And then this...

Today I was looking for a book to read and from all the books on shelves and piles in my house I just pulled a random one out that I couldn't remember if I'd read and opened the pages, thinking I'd recognise it soon enough if I had. 

Just as I began to get into the story, out of the pages ahead a photo fell. It was of me, close up looking sideways from the lens. I am younger, not significantly but enough to recognise fewer wrinkles, better hair. The look on my face is one of utter joy. 

I knew then the book belonged to her, as did the photo. It was one of many relics she left behind which so far has included three dust covered mismatched socks behind the drier (she has a particluar love of socks and would have missed them), a brand new cashmere jumper she was given one Christmas by her aunt, still in its tissue and box, which I found in a small cupboard I thought was empty in a hard to reach corner behind the bath, and which I am guessing she left on purpose. There are numerous tiny, pretty hair clips that she wore scattered throughout her hair lying in wait for me when I do DIY or try to clean too close to the edges of carpets and behind radiators. The stash of them in my bathroom is faintly embarrassing given I will never wear them. There are some CDs and DVDs of course, and a photo of her aged about three, and once, I found a not-quite-empty bottle of her perfume which had special powers over my mind when she wore it and later, after she had gone, I took to walking round clutching it like a cigarette, taking a furtive sniff now and then. It took me weeks to throw that away. She also left many, possibly all the gifts I'd given her. I still feel the need to sit in the garden chair I bought for her because it reclined so deeply and she loved to lie back and sleep in it, pretending to read, ever watchful, no matter how exhausted, of the arrival of anything or anyone in the garden. When I sit in it for some reason I adopt the exact same pose she used, even though it feels, to me, unnatural. I've positioned it far from the house so it's only catches the sun for the last hour of the day, giving me barely any opportunity to sit there, conjuring up the same spirit of reclining while remaining alert. 

There are so many reminders of her, each arriving like fresh footsteps in the carpet or whispers of wings at the window, ghostly, supernatural, powerful and primitive. 

After I'd looked at the photo for a long time, trying to remember it being taken, trying to remember where I was and if I'd ever seen it before, trying to remember being that much younger, I noticed there, at the edge of the frame, her. It was just her nose and a bit of her forehead, barely in shot at all, barely there. But there she was kissing my neck and taking my photo and there was I as happy as I've ever in this world been. And I remembered.