husband and he told me that he took me
as his wedded wife.
When I got cancer, I had thought I’d die
without finding love. I’ve now had six and
a half years of love I never thought I’d have.
I’ve had 19 years of life since my first cancer
diagnosis. The cancer came back when
I was 46 but after more surgery I was fine.
I’ve just turned 58. I hope I last a lot longer
but I’ve already won the lottery.
And did you get what you wanted from
this life? That’s the question Raymond
Carver asks in his poem Late Fragment.
My parents both wanted to find someone
wonderful to share their life with. My father’s
last card to my mother was addressed to
“my dearest wife and heartbreakingly
lovely Valentine”. In one of her last cards
to him, she thanks her “wonderful, kind,
much-loved and best companion”.
They had this for nearly 50 years.
They wanted a daughter who would
value what they valued. I think they got
what they wanted. There were other
things they wanted of course, but none
of us gets everything we want. They got
plenty. I got plenty. And most of all,
what we got was love nSome names have been changed. © Christina
Patterson 2022. Extracted from Outside, the
Sky Is Blue by Christina Patterson, published
by Tinder Press on Thursday at £16.99the hand of this tall, handsome man in a
nice shirt and nice trousers and looked as if
she’d just won a Nobel prize. Not just a man
but an architect, she was thinking. With a
first from Cambridge! Like Dad! And he
had grown-up children, which was good
because I, sadly, wouldn’t be able to give
him children, and we wouldn’t want him
to be disappointed. Let’s hope, in fact, that
I didn’t wreck things, as I nearly always did.
We had tea and cake in the garden. My
mother was entranced by his manners. “Isn’t
he lovely?” she hissed when we passed each
other in the kitchen. I was tempted to ask
her if she could lower the enthusiasm level
just a notch because it might make a man
wary. But I couldn’t bear to dim her joy.
And he wasn’t wary. He isn’t wary.
Perhaps it’s because he was married
for so long that he knows what makes a
relationship work and what doesn’t. He has
taught me that love is like a garden. You
have to tend it, in good weather and bad.
It isn’t always about how you feel, which is
just as well, because sometimes, when we
argue, what I feel is that I’d like to run away.
That’s what I’ve always done. I thought
a row meant something was broken. Now
I see that it’s just a thunderstorm and if you
let it pass, the sun comes out again.
Eighteen months after I met Anthony
my mother tripped on the stairs and broke
her hip. The doctors operated on her 82nd
birthday. One month later she died. I could
not imagine a world without this woman
I adored, but I now had Anthony to love
and support me. I had met my “lovely
bloke” in the nick of time. It didn’t stop
the pain of course, but it helped.
A week before Christmas 2020, against
the backdrop of the pandemic, we got
married. It was a surprise for both of us.
Anthony had made it pretty clear that he
didn’t want to marry again. I had thought
I was too much of a commitment-phobe
to marry anyone. But then in Italy that
summer we hatched a dream, to trade in
my Tuscan flat for an Umbrian farmhouse.
We soon hit an obstacle. We realised
that owning a property jointly in Italy when
your co-owner is not your spouse can risk
turning your little slice of paradise into an
Italian version of Bleak House, with legal
complexities that can take years to untangle.
The solution was clear but unromantic, and
I didn’t want to be the one to say it. We sat
on the sofa. We stared at our iPads.
“So”, said Anthony after an awkward
pause, “how would you feel about marrying
me?” Until he said it, I wasn’t sure. I thought
I should be wanting to do somersaults but
felt strangely calm. “I think”, I said, “I would
feel fine.” I heard the word and it sounded
wrong. Then I felt a ripple of something
running through me and realised it was
pure, piercing, piquant joy. “Yes,” I said and
I wanted to shout it. “Yes, the answer’s yes!”
It’s not the wedding my mother would
have planned for me: a 15-minute ceremony
in an ugly council building, with two guests
who arrived in masks. But who cares? I told
my darling that I took him as my weddedMeeting Anthony was almost as much
of a relief for my friends as it was for
me. “You’ve struck gold,” whispered
one. And when my mother met him,
I thought she was actually going to clap
Aged 57, at her
wedding to
Anthony, during
lockdown in
December 2020The Sunday Times Magazine • 39