help it Mark, I’m getting so anxious lying here, and I’m getting worried about you now too.”

“Why?”

“I’m worrying about what being here is doing to you. You went through all this shit with Elaine I can’t ask you to go through it with me too. You ought to go, I could call Simon (son) he may be able to come over.”

“Bollocks, I’m not going anywhere till you’re ready to leave. It doesn’t bother me being here; I might have thought it would but it honestly doesn’t. Elaine’s not waiting here for us or me or whatever, like Kilroy- We Were Here- but now we’re not, just me again, this time with you.”

“I bet she’s laughing Mark- “There, your turn now.”

“If she’s laughing then she’s laughing with us- or holding our hands.”

Mar’ smiles over at me; time passes, the monitor keeps flashing its lottery of numbers.

We are silent for a time and I think of Elaine and that full night we spent right here together, so clear in my mind. I was afraid at first that she was dying, that I was going to lose her, the fear so real to me then. How was I to know it would be realised little more than a year later.

Time passes and the patient becomes more impatient and restless.

She is given more tablets and we are told that the x-ray results have come back all clear.

It’s now just after 8pm and it’s become quite obvious to me that Marilyn’s bpm is going to stay on the high side just because of where she is, so I go in search of nurse Maria and explain asking if the consultant might come and see us again soon.

To my utter amazement she joins us only a few minutes after my return.

She studies the monitor in silence for a short while, then kneels beside the bed on a level with its occupant.

“Yes you can go home now but…..”

There is a list of do’s and don’ts plus she carefully goes through the drugs and the dosage Marilyn is to take. This is all addressed mostly to me as she knows I’m the one to remember it all, not the patient; again a role I’m very familiar with. Then we are free to go.

Mar’s off the bed and into her jumper coat and boots in seconds, afraid I think, that there may be a change of mind. But soon we are re-tracing the route I remember so well to fresh air and freedom.

On our way back Marilyn turns her phone on and there are several messages from worried friends. Going to hospital meant cancelling her afternoon shift at the tiny Oddfellows Arms pub in the centre of Wimborne, and word has got around.

Traffic is light and it’s not long before we are back outside her home; it’s been a long afternoon/evening.

Sitting at the kitchen table I go through the drugs and dosage with her and write it all down. She’s not stupid, but it’s easy to get confused once you’re back home, something else I know only too well. Then I take my leave making her promise to call me later so I know she’s okay.

It’s a short journey of a few minutes back home for me. The cats have been shut in as I had expected to be home hours ago. Rita runs about at the prospect of food whilst Sammy ignores me with lofty distain from the staircase.

They get their supper, and after lighting the wood-burner I crack open a beer and sit close thinking on what this day has brought into my life.

How strange it all seems now I’m home. Co-incidence? – to end up in that same place again; or is there some hidden lesson or message in it all waiting to be found? As I’ve mentioned previously Elaine didn’t believe in co-incidence, but the question now is, do I?

A short time ago Marilyn was fine and dandy, now all this. Is it permanent or is it transitory? A warning shot across the bows maybe? “Time is precious un-buyable, constantly running down and then out; don’t waste it or the opportunities it brings with it.”

Elaine and I always tried to make the most of what we had, what came our way. As time pressed on we came to realise its importance, not a conscious decision perhaps, at least not at first, but intuition maybe, ignored at our loss.

Today I didn’t envisage Elaine in bay 4, it was always Marilyn there, and I honestly had no jitters being back in that place once more. My tears outside the Harbour hospital were spontaneous and genuine at that moment; there is no point in forcing emotion that is not present.

But I don’t regret them nor am I embarrassed by them, though it’s nearly two years since I lost her there is rawness still within me; I know there always will be to some extent. Sometimes I may need to scratch it open again, like you would with a scabbed over cut or burn; you know it does little good but you cannot resist that minute of indulgence.

Is time the healer that they say or is that capability within us all along and the moment just has to be right? 

Today’s echoes of and from my life with Elaine have set me thinking.

So much of ‘us’ was given over to time at hospitals that it became a way of life, but even more was spent at vintage and antique fairs. An idea has been hovering at the edges of my mind for a while now, that is, to return to the place of our last ever fair together- the Cornmarket building Devizes -early 2020.

I’m not sure why, I know Elaine won’t be waiting there. Perhaps I’m picking at that scab again but I have to find out. Maybe future time is not the only healer, maybe past time can do it too.

I do know I’ve be afraid of returning to any of our regular venues; afraid I think of what I may find, find within me that is, not in any actual building itself.

I have already checked online; at present there are no longer any vintage fairs being held at Devizes, but there is going to be a craft fair, on a Saturday, late November; we were always there on a Saturday.

It only takes to the end of my second drink, my minds locked in; I’m going back.

To be continued, soon…

It’s that time of year again and I am not sure if the next post will be out before Christmas so I’d like to take this chance to say once more a big “THANK YOU” to you all.

Thank you for staying with the story as it unfolds; I’m never quite sure where it’s going at any one time but it’s moving; somehow I feel in the right direction.

Believe me when I say that writing this and, knowing there are those out there who wish to read it, with or without comment, has been to me as great a help as any individual has in my life since I lost Elaine.

Nearly two years ago now a faceless horror came into my world. We, Elaine and I, always knew that that horror lurked at the threshold of our happiness, but we came to regard it as part and parcel.

Just something that was there, that one day we understood was going to be able to cross that threshold; and one day it did.

In doing so it instigated its own destruction – stupid bastard, but we knew it would never be capable of destroying ‘us’, and it never did.

This should be a miserable time of year for me but, I’m damned if I’ll let the ‘turkeys get me down’ any more. Elaine would swell with pride at my standing defiant and, laughing along with others rather than folding into darkness and constant tears.

I know in my heart her wish across the void would be that I will not forget her and God may strike the light from my soul if I should ever dare- but life goes on, including mine.

Have the best Christmas you can; I’ll be back soon- my love and thanks to you all…Mark.