ellen bell

Two men in a van came for the last remnants of Margaret’s flat. The door mats in the hallway were left awry after they had gone, and the outer door opened wide.

I don’t know how much longer I will be able to write on here. I heard yesterday that my web designer, who maintains this site, died four weeks ago. I didn’t know him well, having only met him once in Bath to discuss the setting-up of my website. I am sad about it. He was a gentle man and I am sure that his family will miss him greatly. Everything must come to an end, I know this, but this knowing doesn’t seem to make the end, when it comes, any easier.

I’ve been hearing it for some days now. I thought it was someone in the flat below, cleaning or moving things about, but yesterday it sounded nearer, close at hand even. And then I realised that it was coming from the wall between the studio and my bathroom. First it was a scrabbling sound, then a whining like a young puppy, then a squealing. A young chick caught between the outer and inner wall of the flat. Perhaps it had been in a nest, a blue tit’s possibly, and then fallen down into the cavity, out of reach and sight of its parents. It’s cries were pitiful. I heard them again last night and then nothing. And there is nothing now. Has it finally died, poor creature? R.I.P.

We are different, especially in responses to money – he sees freedom where I see constraint, he sees plenty where I see the need for restraint. I was unkind. He’d made a mistake and I wouldn’t let it go. This is marriage. I accept it. It is still a gift.

I watched my neighbour and his dog sitting in the late afternoon sun yesterday with such longing. It’s a simple desire. Just that. Just that warmth, that close-your-eyes to it sort of warmth. That yielding to it. That’s what I longed for, then and now.

He talked about it as a privilege. And it is. I have been given time to write, to explain and make sense of what it is that motivates me. But I forget this. In my anxiety.

It is a hard day. So many deaths. Twenty-five years have passed and the killing continues. When will we learn?

It was the first time that the windows steamed up from my bath since April, or was it May. Autumn is coming.

I know why I do it, though I won’t bore you with it now. Needless to say it’s from long ago, when my sense of autonomy was shakier than it is today. Though it is still shaky, hence my trying too hard to keep those whom I rely on sweet. It doesn’t work. And she is particularly unresponsive to cajoling. Heigh ho, it happened and it will happen again. And then, once it is over, I can return to my cave.

It looked benign from my window, a gentle pit-patter, that’s all. I wore my waterproofs and my hat anyway, just in case. But I was wrong. The pitter was a downpour. I got drenched, my trousers (not waterproof it seems) were soon stuck to my shins, sodden. It’s a miserable business walking in the rain when you are soaked through, every step is a trudge. I gave up after twenty minutes, too cold and shivery to continue. Poor show, E.

They’re a fantasy really. I have a picture in my mind of the rest that a hotel bed affords but that is without all the travails of getting there and all the adjustments of the fantasy that have to be made. Is it possible? And should it be taken? I don’t know. Meanwhile, as ever, there is work to be done.