Rainbows
26 September

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All through the week, people have been offering solicitations concerning the death of my aunt. And, I've been thanking them and telling them that we weren't all that close and that I'm more concerned for my mum and my cousin, Joe.

And that's the truth and it's helped me through the last week. But, in truth as well, looking back now, I can see how oddly I've been interacting with the world around me and how much I've been pained also. And what with the upsets at work coupled with the anxieties of the past few months as Ellen has been going through the final stages of her life, I've been quietly fretting to myself.

Now, in the past, I would have fretted myself into illness with lack of sleep and food and increased alcohol and nicotine. Well, I don't smoke now but I have had a few uneasy nights. I don't think I'm drinking substantially and I've kept a good check on the food. My appetite went at the beginning of the week but, as of Wednesday when I went for lunch with Chris, I started to fight back.

The main area of concern heading into a couple of days of hectic preparations was whether or not to return to London on the Friday night after the funeral. My mother had dropped heavy hints about my staying over (for my sake she said but she obviously wanted me there) but I was unsure, wanting to be back in my own bed. Then I got an e-mail from Ross.

Are you feeling okay today? Sorry I wasn't much use on the phone. I was absolutely knackered after my dose of physio. I'm thinking about you.

I was also thinking that maybe you should spend Friday night with your parents. It sounds as though your mother needs it. If you do I'll get a taxi from home and be at your place (hopefully) by the time you get back from Liverpool. I'll then stay Saturday and Sunday nights and get a taxi back on Monday morning. Is that a good plan...?

Well, yes, of course, it was a good plan. Possibly the best. And it was so good that Rossi thought it out and delivered it to me. I'm still totally unused to the idea that I have a partner who thinks for me and looks out for me and it's wonderful.

I got through Wednesday and Thursday at work and caught the train up to Merseyside on the Thursday evening. I'd persuaded my dad not to head out into the night in his car like Mr Magoo and got a taxi to come and pick me up instead. It was 11pm by the time I arrived at my parents' house. My mother had a meal ready for me.

We had to be up early into a damp light to get to Widnes in time. The family assembled at my aunt's and then formed up into the cortège. My parents sat up in the stretch limo. I took my dad's car in the slow convoy that followed the hearse to the church. And whilst we assembled there a rainbow hung in the South West.

I love rainbows. I always have. I remembered the rainbows I saw when I arrived in Northern Ireland just over twelve months ago, my first view of the rainbow flags of the Castro, one of my first public kisses with Ross under a rainbow flag. And I thought of the glass rainbow I bought in Portland, Oregon which catches the sun and fills my downstairs room with rainbows. It was a good feeling at a sad time.

I've never carried a coffin before. It's a freaky experience. I was sure I was going to trip and fall and the coffin would burst open and my aunt would fall out but nothing of the sort happened. The service went well. The vicar had made a great effort to personalise the event so that it did mean something to the people there. I'd offered to do the reading if that was in order and the vicar had thought it was a good idea for the family to be involved and so at an appropriate moment I went up to the lectern and read...

John 14: 1-6, 27

Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not you heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Back home we were all fairly emotionally drained and physically exhausted. I slept most of the afternoon and to be sure even the evening was not spent in the most sparkling of conversations. Snatches of memory, acknowledgements of emotional exhaustion, mild anger from my mother, she's the last, the youngest, no-one between her and her maker now.

I travel back, do the shopping, get into the bath, stomach upset, lie there, Ross arrives. I'm not going anywhere. I'm sure the ENO production of Der Rosenkavalier will be wonderful and it may well take me right out of myself but I actually and positively just want to have time in my Rossi's arms. I want to be in the place where most of all on this earth I find comfort and respite and that is with him.

By all previous history, you'd expect the two of us to spend the next 24 hours engaged in hot pursuits and to be sure we've spent a lot of time with no clothes on together but it's mostly been still and quiet and restful. We were bathed and in bed by 9 on Saturday night and sleep was not far away. Sunday was a real Sabbath time with rest the order of the day. The day itself was bright. The sun is lower. There were rainbows in the downstairs room from the prism in the front window.

Ross spent a little time drawing me during the afternoon. The plan is that he will paint me in the nude. I've told him to keep his socks on so that he has somewhere to put his brushes.