Author: Ellen Bell

Do you know the lazy daisy stitch? she asked. I was taken aback. I wasn’t expecting her interruption and it took me a while to work out what she meant. She draw the shape with her finger onto my aida. You know, like a daisy. Then she talked about doing applique. You know where you sew one material on top of another, she said. And then we put mirrors in it. We sew around the mirror shapes. Ah, yes, I said, I know, like you see in Indian-style clothes. Yes, she said, smiling, I am Indian.

What a smile. What vivacity. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, she said, but there is never time. I have to take the residents their pills. But she stayed. We talked more. We talked about residential care in India. She is from Delhi. She’s been working in the home for ten years and has almost completed her nurse training. I will leave in September, she said. If it was a nursing home I would stay. I work all the time. Studying and working. There are two students in our home. My daughter is studying Architecture in Bristol. I couldn’t get a grant, my husband earns too much. He is a radiographer at the hospital. I am lucky, my husband cooks. No, there is nothing like this in India. We care for our parents at home. One wife I know gave up everything to go and live in the hospital with her paralysed husband. We pay for it all ourselves. I go back every three or four years. My husband wants to return but I say we need to earn more money first. We don’t own our own house. We can’t get a mortgage yet, but when I am a nurse in the hospital, maybe.

She wanted to talk. She wanted to talk to me. She touched the cloth. The stitches are tiny, so small, she said. It’s nothing, I wanted to say. It is a prop, a means to be here, witnessing, observing, being amongst these strangers. But I didn’t. It was her way in. She responded to what I was doing, recognised it, knew it. It was enough.

And I thought nothing was going to happen. Just the man going in and out of the French windows. And the other man making noises. Bugger, bugger, boing, boing, tum-tee-tum. And another member of staff, a Pilipino girl, singing the chorus to she’ll be coming round the mountain – Aye, aye yippee, yippee aye – as she laid the tables for lunch. And the woman in the spectacles, drinking tea, filling in a diary and staring at the crossword folded up on her lap, her rucked-up pop-socks the only sign of something awry.

I’m muddled today, said the woman with the son with tattoos that we used to see in Morrison’s.

Keep it confidential, she said to us. Some people don’t want it to be known that they are not looking after their relatives. It’s the shame. She said it too.

He saw her at the entrance, she was bringing her mother in. I wanted to do it, she said, but it got too much. We just do the best we can, don’t we? And another, how is she? She talks of a dark  wood. It is hard being alone with the responsibility and so thankless too. What can you do? Just love. That’s all. That’s all there is.

Cut to the quick. I cut my nails to the quick. The quick and the dead. Quick, meaning alive. Quick in motion. Feeling, sentient beings. I cut my nails to the quick these days. I used to grow them long. I remember at boarding school, such talons. My pride and joy. Brittle, easy to break but they shone. I remember later a boss at the theatre. Hers were inches long. What can you do? Barbara Streisand grew them so she couldn’t type. It’s like not wearing heels so that I can run. My fingers need to work, to move across the keyboard, to sew, to make, to cook, to wash, to do, to be. Cut. Quick. To be quick. Be quick. I’m coming. Rushing. Rushing to fit everything in.

A beautiful morning, crisp and even. The cleaner from Birmingham telling him it’s fresh. They’re all talking about seeing the gritter in town. I saw him. Ahead of him was the sports car, whizzing about 40 miles an hour down Great Darkgate Street. So tired this morning, and waking with the name Sophie in my head. And my alarm going off in the middle of the night. The wind was a gale, so much so I had to shut the window. The hyacinth perfumes my room like night-scented stock. A quick one. Cut to the quick. Cut to the chase. I’m a little nervous. Will it be alright today?

There is a hum. There is no real silence. There is a hum by the Old College, I think it is a generator. There is a hum coming from the Samways truck that waits down by the harbour for the fishing boats to come in. From Port to Plate in 24 Hours it reads. There is a hum coming from the public toilets by the Castle where I stand for a moment stilling myself by the hydrangeas, that are coming into leaf once again. There is hum in our home from the boiler. There is a hum in my head that is my blood, a life force throbbing. Well, perhaps not a force. I am not a force. Perhaps I used to be once. I am happy to be less than that. Something more gentle, more acquiescent.

A day of children. Children on the radio. In the morning a little boy singing into the microphone and in the afternoon various youngsters reading out poems and religious pieces. Another boy came into the studio with his mother. He recited it by watching her lips mouth each word. Initially he spoke with his head down in his chest, barely audible. The producer must’ve said something for he began again, louder this time, his head held high. Then there was a pause. The mother folded up the paper and nodded to the boy who made to slip down off the seat. I took the headphones. Isn’t there more? asked the Producer. I look at the mother. He’s only learnt the first paragraph, she said, sorry. The earnestness of the child was enchanting.

The moon still shone out from behind the clouds as I walked, throwing a sheet of silver onto the sea.

He wrote to apologise. He’d been angered by something else. A fit of violence. He’d hit out at me, at everyone. Will I forgive him? Of course, there is nothing to forgive, for it is, was nothing. But I will keep a distance for a while. He doesn’t like me being abused, is unsettled by it.

The doctor called for him last night. I was deeply asleep, the ring of the phone jarred me, took me from that healing part of sleep and I couldn’t catch up.

Will she like it? I try to remember if my grandmother made us things. I suspect she knitted. My mother may not of accepted them. I think Nanny did, little jumpers and cardis perhaps. I will finish it by the weekend. I just need some notions. They call them notions, those odd bits, such as buttons, elastic and braiding. I have a notion. They won’t be in till Friday, he rings to tell me. It is fine. I can wait.

Enough. I am off to begin work. Then a phone to call from Spain.

And yet, all I really want to do is sleep. Long and drawn, a sleep of nothing. A sleep from the River Lethe.

Is there ever a right or wrong thing to do? As I grow older I become less and less certain of anything. What is right, what is wrong? He sends me an email, full of vitriol. Is he right in what he accuses me of? I don’t know. My memory of that time is different to his. He is hurting. I understand that. But what can I do? It is her decision and has been for many years now. She is grown. If he wants to find her then he can. I cannot influence or stop that happening. I don’t know how I feel about it. It is between her and him. I have my own fears to deal with, my own uncertainties. I cannot carry his for him. I can do so little.

This making that seems to have taken over my recent days, and in between work and domestic stuff, it’s all I can do. And even that I don’t do particularly well. It is years since I made something on a machine. I’ve had a few. An old Singer, a wonderful 1950’s Bernina that was a lead weight and now this one. A cheapo plastic thing but it does, so far, and it is simple to understand with numbers showing how to thread it. I am all ham-fisted. I want it to go well too much. Is it the right size? Will she like the colour? I want to hurtle towards the end of it, to be assured of its success. Yet, at the same time I want to take my time, doing each step with care, love. It is my gift. I could buy one. They are cheap. Throw away prices. But this way I have formed something, something I hope she will wear. It has potency that. I think of the tales. The cloaks, the invisible coats, the shoes – the gifts of magical garments intended to protect, guide and nurture.

The morning is coming up. I walked round the other way this morning in the hope of chancing upon bakery smells. None. Not even a hot cross bun. The man was still sleeping in the shelter. In the adjacent one there were three bags of bread, in a row, half opened. Were they sandwiches? Were they donations of food? There was no one else about. Just the University security men doing their usual drive-round. Rubbish bags have been put out along North Road and Llanbadarn Road, some neat others more slapdash.

The pitter of the rain on my umbrella was lovely. The guano from the starlings under the Pier reeked. I couldn’t see the lights of Aberdovey, it was too misty.

I have much to do. Two bookings today. I got a call yesterday just as we were washing up after lunch. Can you get up there in fifteen minutes? It’s a bit tight, I said, irritated at having to rush. When’s the guest coming? He’s already there? Didn’t you know that you were supposed to book an opener? He said he had but couldn’t remember their name. So messy. I said I’d do it only to have him call back two minutes later to cancel it. So shabby. A shabby way of treating people. What can I do? This sort of chaos is beyond my control.

He is hurting. He is lashing out. Let it be. Let it roll. Be steady. Just love. That’s all you can ever do. Just love.

I thought it would be a good idea. He’d got all het up about the impending rain last night, so I thought I’d go prepared. His coat, my waterproofs underneath and wellies. If it the rain is unrelenting it can get in my walking boots, through the eyelets, I think. So wearing wellies seemed sensible. I’d forgotten how uncomfortable they are to walk in. I remembered once I’d set off. Stay in, he’d said. Give it a rest for once. It won’t hurt. No, I heard myself replying, I need to walk. And I do. I need the fresh air. I need to move. I felt every step. The boots crushed my toes. It’ll be alright, my loves I said to them, not long now. I tried to place my weight in other places but ended up almost leaning. It was excruciating. What a twit, I said to myself, what an idiot. But see it through. Learn from this mistake. And at least your feet, hurting though they are, are dry. And then I saw him. At least, I think it was a him. In the shelter, on the Prom, a body, hunched in sleep, lying on a folded-up cardboard box. A form in a sleeping bag. It put it all in perspective, me and my wellies. I wished him well. Imagined wrapping him in a duvet and made a mental note to think of him tonight when I went to bed. Do thoughts make any difference? Who knows. Sometimes it is all we can do.

I finally galumphed my way home and what a joy to take them off. That is joy, taking footwear off that is pinching.

I’ve started it. I’ve started to make her dress. It is for her but it is really for her. I’m made nervous about it. I’m in the dark, its been such a long time since I made something with a machine. Will I remember how to fill the spool? Little steps. I have time. I have time to make mistakes, to falter. It is a gift. It is the gesture not the thing. I have given you this time. This thing represents how I feel. Trying to make it real, to connect myself to it, the her, to them. My love.

A pink dress. A pink gingham, summer dress. From me to her. Let it go well.

Was it the right thing to do? I am never sure. Perhaps there is no absolute right. Perhaps there is always to be doubt and that that is OK. It felt right at the time. Was it the tea? I snatched two cups at work, just to keep me going. It has a potent effect on me, tea. My cocaine. It lifts me. The cup that lifts – was that an advertising campaign strap line for a brand? PG, perhaps? I am lifted, energised by it, though it steals my sleep later. I got so much done and was inspired to do more. But it spurred me on and I booked it. I booked my place. Was it the right thing to do? Time will tell.

So often it is about the money, I fret about spending when I am earning so little. Work has come in dribs and drabs. I love the time at home it affords me but rue the small amount that I can contribute. What about all the other things you do? he asks. I know. I do a lot. I make it smooth. I smooth our lives. It is just a habit thing, this flagellating. I am doing the best I can, living the best way I can with what has been given me. Trying to live authentically, using my skills. And if they are not money-making talents then so be it. I am practical; I work hard in my way. I keep things smooth.

It was lovely to walk this morning. I love to walk under a full moon. No torch needed. The sea shimmered silver and the Perygyl was lit white. The tide was far and the water lapped. Town was busy with holidaymakers. All the students have gone home. Bodies sat on benches in the half light. Two men were laughing. Or at least one of them was – laughing at his mate lurching, swaying as he walked. What a night, he said, what a night. Then two girls without coats, arms and shoulders bare. And another pair coming out of Pier Pressure, one watching her heeled boots on the wooden slats. Then coming down Mill Street and walking behind a clump of bodies, I catch their spurts of conversation, hearing them weave into each other. I cannot remember what they said now. I notice the details at the time, what they were wearing, a parka, an anorak with what looked like a furry hood but turned out to be a lacy pattern, but then they are all too soon forgotten. I see things on the ground, a two-penny piece (shall I pick it up for luck?), a plastic seal from a milk bottle and other bits of flotsam and jetsam of daily life.

Is it bad luck to look at the moon through glass? Did I read that somewhere? How could you not? It is magical. Yellow today.

The ideas came thick and fast and I think about another strand to my performance sewing – going into other people’s living rooms. It’s the presence thing again and the intimacy. How would it be to sit and sew amidst other people’s family life? I think about modern lounges, the huge TVs, kids gaming, music on, rushing about, not being still. Always the stereotype but you have to start somewhere and the image must’ve come from somewhere. How would it be if I sat amongst all that clamour? What would it be for? To witness, observe, change, incite reflection, debate? Could I hire myself out? All kitted out – a Victorian costume with crinoline. Would it just be a circus act or would there be something profound there too? A baby-sitter? A retrospective step, your very own costume drama. Did you grandmother used to do this? The Angel of the House. The ghost of the drawing room.

Can we be still?

We need another seminar in Aberdovey, I shouted to him across the kitchen. Yes, he shouted back. When?

I thought she’d write, it’s what they do, women of her generation. A genteel way of behaving, I like it. It’s what I would do and even think about replying but perhaps that is too much. I wanted to stay. I wanted to be with her for longer. I think we both did. There is something so warm about her. But perhaps it isn’t her so much but what she represents for both of us. I think my father felt it too. He used to call her she told us, regularly. I can imagine that. He liked women like her, small, seemingly uncomplicated women, who would soften him, coddle him. He’d call just to see how I was, she said. And then when I went to visit him we’d walk round the village and he would introduce me to everyone. She likes company, I think, doesn’t do well alone and yet, going out, alone to meet others, I believe is also a trial. I caught her face through restaurant glass before she saw us, it was hollow. Her card was tender, the writing so typical of that time. His mother wrote in the same way, rather hesitant. The script is self-deprecating, undemanding. The curls are uncertain, sometimes the letters are lower case, others capitals. A slow hand, a tentative hand. She’d thought about it, chosen the front image with care.

What had we talked about? So much. We talked of her childhood in Wales, living in that small town during the War and how they took in an evacuee. A girl. She didn’t remember much about it. Had she shared a room? She talked of her mother. An amazing woman, so capable. Like many from that time, managing everything without their men. We talked of the dance where she’d met her husband. Love at first site, so much so that she’d engineered the second meeting. In so many small, unheroic ways, a brave woman. You’ve had a charmed life, my friend told me, she said. Yes, perhaps but doesn’t that make the loss, oh, so much harder?

It was lovely to witness her lighting up, her face alive with that afterglow. We will do it again. We are your friends. The feelings, my love, are mutual.

I feel such compassion for them all. I scan the room and am filled with empathy. They are me and I am them. There is no separation. I open gradually and am more generous with my thoughts and experiences, less guarded. What a gift this is. Though the next day my mind is unrepentant, more determined than ever to unsettle me. So be it. One step at a time.

Cool boredom, she called it. And then she read Mary Oliver’s The Wild Geese.

I mouthed the words along with her.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk a hundred miles on your hands and knees repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves….

He made a beeline for me. I was gratified, ridiculously so. It’s worked. My idea has worked, someone has responded. Yippee, I thought. He sat next to me on the small two-person sofa. Up close, stroking my hand, patting the side of my leg. Was it sexual? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t intimidated. He was so small, so hunched, so frail. His finger nails were black. Underneath the nails, four of them, completely black. He stroked my sewing, the black lines I was stitching. He kept saying ‘chi’, the Welsh for you. I Dim Cymraeg, I replied. I don’t speak Welsh. But he continued. So I used all the words I knew, saying yes, hello, no and so on. He kept pointing out of the window and a couple of times got up from the sofa and walked to the window to point outside. Did he want to go out? With me? The little man left for a while but returned ten or fifteen minutes later and sat down again. The same rigmarole until he arrived to collect me. It all changed then. The old man became aggressive, almost shouting at me. Pulling at me to follow him out of the room. He was jealous, he said later. Jealous of me. I hadn’t thought. I thought I’d made a friend. I’d sat next to him noticing the biscuit crumbs on his cardigan, the stains on his trousers, his chocolate brown Velcro-fastened slippers. I’d sat next to him breathing contentment. I am a good presence, I told myself, a calming presence, I am doing some good. What a fool. It was just like in The Samaritans. She’d warned me. Don’t get intimate, don’t think you are making relationships. You are not. What did he see? That ex-headmaster. What did he see in me? The act of sewing clearly resonated with him. He kept touching it. Did I remind him of somebody? He wanted me to himself that was clear. I remembered him from a few weeks back. I don’t like that man, one of the other residents had said of him. His body is a curve. His back a hillock. He is no threat but his anger, the sharp jab he gave my arm was a shock. I have learnt my lesson. My reality is not theirs. We do not even meet in the middle. All is forgotten. Long gone. I must let it go. He is in his fantasy. I crossed that path. I have learnt my lesson. And the lady? The lady with the toy cat. Is it the same with her? Her winning smile, she with the Rice Krispies all down her skirt. Did that have no reality also?

I wanted it to work too much. In a way it has but it is an ongoing experiment. Is it a success if I pleased and then distressed him? It was the same with the little woman last time, when she wanted to come out with us. To please and then distress. And yet all is soon forgotten. Is that not guaranteed? And him, banging on the window shouting ‘out’ at me in Welsh. Out. Only a few want out. The other old man came in while I was sewing. All dressed up as usual in coat, scarf, hat and gloves and with a stick in his hand. He sat for a moment or so before getting up to wander the corridors. Most just sleep, slumber or wail. My heart breaks for them. But I cannot know what they feel. We have lost the ability to communicate. Broken. All I can do is be there, a witness. And be as kind as I can be, in the circumstances. I can’t take you with me. You must remain behind the locked door. For your own good. They are fed, they are warm and the staff are kind. They are clothed in other people’s clothes, they sleep in unfamiliar beds, the wealthy mix with the poor, the intellectuals with the illiterate. His old French teacher was there. She’s a hundred years old. I’d watched her reading The Guardian. Her tiny frame, the skin on her face and neck falling a reticule of lines, sagging, sliding down. Do you remember me? You used to teach me. What is your name? I wouldn’t have called you that. What is your real name? She had lit up. Profoundly deaf. You’ll have to speak up. Temporarily restored to her self. He is kind. My love. I felt sullied by my mistake, my error. He won’t remember, he said. It is alright. Always. Always alright.

It didn’t work. My blood pressure went sky high. So be it. I will accept it. I need them. She was right and I was wrong. I feel a little foolish. I thought I was well. I thought my body and I could make it alone. But no. I was light-headed, a bit strange even after just two days without them. They’ve been keeping me steady. I must and will acknowledge that, with gratefulness. So many people have to take such nasty medication to stay alive. I am a little naïve, at times, I think. Though is that so bad? I want to take charge myself. That is what it is about. I didn’t want the stigma. I do my best. That is all I can do. Just try. In all things.

I will put my little film forward again. I put it off. It is such a palaver downloading it. But I will try. I see my faltering steps so much more vividly than my confident ones. What am I confident about? Not much. Grow younger towards death, he says. How can we grow younger towards death? By remaining curious, by learning to do new things, always. Like William Hague learning to play the piano in his late forties or was it early fifties? Not being afraid to fall flat on one’s face. It is the trying.

Boring is interesting, a voice said in my head just before waking. I so often forget the landscapes of my dreams. They come to me like smoke during the day, wisps of something I know, deeply but cannot now recall. I need to ask before I sleep. Ask to be helped to remember. I like to keep them. They are my treasures, my insights, my knowing.

Give me the greater knowing. Please.

Shall we go for coffee? Shall I wake him?

I just wanted to give it a try, spurred on by hearing him list my so-called ailments over the phone to the insurance broker. Am I that ill? Am I that unwell? I don’t feel it. The pills, the taking of the pills mark me. Mark my card. I take medicine for high blood pressure, therefore I have high blood pressure. Q.E.D. I did have it. Once. It was an episode. Do I still have it? And the other tablets. The ones for water retention. Do I still need them?

I just wanted to give it a try so I asked the doctor to call. You have to do it that way these days. Book a call, that is. She did, eventually. I know they are busy. So many sick, needy people. They are the only ones you can go to, if you don’t mind the wait. And it’s free, so far. The rest, the other listeners you have to pay for and you don’t know what you’re getting. Mind you, you don’t know what you’re getting with the doctors either, but that is another story. I asked for the one I thought would know me. I’ve seen her twice, or was it just the once? She was the one that prescribed the pills. I thought she’d remember me. She didn’t, that was clear. When I said that I’d like to try coming off them there was a silence down the end of the phone. I kept talking. I just feel better, I said, and I want to see if I really need them. What’s changed? she said, eventually. Was her voice cold? Are you drinking less? Do you eat less salt? I don’t drink at all, I answered, feeling myself getting defensive, thinking can’t you see all that on the screen? I wasn’t expecting such a reaction. I thought she’d be encouraging. And I don’t eat salt, yes. But it’s more than that, I am feeling so healthy. But, she said, it was so high. Yes, I know, but I was unhappy then, my life was so different.

There was a wall between us. A wall of non-understanding. I’d have to negotiate. She began talking again. You could try taking them down to half. The blood pressure pills first. One at a time, she said. Try half dose for a month and we’ll see. Are you good at taking your own blood pressure? You could get one of those machines and monitor it at home. Yes, I can do that. She was rigid, immoveable. So how are we going to do this? Shall I record four readings and drop them off at the surgery for you to respond too? Yes. But I don’t think you’ll be able to do it, she said, it was so high.

And that was how we left it. Me thoroughly deflated and ill-disposed towards someone I’d thought was kind.

Let’s deal with that last bit first. She’s just doing was some doctors do. She sees sickness day-in-day-out. She believes I am sick and that I need this medication to keep well and that I’m wasting her time with this charade. But it was so high, he says. You could’ve died. Possibly. But things were so different. And I want to try, to see if my body can manage alone. Can’t it?

I was deflated. Am I being preposterous? I know I have all sorts of negativity towards the medical profession and I know much of it is irrational. Passed on from her, mostly. And from my inclination towards alternative therapies. But then I’ve never been really sick. Not really. The water retention and the pressure could be inherited. She had it. Though she also drank. I do not. Not any longer. But I do wonder about whether I nourish myself enough.

A girl from the surgery rang. Doctor got your letter and she suggests going down to half for a month and taking regular readings. OK?

Now comes the confession. I did go down to half a day but then, on Monday, I stopped taking them all together. I just want to try and the half measure thing is just pussy-footing. How am I? I feel OK though a little light-headed this morning. But that could be the massage I had from the ‘Brute’ yesterday. Or hunger. We had to rush supper last night so that I could go into work. Who knows? We shall see. I’ll take a reading later today and see. It worries him, I know. And I will go back to them if need be. All sorts of people have to take them, he says, look at me. I know. But I don’t want to be all sorts of people. I want to be me taking responsibility for my own life, my own body. They take you over, take charge. They see a machine, slightly defective, like our blessed, money-eating car.

A delicious walk this morning, despite the slight mugginess in my head. Dry, windless and mild. Just lovely.