Silver birches

No matter how fierce the wind, how rough the storm, how hard the rain. Some things are so deeply rooted, nothing can unearth them. From above ground it may appear the damage has been done but later up they spring again, however tentatively, however fragile they may seem. The roots are firm, the roots are deep.

And so it was, it seemed to Coppelia, as a new year, 2008, dawned soon after their trip to Bordeaux. Reeling from the months before, against - to her, it seemed - all odds, here they still were. They could not help it.

Once she told him she saw them as two magnets. Impossible to be held apart for long, the forces drawing them together were too great, almost outside their control.

The health of H was now settling down, occasional angina attacks managed well by drugs. She remained tearful and suspicious of his behaviour, but as the year moved on H was more relaxed and so, therefore, was he.

Meeting was difficult and he and Coppelia drew on every opportunity to be together, however brief. Then, in early April he enrolled on a course in Bedford which meant for one day a week they could be certain of a whole afternoon - and sometimes an evening, too - together.

This continues to this day. Three ten-week terms a year. What a difference this made! Secure in the knowledge that time was set aside for them. In between terms they were able to meet by visiting exhibitions in London or elsewhere, and using other chances to be together, when H was occupied for long stretches of time due to her own activities.

In early May, Coppelia at last met his old friend, Ralph. to her, this marked a new level of commitment from him, somehow set a seal on what the relationship meant to him.

In early April, when they met following his regular London lunch with his brothers, strolling and laughing through the balmy, late afternoon backstreets, and totally on impulse, he saw a ring in a jeweller's window and asked her if she'd like it. She tried it on - Cubic Zirconia, pale pinkish lilac, the colour she so loved. A huge stone, sparkling as if a star had fallen on her finger.

Sometimes, towards the end of their weekly rendezvous on the day of his course, they would park at the wood near Peterborough where they used to walk long ago, where they had spent so many hours growing closer and closer in those early days.

This woodland of silver birches was as a santuary, a secret knowing companion to their love as it had grown and blossomed, a place where they had shared, cried, discussed, laughed, escaped...the whispering, softly bending birches enfolding them, the grassy clearings, bending pathways, enticing them into the very centre of the wood as if the trees themselves desired to hold these two lost lovers within its heart forever.

One late afternoon, they were parked as the sun began to set behind the silver birches, and the narrow road into the wood darkened to a mysterious grey.

Coppelia, held in his arms in the front of the car, her head on his shoulder, gazed at the tops of the trees as they swayed so very slowly - as birches do, even if no breeze is detected - and was sure they were nodding towards her alone - ' we always knew, all would be well... we will always be here. And so, too, will you...'