Author: Ellen Bell

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.

Isn’t a drooling. Not like dogs do. All that slather hanging from their jaws. No. It’s more like a spurting, a jet of clear water bursting from his mouth as he opens it ready to receive food. I’ve never seen such a phenomenon before with any body else. He is a different man as regards food. When I first knew he picked at food or left a plate unfinished. There was no appetite, no asking ‘What’s for supper?’, no anticipation of tastes, no interest what so ever. It was the drink, he says, booze as food. Now, he relishes it, hence the salivating.

They come at night, in bed. I wake with one. It’s in my neck. Tension. Fear. My sinews stiffen with it all. And then there is the nausea. I yield to the temporary relief of a pain killer. I don’t like to. I don’t want their chemicals in my system. But they take me back to sleep. I woke with another one three and half hours later. I lay there with it. No more pills. I need a clear head tomorrow.

My skin is thin. Thin-skinned, I bruise easily, mostly on my shins. You look like you’ve been in the wars, people used to say. Yes. I do. I have the body of an old woman. I’m strong but battered. Not pretty. Not that I ever was. A ‘passable’ woman, as the poet says. Neat. I aspire to neatness in dress and aesthetic. No longer nubile. I manage. I have my work. I live for it and for him. It is enough. Till I can shuffle off this corpus. Bless it. It has carried me far. So far.

The sun is trying to come out. Do.

He and I are getting old. I have liver spots on my skin. My arms wrinkle up. My innards misbehave. My bladder and colon cannot be trusted. Nor can his. He dribbles. I try to be understanding and wipe up after him with some grace. I don’t always succeed. Old bodies. Can we maintain our dignity?