The Widow's Tale (12 page)

I
'm like a bloody sentry, obsessively patrolling my own little stretch of coastline – sometimes out there marching up and down the marshes three or four times a day. There's a little hut or hide out near Stiffkey where I'll often stop and eat an apple or a piece of flapjack. Especially when it's wet. If it's dry there's a hollow in the long grass that I'm particularly fond of, set back from the path. I've tucked myself away in there several times now, with nothing but the occasional birder puttering by, perfectly oblivious. Spying on twitchers has, I feel, a pleasing irony to it. Though so far I've witnessed nothing more incriminating than the odd adjustment of underwear.

I'm a bit of a late convert to the joys of walking. Of course, I've always been as willing as the next person to hike up some hill to admire the view. And I can see that there's something to be said for wandering through the woods in autumn and kicking up the leaves. But the sort of walking I do these days is more forced march than ramble. It never fails to get the blood moving round my body which must, I imagine, be of some benefit. But it's the way it gently shakes me up that I'm beginning to appreciate might have some positive influence on me.

Which is not to say I'm feeling healed, by any means. And yet there's definitely something in the simple
mechanical action of sustained walking that seems to encourage my mind to quieten down a little. Like those parents who endlessly push a buggy round the block to get their babies off to sleep.

One of my self-appointed duties, aside from keeping an eye out for any belated Anglo-Saxon invaders, is to measure any additional minutes of daylight and gauge whether the sun gains any strength. Well, the days do indeed seem to be getting longer, albeit incrementally, but they also seem to be growing colder. I keep the fire going in my tiny cottage pretty much round the clock, which is only a problem in that I seem to be forever dragging bags of coal around the place.

I do wonder what the original pilgrims got out of their walking – the ones who hiked for days or even weeks to reach their destination. I mean, were their journeys carried out in an atmosphere of celebration or penance? The latter, I would imagine. We northern Europeans don't really go in for fervour. We'd rather focus on the guilt.

But we do like a bit of a procession. According to the little booklet I picked up at Walsingham museum, the band of silent pilgrims I recently encountered would have just hiked the mile or so up from the Slipper Chapel, where traditionally they would've removed their shoes in order to walk barefoot into town. But what were the early pilgrims after, exactly? Absolution? Or simply the desire to arrive, suitably exhausted, at what they considered to be a holy site?

I have to say, I find the whole idea of paying one's
respects to some saint's withered finger or shin-bone fairly gruesome. In fact, I'm pretty sure I once saw a photograph of a saint's head sitting pickled in a church somewhere. It really is quite barbaric. And yet I can see how people would be drawn to the idea of a relic. How could a sliver of the True Cross or a drop or two of Mary's own milk possibly fail to have some magic to it? And there are times in all our lives when we're in need of a bit of that.

It's not quite the same, I know, but a friend of mine happened to be living in Berlin when the Wall came down. I remember speaking to her on the phone as it was all going on. A week or two later a package landed on my doormat and in it was a small cardboard box with a note attached, explaining that it contained a tiny fragment of the Berlin Wall.

For all I know she just went out into her backyard and took a sledgehammer to a couple of breezeblocks and distributed the various bits to all her friends. But there's no doubt that in the days that followed, whenever we had people round and I happened to mention it to them, they all got mightily animated, and wanted to see it and hold it in their hand. As if it carried in it some charge, or potency. Some sense of its own history.

M
y first thought was that I was being mugged, or at best accosted. As I've already noted, I'm still quite highly strung when I'm out and about. And I suspect that as I shuffled down the High Street in Holt this afternoon I was miles away, lost in my own grey world, turning over some dismal thought or other, when I became increasingly conscious of someone creeping towards me, and threatening to impose themselves into my little bubble of misery. And a young person at that – which pretty much guarantees a mugging – someone who came scuttling up to me and grabbed me by the arm.

Well, ‘grabbed' may be overstating it somewhat. But physical contact was definitely made. And being handled by strangers has always put my back up. So I must have recoiled. Then the anonymous youth was saying, ‘Excuse me,' and apologising, as he could clearly see that he'd scared me half to death.

To be fair, the whole thing could have been resolved a good deal sooner if only his pronunciation hadn't been so poor. So that when he said ‘Holbein' it had rhymed with ‘Woodbine', as it is meant to, rather than ‘runner bean' which was the way that it came out.

‘Your Holbein book,' he said. ‘I think I found it.'

And now I recognised him as the young man who'd
been behind the counter at the second-hand bookshop on my second visit. The one I'd rather unkindly likened to Kafka or Dostoevsky, and who, to my shame, turns out to be a very considerate individual. And when, at last, I'd worked out who he was and begun to grasp what it was he was talking about, he was already explaining how he'd mentioned the fact that I was looking for the book to Carol – who is most likely the woman I know as Jenny – and how it turned out that she'd had a look at it herself, after seeing me poring over it, and left it behind the counter.

‘I've been keeping an eye out for you,' he told me, as he led me across the road to the shop, which, in itself, is just about enough to get any widow welling up. The idea, in fact, that anyone at all might be keeping an eye out for you.

Well, I'm assuming he must have been able to see that I was in a bit of a state because when we reached the shop he even offered to make me a cup of tea. But I declined – paid for the book, thanked him and got back out of there as quickly as possible. Primarily out of embarrassment, but also because now that I finally had the book in my hands again and what with him being so kind to me I didn't want to burst into tears right there in the shop.

I got as far as the car park before stopping and flipping through the book's pages. It really is an unexceptional edition. And one, apparently, which used to reside on the shelves of the library of Norwich Art College. All four corners are bent and battered. Oh, those rough and
scruffy undergraduates! The plain brown cover is partially bleached from sunlight. But the actual plates are close to perfect. And the paintings themselves are … well, they're simply exquisite.

I waited till I got back home before having a proper look at it. I pushed the boat out and put the kettle on. And since I'm in a mood of contrition, I feel I owe a word or two's apology to the two gentlemen in
The Ambassadors
. The chap on the left does indeed look rather bulky, but that's probably as much to do with all the furs and so forth slung around him as his actual girth. The chap on the right also has a powerful presence, but this is mainly due to the decidedly jazzy design of his dressing gown.

The woman with the bonnet is not quite as inundated as I'd imagined. A single thrush stands to attention over one shoulder and there's the odd sprig of greenery here and there. But close scrutiny reveals that the squirrel in her lap actually has a tiny chain around its neck, so it's not as if the creature had been magnetically drawn towards her from the wilderness.

But the revelation is
Christina of Denmark
. The weird thing is that I'm actually familiar with this painting. I've stood before it on several occasions, but never properly appreciated what a wonderful piece of work it is. The girl's white face peers out from the top of a heap of deep black velvet. Her hands, neatly crossed over a pair of cream gloves, are the only other source of light. But it's her steady gaze which holds you. Once she's caught your eye there's no letting go.

I'd flipped through the whole book and come back to her two or three times before I checked the text for any info. And it was only then that I learnt that she was dressed in black as she was in mourning – that she was a young widow – and that Holbein had been shipped out to Brussels to paint her as yet another prospective bride for Henry VIII.

Well, aside from the fact that the poor little thing looks barely old enough to have seen off a first husband, let alone be contemplating the perils of having big, bad Henry as her second, the beautiful creature is a widow! And so I'm bound to wonder if that's the reason I've been so desperate to get my hands on the book. I mean, when I picked it up last week did I unconsciously register her mourning clothes? I don't believe so. I don't think it ever crossed my mind.

And then suddenly I'm crying. A proper little outburst, the kind which I've not had in quite a while. The poor sweet thing. Married at the age of eleven. Widowed at the age of thirteen. And still only sixteen, by my calculations, when Holbein came a-calling, on the orders of Henry VIII.

In fact, she was widowed a second time by the age of twenty-three. To be honest, I'm not quite sure why I should be getting myself so upset about a girl who lived the best part of five hundred years ago. Not least because, according to the book, she had a good forty-five years of independence, as the Regent of Lorraine. Whatever that entailed. I suppose it's the idea of her being married off
at such a tender age, and to such old duffers. And having to drag all that black velvet around behind her and play at being the widow for so many years. That really does upset me. Although I can't help but feel that my pity for her is somehow wrapped up in some sort of pity for myself.

Anyway, once I got a grip and made myself a cup of coffee, and had another skim through my precious book, I began to appreciate that it's not just the eyes of my poor child-widow that move me. Despite all the props and pomp and finery – and Holbein's undoubted genius – it's the eyes of all his subjects that draw you in. They're all so sad. And so solemn. All except for dear Christina. Who is simply serene.

I
am, there's no use me denying it, an inveterate list-maker. So perhaps I should retract that earlier criticism regarding my husband, and men in general, for all their newspaper-reading, since what is the writing of lists if not a deluded attempt to create some sense of order in one's own small corner of the universe?

I always tend to think it's a relatively recent development. Something I've only picked up in the last year or two. Then I'll bump into someone I've not seen in ages and they'll catch me at it and say, God, are you still making those endless bloody lists of yours? Which always comes as rather a shock to me.

My ideal template is a plain sheet of A4, folded in the middle, to create a two-ply rectangle, approximately eight inches by six. Whatever I scratch and scrawl within its borders is the business of that particular day of my life made flesh.

Domestic chores, such as banking, shopping, etc., are entered in the top left quarter. Less pressing but possibly more important matters, such as letters, phone calls, etc., occupy the middle ground. In all that clean white space on the right-hand side I mark down any specific appointments, for example: ‘2 p.m. – Dentist', with the 2 p.m. underlined and circled, so that I can't miss it.
I might also note down this half of the page any radio programmes which sound potentially interesting. Or a piece of music I've heard somewhere and am considering buying. Or even some odd little idea I've made a note of, that I plan to follow up.

The bottom third of the page is where all the heavy matter sinks to, such as anything to do with the Inland Revenue or entreaties to visit some aged aunt in Aldershot – commitments which, having not been met on the Monday, will reappear on Tuesday's list. And, most likely, Wednesday's too. But written quickly, so as to avoid the thought that one might never actually get around to them. And on busy days these lower reaches might even be cordoned off from the rest of the list by a thick black line, from one edge of the paper to the other, to prevent them contaminating the items above. Because, just as list-writing can be a means of ensuring that every last thing is remembered, it can also be a highly effective method of procrastination – essentially nothing but a list of good intentions which, once written down, need not be dwelt upon for another day.

Anyway, I mention my lists here because, over these last few months, they have been noticeable only by their absence. I suppose if you're not particularly engaged in the present tense and having trouble projecting yourself into the future, there's not an awful lot to be writing down. And if you really do need to remind yourself to, say, put the bins out on the Tuesday, you can just write it in your diary. Which is just a list spread over time.

The moment John died my list-making ground to a halt. And when, a few days later, I had a peek at the last list I'd made, just out of curiosity, its contents seemed so utterly trivial I wondered how I could ever have lived a life where such things held any sway.

Because by then the only list in town would've been …

I entered, I suppose, a life no longer containable by a folded sheet of A4. Or, rather, a life in which the hope of getting on top of things was abandoned. And, of course, in truth I've never succeeded in scratching out every single entry on any list I've ever written. If I had I would've simply created a vacuum which would've demanded the creation of a new list of other, even more exacting tasks.

But in the last couple of days I've actually written a new list or two. Tentative little things, embarrassingly modest when compared to those titanic, all-encompassing lists of yesteryear. But encouraging, just the same. Scrawled on the back of a flyer for the Wells and Walsingham Light Railway and seal trip timetables. The young shoots of future planning. The bright new hope of lists to come.