‘Auntie Jean’s* been having apparitions,’ I said to Rich, as we merrily munched our way through a Dickinson’s Pork Pie. (This is the sort of thing that counts as lunch, these days, when we just cannot be arsed to do anything constructive in the kitchen. He has a bit of pork pie and a sandwich (usually with beetroot and cucumber in it, which is rank in my opinion) and I have one of my medieval lunch boards. (See here for more info on that.) ‘A woman,’ I continued, ‘who appears at the end of her bed. It’s been happening for a while.’‘What does she look like?’ said Rich. WHAT DOES SHE LOOK LIKE? Was his first question. This is why we’re married. I like to write things where the reader has to suspend their disbelief, Rich is very happy being the person suspended**. He loves a good yarn. He appreciates a brilliant and convincing story setting. If you give him an unexpected plot twist then he’s pretty much in raptures, so long as it’s credible and that all the flaws and holes in the storyline have been sewn up tight. (Because on the flip-side, nothing annoys him more than a potentially good book or film with a lazily thought-out plot line.)Upgrade your subscription to get access to all of my posts, including this unorthodox piece of marriage non-guidance. Anyway. Auntie Jean’s been having apparitions and Rich’s first question isn’t ‘how does she know she’s definitely awake when it happens?’ or ‘is she sure it’s not just a trick of the light?’ He is fully invested in this story right from the start and there is an understanding between us, that we both desire this little conversational thrill. A good, novel subject will take us all the way around our daily dog walk. Sometimes, as we amble along on these walks, I wonder what an earth an outsider would think of our little conversations if they happened to overhear. Because I have, over the years, gradually lulled myself into believing that the things we talk about are completely normal. But I have a horrible suspicion they’re not. Take the chat we had last week:
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