It is raining softly, a watery veil that dances and whispers outside the open window as Coppelia dares at last to write again. The sky is thundery and dark, but casts down a silvery summer light that contains within it both threat of storm and the remnants of recent sunlight.Distant thunder. A steely shadow darkens the room, a mischievous wind begins to chase the rain. There are words inside, so many, but when they reach the keys under her fingers, they dissolve. What can Coppelia write that she has not already written?
The holiday, taken since the previous page was written, where she walked in the hills, miles and miles, was a delight and a torment. He was not there beside her. The room for her daughter is now finished, all the work associated with that kind of domestic upheaval - cleaning, sorting and throwing away, reorganisation of furniture, of 'things' - all done. Pressing family matters, the hard, hot long hours of work in the pub restaurant... all undertaken one day at a time, Coppelia striving to find in them something that fulfills, that gives to her life that which she so badly needs. To find - to find, a reason to keep loving life the way she so wants to.
This week - was it just days ago? it feels a lifetime - time spent sitting together on the dry grass, deep in the Northamptonshire countryside, so dry it was almost like hay after these weeks of hot weather and little rain.
Gazing at the long view of open fields under a pale blue sky into which, to their joy, a red kite appears. Mesmerised, in silence they look at the kite, as the bird glides and twists across the space above. It must have been perhaps five minutes they sat, watching. Today Coppelia closes her eyes and is back by his side, the red kite above them once again. His hand in hers. But that moment is now lost. Just another memory.
Time on its relentless course. Already it is mid-July. He is ageing. She is lonely.
That shared silence. The kite. She cannot remember it now without crying.
