Page 5 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
Eighteen months ago, before Julian had his stroke and our lives changed for ever, he was the owl who stayed up late into the night in his office/studio downstairs, while I was the lark, winging off in the early hours of the morning to the stained-glass workshop at the end of the garden. We were Yin and Yang, two sides of the same coin, and our lives were perfectly balanced and happy.
But all that had changed, literally at a stroke.
Now Julian slept so badly that he was often up before me and, on this particular morning, since I’d found the previous day extra exhausting, it was after eight before I groggily surfaced.
It wasn’t yet properly light and looked likely to be another gloomy, cold, grey December day, but Julian’s side of the bed was empty. I switched on the lamp and saw that his stick was gone from where it usually hung on the back of a chair within easy reach.
Bathroom? I wondered.
But when I slid a hand between the sheets there was no warmth where he had lain and the house was silent, except for the ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs and the occasional creak of wooden floors adjusting to the fluctuating central heating.
I felt the familiar scrunch of fear in the pit of my stomach.
Was he lying in a heap somewhere in the house? Or had he risen earlyand made his way to the workshop like he’d done the previous day, so that I’d finally had to fetch the wheelchair to bring him back, totally exhausted, frustrated and angry.
And could I really leave him for over a week to fly off to Antigua, even though, apart from the frustrated anger when his body refused to do what he wanted, his health now seemed quite stable?
He was so keen for me to go that I suspected he longed to escape my anxious eyes as much as the confines of his condition.
When I got up my second guess proved to be right. There was no sign of him in the cottage, but his coat and set of workshop keys were gone and the back door unlocked. When I opened it and looked out, he wasn’t lying on the path, and over the hedge I could see the glimmer of light in the large Victorian building that housed the famous Julian Seddon Architectural Glass Studio.
Of course, he could still be lying in a crumpled heap on the floor of the studio, but his condition had been so stable for ages that I didn’treallythink so. In which case, it would be a repeat of yesterday’s scene: I’d found him attempting to use his almost useless left hand to hold down a piece of deliciously reamy yellow glass over the white paper cutline he’d laid on top of a light-box, while he ran the wheel over it with his right. But glass slides easily, and you need to exert firm pressure while you’re cutting …
The scrunch of the wheel incising a firm line across the surface of the glass, then the sharp tap underneath with the heavy grozing pliers, so that the break forms cleanly – these are some of the delights of the craft we both loved so much and took for granted.
His assistant, Grant, or old Ivan, who was officially retired but haunting the studio almost as much as when he was employed there, could have expertly cut the piece for him. As could I, of course, but I knew that wasn’t the point. He had begun producing his brilliant designs again, but he wanted to be part of the whole process – the cutting, the painting and silver-staining, the leading-up of the calmes with the smooth caps of solder on every joint … even scrubbing the soft, oily black glazing cement into the finished panels, and then polishing the surface with powdered whitening till glass and lead alike were shiny and clean.
He wanted to be part of the whole act of creation, not just the spark that ignited it.
I knew, because I did, too. We recognized that desire in each other almost the instant our eyes met for the first time in a mutual, consuming passion. We’d always been as much in love with that complete act of creation as with each other.
That day was Sunday and we always used to like having the workshop to ourselves at weekends. There was a magic to it, as if Santa’s elves had gone home and we’d sneaked in to play. I’d go down and potter about very early, checking on the kiln, if it had been fired, or working on ideas in the studio. Julian would appear later, bearing cheese toasties and I’d make coffee by the sink in the corner, before we settled in amicable silence to our work.
How distant that idyllic life seemed now! I felt weary that morning and found myself hugely reluctant to face whatever the day intended throwing at me. Or whateverJulianthrew at me – I’d taken him warmpain au chocolatthe previous day and that hadn’t gone down well.
So I had a cup of coffee, spread a thick layer of my own home-made raspberry jam over a doorstep of fresh wholemeal bread, and ate it slowly. I figured I might need the sugar for energy.
My friend Molly, the wife of Grant, who worked in the studio, had made the soft and delicious bread, while the jam tasted of warm summer days. Happier days.
I washed up and hung my mug back on the dresser. Mine had a picture of the Five Sisters windows at York Minster on the side, while Julian’s sported a Chartres Cathedral roundel like a brightly-hued kaleidoscope.
Then, finally, I shrugged into my quilted coat of many colours and let myself out into the dove-grey day.
The big workroom was lit but empty and I went through the half-glazed door at the end and found Julian sitting at his desk in the studio, writing.
His right side, his good one, was turned to me, and tugged my heartstrings with familiarity. Julian … his long, sensitive face had alwaysreminded me of a dreamy knight from King Arthur’s round table. He was slender, quietly handsome, his dark brown hair silvered now, but his hazel eyes still shaded by long black lashes …
He was more than twenty years my senior, but we’d fallen in love at first sight. Age had never been a factor …
The love was still there, though recently I’d come to accept that the nature of that emotion had changed. It had happened subconsciously over many months, until the knowledge finally presented itself as a fact. Until then, it had been betternotto think, just to scramble through each day, looking after Julian, while keeping the business going as best I could.
As our relationship had changed from that of lovers to reluctant dependant and carer, I knew Julian had found the situation just as hard as I had – more so, for he was such a private person and resented each indignity of illness. And it brought anger – I’d never seen him angry in all our time together, until one day frustration welled up like a volcano and he shouted at me. Just for a brief moment his eyes had held the hard gaze of a bitter stranger. Since then, I’d learned to dread that look.
But therehadbeen some physical improvement in the first months after the stroke. He could walk to the workshop, supervise Grant and old Ivan, design a window or glass installation, take on more of the running of Julian Seddon Architectural Glass again.
But he wanted to be the man he had been and by now he must have realized as well as I that things would never be the same again.
The role of nurse and then carer had not come easily to me and in the first months I’d been thankful for Molly’s help. She’d previously been a nurse, though she now made her living filling the freezers of select clients with healthy home-cooked meals, and Julian seemed to find her brisk, impersonal no-nonsense assistance more acceptable than mine.
