I leant towards her and she gripped hold of my arm. I could lift her weight quite easily, just like my poor weak little blackbird. When I think back to that scene it unfolds as though in slow motion. She got to her feet and we continued on our way in silence. She kept a gentle hold on my arm, and I wasn’t sure whether I hoped someone we knew would see us, or whether I dreaded the possibility. I’d often observed old couples taking a walk together just as we were doing, and being tethered to her like that gave me the sense of being more firmly rooted to the earth. I didn’t feel at all blurry any more. It was exactly like Dad’s theory about love and the end of exile. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, because I had the feeling she’d know she was being watched unless I was discreet about it. I’d heard on the radio that blind people have a lot of intuition. I’d even looked it up in the dictionary.

Intuition an ability to understand something immediately, without conscious reasoning. An instinctive feeling, more or less precise, about something that cannot be verified or that has not yet happened.

It’s a handy thing, intuition, it has a lot of uses.

When we were in sight of the church, she asked, “What did you do to your left hand? What’s that bandage?”

“I fished myself.”

“You fished yourself?”

She turned towards me. Her eyes were staring straight into mine. There was nothing funny about it. It was hard to know what to do – I had no instruction manual for looking into blind eyes.

“Yes, well, I stuck a size twelve fish hook into my hand while I was rummaging through Dad’s fishing equipment. Then I got all tangled up in the line and reeled myself in. I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t like to be a pike.”

I was looking between her eyes, just above her nose, which felt less awkward than looking into her eyes or in a completely different direction. And then I was astounded, because she said, “Yes, I know, don’t worry, it’s really hard to look a blind person in the eyes… Just do what you can. If you like, I can stop looking at you when we’re talking.”

“Looking at me? But it’s me who’s looking at you!”

“That’s what you think, because you don’t get it, but I am looking at you. Do you want me to stop?”

She must have been speaking from intuition, that useful ability to understand without conscious reasoning. So what on earth was I supposed to say?

“No, I’d prefer you to go on looking at me… I like it when you look at me…”