Author: Ellen Bell

It’s the Easter holidays and I’ve been watching grandparents interacting with their grandchildren during our various coffee shop and café visits while I practice my drawing. It has been an interesting study. Some are clearly at ease with the relationship, others not so. The most fascinating examples have been in M&S. Perhaps this is evidence of a particular place or site reflecting the demographic who choose it. It was an altogether stiffer affair, like the man sitting in the little alcove with his grandson. ‘You talk funny,’ said the little boy. The grandfather had been eating a dry pretzel and complaining about it’s saltiness then it’s blandness. I don’t like the white bits, he said. They’re salt, said the boy. They were a discordant pair. The man was so offhand, and mostly distracted by his iPad which he had propped up on the table in front of him. There was another grandfather at a more central table that I also began to draw (I’d moved tables by then for a better view). He too was distracted by technology, though he did try to engage his grandson in it. He spoke in Welsh. The boy was fidgety and squirmed about on his seat, eating a scone and sucking a drink through a straw. He leaned into his grandfather, clearly fond. And even when he pressed the box containing the drink so that the liquid shot up in a fountain and sprayed all over his grandfather’s food, tray and phone, the old man kept calm and remonstrated with him in a measured, placatory way. The generational gap in both cases was a chasm.

I think of them all, those women that are near, far or in my thoughts. They are mostly older than me, and in better financial circumstances. They have led full lives, raised families and some have had a professional life too. Some are a little ill, or infirm or have poor eyesight and hearing. Their lives are slower now. They have little they must do, or, I suspect, want to do. Some, I know, do a little of sitting. Some sleep in the afternoons. Some are tired. Some not so. I think about them and what it must be like to take that rest, to accept that state of having not very much to do and relishing it.

Downstairs she watches TV. She told him that Pointless is her favourite now that Eggheads and University Challenge is ‘off’. I even got a ‘pointless’ the other day, she told him. Pleased as punch no doubt. Her’s, out of all of them, is a unique case. She is 103. Her days are un-prescribed. There is nothing she must do for she is on borrowed time. So why not? Why not do fuck all?

Ukraine darkens our thoughts, always. I hold my breath for them in that steel plant. And yet, there is still joy. Handel can do it with his Sarabande. Upstairs I dance for the joy of it.

Ukraine’s President said that people are returning home, that he said he’d seen the traffic jams. And yet the news this morning tells Russia’s increased bombardment. They are so brave, those remainers and those now returning. I humbled by their courage.

As I am by his. He too returned, a different man, a transcendent man. Leaving us behind.

He mentioned that he’d said hello to him. I’d also seen him a couple of times from our upstairs window. He stands outside, or sits on the railing, smoking and reading his phone. A young man with a lean body and expensive trainers. Yesterday I watched as a woman drove up to the bottom of the stairs and opened the car door to let two children out. A girl and a boy, they both hurtled up the stairs, the girl lagging a little behind, being younger. They obviously knew where they were going. He waited on the step (having come out to meet them), not saying much to the woman before she got back into the car and drove away. He watched after the car for what must only have been a moment and then turned towards his flat and his children.

I dreamt I was looking at my lower legs which were very hairy. I remember thinking in my dream that I’d only just shaved them. I remembered this as I sat in the bath, thinking my legs never get that hairy. Does the growth of hair in a dream symbolise strength?

I wake with heartburn these mornings. Sometimes it comes in the night too. It’s just under the ribs. I try to endure it. And mostly I do. Those sweets he offers me are full of crap no doubt but sometimes I succumb, not that they do much good, but there is comfort in taking something, anything. Sometimes.

I remembered part of my dream about ten minutes after I woke. (I think there is moon stuff going on, it looked full to me when I looked out at it from my studio window at 2 am, so my dreams are bound to be vivid.) It featured a man I know from Norway, of whom I am fond. He was getting alternative treatment for a painful shoulder and back. His therapist spoke to me about him, not endeavouring to mask her obvious apathy towards him, and to him I noticed and remembered later. She told me how he could heal himself and showed me some drawings she wanted me to give him. One was of a cruel, despot and the other was a vision of happiness. They were like my drawings, quite dark and heavily worked. She wanted me to show them to him on her behalf. I did. Or at least I managed to show him the first. And he knew his name when I did not. Then he gave me a sweet, which he put in my mouth and said he’d return to see the other (or have me explain it to him). And then, inevitably, I woke up. The significance of all of this is clear to me. Is it to you?

I walked this morning hoping for moonlight but it had floated off behind a cloud. I walked with music in my ears so that I might not focus so heavily on my iron legs and shallow breath. It helps. And sometimes I sing. Who cares, there is no one about, except a girl who stops to stare at me, swerves a bit and then takes another drink out of bottle and moves on, up the hill. Returning home and climbing the gravelly path the light from my torch found a tiny snail making its was across the stones and leaving a minute trail of dotted lines. And then there was a spider scurrying off down past me. The air was warm, almost breathless.

And now I must write. And to celebrate I will make a pot of tea, Lapsang Souchong to perfume the room. So breathe, relax and all will be well.

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.