It doesn't take much for you to think about what was. Today, it's the way the bag of shopping cuts into your shoulder - a weekend's worth of groceries, with some extras you don't need, just because you feel like it. A week ago, it was the way the wind stroked the quadrant of lavender that had sprung up at the start of the season. The way it moved made you think of when she was there.
You look ahead, squinting out the sun, trying to ignore the weight on your shoulder and the way the strap of your shopping bag burns your skin as you move. The soundtrack of the past is louder today; it makes you think of the way your hand fit hers, the electricity that ran up your arm when she brushed against it, or how she guffawed at her own jokes.
And, even now, you cannot bring yourself to approach the bakery at the supermarket in case they have Cornish pasties because hers were the best you'd ever eaten. And the scent of peppermint, which she left in her wake, now stings your eyes and makes you look for your hanky. Because, on a normal day like this, she would be walking beside you, her back straight and her eyes on the ground, talking about the marble arches in the cathedral or the way the light hopscotched through the stained glass. She might raise her tone and argue that politics is not an arena for most of the faint-hearted gits in parliament, while simultaneously rattling off a recipe for brioche.
She captivated you. It was as if a part of you didn't exist until she arrived with her paintbrush and watercolours to fill in the blanks. She knew which colours you needed, which hues needed going over again, and how to blur the outlines of the harsher parts of you. But best of all was the way she held the silence. You could sit besider her while she worked on her newest illustration without saying anything. You enjoyed how she lost herself in her work, giving the finer details her undivided attention until she drew back in her seat, sighed and rinsed her brush in the repurposed pickle jar.
"Time for a cocktail, I think," she'd say before touching your hand and smiling at you. You only needed to nod and she'd grin at the way your eyes crinkled.
You switch the bag to your other shoulder, the one you injured when you moved the kitchen dresser into her workroom so there'd be more space for her paints. There's still a long way to walk and the stray dog, that you suspect has actually run away from Mr and Mrs Griffins from number nine, is trailing you. She was more of a cat person, which you didn't mind. She named her cats after all the famous painters and you always chuckled when she said, "Picasso hasn't been eating. Do you think we ought to take him to the vet?"
The first day you met her, she was sitting behind you at a poetry reading. The poet - if he was even worthy of such a title - had butchered his way through an ode to his left earlobe when you heard the tiniest snort behind you. There she was, clutching the programme in earnest, while trying to stifle her laughter. You couldn't help but grin at her, in her red scarf and black beret. You didn't think much of the encounter, until later, when you spilt mulled wine down your front and she offered you her serviette. You looked into her eyes, globules of onyx flecked with grey.
"Oh, thank you," you said.
"Don't mention it. If you don't mind my saying, that was one of the most dreary readings I've been to." She guffawed then, and you found yourself grinning in spite of yourself.
"I rather agree."
"My aunt Nan could ad lib better poetry after a glass of gin," she said, taking a sip of her wine. "What brings you here?"
"The free wine," you said, realising too late that it was a weak attempt at a joke. "But also because I keep hoping I will hear the new Eliot or Auden."
She placed her hand on your arm. "I thought I was the only one."
You walked to the park and sat on a bench, huddling under your umbrella. The scent of peppermint and the steaming pavements perfumed the air and you thought that if you could merely be a little braver, you'd put your arm around her. You'd stop the pretense of being fidgety just to touch her and you'd lean in to kiss her. It was one of your biggest regrests that you didn't. That you waited three weeks to hold her hand, and another two to stroke her cheek.
For reasons you could never understand, she liked you. She saw in you what you'd stopped looking for since you first caught your reflection after a school bully insulted your looks. She saw beyond the freckles, crow's feet and shyness. Kissing her made you feel lit up on the inside. You miss that feeling more than you have words to express.
You retrieve the bunch of keys from your pocket, leaning at angle to counteract the weight of your shopping, and let yourself into the cottage. You try not to notice all the blank spaces on the walls where her paintings used to hang. You ignore the unexpected affection of Degas, rubbing himself against your legs as you unpack the shopping. You try to tell yourself that it's no use reminding her that it's cocktail hour and she should take a break from painting to sit with you in the back garden. Degas meaows at you, and you ignore him at first.
"I miss her too, you old git."
You take a glass of wine to the far corner of the garden. The lavender blossoms nod in the breeze, bowing to a small wooden cross you painted white.
this is amazing
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