Author: Ellen Bell

I haven’t seen much of Smoker (2) recently. Usually I can see the light come on in his flat across the way. It used to be about 6.30 am and I’d catch sight of him through his blinds reading his phone in his pyjamas. And then there was the visits from his two little boys. I haven’t seen them arrive and go either. And his car has a flat tyre. It’s been flat for weeks now and he’s not changed it. Is he OK?

I saw him as I was walking towards M&S to cut through down to the river. He was loitering around the large containers (they could be bins or flower pots, who knows) outside Wetherspoons by the station. He was in black, wore sandals and was holding a transistor radio up to his ear. This was while he was digging around in one of the containers. What was he looking for? Fag ends, half empty bottles? The radio was blaring. I couldn’t distinguish what kind of music it was, but was frenetic, rapid and urgent. As were his movements. Jerky. He jerked. His limbs jutted out. Edgy. I felt the same and quickened my pace.

We’ve seen it before, though it had been a while. It is a beautiful film. Slow-paced and elegant, it is quintessentially Japanese. It’s about taking care of the living by tending to their dead. I ache for that kind of methodical and silent detail. Such impassive faces. They are hard to read. So different from the Western mien. Or at least so it seems to me. I want to continue, to not hurry it, to make it last. I like being in its space.

The box looked heavy. He’d brought it to the church in a paper bag, a fancy one with the name of the funeral services company on the side, fixed to which were two string handles. The wood, highly varnished, shone golden in the afternoon sunlight. Her name had been etched into a metal plate screwed to the lid. I never knew her middle name was Ann. A small name for such a big persona. The hole had been prepared. The stonemason had laid a layer of fake green grass material inside and around it. A shovelful of topsoil had been thrown in ready to receive the box. We stood around in the sunshine as the vicar said his piece. Her sisters wept behind him. Her husband and grandson (an earnest boy of about nine or ten) knelt down to place the box in the hole. Her daughter leaned in to throw in an envelope of her grandchildrens’ drawing. People hugged each other. Her great aunt refused her wheelchair and stood, swaying slightly. Wide-eyed, the youngest of the children stared around at the grown-ups unsure of what it was all about. No one enlightened them. R.I.P.

I’m sure I heard your laughter, all the while knowing that you would’ve been crying too, those blue eyes as liquid.

She told him (and me as listener-in) about the ducks that come to her door each day. He asked her their names. Daisy and Donald, she said. It sparked a memory. Was in it a comic? The nephew and neice of Donald Duck, was one called Daisy? It doesn’t matter. I like that she has this connection with something other, something outside. The names are chosen and shared. A belonging is established and reinforced. She is making a home, as best she can from the little that was left. Is she happy there? Perhaps as happy as any of us can be who have lost most of our autonomy. We are to go and see her tomorrow. I never know what she is thinking. She is as hard to read as her mother was. Their emotions are hidden, closed-off, at least to me. I have grown so fond of her. I don’t know if it is mutual. And it doesn’t matter. Not at all. I enjoy what I feel about her. It is a kind of love. But mostly respect.

I’d been outside, lying between our car and a neighbour’s, sheltering from the wind and trying to get some sun. I’d packed up my bag of books (a burden that seems to be perpetually with me these days), cushions and mat and was making my way back to the flat when I saw them. It was a chase. A dogfight in the sky. First the rook closely followed by a jay. The jay was evidently in pursuit. They landed, one by one on the roof ahead of me. The rook balanced itself on the guttering and appeared to feign reaching down to drink some water while hopping its body nearer to the rook on the opposite slope. The jay jutted its head forward. I’d never seen one still for such a time. I usually only catch glimpses of them. I waited. Watching. There was no sound between them but they knew what was coming next. The jay was up and then the rook. They swerved and darted. The jay once more the pursuer. And that flash of kingfisher blue…

I’m reading Simon Critchley’s Very Little….Almost Nothing. And loving it. That is, if one can love a book on philosopy. He sets up rather deastablising questions. I move into them. And I find that I am not unsettled but liberated. The nothingness, the meaninglessness. A challenge at first, then there is all that space left behind by so called meaning. There is none, he says, using Beckett as proof. Nothing but stuff and silence. It is enough. I like this.

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….