Author: Ellen Bell

I called him. He didn’t recognise me at first. He is a stiff man, rigid, taut. Or at least that is how he has always seemed to me. I have to push through my instinct to avoid. And yet, I want to know him. And my feelings towards him are warming. I am beginning to see beyond the outer coolness. His son has it too, and I suspect, his daughter. They show little. But he warmed to me too, even making a joke about Northerners. I want to learn not to judge or, as I say, avoid people who are not like me or don’t reveal how they feel. I am safe with them. And they are safe with them. I feel immensely protective towards both him and his wife. They are going through a fearful time. And there are no clear signposts as to how to deal with it. Can I help? Probably not, but I can listen and pay attention. And draw.

We visited his sister yesterday. It was a good visit. I drew and they chattered away. There is ease now. They are beginning to really know and love each other in a way that I suspect neither did before. Something has been released. Perhaps Cis’ death his allowed this intimacy to blossom, who knows. Either way I am glad. She is happier, though maybe that is the wrong word. Too strong, for one must acknowledge how much she has lost. Her life is reduced, immeasurably. She has lost her beloved husband, her home and her indepence. She cannot walk or even get out of a chair unaided. But she can read, she still has her wits and her wonderful humour. And she is so loved both by family and, as it appears, by the carers who tend to her needs. I am glad for that too. She is accepting of it. Just as she accept that tat that they hung on her on door as a gesture towards Christmas. Would I in her situation? She is gracious, where perhaps I wouldn’t be. I can only admire her for it. All of it.

Some mornings it is just there, that underlying dis-ease. What’s wrong? he asked when I went in to wake him for breakfast. I tried to come up with explanations – I’ve a lot to do, a lot of my mind, it’s the winter, the cold, the unexpected rain and so on. And yes, it is all of those things but the truth is I can’t put my finger on it. I’m just frazzled. Is that OK? Perhaps I should just yield to it, and not struggle to smother it. Let it be and maybe it will pass. Who knows?

He often reads to me while I am preparing supper. It is mostly from online newspapers, and predominantly The Guardian and The Times. I have my favourites. The political sketch writer, John Crace is certainly one as is Andrew Rawnsley. And I used to enjoy piece written by Matthew Parris and William Hague but their blind belief in Rishi Sunak and their, seemingly, entrenched Conservative values make such reading stick in my craw. Last night he read an article by Matthew Syed about cruelty. It’s focus was on the bear-baiting inherent in reality shows like I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. Naive, as I am, I had no idea that it involved viewers vote and pay for one of the contestants to participate in a Bush Tucker Trial. It sounded appalling. Syed’s piece was a plea for a return to authentic kindness.

We had our second instalment of The Father last night. Cruelty was rife there too. But his cruelty (the destroying of his daughter’s self-control) was perhaps more forgiveable because he clearly has dementia and losing his wits. His biting sarcasm was shocking, nevertheless. Does dementia make a kind person cruel or does it merely increase their already nastiness? It is hard to say.

Another one of Thomas Debaggio’s words. Is is American for bartering? I don’t know and don’t really care. I like being outside of words sometimes – just enjoying the sound and look of them without the commonplace-ness of meaning. I continue to relish his book. I catch, grab only snatches during breakfast, in between the constant getting up and sitting down of peeing (water pills) and attending to him and myself. It’s OK, I choose it. But oh, how I would love to devote a day to reading. Can I?

I watched a man who is clearly moving in to one of the flats in the estate wrestle with the base of a two-seater sofa. He’d brought it in a hire van and it took him some time to get it out again. Then there was the manoeuvre of humping it onto his back so that he could carry it. He was a tall man and wore a long herringbone coat. He looked Eastern European. I watched him from an upstairs window wondering if I should run down and help him. Though whether I’d be strong enough to offer much help was doubtful. He managed it. And walked, no struggled, looking like a sofa with legs, with it to his new home.

I’m reading Thomas Debaggio’s book ‘Losing my Mind’. He is writing about his being diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. It is a book of loss, of grief, of disorientation. He writes in blocks of text. The short, staccato paragraphs tell of the present and the past and are interspersed with data and scientific reports about the disease. It is both a jarring and intensely potent juxtaposition. He writes well. He also introduces strange words that I’ve never come across before – like ‘scofflaw’. Perhaps they are common vernacular in the States. The difference between us is striking. I am deeply moved by his story. For the present he can only see the loss. I hope that with acceptance brings a peace for him.

One of this town’s ‘entrepreneurial’ hoteliers has put up his Christmas trees in the front windows of two of his Prom-Front establishments. They are of the slightly tacky variety, that is fake and rather garrishly colourful, but are, nevertheless a comforting sight to come upon as I trudge my way along the Promenade in the early hours. The town has hung its decoration but they stopped turning, or leaving them on, during the night. They hang there, functionless. And how this town needs some light. It is a drear sight in those wee small hours. A gaggle of students hung around outside the Express Tesco shouting and pronouncing loudly what a good time they were having. They seem, as usual oblivious to the cold. One girl was dressed in a boob tube, her arms and shoulders bare.

I made a drawing but my fingers went numb.

I walked this morning thinking about bleakness and how this is communicated (or perhaps felt is a better word) through spaces and environments. I walk in the early hours. The dark then (particular in this approach to winter) is absolute. Leaving the house to walk out into is a dread time, managed through the fuss of getting ready – all those layers to be zipped up, fastened and tied. It is easier when there is no rain and wind to navigate. I want to locate those bleak spaces in this shabby town. Generally they feature a streetlight, throwing shadows and a sharp, cold lemon-yellow light. Corners of streets are typical too, with all that signage that has usually been fixed to a wall, that for some reason fascinates me so. There is a slight sense of unsafety in such spaces. I don’t want to linger long and yet I seek them out. I want to draw them to find my own bleakness within them.

His sister is very funny. She shares his same wit, as does their younger brother. And this is despite her demure exterior. She is unshockable too. Though, as I say, you wouldn’t know it to look at her. As part of his daily phone call he often asks her what she had for lunch, and indeed, what she plans to order for supper. Yesterday lunch was Chicken & Mushroom Pie. What was it like? he asked. She hesitated. Well, it was meant to be a pie but there was no lid. How can it be a pie, then? he asked. Was it a flan? I suggested. Well, she continued, it actually didn’t have any pastry at all. It wasn’t a pie, then, he shouted, was it? She was laughing by then. No. But that’s what they called it. What held it together? I chipped in. Nothing, apparently.

A girl passed me this morning on the other side of the road from the Prom. She was all in black and read her phone while she walked. On her feet were a pair of huge, and I mean huge, platforms. They were shiny and looked like they were constructed out of silver.

I saw that they’d erected another one of those metal welded Christmas Trees at the top of Terrace Road, outside the hairdraessers and the seaside gift shop. This one had a star on top. Did they all? I didn’t notice. The real Christmas tree has also been put, though no decorations as yet.

They were talking together on the phone (that is, after he’d sworn a few times about the mute button on WhatsApp and how he cannot for some reason turn it off). She heard it all, bless her, as she waited for him to resolve it, her tiny little voice chirping out in the background, ‘You’ve got mute on’. I interrupted their conversation, it being the usual ‘bollocks’, and asked him to ask her if she had any childhood Christmas memories. She reponded immediately, telling us how she used to sing carols with another of their brothers when they shared a bedroom. She said she was probably about 7 or 8. He hadn’t heard of it before, and of course, neither had I. I asked what they’d sung. Oh, the usual, she said, Away in a Manger and that sort of thing.

He’d told me at lunch over the weekend that they’d been constructed a kind of modern wire Christmas Tree outside the town’s Library. I came across another one on my early walk this morning. It’s been put up across the road from the newly named pub, The Optimist. I like it. It’s minimal and kind of constructivist in style. I wonder if they will leave it in its puritan state or over-prettify it with baubles.