Read The Widow's Tale for Free Online Page B

day. But I would just sit at my desk and slowly pick away at my poems or short stories that I was still convinced would one day make my name.
    Once or twice a day I’d go for a walk around the grounds, and stand and stare meaningfully off towards the Black Mountains or sit on a bench and breathe in the scented air. And after lunch I would curl up on my narrow bed and have a little nap for half an hour. I don’t recall ever going into the village, even though it was no more than a couple of miles away. Perhaps I felt that being among such philistines might have threatened to corrupt my newfound purity.
    There were various services throughout the day and I remember one of the sisters inviting me to take part in them. I declined. I would have felt such a fraud. But I did go along to the chapel on one or two occasions and sat at the back, just to hear the singing. I remember how much that moved me. As I’m sure it would have moved any mortal who didn’t have a heart of stone.
    I’m not entirely sure what the nuns got up to the rest of the day. Mainly praying, I imagine. With perhaps a bit of gardening or cooking thrown in, just to break things up. Theother presiding memory of my visit is of someone locking the main door at nine o’clock in the evening, which made me rather anxious. I’ve always been slightly claustrophobic. But I found that by leaning out of my window and following the maze of drainpipes down to the ground I could reassure myself that, if absolutely necessary, I could shimmy down to safety, and this helped calm me down. Then I would lie in my bed, with my hands held stiffly at my sides, to keep them out of trouble. And with every passing day I could feel myself become a little more immaculate.
    Each morning at about five-thirty I’d be woken by a light tapping at my door. And one of the sisters would pop her head into the room and I’d hear her whisper, ‘Are you with us, dear?’
    It was an odd thing to hear first thing, before you were properly awake. But each time I’d hear myself whispering, ‘Yes,’ back into the darkness. ‘Yes, I am.’
    Then the door would close and I’d be left wondering what exactly I’d consented to. And if, by some chance, I really had managed to consign myself to a life of prayer and the occasional bit of gardening, whether that might not be such a bad thing after all.
    I mention all the above because only an hour or two ago I noticed how I’d set out the table, with the paper and pens I bought in Holt all neatly arranged, and it occurred to me that one way or another, and what with the cutting of the TV cable, I have recreated that same desk where I wrote my poetry when I went on retreat the best part of forty years ago.

This place is so God-damned cold
    T his place is so God-damned cold . You’d think a house so small, with walls so thick, might actually keep the heat in. But it’s as if all the misery endured by the fisherman and his fisher-wife and all their fishy children has somehow impregnated the walls. And my little widow’s fire isn’t about to make much of a dent in it.
    But I am undaunted and first thing every morning now I clear away the previous day’s ash, just like a trillion put-upon women back through history. And, as often as not, I usually manage to find a few red embers, and arrange a few bits of kindling around them. And before you know it, hey presto, we’re in business again.
    There are, I’m sure, worse ways to come around in the morning than by staring into the flames of a fire as it begins to take hold. As I sit and stare I do my best not to think about what I’m going to do with the day ahead of me. I try and put that off till lunchtime. By then I’ve only got the afternoon to worry about. The evenings are beginning to take care of themselves – namely, a trip to the pub, then back home for a bit of eating, more drinking and another hour or two of staring into the fire.
    *
    I’m a worrier. In fifty different ways I worry. About