Author: Ellen Bell

I’ve been writing. It’s an immersion of sorts. I don’t know any other way to do it and my drawing must, inevitably be side-lined. It hurts for it to be so. I miss it, even though I find it as equally difficult. I suppose it is because I care. Too much? Possibly. One down another to go. And then I shall return to it.

I get them sometimes, those days when a decision becomes wobbly – should I walk in the rain or should I start work early instead, should I keep the top he bought me or send it back? Such dithering usually ends up with me questioning everything, from the sacred to the profane. Is it a means of sabotaging my peace, my equilibrium at a time when I have so much work to do, and work about which I am fearful? Probably, my mind is that powerful, or at least I allow it to be.

Perhaps that best thing is to allow the dithery-ness to accept it and let it be. I will try it. And now? To work.

I forgot to mention the last week’s brief visitation. I was waiting for something, oh yes, I phone call when someone rat-a-tatted on the door. I rushed down, forgetting my key on the way (and my mask) and opened it to two policemen. There’s nothing to worry about, said the one nearest the door, but does a _ live here? He said his name, though it was the long not the short version. Yes, but he is not here, I said, with my cardigan covering my mouth, getting more alarmed as the seconds passed. He then explained that someone from a garage in town had called them to say that they were worried that he’d seemed a little distrait when he had been in there. I explained that we’d just spoken on the phone (which we had, about something very trivial, something to do with shopping probably) and he’d seemed fine. That’s OK, then, said the policeman, and by the way, you don’t need to cover your mouth. I called him again when I got upstairs and he was fine, again, though I didn’t tell him why. I did later and he was touched by the garage ‘girls’ concern and promptly called them to thank them. Why they thought he had gone doo-llally, we will never know. He said it was because he forgotten his glasses and couldn’t read his phone properly. If this is the case, well having seen him ‘loose it’ on many such occasions, I can imagine what they must’ve thought. Frightening, what?

I walked this morning, stiff and slow. Coming to the end of Llanbadarn Road I saw a huddle of three students, with two of them, girls, sitting on the pavement edge. One seemed to be complaining about her foot. I gave them a wide berth (I don’t like doing it or even mentioning it but I am cautious in the dark, of viruses and alcohol-fuelled aggression) and heard one of them call after me, a hello. Were they talking to me? Hello, she said again, adding, I could do with your stick mate. I didn’t turn round, though I did make a mental note to suggest that she go to A&E if she was in real pain and point out where it was. When I returned they were gone.

He called himself wise the other day. And I agreed with him. He is. I benefit from his greater years. Fifteen more than I. Or is it me? I never know. He has that too, a better grounding in grammar. He would know. He does know. And I rely on him for so much. My rigid back is back. Symptoms of anxiety move around the body. I accept them and even try to embrace them. What are they trying to tell me? Meanwhile the war goes on and I try to put my little issues in perspective. I’ve an interview today and I’m nervous, inevitably. All will be well. People are generally good and warm and loving. And writing, though scary, is, when it is flowing, a lovely occupation. See, there is so much to be grateful for. Isn’t there?

He didn’t want to be beholden to me or anyone. Or at least, that is is the sense I make of the fact that he eschews any offer of help, even my innocent one of saying I would carry his coffee up the stairs. I could see him hesitating, looking at his bag and then his coffee. Can I help? I said standing up (I felt a reluctance at touching his bag – not sure why, oh let it not be repugnance), I could take your coffee. He didn’t even look at me, but promptly lifted his bag and taking his cup in his other hand raced up the stairs. Do you think he sees us as the enemy? I asked him. I hope not, he said.

It rattled my window all night and I turned about, over and over, barely going under. It is a potent force. And I still make myself walk into it, legs stiff and rigid, hips as metal. It is better that way. I face my fear of it. And I love the smell it conjures up. Everything is stirred, all is revealed. The wet stink of earth, the flurried confetti of cherry and magnolia blossom, the dying slippered cases of daffodil heads, and salt, carried from the sea. I walk into it, seeking streets where it is not so strong and am unable to find them. It is funnelled down them, catching me unawares and I reach out to cars, to railings, to walls for support. And then I am home, aching from the holding in of breath and muscle.

He was waiting by the door when we arrived. I tried engage him in conversation (a way of alleviating my my awkwardness, not his). I don’t know that he feels obliged to respond any niceties of behaviour, why should he, he lives on the street, after all. I mentioned that I hadn’t seen him sleeping in the doorway of the ex-barber shop. No, he said, I’ve got a house near the castle. Yes, I said, I suspect it has been too cold to sleep out. (I saw him this morning though, back on the street clearly, but this time lying under his blanket in the doorway of the Barnado’s shop. Perhaps he prefers to be out. He had his violin in pride of place, standing up in it’s case with a single tulip resting against it.) The chat (one-sided though it was) soon tailed off, that is after he offered to buy him some food from SPAR. No, he said, I’ll get something in here. There is no thanks, again why should there be. He is graceless, not rude but empty of the need or the desire to please. Again, why should he wish to? He is freer than me. Then she arrived.

Her movements were jerky. They were the first intimation that something was awry. Then there was her voice. She shouted, but it was if she couldn’t manage the controls, as if she made a noise without being able to perceive it’s possible effect prior to making it. She asked the time, of the homeless man first. He ignored her, no doubt sensing that she was off the rails before I did, and turned his face away. I answered the question and told her that the coffee shop would open in about 5 minutes. That’s good, she said, stamping her feet, I’m dying for a drink. Her clothes were a cacophony of pattern, her leggings, with their psychedelic swirlings were particularly so. She had a huge rucksack on her back and another holdall in her hand, and draped around her neck hung a cloth bag. She’d clearly spent the night on the street. I watched as she opened her little bag and pulled out a half bottle of brandy, took a swig and then another. Did he see? I felt him he stiffened.

Once inside she marched over to where we usually sit and I tensed. Not our table? NO. And then ashamed of my smallness, I saw that she’d thrown her bags by the one next to it. Everything was wrong about her. She jerked and writhed and then grew sad. I heard her phone conversation with a man called M. And how he put the phone down on her when she told him that she was there, her voice unnaturally high. She sank then. I smiled at her when she looked back but she did not respond. Her eyes were sad, lost, scared. Unlike his, azure-blue though they are, they are dead behind the light. Gone.

With the promise of minus temperatures I went out in my big, impossibly expensive coat. It is tricky to walk in, it is so long but I love the comfort of it. It encloses me, it cocoons me, especially when I have the hood up. There was no one about, excepting the occasionally body off for an early morning shift. A group of students were having a sort of party in a house at the bottom of the hill and the baker and his assistant were baking and setting out the bread in The Pelican Bakery. I couldn’t see the sea it was too black. It’s a waning crescent moon today and a new one tomorrow. What will that bring I wonder?

It’s done. It’s been sent. The relief is an odd one, I am pleased and I try to let that sensation take hold but the vacancy, the gap is also a little alarming. I will try not to fill it all. Other than with drawing, naturally. The sky is clear outside. A beautiful morning.

Keep her safe in that induced sleep.

He’s taken up residence in the ex-barber shop just beyond Smiths. All his stuff, what there is of it in squashed into the doorway. He sleeps and sits there, day in day out, mostly perched on his beanbag. His face is cadaverous and mostly covered in a long, wiry beard. His eyes look wary and lost. He is still young. We offered to get him a drink the other day. He didn’t refuse exactly but said that he had some money and began searching around for it. His pockets jingled with change. No, he said, I’ve got 40 quid somewhere. He found it for him. It was in a paper takeaway coffee cup.

I was waiting for him while he went into the post office to send back yet more coats and sat on the bench outside the coffee shop directly in front of his ‘residence’. I wanted to snatch some drawing time. It never works but enables me to tell myself that at least I’ve made a drawing each day. I started to draw him but my discomfort made it clunky and unseen. I watched him but didn’t want to in case he saw what I was doing. He didn’t. His head kept lolling forward. Was he sleeping or out on something? Why not? he would say. I ended up focussing my attention of a woman talking to a man in sagging jeans outside the Health Food Shop. She was a little thing in a bright white raincoat and black, knife-edged creased, crimplene trousers, with, and I noticed this as my drawing reached it’s end, very very dapper shoes, a kind of tri-coloured leather loafer with brass buckle. Were they Italian?

And inexplicably there was a violin. Was it his? Does he play? It was in a case and was shiny new.

Not all of us, God willing, will be called on to demonstrate the huge acts of bravery that the Ukrainian people are currently having to display. Most of us live quietly, doing our best to not harm or hinder others in their wish to live as they do. Perhaps it is age, or perhaps in my recent slowing down I’ve begun to pay more attention, but I notice the small acts of bravery that are playing out around me. The ones I speak of are shown by women, predominantly aged and ill women. One in particular has lost so much. Yes, she has financial security and the retirement (or should I say care) home she now lives in is a good one, at least it is clean and they seem kind, but she has still lost her husband, her home, her independence and her mobility. And yet, she never complains, she jokes and laughs and makes the most of what she can still do – such as sit in the sun, read Jane Austen and watch Escape to the Country on TV. Her fortitude is breath-taking, God grant me the same grace to bear what life has in store for me, not least the loss of him. And there is another, though in a very different situation. She is still in hospital (I believe as she has not answered her phone for a while) with Covid-19 and has been since before Christmas. What sense does she make of her life now? It is all on hold, small though it is. She has a daughter, a granddaughter, a cat with umpteen kittens (she is always having them being semi-feral), a neighbour’s dog she used to walk, and a place in a tiny hamlet where she is known and has been most of her life. Does she remember the fields, the smell of the nearby farm, her vegetable garden, her chickens, her cockerel who runs to greet her daughter when she returns from work? What does she dream of in that ward? Hers is less a case of fortitude and more one of endurance. She is enduring. And I wish her strength and support when she is finally set free for it will be frightening.

And me? I am stiff and hip-sore. And tired. Can one ever sleep it away?