Interlude in muted colours

Somehow the following days passed without further Detective incident and their life together settled back into its commonplace - no wrinkles disappearing, no untoward spring in his gait and no nocturnal interruptions. In this period they drove out to the airport and collected one his daughters. One of the twins that they had not seen for 4 years and so although things were normal inasmuch as there was no seepage from his fiction they were far from normal normal. All of the catching up distracted them from the absence of fictive kin by presenting them with instead the presence of real kin. Latenight bedtimes preceded by evenings in tavernas eating and drinking, talking and laughing, reminiscing and projecting, meant late risings for all of them. Late risings that unveiled dull overcast mornings that bled damply into even duller, damp afternoons and evenings. If Kell had come for sun and a tan then she would have been disappointed but she had not. She had come to see them and so although fine weather would have been preferred by all of them they were not much discommoded or discomfited by the dull days. The cooler evenings and nights were, however, less pleasant.

And although their days and evenings were full they still kept on top of farmwork: raking cut grasses and patching up holes that the dogs had been digging in heir run. Washing got done, The house was kept clean - and yet through all these days Gilbert's head was abuzz - in background mode he was slowly re-assembling the texts that Dick had left him - had seeded him with. And it was not a pretty story that he was uncovering from the strange coded snippets that he was busily patching together in his head. Less like a jigsaw and more like a tapestry the fabric of these bizarre visitations was richly textured, garishly decorated and, in places, incredibly detailed.


(to be continued ... )