Category: Writings

Some words immediately evoke memories. Unbidden they come in. Annexe. It was a crossword clue. The annexation of a country, I think. I remember it as a word that I didn’t know painted on a sign. A sign on a door. The annexe. The ante-room, the adjoined room. It was at my boarding school. So many unfamiliar words. Words that shouted at me, accused and unsettled. Words of command, direction painted on signs and hung on walls and doors. The annexe was a cold space, an extension to the music corridor, I think, and the tuck shop. The wind blew through it, or am I being fanciful? They made us wear long blue cloaks. I was grateful for them. Where did all those clothes go? She showed me a photo of a little black velvet jacket she’d had when she was four. Her mother had kept all her clothes from all those years ago. Is that a sign of love? Another word was stiletto. No stilettos to be worn in this building, read the sign. I went to boarding school in the early 70s. Were girls still wearing stilettos then? And then I discovered it was also the word for a knife. I can recall learning to read in primary school, the mystery of the shapes before me. My finger tracing them, wanting to understand. Do I understand much more fifty years on? No, sometimes I think I understand less, much less.

It was a good day yesterday. A warm and sunny day. She was all smiles, her head characteristically leaning slightly to one side. A joy. A joy to be with them both. A warm friendship, much much good will. The city was busy. All that shopping. I wanted to avoid the crowd, and took him down the back streets. That’s where they filmed the last scene in Persuasion. We see a woman holding a sign aloft announcing a free Jane Austen tour. She attaches herself to the end of the crocodile. We call to her, we’re going this way. But they weren’t saying anything, she said. We talk of death, of burials, of families, of shared acquaintances. The food was good. The tastes zinged on my tongue. And so much love for them and for him. A long drive, winding. I see it in my sleep, the road. The ever winding road.

The town is quiet these mornings, just a few stray youngsters. Two girls, dressed up to the nines trying to get their key in the front door of The Cardigan Bay guest house. Exposed thighs and high heels. One had on a gold lame jacket. She swayed as her friend fiddled the key in the lock. Should I go and help? Then later, walking towards the station I hear laughter. Three girls are sitting on the ground by the empty taxi rank. Legs splay. Two wearing white stilettos. Heels almost five inches long. They hush each other as I near. A taxi pulls up.

I’ve caught a cold. A cold in my chest. He says its my insistence on keeping a window open at night. I can’t not. I love the air coming into my room. The contrast of cold and warmth. But when I awake it is austere. I shiver. I am weepy too. For silly reasons. Too much in my head. We talked well. Things felt arranged, safe, ordered. Only to unravel today. Life is a messy business. He said they’d had a leak in their basement. I was surprised. Other people’s lives always seem so perfect.

They were a little extravagance. My little extravagance, which continued into the morning when I bought lingerie. Two pieces. All lace. In the sale, naturally. An indulgence, to which I confessed when he woke. He is fine about it. Always. I am the one who is discombobulated. Too many purchases make me wobbly. I’m my father’s daughter. A little close. Nervy about excess. I like the simple. I am a Puritan at heart. And yet I love beautiful underwear. What did she say about the Rector? Did she use the word puritan? He didn’t, doesn’t like too much frippery, too much pomp. Did she accuse him of doing away with the Abbey’s Christmas tree? Edward. His name is Edward I remember. And I saw him once in Waitrose without his dog collar and sporting a rugby shirt. What was his title? Was it something like promontory? No, I’ve just checked its Revd. Prebendary. Though that doesn’t look right either. And he has retired this year. It won’t be the same. A gentle man, a shy man, I think. I remember going to the Vicarage for an introductory tea. He looked so uncomfortable. They stopped doing them soon after. A blessed relief, I suspect. Back to my extravagance. Two little pots of tete a tete daffodils. One for my room, one for his. Doris and Daphne. Dor and Daffers. It makes him laugh, the perpetual naming of things. Of inanimate objects. It’s part of our closeness, our precious intimacy. A shared silliness, childishness. I can be that with him and I treasure it. Anything to puncture the earnestness. Anyway, they are lovely. Our own wee harbingers of Spring. Soon to sprout.

Did you know that the Wise Men, the Magi were originally astrologers? According to Ian Hislop that was the case until the Church men started to meddle and astrology was debunked, and made into a non-science. And then they were Kings until Cromwell stuck his oar in and made them Wise Men. As a child you take it as truth. All of it. I sang We Three Kings of Orient Are as I walked this morning.

I was better yesterday. The negative voice wasn’t so strong. It’s trying to take root this morning. It is a day-to-day thing at the moment. It’s because I’m alone with it without interruption, I suppose. I think about what I want, what I need. I think about the haves and the have nots. I’m in the first category undoubtedly, though to a lesser degree than many. And yet, I see my blessings. I have peace, I have autonomy. I am dearly loved. Treasured, in fact. I can please myself. I have enough to eat, I am warm, safe and held. All of which gives me time to fret about the details. How I get myself across? Am I good enough? Am I kind enough? Am I doing enough? Am I working hard enough? Am I worthwhile? OK. Now pull back. What is enough? Who is making the judgements? I think about his mother. No great claims for a life. No accolades. A loving woman, funny, well-liked. A raiser of a family, a wife and carer. She made shift. She did what was expected. WI, playing bowls, bridge. She was present in her life. And later, she waited with grace and humour for her demise. Was her life any less than mine? With my egotistic search for recognition, for acknowledgement that I am somehow special. What constitutes special? Beauty, talent, skill, power? It all begins inside. This deep well of knowingness. And yet, not knowing. For we cannot know anything. The days fold out one after another and sometimes I am so weary. And yet I don’t have to go down a pit, work in a factory, plough a field. I am warm, I am safe. The war is an internal one. An illusion, ultimately and at odds with what I really want. She writes about silence. About praying for 3 hours a day, walking, reading, writing and sewing. Is that enough? Is that a good enough life? I want my peace. I want to know my peace. I want to open to my peace. For then all else will make sense. All else will fall into place. Amen to that.

I’d never thought about it like that. That is what it is. It was a throw away phrase that he let slip during his radio programme about an alternative Christmas soundtrack. He used to be a pop singer. I think he was in Bronski Beat. That group with the marvellous Jimmy Somerville. Anyway he is now a vicar, the Reverend Richard Coles. We’re all just looking for some comfort and light at this time of year, he said. Some comfort and light. That’s it. That’s why I long to return to bed or to stay longer at the table, hugging my hot water bottle surrounded by lights from the little Christmas tree and the line of lights beneath the window. And food too. I taste it more. I need it more.

The darkness is relentless, particularly now that Christmas is done. No more advent candles, no more expectations. Town is so quiet. I like it but it is also eerie. Everything is shut. No 24 hour garage, no Spar. And the people I do see make me anxious. Are they up to no good? There was a small white car that parked just ahead of me along the Prom. A young girl skipped to meet it, leaning in through the driver’s window. A young man stretched back in his seat. A minute later it drove off. Then nothing till a police car along Mill Street. Everything is out of sync. All routine lost. We hover in this waiting room. It disconcerts me. I hold this life, this illusion of normality, so tightly.

We did very little. We got up at the usual time and had breakfast. I opened my one present. A delightful little jug, the essence of simplicity, from my sister. Then he went back to bed and I wrote. Then it was off to church followed by a walk by the sea, then home. I worked and he slept. Yoga, then lunch followed by a nap than supper. Crosswords, a brief watch of North and South then bed. He seemed pleased with his supper. The best Christmas dinner I’ve had, he said. No, I said, surely not. Yes, he said. It was nothing, some cold pork, roast potatoes and vegetables. He is content. I can see it. I do my best. We both do. And how I love this gentleness. This ebb and flow. It is enough to manage the inner turmoil. That sucks up all my strength. But I am growing in understanding. Every now and again a flicker of something like wisdom. Perhaps, the voice said to me this morning, perhaps it is not about success or indeed failure but just experience. How about that? Well it’s certainly revolutionary. Perhaps it is just about the moment to moment experience of being alive. The taste of it, the feel of it. How about that? Think about that. I try to pay attention to the details. To notice the inner judgement but also the pleasure of loving, of feeling of seeing. The wind in my face, sharp and bitter this morning. The way it buffets me, pushing at my legs. The tern drinking from the puddle then flying off at my approach. The robin landing onto the post ahead of me. And maybe, the voice continued, there are no answers, no neat plan just a sense of being here, now, breathing.

I could’ve stayed in bed, it is Christmas day after all. But I’m not much good at stepping out of my routine. It holds me. It holds me tight. And I wanted to be out on this day, out in the silent anticipation of what is to come. So much is expected of it. And all it becomes is a heavy, somnolent sort of day. An inner day. An overly cosy, claustrophobic day. I’m not good at it. That kind of torpor. I like to move. I miss what it could be. For it never was that. As a family we didn’t do well in enclosed spaces. Emotions ran high. And edges became frayed. And yet I longed for the perfection of those images. Even amongst other peoples families it is the same. I pick up all that stuff up, even if it has nothing to do with me. I want to observe yet be warmed by it. To dip my toe in and then withdraw. I feel too much. And my light flickers.

I could be happy. Right now. It is in my gift, in all of our gifts. It is a matter of choice. I know this.

The forecast was wrong. It rained and my coat got drenched. It made me irritable. And then I let it go. Tried instead to concentrate on the sensations of it. To step outside of my self-pity, my tetchiness about life not being how I’d like it to be. The rain wasn’t lashing after all, it was a misty, layering sort of wetness that cooled and washed my face. That was nice. And the wind too. It was fresh, enlivening, pushing at me, jostling. There was nobody about except for a small green car that sped past me along Llanbadarn Road and a man whom I saw walking ahead of me along the Prom.

I wondered about the etiquette. Should I wish him Happy Christmas? I prepared myself to turn and greet him as I walked past him (he’d slowed down by now) but saw that he had earphones in. So I left it and walked on by feeling rather bereft. He looked closed in, too closed in to welcome an interruption. I thought of all the times I’d forced a greeting out of foreigners, in Spain, Norway, France and Denmark. It is for myself. I want to be acknowledged, to be shown that I exist, can, even for a short time, belong. I am more self-conscious in my own country. Funny that.

One of our neighbours has strewn his tree with lights. It looked beautiful in the dark. What a fillip. As with the electrician’s wife, though hers hang from the eaves. Blue light. Blue-white light shimmering. They shunkle, said the girl in The Red Shoes. It must mean shine.

Her loneliness is palpable, made all the more so by her denial of it. Her brittle carapace blocking it in. She cannot cry, I think. And they are so unkind.

Three classes of women sewing. Mrs Hale, the fallen petit bourgeois (she ‘married for love’), working a decorative tapestry on an embroidery hoop, Fanny Thornton, new money, tugging away at her needle as she prettifies some linen and Bessie Higgins, mill worker, mending. Mrs Gaskell’s North and South. Sewing is a necessity, a distraction, a means of money, an acceptable accomplishment. The active women, Mrs Thornton and Margaret Hale aren’t shown doing it. They are too busy being out, out in the world.

I think about why I do it. There is not one reason. I hide behind it. I do it to keep busy, keep going. I do it because at the moment I cannot do much else. I am lost and it grounds me.

I can be happy now, in this moment. All is well. There is nothing I need. I can be happy now. My mind tries to scupper me. To upend and capsize me with its pursuit of success. What is that exactly? I am trying to understand, to make for myself a rich life. And yet I am dogged by this lowness. This fear of fraudulence, of being found wanting. By whom exactly? Why not just let it be? Let the so-called failure, mediocrity be. Live it. Be it. Let go of the fear of it. Don’t suppress it. Fall if you must. It is called living. Live it. Be happy. Not in the empty smiley face sort of happy but the deeply peaceful still sort of happy. Be it now. Moment by moment. And remember.

They’re saying that Spring is just around the corner, he said at breakfast this morning, reading from The Times. Apparently it’s early this year, he continued, four months early. They always say that, I replied. No, he said, it’s here. It’s something to do with hazel catkins being spotted in October when they are meant to come in March. It is uncommonly warm. And as a consequence it doesn’t feel much like Christmas. I’m not complaining, even when I go out with too many clothes on, I love this mildness. The cold bites at my bones.

I felt low yesterday. I haven’t cried like that for a long time. It was good to get it out but a feeling something like shame always follows such an outpouring. Where does that come from? A house where there was only room for one person’s emotion, perhaps? Not her fault. She hadn’t been listened to, paid heed too enough. Cancelled out for too long. She thought that we would make up the deficit. Impossible. I’m sorry. I was so high a couple of days before. So in love with belonging, being part of something warm. And then this great falling. So gloomy. I got everything done. I did what I wanted myself to do, and then I just wanted to sleep, to disappear into the nothingness. He is kind. I snap and snarl when he tries to help. My skin is sharp, prickly with prickles. I want to empty myself out, to clean myself of all residue of rancour. To be white through and through. And at peace. That is it. Above all else. All I want for Christmas is that. And yet, I know I have it already. We all do. If only we could see and value it.

Town was quiet this morning as a walked. A man stood on a corner along Llanbadarn Road. I couldn’t make out what he was doing. Was he peeing? He was definitely swaying, and then he turned full circle and began walking the other way. His movements were exaggerated, his steps too big. He was drunk, clearly. He walked towards me, and I saw his eyes were half closed. Is it nice to be so inebriated? Outside the Pier Pressure nightclub, two men and a woman were rowing. As least, one of the men was trying to drag the woman out of the way. She had scarlet coloured hair and tight army fatigue trousers. What did he say? she was shouting at one of the men. The one who’d tried to drag her away started kicking at a bin. I swear to God, he was shouting. The other man, his face hard against hers said: He said Dennis was a cunt.

Stopping for a couple of minutes at the top of the little hill overlooking Cae Melin and down onto Llanbadarn Road, I listened to a blue tit. For such a tiny bird, its song is so resonant. A kind of spit, spit sound. Sharp, almost rasping, it echoes through the night to be met with the softer call of a blackbird.

Our neighbour was at his window smoking both when I left and when I returned an hour or so earlier. Initially he seemed reluctant to talk. I understand that. But knowing, or at least sensing, this makes me awkward and I come out with inane questions. The second time he was a little more forthcoming, telling me how he’d been staring at one of the security lamps. It’s broken, I said, it keeps going on and off. No, I don’t think so, he said, there’s a kind of strange pattern. I’ve been timing it. He strikes me as content with his lot. An inscrutable man, I think.

A gentle day day today. Carols and lights. It is enough.

Oh, they’re probably from the bush, he said after I’d told him at breakfast about the Welsh-speaking kids I’d seen play-fighting in the Castle grounds earlier that morning. It was still in the gloom of darkness. A disparate mass of bodies, thin and wiry hanging around the public toilets. Then two started pushing and shoving each other. They sprawled across my path. Keeping to the side, I did my best to avoid them. It unsettled me. You’d gone for peace, he said. It’s not right. But they’re just kids having a good time. Though so young. They spilled out of the Why Not? and The Angel. The pavement was strewn with broken plastic forks, food cartons and cigarette ends. Two police cars were parked up by the clock. A chaos.

I am low. I try my best to defeat it. Cajoling, talking myself through it but it has set in. What is it? What brings it on? A sense of self. A low sense of self. I’ve spent the morning cleaning – floors, surfaces, clothes. I’ve ironed and changed the sheets. I’ve hung the Christmas decorations. I’ve kept busy. So come on lets unravel this. When did it begin. Oh, this morning out walking, as it always does. I’d decided to listen to my iPad as a means of distracting myself. But then a voice comes in telling me that I’m not appreciating the sounds of nature when I do that. I’m abstracting, absenting myself from creation. And yet, there is some joy to be had when a song that I love comes on shuffle. So what next? Then it was thoughts about my memoir. My mind had replayed my failure to secure funding and began to revisit all my uncertainty about my worth as a writer. And whether the book has any merit. Does everyone feel this way? Does every artist, writer, musician, actor feel this low about themselves. It has always been so. Through every creative process. I remember it from childhood. That sense of inner ugliness. The darkness of knowing my lack of skill, understanding and of being found wanting, found fraudulent. Where has it come from? What is it about?

Perhaps the questioning is counterproductive. Perhaps I should not try so hard to understand but defeat it by other therapies. I just don’t know. It is an uncomfortable place. It’s the ugliness. And the feeling of worthlessness. And I’d been feeling so high. It was so good to be amongst them. My loves. To belong. I felt such warm belonging. They wanted me there. I just don’t know what it is, where it has come from. Is it their deaths? Is it the menopause? Or is it just something that is in me. A deep, deep gloominess. I want the end. I want my rest. My release. Is it wrong to ask for it? When life, my life is so rich. I know this, I know the seams of potential joy but I cannot access them. I am held in, trapped.

Two days and then it will be over. We shall be quiet. Nothing special. No big hullabaloo. The lights look pretty. Tiny little things. So precious. Will that do? Will that pleasure do? No, for it isn’t about being distracted by pleasurable things. It’s a deeper need than that. A falling. A falling into peace where I am beyond what I do, what I create. Can it be soon? Eh?

She’s a looker, she said to him as she handed over his coffee, but a real one for the men. They give and they take away. Is it just a Welsh thing? Or a generic female thing? I do like her though, for all her gentle sniping. I’ve warmed to her. Oh, the other one, I forgot to explain. The looker. Yes, she’s a gym coach and a teacher of Welsh. She knew me first and then he’d see her in a coffee shop we used to go to. He’d slag her off at first for speaking Welsh to non-speakers. Pushing it on others, he’d say. I don’t think she was or is. She just likes to speak her mother tongue. I watched her talking to him. She is certainly different with him than she is with me. Her face lights up. She sparkles. Is it conscious? I don’t know. He likes her now, he too has warmed. She is a looker. She has lovely eyes. But there is a slowness in her response. Odd. She used to be a primary school teacher, perhaps that is it. I don’t know. I heard him speak some Welsh to her and her surprise that he could. I’ll have to just speak Welsh to you in future, she said. He laughed. Do I mind the flirting? If indeed it is. No. I used to. I was scared, uncertain of my place in his life. He flirted to keep me at bay. Not now. Not now. Back to the other one. I do so like her. I gave her a hug for Christmas. She laughs with her eyes. Kind. She’s been nominated for an award at work. She is modest about it. Her colleague, also a sniper, it seems, said, she told us, that everyone is put forward for awards. Was she? we ask. No, she says.

Be gracious. Be kind. Friends reply to my emails welcoming me, inviting me to stay. I am touched. We will go. Let us go. Let us be open to their kindness. To receive. For what we are about to receive. My sister is the same as me. Cutting off all chance of joy before it can happen. Cancelling plans, rearranging, staying away. I cannot blame her, I have done the same, often. But is OK. It is OK to be you, he says, over and over again.

A mild morning. I wore too many clothes. It was nice not to be frozen. It takes up so much energy. I feel my fortunateness, my blessings. Tomorrow we go to see family. Just a brief visit. Not for long. I plan and plan. In overdrive. Wasn’t there a group called that? he asked coming out of the shower. Yes, Bachman Turner Overdrive. Smashy and Nicey used to play them, do you remember? We laugh. I like the silliness.

I get myself so wound up, so tight. My arms and my back become rigid, immobile. And yet, there is this underlying layer of joy. I heard a blackbird, saw a new lit Christmas tree, felt the gentle wind in my face. I strode forth, harnessing the power in my thighs. He is a source of constant pleasure to me. We talked about watching Scrooge on Christmas Day. The one with Alistair Sim. A black and white movie. Perfect. Just what we were looking for. A bit of laziness, a bit of imploding. Just the two of us. No fuss. No to do. The last advent candle on Sunday. Then it is here.

I remember it looked marvellous in the television advert. The family playing it looked so happy. Two kids, a mother and a father, all playing it together. And the thing itself shone with perfect newness. I wanted one so much. I wanted that happiness, that familial accord. And there it was under the tree. I could tell by rattling it that it was what I’d asked for. Under the wrapping the box looked smaller than the one in the advertisement. But I knew that I wouldn’t be disappointed. I had one. They had bought one for me. All would be well. All that promise would be mine. Now and always. Opening it on that Christmas Eve I was filled with joy. Here it was. Yes, small and a little shoddier than it had looked on the small screen but nevertheless it was just like the picture.

But no one would play it with me. Not now, they’d said. Maybe later. And I couldn’t play it on my own, what would be the point. Mum and Dad never played it with me, not once. My sisters did, but only a few times. What happened to it? I think I kept it in the box most of the time. In my room. That first frisson of pleasure never to be repeated.

There were few people about this morning. Most of the students have migrated homeward. Their cars have gone from the Prom and from behind Alexandra Hall. I heard some girls laughing along Pier Street, but that was all. Lip Lickin’ Chicken was open and a few bodies hung around outside The Angel. Stragglers.

I called her. She took a little while to answer. A slightly querulous voice. Who’d be calling now? At this time. But she warmed up. I had to introduce myself. I remember. I remember now. We talked of Dad and her late husband and where she would spend Christmas. I made her laugh. She’s eating too many mince pies. Can I tell her I care? That we both do. That I cleave towards her softness, her lovingness. She talked of her son in Australia. He has depression. He called last week. It was his birthday. She wants to go and see him but is uncertain if she’d be welcome. I sent him money. I wanted to send them presents, something to open but I don’t know their sizes, what they like anymore. So much grief. We’ll visit, take you out to lunch. That would be nice. So nice. So nice.

I hope that this isn’t a disappointment to you, the letter said, and that you will keep writing.

I didn’t have to apply. I don’t have to do anything. He says it all the time. You don’t have to do anything. Anything. You don’t have to do it. So why do I? Especially when the nays, the rejections hit so hard. That’s what it’s all about, he says. All writers experience it. Gore Vidal was on the radio on Sunday morning, In the Psychiatrist’s Chair, and he kept talking about writers. Writers. His club. His milieu. Do I belong? Have I earned the right to call myself a writer? It took so long for me to call myself an artist. And now? I say it without a flinch. I don’t flinch. I know that I create. What if I just did it without judgement? Neither good or bad. It just is. I’m writing now, does that make me a writer? Always this need for outside validation. It won’t come like that. It has to happen within first. You write because you need to. You make because you need to. That is the first impulse, the first requirement. What comes after is a bonus. Making money from it, applause, reviews, acceptance, honour, whatever it is. It is the cherry not the cake. The cake has to be what is inside pushing to come out. I know my lack of confidence. I feel it is as a cold place inside, an empty place, an empty room. All that I don’t know, all that fear of being foolish, and yet there is this drive, this impetus to make, to create, to write. It is overwhelming.

Let’s just sit with the failure a while. A failure. Just a word. Fail. Sail. Hail. Just words. What have you learnt? I organised myself, made it real for myself. Made decisions. I saw the wobbling. Perhaps they picked that up too. And let’s face it, awards are not all they are cracked up to be. One is expected to jump through hoops, wear a strait-jacket. This way it remains mine. I hope you will continue writing. Will you be put off? No. He encourages. I think it is good. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. It’s the not finishing that hurts. So many ideas not yet realised. I have to do it, to make them tangible, manifest. I take a remedy and wait for the detachment.

I think about the two of them all the time. Are they sleeping? Taking rest. Is she still in pain? I wish I could do more. I wanted to help. Did she cry too? What does she feel? I miss her more than I can say.

There’s a tree on North Road full of starlings. I hear them through the dark. A shishing, a wishing, a chittering. A noisy tree. An animated tree. It’s near the eye clinic, just before I turn the corner. Are they a separate flock from the one under the Pier? Why have they chosen that tree? Are they just there at night? It is a weird sound, eerie. Such chattering. Getting ready for their murmuration.

Shopping done. I ask about her son’s play and her daughter’s nativity. She is proud. She promises to bring her discount card when we next come. A sweetheart. Does she do it for all her customers?

Off now, work soon. Keep safe my loves. x

What a time we’ve had. So much journeying. And it isn’t just the miles, its the spilling of emotion. Containing and spilling and processing. You overthink things, she says to me. And she’s right. I’d like to switch it off. It is to no purpose, it merely tenses me up. Like a guitar string, he said. Your heart is like a guitar string. Did he mean its beat or its pulse or the way it sounds? I knew what he meant when he said it, though. It is too tight, too strung up. I feel much. I felt much as I held her. Scared and overwhelmed. The tenderness of her, her wanting, her need for comfort to be made safe, fed. And then arriving at her house and my very same need being met. Candlelight, warmth, the smell of a cake freshly baked, soup and everything closed up against the dark. We got a little lost. We’ll I just forgot myself for a moment. I’ve walked that road so many times, how could I have forgotten? But it was nice to see the decorations. The city was resplendent. It’s because they complained last year that there weren’t enough lights, she said. They’ve made up for it this year. And she, that little one, her eyes wide open and staring at the Christmas tree. Those deep little pools. What have they seen? How is she making sense of it all? Just four days in this world. Four days and so much to get used to. We’re getting to know her, they both said. Both so tender with her. Watch those clips, he said, forcing me to peel off my dungarees. I hadn’t thought. I felt gauche, a little clumsy. He was being protective. His love, his babe. It is right that he is so. And I am glad of it. The TV on the whole time. Christmas hits. Mind-numbing jerking about in red and white. But a warm room. She in socks, so tired, spaced-out. Sorry, she said, I can’t make conversation. I don’t need you to. It’s alright. I just want to be here a little longer in this warm room with you and her. I knew she’d be a girl. It is apt. With lips like cherries, little rose-buds. She is in pain. She winces when she sits. He said she cried when I did. I don’t know. I don’t want to hurt her, unsettle her. All is well. A new life. A kitten of love. She snuffles against my neck. Trying to make sense. To find comfort. Such love, such helplessness.

Coffee after coffee. We seek the warmth, the comfort, the lift. Road after road. We must stop. I watch people. Families meeting up at the crossroads. Several generations. An elderly lady in a duffel coat. She is placed between her friends. She sits hunched over slightly, playing with her hands. She talks to herself, quietly. She’s got a little Alzheimer’s, he says. But her face brightens up when the young girl joins them. More and more relatives arrive. Chairs are moved. Musical chairs. A warm scene. And at another table, a little boy. He watched me and I watched him back. Flanked by his parents, I observed him talking to them. Always thinking, he took time to reply, measuring his responses. What was he, five, six? A big-eyed, earnest little boy. So self-contained and clearly so bright. And bullied at school, he said. No, I said.

I dreamt I was waiting for some kind of auction. It was in the countryside. I was to meet my sister there. He drove me. We passed a man in a low-slung sports car. He smiled at me. I entered the waiting room, my sister was just leaving. My sister yet she wasn’t. She was a red-head. Then a rather officious woman came over with a little pad. She wanted me to write down what I was looking for but all the pages were full with pencil scribblings. She was trying to find a blank page when I woke.

No decorations yet, next weekend I think. I’m not ready yet. Not quite.

I hope you sleep my loves. x