She was sitting on the little wall outside the cyclist and mother of Ron/Reg the cat. Her hands were gripped over her stick and she was staring up at the sun. I said hello and commented on the loveliness of the weather. She looked up at me her eyes missing me, her head turned in slightly the wrong direction. I told her who I was, using his name as a way in. She remembered and asked about the drawing. I used to be rather alarmed by her. I’m not now. I touched her shoulder, her hair, as soft as a babes. Can I draw you again? I asked. Of course, she said, any time. I only wish I was more responsive, she said. Oh, you are, I said. You are perfect. And you are.
There’s a man who comes into the coffee shop he and I frequent who we call the tracksuit man. He’s always wearing them now that he’s retired from his job at The National Library. He wears the full kit, tracksuit, neatly tucked into the waist band, trainers and baseball cap. A sports enthusiast, his enthusiasm has one peculiarity, which is that all the players. and games he follows must all have some link, however tenuous, with Wales, and preferably Ceredigion. He brings books into the coffee shop, not just to read himself but to leave there. A kind of sports Gideon, he places them on the book shelf in the corner of the shop. They’re all in Welsh, and, as I’ve said about sport (though there are also some about local celebrities).
Town is littered with kids first thing. I think it’s exam time and the evenings and the early hours are clearly their wind-down time. They wander about in differing states of dress, the girls in shorts and mini-skirts and revealing as much flesh as is humanly possible while still remaining dressed. They look cold. One girl in a boob tube, tiny pelmet and ankle boots stood on the corner of Bridge Street talking to a friend. Another lad stood a little apart from the group, the hood of his hoodie over his head against the rain. He saw me and raised his right hand in a tiny gesture of hello. Hi, I said back. Most of the time I think I am invisible.
I saw him. He ‘d just left his house on Queens Road and was heading his way to the paper shop. I haven’t seen him for a few years now. He looked older, shrunken and curved around the shoulders. I hugged him. Love poured out of me. He smelt musty, tired and sad. He’d had a fall he told him over the phone later, black eyes and everything. He’s in his late eighties now and feeling it it seems. The former strength and dogged independence is waning. I want to draw him. Will he mind?
We walked together as is our wont on a Sunday. The sun came out. It was unexpected, and lovely. The steam train was just about to leave the station and we waited for it to come past, the vapour from its shiny engine billowing around our legs. I felt like a child filled with glee at being in the presence of something marvellous. A little girl with a hair band festooned with Union Jacks waved at us as the carriages trundled away. Turning down the path alongside the river I saw a Small Blue butterfly sunning itself on a leaf. Another marvel. I was filled up.
I finally got round to listening and watching Joan Halifax’s TED talk on Youtube. She is a rousing and spine-tingling speaker. Every so often she stops talking, places her hands in a position of prayer and raises them to her mouth. No doubt gathering her thoughts and perhaps praying for guidance. She talks about compassion as an active feeling, as an emotion that is not about pity or moral outrage but one that moves within us so as to heal. She quoted the Buddhist notion of a hard back and a soft front, of keeping your heart open to life, to others but remaining grounded, centred in oneself. I need to learn this. The suffering of others touches me deeply but I am of no use if I am weighed down or hobbled by their pain. I want to actively sit with it, witness it but still be able to be strong and vital so that I can offer clean, pure light-filled healing. She put it all so eloquently. I cannot. Help me to do some good, in whatever small way I can. Not as a stroke to my ego, but a genuine detached, non-self goodness.
The Carlton Cafe is to close. He read about it in the local paper. It is sad. He’s known the owner for a long time, from when she used to be a waitress in a restaurant he and his mother were fond of. She and her partner worked so hard to make the cafe nice. The food wasn’t wonderful but is was filling, and of the kind of fare that the sort of holidaymakers that come here wanted. The portions were generous, with plates piled high with chips, beans or roast potatoes. Milk shakes came in the tall, fluted glasses that I remember knickerbocker glories being served in as a child. Builder’s tea was delivered in little metal pots, and coffees were weak but milky. And there were the banquettes. You could look down on the high street below from them. And there were always help-yourself tins of hair and body spray and tubes of hand cream in the ladies loo. She cared, as did he. The lockdown, Brexit and the cost of living have all taken their toll. I shall miss it. And them.
I never set out on my early walk with pleasure these days. It’s a sad fact, but it is true. It’s the beginning that’s the hardest. The loss of cartilaginous cushioning in my hips makes my legs stiff, unyielding, unwieldy, I walk with a limp and a lean. It is graceless. I will myself to go faster but my body refuses. It does improve the further I get, and by then I am taken over by the gorgeous smell of the morning air, the sound of bird song, the lift of the wind and the array of floral aromas from the gardens I walk past, and as we approach June the blue of the sky as morning approaches in earnest. The steeling myself to go out is always worth it. As is the blood flow to my poor little hips. I am lucky. I am blessed. I am learning much from this pain, for which I am grateful. And I cannot call it chronic, not like Michael Palin’s poor wife who, if the papers are right, couldn’t find any relief from her agony. Poor, poor love. And poor him. To have been together for so long.
There was a hullaballoo outside The Spar this morning at 4.30 am. I could see a gathering of bodies by the sliding door and then the chanting started. Lads, singing something. It sounded aggressive, unkind and I turned down Portland Street to avoid encountering them. The noise of them echoed through the town, only quietening as I climbed up onto North Road. He thought it might be kids from some sports trials. He’d seen tents and marquees on the field by Morrisons. I thought of the people in the flats and houses nearby with their sleep disturbed. Has it always been the case with the young creating chaos?
He texted him to ask when we might visit. He replied with a list of possible dates. They are busy. She is dying and there are people to see, and, no doubt, they prefer to fill the spaces rather than leave them empty to fill up, as they inevitably will, with grief. He writes to tell him that he is working on his son’s garden and that they had a happy time at a garden centre yesterday. I am glad. It is a lovely thing to make a garden at such a time. They have been together so long. They are inseparable. What will he do when she is gone?
Smoker (2) was up when I walked past his kitchen window. The lights were flashing (he has a line of flashing lights in there) and I could see him sitting with his eyes trained on the TV. The lights were on in his childrens’ bedroom too. Where they awake too? I attach such sadness to him. And for all I know he may be quite happy with his lot of part-time father. Who knows? I don’t.
It was peaceful when I walked. The half-moon was covered in a mist. There were stars through the clouds. And now the day has come and the sea from my window is a calm blue.
It’s a blessed feeling. There is real grace in it. That putting aside of rancour of a scratchy kind of amour propre, of ego-driven hurt. Nothing matters but being open, kind and loving. She has such a delicate face, moon-like, with pale Pre-Raphaelite skin set off by her long rope of red hair. I like her. I cannot help it. She writes so beautifully and feels things too. I was glad to see her. Let it be well. She was probably spooked, like a nervous filly in an unfamiliar field. And then he came over and took my hand. Did I offer it him, or was I just putting my hand on his arm and he took it? I think he is as sensitive as she is, her mother, sitting in the corner sewing is steadier, their ballast, one and all, I suspect. The real grace, of course is what it gave me. I forgive her too. I always have and always will.
I continue to read Sally Magnusson book about her mother’s dementia. I read it in short bursts, at breakfast mainly, in between my frequent comings and goings, up and down the stairs making beds, sorting out the washing and other domestic tasks that I long to get done so that the day can stretch out uninterrupted. (It never does, by the way.) It’s a profoundly moving piece of writing. And the way she peppers her mother’s and her own story with scientific facts about what dementia does to the brain is chilling. How will it be to sit across from, to draw people with that condition? Can I ever truly understand what they are feeling? She writes of the fear, the disorientation, the torpor, the loss of self and all that was previously known and, indeed, loved. What are we without self, without direction, without knowing? How is it to care for someone who is lost to us, and themselves. I think of those I remember from the Home. The man who’d sit by the front door day in day out, coat and hat on longing to be taken out. Or the woman who was in the same place my father was at his end, the one I’d catch sight of on her bed, weeping softly and holding a teddy to her chest. It was truly pitiful. Where is grace to be found there? Is it all in the eye of the beholder?
Emerging from his room in the early hours needing a pee, he asked: “What’s the name of the butcher?” The day before he’d told me that he’d heard his number plate read out over the tannoy in Tescos, only to be told that some kind soul had noticed his car boot had been left open in the car park and informed Customer Services. He’s done it before. He says its because he presses the automatic key fob in his pocket by mistake and that opens it. Last time it was just forgetting. He’d walked off leaving it wide open. He is sanguine about it. And, in the whole scheme of things it is nothing, nothing. As is the drips of pee on the floor when he doesn’t quite make it to the loo in time. It is age, ageing and doddery-ness and I should be more forgiving and kinder. I try. After the event when I’ve been snappy and scratchy, I am. But I will try harder. I promise.
