they tend to live in Australia,’ I conceded. He could always check; look it up on Wikipedia any time, and he probably would.
‘Lucky I’m not easily panicked,’ he said, ‘or I’d take that as a bad omen. Don’t black birds mean a death in the house?’
Death was not a subject I ever wanted to discuss. I’d lost my birth parents in a most unfortunate way, and then when I was eighteen my adoptive parents were killed. Clive had driven off the road into a swollen river; his body and Marion’s were found the next day. Clive had been drinking, but he was a very bad driver anyway. I’d had a dream that night that they were waving goodbye. Oddly enough, I never worried that anything would happen to Ted or the twins. More denial, I suppose – things too terrible to contemplate.
‘It was an ordinary tawny owl.’ I said. ‘It just looked black in the lamplight.’
‘You’re very good at believing what you want to believe,’ I remember Ted saying, and my feeling cross about that too, but I couldn’t spend too much time resenting his saying it, since it was past midnight and there would be seventeen for Christmas the next day and the turkey not yet stuffed, and presents still to wrap. At least I’d already done the twins’ traditional stockings – a pair of my old tights cut down the middle, assorted nail varnishes, make-up, socks, a silver-papered tangerine in the toe, a few nuts and assorted junk food. Even at their great age they expected to wake up to a Christmas stocking each, and since they were a touch obsessive-compulsive (or so Ted alleged), any change of routine upset them.
I was very short of relatives but Ted had enough for us both. His mother was a good Irish Catholic, and he was one of four. Frank, Hector, Aidan and Ted. Just as small families wither and die out with the years, big families expand; children are born, step-children accumulate, spouses get switched but not abandoned. Aidan was bringing two wives and one of his mother-in-laws. Seventeen were expected. It was not surprising I was up late that night. After I’d finished with the turkey there was all the cutlery and glasses to assemble, and three last-minute presents to wrap – boring-but-needed slippers for Ted, and I’ve forgotten what I got for the twins. I was pleased by what I achieved – firm, neat edges, paper in various shades of pink, tied with gold string and gift tags written out and firmly tied, I was exhausted by the time I got into bed. Ted had fallen asleep. He’d turned off the heating. I undressed quickly in the dark, and I was grateful for his warmth as I got under the duvet. My horror is that he was dead when I got in beside him, and I only felt the warmth because it was so expected, but I don’t think it can have been so. The cold I felt later was so shocking. I had no dreams or any that I can remember. It was a deep dark sleep.
I suppose if I reject the idea of a crime passionnel , the Woodwards could still have been in the pay of the NSA and slipped Ted some kind of poison and me a Mickey Finn which only cut in four hours later. I certainly slept very heavily that night and Ted did not wake at all. But poison seems unlikely. More likely Cynara is nuts.
I stirred at seven, looked at the clock and went back to sleep until nine, when I woke, thinking of the Christmas turkey and the seventeen for lunch, and became conscious that the body beside me was a different temperature from mine. Whatever your temperature when you go to bed with someone else, when you wake you share the same warmth. When I went to bed the night before I had been cold and I had experienced his body as warm. Now it was the other way round. With my eyes still closed I searched for an extra blanket to pull over me in order to warm Ted. He had thrown his bedclothes off in the night.
He was lying facing away from me and, still half asleep I tried to turn him towards me which was usually a doddle because he’d cooperate even in his sleep, ever
‘Lucky I’m not easily panicked,’ he said, ‘or I’d take that as a bad omen. Don’t black birds mean a death in the house?’
Death was not a subject I ever wanted to discuss. I’d lost my birth parents in a most unfortunate way, and then when I was eighteen my adoptive parents were killed. Clive had driven off the road into a swollen river; his body and Marion’s were found the next day. Clive had been drinking, but he was a very bad driver anyway. I’d had a dream that night that they were waving goodbye. Oddly enough, I never worried that anything would happen to Ted or the twins. More denial, I suppose – things too terrible to contemplate.
‘It was an ordinary tawny owl.’ I said. ‘It just looked black in the lamplight.’
‘You’re very good at believing what you want to believe,’ I remember Ted saying, and my feeling cross about that too, but I couldn’t spend too much time resenting his saying it, since it was past midnight and there would be seventeen for Christmas the next day and the turkey not yet stuffed, and presents still to wrap. At least I’d already done the twins’ traditional stockings – a pair of my old tights cut down the middle, assorted nail varnishes, make-up, socks, a silver-papered tangerine in the toe, a few nuts and assorted junk food. Even at their great age they expected to wake up to a Christmas stocking each, and since they were a touch obsessive-compulsive (or so Ted alleged), any change of routine upset them.
I was very short of relatives but Ted had enough for us both. His mother was a good Irish Catholic, and he was one of four. Frank, Hector, Aidan and Ted. Just as small families wither and die out with the years, big families expand; children are born, step-children accumulate, spouses get switched but not abandoned. Aidan was bringing two wives and one of his mother-in-laws. Seventeen were expected. It was not surprising I was up late that night. After I’d finished with the turkey there was all the cutlery and glasses to assemble, and three last-minute presents to wrap – boring-but-needed slippers for Ted, and I’ve forgotten what I got for the twins. I was pleased by what I achieved – firm, neat edges, paper in various shades of pink, tied with gold string and gift tags written out and firmly tied, I was exhausted by the time I got into bed. Ted had fallen asleep. He’d turned off the heating. I undressed quickly in the dark, and I was grateful for his warmth as I got under the duvet. My horror is that he was dead when I got in beside him, and I only felt the warmth because it was so expected, but I don’t think it can have been so. The cold I felt later was so shocking. I had no dreams or any that I can remember. It was a deep dark sleep.
I suppose if I reject the idea of a crime passionnel , the Woodwards could still have been in the pay of the NSA and slipped Ted some kind of poison and me a Mickey Finn which only cut in four hours later. I certainly slept very heavily that night and Ted did not wake at all. But poison seems unlikely. More likely Cynara is nuts.
I stirred at seven, looked at the clock and went back to sleep until nine, when I woke, thinking of the Christmas turkey and the seventeen for lunch, and became conscious that the body beside me was a different temperature from mine. Whatever your temperature when you go to bed with someone else, when you wake you share the same warmth. When I went to bed the night before I had been cold and I had experienced his body as warm. Now it was the other way round. With my eyes still closed I searched for an extra blanket to pull over me in order to warm Ted. He had thrown his bedclothes off in the night.
He was lying facing away from me and, still half asleep I tried to turn him towards me which was usually a doddle because he’d cooperate even in his sleep, ever
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