Author: Ellen Bell

It was a voice at the end of my dream. A man’s voice, I think. A question. A question that seemed significant. Do you want to come to the gate? it asked. What gate? Was I to see someone off, or was it a gate at the end of a piece of land, a field, or a garden perhaps? Why was it significant? Who can know? Dreams are a mystery, though sometimes they become clearer as the day wears on. I shall sit with it.

The clue was list of ingredients. We couldn’t get it. I’ve since looked it up, and it was ‘formula’. But the really unsettling thing was the handwriting wasn’t mine or his. Someone else had filled some of them. Who? It fits with how I am still feeling. Misaligned, out of kilter. I can’t get myself back. Just keep doing what you are doing, he says. Will it settle then? Will I? Is that a promise?

I also dreamt of a woman baking. She was making some kind of gingerbread. It was from an ancient, familial recipe. She was proud of it. It looked rather like parkin. Can I have the recipe? I asked. What did she answer? It felt important to know.

She wore zebra shoes and she had a bogey up her nose. It was hard to take her seriously. She was confident. A professor. They all came in to watch her at work on my stomach. It’ll leave some big bruises, she said, that will last for about a week. It hasn’t, though the flesh is sore. Do you want to have a look? the male nurse asked him. Then me. It’s a bit like a cross between olive oil and lard, she’d said. It was liquid with tiny yellow and orange globules floating on its surface. It’s not very much, she said, but it should do. It was all about proving a negative, apparently.

I’ve got pastry and mincemeat. I want to do something, to mark it in some way. She said yes, they both did. I am glad, for the longing to see her yesterday was so strong. A bitty day ahead, a clearing up day. They are just as important as the seemingly productive ones. Why doesn’t she respond? Ugh! We are so different. I must be patient, make allowances. Onward.

The skating rink is up. Skating by the sea is the strapline. The castle park is a sparkle with lights. I wish they’d turn the lights on through the town. It’s a money saving exercise, so they are just alight in the early evening. Shame.

There’s power in it. Taking responsibility, that is. Taking full responsibility for what occurs, for what happens. It isn’t easy. To blame is the human condition. To make a victim of oneself is so seductive. Poor me. But it isn’t true. Every step, just like every breath has been chosen and should be lived in the light of that awareness. I was angry. I was angry that the easy way out had been denied me. I have to live instead and work my way through the mire of uncertainty created by my opposing selves. I have so many choices, so many more than I allow myself to believe. And all of it is my own doing. Let me feel the power of that knowledge. For if that is the case then anything is possible.

You don’t have to keep saying you’re sorry, he said. Don’t I? I was unkind. He turns in his chair to face me. It’s OK. Is it? Such ugliness. He wanted me gone. And I don’t blame him.

My dream unsettled me, stirred it all up. I thought of it as I walked, or tried to walk in the wildness of the wind. How it makes everything wail. The rigging in the harbour, The Angel’s pub sign, the telephone wires – all of the them rattling, screaming and clanging. He had a huge life. This man. This man I dreamt of. He was listing all the things he was going to do that night. I wasn’t invited, I could only look in. Then, after he’d told me of it all, he asked, Can’t you be happy for me?

It’s the need for largesse, for expansion, for opportunities to make, to write, to express set against the other need to hide, to take cover, to rest, to be in silence, alone. How can they ever be reconciled?

Enough for now. Tomorrow I will find courage. Today I shall rest. For my body is still sore, still tender from all that invasion, those needle pricks. And then, I shall do my best. I promise.

My body is sore. It has been prodded, pierced, invaded, photographed, enclosed and extracted from. It has been alarmed, shocked and frightened. And for nothing. And we have talked. We have been to the abyss. We have looked at death. We have visited it. I am numb. He is euphoric. At least he was. As they were. I cannot match it. I am numb. Lost. Still lost. It was a narrative I had accepted. I had accepted that my death was near. And now? It isn’t. So be it. I no longer know what you want of me. And my fear made me hurt him. I am ashamed. Deeply so. I need help but from whom. She was so wise, my beautiful love. People don’t want to go into that tunnel with you, she said. No, they don’t. And why should they? Why should she, she who is so vital, so full of vigour and hope? I must accept this, this life and make the best of it. And be kind. Oh, God make me kind. For I have not been so.

I wasn’t sure what to do. It was three am and I’d just come down the little hill towards the station and was cutting through a narrow street of small terraced houses. I saw him in standing in front of one of the front doors, he appeared to be trying to put something through the door. It was almost freezing, (they’d predicted 2 degrees but said that the wind chill would make it feel like 0 degrees) and he was just in a shirt. He had a take-away food carton in his hand. As I got closer I could see that he was actually trying to get a key into the lock. Should I offer to help? I thought, but then wavered. He was clearly drunk, his body swayed as he endeavoured to focus on inserting the key. There was something comical about the intensity of his concentration and his inability to perform such a simple task. Was he even at the correct house? Was he trying to break in, even? If I helped him I might be seen as an accessory. Rubbish, I know but I just didn’t want to get involved. He was silent then but who knows how he would’ve reacted. But, nevertheless, I didn’t like leaving him like that, in the cold. When I turned to check on him he was on his knees still trying to insert the key.

I enjoyed seeing her. I got there early to secure a table. It was busy full of interesting faces. I began a drawing but my subject became aware of me and stopped, my confidence is so brittle these days. I like it in there. It is bustly, the food is cheap and though there’s nothing there I’d eat I still like to be around it’s smells and to see others eating it with relish. Another world, another life. I like the way that it is high up, above the street. She appears so content with herself, her world, life. So young, a few adolescent spots still mark her face. An open face, fresh and typically Scandinavian. We talked of farming, Christmas, baking, alcohol and traditions. I don’t like change, she said and worries what will happen to her family Christmas yuletide rituals when she eventually moves out to be with her boyfriend. We spoke some Norwegian though the wordier explanations were in English. I am trying and I do make myself understood, though I find her accent a little tricky. I’m used to the Oslo way. She ordered a hot chocolate with cream and ate it from the top with a long spoon. She and her family drink coke instead of wine at Christmas. I love it, she says. I’m touched by her willingness to meet me. What does she get out of it? She offered to get some more children’s books for me to read from the library at home. But I’ve asked too much of her already. It’s fine, I said, I can buy them myself from the internet.

The sky is clearing. Time has passed fast this morning. Coffee, sewing, yoga, lunch then packing. Breathe. And the first advent candle. The advent calendar is installed and the first door opened. I shall miss them both next week but to get away…..

It is too much to hold in one’s head. The terror of it all. I don’t turn my face away from it but choose instead to concentrate on the small instead of the large. I honour their bravery at taking him on, and I send love to the families of the bereaved. I ask him if it puts him off wanting to go to London again. He says no. I’m glad. Me neither. It is chance in the end. And no place is worse than another, I suppose. There is danger and the possibilities of joy everywhere. But the focus here, where I live, is smaller, more pedestrian. Like the lights being switched on and the Lantern Parade and the fact that this is the last day for the Hot Bread Shop. I used to go in there sometimes to buy him a sandwich. It’s not a posh bakery. Simple. For a town with simple tastes. The usual stuff, loaves of bread, sliced or unsliced, rolls, iced buns, tarts, biscuits, and made-to-order sandwiches. The windows are always steamed up. The staff wear bright blue hair nets. And sometimes when he is feeling hypo he nips in for a chelsea bun. Not anymore. Not after today. It’ll have to be Slater’s. And there is always the Pelican. I hope they last. The smell of baking bread sustains me on my walk. That is the heart of the town, not the students.

She was chatty yesterday, full of life. It was probably the sun. She’s doing so well. First the Christmas Dinner and then the gathering in Aberaeron. Small victories but evidence of huge courage. Just to walk in alone and navigate where to sit, whom to talk to and so on. Huge courage. And she has it. I am so proud of her. What a long was she has come in the seven years we’ve been talking together.

A gentle day.

There’s a yellow tin sign warning that there will be possible traffic delays as they will be switching on the town’s lights tomorrow. They seem a little lack lustre this year. They have dispensed with the Welsh/English flashing on and off Santa image that used to hang above Great Darkgate Street for some more discreet trails of lit white lines but there don’t seem to be as many and only a few of the trees along North Parade have lights around their branches, and these are tiny, little flickering blue bulbs that one would almost miss. And the tree too, outside the jewellers appears smaller. Cutbacks, I suppose. Heigh ho.

I forgot to mention the huge ginger cat whom I dream of the other night. It was about to attack me, and I watched in horror as it got bigger and bigger, puffing up its fur and opening its jaws. Help me, I called to her. Is it in anticipation of seeing her? She was in my dream last night too. What is it that I am afraid of?

It was lovely but it gave me a rash, all down my back, not red but lumpy. Was it the massage oil she used? Or her washing powder. Or is in it me, all this agitation I’ve been feeling? All this rushing about. There nothing to feel proud about anymore, I thought, as I lay there, too hot under all those blankets. Why do I need to feel proud? my more sensible voice asked. He would say just be. Just be who you are. Even if it an unresolved, always searching, never finding kind of me? Yes, absolutely. You just need to see it another way, from a different angle. That’s all. Concentrate on the detail, the smaller picture. You are doing the best you can. That’s all. That is enough.

She said no again. Perhaps hers is a door that I should no longer knock upon. I don’t know. Such is the life of the self-employed, every job is mostly chased, sought after, few are dropped into one’s lap. Maybe I am too pushy, too proactive. I’m not good at sitting back and waiting to see what comes. Ah well. Maybe next year.

Advent begins on Sunday. The first day. I think about the advent service at Bath Abbey. I only went one year but it had a profound effect upon me. But not exactly joyful. At least not at the beginning. I remember weeping. Weeping in the dark. For at the start of the service all the lights are out. It’s the darkness of the eve of the coming, I suppose. Then, one by one the candles are lit. The candles we were all holding. Row after row slowly beginning to come alight, alive, that gorgeous flickering white light of hope, of new life, new beginnings. Did I cry then? Or was it in the dark before? I can’t remember now. I do remember feeling alone. All those families, lovers, friends, and I was flanked by them. People were kind but no one saw my sadness. And then the opening of those huge wooden doors and there was the tree outside, lit for the first time.

Is it still the same now that E has gone? They thought him a puritan, he didn’t like the frippery of Christmas. I’m with him on that (except, that is, my inexplicable penchant for snow globes).

So many notable people died yesterday, Clive James (finally, he said at breakfast, he’s been threatening us with his death for years now), Jonathon Miller and Gary Rhodes. He was so young, 59. Why? He thought it was probably his heart. What a devastation to his family. Rest in peace all three of you. And thank you.

I thought about my grandfather as I walked this morning. The Norwegians are very sensible in denoting exactly which side of the family the grandparent belongs to calling them father-mother or mother-father. Why was he so different from his brother? So stern, so austere. Was it his father’s suicide? So little talked about. I suppose they didn’t then. Nor now.

I write to make sense of things, to apply some kind of order to them. I know that it is an illusion, that any order I impose is a false one, artificial, but it helps me. It calms me. Else all is chaos. I want to understand. I always have, though understanding of some things, I admit, I shrink from. Perhaps clarity is a better word. I’m writing in a fug at the moment, and it wobbles me. There is little beauty to it, it’s a mess, unclear and wooly. But maybe it has to be this way for the moment for the clarity to come through.

It is interesting how life works, just as I working on the past, my past, their past, her past, the pictures come. All the way from America. Faded pictures from a stranger’s photo album. Pictures that come second-hand, third hand, fourth hand maybe. It, they, would’ve meant something to her. I suspect she wanted him as a father, not the one she had. He looks so stolid by comparison. A live wire, a warm, good heart, someone whom everyone liked. Handsome. Blond against his darkness, his dourness. I write about what discomforts me. I am delving into uncomfortable rooms but I must so that I can come through to the other side. I hope. I trust. I write for myself. Always. The money must come from other sources. This is important. I believe.

Rest in peace, sweet thing.

I saw her legs first. You couldn’t miss them, encased as they were in tight black and white striped leggings. Then there were her boots. Mauve, high-laced Doc Martens. Over her leggings she wore a figure-hugging black skirt and on top of that a short, fake-fur beige jacket. She was standing in front of one of the terrace houses on South Road leaning over under the light of street lamp rooting through her handbag that she’d rested on a window sill. I recognised the nose jewellery. An Indian style loop of jangly silver things, bells and filigree. And then there was the unmistakable streaked hair (on Monday it was a series of stripes of blue, black and purple) and the thick black kohl drawn around her eyes. She looked amazing. Unmissable. The Tesco checkout-girl, aka fire-eater. She didn’t look up as I passed. And I didn’t say hello. It was out of context and inappropriate. Who wants to be reminded of their day job when out on the town, dressed-to-kill? I like her. She has such a ‘sunny disposition’. And I love the dressing-up. I used to do it all those years ago. She isn’t a beautiful girl but she is tall, graceful and very, very striking. Good for her.

I got through yesterday. And it was alright. Today I shall write. Do my thousand words and then put it away. I need to keep it alive, though I’ve no idea where it is going. Don’t plan, he advises. See what happens, what comes out. I don’t mind being in the writing once I’ve begun, it’s the beginning. Ach! Isn’t it always the way? And nothing is happening. No one is replying. The world has gone to sleep. Dormant. So be it. I shall see what comes forth into this emptiness.

I couldn’t quite make out what it was. Was it a woman crying? I continued walking towards it. Was it someone playing some music? Could it be music? My mother used to describe the Kate Bush albums I played as a teenager as sounding like that. Caterwauling, she called it. And that was exactly what the sound was. A cat. I could see it now. It was on the bottom of Penglais Hill. There were two of them. A black one and a ginger one. I couldn’t make out who was making the sound. A guttural, then a kind of growling sound, which would break out into a sort of yelling. It wasn’t in danger clearly but it was warning the other off. Was it a female on heat? Who knows? It’s a world we have no access to. And the night is their time. They can see. They prowl. They hunt. A vicious time, I think. No wonder they sleep during the day.

The air was warm again. Though there was a chill breeze. I watched the shadow of a single leaf still clinging to a branch jostle and dance precariously in the wind. Is the eventual break from its mother tree a painful one for a leaf, or is it a release? A pleasant falling?

She was lovely to listen to. She sounded kind. I will read her book. So much delight in the return of so many species, the butterflies, the birds, the mushrooms and wild flowers. Do they get cornflowers too? And wild poppies? And then there was her mother and the ‘Fine Cell Work’ project. Sounds fascinating. Perhaps I could get involved. The Magna Carta one is amazing. What a feat. I need that mass.

We had to sit on our hands, she kept saying, and do nothing. Leave it alone. Leave the land alone to heal. Heal itself. I remember that from school. Sitting on your hands was a punishment. A don’t touch penance.

A busy day today. Breathe through it. All will be well.