Some friends are as scared of grief as they are of death; they avoid you as if they fear infection. Some, without knowing it, half expect you to do their mourning for them. Others put on a bright practicality. “So,” a voice on the phone asks, a week after I have buried my wife, “what are you up to? Are you going on walking holidays?” I shout at the phone for a moment or two, then put it down. No: walking holidays were what we did together, when my life was on the level.
