Author: Ellen Bell

I felt full of it yesterday. I do sometimes. It almost embarasses me. It is a flowing, an over flowing of the milk of human kindness. It is non-specific, though yesterday it was directed to those I engaged with in the coffee shop and then those in the Arts Centre. Did they feel it? Did it make them shrink from me? I hope not. And today? I’m a little scratchy, to be honest. Bless him, he takes the brunt.

He drove me two hours there and two hours back just to make a drawing. I saw it in my mind’s eye but my drawings never come out how I see them beforehand. It doesn’t matter, he would say. My ever wise love. I struggled with it. And the struggle was made worse by two people ambling over to talk to me. “I saw you set up,” said the woman, leaning over to peer at my drawing, “how are you getting on?” Then her partner pitched in. He was also leaning over me to watch. “Chrome must be quite difficult to draw,” he said, helpfully. “Yes,” I said, willing them away, far away, before adding all sorts of provisos in the weight of their imagined judgement, like – I need to get used to buildings, I’m only practising and so on. I finished it. But it was an uphill struggle.

There was a van on the Prom this morning with its headlights blaring light. I walked towards it. No driver but there was a man fast asleep on the passenger side.

When we walk together he often stops to pick up litter to deposit in a bin that we happen to pass. I don’t. It isn’t laziness, its more a wish, particularly when I walk alone in the early mornings, to remain an observer, a non-participant in what is happening around me. I like to leave be. I feel the same way about seeing people, and especially those who talk to me. It is strange. Speaking, communicating with another being when I am locked inside my inner state is a tricky thing. It is almost like being pulled from a dream whose reality is more real than real. So it was this morning when I saw the traffic cone lying in the middle of Llanbadarn Road. It had lost its base and had been placed, thrown or kicked into the centre of the road. I left it. However, when I came back the same way and it was still there I picked it up and placed it by the pavement. It broke my reverie but it was an act of public spiritedness that he would, no doubt, be proud.

I can smell it everywhere. It’s a sweet, musky, rich smell. Is it coming from the soil, baked in this up until now hot sun, or is it from a plant? Perhaps it is coming from the Pink Valerian that is proliferating. I don’t mind. I like the smell – that of Pernod or Ouzo. I don’t smell it first thing, then the overriding odour is one of dank, dew-ridden morning air, wet moistened soil and beginning to rot leaves. My nose goes up trying to catch each distinct scent. I am a dog.

We went to see them. And what it privilege it was to sit, to be amongst them. They are in a state of grace. I knew that they would be. Life has brought them this. They hadn’t asked for it, were clearly content to pootle along just living their life with the family around, going on the European River Cruises they so enjoyed, weekends at the the Crowne Plaza in Stratford, weekdays at home bickering over Wordle. It was enough. And they were sunny enough, lolling in a sweet retirement. And then this happened. And now she has a tumour the size of swede oozing from her lower stomach, and its turned black. She manages it. She laughs and cries in equal measure. And he, apart from his voice breaking or reaching high, slightly edgy pitches every now and again. He is hurting but staying stable, for her. “He’s been amazing,” she said. I listened to her stories. The one about how they met (again) at the sixth-form dinner, to which he only went to because, and I quote “his teeth had arrived in the post that morning”, and how he’d worn his suede waistcoat. “Cis had sewn some tassels on it,” he added. It was too short. We had to rush off. I didn’t want to keep her waiting. We will come again. “You’ve had such an impact on my life,” she said to him as he hugged her goodbye. He didn’t hear it all. I told him in the car afterwards. “I’m off to clear out my knicker drawer,” she said to me, “I can’t have my girls doing it.”

I’m reading John Bayley’s memoir of his wife Iris Murdoch. I’ve read it before but I read it now with more relish and, I think, more understanding. I say understanding because I am bringing my new found knowledge of dementia and that of being married longer to the experience. He writes with such ease, and enjoyment. He clearly loved her but he also let her be. How important a quality that is in marriage. I didn’t know this before. He talks about relishing (my word, not his) the solitude of marriage, by which I think he means that they both retained their automony while together (a quality that was eroded when Iris began to show signs of dementia when she would follow him everywhere. He writes about giving her a look when she made to join him at the kitchen table – his domain, presumably to work – and how she would immediately go into the living room to watch TheTeletubbies on the TV, only to be back again within 5 minutes.). Before that they remained separate. We do too. I am self-contained in this marriage, as I hope he feels he is too. There is no amalgamation, no blended, no loosening of identity. We are ourselves but together. This fact is, as it was with Bayley, immensely precious to me.

I’m trying to learn acceptance. It’s a lifelong challenge but I think I am better at it than I was. Perhaps it is an increasing awareness of my mortality and my smallness. I don’t matter a jot so why should my hopes, my ambitions, my longings and wantings matter either. They do and they don’t. Having a plan feels nice. As does having a path to follow. It’s there, that thing that I want but it maybe it isn’t meant for me. If so, should I have something else in place just in case? Or, does that take some of that energy away from the wanting? It’s a magic thing, that I seem to believe is more likely to make it happen. It doesn’t. I am learning that the most I can do in these circumstances is my best. And then? To just let it be, whatever it needs to be. Some say that there is no real difference between failure and success, that they are just different journeys. Possibly. The latter tends to feel better than the first, but that’s our training, our rearing. Dreams are good, they light a flame inside. All those possibilities for adventure, that will probably never be taken. Like that little house that I hold inside, in readiness for when he goes. It is my solace, my consolation. The rest. Oh, yes, I still long to do good work. Make good work and to touch others, however lightly. And to make peace with her (though how I shall do this I have no idea). And just to love and forgive and make this little corner of the world a little better…

I was transcribing my last interview and it is a rather tedious business, even though I do like to hear back the conversation I have had. It’s the writing out that’s humdrum. Anyway, I was flitting about, doing other things in between the scrawling and went on to Facebook. She’s blocked me but he is still there, not as my ‘friend’ I hasten to add, but nevertheless I could visit his page and that’s when I saw it. He is not cautious about sharing his family’s intimacy with the wider world. And at that moment I was glad of it. They were celebrating her first cycle ride without stabilisers. He was behind her, also on a bike, filming her whirling around and she was far ahead with the other one. Was he on a little bike too? She looked so slim, ethereal even, with her characteristic slow loping walk, and that slight curving in of her shoulders that always tried to lessen her height. I thought I was alright with it. That was until I called him. He was distracted, trying to tell me something and I just lost it. I threatened to hang up. He understood, as he always does. I didn’t know there was grief there. And it is, still there.

I drew her spoon later. I shall send it to her, along with other semi-precious things that she might like to keep, give to her daughter or even sell. That would be up to her.

The flags are up on the Prom. I love these signs of the oncoming summer. The lifeguards’ hut has been up for a while. The wind enlivened the flags as I walked this morning, hood up against its blasts. But the light is a joy. I even walked the back way, along the covered lane that brings you out onto the College Field. I felt brave enough, even to walk under the bridge. One more piece to write for now. Keep going.

I watched the daughter and the mother walking back home. The mother, now 104 years old, takes a daily walk around the old school. She doesn’t go far but it keeps her connected with the outside, nature and gives her some fresh air and exercise. I think she is proud that she can still do it. Her daughter, like her sons walks beside her as she does so. I suspect she’d rather go alone. I’ve watched her during these walks, particularly when she sits down on the pile of railings that have been dumped on the wasteland. She sits, sleeps, stares and sometimes talks to herself. Maybe she also prays. I don’t know. Either way, her continued independence, one might even call it fierce, is clear. The daughter, as I watched her, looked awkward. She lives in Milan and comes here infrequently. Perhaps their relationship is spiky. I wouldn’t be surprised. Italy is a long way to run to. I did the same, though London wasn’t as far. She has none of the Italian flair. Little appears to have rubbed of on her. Nor does she have the stature that her brothers have. She is small, relatively, round-shouldered and big-breasted. She has a look of her mother in her face but there isn’t much else to say that they belong to each other, are even of the same tribe. She is doing her duty. That is enough.