We have another excellent meal and Bill and Thelma's AND we manage not to do one another any permanent damage in the tiny, yet slightly too high for our proper safety bed. There is some cloud-scudding going on. It's all rather beautiful, if not exactly the ideal weather for taking my lizard for a walk.
I'd bought a Norfolk walks book in a sale back in Derby and I am de-ter-mined to use it. It takes us a while and – ahem – a bit of negotiation before we manage to get on the right track. Marshy, green, lots of birds, plenty of silence. It makes us content. We walk along the edge of the marshland and then inland, across fields, down roads. There is one moment where Bartelt snaps at me. The very fact that this is worth remarking upon demonstrates to me that we have a special thing going on: I'm sure most people would have murdered me to death by now, stuck in my company like this. It's a place for us to remember, safely, how lonely we both are, I guess I mean the human condition, but also our awareness that... romantically, well, we're just not what men seem to be looking for. It's a matter of enormous hilarity to us, sometimes it makes us frustrated and then there are those occasions when we feel sad. Out here, in the empty and beautiful Norfolk contryside, we both feel together, but alone, sad... there is potential for us, but what it might amount to is a mystery. We share the sense of already having messed up all we could have been and often a sense of utter hopelessness and loss.
Thank the lord we are going to Caroline and Phil's for the night, or we might just stride out into the marsh, marsh, more marsh and finally the waves, never to return.I knew Phil and Caroline had a nice place in the countryside, but I didn't realise how gorgeous the countryside would be.
Caroline's daughter was born just days after Kate died and I have never met her. She and her brother both look like amazing mixtures of their parents, and they are utterly lovely children. Bartelt and I, as I am sure I have mentioned before, are not programmed to want children, but these two are interesting and funny and clever and well behaved. AND they go to bed before our supper so we can enjoy ourselves as adults: ALLELUJAH!
And we do enjoy ourselves, Phil loves to cook and they are both very generous hosts. Caroline and I are the last to go to bed. We talk about how we are. I could lie I could tell her things are okay, but what would the point be?
Kate, Charles, Caroline and I travelled Zimbabwe together, Caroline and I were mugged together in Peru. We were terribly close as friends. Life has seen us drift apart, but at 2.30am and several glasses down, I am not really able to tell any story, other than the desolation and misery Kate's death has brought me. Yes, Bartelt and I have made a show, I've inherited Kate's half of our flat, I've flown BA first class... but I fear I will never recover from this.
The kids had shown us our beds earlier on and I had gallantly given the double to Bartelt. Not only are we in different beds, but different rooms and, different parts of the landing. It's quiet and dark, country-dark, which is fantastic. I think I'm going to sleep long and hard, and I'm right.
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