Artist and writer currently living in Aberystwyth.
It was a beautiful morning. We went out for a tea and coffee first thing. I walked, he drove. It was still cold but the sun was coming. Sitting on the Prom waiting for the cafe to open, I let the sun shine on my face. Upturned like a flower craving warmth and yellow, I closed my eyes to it. Good Morning, a few passersby called out, Good Morning. The sea was a lapping, a gentle rollling of water on shingle. A flat-lining sort of morning. Lovely. I thank God for it. Always.
So many of them look sick. They are not well. Their faces are puffy, their bodies carry weight in the wrong places. Things hurt. One has a face that’s as white as a bisque-head doll. Other’s have gone grey too soon, before their years. I saw another in the coffee shop the other day. She was on crutches. The radiotherapy has fractured her hip. Broken bodies taking in all that poison. Taking in all that poison to keep them alive. I didn’t save her. Or her. Or him. None of them.
A wild morning. Spring has abated, it seems. ‘Wrong John’ claims that it’s a moderate breeze. Wrong, John. Wrong. It buffeted me. Four robust girls, some in shorts, all coatless, were walking up from Northgate Terrace as I crossed the road up to North Road. The wind caught at their hair but didn’t diminish their laughter. What do they think of me, I thought, all kitted out like this with numerous coats, hats, gloves and scarves? But of course, they didn’t think of me. Why would they? We live in different universes. I am invisible to them. And to a certain extent I like it that way. I have more in common with the birds.
I’m nervous about opening up my emails. What will they say? More rewrites? A completely new draft. I want to do this project but the fear surrounding it is immense. Is it all inside my head? They are good women, I know this, but I feel at their mercy. It is all skewed. Fear of fear of fear….
He calls her every day. They speak and I interject while preparing supper. I like it. On a Sunday he gets her to read out the home’s entertainment itineray. She rattles the paper to give the appropriate sound effect and begins. Her voice has weakened with age, though it was never booming. She reads slowly and quietly. There is the ubiquitious Bingo, a quiz, massage and pampering, though this week there is also something called fruit platter making. Or should that be preparing. There is never any detail. We ask her what that is, she doesn’t know. She never does because she never does. She did, however, go to the axe-throwing. What? we ask. It’s happening again today. It’s quite good, she said. The axes are plastic and you hurl them at something resembling a dart board, apparently. They stick for a while, she says, then they fall off. I suppose it is a form of exercise, those it’s name is rather at odds with the genteel nature the home attempts to portray. Perhaps the residents get things of their chests with such hurling. Who knows?
It takes different forms, that is, it shows in my body in different ways. Sometimes it is in my back, others my neck. Always my gut. I’ve always been fearful. Nanny Clarke used to refer to me as a ‘worrier’. She was sensitive to it. The only adult who was. And I loved her for it. I have always worried, so why would now be any different, particularly when the stakes feel so high. Fear. Fear of being found wanting.
I always feel a sense of loss when a book is finished. As well as a slight slough of anti-climax. Is that it? Is there no more? I get a sense that the writer’s often feel the same. It’s a normalising process, like the walking out of a darkened film theatre in the afternoon sun, or rain. It’s over. I have walked out of the story. It no longer plays in my head.
I watched him from an upper floor window. He was later than usual, a relatively new recruit to this particular root. It was raining hard by then. He had not coat. Three bags had been slung over his shoulders. He was weighed down. A shuffling figure. Teeth gritted. No times for how-do-you-dos. A young man made old.
It hurt. I wept like a baby. I was mortified. One was impassive, the other kept talking, reasoning. I couldn’t respond. They talked. I shut down. I wasn’t expecting it. I was mildly happy with what I’d sent them. Perhaps that was the problem. Ego. Pride. Vanity. I fell. My wounds still smart. My eyes are puffy with crying. My head spikes with tension. Jabbing. I am sorry now. I was a child. But it hurt. And I was scared. Am still scared that I won’t get it done. I won’t get it right. That I will fail. So be it. Try. Just try. That is all you can do. That is all I can do. Ever.
There’s no question that it makes a difference. It represent light. Lightness. The days are light-filled and full of promise. And there’s energy. I have more. Lots more. And I need it. I lap it up. It isn’t the same as Spanish or Italian sun. It is milkier, milder. But it is something. It feeds me.