When somebody dies, they take the future with them
drunk, he would sip all day, a Coke with something in it.
“I kept a surreptitious eye on the empties so I knew his consumption was way more than it should be.”
“I made the decision to stay because even less bearable than the thought of staying was the thought of going. Lots of friends were telling me, ‘You’ve got to go, this is so destructive,’ but I knew I wasn’t going to and so did he. There was a of David that was just un-tameable.”
Rev Coles joined an Al-Anon group, designed for those who have people in their lives who are alcoholics, which provided some support. “David was pretty much in denial. Addiction is a very selfish little trope. It blinds and deafens the person it’s got hold of to its reality.”
He admits now that he felt angry towards David for some time.
“There’s an overwhelming frustration that this person you love continues to do something that destroys them, and you. It’s like being mistreated by someone. But eventually I came to realise that the last thing David needed was to feel worse about himself.”
Rev Coles escaped into his TV and radio career to avoid the turmoil at home – a world he says David found difficult. “He thought TV turned me into an a ******* , full of self-regard and that I would be too interested in looking good.
“But then Strictly came along and if I thought I was going to look good doing that, I was rudely disappointed.
“But I don’t think TV has changed me. I was prancing around on the telly 35 years ago (Rev Coles was in Eighties pop duo The Communards) and, like any vicar, I have a robust sense about the line between a public life and a private life.”
In the book he records the peaks and troughs of grieving emotions, from the initial shock to feelings of loss, loneliness and anger, tears coming when he least expects them to.
“It’s stupid little things. I remempart ber finding in the garage a pot of jam that David had made with his writing on and it just destroyed me for a day. You have to manage that stuff otherwise you’d be overwhelmed by that all the time.”
With the warmer weather, plants that David planted are emerging in Rev Coles’ garden, another heartfelt reminder of his loss.
“There’s a lilac which is just budding now, and I think, ‘Oh, why can’t he be budding again?’ But you have to be tough with yourself and grasp the fact they’re gone and not coming back.”
Despite his fond memories, the book also charts the annoyances that worked their way into the relationship, for instance, Rev Coles found himself irritated by David’s incessant smoking and aversion to the curries he so loves. “Little arguments about food and fags replaced the bigger arguments about his lack of self-care and my failure to help him get better,” he writes.
He says now: “I’m not an angry person generally, but I would suddenly find myself this screaming idiot. It was just frustration.”
A week before David was taken ill, Rev Coles’ temper erupted when he discovered his partner was going to take a lease out on a shop and cafe. He laughs at that now, chuckling that David always had a plan.
“I think David knew his number was up and tried to keep that at bay by doing lots of things and getting carried away.”
He wishes he hadn’t lost his temper and had been more tender and loving. “He was very gentle, sweet, loving, creative and very funny. And he loved me. I never doubted that. You only ever get one of those.”
Rev Coles now shares his home with two of his dachshunds – five was too much to cope with on his own, so he’s found homes for three of them with friends and family – and can’t envisage remaining in Finedon.
For now, he is contemplating a new life, a new future. “I have good friends on the south coast, so I’m going to head there and see if I can find a new life. I’d like to keep writing and doing the radio – but I’m not looking for adventure.”
He is contemplating retiring at 60, although he says he’ll carry on ‘vicaring’, has just finished his first crime novel, the first in a three-book deal, and is open to TV offers. He’s clearly not ready to put his feet up just yet.
“One of the really tough things about when somebody dies is that they take the future with them. I’ve now put up a framework for my future. It can’t be here or doing what I do now. I’m going to move towards changing that.”