Was it a buttercup, or a dandelion? I remember childhood explanations about the import of holding a blossom under your chin – it meant that ‘love was close at hand’, but which bloody flower was it? I could use a bit of loving right now, but another bit of residual memory dictated that disaster would befall if you held the wrong flower.
That same youthful oracle had also whispered knowledge of money for lost teeth, behaviour affecting the size and value of Christmas presents, the necessity to avoid pavement cracks and ladders, immediate mopping of spilt milk and salt, avoiding black cats, and a hundred other necessary curbs on my behaviour. In the intervening years, I reckon I had probably transgressed all of them, at one time or another. And look at the mess I was in now!
I left last month: a suitcase, the dog, one of the cars, and a shouted promise thrown over my shoulder to use the courts to pursue half the house and our super! It took a while to arrange but I eventually found a solicitor. There was a flicker of recognition as I walked into his office. He had been at our nuptials. He reminded me of the heavy rain on that auspicious Day!
On our honeymoon, I remember asking Tabitha if she had any superstitious thoughts about the torrential downpour. She scoffed at my question; “… just old wives’ tales…”. I did note her grandmother’s garter, hitched high on her thigh, and a delicately woven, silk horseshoe nestled within her bouquet. You should have seen the hullabaloo from her mother when, during his speech, her brother Duncan knocked over a tumbler of water, which in turn shattered the salt shaker! Nah, definitely no superstitions in her family!
Maybe it was the deluge that doomed the marriage. Tell-tale foreboding continued to trail inextricably through our lives. We found a wonderful block of land: commanding views, affordable, but the sale was abandoned when she realised it sat at number 13. And then, when another block was found and the build set to start, she insisted that we bury a bag of coins and a pot of fresh urine under the foundations. That had me flummoxed.
Feng Shei inveigled everything: mirrors, pictures, plants and furnishings were placed specifically. Our children’s names were selected on the advice of a Baby Name consultant; holidays never included a Friday 13th; we always fed the magpies, and carefully escorted Daddy Longlegs spiders outside.
As the years passed, I found it easier just to ‘go with the flow’. The bizarre possibility, maybe even the probable, preordained potential apocalypse was perceived as a presence, awaiting an ill-considered trigger. Her obsessions dominated our lives.
The final straw came when I walked into the kitchen to find a cauldron on the stove, a diabolical stench filling the room as she stirred up a brew of frog and lizard bits, a possum’s tail and fresh oak leaves. I didn’t ask. I just packed a bag.