The Night Following

We will do our best without you.

And it will be hard, for friendship

Is precious, your loss so sudden.

All Death

Is cruel but Ruth, yours more than most.

So long, Writer, Woman, Friend.

Our love for you will never end.

Your inspiration will not cease.

Ruth, may you rest in peace.

From Della, Pam, Maggie, Kate, Linda, and Trish

Monkswell & District Women Writers Group

I don’t think the Poet Laureate needs to be looking over his shoulder just yet, do you? Who is the Poet Laureate these days, anyway? You’d know.

When she’d read it Della hung around waiting for me to tell her I thought they were all geniuses, eyebrows on the move again and eyes brimming.

It only rhymes, I said, here and there. We didn’t think that mattered, she says. We just wanted to express something about Ruth. After some discussion we agreed that being restricted to any particular rhyme scheme might stifle creativity.

I’m trying to get her to go when she produces the hammer.

Next she fishes in her bag and brings out a picture hook. She didn’t want to trouble me to go looking for mine, easier to bring hers from home, she says, and where would I like it? Didn’t reply, so then she says, Never mind, I expect you’d like me to decide. Most men don’t know a suitable wall from the side of an elephant when it comes to getting the right hang, most men wouldn’t notice if the Mona Lisa was upside down!

I let her stick it up under the clock on the wall behind the TV. It won’t catch my eye there, as I’m not watching TV anymore.

Arthur.

PS Fucking tribute, pardon my French.

It got to me, just knowing it was there. I took it down, couldn’t find claw hammer so pulled out hook with kitchen scissors, tore wallpaper, and left a hole. Tore a bit more paper off to see state of plaster generally, was wondering if that wall could do with a once-over. It could now. Plaster came with it. May get round to it, I like to have a job or two in the offing. Keeping it in the pipeline for now-there’s enough going on.

PPS If I hadn’t let the bloody woman in there wouldn’t be all this mess and need for redecoration, not an inconsiderable task at my age.

PPPS She said (parting shot)-Now don’t hesitate if there’s a single thing I can do. So I’m going to ask her for a contribution towards materials.

THE COLD AND THE BEAUTY AND THE DARK

1932

Chapter 9: One Last Look

All over the hillside people were packing up and heading down to the path to file through the sheep gate. Evelyn watched the line of walkers. She couldn’t make them out clearly but she gazed at them as they went on into the distance, thinking that they looked liked a long dark snake sliding ahead along the path. She could see well enough the side of the hill against the sky where it suddenly steepened above the path, and soon enough the snake of people slithered away completely, leaving Evelyn alone, aware of no other living thing except the birds. Those must be skylarks, she thought, though she could also hear familiar town birds, crows and gulls and some other sort, too, making a cry of “sweek-sweek” that mixed with the wailing of the wind.

As Evelyn was gazing into the distance, the sun broke unexpectedly through the clouds, turning the surface of the reservoir into a flat mirror, like a sheet of steel. Then a squall of wind blew across it and broke the sheet into sparkling, brittle splinters. Evelyn shivered and settled herself for a rest. She used Paul’s sweater as a pillow and was glad of a couple of cardigans to tuck around her legs. She found herself another biscuit to nibble, just to keep the chill away, and then she lay back, looking up at the sky and thinking how beautiful it all was. Then she fell asleep.

And because she had been asleep, she was never able to say with certainty afterward how long she had spent alone there on the hill. They told her it had been the best part of three hours, but if someone else had said it had been no more than ten minutes, she might have believed that just as easily. She would never know how much, in hours and minutes, that patch of her life up there on the hillside had taken out of the whole. She knew only that it marked the difference between Before and After, and changed everything, forever.

She did know, however, that in some drowsy state, she heard the birds again and they seemed to be much louder. She sat up and looked again at the reservoir and had to put a hand up against the flash of the sun coming off it, but she was too late, and she was left with a burning, ripped feeling across her eyes. She lay back again to wait for the stinging to die down, and then the birds began to sound friendly again and she turned her head on the pillow of Paul’s sweater so the wool tickled her face, and her baby lay like a warm, thick stone in her belly. With her eyes closed she felt Stan’s locket between her fingers and ran it along the chain close to the side of her neck next to her ear because she liked the silky,buzzing sound it made. Then she must have fallen asleep again.

She woke to the noise of shouting. She sat up, blinking, and waited for the dazzle to fade. Through the grainy darkness of her vision the reservoir was now a blot of lavender blue and the sky was heavy with clouds that lightened to whiteness where they met the water. Evelyn felt as if she were rocking about on a raft, for the hillside grass was rippling around her under wavy stripes of sunlight and shadow.

Over to her left where the shouting was coming from, where the path from its highest point dipped sharply into William Clough, she caught a movement. Some people were making their way back towards the sheep gate. She saw at once the gash of bright red around the neck and the dark, hunched figure of Stan, walking alone. Then she saw, moving ahead of him, a smaller figure, a bright, drifting smear of colour against the path. It was a girl in a yellow skirt and a blue jacket, with a yellow hat or scarf. Behind them some more figures came along, dark and moving urgently so Evelyn supposed they were men. They were shoving at one another and running and shouting. There was laughter, too, and voices chanting something.

She turned her attention back to the figure that was unmistakably Stan. The girl in blue and yellow was now waiting for him at the sheep gate, watching him walk towards her. She stood with her hands in her pockets. Evelyn could tell she was saving up the look of him to keep for herself. She had done the same thing herself and she knew you only did that when you felt a certain way. But just before he reached her, there was another shout, this time from a way further down in the clough, and Stan stopped and turned to the men coming from behind him. He set one hand into the back of his waist and lifted the other hand and clasped the back of his neck. Then he tipped his head back as if he were letting the weight of it rest in his cupped hand. Evelyn knew it so well, that way he had of gripping his neck, and with a rush of simple tenderness opened her mouth to call out to him. But just then the girl moved forward, skipping along from the sheep gate. She put her arms around him and pressed her face into his back. Stan turned to her. He was much taller than she was. Evelyn saw him dip his head to her, saying something, and then he loosened the red scarf Evelyn had knitted for him and drew it around the girl’s neck and pulled her close. Then he brought his face down to hers and kissed her. Evelyn saw the red scarf around both their necks and the girl’s blue arms up around his shoulders, and the two heads meeting. A couple of whistles came their way from the men down the path and they separated.