Author: Ellen Bell

Precious one. And she was precious. Not for some sweet loveliness. She wasn’t sweet. She was fierce. A fierce force, intractable, dogmatic, sharp-tongued. But also enchanting in her still-childlike spirit for life. She died yesterday at ten minutes past six in the morning. She was still in hospital, though not in A&E. They’d moved her to the stroke ward. Her sons said that she was calmer towards the end and her skin had stopped itching. She wanted to die, they said. Why can’t I die? they told me she’d said, adding that she saw it as a failure, this not dying. She died peacefully. I wish I could die like that, one of the sons said. They’ve given me a key. Go in and draw, they said. Yes. I will.

I often feel like the rooms, houses and institutional spaces that provide the interior landscapes of my dreams are familiar. I’ve already been there, in them, walking through them. I’m revisiting them. This could be as much an illusion as they are. Last night’s space was a sort of restaurant, they often are (is this a sign of my constant hunger or a reflection of my obsession with managing my intake of food?). I was a kind of intruder but not. There had been a tacit agreement to allow me access when there was no one there but nothing had been formally acknowledged. I had nothing on paper. I got in through a backdoor that was always unlocked. The lights were on. I remember a flight of stairs. They were those 70s style wooden slatted stairs (they terrified me as a child, they were so slippy and shiny and I was convinced I’d fall through the gap – all that floating space). It was an elegant hallway, made warm with yellow lights. Homelike. I woke before I was halfway up. There is no fear in my dreams, well rarely. Just a kind of searching, for what, I know not.

I’m doing it in earnest, like a good girl. It’s no hardship. I love to read, to think, to learn and to taste others’ words in my mouth. But I do worry about whether I am reading the right books. Or whether I am reading too much of them. I am thorough. I need to be. It takes a long time for things to sink in. I am not naturally bright. I have to work at brightness.

Jenny Diski was writing about it in her book that I am currently rereading. Uncertainty. Living with it. Bearing it when you’ve been told you have between two to three years left. She’s not good with it. Neither am I. Is anybody? And yet that is the reality. We don’t know. We don’t know anything for certain. Ever. In some ways a diagnosis gives one something concrete. Albeit unpleasant. You know you will die. It has been confirmed. Nothing with save you from your extinction. Drugs can lengthen the stay, a little, but that’s all. You, we cannot be saved. She minded. Would I if I’d been in her situation? Tom Lubbock appeared more sanguine. He didn’t express anger or self-pity. Diski rages at times. It is human. Forgiveable. She wants to live. To be with her poet. What of me? And of M. downstairs? Is there more? Is she right?

It’s an old lady’s smell. Or at least that is my particular association for it (or is it with it?). Nanny C. smelt of it and other elderly ladies of my acquaintance. They’d have it in florally-decorated metal containers with a hole-punched twisting lid. It was a cosy, smell. A feminine, nice, slightly prim smell. She’d just had her shower when we entered her room and it reeked of it. She did too. Reeked is the wrong word. For it implies something noxious. And it wasn’t. It was soft, self-effacing, overtly female but it was strong. I liked it. Though it revealed the intimate bodily ablutions that had just gone on. A sharing of which would probably not have pleased her. It’s a proud thing, that maintaining of femininity, against such odds. She does it well. Her skin is baby soft, thanks to the array of creams and lotions she keeps in the bags about her. She is always neat, self-contained. I admire her, so much.

We went to see an exhibition of reportage drawings by an old tutor of mine. It was quite a trip. And not without its unexpected detours. A small exhibit, housed in a public library, it was, nonetheless, worth the journey. I remembered her through her work. It was all there, that reverence I felt for her courage, her ability to draw under pressure and the moods she managed to capture in empty spaces. She has none of that high-octane self-promoting that others I’ve known have. Though, she and another who I’ve visited recently, are just as talented and brave. Heigh ho. Such is the world and the people within it. A good day, if only to get away. My tightness did dwindle briefly and sitting outside that little street cafe drinking tea in the sun was sublime (no matter that it was the wrong town and the wrong museum).

It’s a jangly sensation. My nerves jangle. And my body is a tight string of a thing. My back feels like an armadillo’s carapace, armour-plated, hard. It’s work mostly. And all that I ask of myself. The prospect of teaching today hasn’t helped. It’s all that unknown stuff. All that public stuff. I want to hide, to crawl away somewhere and be in the dark. The heavy sky that brought rain is lifting, and it will be alright. It mostly is. And even when it isn’t I always survive it. Naturally. So let it be. Even the tension. Let it be as it is.

I don’t know of many. But of those I do, I think of as exemplars. They know how to be still. As I don’t. They ask little of themselves, or at least they appear not to. For what do I know, really. Diski described herself as having the metabolism of a sloth. I am not talking of idleness but that slow, taking care. One writes of taking a notebook, a pen and a flask of tea to go and watch a river. The other, not as sagacious or as grounded emotionally, reads all day, every day. She says she is protecting her mental health by not asking too much of herself. I understand that need. I am the opposite and sometimes I wish I wasn’t. I am never good enough. I don’t think that the first woman, the one with the notebook, believes that of herself. At least I like to think that is the case. My dreamed-up escapes always involve solitude in a white, uncluttered space, borrowed and somewhere I am not responsible for. Empty walls and an expansive, equally uncluttered landscape. I want this for my heart, my soul and my brain. For I am tired. And forever tight with anxiety. And yet, I am living. And there is much to be grateful for.

She is still in hospital. Still in A&E. What does she make of what is happening to her? Her son said that she was confused, bemused and sleeping a lot. Sleep. The healer. Will she return? They talk of a care package, 24 hr nursing care, at home. I hope so, for her sake. I don’t think she’d fare well in a home. Her loss is real. Will she go soon? What keeps her alive? Faith, will, or a body that refuses to snuff itself out?

She’s still in hospital. She’s been moved to the stroke ward. Will she ever come out? I try to imagine her there, demanding and bossing her way through the day. At least I hope that that is the case. It means there is life in her. Spirit. Will I see her again? Draw her again? I miss the sound of her stick tap-tapping its way along the floor beneath me.