(October has proved to be quite a good month for me. Aside from my appearance on Schmu radio and the workshops in Aberdeen; aside from the Bridport Judges giving my work a nod and a shortlisting in one competition and a highly commended in another; aside from all those I have just been told that I am the winner in another competition. Just the ray of sunshine a writer needs at this darker time of the year. Wow! Here's more from Port Brokeferry.)
KNOWING WHAT’S TROUBLING HUNTLY
‘It tastes different,’ he says. ‘I don’t know. Not so sweet and not so peppery. Different.’ He sets his knife and fork to six o’clock on the plate and pushes his plate away from him as though he is finished without having really started.
He doesn’t come out with it straight away. Never does. But I know. There’s something on his mind. Been in his head since early doors. I know, just like I know when he’s sad and he won’t say, or confused or worried and he will not admit that he is. He says he understands when he doesn’t and I know those times, too. I’m Huntly’s wife and I know him and I know there’s something troubling him today.
I offer him something else to eat. I ask him if he’s sick. If he is not himself today. But I know the answers before he brings them out.
‘No, nothing else to eat. No, thank you. I’ll be fine. Really. Don’t trouble yourself. I just think I might be coming down with something.’
But he isn’t sick. I can see that. I lay the palm of my hand against his forehead and there is no temperature, and I never expected that there would be. I stroke the side of his face and look him in the eye and offer him a cup of tea. And he says maybe that would be good.
He’s been quiet today. Quieter than usual. More turned in on himself. And he has not really settled to anything. Even the newspaper has been unread. He opened it but I could tell he wasn’t reading. Turning the pages is all, one after the other and not taking in what was there.
I make him a cup of tea and place it before him. He looks up and smiles, but the smile is not real, just the shape that he puts his mouth to.
And I think I know what it is that’s been on his mind, for it’s been on mine, too. There’s a change in things and I do not know how this will be for Huntly. It’s about Alice. Every morning for years, at her window and dreaming of something lost, and Huntly watching her from a small distance, and these last days she’s something found to take its place. He must have seen the difference.
It’s been a long time coming, I think. And it makes sense really. Well-suited. The surprise is that it has taken so long and that they did not each see it before now: Dodie Bredwell and Alice. I’ve seen a change in her. She is suddenly brighter and I’ve seen her laughing and she moves different, like there is a new lightness to her body. Happier is what she seems. The first time for almost as long as memory: Alice, happy. But I know that Huntly won’t see it that way. Not at first. It’ll be like he’s lost something now. Something he never really had, but lost all the same. That’s what he’ll think.
‘How’s your tea?’ I ask him.
He nods and smiles and it is again just the shape of a smile. And I know him, and I know it will take some time for Huntly to adjust and he will need my help in that.
‘Maybe you’d like to go out tomorrow,’ I say. ‘It’s set to be another warm day. And it’d be good for you to get some air and some colour to your cheeks. You’ll feel better for it. I know you would. I just know it.’
And Huntly nods again, but I know what that nod means.
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