What a lovely woman I am

This January has been infectiously bad. I have just learned that another old friend  - B - has died in the nearby town of Devizes. At one point, we were inseparable to an almost unhealthy degree.

The home phone rang about ten minutes ago, and when I answered it there was a long silence. This is usually the the hallmark of a computer-generated cold scam, so I almost hung up. Then a vaguely familiar voice said, "Hello?"

I answered in a similar vein and that was followed by another long pause and another 'hello'.

I asked, "Can you hear me?" and she answered, "No. I cannot hear you at all."

Laughing, I said, "Then how come you you can answer the question?"

It was A, the ex-wife of my friend, who lives in the Scottish Highlands with her Plantagenet husband. I introduced B to her in the late 1970s, and they had two children with each other - both boys. She told me what seems to have happened, adding that whatever took place occurred on the 11th of December, and she had only learned of it after one of the sons had a premonition and asked his mother to check on his father.

I too had a premonition only yesterday, when the thought just entered my head that he was dead. It seemed  perfectly logical, so I was not surprised when A told me about it. H.I. too found herself staring at a photo of B yesterday when looking for something else.

For one whole year, B ate nothing but Polish ring sausage and boiled cabbage. This was the sort of person he was. This was at a time when he only wore a black T-shirt and black cord trousers, of which he had many pairs. He stopped shaving and grew a great ginger beard which went down to his chest. He wanted to make his life as simple as possible.

When B's parents were alive, his father worked at a small undertakers which used to be situated in the family-run department store of Jolly's in Bath. His father once took him inside and lifted the lid from the coffin of a young woman saying, "Isn't she beautiful?"

When I fist met B's father, it was at his house in town. It was winter and I was dressed in a large overcoat. I chatted to his parents for quite a while, then eventually left.

The next time I saw B he was crying with laughter. When he eventually managed to speak through the tears, he said that after I had left, his father said, "What a lovely woman that was."