It was just a rogue sentence, caught mid way. I heard it in my head as I woke. ‘At your Mum’s funeral,’ it said, ‘you clearly…..’ And that was it. And the use of the word Mum. Is that significant? Wouldn’t I usually say Mother? What it meant I cannot say.
The sun is out and I am way behind schedule. There are so many little bits to deal with and I want to stop, to sew, to switch off. So I will. I shall make a large pot of tea and begin. Mending first. Then sewing. And The Archers.
I hope you are all safe. I miss my loves. I wish they were near, each and every one of them.
The Prom was empty as I walked this morning. The Coops pub was still open, clearly making the most of their last night of opening before shut down. Everything else was closed. A few students could be heard noisily making their way home. I saw a light from a mobile phone by the sea’s edge on South Marine and the woman with the plastic bag who shops in the early hours at the 24 hr garage passed me, but other than that there was nothing. Until that is I heard a sound behind me. It was just as I was walking down the hill beyond the harbour towards home. It was a rolling sound, of wheels dragging on tarmac and voices. I turned round. A group of five or six men were pushing a small wooden rowing boat towards me. I walked a little faster. They were laughing as they pushed. I headed for the steps that would take me up to South Road and turned to look at them. They were far behind, the boat was clearly cumbersome to push. Where were they going with it? I thought that they would’ve launched it into the water, though on second thoughts the tide was out so water was scarce. Perhaps they intended to upend it like the other boats just behind the harbour. Who knows? I didn’t intend to hang around to find out. We are all edgy. People cross the road at one’s approach. Nothing feels safe. Nothing feels familiar. Keep steady. It will pass. Though when it does much will have changed. Meanwhile there is work to do. That is good. That keeps me steady. Are you OK?
Can an old dog learn them? His house was amazing, a warren of alcoves, cubby holes and with every space on the wall consumed with art. I loved it. And he, though reticent, felt like a good man. And I’m to do the editing. I hadn’t realised. It freaked me at first. No, he said, you’ll be doing that. Outside the rained poured while inside, with my belly warmed by tea, I smiled. It is going to be OK, it is going to be exciting. This is something new, I thought, daunting, scary, but new. And I will be working with sound. Finally.
I walked the whole length of the Prom this morning, the first time in ages. And I thought of him. It’s been 24 years. He has been in my life for 24 years. What a treasure. What a joy. What a gorgeous man. You see there is wonder, there are gifts. And there were two yesterday, one small one larger than I expected. It will be well. Work now before I call her. The sun is out. The sea was lapping. Enough. Tea. Then write, though how I can capture her god alone knows. She is quicksilver.
And if they starve us out I shall fast. You see. It’s OK. I promise.
I wake each morning asking for the courage to manage this madness, to remain steady, kind, calm and balanced. And every day I fail. I cried in the supermarket, leaving a blotchy stain on his coat when he hugged me. The shelves were empty, no vegetables, no fruit and people we never usually see coming in at 6 am like us but with gapingly huge trolleys. It is a madness. There is no shortage but one is being created. I don’t want to panic, to feel fear but the reaction of some creates a domino effect inside. Keep it at bay. It isn’t real. We won’t starve, will we? We can live with less. Surely.
Give me grace. Grant it. Please. Let me be good. Let me be kind. Work helps. And I have much, much to do. Amen to that.
I was climbing up the small hill into the Castle Park when I heard him calling through the darkness. Then I saw his torch light. I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then he was behind me. I speeded up. Excuse me, he called. Excuse me, he said again. I stopped and turned to face him. He was young, tall, stringy and with a large brooch in the shape of white heart on his jacket lapel. Excuse me, he said again, have you seen a man? He’s about this high, he said gesticulating with his hand a height about a foot shorter than he was, and Irish. He’s this high, he reiterated, and Irish. I’m sorry, I said, I haven’t seen anyone, and started to walk off. He followed me, repeating his question. Are you sure? he said finally. He did say he was here. Sorry, I said. I heard him all the way down Great Darkgate Street, shouting for Gerry.
Two girls passed me on Northgate Terrace just before I was assailed by the gorgeous smell of the bread being baked in The Pelican Bakery. They can’t have been much older than twenty. Possibly they were younger. One of them was pushing a pram. I leant into the wall to let them pass. Inside the pram was a child of perhaps two or three. It’s eyes peered at me through the plastic rain covering. It was not yet three am.
Such bleakness when I first wake. And then I talk of it to him at breakfast and my self-pity sets in. He looks so concerned and I hate myself for doing that to him. And yet, articulating it does help a little. What is best? And then I snatch a glance at the first few tweets on Twitter and my self-concern dissipates giving way to those with stronger needs. And there are so many. I try to send comfort. To be of use. To feel better about myself, this grey thing that I carry around. The sun shines and the sky is a blue behind the clouds. We just have to keep going. There is nothing else for it. The big sleep awaits us regardless. I ask for grace, for strength for kindness. For the ability to be kind whatever the adversity. Will it be given?
The bread shelves were empty in the supermarket. Such fear. Such panic. I must have compassion for that even if I cannot condone the result. Let us be kind. Blood on their hands, she said over the radio. The stockpilers will have blood on their hands. Give us strength, we know not what we do.
Meanwhile, I have this life to live, these people to tend and nurture. It is enough. Forgive my complaining. My bleakness is mine. I shall know it, care for it. Tend it. Until it passes. Until it passes.
It’s a question of neatness, of dotting the is and crossing the ts.
The notes were there in my diary from before we went away, a reminder to write them out when I returned. One is from a quote by Jane Austen, from one of her letters, I think, captured in Lucy Worsley’s oh so excellent book. It reads: ‘I’ve read The Corsair, mended my petticoat and now have nothing else to do.’ The other is from an overheard conversation early on Saturday morning. Last Saturday that is, before we went. It was from two students. A girl and a boy. She was tiny, with long straggly blonde hair. He was tall and slender and also blonde. Despite the cold weather, she was wearing miniscule black leather shorts. It’s shocking, he was saying, over and over. Her voice was earnest as she leaned into him. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it, she said. I know, I know, he replied.
It’s hard to return home. All these bits to do. I feel in bits too. It will get better once I get a hold. It was lovely to go away. I wish it could have been longer. Much longer. But then it would have been harder to return. Lots of dreams last night. Now there is work. Much work to do. Two loads of washing have been done, with ironing to do later. Ah, me. Such is life. I am grateful for the times away, that glorious emptying.
I’ve mentioned before about the seemingly random sentences that often reverberate in my head when I wake. Sometimes they are being said by me though often it is another voice, a strange, unfamiliar one. This morning it was mine. I cannot remember the context, it has been lost to me. The sentence however was lucid and clear. ‘What an amazing set of tools,’ I said, though to whom I do not know.
The dark morning assailed me again as I walked. The form feels overwhelming. I need to reduce it down to bite-size pieces. I can do it. I can manage it, but this morning it feels downright impossible. I snap at him. But then it is alright again, and my petulance abates.
They’ve stopped getting staff in to work the tills at 6 am at Tesco’s. So this morning we had to use the self-service one. No more chatting. I don’t mind. Change comes frequently these days. Always new tricks to learn. We managed. We manage, he and I. Always.
The first cup of coffee has been drunk. It disappoints these days, coffee, I brew it mostly for the smell, tea has taken over. I shall make a pot now and then get down to work. Onwards.
We were sitting at breakfast when he looked up from the paper and said: ‘Do you know what the next storm we’re to have is going to be called?’ No, I said, Storm Helen? ‘No,’ he replied, they’re not alphabetical. It’s going to be Storm Ellen.’
It’s rather nice actually. I like that. Ellen is such a benign name, reserved for Victorian maids-of-all work, and spinster sisters or maiden aunts. I like the power attached to being a storm name. See we can rise up, we wallflowers and background lilies.
I raged yesterday. The tension in my body got too much and I raged against it. Self-pity reigned. I am sorry for he gets the worst of it. He is kind, sympathetic, but even the most patient will be tried eventually. He always advocates anti-depressants. They have saved my life, he says. I know. And I accept that for him they work. But I don’t want them even if saying no to him is difficult. Not now, not ever. I need to feel this and come through to the other side. For I believe that there is one. An other side. A brighter side, where my contentment or possibly even happiness lies.
The wind blew wild as I walked, forcing me to cling to walls when I turned the corner from South Road and up that little side street. The sea rocked and rolled.
I caught a reading of Nicola Bayley The Mousehole Cat yesterday on the radio. I knew of the book but I’ve never read it. Lovely. Everything is seen through the cat’s eyes. Even the storm is a cat which Mouser lulls to calmness with her singing. Lovely serendipity. You see I can’t bring myself to listen to From Our Own Correspondent (which was on Radio 4 at the same time) when I’m this black. It is too much. I need light. Forgive me. I atone. I expiate. Wash me clean in your waters.
Sometimes it is just a word or phrase that I catch as it or they emerge from the radio. Yesterday it was a man voice talking about what he called objects of small pleasure, which were in his case pencils. I didn’t catch the rest. Small pleasures make life liveable, for me at least. They don’t overwhelm or threaten an anticlimax, they are comfortable, hand-able and pocket-size. Like the daffodils he bought for me, or the little jug she gave me for Christmas two years ago, or the taste of tahini yesterday, or a line in a novel that makes me smile. Such things aren’t everything, they won’t solve much – world poverty, hunger, the coronavirus or stop the floods – but they cheer, they lift and that has to be enough.
I walked this morning as usual even though they threatened howling gales and it surprised me how many people appeared to be awake. They weren’t out like me but windows were lit in the darkness. A Hopperesque scene with those oblong blocks of yellow light, usually from a ceiling light. No figures just a shape of yellow, seemingly amorphous, floating in the black.
Reading Worsley’s book she informs me that it was women who used to sew together the printed pages of a book before it was bound, which in those days printers didn’t do, this was then courtesy of a bookbinder. She also makes lots of connections between Austen’s sewing and writing. Her niece describes her as ‘doing two things at once: ‘working’ on one task with her needle, and another with her brain.’ Nice. I find sewing does the same for me. On the next page Austen is quoted as saying: ‘I really am impatient myself to be writing….I can command very little quiet time at present, but yet must I begin.’ Amen to that, Jane. Me too. Me too. I am impatient to be writing but first things first. That form. It must be attended too.
