Author: Ellen Bell

I only remembered the tail end of it. I was in some sort of hospice or rest home. There were many other women there, mostly middle-aged like me. We were friendly towards each other, connected by a common experience of being unwell. However, being there helped – we all agreed that we were feeling better for the rest, for stepping out of our domestic, busy lives. We were all seeing consultants, men in suits and white coats. Men who looked over the rim of the glasses at us. Two of them had gone for lunch and I was alone in their consulting room when they returned. I’d been looking at a working small internal combustion engine on the floor, knowing that it was part of me, or at least symbolic of one of my organ. Was it my heart? They weren’t angry that I was in there, more happy that I was interested. You see, one of them said, you’re behaving like you are still young when you are not – you are asking too much of it, he said, pointing at the engine.

The supermarket is getting full with Christmas stuff. Above the bread were large boxes of Christmas Crackers. He saw me looking at them. Can we not bother with those things? he asked. Can we just do lights, candles and carols and not go to church either? I said yes, but reluctantly. I like to go to take communion but, like him, I don’t want to bump into neighbours either. If only I could go somewhere anonymously. It’s hard in a small town, even if few people know my name. But the crackers haunt me a little. I know they are a waste of money. Gimcrack tat, but they tap into a childish love of such stuff. The glitter of it, like snow domes, it, they give me something like joy. Just a frisson. I’ll go with whatever you want, he said in the car. I know. I might not bother, but it would be nice to think maybe.

My alarm went off early. Is that a full moon thing? I got up anyway. It’s nice to have a stretch of time.

Nervous about the call. And about the writing. I always am. Sometimes I just want, need to keep life small, pocket-sized.

I don’t know him well. He was a flirtation. We both did it. It was light, trivial, a nothing but it gave me, and I believe him, a fillip. He even turned up at the same restaurant once after I’d told him a few days before that I was going there with a friend. What was that about? He there with his wife, and me with a girlfriend. We both sat on tables on the terrace – it was hot. We nodded to each other. I didn’t know what to make of it. He invaded my dream, out of the blue. We can have a cuddle, he said. And I knew he was waiting for me to join him in his bed. I wanted to but hesitated, taking a long time to appear. What about your wife? I asked. She’s dead, he said. It’s a good time. He had a girlfriend, who I also spoke to, but he implied it was not solid, not important to him. I wanted him. But I still hesitated. I even asked him if it would be OK. Or perhaps when I woke for a pee that was what I decided I would do. I kept returning to the dream – should I or shouldn’t I? The last few nights I’ve dreamt of lovers. Is it the moon? It is big, huge. I walked under its gleam. I love that. The dark is less sombre. A good walk. My legs are less heavy. The symptoms not so raging. Is it passing? Is it all an illusion? Was the consultant wrong?

He didn’t sleep well again last night but he is less miserable about it. For now the sun shines. Let it remain. Let it stay awhile.

Our kettle died this morning. It makes me sad when things die. I was fond of it. A lovely duck-egg blue with a plump bottom. Rest in my peace little kettle and thank you for the seven years you have given us. He will take it to the tip perhaps someone clever can resuscitate it. I hope so.

I’ve made a mistake in my sewing – the counting is awry. I’m not good at following patterns. It’s always been so. I am not going to unpick – no one would know – I will just adapt it. I’ve come on, in the past it would’ve thrown me berating myself for my incompetence. He would say you’re learning. It’s OK. And it is. To be perfectly imperfectly human is OK. OK?

Can it be a shared thing? Do we tap in whether willingly or unwillingly to a grief felt by nations or even by the world? It felt like it yesterday. It overwhelms me – that 11th hour, that 11th day. All that grief. A tsunami of grief. It isn’t mine. I wasn’t there. I haven’t lost anyone to a war, well not directly, but I still feel it, I still feel something. And the tears come. I see the imagery in my head. It is borrowed imagery from First and Second World War Pathe newsreels, from films, from literature. It is all I can focus on, oh and the radio stories I’ve heard from soldiers of today, or those I’ve listened to down the phone line as a Samaritan. Their grief is a known sadness, a true sadness, I am one step removed but I still weep, as I did at a neighbour’s funeral all those years ago. I am a sponge, I soak it up and emote, wholly taken over with compassion for another’s sorrow. Does it make me fraudulent? I hope not. I remember hugging her widow in the street, alarmed by what had come over me. He was so lost to it, so shell-shocked by her death, and left with a young daughter to care for alone. Sometimes all I can do is feel for others, be with them in their grief, standing alongside. Your grief story is my grief story. Always.

My dreams are so multi-layered at the moment. Mostly lived out in the dark, subterranean, cave-like. There was a marketplace and a table with a few remaining hyacinth bulbs for sale. Yes, I thought, that would give me some pleasure. I watched a woman chose one, breaking off a bulb from a cluster. I walked over to join her. Then David Bowie appeared at my shoulder. Let me buy one for you, he said, beginning to reach over and select one. I hand one in my hand and he took that one too. It’s a shame that they are last weeks, he said, implying that they were not quite up to scratch. He then disappeared and I remembered that he or we hadn’t paid and searched around in my purse for some coins to put in the charity box. (Is that what they are called?) The rest is lost.

A wild morning. I didn’t walk the Prom, they’d promised winds of 42 miles per hour and I don’t want to chance it. The sun shone yesterday, russets, oranges, reds and browns bedecked the trees as we drove by. The town was bustling with people, many army personnel there for the remembrance parades. We sat in the car in silence. A woman walked past talking loudly on her mobile phone. It was good to see her. My other life. I like to be with her, she lifts me, there is so much possibility when I am with her. Outside the light is lifting, somewhat, though the clouds are a murky grey. I shall write today. I don’t relish it. I have no plan. Just begin. Find my way through the dark. There is power in beginning.

She has such a sharpness to her. Just like her. I feel ticked off by it. Hammered on the head by it. Where is her softness, her yielding-ness? I wouldn’t have wanted her to do it. I want love at the end not practicality. And there are enough who love me. Yes. As I love in return.

She seems to keep herself to herself mostly, or so it appears whenever I am in the studio at work. She is self-contained, a tall, long, sylph-like figure who is made enigmatic in her muteness. Then, all of sudden yesterday she spoke. She was on her way out, coat on handbag in hand and I looked up to say goodbye when she stood at the door and turned round. She spoke in English, probably because she could see I was looking. There was one other person in the room and she directed her narration to both of us, though she is used to speaking Welsh to the other person. It was about cat food. She was popping out she said to get cat food. I use mountains of the stuff, she said. I think she has three cats. My mother bought some cheap stuff from Tesco’s, she said, so I thought I’d try it but it made Hank, who’s the fat, greedy one, throw up. Then I realised that the other cats weren’t eating the Tesco stuff and that Hank was eating theirs too. So he was throwing up from overeating. She laughed. So I now have to go and get their usual stuff.

I like these small insights into other people’s lives. I watch them all steadily, making up stories as I do. Do they do the same with me? I don’t know what they think of me. Some are friendly others are not. I don’t socialise with them. I say no to the Christmas Party. It is too much all that, I’ve always find it hard to be in groups. All that forced jollity. All out of context. I listened to Proust as I walked writing about how our social personas are formed by other people’s opinions of us. We have no control over this, prejudices are believed, acted on. We must bear it and try to change them, soften them by gentle degrees. Or not. For what in the end does it matter?

I watched a pale apricot-coloured food carton dancing in the wind, sliding, pirouetting across the road. On the roundabout before the station a gritter truck span round the circle twice, the sand and grit gushing out behind. A taxi joined him in the dance.

She texted me to say she may not be able to make it – though later she said she was determined. Floods and snow. Poor loves. All those mourning the loss of their safe houses. A house behind the Alexandra Hall has flashing lights in its window. First Yuletide comfort I’ve seen. More please, I need to lift this gloom.

Fingers crossed, I wrote back to her. Fingers crossed.

They get everywhere. Threads. I’ve just tried the quilt ‘so far’ on his bed. I thought I was forwarder that I am. Isn’t it often the way? Still another seven strips to go. I am so slow. How did they ever get things finished? How does anyone? My life is lived in pieces, rather like the squares of the quilt I am fashioning for him. Piecemeal. If frustrates me but I know I need to accept it and indeed cherish it. Two unexpected bookings, last night and first thing this morning. I lost sleep because of the one last night. But we need the money, and I need to keep on working. To keep normal. To keep it together. What if it is all nothing? It makes me a little weary though losing sleep, like now, bleak. I cannot care what they talk about. It doesn’t touch me. But I am home now and I want to sit with tea and sew, just to be steady. Empty. The rain pours. Poor Derbyshire. The River Derwent bursting it banks. Almost biblical someone said. My heart bleeds for them. The destruction of a home is a terrible thing. Our safety, our warmth, our comfort, our privacy, our belongings. Our belonging. There were still too rough sleepers in the shelter on the Prom this morning, and in that biting wind. Do they become inured to it? She offered to help, to pay for me to see someone privately. I am touched. I said no. It is too much. But I love to know that she is there, strong, steady. It may be nothing. And then I will feel foolish. So be it. A journey tomorrow to see a dear friend. How will that be? My fingers hurt with winter cuts. And the nail on the one that was poisoned looks soon to lift. I used to have nice hands. Age takes its toll. It must be something that needed to come out, she said. Yes. Enough for now. Tea. And the Archers.

I keep getting these intimations of something like Christmas. Not the present-stuff or the family-obligation-hype but the sensations of warmth, of plenty, of safety, of being tucked-up, lights and candles around me and that anticipation of something like joy. That’s it, that something like joy, a throwback to an innocent-er time (for I was never truly innocent of bleakness, of darkness). It comes in unbidden, even through the mire I crawl through in the morning. That dark. I love when it comes, it sustains me. A gift. It is a gift. Unbidden, unexpected but oh, so welcome. Happy Yuletide.

I wanted it too much perhaps. It didn’t smell like hers. It was cheap, nasty and made my skin itch. And once it was on me I couldn’t get it off, for all my scrubbing. Throw it away, he says. No, I reply, I will return it. How like me. So pedantic, so thorough, so finicky. But it about neatness, order. Putting things right.

I can’t put it right. Not with her. It made me cry when I got in the car. I needed to get it out. So be it. They are drains, I remember her saying. Big organisations are drains. Drains not radiators. I have to let it be. To accept it with grace. There are benefits and as always I am grateful for the work.

‘She has. No. Plan.’ A quote from Vinegar Girl – a book that I’m reading by Anne Tyler. I’ve read it before, I think. No matter. It is so gentle, an ease. I read it at work. I have no plan. Just a tangle of mess. Like the state of my plan chest drawers, too many things awaiting completion and not enough time. I think about suggesting a writing residency. Would he be interested? But, more to the point how would I fund it and where would I find the energy? That is my greatest fear, this draining away of energy. My physical life, my vital life is ebbing away from me. I feel it.

Ah, the day has lifted somewhat. And soon I have to go out again to work.

She is a sweetie. I get her talk about herself. I like to hear it. About her Dad, missing her Mum at Christmas, (‘she meant the world to me’), going to Chepstow in the motor home, just her and Wayne and their dog. Her Dad being so taciturn, the home-truths that came out with her sisters when they went to watch the rugby and had too much wine. She’s all teeth and hair. A sweetie. Another world. So much love, so much trying to be happy. Bless her. Bless all of you. Amen to that. And the grief. Will it ever ease?

The hotel was busy, busy than we’d expected. People came in and out of the adult’s lounge, many of them to sit down in front of the communal jigsaw which was almost finished, to attempt to add another piece. A man in a pair of red corduroys was the most interested, even looking over the shoulder of another resident who sat before it an hour or so later. It was a chocolate-boxy image, but the remaining pieces to be found were all representing some kind of berry-bush. Do you think some might have fallen on the floor? the red-trousered man asked another woman, as he bent over to look under the table. The same man joined a group of about five people eventually who took over two tables at the other end of the room from us. It was pleasant to hear their chatter. Clearly well-heeled, they were planning where to go for lunch the next day. The red-trousered man elected himself drinks monitor and kept coming back and forth carrying large glasses of red wine and G&Ts. A bridge table was laid out ready, though no one took notice of it. What bliss. What bliss it is to step into another kind of life and to not matter, to not be noticed or interfered with. We did crosswords, as is our wont and drank tea (too much in my case) and wasted time staring at the view of the sea and the golf course. He tried the number again while we were there. The second time someone answered. Six months, they said. It will be sixth months before an appointment for the MRI comes available. He thought it would be imminent. Has it helped to know this? Somewhat. It’s real. It’s how it is. Nothing till April. We have to wait. I can wait. There is life to be getting on with after all.

South Beach was a state. Or at least the Prom alongside it was. The bins overflowing. There must have been parties, Guy Fawkes night parties. There was a sign at the hotel advertising a firework display with the proviso that it could be watched ‘safely’ from inside the lounge. Ideal. My favourite. Who needs the cold, the wet and the wind? We heard them last night. Bang bang but I still slept.

The tea made me crotchety. Is that all? I heard myself saying to the waitress when she brought my salad. It was a pathetic attempt at one. A tiny pile of leaves and an assortment of tomatoes and horrid green olives. But I shouldn’t have said it like that. I was hungry and cross. I always am when I have to eat other people’s food. It is rarely palatable. What a fuss-pot. I never used to be. I think about food all the time, not because I want to eat necessarily but because I need to control what I consume. She talked about my appetite, he does too. Do I have such a huge one? I try to manage it, it scares me. Curb, curb. I have to let it be as he has to let the insomnia be. Accept and it will either pass or lessen. I think. Nevertheless, it was a lovely day and the landscape looked superb in its autumn colours. What a joy that was.

It is his birthday today. Seventy-two years old. Happy birthday my lovely love. We are going out for lunch. Though the food is not what it is about but sitting drinking tea in the adult’s lounge with the residents sleeping around us. And the view. And the drive. And the getting away.

He was loping ahead of me as I walked. A shuffling figure. He is one of a few of this town’s wanderers, a tramp, a hobo, a vagrant – like the other man who rifles through the dustbins, they are the un-cared for, the overlooked. I crossed the road. I was ashamed but I didn’t want to disturb him. He is lost in his own head. Does he eat? Does he sleep? He wanders night and day it seems. Do they know of him, the authorities? Does anyone take care of him? He looks like Rip van Winkle with a beard down to his crutch. Sometimes his shoes look new. How did it happen? From where and how did he fall? I am sorry. I am sorry for everybody’s misery. Truly.

The red light was shining on the war memorial again. A November gesture, I think. Blood-red, poppy-red.

He woke for a pee just before I went out. The smell of his Old Spice deodorant is always a comfort to me. One of my perfumes is running out and I’ve a hankering for some Patchouli scent. Will it overpower me?

It rained a little as I walked. It never rains on my birthday, he always says.

Keep on the pavement, reads a paper sign sellotaped to a lamppost on the Prom.

My dreams continue murky, multi-layered, tiring, dark. A waiter at the end of the night sitting with us at our table and refusing to get me a coffee. Climbing some stairs in this emporia – designer stairs, black slats – to look at some designs and two elderly, elegant women following behind me talking.

Caught Amanda Palmer talking about crowdfunding and compassion on TED interview and then a series of women discussing OWCH – a community for women where they share a communal space but have their own flats. Sounds nice. Will I ever get my home? A pipe dream. Will I live long enough to find my island? What is it about islands? I listen to Robert Barr’s marvellously dated Dark Island and fantasise. And yet I know how hard it would be. All that darkness inside and out. Coffee now and then fly.