She put the phone down, a sunburst smile on her face. "Just what I need," she said to no one in particular since no one was there. Her daughter, Brenda, had opened the conversation with "Mum, I want to ask you a big favour." The substance of the favour was, that Brenda's husband, Jamie, had been asked by his company to go up north to get a new factory they had just built, up and running. Jamie was the company troubleshooter, and he was told that if he cared to take his family with him, suitable accommodation would be provided.
The problem was that while they could take their daughter, Caroline, with them, Colin their son really needed to stay at home. Caroline could be transferred to a school in the new area, but Colin was part way through his university course and could not be disrupted at this stage.
Brenda was not sure how long they would be away – perhaps a month or two, depending – but could "mum" come and look after Colin, see that he got proper meals, and take care of the house?
Mum, or more intimately, Diane, was delighted on a number of grounds. First, although she knew she ought not to have favourites, she couldn't help having a special attachment to Colin, who was so like Grant. Secondly, the house Brenda and family occupied, was the one she and Grant had built and lived in from the time they got married.
After thirty years of marriage, and aged fifty-five, Grant had come home from work white faced, and collapsed on the kitchen floor. Before help could arrive, he was dead.
Diane was devastated and inconsolable. She screamed out to the heavens, "Why, why, why?" The heavens had no answer. She shared her grief with the Reverent Carmichael. He had no answer.
From the first time they came together, Grant had been her lover and life companion. Neither of them were magazine centre fold idols, but were attractive enough to draw members of the opposite sex to them, yet there had never been even a suggestion of infidelity. When they were out socially and found themselves separated and entrapped by would be - "we could have a meaningful relationship" - lovers, they would look across the room at each other and smile. They were secure in their love.
Grant had been a gentle and passionate lover, always considerate of her needs, and she had sought to gratify his. They had built their lives jointly so that together they were whole – at one with each other. Not that they didn't have their differences, but every argument and disagreement was within the context of their love. Neither of them would have dreamed of going off to "have their own space," or "find themselves."
Their relationship was not a cloying dependence. Each had their own spheres of interest that they appreciated in each other and did not seek to invade. Diane had their daughter, Brenda, early in the marriage, and they were both distressed when they were told she couldn't have any more children, but the unhappiness passed, and at age thirty Diane found her own special area. Glancing through a magazine, she came upon an announcement that a short story writing competition was to be held. There was a prize for the winner, and the story would be published in the magazine. Diane set to, wrote a story, and sent it in. She won.
A little celebratory gathering was held at the magazine's offices, and present was a representative from one of the smaller publishing houses. After congratulating Diane, he asked if she had ever thought of writing a full-length novel, because his firm might be interested. She took up the idea, wrote her novel, and after some back and forthing with the editor, got it published. She received excellent reviews and many flattering letters from her readers. So novel writing became Diane's forte and at the point when Grant died, she had fifteen published works. After the death, she had written nothing.
Some eighteen months after Grant's demise Diane had recovered from the worst of her grief, and was able to weigh up her situation. Money was no great problem, but there was the matter of the house. Now living alone, she felt the place was too large for one person, and when Brenda suggested that she and Jamie might like to buy the place, she agreed. She sold at a nominal price and moved into an "Elderly Citizens Complex."
On initial inspection, this looked good, but after a few months of living there, it did not have the same appeal. Surrounded by a high wall, with code-operated gates, security guards, a resident's community centre, dining room, and resident medical staff, she came to think of the place as "The luxury concentration camp." In addition, her relationships with the other residents meant listening to a constant litany of aches and pains, hip replacements and incontinence.
Diane was not unsympathetic, but it was all so depressing, especially as she had always kept herself fit. Walking in the hills and swimming were her means of fitness, not the expensive and desperate peddling and pummeling of the so-called "Fitness and Health Centres." So, at sixty she was slim and active. In fact, she had received more than one suggestion of a relationship from some of the dribbling male residents of the complex. In addition, she also noted sly glances from younger men at the church she attended. None of them tempted her.
Not that she was sexually disinterested, on the contrary, and despite all rumours to the contrary about older women, she was still very virile. She used a vibrator to relieve her sexual tensions desperately trying to pretend it was Grant as she came. But it wasn't Grant. She would sometimes cry during her orgasms, longing for the contact of flesh and the feel of sperm entering her.
Now had come her chance to get out of this saccharine environment and spend a few weeks in the old home with her beloved grandson, Colin. On the day for her to move in she packed, got into her little car, and drove off singing what she could recall of the "Grand March" from "Aida."
On arrival Brenda, Caroline and Jamie had already taken off for places North. Diane decided upon the bedroom she had shared with Grant, and now used by Brenda and Jamie. She distributed her various items of clothing and knick-knacks, and set about an inspection of the house. Colin was at the university and was not expected back for three or four hours, so she had the place to herself.
She poured herself a whisky and something, and wandered through the house. She had left behind a lot of the furniture she and Grant had accumulated over the years, and her one dread had been that living among it again would give rise to painful memories. Memories there were, but very tender ones. They inflicted no pain on her, only feelings of love and gratitude for the years she had been able to have with Grant.
