Hinges squeal as I push the gate wide enough to slip through. Along the brick path the weeds and brambles catch threads from my jeans. The sound of traffic fades into the distance. Around me, ragged lines of gravestones warm in the sun, their faded greys coloured by the greens and yellows of old dry lichen. The names and dates entrusted to them are scoured away by age and weather. They seem almost comforting, these old graves, implying there’s a peace to be found, or, if not a peace, then at least an accommodation. I turn away and reach for the door handle. Black iron, wrought into a spiral, cools my hand as I look up at the battered old church. Steel grids, filthy with pigeon droppings shade the glory of the stained-glass windows. Ivy creeps across the notice board beside the door. There is graffiti here, and the pungent smell of damp and neglect, and worse. The lock opens in my hand, broken, or simply rusted beyond repair. I push the door and step inside.

I stand for a moment, watching dust motes catch the low evening sun as they swirl and dance. A moment of weakness, of dizziness, and I sway and lean for support against a column. The permanence of the smooth stone reassures me, and after a few deep breaths, I’m ready to continue. I walk forward to the altar, then turn, as if expecting to see her. I remember how slowly she walked, each footstep carefully placed. The simple white dress she’d chosen brightened with all the colours of the rainbow as she walked towards me past translucent scenes of joy and hope. The dress flattered her slender figure, and a pearl tiara capped her chestnut hair. She bit her lip as she looked up at me, her eyes tentatively seeking approval. Then I took her hand, and her nervousness melted away in a smile.

In the hospital too, I took her hand, but felt no answering squeeze. I held it tightly between both of mine and felt its’ lightness. Plastic tubes stole away her lopsided smile, and painkillers dulled the shine and sparkle of her eyes. She seemed shrunken by the grey metal frame of the bed. I felt panic rising within me, desperate to turn away, to flee, or even, please, to help. To do anything but sit here, rendered useless and irrelevant, enduring the horror of watching as if through glass.

I am worn thin by all this thinking. For a moment I rest my forehead on the altar, perhaps hoping some stillness will flow into me - a sacred analgesic to dull this pain. Rolling up my jacket as a pillow I lower myself to the floor. Everything seems out of focus. Drowsy, I hide in better memories.

Lazing in the bright sunshine, the grass tickles the back of my neck. Her head rests on my chest, and I feel her breathing, slow and calm. I’d claimed to be exhausted by the effort of rowing us round the boating lake. Enchanted by the comical processions of ducklings, she’d insisted we examine them at close quarters, but my feeble efforts had proved insufficient to the chase. We’d gone twice round the island at the centre of the lake, she languid, her hand trailing in the clear sparkling water, before she declared me a born landlubber and insisted we go ashore for lunch. We opened the picnic we’d carefully packed, but something had gone awry - the beer had leaked, soaking into the sandwiches. She laughed and threw the soggy remnants to, and secretly at, the ducks until we were told-off by a passing woman, out walking her dog.
‘What do you want to do?’ she’d ask me, ‘What do you want to be?’, and I’d always shrug and turn it away.
‘Just me’, I’d say, ‘I just want to be me.’ But right there, and then, I found a different answer: ‘Just us. I just want to be us. Would you like to be us?’
And she laughed and cried at the same time, and said ‘Yes, I’d like very much to be us.’

It’s very peaceful laying here and I rest my eyes for a moment. When I open them, the sun shining through the great arched window catches my gaze. I see a figure, all in white, surrounded by gold, and reds and blues, and it seems to me that it’s her, but then my eyes fill with tears, and all I can see is rainbows.