Author: Ellen Bell

It was hard to see what had killed it. It’s perfect white body was seemingly untouched. The tangle of innards jutting from its stomach was the only sign of death, as was its stillness. They are magnificent birds, so strong, so robust. And the white is pristine. And yet, they are such scavengers. Poor love. I hope it was fast and painless.

No one was about. No police cars, no woman with the plastic bag. I caught sight of a student in shorts returning to one of the halls along the Prom and a red car passed me but other than that no one. The man I see working on his computer in a house along Mill Street was up as usual, sitting there in his ground floor kitchen in his dressing gown staring at the screen, a large cereal packet open in the foreground. Is he working or gaming? Strange hours he keeps, but then so do I.

I wrote the first draft and now I must hone it. A nice woman, I liked her. I liked her before I spoke to her. It’s all in her work, the kindness, the shyness. I think. I want to do her justice, as I want to do them all. Let it be so. Let it be so.

I backtracked so that I could read the notice, though the beginning of it was obscured behind the CLOSED sign. ‘Often Free Bread available, ask staff’. A nice touch. A nice touch from Slater’s Bakery. There is something of the WWII spirit to it. Small gestures. Would people ask? Would they feel abased by doing so? I hope not.

Yesterday’s and this morning’s rain made the earth smell musty then ripe – the odours of the undergrowth coming back to life. He’s taking the car this morning so as to avoid the drizzle. There was a constant dripping from a downpipe outside that I was certain would keep me awake last night. It didn’t.

During the scam call, our scammer (our very own personal one) going by the name of Eric arranged to call him back the next day, yesterday at 11.00am to sort out any outstanding issues. It would be either him or another colleague, he said, and gave him a very long, official seeming code that he was to quote when he received the call. And he did, he called back. I heard his phone go. I was upstairs in the kitchen. I rushed to the stairs. Don’t speak to him, I said. I hadn’t protected him, you see. I hadn’t. I’d reneged on my duty. Don’t let him draw you in, I shouted. I didn’t, he said, coming to the bottom of the stairs. I hung up on him, he said. That was before I told him to f*** off.

There is no pleasure in these small victories. And the money, the £1,000 he stole is still not in his account. The bank promises it will be returned but we still hold our breath. At least I do.

Do you know we are breaking the law? he said, getting out of bed this morning. I read it online. According to the Welsh Government it is against the law to sit in a park. Fair enough. We won’t then.

I distinctly smelt hot cross buns walking back along Llanbadarn Road from my walk. It was 4.30 am, was someone baking at that hour?

I think of the dead doctor and his family. And the dead architect who house on the hill still has a light on at night.

Three more weeks. Do you mind? Are you suffering?

It didn’t feel right. It didn’t sound right but I didn’t want to interfere. He hates it when I do. But when I heard him giving them his password I shouted. And then I spoke to the man purporting to be bank security and he sounded flustered. Of course, Madam he kept saying, we want people to be careful, to be aware. And then he said, that we don’t want to give people extra stress during the Covid-19 outbreak. No, we don’t. But he was so plausible, too plausible. And my love is so trusting, so wanting to oblige. Wanting to be deemed a good boy, as I need to be a good girl. I feel for him. It is sorted out. He is good at that. But there is this residue of abuse. I forgive him, that young man, I am sorry he has to make his way hurting others. Perhaps he doesn’t care? Perhaps he is being coerced into doing so. I hope not for his sake. Perhaps he has so little that he feels justified in taking from others. My love opened himself wide to him and his scam. Poor love. I wanted to protect him but I didn’t. We will learn from this. Learn not to be so open and yet openness is so lovely.

I think it is the discipline of it. I want to do it well. As I do all things. All things. She said she thought it was wonderful. My piece. I’m glad. I’m so glad. That means a lot. Now I will sew. Return to its rigour. And later there is the sun. And there is the promise of three new pieces of work. Not much but something and I do love the conversations. Thank you.

He doesn’t look well. He is thinner, and his face is ashen. We both agreed this when we saw him yesterday. He’s a smoker and we hear him coughing through his open window. Does he know? Does he suspect he might have cancer? Should we say anything? He is such a self-contained man, even though he shares his flat with his aged mother. He travels alone, he stays up late alone. I just don’t know. Perhaps he has no other symptoms apart from the cough and he’s been coughing for all the time we’ve lived here above him. I wish him well. I like him. He can be sardonic, but he is kind too. I’ll never forget the time he came to my rescue when he fell and I couldn’t get him up. A kind man, a good man, and bright, sharp-witted.

The wild strawberries are on their way, little buds of green promising red, tightly clustered.

A wood pigeon trills outside. The sky is a perfect emptiness, blue.

It isn’t the same for all of us, some are really suffering.

She irritates him, Ria Parkinson, that is, the character from Butterflies, and her lover manque irritates him even more. It’s her moaning, and what he calls her histrionics that winds him up the most. And after what 4 series of it, I can see his point. Her bemoaning is really just boredom, and who is responsible for that but herself. She has a loving husband who tries to respond to her desires for difference and at least one sensitive son who really watches her, knows her. She has comfort, money, a house, a garden, security till the end of her days. And she has choice, she just doesn’t see it. The cage is of her own making. They would applaud her for taking her freedom. They would.

He talked about the DPD driver he’d read about, living in one room with a family of four kids and with no work. It is desperate and they talk of it going on for another 3 weeks. Be with them. Let it improve, let something happen to ease the suffering. And all those inmates dying in care homes. The forgotten living and now the forgotten dead. Things must change, mustn’t they?

I don’t know why the death of a celebrity should hit home more than the other 10,000 people taken prematurely by this virus, but it often does. Such notables enter our homes, our consciousness in the way that nameless strangers don’t. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. We need to relate, to build a relationship, no matter how small, to care. He came through the radio. Always funny. A charming man, Jack Dee called him. He made me laugh. I loved his quick wit. I dreamt of him last night, I asked if the gags were all scripted. He played down his skill, and said yes, they were, particularly his. I liked him. I believe I would’ve liked him if I’d met him. Is that the key, we make them nice people in our heads, shining, always shining with something we don’t have?

Ah the radio, it keeps me steady. Yesterday I listened to a repeat of Sue Macgregor’s Reunion with the hostages, John McCarthy, Brian Keenan and Terry Waite. It was so life-enriching, their courage, humour and sanguinity after such ordeals was time-stopping. Such people. I am humbled. Always. How to manage solitude, how to live with yourself without distractions, that is the nub. And then I couldn’t remember the three things Waite told himself – one was to have no regrets for that would demoralise him, the other was to not allow himself to feel self-pity but I cannot for the life of me remember the third. Did he waiver? Did he stick to it? Keenan seemed the most fragile, the most tender of the three. And the little speech he gave about McCarthy, his only companion for all those years, was beautiful.

The cherry blossom lies like forgotten confetti along the pavement gulleys. The wind whistles it up into flurries as I walk, like pink snow. No one was about. The wind was strong. His back is sore. He doesn’t know whether he will walk today. And there is the monster shop to do. I think I’ll get it over with, he says. Yes, I say, good idea. I dreamt I kept finding myself in supermarkets when I wasn’t meant to be there, and once there I couldn’t get out.

We sat in what has become our seat looking down on the Vicarage Fields yesterday afternoon and talked of the crucifixion. The usual stragglers taking their allowable burst of exercise walked or ran out before us. There was a young lad training, doing various things like jumping, throwing discus like objects and speed running. A skinny thing, rather like Adam, played by Nicholas Lyndhurst in Butterflies. And the couple arrived too, the one that we see each afternoon, both sporting cotton sun hats. He walks ahead of her, and then sprints part of the way. It’s a stiff run, they must be in their eighties. He waves at us on our high seat, and says something neither of us can hear, particularly not him. What’d he say? What’d he say? We wave nevertheless and make a reply, some remark about the weather usually suffices. I started the conversation. I thought of the film, Jesus of Nazareth that was always on the TV when I was younger. We then tried to remember the name of the actor. You know the one, he said, he looks like my younger brother. I can’t remember. And I still can’t. I found the film harrowing. It is/was meant to be, I know, but nevertheless. All that pain, all that suffering. Did it make me a better Christian watching it? We talked of his pain, what it must’ve felt like. And those words, why have you forsaken me? It stopped us still, in that sunshine, with that glorious green space around us. Still. Still.

I saw it when I gained the hill. It was sitting in a neat pile on the bench just below the crest of the little hill I walk down to get to Llanbadarn Road. There was a chocolate bar, a fruit drink in a reusable plastic container and something that looked like cereal in a tupperware box. A straw bag that had probably been used to carry the lunch was lying on the ground next to it. What had happened? Why had someone placed it on the bench in readiness and gone? I hope that they are OK. There was a fastidiousness to it, a care that touched me. I understand that pre-planning, that cupboard or drawer full of tupperware.

Town was quiet again. The Pelican Bakery was whirring as it does when I go past but little smell of bread being baked. I saw the woman with the bag as I walked towards the castle but she was sans bag. And the milkman in his van, the one who looks like Bruce Springsteen drove past. But that was all. Oh, and the man I see in his kitchen intent on his computer screen was actually reading a book in front of it this morning. It looked like a children’s book, shiny and colourful. And I’ve been meaning to say that I noticed that one of the daffodils in the Mind’s window boxes had flowered. They left the premises a couple of years ago, though no one has taken it over. And the window boxes had been forgotten. And yet, the daffodil still flowered, regardless. Nice.

He worries about us sunbathing, that is, taking in a little sun in the Col Fields. It’s just anxiety about what the rules are. It’s hard to know what the right thing to do is. We keep to ourselves up there, on our perch. What harm can it do?

It used to be trade name of a shoe polish. I remember it from my childhood, it always conjured up lovely notions. And cherry blossom is especially beautiful. The tree of it along Llanbadarn Road, in the backyard of the Nursery School is bulging, positively bursting with it. And there are van Gogh’s paintings of it. It will fall soon. Enjoy it while you can.

There is serendipity everywhere. I spoke of Paula Rego yesterday during my interview with A and then there was her voice coming out of the radio an hour or so later as part of a promo for a Desert Island Discs revisited promo. I can’t imagine she was an easy interviewee. Sue Lawley did her best no doubt. She isn’t polite. I remember her in that bookshop in Cambridge, wild, untamed, thrilling but scary. And her work always gets me in the stomach, it punches me there. It is magnificent. Nobody draws like her. I am floored by her brilliance. But she still scares me. There is no ‘paying lip-service to niceties’ in her – she is uncontrolled. And there it is there on her canvases. I told A to look at her work, saying that I saw a link but there isn’t really, A is fragile, cautious, a free spirit but not untamed, not feral like Paula. Her voice on the radio talking about using the figure more and more. I’m interested in looking, she said, now.

No one was abroad as I walked. I saw the lorry driver sleeping in his Tesco’s truck and the woman in the bakery filling the shelves and that man in one of the houses along Mill Street sitting in his kitchen on his computer, his face lit up by its screen. And that was all, no police, no night-time wanderers. Oh, there were two cats skittering across the road. But that was all. Just me. And the moon.