Enigma

Monday 18 June afternoon

Ilona, our domestic help, and I started to clean away some of Lara's bathroom items. Now, I thought this was going to be easy, and to a certain extent of course it is. After all, everything that is used or beyond the expiration date you just throw in a garbage bag. Other items which are sort of neutral, I keep or give away, for Ilona to take home.

But at another level, it feels like you're taking away a veil from over secrets that Lara has kept all this years as a woman. I come across items or beauty products I wasn't even aware she used, or even now have no idea why she used them, or how. It feels like prying, even to me or perhaps especially to me. If she wanted to look her best - as she did all the time - it was in part, perhaps principally, for me, I being the object of her desire - or so I would like to think. And I - especially as her husband - was not supposed to know how she managed to beguile me; the ultimate women's enigma. Perusing her bathroom - where I was not even allowed to tread unless invited - was like unravelling that enigma, retroactively. The feeling of upsetting the old order between us was very intense. "Stay out of my bathroom!"

Take her bathrobe, black and thick, a Xmas present once from Connie and Ed - what, twelve years ago? The image of her wearing it at weekend breakfasts is so etched in my mind that it almost hurts. It evokes memories like in a chain reaction. The robe, after long service, is now pretty motley but she refused to get rid of it as it was part of her comfort zone. Throw or keep?

But what do you do with small items such as hairpins, bands or clasps, which she used so often to keep her unwieldy mop of hair (her own words) in place? In and of themselves they are worthless items, and you cannot even give them to anyone else. But they were part of her whole Gestalt, and I recognize all of them, some from way back. I see them on photos as she wears them, part of an outfit where they have a place. Now you find them heaped together in a little grungy bag. They are so Lara, but somehow they appear out of sync as I find them. Throw them away? Never. It would feel like throwing part of Lara away. Keep them? Maybe for the moment.

And on it goes.