She told him over the phone that she had her wild flower book out and was drawing. He had to get her to explain. And yes, she was drawing from the images in the book. And she was drawing them first and would paint them afterwards. I like to think of her doing this. She was always good at art, he said. Yes, I can imagine. I like to imagine the peace, the small transcendence such an endeavour might give her. I’m trying to remember the flowers that we had our in meadow, she told him, milkwort was one. They’d had a field, she and her husband, near her old house. We stopped them using fertiliser. I ask about cornflowers. No, they hadn’t had any cornflowers. I remember them. That blue.
Another patriarch has died. Though I suspect he was a rather ambivalent one. A taciturn man, he was always more comfortable talking about business and to men, mostly. He could never think of anything to say to us girls. Have you got children? he once asked me. R.I.P.
