The retreat

 The random equation

Jill absolutely loved life. She was up for pretty much anything and everything really. We got into so much trubble, and I have so many good stories that I can’t share because Facebook would probably ban me. I will tell you one story though, I doubt that she’d mind. I watched a programme on face and body painting, and it looked quite fun. We were going to a party, and she a low cut back dress on and so I painted a dragon on her back. It was fun, so Jill offered to be my Guinea pig. After some practice I got better at painting on t-shirt and jeans. I was fairly pleased with the results and said something along the lines of “it’s a shame we will never know how well it works”. Jill just laughed and said “let’s find out!” Which is how I found myself with her, just wearing body paint in the middle of Hounslow highsteet on a busy Saturday afternoon. Sure enough, not a single person realised they had passed right by someone without a stitch on. It was hilarious! I was going to say we were wild, but I actually think we were feral at times! And yes I took pictures and no, you can’t see them!

We did a lot of crazy things in the late eighties and early nineties. We took over a bulletin board system linked into the US, and that introduced us to a whole new world. We dipped in and out of various counterculture movements and met a whole new group of people that we interacted with. Once again Jill was a centre of attention; she had this ability to make friends with anyone, and in ten minutes would have their life story. So that was our third circle of friends. The Zone crowd, the science fiction crowd and the counterculture group. There was a little overlap, but not a huge amount. I’m sure it’s only in my eyes, but she was a whirling centre of attention. Everyone wanted to chat to her and one minute she would be talking about the evolution of mankind, and in the next discussing literature, followed by football chat. She was so animated in chats with groups in bars or at conventions. She’d be sitting there, often cross legged smoking one of her long, brown More cigarettes, drinking whisky, laughing and excitedly waiting to jump in with her point.

Wherever Jill was, that’s where I wanted to be. Unless for work, I don’t think we ever spent more than a couple of nights apart. If we could have been together 24/7 we would have been. It’s hard to describe how I felt with her, because that all comes through the filter of grief, but I felt safe. When I was with her, we could handle anything. We always knew where the other was. I guess for some people that would drive them mad but for us it worked perfectly. In our bedsit we were always in eyesight, our flat at the most one room apart, and when we got houses we would gravitate to the same room. When I was with Jill I felt that I could do pretty much anything. And I always supported her in whatever she enjoyed. Including sitting on an uncomfortable chair for an hour while she selected the beads she wanted.

Jill liked crafting. She did a lot of beadwork, creating fantastic necklaces and earrings. She taught herself to knit and many evenings were spent with a quiet click clack of knitting needles in the background. Most of all though, she read, as I’ve previously mentioned. At least two books on the go, fiction and nonfiction, and she also listened to them on Audible.

Listening to books wasn’t something I got into, and while we were mostly compatible we did have differences. I’ve mentioned Christmas, already and we differed over holidays - Jill wanted abroad and I wanted home. We did go to some places; Hungary, Portugal, Madeira, Malaysia, Amsterdam (a LOT!), America, Egypt, Barbados, Greece, Singpore. That’s not too bad a tally I suppose. Other than that, we weren’t that different after all. We both liked the heat, the hotter the better. I think our best holiday was Singapore. I still love that country, and I’d love to go back. But not without Jill.

Jill was born in 1954 in Liverpool and had family roots back into both Merseyside and Ireland. She was an orphan by the age of 12, and she went to live with her older sister and her nieces and nephews. She was quite lonely, cried a lot and spent a lot of her time in the public library. The library was her temple, and she would spend hours there, reading anything and everything. It was then that she decided to become a librarian. She moved to London, got her a levels while working in a library, wanted a degree, and that’s how we ended up at a gritty little library school in Islington.

Librarianship wasn’t the only academic studying she did. I mentioned she was interested in a wide range of subjects, including reflexology and massage. She got proper professional qualifications and was licensed in both. She had just started to think about giving up her paid work and becoming a reflexologist and masseur and having paid clients that we got her diagnosis. I think she would have been able to help so many people; she loved to help people, either in need of knowledge or in need of healing. We had even created her own work room, with its massage couch and bench, scented candles, aromatherapy oils (another interest was making her own perfumes) and gentle music. The reason for describing the room was because it was her safe space, her queendom, her soul, almost. Calm, serene, and so gentle.

I know I’m making her out to be some sort of saint who could do no wrong, and that we had a perfect, easy marriage. This is far from the case though. We did differ, and would express opposing viewpoints vigorously but never with malice. But our marriage trumped everything. That was always the priority, so we would learn to talk through things, to be totally transparent and work hard on our communication skills. It was hard work, but all everyone else saw was the two of us in whatever environment we were in being blissfully happy - which to be fair is pretty much what we were. But the real and only true secret to having a successful marriage is to put the other person first. Thats all there is to it. That easy and so hard.