adored Grandpa, and he and Granny had been a mismatched but devoted pair, so I threw myself into helping her in any way I could.
But somehow all the colour seemed to have bled away from my surroundings; having your first close experience of death and your heart broken simultaneously does that, I find. So when Granny decided, in an old-fashioned sackcloth-and-ashes way, to dye every garment she possessed (plus the inside of the washing machine) black, I put all the clothes I had with me in too.
I’d found this dyeing of the clothes a very dramatic gesture – the Dying of the Light, as it were – and I wore nothing but black for years. After all, it stopped all that bother about wondering what to wear, and matching things up, which I really didn’t care about any more. There is only one drawback I discovered with black – you can never see whether it is spotlessly clean or not. Wearing black became a habit, one I only really started to break when Mother pointed out that you can’t get wedding dresses in that colour.
When I finally went home from Granny’s I didn’t dye anything else black, just cut all the rest of my clothes up into little pieces – six-inch, three-inch and one-inch, so as not to waste any – and began on my hobby of patchwork.
But my experience with Fickle Fergal at least made me appreciate James’s steadier, mature qualities when I met him, so I’ve no regrets now over what happened so long ago.
And, look on the bright side, at least I didn’t wake up after this dream feeling guilty: just angry and tear-stained.
I gave James a poke in the ribs with my elbow, handed him a cup of coffee-bag coffee from the Teasmade, and informed him that it was time to get up.
Isn’t it strange that I should hate tea when I adore autumn leaves? But I find I don’t wish to drink dead leaf dust.
‘Day off,’ James grunted, trying to put his head under the duvet.
‘Day off to house-hunt, and I’ve got a feeling we’ll find the country cottage of our dreams today – we’ve just been looking too near London and in the wrong direction. Besides, a day in the country will do us both good. All the leaves have turned gold now, and—’
‘You’ve got enough leaves,’ he said hastily, re-emerging.
I don’t know why he disapproves of my harmless little hobbies. My patchwork brightens the whole flat up; it’s amazing just how much you can make from a wardrobe of old clothes. I’m still at it after all this time, and I’m sure the acreage is more than the sum of the original. Can this be possible? Algebra was never my strong point. Or do my clothes have a Tardis-like quality?
And my leaf collection: James had never minded going for walks in the park or the country while I collected them when we first started going out together, though it transpired that he thought I was going to press them. (And put them in an album perhaps? I know he’s quite a bit older than me, but that’s Victorian!)
‘Oh, no,’ I’d told him at the time, surprised. ‘I like them all curled and natural as they fall. I spread them out to dry, then give them a light coat of acrylic varnish.’
‘Varnish?’
‘They get dusty. This way I can rinse them off.’
‘Oh,’ he’d said, obviously struggling with this concept. Tentatively he’d enquired, ‘Then I suppose you make arrangements or pictures or something with them?’
‘No, I usually just pile them up in baskets and along the window ledges in my room. I like the whispering sound they make when I go in and out.’
He’d given me an affectionate squeeze and said fondly, ‘What funny ideas you have, darling – it must be living alone for so long.’
‘Oh, no, I’ve always had them,’ I’d assured him, only until then I hadn’t thought my little ways were funny.
Still, you can see how harmless my hobbies are, really.
‘I need some more oak leaves, James,’ I told him now. ‘I never seem to find enough of those, and I’d like a whole basketful.’ (I’m a basket person but not, I hope, a basket case, whatever James might imply.)
‘You know, I can’t think why everyone doesn’t collect them – they’re free, in beautiful colours and shapes, and perfectly hygienic if you varnish them.’ (I only collect clean-looking ones anyway, but you can always wipe them over with Dettox.) ‘Isn’t it strange we don’t value them? We could use them as money instead of a lot of germy bits of paper, or—’
There was a gusty sigh from under the bed, which heaved two or three times as if in a heavy swell and I broke off to exclaim indignantly, ‘You let that stupid dog in again last night, didn’t you? You know I don’t like breathing the same air in and out all night, it isn’t healthy. Or hygienic. You’d better get up and take her out so we can get off early.’
‘Plenty of time,’ he muttered, but determinedly I prised him out, assisted by the lure of stopping off for a fat-and-cholesterol-rich breakfast en route.
Fergal: 1998
‘DOES BRITAIN’S SEXIEST ROCKER HAVE A SAD PAST?’
Trendsetter magazine
Past is the operative word. And while I don’t think I could forget Tish if I tried, I don’t try, just go on rubbing salt into the old wound so that it never entirely heals.
Angst is so good for an artist …
My immaculate, fiery angel is the muse I still draw on for inspiration for both songs and paintings alike.
But that’s the Tish I remember. She’s probably Mrs Suburban Housewife now, her dreams stuffed into a drawer to moulder. (Or smoulder – she had a way with words.)
What has become of her now I neither need – nor want – to know.
Chapter 2: Home, James
‘This is it,’ I said, with conviction. ‘This is my cottage!’
‘What?’ muttered James absently, peering through a grubby windowpane at the small, blonde and bubbly estate agent, who was hovering tactfully outside despite the arctic November wind. Her legs below the short skirt were an interesting shade of blue.
He always gets a bit silly over that type, which makes you wonder why he married me: tall, reserved, and as effervescent as flat Guinness.
Come to that, why didn’t he just marry my mother, who is small, determinedly blonde and, if not precisely bubbly, sparkles a bit after the second Martini?
I gave him a nudge with my elbow. ‘Concentrate on the house, James. The estate agent is only being charming to you because she hopes to make a sale.’
He looked hurt. ‘Don’t be silly, darling – I was just thinking about the case I’ve got on. I really shouldn’t have taken a day off to look at houses, and I think I’d better pop into the office for an hour or two after I’ve dropped you at your mother’s.’
The mystery of why he’d chosen to wear one of his natty dark suits to go house-hunting was now clear. (Though admittedly they do set off his sandy-haired rugged-Highlander good looks a treat, a fact he knows very well.)
‘I’m sure Drew, Drune and Tibbs can solicit away without you for one day, James. Especially when it means we’ve at last found the right cottage.’
‘What? You don’t mean this one do you, Tish?’ His bright blue eyes widened in astonishment. ‘I can’t imagine why you wanted to view it in the first place – it’s too small, and it isn’t even detached.’
‘It’s twice as big as the flat: all these chairs make it look smaller. There are thirty-two.’
‘Thirty-two what?’
‘Chairs.’