Author: Ellen Bell

She raised the reading out of the Home’s entertainment itinerary. Usually we prompt her. She’s clearly entered into the spirit of it. “Presumably you’ll be going to that,” he says, after she’s read out some event or other, such as a recital from Banjo Brian or a display of traditional folk dancing from Lithuania. “No,” she replies. He laughs. As do I. This week it’s all about Easter, naturally. There’s an Easter Bonnet making craft session, followed by a parade where the best one will win a prize. And the ubiquitious Easter Egg Hunt, which no doubt will involve those residents that are less mobile being wheeled about in search of them. I hope she gets it, that we are laughing with her, not at her. We know the stasis of her now-life. We see and feel it. But we also know and see her bravery at accepting it. She seems a little happier, though we cannot know how she is in the early waking hours when her before-life must taunt with its ghosts. Poor love. Still so bright, so sharp, so funny, just like him. They are close. And I am glad.

I am tired. More tired than usual. Doing the chores this morning has wearied me. Now there is writing to do. I try to write authentically, to not posture. Sometimes it flows, other times not. I begun reading Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with the Amber Eyes. I began it years ago in A’s house and then again last week in Yorkshire. I am enjoying it. He writes well, and with ease. A bright man, I think.

I was away too long. It takes so much time to get back. To return. To find my way again. My head is still mushy with not enough sleep. It will improve. I will sharpen. I hope. Trust. It always comes down to that. Trust.

She kept saying the word to herself. Hiccough. At least I think that was what she said.

I am still slightly out of it. Whoosy. Drowsy. In need of sleep. I got through yesterday and it was OK. But I am not yet myself. Not yet. Soon.

Yesterday was a challenging day. The rain kept on coming. Tiredness made up sniping and sharp-edged. We hurt each other. We are home now. Let today be better.

I’d only had three hours sleep. We’d got back in decent time from the airport but there was so much to do just to get the flat back to the way we like it. And warm. Three hours. It isn’t enough. I felt ragged. My mouth was dry, my lips too. I was shaky, uncertain in my feet. Ragged. I had seven hours last night. The world seems better. And Spring is coming. The birdsong is louder, more insistent. And tomorrow we are off again.

I know it’s wrong. And I do it guiltily, acting out a sort of charade of buying intentions. But I love to have such smells on my person. It is about familiarity but also about a longing for elegance, and a sometimes elevation from the way I live now. I steal a spray. I know that lots of people do it, and the sales staff and manufacturing companies know this. They no doubt factor it in to their profit margins. But I am stealing, whichever way you look at it. But oh, to smell of Chanel no5 or Miss Dior (it has to be the original) is wonderful. Yesterday morning’s felony didn’t last long. The sweetness of no 5 had gone from my wrist by the time I caught the plane. No trace.

I bruise easily. Too easily. Is it because my skin is so thin? I asked him yesterday, as we sat in the car at Rhayader, after I’d caught my wrist trying to put it through the strap of my rucksack. A big wheal of dark red was already building up under my skin. I don’t know, he said. My body takes on the black and blue blotches of an old woman. I wince before fall these days, or when I accidentally knock a limb or an elbow for I know that the evidence of it will be imprinted on my flesh for days, weeks to come. When did this happen? When did youth pass? I don’t mind. Truly. It is nothing compared to what so many suffer. A small thing, like my sore-ly knee. I continue. That’s all any of us can do. Continue till we no longer have to. The fruition of God. Ah, how lovely that sounds.

It was a roller-coaster day yesterday. Full of emotion. Too full. We got home late, both tired and scratchy. He bit his lip. It kept bleeding. I told him to come upstairs to the kitchen. I held a bag of frozen peas against the wound and began to laugh. We held each other and laughed.

I drew at her funeral. And I cried.

I threw a tantrum. I knew I was doing it. I always do. It’s a long time since I cried in a cafe. I think the last time it was in the same one. The owner who was serving us politely ignored and took herself off as quick as possible. Yesterday, the man who he first claimed that it was Rhod Gilbert, came into the room we were in and then made a sharp exit at seeing me, head in hands. He called a goodbye to us as he left. Perhaps I’d imagined an embarassment that wasn’t there and that he’d just changed his mind about where he wanted to sit. I was tired. And I’d just forgotten to unpopper my body when I went for a pee and had consequently wet myself. The said body had to be removed which involved a complex shifting of layers so as to peel it, soaking, over my head. Stupid. Stupid, stupid.

I have a head full of things that need dealing with. Where to start?

At the beginning?