Author: Ellen Bell

There’s a scene in the film Heartburn where Meryl Streep’s character and her husband, played by Jack Nicholson are at a restaurant dining with a group of friends. They are playing a game in which you have to describe yourself in three words. I think I’ve seen the same game played as a device in more than one of Woody Allen’s films. Anyway, Streep says, and I think I’ve got it right, Wife, Mother, Writer (or journalist – I think she writes a cookery column). Then it’s Nicholson’s turn. And he says, if I remember it correctly, Writer, Father and In love. He doesn’t say lover but ‘in love’. She goes all gooey, grinning from ear to ear at what she sees as a public pronouncement of his feelings for her. I think they all clap, or go ah!. Later Streep discovers that he is having an affair and the full import of what he said then returns to her. I thought of this game as I walked this morning. I was trying to make sense of the dream I had a few days ago about the closed door and not wanting to go through it because I didn’t know this woman’s name. I was trying to fathom it, wondering if it was a dream about identity. I could easily have opened the door but I was scared, scared that I would be found wanting. That I didn’t have the key, the name, the knowledge – the identity. Perhaps the name I’d forgotten was mine. And the older woman, my landlady was me, the wiser, the more-in-charge me. Who knows? And who cares, he would say, adding, it’s only a dream. And yet, they mean much to me, as much as this waking semblance of reality does.

Is that why walking in the early morning has such power for me? The world is half-dream, half-reality then. I could see the horizon this morning, a dark blue line. The sea was like oil, heavy and sleepy.

Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle, pop goes the weasel. Sometimes I just find songs singing themselves in my head. I don’t know why. Had I heard it somewhere? An odd song, was that one about the plague too? I thought rice was a relatively new phenomena in the West, perhaps, not. Did they import it? When is that song from, the sixteenth century? I know so little.

I finished Tulip Fever yesterday at work. It was sumptuous, glorious. I’ve been writing about being in Amsterdam too. I miss it. So much colour, richness. It is a luscious novel. I love the short chapter’s, her attention to detail, the viscera, the sensation. The horse pissing, the de-headed sprats – the way the detail gave meat to the action. I could see the silks.

I took up my tapestry when I finished the book and it seemed to imbue it with deeper, richer colour. I am still just following the lines. The tapestry, for the moment, satisfies me more. It is even simpler. What am I doing? Am I reduced? I don’t know. Something will come. I think about doing tiny sewn still lifes. I want the richness, I want the colour, the shininess of silk. Not painted but sewn, bejewelled. I want to write of the detail too. Do the two at the same time. I too master place, sense place through the stuff of detail. This morning the heat coming off the parked Gregg’s lorry as I walked past. The screeching pipping of the oystercatchers, the stink of the lobster pots and that trail of fish gut from the trailer by the harbour, the way I have to try to close my nose because it is too much. The group of what looked like West Indian youngsters encircling a bonfire on North Beach, their emptied supermarket bags strewn in a circle around them. I saw glimpses of fire-lit faces, patterns, smiles and heard their laughter. I want to write the memory of such things. I want to write of Norway, of Amsterdam, and how I lived there, felt there, made home there.

Cleaning done. Writing done. Yoga, then tea, then more following the lines. It is enough. Then later we’ll sit looking down on the Bowling Green. Me and him holding hands.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night, wrote Paul McCartney. It wasn’t and it doesn’t. The blackbird I listened to when I went to bed was singing while it was still light. It’s odd going to sleep then. It’s no different to shift-workers, he said. You can do what you like. But do I like? I don’t know. I don’t like being singular, well not when I’m edgy and so uncertain of myself. Other days when everything shines inside, I’m OK with it. And this morning the Perygyl and the sky and the clouds breaking up to reveal the dawn were so beautiful. I want to experience them and early is the only way I can. The blackbird made me smile. He was really going for it. And then, listening to a programme about Nature, I can’t recall it’s name, an old programme, with Cyril Fletcher, who I don’t know, and yet he’s been on twice in the last two days. Sounds Natural, that’s the title. Sound’s Natural. Well, he was being interviewed and he talked about the wildlife in his garden, the rooks, a cuckoo and they played the sound of nightingale. Perhaps that is what I heard last night, well, afternoon, not a blackbird. Do we have nightingales here? I need to find out. Or do I? I could just enjoy the song.

Kids sprawled about benches on the Prom this morning. A girl stretched out on the pavement, her legs bare, a boy and girl sat on the seat above her. What do I know? said the girl, petulantly. Well, you were the one who’s so interested in if Greg got laid or not, replied the boy.

A sheet had been tied to the Prom railing by the Bandstand. Good luck Louise and Craig, it read.

I’m in a rush. Off to work for a paper review. I’m a worry-wart today about money mostly but underneath there’s this real appreciation of the richness of it all. A rich, rich life.

I am blessed.

An examined life, the blurb accompanying the exhibition called it. Her life, he said. They mean her life, he said. I know, I said. I know. She examined it through writing, diaries and letters and through her self-portraits. She kept looking, kept drawing. Trying to fathom it. Getting to know its detail, like that of a face. Those lines, her careworn etchings. I was in good company. The drawing is beyond belief, utterly breathtaking. The sure physicality of it. Did I do her justice? How can I? How could I?

I examine mine too. My life. Always. Always thinking, weighing it up. What more can I do? What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to be? Here, doing this? This is good enough. The world is misty. A fine rain coated me as I walked. No Perygyl again today. The kids were still out in force. An acquaintance passed me on her way home, with a male friend lagging behind. She was eating what looked like crisps. I didn’t say hello. It didn’t seem appropriate. She wouldn’t have recognised me with my wet weather gear on, hood tied close around my face. She comes in to review films. I like her. She is chatty, energetic, enthusiastic. This morning she looked a little cross. A boy in a gingham shirts was running towards me. He crossed Llanbadarn Road and ran towards town. It was an awkward, jerky kind of running, arms flailing.

Bits of dreams. One I had several nights ago where I was trying to get into this room. It was my landlady’s and she was having a party of some kind behind it. I wanted to go in but realised that I’d forgotten her name and that I’d be thrown out without it. Her name was a kind of key to being accepted. There were two doors and I was scared to go in either. It was the ignominy of being thrown out, I think, that troubled me the most. The doors were painted a kind of browny-red, like congealed blood. Then yesterday afternoon I dreamt that he and I were in Spain. We were staying in a lower ground floor flat and woman was renting the one above. She came down and it was my sister but decades older. She had a black eye, I asked about it and even lifted the eyelid up to see how bad it was. She was unconcerned and told me that they (she and her boyfriend Nigel) were travelling about doing storytelling. I remember thinking I must ask him if he thinks it is her too. Then this morning I woke from one in which a tiny, white, rather plump little poodle puppy had just turned up. You’re in the right place, I heard my self say to it (I think meaning that there was a vet on hand). Dogs usually mean friends. A new friend? Who knows?

I’m sleepy already and I haven’t begun work yet. A pot of coffee is required.

It’s all in the details when the whole is too much to cope with. The smell of earth brought on by the rain. The smell of the teacake I toast for his breakfast. The smell of the vanilla candles I light before I go down to wake him.

Time to sit, then coffee.

The council gardeners have planted petunias in the raised beds along South Marine. The beds have been empty for so long. It gave me a fillip this morning. Pink petunias and what looks like Marigolds. Marigolds were everywhere in my youth, that and nasturtiums. They put nasturtiums in the salad bags we buy from the health food shop on Calybeate Street. I like to see them there. Ah, the petunias, such a frippery kind of flower, unabashed femininity, lovely. A head poked out from beneath wall as I walked past. It gave me such a shock. Two lads sitting on the beach stones, just below the pavement. One head jerking up to see who was coming. Just me. A head with a moustache.

Earlier, a girl had come running towards me along North Road. She was running wildly, wearing tight black shorts, her hair flying behind her. Everything can appear super-real at that time in the morning. Speeded-up somehow, alarming even. I catch my breath. There is a man pursuing her. He is carrying a food carton. Are they together? Is she running from him or running with him? He runs out into the road, breathless. They pass me. A race? Hurrying to get home before the curfew? Who knows?

No walk on the Perygyl this morning, it was too wet. They’d promised thundershowers and lightning. No thunder, no lightning, just a flicker of the lights as I ironed. The air is close, muggy. I took an umbrella but didn’t need it. He was concerned. You will be careful, won’t you? he begged. No umbrellas. Promise? I defied him. I will be fine. What a way to go, eh? There’s something biblical about being taken by lightning.

Still loads of kids outside the Why Not? Most of the girls in shorts or tight mini shirts. I saw a group of students along the Prom wet from swimming. A dare, a forfeit? Cold.

I am being followed by Scottish voices. Well, not followed but surrounded. On the radio, mostly. Can I admit to loving it? That rolling, warm, rich sound, and all the ‘hens’ and so on. I feel wrapped up by it, the sound. The last was a play about a whisky distillery on Ailsa. It sounded so beautiful. I crave that isolation. Well, a deep part of me does. Another part knows what it would do to me. But I have this longing to be up there, high, high above this island. But the dark, the cold, the wind would be a challenge. I know this and yet, I yearn. Crazy, isn’t it?

I’m just following the lines. That is all I’m doing. If you don’t know what to do just do that. It is enough. I sew, I write, I do all those bits, those ten thousand things kind of bits. Just following the lines till something feels right. Perhaps it never will. Perhaps this is the sum total, those lines. I notice the ageing of my face. I catch it in the wing mirror of the car, in the photos he takes of me. I am old. I am fifty-five. My head is young my face, my body, old. Do I mind? No, not at all. It is all vanity and I was never a beauty. I haven’t anything to lose, I never had. That’s good, isn’t it?

I shall write today. I try to give one day a week to it. My story, my book. Will it ever be concluded? Made into a whole? I like being in it, mostly. Am I getting better? What is that? Just tell it. Just tell it as it is.

I worked hard. I was trepidatious. Perhaps that was the problem. I brought so much fear to it. Why? I wanted to write it. I wanted her and her work in my head. It was a stunning show. Even he was engaged, and moved. I shouldn’t say, even, for he often engages. He is open to my life, to what fills me up, much more, really than I am with his. Though to be fair, that is usually sport, and he doesn’t ask me to. He is a solitary watcher. His tension is contained, he just goes quiet. No, he is more generous than me in all sorts of ways. So, back to the writing. I did it. I worked on it all day. In three stages, having to go to work mid-way. It is a struggle, that. I just want to make it alright. And having to break off before it is resolved is a wrench. And then there was lunch to get. And then back to it. Another two hours when I should’ve been resting. It was worth it but I feel it today. I am a little spaced, not quite here. Though I’ve been productive – shopping, walking, two loads of washing, admin, emails and now this.

He tells me there is to be torrential rain. It’s coming from the South, he says. From over there, he says, pointing. Are you pleased with yourself? he asks over breakfast. I don’t know, sort of. I am sort of. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, I know I worked hard but was it good enough?

Enough. That’s the word that rolls around inside my head as I walk. Am I good enough? Is there enough, money, food, ideas, work, time, love….What is enough? I have all I need. I am given all I need. All I need is here now. I waited for my back to tighten. It is automatic, like breathing these days. The kids made it worse. They jangle me with their noise and chaos. A mess of bodies, all legs and arms sprawling on the pavement on Great Darkgate St at 3.30 am waiting for taxis. They seemed younger this morning. Sixteen year-olds, possibly. Where are they from? Is it post-exams already? They shout and holler. It was shit, shouts a Chinese boy. It was shit. And a white boy, I have not! Others sit on steps and weep, a friend comforting them. Standard practice with booze, it seems. The gulls squawk and sail overhead. Taxis buzz around like flies. Pizza Lush was open and so was Finger Lickin’. My peace waits for me on the Perygyl where the sky and sea meld in the mist. No horizon line and the water laps against the rocks.

It is done. It is enough. Did do her justice? I cannot. She is too good. Was too good. I need a quiet day. So take it. Take it.

Five students were walking down along the Prom towards me. It was not yet 3.30 am. They were laughing and talking while one of them ran around them, encircling them like a sheepdog with it’s flock, his arms held hard against his sides. He was laughing as he did it. I’m a moon, he kept saying, I’m a moon. I saw another group around a lit fire on South Beach, it’s smoke mingling with the clouds overhead. When I walked back they had gone and the fire put out. There was just a trail of smoke lingering. They’d put it out with stones. The Beach is dotted with them. Little hillocks of stones, totemic cairns. Walking through the Castle Park I can see three figures in the gloom. One appears to be weeping, his head bent over, a girl in a sleeveless vest is comforting, her arm around his shoulders while another boy stands in front looking down. A tableau of grief. They are still, unmoving.

I thought about the review all night, in and out of hot, sticky sleep. I want to do it justice, her justice. My gut tightens with the fear of it. And yet, I have chosen to do it, isn’t there power in that?

Town was noisy. Both The Angel and the Why Not? were open. Kids spilling out onto the pavement, the road.

I’ve tow hours to make a start. A start, that’s all. There’s power in beginning, he wrote.

I love walking early at this time of year. It’s the dark merging into light, mostly. That black into blue coming from the east. It is so hopeful, you begin to believe that everything is going to be alright. The ten thousand things still dog my brain. And my back still tenses like hard steel but there are moments of ease, of lightness. I track them on my walk. Turn this corner and it will get better. Reach the Perygyl and stop, lean against the rail and breathe. The moon is full, the sea just laps and what a sound. It is holidays, rest, thoughtlessness, the encapsulation of the joy, of just being. Thank you. Thank you for this. And then I stop and stand by the hydrangeas in the Castle, just for a moment feeling my feet on the earth. Are the lights on in St Michael’s? No, not today. A couple walk along the Prom, she in what looks like pyjama bottoms. They are walking a three-legged dog. It seems perky enough, a shiny black little thing that hoppitys along. A remember another and the couple that pushed it in a pram.

I called him. Why do I always struggle when talking to him? Are you well? I ask. Of course he is not, he is dying. A quasi-father. He is not my father. Yet, I have the same need to please, to be good enough. I never really interested him. Did any of us? He is concerned with himself, undoubtedly. A very self-centred person, but good. I wanted to talk to her, to see how she was. But I felt love when he answered. He is so reduced, scared. In fear and angry, I think. No, comfortable resignation like him. He became a bigger man as he was dying. I loved him most then. I remember them together, vying. He looking askance at him and then at me. Could you really have come from him? I believe he thought. Is money the only thing he thinks about? I do love them. I love them both, all three, all four. We are the same.

Ah, my brain…ugh, my brain. A long-haired girl walks down Great Darkgate Street with her boyfriend. Another with a girlfriend, she is walking with crutches. A bearded man outside The Angel is on the phone. See you in sec, he murmurs.

Trips, he calls them. We’re off on a trip to see the Kathe Kollwitz show at the Glyn Vivian. It will be nice to be on the road. To be on the move. I keep dreaming about airports. The birds are giving it the gun out there.

It will be good to see her, and them and them. I send emails reaching out. Saying I care, I think of you. I want to see you. I miss you.

In my dreams she points upwards, see, he is there waving at me.

It was a beautiful morning as I walked. The sea was lapping gently. People were about, the clubs, post-Sunday-bank holiday, were still open, booming music throbbing from their doors. Couples meandered along the Prom, girls walking barefoot with their shoes in the hands. A group of students encircled a bonfire that was still blazing on North Beach. I drew in the smell – charcoal, wood smoke and a faint miasma of barbecues. Being on the Perygyl was gorgeous, just standing there looking at the yellow moon, almost full, I felt at peace for all the jangling in my mind. I can separate myself. My back is tight from fear, but I can still smell the warm air and appreciate the stillness. As I walked back along the wooden slats (how I love the feel of my footsteps on the soft boards) I wondered why the yellow moon doesn’t give off the same light as a white one. It is fine. It was fine. I take what is given. It is light.

Too much to do – cleaning then work then shopping – and I do want to make a start on the quilt. It is a gift. I don’t know yet how to make it but if I start the fear of failure will lessen. Be easy on yourself. One step at a time.

He is nice, a gentleman. We talk about what he is to discuss. The Irish Referendum. About slavery. About the way men have oppressed women’s bodies. A pause for thought ending with a 17^th century Welsh hymn. He translates it for me. Lovely, thoughtful, a good man, I think.

She’s trying to lose weight. A stone and a half so far. I hadn’t noticed, he had. He was kind about it. I’m not eating bread, she said. Oh, do you miss the smell? Absolutely.

I dreamt of him. I’d had such a longing for him and thought I wouldn’t see him all day as I had to work. And then he just came through the door looking stunning, beautiful. It’s only 5.45 am, I said, delighted but surprised. Then I woke. It made me think. See what I have. Such love. Such kindness, such cherishing. I am blessed.

I must go. Just a short one today. Breathe. All will get done. Now and always. x

Was it compelling enough? I go over my application in my head, as I walk, as I brush my teeth, as I write and as I sew. I just don’t know. How can I know? I needed to contain it, give it a certain amount of time and no more. I did it. I sent it. Isn’t that enough? No, never. It is a pattern, a pattern of behaviour. I just don’t know how to celebrate my achievements. Not big. They are not big achievements, but I get them done any way. A small life. I do have a small life but inside it is cavernous. My inner world is limitless. My dream world too. The end of a dream I had yesterday afternoon had a bird pecking at me. It was biting, not pecking, biting my hand, my thigh, my bum. It was eerie, scary. And I knew it was biting because it was scared. I wanted to let it out. There were too many people in the house. (We’d gathered for a party.) People where everywhere in this huge house, kitchen, living room, dining room and hallway. I called to him to help me, to help wrench the attacking bird from me and put it out. I tried to pull it off myself but it was jagged and thorny and it fought me. This morning’s dream had me anticipating a journey. I had to find somewhere to stay before my flight the next morning. I was with someone, a woman, and discussing where to go. I knew she didn’t want me to stay with her, though it would’ve been feasible. Could I stay in the school? I wanted to ask. Instead I began to write down possible places on a piece of piece. El Candil was one of them. This is a restaurant in Nerja. I knew this in my dream, and thought it would be fine to stay somewhere in Spain even though I would be flying from London. I was hurt she didn’t want me, and couldn’t work out why, but wanted to be practical, to resolve it for myself. Then I woke.

Did I do enough? Was it enough? Was it good enough? Let’s unravel it. The idea is a good one. And you know that you have the determination to see it through. The issue, as always, is the funding. It’s a lonely course to always be doing the inventing alone. It takes so much energy and these days I am depleted.

No more challenges, he said. Just sew. Just sew. I need the simplicity of it. I wanted to write about the clinging to routine. The lines that one has to follow. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t come, make a pledge to do it anyway. But it’s not just the funding is it? It’s the acknowledgement that winning brings. The acknowledgement that it is worthy work. You are worthy, it says. You have been chosen, it says. The chosen one.

The sky clears, the grey thundery clouds pass. I saw a flash of lightning across the sea as I walked. The railings had been moved but the tour trucks were still there. Drunk students ambled along the Prom in the drizzle. No swimmers today. I slept for an hour and half yesterday afternoon. I was dog-tired.

A gentle day. Coffee, sewing and The Archers. Grounded. Held by smells – coffee, elderflower and lavender. She writes promising gooseberries. Yes, please, I say. And blackcurrants? Will she send some? Wouldn’t that be marvellous? I miss her. But I feel so small this days.

He sat on my bed. I feel chastened by it, I said to him. He’d come to tuck me in, as he always does. I’d asked him if he ever got a bit low at night. Oh, yes, he said, often. It’s melancholy, I said. Yes, he said. Of course, that why people use alcohol, I said. Absolutely, he said. It takes the edge of it. Yes. It’s made me feel grey, that’s all, I said. I know, he said, taking the hot water bottle out of the bed. You did nothing wrong. It was an experiment. And you can always write about it. Yes, yes, I can.

She’d emailed me the following day cancelling it. It’s that hoary issue over photography, and possibly more. It was a tricky day on Thursday, I felt unwelcome, not by the residents but by the staff. They know me, must’ve recognised me but didn’t acknowledge this. I understand, they have their work to do. People like me must be a hindrance, a nuisance. It’s just the way it was done, the rug pulled out from under me. Did they give her a hard time? He holds her responsible. But she was just doing her best. I’m sorry for her, she wanted some credit for its novelty. So be it. I cannot do anything about it. I must just accept it, for all the heaviness it brings. It will pass, other plans will take over. I always recover. Always.

I missed her, then she called back via 1471 which I then missed. I knew it must be her, so I did the same. Her voice sounded shaky. The dog had died. Died in its sleep after collapsing while out walking. Poor love. She was her companion, her walking companion. She died in her sleep in daylight while they were with her. Her handyman buried her in the garden. He’s a friend, she says. He talks to her about his failing marriage. If you don’t talk you burst, she said. Would it hurt her to know I write about her? I hope not. It is a loving thing. I want to record what we talk of, her sayings and idiosyncrasies. To cherish her.

The town has been overtaken by camper vans and lorries for the great downhill cycle race. There are diversions and barriers laid all along the Prom. It unsettles me, I feel hemmed in. It is not ours anymore but usurped. Meanwhile the students play out their leaving routines. I heard three lads shouting from the other end of the Prom. They were perched, apparently naked, on the edge of the steps ready to jump into the sea. One did. Fuckin’ hell it’s freezing, he shouted. Is that a good idea? I want to say, but don’t. They are young, careless and exuberant. Let it be.

Application writing day today and I am weary of challenges. Breathe through it and write. It is my space, my words, I am in control. The winning isn’t what it is about but the making sense of an idea, carving it out, fleshing it out. Just let it be, breath into the fear of it.

The moon is almost full but hidden, just a tiny crescent peeping out behind a cloud.