Susan was a rare and beautiful woman. I met her around 35 years ago when I first arrived in the village. From the moment we met and she handed me a key to her house, she overwhelmed me with her trust and kindness. Soon after, she left, on my doorstep, a book and note describing a recent dream that troubled her. "Do you read?" she wrote. "I need help."
Once when she came to visit, she found me weeping. Without questioning my tears, she took my arm and led me to her garden where she fed me figs and told me stories about her life. She was forthright and open - no dramatization, just simple facts. Noting my discomfort, she told me that she did not believe in euphemisms.
Over that first year, she took me and my children on picnics beside riverbanks and amid fields of poppies, She led us to art exhibits in nearby towns, and on nature walks through forests in search of wild orchids. On one such walk, my 4 year old daughter proclaimed, "Oh you are so clever, Susan". Watching their relationship blossom, I thanked the heavens that Gill had someone who could teach her what I could not.
During this time, Susan was painting delicate exacting pictures of wild flowers and had begun her autobiography. I shared her love of writing and would bring my meagre offerings to her. She would applaud or criticize. I grew to trust her completely. She was the smartest woman I've ever met: I thought her an encyclopaedia of English literature.
She was also a gourmand who loved to cook. Her onion tart is still a celebratory dish in my home. She told me once that the two best things in life are food and sex, and people didn't enjoy them enough or talk about them enough.
How could I not love her?
During our years together, she wrote and rewrote and rewrote longhand her three volume autobiography that her beloved David typed and published for her.
As she grew old and fragile, she did so with such grace, never losing her passion for birds and wildflowers, oysters and champagne, poetry and books, and her family and friends. To my mind, she was especially enchanted by her grandchildren.
Recently, Susan told me that some people treat her as ancient - a body without a mind, without desires and dreams. "Do you ever dream of sex?" she continued."Do you?" I asked. She smiled, her beautiful mischievous child-like smile and said, "yes!"
I feel privileged to have had Susan as a friend. I shall love her forever more.