Category: Writings

It was mild this morning. And there were loads of kids about. Well, not kids, students, young people, teenagers. I heard them before I saw them. A cluster of them on a Prom bench. Laughing, talking too loud, they were clearly high. High about being young, with their friends and alive. Oh my god, one of the girls kept saying, Oh, my god, it was like….and I was like…. I couldn’t catch the rest. Her voice  lifted and dropped in volume and pitch. Another of the girls was laughing uproariously. The birds were out too. There’d been an owl. A screech owl as I walked along Llanbadarn Road. No twit-a-twooing, a definite screech, well, more like high-pitched wailing. Was it overhead? It seemed to follow me along North Road. Then there was a phut, phut, and click, click of a robin. Was it a robin? It wasn’t a blue tit, or a blackbird. I heard one of those on my way home. A chirruping, lyrical sound just as I walked past the Pelican Bakery breathing in that luscious scent of warm yeast and salt. A brief respite from the cold. I dread it. The flat is too big and gaping to feel warm. And I am careful of the bills. So we shiver, taking comfort from hot water bottles and bed. But I lack really warm clothes. I want and need some big jumpers that cover my bum. His jumpers are nice but he only gets medium. I want to be enveloped. I’ve always liked that. Hiding myself in warmth.

They had the lights on ceremony in town on Saturday. We missed it. We were in Cwmbran. Neither of us had ever been before. It wasn’t what I expected. An ex-mining town. A little dilapidated but with a huge shopping precinct. And free parking. An incentive no doubt, as he said, to spend the money they don’t have. I watched a couple across from us in Starbucks. She had on a Christmas jumper dress. It clung to her tights. They looked warily at me. It’s because you look so different, he said. Your hair is short and you dress differently. No blending in. Lots of young couples with babies in prams. A noisy café, but warm and friendly. And surprisingly lovely coffee. A much needed fillip. A good day. Full of pleasure. He ate a mince pie, a slice of bara brith and a scone waiting. Waiting patiently for me, taking up a table for four and reading his paper. No one seemed to mind. Lots of elderly people coming in for their lunch. I found him chatting to one when I’d finished my interview. Hang on a minute, he said, returning his attention to an elderly lady in a fur hat. She’d been telling me about her arthritis, he told me afterwards.

And now I must write it. I began yesterday but felt nervous, uptight, self-conscious. Begin again today. Relax, say what you think. All is well. It will tell the story. That’s the important thing. But then again is it important? It’s just work. Let it be, let it flow, let it come out. I booked to do one of her workshops. On a whim. I wanted to return. See what it is like to embellish, to decorate. Another skill, you never know. I want to be amongst those women, too. Warmth. The room shone, it glitter. A balm, as he said, against the dark.

A short dream. I dreamt she had my work on show in her gallery on the hill. Nothing moved. It was lit up, it was beautiful, a beautiful show but no one came and nothing sold. Stasis?

I woke up with it in my head and lay there trying to spur myself to get up and write it down. That’s what I wrote at some ungodly hour and found this morning. Not the Misses Agony. It was of vital importance in my sleeping world. A cipher, a communication from another realm. Here, in this sphere, it makes no sense. A nonsense. A no language. Who are the Misses Agony? And why are they not?

My dreams haunt my nights these days. Is it the moon? We saw it shining through the trees last night. A great white orb. Mystical. I remember snapshots. I was in a restaurant, a dark, low lit affair with two men. It was in some exotic, foreign location. They weren’t really paying any attention to me, though I shared their table. They were discussing where to go for coffee. I thought about the taste as they talked, anticipating it with pleasure. Then I was looking down through the floorboards that were rather like the wooden slats of a jetty. I could see some fishermen bringing in their catch, two of them were waving up at us, at one of the my companions. I tried to let them know. They ignored me.

This is no ordinary love, sang Sade. No ordinary love, I kept singing in my head as I walked yesterday morning. I read her page. My feelings about her are ambivalent, just as they were towards her. No ordinary love, a tricky love, an uncomfortable love. Not always a loving love, or a liking love. I feel her, I feel them all. The burden and the joy of them. Rarely light. As it never was with her. I used to have this recurring nightmare as a child. A man, a mystery assailant was cutting off her fingers and toes. I would wake up screaming, wanting to save her but couldn’t. There was no blood, just this maiming. That scene from The Piano writ large. She would come to me on hearing my screams. Was she kind? I cannot remember. I didn’t want the dream. I couldn’t save her in my sleep or in my waking time. With her it is the same. I want to make it better, to be her balm. She doesn’t want it, need it or even recognise it. And I know I am essentially doing it for myself. I need the calm of it, the making of a better loving, a kinder, easier one.

A good day yesterday. Joyous. I want to write a good piece, a celebratory, encouraging piece. She is young, wide-eyed but full of feeling. And the other women, I liked them too. The seamstresses, the embroiderers, the rag-rug makers. Those users of their hands. Warm women all.

More dreams. I am re-starting my job at the university but the snag is I am meant to be doing a Phd. too. I seek out my supervisor. She is short with me. I cannot make up my mind. I dither. You are full of cotton wool, she says. How about film? she asks. I’m actually into stitch, I say. OK, she says. I walk up and down stairs for what seems ages, thinking, how can I afford it? And maybe film would be a possibility. I meet some women who are trying to set up a stall but have come without a float. I offer to help them find some change and go to the menswear dept. that is, rather oddly, part of the University (a throwback to my interview during the day). A jumble of stuff that clearly reveals the working of my subconscious. I was so enthused by her, by the day. Now I must do my bit, hone it into something that tells the story. Enough, go to it. Well, after I brew my coffee. A Sunday treat.

Not so cold today. A mizzling mist. The simple pleasure of rain on my face.

I bought an inexpensive one. A small one. One that wasn’t too cutesy or commercial. I wanted a traditional one. One that I’d look forward to opening. I’ve hung it on the door of my studio. I couldn’t find the door this morning. The door for number 1. He found it in the end. I thought it said 11. Small pleasures. Small delights. A throwback to childhood, of course. I was a child who liked looking forward and holding back, reserving delights for later. I saved things. I cossetted things. The pleasure was then under my control. I could ease into it, come to it in short bursts. It wouldn’t overwhelm me. Is this a bad thing? I am still the same. Do we ever change? I like advent. It suits me. The waiting. The slow, measured waiting. He thinks I am impatient. I’m not really. Not for pleasure. I am impatient when I am kept waiting. I like to fill my time, no waste. No waste. No time wasters please. Yes, so advent is ideal. It is coming, all that excess, all that delight, but not yet. Not quite yet. He found it but let me open it. I remember that sensation. The pushing open of the little paper door. There is a drawing of some German Christmas biscuits inside. In her homeland they make biscuits for Christmas, just like the Germans. Ginger biscuits, almond biscuits, vanilla biscuits. The shapes all mean something. And they have wonderful long names. I loved the smells around the house. Tired after working all day and then to stand at the oven, my legs ached. Too tired to enjoy eating them, still warm from the rack. Putting them in cake tins lined with greaseproof paper. For later. The smell of ginger when you open the tin the next day. Baking when it was dark outside. A cup of tea on the go. Waiting for the oven timer. Are they ready? Just test it. Soft now, they will harden once out. A question of timing. Waiting by the oven door. Thinking of Gretel. Of Hansel. That perfect house. It wasn’t what it seemed.

Yesterday it looked as if it were alight. A tree in flames. It was Christmas lights. They’d been wrapped around its trunk. Tiny little yellow-white lights, afire in the darkness. It caught my breath. I was disappointed that it was not lit this morning. But there was the moon. Silvery against the sea. It lit my way. No need for my torch. A beautiful morning. Cold, crisp and sharply clean. A police car was humped onto the kerb at the beginning of North Road and still there as I made my way home an hour later. It’s lights were on, two officers were sitting inside. Were they waiting for someone? Pinch, punch.

His lights are often on when I walk. He lives on the hill. High up. He used to be an architect. Now he has Alzheimer’s. It’s common knowledge, probably, though he told me himself when he came to the studio to do an interview. I love your house, I told him. A modern design. A series of long boxes with windows down to the ground. Yes, he said, it is rather special. He designed it himself. His lights are still on. Yellow rectangles against the black.

I tried to still my mind as I walked. It starts immediately. What about this, what about that? Rushing about trying to trigger panic, fear, doubt. Chitter, chatter I call it. Stop your chitter, chatter. Hush. I try to take my conscious lower down, to my solar plexus, my gut. There. There where it is warm. Just sensation, just feeling, no words. Just for a moment. I am just a being walking, sensing the cold, hearing the bird song, that taxi driving past, the sudden gust that flaps at a piece of silvery cellophane caught in the long grass making it glint.

I dreamt I had a child. A little Asian boy. We were both doing our best to care for him. At one point he looked at me with such love. I’ve missed you, he said. Then an Asian chef was writing something for me. A review or a recipe, I am not sure. It was a gift. A gift of his time. I read it as he watched. It was something I could use. A gem.

The house has been cleaned. Dusted and washed. Now to work. Little things to tie up and organise. And prepare for tomorrow. The sun is throwing a warm orange on the roofs across the way. The sky is a clear azure. It is enough.

I am excited about the course. She has a gentle voice. But I must wait. Wait for the right time. 2018. She promised much. We shall see.

I’m rushing ahead of myself. I need to get on with work but I just wanted to write something, to touch base as they say in America. It steadies me, just as she said it would. A splurging but also a recounting of what I’ve seen on my walks, during the day. I need to record it. To remind myself of the bliss, the joy. It may end up being a list of things. So be it. That would be enough.

They had been placed in little piles on the edge of the path. A stone-flagged path that marks the end of the beach. There are often things placed there. Little hillocks of stone, little cairns. This time is was fragments of turquoise painted stone. It looked like they had come from an old wall. Had the sea carried them there, to Cardigan Bay? The colour was Mediterranean in hue, from Spain perhaps or Greece? I love such collecting. A gift. An offering to the Gods.

I asked about her auntie again yesterday as she made my coffee. She’ll need to go in a home, she said. She doesn’t want to, but what with all this falling. Yesterday, I told her, her hair looked liked it’d been dyed. A splodge of red on one side, she said, pointing at her own head to demonstrate the place. I told her, you look like you’ve had your hair dyed, Auntie. And my brother, David, had to pick her up. Oh, I said to him, that must’ve been awful, for you, was it? I asked. She practically brought us up, him and me, you see. Do you want hot milk with that?

I do like her. She’s so warm and round. I love her big upper arms. I wanted a mother like that, I fantasised about the warmth. Beautiful, she is, she said. Beau-t-i-ful, she said.

No frost this morning but a cold north wind. The leaves rustled along the road, brittle and dry. Was that a slight dusting of snow? A wetness on my face? I was able to walk the Perygyl today. It was good to be back. The sky was cloudy, starless. The sea black.

She was coming towards me down South Road. She had on her pink anorak, zipped up tight across her bosom. She avoids eye contact. Her head is always down, her plastic bag, full of I don’t know what swinging as she walks. Is she an insomniac, is she depressed? Do people ask the same of me?

I dreamt of my sisters last night. At least one of them, maybe two. I sensed them rather than recognised their faces. We had to go to a party. We didn’t want to go. It was an obligation. We thought we knew what to expect. But looking through the window when we arrived we saw that there were other people there too. Strangers. We had instructions in our hands of how to behave. A laminated sheet of them. We clutched them to us and walked towards the door.

I heard the tick tick of a blue tit as I walked home along Llanbadarn Road. Are you cold little one? Will you survive the winter. Your song is metallic, but loud, almost strident for something so tiny.

Enough. Time for work. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.

I asked about her auntie. She came out of hospital, she said, but then the very next night she fell again walking with her zimmer. She clearly loves her. I watch her as she talks about her. Her eyes are a chocolate brown. I like her, for all her rocket-fire chatter I like her. Then she fell again, she continued, on the other side. Her mind is fine. I do love her. She’s four feet nothing and lovely. A lovely four feet nothing.

He was sitting in my chair when I got into work. Well, it’s not my chair exactly, but it’s where I like to sit, out of the way, away from a computer. I noticed his feet straight away. He was barefoot. I thought he was my guest, arrived early, and went towards him my hand outstretched. I said the name of my guest and he nodded. Are you feeling better? I asked him. My guest had had to cry off the previous week due to illness. Yes, he said, much better. I’ll just get the studio ready, I said walking off. When I returned intending to put him in the studio ready for broadcast, he and a journalist colleague had clearly been talking. He’s not your guest, she said. Oh, I said. I know him, he said, and however much I’d like to be him, I’m not. When my guest arrived they were the spit if each other. Though my guest had shoes on. Is the bare feet some kind of a penance? I asked him. No, he said, though there are many things in my life I could do penance for. Are you on a pilgrimage? I asked. No, he said. I only have one pair of shoes and they have begun to pinch me. Going barefoot is preferable. Isn’t it cold, I asked. Or do you get inured to it? Yes, he said. I asked the journalist later what he was there for. I’d watched him working at something online, reading then scribbling in a very neat script. I have a story to report on tonight about a sheepdog and the information I’ve been given is in Czech. I asked upstairs. They have a circle of people up there who can speak all kinds of languages. They gave me him. I thought his Welsh sounded odd, I said. I hadn’t noticed he was barefoot till you mentioned it, she said.

The phone had gone the night before at 6.30pm. I’d been just about to go to bed. It’s a bit of a long shot, said the voice, but could you put a guest in front of the newsroom camera tonight? My heart sank. I spoke without thinking. I’m just about to go to bed. But it’s only 6.30, he said. I tried to think on my feet. It’s been a long day, I’ve a head cold, an early night. I’d forgotten my singularity. I’d forgotten that my habits are eccentric. I usually keep them to myself. Can you see if he can do it, if he can’t I will? I said. Sure. He rang back five minutes later. It’s OK, he said, he can do it. So you can go and put your pyjamas on. Was he laughing at me? In fact, he said, when I get home I’m going to do exactly the same. It was OK. You handled it brilliantly, he said. I said no. I said no to work and to money. It was too much. A howling gale outside and I wanted my bed. It was OK to say no. Sometimes you just have to.

I’ve been walking home the back way so hadn’t seen it. I saw it this morning. The tree. They’ve put the town tree up. No decorations yet, just a star on the top. It’s beginning. The first door of my advent calendar on Friday and advent candles and song on Sunday. He likes to hear it. First in Norwegian, then in English. Nice.

I dreamt I was watching this old man and a child in a supermarket. They both had nappies on. He was a little unkempt. I was momentarily put off, but then felt warmer towards, more caring. We were looking at a selection of cheeses through a glass chilling cabinet. I noticed that his nappy was not a big one, not doubly incontinent then, I thought, and he was clean. The details are so distinct. I wake wobbly, so immersed, prised from it like a oyster from its shell.

A cold walk but lovely. The stars were everywhere. There was frost on the Perygyl. It glistened in my torchlight. Beautiful.

I thought it was a cow. I heard a mooing, a repeated lowing sound. Anxious to get home out of the wind, rain and darkness, it took some time before I yielded to curiosity and turned round. It wasn’t a cow, how could it have been? On Station Road at 3.45 am in the morning? I ask you. It was a truck. The mooing noise was the driver working the automated platform at the back. He was standing on it holding onto a wire trolley piled high with pizza boxes. Domino Pizza. He was delivering to Domino Pizza next to the Job Centre. You see I’ve been distracted ever since I woke this morning. It was my dream, I can’t seem to shake it off. And it’s making me see things oddly. All is not quite steady, or stable. I forgot to turn on the radio, I sprayed hair mousse into my hand when I didn’t need it. I am discombobulated.

A dream full of symbolic imagery. We were travelling, he and I, on a journey back from somewhere, but we also had to go back to a place (Nerja) to get home. Lots of going through doors to get to the other side, lots of discussions about and actual eating of food. Sitting on coaches, waiting to go through customs. Seeing the landscape from above. At one point I went through one door and came upon a pantry full of slaughtered animals, well, cuts of bloodied meat and there were the most enormous collection of knives on the block. Huge curved cleavers and choppers. No, it’s not that door, someone called after me, it’s that one. And I went through another and there was a white bowl full of clean water. Then I was hungry and there was only meat available. Other people were sitting around eating, I feel embarrassed that I couldn’t join in and then I saw a plate of dried fruits. I ate some hungrily, greedily, again ashamed by my appetite. It tasted of watery sugar. At another stage of the dream I’d lost him and I was sitting next to a beautiful young man I clearly fancied. I held his hand furtively, turning around to see if he could see us. I felt disloyal but my desire for this man was overwhelming. At one point I even bit his hand. You are a one, he said, laughing. (Was this a response to my listening to Johnnie Walker’s tribute to David Cassidy on Sunday? I’d been flabbergasted by my feelings of exhilaration (and indeed, desire) hearing his recorded voice and renditions of Could it be Forever and Cherish. Was this what was playing out in my dream? We’d talked about it and he’d said it was perfectly understandable, teenage crushes were potent things, blah, blah.) The man talked about which restaurant he was going to eat in in Nerja. Then we were walking together towards it and each side of us as the sea was chock-full of fish. A plethora of fish, so much that you couldn’t see the sea. He talked of sharks being spotted nearby. Must be because of the fish, I said. Then I was with him again and the man had gone. We were waiting in an ante room waiting to go through customs and continue our journey. There was a woman there too, who looked rather like Sarah Kennedy. She gave me a bag. Here, she said, something to freshen yourself up with, make you like a woman again. I looked inside. It contained come curling tongs, tampons, sanitary towels, face wipes, make-up and so on. I was unsure what to do. It seemed like a kind offer. But I didn’t want or need anything. No thank, I said, handing back the bag. I better not take anything I hadn’t packed myself. It’s alright, she said you can say I gave it to you. No, I said. I woke to the sound of my alarm. There were many other aspects. A man we were in a car with talking about insurance and buying a home. He was seedy, untrustworthy, I felt unsafe with him, but the rest has gone.

What an outpouring. I must be off to work now. Trying to not get stressed with all that I have to do. And never knowing if it will be today. Soon, I know. Keep her safe.

I love his stories remembrances. I know most of them. Others, unfamiliar to me, come out of the blue, unexpected. Little things trigger them. We were sitting in the car after having been to the supermarket. Have I told you we go early? It opens at 6 am. We like to get there spot on if we can. We have the place to ourselves then, that is except for the shelf stackers. They are everywhere. One of them was singing to I wish it was Christmas everyday by Wizard this morning, as I whizzed past. You’ll soon get bored of that, I thought, and almost said something. Still it’s nice that he was singing. Anyway we were sitting in the car, in the dark, at the railway level crossing, waiting for a train to come. Mr Pugh used to work those, he said. He had a little signal box right there, he said pointing to the side of the road. Of course, they weren’t automatic then, he worked them by hand. He then proceeded to tell me about Mr Pugh’s sons. It always amazes me that he remembers names so well. Is it because he has never really left here? This town, his town. Anyway, Mr Pugh, it seems had two sons. One went to teach in St Faiths on Trumpington Street in Cambridge. He acquired a really posh accent, he said. And the other was into music. He used to dress up as a bishop. When he was a boy? I asked, momentarily jolted by such eccentricity. Yes, he said, missing the irony. I saw his name under a letter in the paper. Something to do with women’s voices. In the Cambrian News? I asked. No, The Guardian. He’s written a book about women in music. It must’ve been him.

The rain was relentless this morning, as was the wind. I’d borrowed his coat again. And wore my own set of waterproofs underneath it. You just have to inure yourself to it. Too windy for an umbrella. Just bear it. Listen to the spit spat on rain on my hood. Pull the sleeves down over my hands to stop my gloves getting sodden. Push hard into the wind. There was no one about, save a car with its lights on, waiting, the red of its brake lights reflecting bright in the puddles, waiting in the turning circle by the bar. A white shiny car. Young men. Up to no good? Possibly. I kick the bar anyway, lifting the too long coat up over my knees. No one about save a cat. A black shadow down an alley. And a lit basement window. The torso of a young man through the un-curtained window, the sleeves of his checked shirt rolled up, he is obviously talking to someone. Do I see legs stretched out? There is a skateboard, upright and leaning against a chair. I feel cocooned as I walk. Warm inside. Toasty. Just like the old Ready Brek adverts where the children’s tummies shone red. I used to love Ready Brek, the ultimate comfort food, made with milk, hot and with the sugar melting, that layer of watery sweetness on top. I remember the smell of the opened packet, a mixture of oats, powdered milk and salt. A dry smell.

I wanted to stay in bed this morning. I mostly do these mornings. A herculean effort to rise, out into the cold. Winter is a challenge. So be it. It’s just weather, he says. That’s all. So be it.

I wanted to stay there all day, by that fire doing crosswords with him. I’d asked for a large pot of tea. A pot of tea for two? asked the waitress. No, I’d said, for one but with two tea bags in a large pot. A pot of tea for two then, she’d replied. She was having no nonsense. I liked that. And I’m happy to pay for the privilege of a big pot. It’s what I fancied.

We bagged the seats by the fire and I hogged it. Warming myself like a cat, stripping off the layers bit by bit. The automatic door kept letting people in and with them the sharp wind. Biting. I moved closer to the fire, toasting myself some more. Two groups of men came in in plus fours and woolen socks with those little tabs of ribbon along the elasticated rim. Most wore ties over checked Aquascutum style shirts and tweed jackets. The gentry out for a shoot. Bold in their confidence, they weren’t brash, just self-assured. He bristled next to me turning in his chair to glare. I thought of the one shoot I’d attended as a child, something I still deeply regret. It was more of a rough-and-ready affair. We lived in Lancashire then and there wasn’t the landed classes as there obviously is in this part of North Wales. I’d agreed to be a beater, mostly because I fancied the son of one of the organisers and had hoped for a glimpse of him. I was disappointed and further dejected by the mud, the rain and seeing the, what seemed to me, indiscrimate killing of squirrels. Bastards, he said under his breath, I hate them. Bloody farmers. Are they? I asked.

But they weren’t noisy. Not the braying multitude that he’d expected. They ate their, no doubt, hearty breakfasts and left. See that registration number? he said. That’s this years, he said, still seething. The tea was nice though. I felt lifted, ready to write. Ready to think. We returned on our way back, dropping in for a pee. The shop was inundated with Christmas fayre, food and decorations and all sorts of useless stuff. I saw several young girls looking longingly at it all, occasionally stroking something with a finger, or picking something up and holding it for a while. I remember such desire. Waiting for him I shook a snow scene, one of little church scene (I think) and another of a reindeer. I used to love them. They were magical to me.

We talk about sherry on the way home. I can’t remember how it started. I recall the sherry glasses my mother had, beautiful slim vessels, with a heavy tapered base with an air bubble inside. They were brought out every Christmas. Dry sherry anyone? my father would ask. Harvey’s Bristol Cream, for me. Certainly. That was his job, doing the drinks. The maitre’d, the host, the emcee, he was good at that. Always smiling, his face creased up with one, always. Till later, much later, then the smiles stopped. The taste of sherry was the start of Christmas for me. Just a small one for the girls, Chris, Mum would say. Not too much. Sweet, sticky, heady and potent on an empty stomach. Us in all our finery, our best dresses, waiting for Christmas Eve to officially start. Dinner first then presents. The smell of gravy. Mum looking stunning, always. The intoxicating fragrance of her perfume, her lipstick, the jangle of her jewellery, the sway in her hips. Happy for once. Can you help me get the meat out of the oven, Chris? Sure. Did he touch her arm?

A flashing snowflake in the window of a student’s house on Llanbadarn Road. Flashing red, green and blue. I am lifted by it. Thank you.

It was unexpected. A boon. It comes at just the right time. Naturally. Times have been lean. I am grateful. More than I can say. He wants to spend it, and pulls my leg. My instinct is always to save. Just in case. Put it away nice and safe. Maybe a little treat. Why not?

A glorious day. I walked to meet him. Shall I come and get you? he asked. No, let me walk. Let me walk a little in this sun. I watched a man waiting to cross Llanbadarn Road, his hand up shielding his eyes from it. Never. There’s always the sun, sang The Stranglers. Somewhere, yes, but rarely here these wintry days. I love it. Look at that blue. My soul rejoices. Hallelujah.

I went. I was a little nervous. It made me cold. Do you want me to take you coat? she asked. No, thanks, I think I’ll keep it on. She talked fast. So much information. My head ached with it by the end. I think it’s going to be good. I liked it there. As well as anyone can ‘like’ an institution. It’s the best I’ve seen. It was clean, light, airy. Most of the floors have to be carpeted, she said, otherwise it looks too much like an institution. We had laminated floors, no not laminate, lino, in the rooms for the very incontinent, but that’s all. It makes a difference. Lots of windows too. And each room with its own shower. Can they have their own furniture? I asked. We don’t encourage it, she said. The family heirloom with woodworm. And think of the fire hazard. Yes, I do see. They all have varying degrees of dementia, she said, settling down into the sofa. No, that’s not strictly true there is one gentleman who doesn’t but he keeps to himself. I’m so excited about this, I’ve even told the papers. I look around me and notice a picture of The Last Supper by Leonardo in cross stitch. Three of the women residents are sitting among us. One has a bruised face, another is sitting at a table, poker-faced. This is a piss-awful day, she shouts. The woman behind the café counter ignores her, as do we. She’s been asked to join in in the art activity upstairs, says my companion, but she doesn’t want to. The woman near to us smiles at us. My companion explains to her what I intend to do. She smiles. That’s nice, she says, it’s good to be busy. She is tiny, her shoulders are like a child’s. On her feet she wears heavily embroidered, blue velvet slippers. The woman with the bruised face stares into space. I walk over to her. You’re looking well, she says. Thank you, I reply, so are you. I complement her on her cardigan. She touches it. She has a Liverpuddlian accent. Are you from Liverpool? I ask. She doesn’t respond. She’s still stroking her cardigan. She looks up. You’re looking well, she says.

The thing to remember is that they don’t see things the way we do, says my guide. She shows me into two other wings. She is bright and breezy, making conversations with staff and residents alike. One woman kisses her. She is wearing pink pyjamas and has bare feet. Are you off for your bath? she asks. The woman giggles. Off you go. Another woman is calling out. We go to her room. She asks if she is OK. I want to go to the toilet, she says. I think you’ve already been, she says. What am I supposed to be doing now? she asks. You’re waiting for tea and cake, my companion says. I notice a picture on her wall, just by the door. Its a series of photographs with the word FAMILY cut out in wood and stuck underneath. It is her. A younger version. An elegant woman with her husband and children. She sits hunched in her chair, her hair a wild, wiry nest of grey. I want to go to the toilet. When we walk past her door ten minutes later she is crying.

Can I make a difference? She seemed to think so. We like them to see people from outside, from the community. Can I call you our artist in residence? she asked. She thinks they will talk to me. They will certainly try to tidy things away, she says. A euphemism. Things go walkabout, she says. Be careful with scissors. When one of the residents died her family found three pairs of scissors in her drawers. She’d been a midwife, she said, I think she was trying to keep us all safe. Perhaps she just liked to have tools around her, I said. Perhaps, you may be right.

The New Year then. Yes. And see what happens. I won’t ask you to wear the T-shirt, she said. No, I said.

He liked it. Wonderful and immersive, he said. I’m so relieved. Thank you. Thank you.

Have you seen it? she asked as she scanned a netted bag of oranges. What? The whisky, she said, that bottle by the door, its humungous. No, we said. Well have a look when you leave. I mean who’d buy that? she asked. I looked around me. Straight ahead were plastic wrapped packages of litre bottles of Coke, ten to a pack, a pile of them, four feet high. And surrounding the tills were litre bottles of Baileys. Row after row of them. At the entrance to store tins of Celebrations and Quality Street lined the foyer. So much. So much abundance. Can you see it? she called as we left. There. It was huge as were the three Toblerone bars next to it. The abundance of Christmas. It is too much for me. I used to like going to Harrods to see the displays, relishing the show, the splendour, but not now. Not any longer. It is too much. Too much for me. I just don’t want all that, I said to him when we got into the car. Perhaps its because we’re happy, he said. Yes, perhaps it is.

I thought he was following me. I’d been trying to let loose my mind. To be mind-less and mindful. I’d started to listen to the sounds as I walked. The rhythmic rush and whoosh of the sea, the wind tearing round the harbour, rattling at the boats rigging. I was loosing myself to sound. And then I saw him. A dark figure in the gloom coming out of one of the houses facing the harbour. I kept on walking. He was a little behind me. I took the steps up onto South Road and but could still hear him. My back muscles stiffened. I walked faster. Then I turned. Best get a look at him and remember the detail. My mind was in overdrive, all peace gone. A small, young man with longish hair, hanging straight around his face. He wore no coat, just a shirt outside his jeans. I caught a glimpse of his face, a sad look almost a scowl. I kept on walking, crossing the road fast onto Mill Street. Flashing yellow lights. Two man working a drain. They worked in silence, knowing the moves. In harmony. The man had gone.

I stopped again at the top of the hill looking down onto Llanbadarn Road. I stood perfectly still. Switching my mind off. Imagining a red switch like the one we have for the cooker. Off. I stood watching the wind blow the leaves of a rock crop, one leaf was almost dead and it flapped furiously in the wind. I paid full attention to the leaf, seeing its disharmony with the rest, bearing witness.

Vivid dreams again last night. Dreams about washing. Washing myself and washing our clothes. A shower became a washing machine. All in disarray, dirty clothes everywhere. No walls and no privacy. A young girl watching me. Someone turning off the shower. Then another dream, this time Audrey Hepburn was dancing. She danced under rocks. It was a set, a theatre set and she was dressed Diaghilev-style, with strong pre-Bauhaus-esque colours. Hard to describe. I was a spectator as was a man and we were discussing the performance. She literally danced under the rocks on the stage, forcing her body beneath them. How hard it is to describe dreams, they defy containment or logic. One just knows them. Or at least I do. Playing them over and over, trying to get to the nub.

Bits to do. Bits to order. I go to the home today. I don’t know what I’ll make of it. Keep open, that’s all. Wait and see, she’d say. Wait and see.

A wild wind. The homeless man wasn’t under the castle this morning. Too cold, too windy? He had a dog with him last night as we drove past. I wanted to stop. But what would I say? We are not alone, not really. Are we?