Author: Ellen Bell

Can an old dog learn them? His house was amazing, a warren of alcoves, cubby holes and with every space on the wall consumed with art. I loved it. And he, though reticent, felt like a good man. And I’m to do the editing. I hadn’t realised. It freaked me at first. No, he said, you’ll be doing that. Outside the rained poured while inside, with my belly warmed by tea, I smiled. It is going to be OK, it is going to be exciting. This is something new, I thought, daunting, scary, but new. And I will be working with sound. Finally.

I walked the whole length of the Prom this morning, the first time in ages. And I thought of him. It’s been 24 years. He has been in my life for 24 years. What a treasure. What a joy. What a gorgeous man. You see there is wonder, there are gifts. And there were two yesterday, one small one larger than I expected. It will be well. Work now before I call her. The sun is out. The sea was lapping. Enough. Tea. Then write, though how I can capture her god alone knows. She is quicksilver.

And if they starve us out I shall fast. You see. It’s OK. I promise.

I wake each morning asking for the courage to manage this madness, to remain steady, kind, calm and balanced. And every day I fail. I cried in the supermarket, leaving a blotchy stain on his coat when he hugged me. The shelves were empty, no vegetables, no fruit and people we never usually see coming in at 6 am like us but with gapingly huge trolleys. It is a madness. There is no shortage but one is being created. I don’t want to panic, to feel fear but the reaction of some creates a domino effect inside. Keep it at bay. It isn’t real. We won’t starve, will we? We can live with less. Surely.

Give me grace. Grant it. Please. Let me be good. Let me be kind. Work helps. And I have much, much to do. Amen to that.

I was climbing up the small hill into the Castle Park when I heard him calling through the darkness. Then I saw his torch light. I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then he was behind me. I speeded up. Excuse me, he called. Excuse me, he said again. I stopped and turned to face him. He was young, tall, stringy and with a large brooch in the shape of white heart on his jacket lapel. Excuse me, he said again, have you seen a man? He’s about this high, he said gesticulating with his hand a height about a foot shorter than he was, and Irish. He’s this high, he reiterated, and Irish. I’m sorry, I said, I haven’t seen anyone, and started to walk off. He followed me, repeating his question. Are you sure? he said finally. He did say he was here. Sorry, I said. I heard him all the way down Great Darkgate Street, shouting for Gerry.

Two girls passed me on Northgate Terrace just before I was assailed by the gorgeous smell of the bread being baked in The Pelican Bakery. They can’t have been much older than twenty. Possibly they were younger. One of them was pushing a pram. I leant into the wall to let them pass. Inside the pram was a child of perhaps two or three. It’s eyes peered at me through the plastic rain covering. It was not yet three am.

Such bleakness when I first wake. And then I talk of it to him at breakfast and my self-pity sets in. He looks so concerned and I hate myself for doing that to him. And yet, articulating it does help a little. What is best? And then I snatch a glance at the first few tweets on Twitter and my self-concern dissipates giving way to those with stronger needs. And there are so many. I try to send comfort. To be of use. To feel better about myself, this grey thing that I carry around. The sun shines and the sky is a blue behind the clouds. We just have to keep going. There is nothing else for it. The big sleep awaits us regardless. I ask for grace, for strength for kindness. For the ability to be kind whatever the adversity. Will it be given?

The bread shelves were empty in the supermarket. Such fear. Such panic. I must have compassion for that even if I cannot condone the result. Let us be kind. Blood on their hands, she said over the radio. The stockpilers will have blood on their hands. Give us strength, we know not what we do.

Meanwhile, I have this life to live, these people to tend and nurture. It is enough. Forgive my complaining. My bleakness is mine. I shall know it, care for it. Tend it. Until it passes. Until it passes.

It’s a question of neatness, of dotting the is and crossing the ts.

The notes were there in my diary from before we went away, a reminder to write them out when I returned. One is from a quote by Jane Austen, from one of her letters, I think, captured in Lucy Worsley’s oh so excellent book. It reads: ‘I’ve read The Corsair, mended my petticoat and now have nothing else to do.’ The other is from an overheard conversation early on Saturday morning. Last Saturday that is, before we went. It was from two students. A girl and a boy. She was tiny, with long straggly blonde hair. He was tall and slender and also blonde. Despite the cold weather, she was wearing miniscule black leather shorts. It’s shocking, he was saying, over and over. Her voice was earnest as she leaned into him. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it, she said. I know, I know, he replied.

It’s hard to return home. All these bits to do. I feel in bits too. It will get better once I get a hold. It was lovely to go away. I wish it could have been longer. Much longer. But then it would have been harder to return. Lots of dreams last night. Now there is work. Much work to do. Two loads of washing have been done, with ironing to do later. Ah, me. Such is life. I am grateful for the times away, that glorious emptying.

I’ve mentioned before about the seemingly random sentences that often reverberate in my head when I wake. Sometimes they are being said by me though often it is another voice, a strange, unfamiliar one. This morning it was mine. I cannot remember the context, it has been lost to me. The sentence however was lucid and clear. ‘What an amazing set of tools,’ I said, though to whom I do not know.

The dark morning assailed me again as I walked. The form feels overwhelming. I need to reduce it down to bite-size pieces. I can do it. I can manage it, but this morning it feels downright impossible. I snap at him. But then it is alright again, and my petulance abates.

They’ve stopped getting staff in to work the tills at 6 am at Tesco’s. So this morning we had to use the self-service one. No more chatting. I don’t mind. Change comes frequently these days. Always new tricks to learn. We managed. We manage, he and I. Always.

The first cup of coffee has been drunk. It disappoints these days, coffee, I brew it mostly for the smell, tea has taken over. I shall make a pot now and then get down to work. Onwards.

We were sitting at breakfast when he looked up from the paper and said: ‘Do you know what the next storm we’re to have is going to be called?’ No, I said, Storm Helen? ‘No,’ he replied, they’re not alphabetical. It’s going to be Storm Ellen.’

It’s rather nice actually. I like that. Ellen is such a benign name, reserved for Victorian maids-of-all work, and spinster sisters or maiden aunts. I like the power attached to being a storm name. See we can rise up, we wallflowers and background lilies.

I raged yesterday. The tension in my body got too much and I raged against it. Self-pity reigned. I am sorry for he gets the worst of it. He is kind, sympathetic, but even the most patient will be tried eventually. He always advocates anti-depressants. They have saved my life, he says. I know. And I accept that for him they work. But I don’t want them even if saying no to him is difficult. Not now, not ever. I need to feel this and come through to the other side. For I believe that there is one. An other side. A brighter side, where my contentment or possibly even happiness lies.

The wind blew wild as I walked, forcing me to cling to walls when I turned the corner from South Road and up that little side street. The sea rocked and rolled.

I caught a reading of Nicola Bayley The Mousehole Cat yesterday on the radio. I knew of the book but I’ve never read it. Lovely. Everything is seen through the cat’s eyes. Even the storm is a cat which Mouser lulls to calmness with her singing. Lovely serendipity. You see I can’t bring myself to listen to From Our Own Correspondent (which was on Radio 4 at the same time) when I’m this black. It is too much. I need light. Forgive me. I atone. I expiate. Wash me clean in your waters.

Sometimes it is just a word or phrase that I catch as it or they emerge from the radio. Yesterday it was a man voice talking about what he called objects of small pleasure, which were in his case pencils. I didn’t catch the rest. Small pleasures make life liveable, for me at least. They don’t overwhelm or threaten an anticlimax, they are comfortable, hand-able and pocket-size. Like the daffodils he bought for me, or the little jug she gave me for Christmas two years ago, or the taste of tahini yesterday, or a line in a novel that makes me smile. Such things aren’t everything, they won’t solve much – world poverty, hunger, the coronavirus or stop the floods – but they cheer, they lift and that has to be enough.

I walked this morning as usual even though they threatened howling gales and it surprised me how many people appeared to be awake. They weren’t out like me but windows were lit in the darkness. A Hopperesque scene with those oblong blocks of yellow light, usually from a ceiling light. No figures just a shape of yellow, seemingly amorphous, floating in the black.

Reading Worsley’s book she informs me that it was women who used to sew together the printed pages of a book before it was bound, which in those days printers didn’t do, this was then courtesy of a bookbinder. She also makes lots of connections between Austen’s sewing and writing. Her niece describes her as ‘doing two things at once: ‘working’ on one task with her needle, and another with her brain.’ Nice. I find sewing does the same for me. On the next page Austen is quoted as saying: ‘I really am impatient myself to be writing….I can command very little quiet time at present, but yet must I begin.’ Amen to that, Jane. Me too. Me too. I am impatient to be writing but first things first. That form. It must be attended too.

There is an artist who’s work I admire that uses his dreams as material for his drawings. They are texts, handwritten that describe his night time reveries. They are beautiful documents, copper-plated and written on thick, watermarked paper, and huge. My dreamworld has become increasingly important to me. I try to read them, to unravel them. Often topsy-turvy they are mines of information. Last night there was a baby. It was mine, and it was hungry. I knew that I’d made it a bottle but in all the mess of rubbish in the space I was living in I could find it and the baby kept crying and crying. It was distressing. I wanted to satisfy it, calm it but I couldn’t.

It’s St David’s Day on Sunday and the daffodils are out way before. She told me last week that she remembers that they always came either on the day or after. As I walked into town at 3 am a man was coming towards me carrying a bunch of freshly cut daffs. Even at that time. Was it a present?

The floods continue to ravage Shropshire. My heart goes out to those affected. Poor souls. It is biblical in its impact. May there be relief for them, soon. Please make it soon.

I often dream deep when I don’t get enough sleep, as I did last night. Lots of them, broken by visits to the loo. The one that stuck featured a group of people, myself included being taken around this house. We were led to a door to a flight of stairs. Well that is what it looked like. Actually it was a self-contained flat. We were told that an old lady lived there, a Mrs Smith. The man showing us round told us she was his client and proceeded to open the door. It was jammed all the way down the stairs and beyond with boxes, clothes, plastic bags all full with stuff. He asked if any of us would like to look inside. One man came forward and began to try and push himself through all the clutter. He got nowhere and soon returned all creased and hot. She thinks she is still alive, said the man showing us round, but actually she is dead. It reminded me of yesterday’s dream in an airport, a kind of no man’s land where we were waiting for our flight for days. I remember stairs there too, but normal, domestic, carpeted stairs and a big door that I was going to open but then didn’t realising that once I did I wouldn’t be able to return to where I was. On the stairs was an envelope under which was someone’s wallet. Had they left it behind? Should I check? I was asking myself as I woke.

A good, good day yesterday. A full day. A rich day. There is much there, much enthusiasm, much support. Now I must make sense of it all, establish some order, some control. And begin.