Artist and writer currently living in Aberystwyth.
Christmas Day at 3.45 am and all is quiet. I can hear blackbird song. And there is one car driving along the Prom. The sea churns but the wind is less than yesterday. A few windows are lit. People unable to sleep or landing lights from the various guest houses that line the seafront. I wanted to see shining Christmas trees in the front rooms of North Road but all were off. I walked and embraced the solitude.
It’s nice hearing her laugh. He makes her laugh. And I try too. We get her to read out the Home’s activities itinerary for the week over the phone. She enters into the spirit of it. It’s a gentle piss-take, not of her but of the situation life has placed her in. She is more acquiescent of it than she was. She is fond of the ‘girls’, as she calls the carers who tend to her needs. And mostly she doesn’t engage in the ‘leisure’ activities, prefering to remain self-contained in her room. The list of what is on offer amuses her as much as it does us. Wolfren Riverick has turned up before. She says she can’t tell us what he does but that it is something to do with music. There is also a couple coming in to sing Latvian folk songs (at least I think it was Latvian). She says that the man’s name is Costa. Banjo Barry seems to have disappeared. What lost him the gig, I wonder? She giggles and splutters with mirth. As do we. I do love her.
She’d emailed me a few days before my appointment to warn me that he’d died. They’d had him over 14 years. A surrogate child, clearly, he went with them wherever they went. I wasn’t sure if she’d want to talk about him but she did. She told me that they both knew that he was nearing his end. He couldn’t settle and they called the vet. It was a stroke and they agreed to the vet injecting him. He died quickly with them lying by his side, and after eating his favourite foods. She didn’t want the vet to take him away to be cremated. ‘You never knew what you get back,’ she said. ‘They do road-kill, and everything. I want to make sure I get my dog and only my dog.’ So she found a man in Llanidloes. ‘He was a bit odd,’ she said, ‘but we got him back that same day.’ They’re going to scatter him in his favourite places but she will keep a bit back to put in a locket. (Or was that her mother’s ashes? Our conversation did digress.) I am so fond of her, and her chitter chatter is calming to my soul. I wish her peace in her grieving. Her partner has offered to make them lots of afternoon teas, she told me as I left.
The Met Office promised forty mile an hour winds this morning. Forty it wasn’t. I went on the Prom, and even kicked the bar. The students have gone, or are going. The parked cars are sparser but there are still lit windows in the night. Christmas comes but I feel little of it. The carols are nice though, and the candles. It is enough.
I’ve always loved advent calendars. The traditional ones, that is. Not the rather over-the-top ones with chocolate and even make-up. My favourites are those that remind me of my childhood ones, made of card and with little windows that you open to reveal a picture. Anything secret like that, always charmed my inner soul. Did we share one as children? Probably. Oh, and that little door that revealed Christmas Eve was the cream. I have one now. It hangs on the fridge door. It’s not of a nativity scene but a Roger de la Borde commissioned illustration of a polar bear. It’s nice enough. And, I do get a tiny frisson of pleasure from pushing the little window open. He bought one for her. A mini version that she can have on her table beside her. I hope it gives her some pleasure too. She said that she used to keep the same calendar year after year. She’d push the little doors shut at the end of each advent and re-use it. I like to think of her. And I do so often.
They’re on their way home. Parties are being held, bedroom lights stay on through the night, The Pier is open late and the Prom resounds with inebriated shouting. Exams are done, essays handed in and suitcases are being packed. They’re going home. I see them when I walk in the early hours. The other morning their were three, or was it four, girls tripping bambi-like in high heels and wearing sequinned dress cut up the thigh (no coats, naturally), they giggled as they stumbled towards Penglais Hill with one boy, unfamiliar in his suit, offering them physical, if not, moral support. I enjoy their raillery. I like that they are having fun. It’s like living a parallel life. I always wish them a safe passage home to their beds. In my head, that is. Let them be safe. Let us all be safe. Please.
I treasure mine. I do. I don’t miss the lusting, that unrelenting appetite for another. Nor do I miss the physical intimacy. It is enough with this platonic, tender loving. It is all I’ve ever really wanted. The rest was chaos. It took me to places I didn’t want to go. It was unholy. And I long and search for holiness. Cleanliness. And I oh so love to sleep alone. In those white sheets. Celibacy holds me. It is cool, pure and kind. Sex isn’t. I never found my way with it. I wanted it love and it never brought me that. Ever. I am grateful for this self-containment. Forever so.
I lived in flats many times. I like it. I like being part of a community that I don’t necessarily have to become intimate with but I enjoy watching its comings and goings. I give names to these strangers, I make up narratives about their lives. At this time of the year I see lights shining in their windows. There are Christmas trees, garlands and wreaths on doors. I live vicariously through their home-making. One such is the family across the bridge from me. I can see into their first floor window. The room has a proliferation of decorations. Tinsel hangs from the walls, there’s a tree and the child’s (aka Moaning Mathilda) cut-out snowflake shapes have been stuck to the window. It is sweet. I like the care and the wish to celecrate with light and innocence. Last evening I caught a glimpse of the mother. She had a pair of reindeed antlers on her head. They were lit up with fairy lights. Perhaps she was wearing them to please the child. Or maybe, just maybe to excite her partner. Who knows. For all it’s naffness, I like it. I really do. (And I never got that crescent snow scene that I so hankered after).
It didn’t rain as promised this morning and I am glad for it. My leather gloves have become hard and rigid from all the drowning they’ve had. I made a drawing and then continued to walk along North Road and up the hill behind Alexandra Hall. The wind was building as I walked. I love that sight as I gain the crest of the hill and look down onto the sea. I was magnificent this morning, all churning and wild. Glorious.
Sometimes it feels like my heart isn’t working very well. Yes, I can scale that hill in Bath at quite a rate, and carrying a bag, but with mornings like today when I am on my feet cleaning for what seems like hours it does struggle to work. My legs get heavy and my breath is laboured. It passes. Fresh air helps as does walking. But it catches me short. I need to take care, know my limitations. And travelling and all the disturbed nights that it brings are not good. I don’t thrive physically, even if mentally I find it so thrilling. Time for rest now.