Hello Stranger

I left them to it with a smile on my face and made my way downstairs in my dressing gown to start up breakfast. I was turning the bacon when my jitterbug appeared in the kitchen alongside me, still yawning from waking up.

“Have a fun night?” I asked, and a grin lit up her face.

“Gameshows.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

Yesterday evening’s conversation seemed to have no bearing on her as she stepped up closer, wrapping her arms around my waist.

“It’s going to be a sunny day,” she told me, and I could see it. The sun already promising to be in its glory. “How about we chill out in the garden with some good books? Maybe your mum could come out with us?”

I kissed her head. “Novels are a great choice for a Sunday.”

She laughed her beautiful laugh. “Super cool.”

“Indeed, Chloe. Super cool.”

She skittered back to the hallway, casting me a glance before she left. “Could I please use your excellent bookshelves as a Sunday library?”

“You are always very welcome to use my bookshelves as a library. Take your pick.”

“Thanks,” she said, and left me to it.

By the time I called her back in for breakfast she had a book under her arm, ready to roll.

All Creatures Great and Small.

“Good choice,” I said.

“What are you reading?” she asked me, and I smirked.

“As pessimistic as ever,” I told her. “Of Mice and Men.”

“Happy days,” she laughed, and it was there between us, that connection bubbling away.

We ate breakfast happily, and book chatter was lively as we recounted some of our favourites. I don’t know how neither of us had ever asked the question before when it came from her mouth, but we hadn’t.

“What’s your favourite novel of all time?”

I ate my final piece of bacon before I answered her. “It’s impossible to choose a favourite.”

She shrugged with a smile. “Sure, but… if you were being sent to an island for one hundred years and you could only take one novel with you, which one would it be?”

I met her eyes with a smile of my own. “One novel?”

She nodded. “One novel.”

I didn’t have to ponder it nearly as long as I would have expected, the answer was right there on my tongue.

“I doubt you’ll have heard of it,” I told her. “Moon Magic by Dion Fortune. She was a psychologist who turned esoteric back in the early 1900s.”

She was as pale as a ghost, sitting there open-mouthed as I began to share my knowledge, barely breathing when I paused.

“Have you heard of it?” I asked her, and she nodded, finding her voice.

“It can’t be,” she said. “No fucking way. It just can’t be.”

I pulled a face. “I know it sounds unusual for it to be of my tastes, but it’s about a doctor closed down to his emotions, pushing everything into his work.”

She was nodding. “I know, yeah. Dr Malcolm.”

“You’ve read it?” I asked, and she was still pale.

“It’s one of my favourites of all time. For real. It’s the way it’s so magic between Rupert and Lilith and the hope in his world, and how good he is as a doctor.”

I felt my whole body tense up. Because she was right. It couldn’t be. There was just no fucking way.

But it was.

And on some absurd level it did make sense, because of our shared medical passion, and the magic born out of that for the characters, and how they find something higher in essence beyond the rational world. For me it was a long shot at hope. A man experiencing what I ultimately wanted to, but never believed was possible. For her it was inspiration, buying into the story. Two completely opposing beliefs about the tale, two completely opposite viewpoints. I could see it a mile off.

We talked about it, both of us still caught up in the shock.

We talked about Rupert’s journey with himself, and him losing so much of his essence to his ill wife far away. We talked about its weaknesses, the way it was clearly dated with long outgrown cultures, and how cruddy some of those could be. Still, there was no denying it. The core of that novel had caught us both up and swept us along through its pages.

“I still can’t believe you like Dion Fortune novels,” she said with a giggle. “I’d have never bet on that in a million years.”

“Most people wouldn’t have,” I told her. “Including me.”

I was still reeling when we gave Mum her breakfast and helped her outside into the garden. I couldn’t stop looking at Chloe, sitting there on the lawn with All Creatures Great and Small in her hands, caught up in the pages.

Insanity.

The way Chloe Sutton was so polar opposite, but so in sync with my world was insanity.

Mum laughed along with us as we ate lunch, recounting tales along with Chloe while I listened. The women were an inspiring pair, both of them so in tune with their own serotonin levels that they really did put me to shame.