“We’ve got to…. get you cleaned up. Get you to the church.”

The Witte Wieven by Marthe Jonkers

From the artist: This is an oldie, I painted it for a challenge with the theme “dead orchestra”, and decided to blend it with the Dutch folkloric tales of the “white wives” (witte wieven). They are spirits that roam the moors and fields of the Netherlands.

I know we don’t get happily ever afters in real life. I’m a hopeless romantic, not a total fucking idiot. As my friend, Russell, said to me once, “Even with the happiest couples, one of you dies first.” But first there is such unalloyed joy. We went to the supermarket yesterday and we were wandering around and, at one point, he took my hand, because that’s the kind of thing he does. And instantly, I got flustered. Residual anxiety. Remembrance of past battery. Enduring scars. Even though I know I’m hardly likely to get my head kicked in by the salad bar, PDAs can still make me nervous. And then he said, gentle as anything, and I’m not going to do the accent… “If there’s a gay kid in here with his folks, frightened that he’s a freak, don’t you think that it might give him hope, seeing two guys wandering around, being themselves, getting their groceries, like everyone else?” If happiness is a place… it’s the biscuit aisle in Sainsbury’s. And anywhere else I am with him.