Artist and writer currently living in Aberystwyth.
When he calls her he always asks what she is reading. She has a small library of books in her room that she returns to over and over. They are quiet stories, familiar, gentle. It is a comfort to her, I think, as it would be to me if I were in her situation. I feel such a tenderness towards her, despite her inscrutability.
I struggle with it, his temper that is. It feels like an assault. I am winded by it. The force, the insistence of it to be heard and to dominate. I want him gone then. Totally, so that my peace, albeit the little that I have, can be restored. He’s blocked the loo again, and the fault, apparently is mine. She talked of not murdering a marriage. Sometimes….sometimes…..
It’s a nebulous thing in dreams. Recently they’ve all been about being displaced, on the move – things were in bags – including two large sacks of oranges that I couldn’t fit into a cupboard. There were conversations about flats and where to go. None of it was linear. Space was moveable. As were we. I wasn’t distressed, just watchful. As I am now.
I find it one of the most moving scenes of the whole TV adaptation. It isn’t sophisticated or complicated, it’s just her sitting in front of her looking glass, in her underwear slowly and carefully removing her finery and jewels and laying them carefully down. Her husband, Bulstrode has been disgraced, his nefarious past having caught up with him. She is sloughing off all his ill-gotten riches – making herself naked of them. It is a solemn act, after which she walks down the stairs and, asking him to look up at her, she holds him. They both weep.
She didn’t mean it to hurt me. It was a throwaway comment. But I was raw, skinned, as I always am in situations when I am to be judged. I felt the tears prick but held them back. I am glad. It would’ve been inappropriate, uncalled-for. I must just adjust and accept all the good that comes from our now changed alliance. The rest should merely roll off, like the proverbial water off a duck. Let it be so.
I do think too much, particularly about my interelations with others. I need to know where I am with them, to antiicipate difficulties, awkwardnesses before they arise. It’s learnt behaviour, the product of being a child of a volatile and powerful parent. And, I should remember that I am not a child any longer. I can manage, and have done so countless times. And that mostly people mean well. I want to detach myself, to protect. Perhaps this isn’t always necessary. Not now.
27 yeaars married. Mahogany, apparently. A milestone. Possibly. It is marked quietly, with no fuss.
The coffee shops of the town house them, offer them comfort, company and yet not. We befriend them. Talk to them, well at them mostly, trying to normalise the not normal. And I grow fond, though always wary of a different world view. It a distance sort of love. A care. Have a care, always.
He read out the gist of her article. We hadn’t wanted to face it yesterday. Sudan is far away. I cannot grasp their misery, their fear and horror. I want to stand by them but know I can’t. Does knowledge help? Is it all we can do – read about it, rail and curse at their misfortune? Show us another way.
He does it to me sometimes. Or should I say, I allow him to do it? Is it about being made to feel small or is it more about being rejected? He wanted to read and I wanted to talk. It was that simple. No one was wrong. Except that he was, what I felt to be, unpleasant about it. It’s his manner sometimes. Imperious, irritated, short. I withdraw, go quiet and he pokes at me as a result. It’s just bickering. That’s all. Nothing in the whole scheme of this but it makes for a bitter taste.
I wobble a lot, never being sure of the right thing to do. Perhaps that’s part of the human condition. Perhaps not. It gives me anxiety. I want to do what is correct, unhurtful, good. And that is not always clear.
Oh, I ache for them. Such fear. We cannot close ourselves off to it all. To live is to hurt, to be open to random attacks, unprotected. Let them live and be unafraid.