The Clearwater Diamond

She'd certainly watched the sun come up. She'd watched as it made its way gradually skywards from the horizon; leaving a golden trail of reflection on the surface of the water towards the shore as it rose.

She had watched the swifts swooping down to take their early morning drink, and as each one skimmed the surface of the water the sun's reflection exploded into a confusion of tumbling golden diamonds. They should have been long gone by now, but it had been unusually mild for the time of year.

Climate change, she supposed.

She looked across the room to the bedside table to the clock that stood there. It was approaching six thirty now, so there was absolutely no point in going back to bed. She rose and walked over to the bed, pulled up the duvet and straightened it, and replaced Dodgy, Jemmie's ragged old dog toy that she'd named that because she couldn't say `doggy' when she was that little, to the top of the pillow.

She crept quietly down the stairs but wasn't sure why: there wasn't anyone around to wake up.

In the kitchen, Barney, the fat black Labrador, opened one eye balefully towards her from his basket under the table; resentful at being woken so early and blinking at the sudden harsh light.

`Don't worry,' she said, `it's my walkies not yours.'

At that time of the morning he was totally immune to the word that would normally have him dancing around the room in anticipation, and so he positioned his nose back under his tail, and heaved a deeply aggrieved sigh.

She pulled on her dry but still caked in mud boots and unlocked the back door. The first hit of October dawn air brought her sharply awake and, venturing outside into the awakening day, the heels of her boots crunched deliciously on the deep wet gravel as she made her way out and down the garden path, sounding just like Jemmie's old grey pony `Sparkler' eating an apple.

The swifts had quenched their thirst and gone, and the sun's reflection was now unbroken, though nearly gone as the sun was almost up. She looked up into the sky and prophesised that it was going to be a lovely day. Thomas Hardy had said that this kind of a day had, `A summer face with a winter constitution,' and he was absolutely right; Hector would be very proud of her for remembering that.

Hector Hardy-Mitchell, Incumbent Rector of St Mary's parish church, Frincham, was the dear husband of her closest friend, Dizzy. A proud descendant of Hardy's and one of his most devoted and biggest fans, he could come up with a quote for any occasion, and so did, frequently.

Her eyes scanned the lake again, her mind back in the moment. The jumble of assorted trees and bushes around the lake were every shade of red and gold, and the swifts would very soon be swooping onto another lake somewhere much warmer than here.

She loved this time of year. She'd never been much of a one for too much heat, and much preferred thick sweaters, and hot drinking chocolate with marshmallows, because thick sweaters covered a multitude of dinner party `Oh go on thens'.

Paul had always loved the sun, and so they always had a villa in the South of France or Spain when it was absolutely boiling and the children would complain at being forced to wear hats and then being coated in inches of sticky sun cream. And of course she'd spend weeks eating celery and cottage cheese beforehand. She pulled a face with the recollection, and looked down to the water, and into the eyes of her own reflection. She'd be able to use those bags in Waitrose soon. And suddenly she wasn't seeing her own green eyes anymore, but Paul's deep brown ones. He had that little crease between his eyebrows that he got when he was worried or stressed about something.

`I'm so sorry Jules. I never meant for this to happen.'

Maybe that's what he would have said, if he'd said it himself.

Which of course he hadn't.

It was still so recent and raw, but yet he was so very much a part of her; half of her. Even though he'd gone in the physical sense, he remained. Still in their home in every sock or sweater cast off and left. Still there before every aching breath she took, and lurking before every thought she made; and every step she took, because after thirty years he was indelibly cast, inside the very depths of her soul. Without him she was imperfect.

In those dark mornings since, and in that Neverland moment between asleep and awake: before she was aware of the year, the day, the time, she would lay with her eyes still closed, and fancy she could still hear him. In sleep, he had a snore that would have given his position away to enemy forces and awake, the shower would actually click off, the towel rail would really rattle as his towel was pulled from it; only to be left in a damp heap on the floor that in unconscious moments she was still surprised not to find later. She would hear him humming something. She would hear him vigorously brushing his teeth.

The sounds of every passing day that he'd probably never even been aware of himself, had now become the ghostly echoes of her early mornings.