Author: Ellen Bell

It made me smile. It had been wrapped around some wrought-iron railings outside one of the houses halfway along North Road. A row of plastic union-jack triangles, one of which was a picture Meghan Markle, flapping in the breeze. It was so gloriously tacky and so out of place in this very Welsh town. I thought of them celebrating in front of the TV. Would they drink champagne, eat canapés and wave flags throughout the ceremony? It’s such an odd thing, a kind of appropriation, this owning of the royals. I wish them well but the rest, the flurry, the fuss and bother I can do without, as I am sure could they. Is she scared? Is she nervous about what she might have taken on? We cannot know them. There was a writer on the radio the other day talking about a book she’s written about Harry. She only met him for twenty minutes and that was enough, apparently, for a book. We want to dig, to delve, to scratch at the surface of their privilege, wealth, birth and stardom. Are they like us? She will never have to do this again, I said to him, scrubbing the plates after supper. She’ll never have to wash up, cook, do the washing, the ironing, put the bins out for herself again. Think of that. But she’ll also never be able to leave the house without someone taking her picture. How would it be to be without money cares, to not have to work? But it’s not like that is it? Their time isn’t their own. And they are in a goldfish bowl, gold-plated perhaps, but a goldfish bowl nonetheless. Poor things, poor loves. I suspect they rue their privilege daily.

So here am I in my anonymity – ever alert to its freedoms and its limitations. My flying high is all inside. Is that not better, more lasting and utterly unreliant upon another’s whim?

She did answer the phone. He recommends an operation. She is reluctant. And then there is the funeral. She is clearly shocked by the frugality of the show. No funeral, no funeral tea, just a burial. We want the same, well I want it and he is happy to acquiesce. (I won’t be there, will I?, he says). As far she as she is concerned it’s not right. When her dog died, she told me, there was a ham supper. She was alone, with just her son running the farm. She buried her husband five years ago, she said leaving me with an image of the woman with shovel in her hand.)The family fall-out has distressed her. She feels torn between the rights of the mother and those of the daughter whom the family have ostracised. I had to turn my phone off in the end, she said. Poor love. Such a sensitive soul. I feel and care for her. Truly. And I recall a friend of a friend refusing his sister the right to visit him as he died. Such an harsh act. Nothing can be done. Leave well alone, he says.

But she didn’t. I wonder if she is OK. She asked me to ring her. We have much in common, she said. Perhaps they are away. I will try once more.

And neither did she. I wasn’t expecting her to. She is nursing her grievance still, obviously preferring that to talking to me. So be it.

Town was busy this morning from the night before. Conversations, chat reached me as  I walked along. A girl on the phone by the Prom shelter, her feet, at the end of large, fulsome thighs encased in skin-tight jeans, in dainty ballet pumps laced up the ankle. I’m fine, she said, I’m fine. And then more slowly, deliberately: I will make my way home. Then walking through the Castle grounds I catch two boys with the glare of my torch. L.E.D., one of them says as we cross paths, then, F.E.D. I’ve no idea what he means. Outside The Angel two girls are sprawled on the steps leading up to The Academy. I’m so pissed, yeh, one of them says, her head lolling forward. Walking down Great Darkgate Street a lad on a mobile phone is shouting: Hello, he says, you still outside The Angel? Finally, two students trundling home towards Penglais. One in rocky biker gear is earnestly telling the other: You know you’ve just got to try.

Go compare, the advertising slogan says. No. It’s time I stopped doing that. It is enough to be me in this constant state of trying. Trying to be good, to be better, trying to try. We fail when we do not try, she said. Yes, that is the heartache of it. We have no choice but to go on trying. So be it. And there is such a view to admire along the way, don’t you think?

I went for a tin of rice pudding yesterday. Not for me for the food bank. It’s something. A gesture. It’s for my benefit, rather than theirs really. I need to be jolted, to be reminded how fortunate I am. And I am. And this is what I would like, in those circumstances. Some comfort, as I said. Traditional rice pudding, it read. Would that be with the skin then? Traditional rice pudding with sultanas. Will they hate the sultanas? I dither at the aisle. Take the risk. I remember school rice pudding. It was served in these enormous tin trays and there was always a skin on the top. A skin like a crust, often very brown, sometimes burnt. Many of us liked it and would vie for a piece. It was sickly sweet and the rice was cloying and heavy to digest but it was warm and comforting. Did she ever make us rice pudding at home? She made it for the dogs certainly, without sugar but dosed up with cod liver oil. They wolfed it down.

We’d sat watching a lone student practising on the tennis court beneath us. His serve is all wrong, he said, my love, my once Wimbledon junior champion. It’s his drop, it’s not high enough. Then there ensued a discussion as the rights and wrongs of interfering. Should he say something? He was itching to do so. But might he just offend him? Perhaps he is content. He’s trying at least. Yes, he said, but practising won’t help. It won’t help. I thought it was all about practice. Practice makes perfect. Such sayings spin round and round in my head. Other people’s voices, guiding, cajoling, bossing. I thought that if I wrote and wrote I would get better, that it would happen, just by the sheer repetition of taking myself to the page and writing. Isn’t this the case? I know no other way. And often it is a long and tedious way. It has always been so with me. I’m no child star, no protégé material. I’m a plodder, dogged in my desire to better myself, to get better, to become good. I felt an affinity with that student. He was practising alone. Over and over again. But he’s no good, he said. Had it been easy for him, a natural athlete? Perhaps. It was long before I knew him. Be kinder I want to say. But I don’t.

The morning begins to shine with promise. Back to my practice. My writing. I want to sleep but won’t, not yet. Work first.

Will she answer this morning?

They were piling out of a flat just off North Road. One after another. There must’ve been five or six of them. Had there been a party or something? First they trailed off along the street that cuts onto the Prom only to turn back again and head up the hill ahead of me. Jesus Christ, one of the boys said.

I did it. I called her.

I may have said so before that I don’t find phone calls easy. I mean work ones are fine, they have an obvious purpose, and a beginning and end. It’s the other kind, the social kind where boundaries, particularly of time, are more fluid. She took ages to answer and her voice, so familiar even after all these years, was tentative, hesitant. She sounded pleased to hear from me, though she had been warned. Had she fretted about me calling? I hope not. It was well meant. There is nothing but love. Really. He doesn’t understand, not truly. But that doesn’t matter. This is about me, and her, and her. The three of us. We are a grandmother, I said and she laughed. And we are. A shared gift.

It took me back. That longing. That longing to belong. The delight I felt in her. Her wit, her generosity, her openness, her kindness, her ease. At least that is what I saw back then. She’d been wary. And rightly so. Me too, but then I opened to her, the need too great to suppress. I’ve always done it, sought mothers. Still do. Did she know this? Did they all? How many has it been now? Five or six. Not all to the same degree but mother figures certainly. Belonging and not belonging. Because you don’t, not really. There is no blood connection. However much you love, serve, yield to them you are not theirs. Does she feel the same? I shouldn’t think she thinks about it, not deeply. I hope not.

It took me back. The bustle, the chaos, the busy-ness of it. The chats, the cups of tea, the dogs, the walks and the noise. I welcomed it then, wouldn’t do now but then I suppose she wouldn’t either. A big life contained in that house. Uncarpeted floorboards, all of them crashing about in their slippered feet. Pyjamas on in front of the TV, Neighbours, Coronation Street and The Beautiful South on the stereo.

It took me back and it was nice to go there.

A testing day yesterday but we managed it. We solved it. We survived it. You shall not be overcome. How beautiful. You may be assailed, you may be diseased but you shall not be overcome. Is that a promise? Can I hold you to that?

Two girls holding hands. Where was it? Yes, on campus. And then later the next morning, two boys doing the same. In the dark. I like it. I like that fact that they feel able to do it.

I chase time. I know I am doing it. So many things to relish, to anticipate with pleasure and there is time to do it. I have so much freedom. So much.

I looked at it when I’d finished working on it and the yellow was just gorgeous. A lemon-cheese kind of yellow. Take them in, such moments, they count. They count against the doubt.

Fucking gossamer, he said waving his hand across his face as we carried the shopping from the car.

How I love him.

I pass by a girl and boy talking outside The Angel. Well, he is talking, she is lighting a cigarette. It’s like, like…,he is saying, it’s like if you’re gunna like….She smiles, leaning her head to one side as she listens. At the other end of the walk street another girl is sitting on the pavement, leaning against the door of Ahmed’s Barber Shop. A tall, rake-like figure of man is leaning over her, cradling her face in his hands. I love you to bits, right? he says, with a trace of menace in his voice. Or am I reading that into it? Yeh, I know, she replies, her eyes still downcast. I carry on down the hill hoping that I wil get a lift from the smell of baking bread from Slater’s Bakery. But no, there is nothing. There rarely is these days. Perhaps they’ve had air-conditioning put in and no longer need to open the door. Outside the mini Tesco a lad stands uncertainly, his body keeling slightly as in in a strong wind, watching a lorry driver beginning to unload. They drink so much. I tell him of it when he wakes. Perhaps it’s not just drink, he says. An owl whoo-whoos in the distance, over head. It’s the eeriest noise. No oystercatchers this morning, just a few seagulls screeching, and one that I watched soaring about the students’ hall along the prom, a white glider, elegant, sublime. They’d promised rain but it stayed dry.

My neighbour was up when I returned home, though his bedroom light was switched off as I opened our shared hall door. A thin slither of light could be seen through his front door. Then it opened. He was there pulling a suitcase. Are you going away? I asked. Yes, he said, to Vietnam. His father had been a missionary and I think he was actually born in China. His siblings live all over the world. He is going to see one of his brothers in Vietnam. How long for? I ask. Three weeks, he said, look after my mother for me. Of course. Of course we will. Will she ask for help if she needs it? I hope so. Though at ninety-nine she is amazingly fit and fiercely independent.

A bitty day today. I need to have an eye test. Well, I don’t need one, it is due that’s all. It breaks up my working time, but heigh ho.

We talked of the massacre of the Palestinians last night before I went to sleep. He sat on the edge of my bed. Shove yer feet up, he said. It’s nice to hear his voice, it calms me. What do you do with such information? I ask him. Where do you put it? What can you do to be at peace with it? Well, he says, I read about it, I find out about it and then I try to put it away. I can’t do anything about it, after all. No, I said, you can’t. But aren’t we meant to feel for them, ache for them, stand alongside them? Yes.

Don’t give up your light, he told me, years ago, the man with no teeth. Don’t. After all there is as much good, as much love as there is not. I am sorry. Sorry for your pain, all of you. And my concerns are but specks in comparison. Rest in peace. You are so brave.

I rarely see them. Sometimes a few can be seen scuttling on the shore but it is too dark to make them out distinctly. But I hear them. They call out through the night. Their call is a kind of peep, a high-pitched peeping, that shatters the black, breaking it. I feel an affinity with them, I don’t really know why. They are odd creatures, a little ungainly and their cry is imploring, feeble, ghostly. I like to see them en masse in the daylight, a gathering of black and white bodies, bobbing.

I heard the clang of bottles being dropped into a bin. Two people were ahead of me. One, a long-haired man, was sliding empty wine bottles into the mouth of the wastebin and the other, a girl in a hippy-esque patterned jacket was standing by the railing with a wine glass in her hand. A third man was on the beach below them putting what was obviously the remains of their meal into a plastic bag. I couldn’t catch their speech but they sounded foreign, possibly Scandinavian. It was the wine glass that stuck out. An elegant detail. She waved it about, dancing with it.

Tuesday is bin day and all along Llanbadarn Road recycle food and bin bags have been put out, most in neat rows tied up with a crisp knot. In town it is different. The gulls have got at these bags already and food spills onto pavements. The gulls shouting out warnings to other gulls. A screeching that tears at the still air. I see half a bread roll, an unopened salad cream sachet and a white plastic fork.

But I want to do it, I tell myself on waking as I wait for the inevitable grey, heaviness to descend. But is it worthwhile enough? Does it have meaning enough? But I want to do it, to see it through, to see what it will become. Isn’t that reason enough?

I have a drawer full of such projects. All on the go but what energy, what talking-to it takes to get them continuing. What is there? A cross-stitched beginning to Proust’s Swann’s Way in English, then one in French. Then there is the piece I want to return to today, a list of drama recordings that I have listened to while I’ve sewn. A kind of written negative space. Then there are the three van Gogh’s Sunflowers cross-stitch kits. One is nearing the end, another mid-way and the other just started. And then there is the tapestry of the same painting. All on the go. Going somewhere, feeling like nowhere. And yet, to not see them through, aagh, therein lies the pain. I feel like I should concentrate on the Sunflowers because they have a distinct purpose, they are to be used for my performance next month, and yet, they are a trial to me. Intellectually I can stand back and smile at the cheek of it, the subversion of all that is creative, that they represent. But when I’m in it, doing it, I am lost in the stultifying inwardness of copying, of rendering ‘wild’ painting into ‘docile’ stitch. And yet, writing about it excites me. Yes, I think there is more to explore there.

Just accept. Remember that word. Accept. Live it. Live the frustration, the uncertainty, the indignity, the stuck-ness. It will come right, he said. It will all come right.

I remembered. I remembered the last dream I had before waking. I love preserving my dream worlds, they are visionary states to me, full of wisdom. And often, though not over the last week or so, it is the last one that stays with me, the one I have usually between 12.30 and 1 am. The worlds are familiar. Time and time again it is that hill, outside, a street, a busy street, a foreign street. The road is white, like the marbled pavements of Spain. The sun is shining and either side of the street is flanked with coffee houses and shops. There is bustle, noise and clamour. In this particular dream I was walking with him down a busy inside corridor and we passed a dear friend of mine. She was talking to someone and I thought she hadn’t recognised me. I wasn’t sure what to do so greeted her and moved on. Then we were in her flat. A one room apartment. She was inside with us but had also posted a letter for me under her door. I could see it being pushed under. Inside was a ten pound note, a present for my birthday and a note about where to go for a massage and a reading (things we have done together in the past) with names and prices. She talked about her plans for a business making cakes and handed me a leaflet. Then she talked about getting some birds and how she would hang their cages from the ceiling. I asked her about how she could afford to live in London. Then she told us of a huge Council Tax she’d had to pay, over £52 K and the depression that set on a result, but that the mistake had been rectified and that she was living on the rebate.

I felt good when I woke. It had been a dream of lightness, of friendship, of being loved, of opportunities and possibilities.

And yesterday was a good day. Work was fine. I was acknowledged, spoken too and engaged with. I practised making origami cranes and scotty dogs, even leaving them there, on the window sill, a gift. I don’t know where I am going with this but something, something may come of it. I was fired up with my conversation with her and was prompted to email some contacts just to see if they might be interested in my current work. Who knows? It’s about not being stuck. Seeing what is possible.

The sun shines. The house has been cleaned and after my second cup of tea I am positively buoyant.

All my troubles end tomorrow, at least as far as money is concerned, she says. All to do with Uranus apparently, and how it has been in the house of other people’s money (and surely, mine as well) for what seems like ages. We shall see, my noble soothsayer. I’m open to it. Let the abundance rain down on me. Then pass it on.

A jar of peanut butter. I wouldn’t eat it now, but if I was in their situation of need, as indeed I have been several times, I would. That gooey mass of crunchy sweetness and salt would be a comfort. Brown toast and peanut butter. Yes. The wire stand where the Food Bank items are stored at Morrison’s was piled high with bags of pasta and tins of tomatoes this morning. Sensible, yes and perfect for an easy meal but the cosy foods are nice too. Rice pudding, tins of custard, Bonne Maman strawberry jam, chocolate digestives and good coffee. At least one a week. Yes.

It was to be my way of sharing my good fortune. I’d given up my job to start life as a full-time, self-supporting artist (while also doing a part-time PhD.) and decided to donate a percentage of all my art work sales to charity. I did well for a couple of months. Then it all dried up. It was 2008. What a year to begin my adventure. I was sorry to renege on my intention. And now, well I count every penny. As I count every blessing.

Let’s see what we can do, eh?

I only have ten minutes before I have to leave for work. Ten minutes to check in, to say something, to let loose, to let go, to express. Town was busy with late night clubbers. Do they still call themselves that? Party people, perhaps? All young, well mostly. Many had paired-off. A couple stood on the beach. I saw them below me as I walked along the Prom to the bar. He was very tall with what looked like green hair. She was small with blonde tousled locks. They weren’t talking just standing slightly apart from each other, frozen like a tableau. Just before the Castle I passed another couple. They were sitting on the mini wall that leads up to the Pitch-and-Put. She had her head down and he was talking. I couldn’t catch what was being said. Sometimes I catch it sometimes I don’t.

It’s the Race for Life today. There has been signs warning of its arrival for weeks but there are still cars parked on its route. I saw three or four with yellow laminated signs asking their owners to politely ‘Remove this vehicle’. Will they? Do they care? At least the weather promises nice.

Accept, said a voice in my head as I stood at the end of the Perygyl. I stand there and close my eyes feeling the breeze from the sea on my face and I am content. I could stand there for hours. I could even sleep. I feel safe there. I like the emptiness of just the horizon and the line of the sea. Nothing to distract. Just black, a grey-black really, just before dawn. Liminal. What must I do? What am I meant to do? I ask. Accept. Just accept. Accept what is. What a brave thing. What a tremendously difficult thing. To fall into it, to submit, to embrace the nothingness, the uncertainty, the un-clarity, the stuck-ness, to accept what is.

My dreams are but shadows these last few days. I ask to remember them but they slip through my fingers like gossamer as soon as my alarm sounds. It is the moonless-ness? The dark side of the moon. The secretive, non-revealing side. If so, then so be it. I will wait. I will accept. I will acquiesce.

Certainty. There is no such thing of course. Not any longer, at least. There never really was. I just wanted to think there was. To believe it was achievable. I breathed it in. If I can only do that, I used to think, be with that person, earn that kind of money, acquire that thing, all will be well. It never was, I’d turn a corner and a whole new set of doubts would be there facing me. It isn’t the achieving, the getting there, the decision-making but the travelling toward. And what happens along the way. I know this, the sagacious me, knows this and welcomes it. It’s the learnt strength what counts. What have you learnt? What scar tissue have you developed? How much stronger are you? It isn’t romantic. It never was, I just made it so. It is humdrum mostly. An endless waiting. Yes, but how do you wait? Are you clenched-up like a fist or at ease like an oak tree, steady but open to the sun, the sky, the air and all that passes underneath and above it?

What a revelation. I can recycle it, chuck it, unplug it. Get rid. I’ve never liked it. A cheap, tacky thing that never worked properly and used an inordinate amount of batteries. The other phones seem to work fine without it. We shall see.

It’s going to be a lovely day. Such promise.

They’ve buggered up our pay. It had to happen sooner or later. And this is an example of uncertainty manifesting itself. How will I respond? Will I catastrophise – telling myself that this is it they will only pay the basic from now on? Or will I breathe and calmly wait for it to be resolved?

I get quite stressed at the thought of it. I’ve never responded well to them, they flummox me. Online forms. Yesterday it was for HMRC and today it is for a visa waiver for the US. Just be steady. It will make sense in the end.

It really unsettled him. Our neighbour parking his car in another bay really unsettled him. We all have our numbered slots. Ours is round the back. And how he hates it when someone takes our space. It winds him up like mad. He, my darling boy, does like rules. More than you’d think. He believes it is about respect, paying dues to what belongs to someone else. He can come in quite shaken. It’s the anger, he doesn’t want to lose control. So when our neighbours blue BMW was in another neighbours’ place he was truly flummoxed. His space is empty, he said, why has he done that? Perhaps he’s on holiday and their guest has parked it there in error. He wasn’t away. I saw the light on in his window this morning. Has he asked him yet? Has he solved the conundrum?

There is a plan, said the man with no teeth and the Siamese cat that miaowed all through the reading. There is a plan, I can tell you that, he said, and you won’t be disappointed. I expected, hoped for mastery. Mastery of something. It seems that this will not be. I must settle for a mistress of many things, a chatelaine of a many-roomed castle. Is that OK? It has to be, doesn’t it? How will I manage it, conduct myself with care, lightness and compassion?  Wait and see, I whisper, wait and see.

I thought she was talking to someone ahead of her. I was coming down Great Darkgate Street and she was crossing from Terrace Road. She had a hair band with white furry ears on her head. A plump little thing, she seemed to be singing and laughing at the same time. I turned to watch her as she continued along the road towards the station. I was just being curious. Was she OK? Did she have someone looking out for her? Then suddenly she wheeled round glaring at me. What are you staring at? she spat. What are you fucking looking at? Keep calm, I said to myself, hackles of fear or anxiety rippling across my back. It’s alright, sweetie, I said, I’m not looking at anything. I wanted to say, at you, I was worried, I wanted to see that you were safe. But her wall of aggression unsettled me. I kept my voice quiet, steady and kept on walking.

How horrid, he said at breakfast. And it was, though I’d forgotten it till I told him. I’d walked into a membrane of her making, it had nothing to do with me. Where had it come from? She could hardly see me, we were too far away. Perhaps she was scared, defensive at least. It was so unexpected. Usually I am unmolested, left to go my own way in the mornings.

Yesterday, I’d walked to the bar and been met with a figure all in white climbing up the stairs from the beach. A mermaid in a white, skin-tight sheath dress. She had flip flops on. She didn’t look at me but strode across the road to one of the Halls. Had she been swimming? A mermaid come from the water bent on mischief.

A crazy day yesterday, so much juggling, so many little things to do. And today. One thing at a time. Breathe. Just breathe. All will be done and if you are left with only an hour in which to write it is OK. Just do the best you can.

Another poignant morning at the Home. I will write of it soon. The woman hugging and seemingly defleaing a teddy bear and furry cat. The man picking his nose as he wandered about. The man who’d wet himself and refused to let the staff member change him. The tiny woman in the hoist. The other tiny one with the booming voice, what you doing, boy? And me, avoiding the other little man. Next time.

We sat on the bench watching the four men playing bowls. The wind was cold but the sun was warm. I love to be there with him. At least we had that, that quiet time. At peace. It’s always there, if you want it. It is, truly.

He writes about the longue duree of craft. The time taken to make something, to learn something, to become something. A lifetime. A long life. A long duration. The next chapter is about hands. He quotes William Carlos Williams and about how he is tired of ‘soul talk’ that there should be ‘no ideas but in things’ – ‘things touched by hand during the day’. Ah, me and here I am trying to get rid of things. And yet, the desire to make is continual.

I made a start. It makes me feel tired, weary. So many decisions to make – do I need this? Do I need two of these? And then it’s all those journeys, back and back. Photographs are the worst. My work? Well, initially it feels good to chuck it. But then I get seduced but what was. All those trannies – some are really good photos. I was lucky with photographers. They were so kind. I was prolific, then. But there was so much stuff. I like to slough it off, as much as I can. I didn’t open his envelope of stuff. He likes this process less. Not at all, in fact. He’ll get rid of clothes, making room for new. But memories, no not those, they must be kept even if they are never looked at or visited.

We looked his name up on Google and found a match for a photographer and someone who works in Ancient Monuments. Neither was correct. He’s a biker, arriving at the studio with a helmet on his arm.

I did what she told me she did. Bought the cardboard bobbins and wrapped the silks around them. I wanted to sit too but there wasn’t time. Did it make me feel good? It used to as a child. Neatening, ordering, and making room, making space. It did briefly but then tiredness comes in – a weariness that makes everything grey.

I feel unused. And yet, in this emptiness there is a richness that is new – a trace of something important that I cannot yet articulate. I need to follow this. It has not worked out the way I expected but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is wrong. Perhaps this space, this unknowing-ness is important, significant.

She replied. And I will go. I look forward to it, deeply. There is a connection.

And so did she, with the number. I think about what I will say. It has been a long time. I need to complete a circle. I belonged to something once, a loving thing. Is it still there?