I eased Jenny’s body off mine and I felt that sense of security fall over my body that I had before my mother died. It had been four years and yet it felt so raw. But even that security was tarnished slightly, it was fake. Losing Brian had messed with it and had exposed me to loss too early in my life. At least my mother had been alive to see my family, to get to know them for a while.

The calm I experienced lying beside Jenny was deeply satisfying. I felt the way the sea looks on a really close, silent winter morning a day or two after a storm hits – the surface lake-like and I would walk by the beach to take the train to work, to put in an entire day with Graham and think how I would rather submerge myself in the water. How I would rather dive under and stay down in the clear sea, looking at the stones and the pebbles and the small channel dug into the seabed, rather than face another day in a dull office.

I knew my sea.

47. My Fear

I recall now, how there was often laughter to behold in the ordinary little things, and in the evenings the children told us all about their day at school. I loved listening to their innocence and their earnestness, and I didn’t mind at all that the house was so untidy or that there were scuff marks on the kitchen wall, that the boys could never wear matching socks. None of that stuff mattered. And Jenny’s relaxed attitude to all the chaos didn’t bother me as such, my mother had always been tidy but somehow with Jenny I felt safe in all this mess.

Things began to change. At first Jenny was attentive to our needs. She would often break away from what she was working on to dance with the children in the kitchen. They laughed at the way she waved her arms about. I told them that their mother was a good dancer and I would join in, my hands moving steadily, and I would wave my arms in the air until I couldn’t stretch them any further, all the time showing them how to dance, how music could have power over your body. They would howl with laughter, tears on their beautiful faces when I told them that I was a cool dad, and that they were lucky to have me. Oh the laughter. I told them their mother was a fine dancer and that was one of the reasons I fell in love with her.

She was light on her feet, I said.