It’s her. It has to be.

I’d never felt like this until after she passed.

Then again I’ve never been bereaved before, so who knows what to think? The irony of that would not be lost on Lucy, who loved being in uncharted territory as much as I hated it. Whether it wouldn’t be lost on her or actually isn’t being lost on her, however, I’m still unsure. Did the last of her disappear for ever when I scattered her ashes with her parents in the hills near their holiday home, where she loved to walk and climb? Or is she, in some form, with me right now? Wouldn’t? Isn’t? If she was here with me, I’d take great pleasure in explaining that I needed to decide whether a modal verb contraction was appropriate, and she’d ask me what the hell I was on about. I loved being a grammar nerd in front of her, and took pleasure in finding and executing ways to annoy her with it.

As you can imagine, I like spending my weekends doing crosswords, and would get genuinely excited when a new Oriental puzzle would appear in the broadsheets, or a new Wordle-inspired variation would go online. Not her kind of thing at all – and it therefore seemed, to me, utterly reasonable that in the afterlife, assuming there was one, she’d be the kind of spirit who’d go out of her way to find some kind of physical way of getting to me. Why? Because she was a very physical person. It was that simple.

So, as I stand several hundred feet up, sparrows circling around without a care in the world and the sun periodically streaking through the greyness of the late autumn sky, I know it has to be her. I’ve stood in this place before enough times, and the only thing here that ever made any kind of contact with my skin if I had bare arms or legs, was wind. The genuine stuff, brought on by the weather systems that we see on the forecast after the news. The sort that makes the trees sway around and sends dark ripples through the grass. When I’ve experienced stillness up here, it’s always been glacial; notoriously so, in fact. Just as is it tonight. Indian summer warmth means I can still wear a t-shirt and shorts, and the air doesn’t make a sound.

This is no autumn breeze. It’s her, alright.

I’ve felt her before, too – and it’s always in places that score highly for scenic drama. Her kind of places. A visit to a 16th century honey-coloured stone village or a museum never elicits any reaction from her, but a stunning limestone gorge does the trick no problem. Part of me feels like I have to come to these places out of respect for her, and that she usually shows her appreciation with a soft, welcoming caress against both of my arms and legs at once. It’s unusual enough to mean something. Like I said, it has to be her.

Or maybe it’s just a rogue puff of light wind that’s found its way to me. I mean, the human mind can do funny things to its host at times, and – like I said – I’ve never been bereaved before.

But if it is her, I’m pretty sure she’s provoking me. We have plenty of unfinished business, after all:

Just over a year ago, when we weren’t really arguing, we maxed out the credit cards – which was more than enough in its own right to scare me shitless. But then we flew to New Zealand for the trip of a lifetime, and she’d wanted to do absolutely everything – unlike me. I’d made things pretty clear:

‘Thing is, Luce, I quite like living on a daily basis knowing that the way my life is eventually going to end is not going to be by me drowning at age thirty-two in a level five set of rapids.’

‘How many times have to told you, you’re not – ‘

‘I know.’ I didn’t interrupt her very often. ‘I know. You’re only truly alive when you’re about to die. Tell that to the Dalai Lama, or Eckhart Tolle.’

‘Have you seen them screaming with excitement recently?’

‘No, because they’re perfectly happy as they are.’

‘Yeah, carrying on like they’re dead, whilst they’re still alive. Great philosophy, Tom.’ She hardly ever used my name; always Hun, Babe or Mate – unless I was really annoying her.

I relented, and hated the whole experience – which paled after what came next. I didn’t want to lose her though, after the colossal argument we’d had following the rafting.

‘I just don’t see the point,’ Sweetheart. ‘The people that manufacture these things put a considerable level of effort into designing them so that people can be taken from one place to another, without exiting the vehicle prior to landing at the intended destination. There’s really no need to risk plummeting to your death at warp speed when you get on board. You just sit there, admire the view and let Issac Newton, the person sat in the cockpit and the nice people at air traffic control do all the hard stuff for you.’

Her face had turned to stone. ‘If you don’t get this,’ she pronounced with more gravity than I’d ever heard from her before, ‘then you don’t get me.’

‘Clearly not.’

Then my stomach had turned with fear. Had she intentionally meant to imply that I’d never “get” her in the sense that I’d stop having her? That I’d lose her? Or just never fully understand her? The latter seemed like a better choice to me at that point. I’d decided that was what she’d meant, and let her make the stupid skydive on her own. And the first thing she said to me after I’d given her a congratulatory hug for doing it left me in no doubt as to her feelings. I whispered into her ear with true sincerity:

‘Well done. You’re a legend.’

‘Yeah,’ she said as she pushed me away. ‘And you’re a fucking lightweight.’

‘No,’ I said wearily. ‘Just different.’

We’d more-or-less patched things up by the end of the trip, and then – just a couple of months after getting home – the results came back. Someone somewhere had decided that she’d be leaving Planet Earth prematurely. Kidney cancer, which should have been caught earlier but wasn’t. She hated going to the doctor, and had papered over the cracks with more and more activity; more adrenaline. But no amount of exercise or thrill-seeking was going to see her through. And, of course, no-one else was going to be her boyfriend any more. She was stuck with me.

I did my best, though. She managed to get me on the new two hundred foot coaster at the theme park, and I’d screamed like a desperate child on the first drop whilst she lifted her hands up and dived into the abyss knowing full well that she’d be dead in a few months’ time. I’d wondered what was going through her head, and ended asking her exactly that:

‘I didn’t care at that point,’ she explained as though it were blindingly obvious. ‘I was having too much fun.’

‘Horses for courses…’

‘No.’ She was emphatic. ‘The more you go out on a limb, the more fun it gets. Trust me.’

Never mind the sentiment of her words; the look of pure condescension in her eyes alone was bad enough, so when she suggested we go out and do individual karaoke performances, I knew I had little choice. I initially resisted, though, hoping for a reprieve:

‘I’m terrible,’ I said. But the same look came back into her eyes:

‘You’re supposed to be terrible. That’s the point. Anyone who can actually sing isn’t meant to be doing this.’

‘Really?’ I genuinely didn’t know or believe that.

‘Really.’ She put both her hands on my shoulders. ‘Tom, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: No-one really dies. Even when you actually die, you either go round the loop again to learn all the stuff you messed up last time, or you graduate onto eternal consciousness and bliss. Either way it’s one long life, and the sooner you grab it with both hands the better.’

If I’d been able to refuse her before she said that, I couldn’t now. I let her escort me over to the table with the songbook on it, and we both walked back to the bar after selecting the musical swords we’d be falling onto. She could see how I was feeling, and tried to comfort me:

‘Don’t know if you know this, but the Japanese designed karaoke as a leveller for corporate nights out. The CEO and the person cleaning the shop floor, equally as terrible. Perfect way to bond. It’s a wonderful concept.’

Whether she still believed that after hearing me butcher ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ was debatable. Freddie Mercury’s ability with the high notes was enough of a challenge, but my natural shyness and reluctance to embrace ridicule were apparent to all present anyway – and I’m pretty sure she was totally ashamed of me by the end of it. In fact, I think she was starting to hate me. So much so, that she simply said nothing on the way home. And she was, to an extent, very right. She’d done a wonderfully spirited job on ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’. Yes, she’d butchered it – but that beat the hell out of simply standing there and dying, like I had, and the irony – given her deterioriating condition – was not lost on me. I felt utterly pathetic, and desperately sorry for her that she wasn’t going to see out her remaining days with someone better.

But, as ever, she had an idea. Instead of driving straight back, she grabbed my arm about halfway home.

‘Next left,’ she hissed. I looked across briefly, and could see the mischief on her face. Whatever she was planning now I’d have to comply with, but did it always have to be something so utterly horrifying?

We continued driving, and I took a deep breath before enquiring. ‘I’m all ears…’

‘Take us to the gorge. I’ve had a brilliant idea.’

What the hell could we do up there that was so exciting? It was nighttime, so any adventure sports were out of the question. We wouldn’t be climbing rocks or canyoning the waterfall – and I was still mystified as we pulled into the visitor centre car park.

I turned the ignition off and looked at her, expectantly. She stuck her tongue into her lower lip and playfully waggled it around, before opening the door, looking back at me before getting out:

‘Come on.’

I followed, fully aware that I’d find out the deal soon enough, though as we walked I started to get the picture anyway. There were a couple of cars parked up – probably teenagers wanting some private time, or hotboxing some weed. But we left them well behind, walking along a footpath leading into the woods. There was still plenty of visibility. Despite being October it was clear, and the path was well lit with high pressure sodium lights installed into waist high posts, scattered every thirty metres or so. This was family territory during the day, and a dog walking route at night – not the wilderness by any means.

‘Down here!’ She grabbed the belt loop on my jeans, and led me to a cleared area among some oak and birch trees. By this point I totally got it – and felt more scared than I’d ever felt in my life. I knew I should’ve gone along with it willingly, but couldn’t help but try and avoid it:

‘Luce, this is insane. What if we get caught? We could end up getting arrested!’

‘That,’ she said impatiently, ‘is the whole fucking point, Tom.’

I had no answer. And had to give her something to remember me by other than a series of half-arsed attempts at bravery. Me, with my perfect health. All in full working order, barring the set of bones that ran up my back. I’d have to do it, and we both knew it.

We found a decent-looking patch of grass, and she went in for a brief kiss before sliding down to unbutton my shirt. This was happening whether I liked it or not.

And it very much didn’t. Even with her shallow breaths, obvious fatigue and internal pain that the drugs could never fully suppress, she could see an opportunity to tick off a classic bucket list experience, and for once I envied her position. If we were caught, then she’d have nothing to worry about because she wouldn’t be around much longer anyway. I, however, would have to deal with the shame indefinitely. Which made me feel like the most selfish bastard on the planet right there and then, so under a nearly-full moon, surrounded by trees, bushes, ivy, and a smattering of fallen leaves – we began to make love.

However, with a footpath just twenty metres or so away it was not, if you get my drift, actually that feasible. At least not for me. I was mortified. She gripped my waist with desperation:

‘You can’t be serious…’

‘What do you expect?’ I hissed back. ‘Anyone could be about to discover us…’

Not my fault. I can’t control everything, for crying out loud. We walked back to the footpath, and I took her arm. ‘I’m really sorry.’

It cut no ice. She was furious:

‘For crying out loud, Man. It’s easy! You just do it. It’s not brain science.’

‘Surgery.’

‘What!?’

I knew that was inappropriately petty, even by my standards – but I was feeling hideously emasculated and not thinking straight. ‘Surgery. Brain surgery. Rocket science. You’re mixing metaphors again.’

‘You fucking prick.’

‘Shhh! There could be people around.’

‘I don’t fucking care!’ she yelled.

I’d never seen her so livid, and wanted to be anywhere other than where I was right then.

And so we never got intimate ever again. She deteriorated pretty quickly after that night, and I lost her after just a few more months – and I still found myself wondering, every day after she’d gone, whether she even loved me at all by the very end.

And I need to know if she did. I need to know more than anything in the world, and every time I feel that comforting, tingling, preternatural breeze on my skin, a very significant part of me wants to take my chances and find out.

I stand a couple of hundred feet up, sparrows circling around without a care in the world and the sun periodically streaking through the greyness of the late autumn sky. On the bridge spanning the top of the gorge, just a few hundred metres from where we tried to make love, al fresco.

Does she want me with her? Am I imagining it? Has she avoided another lifetime on Planet Earth and moved into the everlasting whatever-it-is? Did she have a damn clue what she was talking about? Was she making it up? Or is she partying with the Devil, waiting to laugh her arse off at me when I plummet into the rocks below me and find that she’s not there waiting for me at all?

Or is it just a bit of light wind?

I look back in my mind’s eye, and remember the time we first met. The sparkle in her green eyes; the fullness of her pale auburn hair; the way she slightly messed up the edging on her eyeliner, giving her that been-out-all-night, rockstar look that somehow looked better than if she’d done it properly. We’d fallen in love quickly, and celebrated each others’ differences for a couple of years at least, before we started falling out. But I’ve realised now that she’s gone, that my life means nothing without her. I want her more than anything else that this world can offer. And the breeze is insistent, urging me to do what I knew she would do in the same position.

And then I realise.

What I’m contemplating here has to be a risk on my part, otherwise it means nothing.

It’s time to make myself good enough for her at last.

Three. Two. One…