Category: Writings

There was no one about. No one. No one walking at 4.30 am except me. One or two taxis went by, their lights off, no longer taking bookings. No wonder. The world, except me, is asleep.

The tide was coming in. It had been high the night before for the road was strewn with shale. Early breakfast then off to Llanbadarn Church for early Communion. We were the first there. The curate was shy, diffident. Are you visiting? he asked. We sat in the Lady Chapel. He knows his way. Altar boy, choirboy, Head Chorister. So many years. Years before I knew him. His brothers did it too. Traditional. Welsh families. Not now. Not now. There were five of us in all, including the curate. I liked the silences. I could hear a robin in the churchyard chirruping.

The tree over his parents’ stone is leafless now. It is gnarled and thorny. The stone is wet with rainwater. He bends down to pick off a slug. Next year I will plant some snowdrops, I say. Yes, he says, his voice catching. Yes, that would be nice.

It is so quiet. I can hear the ticking of my clock in the bedroom.

We listened to the Kings College choir while I prepared the meal. No big fanfare. Cold cuts for him and sprouts for me. The Puritans banned turkey and all that spicy food. Did you know that spicy food was an expression of wealth? They had to come from the Indies back then. The things one picks up. I like it. I am a magpie for it.

The communion wine makes me feel a little heady. The other members of the congregation were two men. One middle-aged, the other quite elderly. The elderly one had a hearing-aid, it whistled. He read the lesson. We all came in jeans and waterproofs. The rain is cold and hard. Bless them in Cumbria. I think of them.

I called them yesterday. My sisters and then her. She said she loved me and that she was tired. Spring will come soon, she said. Is there snow? I asked. No, not yet she said. Do you have a tree there? I asked. Yes, she said, and stars, lots of stars. She said she loved me. I hope it was me she was thinking of. I hope so. I hope so.

An etiquette specialist on the radio talking about when posh people open their presents on Christmas Day. In the interregnum, he said, between breakfast and luncheon.

There are still some students left in town. Stragglers with no homes to go to. There were two lights on in Alexandra Hall. I remember at my boarding school the girls who had to stay behind over Christmas. One house-mistress between them, or they had to shift their things into the San. I felt so sorry for them. A coldness. A left-behind-ness. The other day there were four boys walking along Llanbadarn Road as I set out. They were noisy, walking fast, if a little chaotically. I walked into the road to give them room. They walked on. One called out Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, I replied, smiling at being noticed. It was enough, that. Then later coming towards home. Another four students, three boys and a girl. One of them was peeing in a grate. I could hear the stream in the dark. Then a tall boy in a t-shirt put his hands in the air as I approached. Don’t stab me, he said. I smiled to myself and keep walking. I thought he was going to stab me, he says to his friend. The girl is saying, no Steve, I know exactly where they live. To your right, they live over there. Later, I could still hear them shouting. One of them had had a whole chicken in a plastic covered tray.

‘This Barret Meeks, is your work,’ thinks the main protagonist in Michael Cunningham’s novel The Snow Queen, ‘you witness and you compile. You persevere…….the building of a high-profile career is not required, not even of those gifted with greater-than-average powers of mind…God…does not need you…to arrive, at the end, in the cloud field, with its remote golden spires, bearing an armload of earthly accomplishments.’ No. It is enough to witness. To bear witness. As I do now. Paying attention.

I like the rituals. The ritual of sharing bread and wine. Drink, eat and be merry, my loves. I think of you, all of you. Merry Christmas, Nadolig Llawen, God Jul. x

Are we being humbugs this Christmas? I wanted to try it. Just to see if you pare it down what is left. No tree, no cards, no presents, no special food. But there are candles, silver-pine cones, a tree decoration from Habitat and some mistletoe. I like the simplicity. I’m a puritan. And yet, and yet I do also love the pomp, the tradition and opulence of Christmas. There is a hotel in the Cotswolds that we have often visited during the winter months. I like nothing better than to sit by their fire with pots of tea and smell the pine of their Christmas tree. The decorations are completely over the top. But it pleases me. There is grandeur, excess, opulence and glorious aromas. How to reconcile such opposing desires. I relish buying presents for those I care for and yet I find the over-spending rather alarming. I adore the wrapping, the making beautiful and yet I also love a bare white wall. And it is nice to step out of the panic.

Hello both, shouts Sandra from her till, you ignoring me? Let’s go to Mark, he’d whispered, but it was too late. I like her. There is something poignant about her bluster. She is wearing a elf’s hat. Like me hat? she asks. Someone said I should be wearing little red boots too, she says, but you wouldn’t see them from under the till, would you, I said to her. You ready for Christmas? she continues. Friends of mine aren’t bothering, she says, they’re having egg n’ chips Christmas Day.

They opened at six this morning. Had many customers? I ask her. Six, she says. Read the news yet? she asks. Give me a chance only just got the papers, he says. I watched Sky News, she replies, something about Miss Universe, one killed, thirty injured. You entering this year? I ask. No, not this year, thought I’d give the others a change, else they ain’t got an ‘ope ‘av they?

Her hands are tiny. Her arms strain beneath her sleeves. There is a festering, slightly acrid smell to her. We pass Jude on the way out. Nice antlers, he calls out. She smiles.

An astronaut on Desert Island Discs. I love Simon and Garfunkel, he says, especially that line, ‘Cathy, I’m lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping.’ He gave nothing away, at least not overtly. His loneliness out there in the galaxy was only hinted at. A gentleman. Elegant.

They didn’t promise rain this morning. I went anyway. I always do. In the dark. A man walking past a parked car, under a street lamp. He smiles at me.

On the radio a young man remembering his father learning ‘The Knowledge’ at the dinner table.

It’s because it can’t be as it used to be. My parents still together and agreeing not to fight. My mother in all her finery. Us in our new dresses. Patent leather shoes, virgin soles on the carpet. Candles lit, table dressed. Sherry. The fire lit. Crackers. The tree resplendent, presents spilling out from its base. The dogs, overexcited and banished to the kitchen. Dad handing out the presents, laboriously reading out all the labels. Tearing wrapping. (There’s a bag over here. Hold onto the labels so that you know what’s what for Thank You letters.) The smell of annuals, bath salts,  body lotion, chocolate. A novelty game. A Sindy doll with accessories. Taking my pile upstairs to linger over. A mixture of pleasure and disappointment, one impossible to separate from the other. Tiredness. Hanging up my dress. Hearing the back door open and my mother calling to the dogs.

A life made rich with memories. I am free to choose. It is enough.

The sky is milk-white. The windows spattered with rain.

We still haven’t come up with the state, he said. Something e ending with a. Six letters. Nevada, I said. Where did that come from? Brilliant, he said. Clever girl. Clever girl.

It was dry as I walked. Punters were pouring out of the Pier Pressure nightclub. The air around the entrance stank of warm beer and sweat. Two girls were huddled around a van, talking to the driver and passenger. They hung upon the door, their heads pushed into the opened window. One was wearing a floral cotton dress, a parka and a tinsel halo.

He said he was a violin-maker now living in Berlin. He’d sent an email to Bob Harris, saying how much he enjoyed his early morning Sunday show. Thanks, Bob, he wrote. A violin-maker. I keen towards people who make. People with craft, with skill. With skilful hands. I make facsimiles, copies of things. I’m a fake-artist, a fakery of jiggery-pokery. It’s OK. There is some beauty in it. It’s about ideas. Things don’t have to function or work. They give a sense of something, they act as a reminder. But I think it is the cause of my lack of certainty. Where am I going with this, with that? What is it for? What is it’s purpose? Maybe there is none. Maybe it is just about filling out my days till it is time. Time to go.

I think about my parents. Their lives, so full, potent, at least in our eyes. And now, poof, up in smoke. Gone. So what is the conclusion, to live well here, now? He says, I do. The worth surely is in the being. The being it. I am a maker because I make. What I make is neither here nor there. It is enough to take myself to the page, to the bench. Isn’t it?

I walk in the dark. I round a corner and two men walk in front of me. They startled me. Did I call out? My body pumped with adrenalin. A curious feeling. Then it subsides. It’s OK. You’re safe.

The sky is a pale greyish-blue. Morning is not yet here. Birds sail into the wind.

There was an ambulance last night, parked just beyond the Quad. It stood there for over half an hour before a body was wheeled towards it on a stretcher. The body was sitting, hunched over. The rain poured down. A woman in a pink dressing gown hovered.

Is it just decorative or does it have worth, meaning? A crow caws. Follow it through. Do it all, he says. Yes. Richard Branson on the radio. I just say yes. Have a blast, he says. Yes.

I kept hearing it. A whistle, high-pitched, carried by the wind. It’s the steam train, it must be, taking families to see Santa. Is he is in a grotto somewhere?

I remember being taken to see him in the House of Fraser department store in Manchester. I dreaded it. It felt awkward. I didn’t believe him. He was too human, too solid. I felt the warmth of him as I sat on his knee. And then to be asked what you wanted for Christmas only to be given something cheap and plastic in return. It didn’t make sense. And besides, we were different. We celebrated Christmas Eve not Christmas Day. Put some Mince Pies out for the Nisser, Mum would say. Who? You know, she’d say, like on the snow scene.

I loved that snow scene. A little hut, snow made out of cotton wool, a bulb of yellow light and little elves skiing, standing and playing all over it. They’re the Nisser, she’d say. They are sprites. You have to appease them so that your crops don’t fail. We were farmers, we Norwegians, she’d say. I thought it magical. As I did all the decorations she’d put out. Twigs and pine cones sprayed silver. Plastic berries, real holly leaves and the most luxurious tinsel, thick and luscious. Gold and silver. She took such trouble. I can see why now. It’s what they do, the Norwegians, a talisman against the dark. The last advent candle lit tomorrow. I miss her. I miss her style, her attention to detail. I remember the first taste of Christmas sherry, the light-headedness. And her looking so beautiful. Lipsticks kisses on my cheek.

Thank you for all those memories. For the Kerplunk and the Tiny Tears. I love you.

Do you remember I told you about it last time? she asks. You know, I said it had a kind of umbrella-like thing underneath.

And then I realised, yes, it was like the one I saw in the window of the charity shop at the top of town, near the clock.

We bought it last year, she is saying, after Christmas like, cos’ they’re cheaper then, you know. We kept the receipt, just in case. Yes, so it has snow blowing up over it, she says. Yes, it is quite pretty, but it can be a bit noisy. It’s fine, she says, if you try not to listen to the noise. No, she says, we don’t have it on all the time.

I love to see the Christmas trees in people’s windows. Koselig the Norwegians call it. A sparkling of lights against the gloom. The town’s Christmas decorations were lit as we drove home last night. What a fillip it gave me. Is it universal that feeling? Something like joy floods my innards. I am lifted. In one of the flat across the Quad is a fibre-optic tree. It slowly changes colour, red to blue, gold to green. A subtle, soft and gentle transforming. I stood and watched it for a while in the dark.

Do you have a tree? she asked.

It felt odd to see her. We make up names, characters for people we see out and about. Small town games. Familiar faces that are not really known, just guessed. My Little Pony we call her. She speed-walks. Each day we see her, a new set of fluffy ear muffs, pink trainers and pink sweat top. Moving at a somewhat languorous pace. She’s hardly breaking sweat, he says.

We’d seen her about quarter of an hour before. Not training this time, just walking along the Prom. Walking at the same pace, he said. It’s no different. Speed-walking, my arse. And then there she was coming up the stairs. I was waiting to go in. She won’t be long, Jess said popping her head out of her door. Don’t you want to come in, Wendy? Wendy. My Little Pony is called Wendy. I’d smiled at her and she’d flickered one back, her face stiff. Five minutes later she was out and bouncing down the stairs. Bye Wend, Jess had called, have a nice Christmas. It felt odd to see her so close. I felt I’d been unkind to her, making up a name, a narrative. She doesn’t know, he says. No, I say, but somehow it doesn’t feel right. Odd. It had felt odd.

An hour and a half. An hour and half it took for Windows to update my laptop. I know I’m impatient but it seemed an age. I wanted to write, to write something before I called her. Time lost. I read a little, sewed, thought, stared out of the window. Waited.

I am edgy because there are so many ideas and yet, I don’t know which to follow. Not really. Sandi Tostvig’s partner insists that the first cup of tea in the morning must be drunk before anymore ideas are discussed. It is good to be full of ideas. At least that is what we are lead to believe. And yet they are like shoots, they need nourishment to survive to flourish. Which way? I am dreaming of journeys again. Which one? I write every day, something. What of my art? It is there in my head all the time but there is no direction, no path, no place for it at present. Sometimes I am fine with that. Experiment. Experimentation is good. But then it needs air, to be seen, doesn’t it?

I sent some poems to a literary journal. My first ones. I’ve heard nothing. Are they bad, then? Does it matter. Is it wrong to want to give them air?

Charlotte Bronte sent some of her poems to Robert Southey. He replied exhorting her to know her place. She replies, ‘you do not forbid me to write……you warn me against of the folly of neglecting real duties…. of writing for the love of fame.’ Mendelssohn told his sister that the housekeeping must be done before she could finish composing her ‘Songs without Words’. Later Queen Victoria congratulates him on them and he has to confess that they are his sister’s.

Creation is always tinged with a little foolishness. We are sticking our necks out. Look at me, we say. Make, write for yourself, he tells me. And I do. The processes, when I am deep within them, are wonderful. They are my escape, my stillness, my calm. But what then, what does one do with the result, always so smaller than imagined.

The buds are pushing through in the municipal beds along South Marine. Yes, she says, we have daffodils. They’re about six inches above ground now. Though there’s a mist at present. It’s wrapping us in, do you know what I mean? You feel, you feel, trapped. I know, I say, I know.

We rarely row. And even then it is soon over, both eager to apologise, to right the dis-ease. Today it was in Morrisons. A silly thing. It usually is. Latex gloves. They didn’t have the ones I usually use. He got the wrong ones. I snapped. But it wasn’t because of him, it was her. She unsettles me. She is too brash, pushing the food and other things through too fast. I can’t get on top of it. She is rough, not careful like Jude. She unsettles me. She unsettles him too. I can’t stand her, he says. She’s bossy. She shouts.

She stands up at the till. She gives the impression she has better things to do. There is no sharing the time of the day. Not like Michael. He is the opposite. He asks about his eye op. Oh, it was brilliant, says Michael, pausing the scanning of the kiwi fruit to talk. Keep going, I want to say, but try instead to practice patience. Michael is explaining the procedure. Apparently he has 20:20 vision now. I wait with my plastic bag open and ready to receive the fruit. It’s better than it ever was, Michael is saying. He has several burst blood vessels on his nose. I like him. There is gentleness to him. He is always ill. Either coughing or blowing his nose. He smokes. There is a silver identity bracelet around his wrist. Anyway, must get on, he says to Michael. Oh, yes, look at me, says Michael. It’s all this time off I’ve had.

They have the supreme quality of transience. Mrs Miniver talking about fireworks. It was on the radio. Penelope Wilton read it. I didn’t know it was a series of books too. I know the film. I watched it in his honour. Perhaps he meant the books. The supreme quality of transience.

Another radio programme about the spirits of famous composers and singers writing and singing through another. A housewife from Balham, composing on behalf of Liszt. Why not?

Wanting to believe.

We had a slight contretemps yesterday too. A misunderstanding. It was the coffee, he said afterwards. Yes, it makes one edgy, sharp. Soften. Soften. Retract the claws.

I hung some mistletoe. Ward off the spirits. Not the kindly ones. They are welcome. God Jul.

Do you have to wear them? I asked her. Yeh, she said, company policy. Do they give them to you? he asked. Oh, no, she said, we have to buy them ourselves. What? he said. Yeh, she said, though it’s OK for me as I work part-time with Special Needs. And she undid the poppers of her padded jacket. DA-DA! she said. At the other till Jude was wearing a black angora one emblazoned with a sparkly Christmas Pudding. Mark was in a red and white one, Merry Christmas repeated in lines across its midriff. It’s these hats that are the main problem, she continued, pulling out an acrylic Santa’s hat from a shelf underneath the conveyor belt. They’re so hot. I was reprimanded for taking mine off the other day. I still say they should pay for the jumpers, he said. That’s retail for you, she said. Thirty-three pounds and fifty-four pence, please. Ta.

No rain as yet. The sky is quiet, its silence being broken by a generator whirring down below. I love being this high up. The same height as the birds. Standing in our living room I can see them fly, close up. A jackdaw sits on the guttering, taking a sip of water, now and again from its trough. Shall we walk today?

I’d like to read. To give myself permission to read. I have much to do. And yet, it seems a passive way of working. Allow it. Things will be learnt.

I’m to read about Charlotte Bronte. CB. Well, her letters mostly. I’ve begun it. Begun them. The first to Ellen Nussey. Her dear friend, not intellectual equal apparently, but friendships are more than that, are they not? She writes with such vivacity, almost flirtatious. They are warm letters, full of love, of appreciation. I am fascinated by letters. I miss them. I miss writing them. I miss receiving them. I want to make them. To produce facsimiles of them. To investigate, understand them. Such an intimate thing. A physical manifestation of thought, of love, of consideration. They wrote so many, the Victorians. There were three, four, maybe even five deliveries a day. Imagine that. Fast, faster then a text, an email. Your words scripted, formed by your hand. They say that children are losing the ability to write by hand. Imagine that. I remember my first ink pen, an Osmiroid. It left an ink stain on my third finger, squashing the skin, leaving a dent. I loved how the ink flowed. The varying lines of pressure. Blue, black. Sometimes, I’d mix the two. Later a friend introduced me to sepia. He’d make it himself from squid ink.

What are they doing down there? I saw a man yesterday with a wheel barrow. There was a pipe thing and a spade. Whirr, whirr. An insistent noise. Funny, when I was writing earlier it didn’t disturb me. I didn’t hear it.

I bought two picture frames. I wanted to hide the stains. Not ours. They’ve come through the paint, he said. They’re not ours. The pictures look fine there. A hotchpotch. I don’t mind. They please me. My pictures please me. A delight for the eye. A feast.

The Shilam has its Nativity Scene out.

We have a competition in Goa, he tells me, smiling. The best one gets a prize. This one isn’t right yet. We couldn’t find a proper one in Aberystwyth. It’s coming from the internet. This is not finished.

They’ve created a little stage, a white sheet forming an arch. In one corner there is a ceramic stable with Joseph and Mary and Jesus in a crib. In the other stands a plastic effigy of Santa Claus. Next to him is a figure of an angel that glows green, then blue and then pink. At the back of the little stage-let is a wall of pebbles upon which stands a plastic Polar Bear.

They’re going home for Christmas. I’ve seen them, rucksacks on their backs heading for the station. Emptying the town. It’ll be just the locals soon. Quiet. No vomit of a morning. Still a few stragglers left. I saw some this morning. That tall boy with the lace-ups and no socks.

The rain is lashing at the windows. The aerials shake and quiver. Four rooks sit astride one, their plumage awry.

What did you call it? he asked. Black as pitch, I said. That’s it, he said, black as pitch. Still, in nine days time it’ll start getting light again, you wait.

We talked about writing. About the process of writing. I was musing over the fact that after a morning’s writing I always feel like shit. How do you mean? he asked. It’s hard to explain, I said. It’s always as if it isn’t good enough, as if I haven’t done enough, and yet, I’ve done the thousand words I intended to do. I used to feel the same way when I made art, I said.

In Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac Edith Hope, a writer of romantic fiction, always has a bath after a day spent writing. The author gives the impression of being somehow sullied, dirtied by the process. I think I know what she means.

I don’t want to be precious about it. I am just curious, nay, eager to cancel the habits. The habits of a life-time. A life-time of self-denigration. Just to stop and try another approach. The work is done. The words written. It is enough. Now rest. That’s all. The time for judgement is not now, not until all the words are written. Then and only then can the judgement start. And even that, even that doesn’t have to be unkind. I do the best I can. We all do. Against such odds.

We’ve begun The Constant Gardener. It isn’t what I expected. There is something curiously old-fashioned about it. We shall see.

She tells us about her horse. She’s sprained her ankle. I’ve forgotten her name. She uses an acronym for it. Ill gotten gains, I think, though that can’t be right if the acronym is IMO. He laughs, great name, he says. Her ex won’t sign over the papers for her. It’s just spite, she says, her voice getting shriller. Says he’ll see her as meat first. I’m just gonna love her and take me chances, she says, shrugging her shoulders. She’s the most beautiful horse, she says, everyone says so. Anyway must rush, customers are waiting. Enjoy the coffee. Ta, guys.

She puts two thumbs up as we leave. Keep warm and dry, she shouts. See you next week, guys. Byeeee.

I saw a fox. The third I’ve seen up close. One in Manchester, one in Cambridge and this one in Guildford. It wasn’t much bigger than a cat. It darted across the road, in the still dark, it’s tail a stiff brush behind. I waited for the hot, sharp stink, as Ted Hughes promised, sniffing the air. Nothing. It felt good anyway. The sheer rawness of it. The feral underbelly of a city. Alive and breathing.

The next morning I got lost. Well and truly, shouting at the dark. The impenetrable dark. My feet becoming unsure on the roughening road surface. No streetlights. I try to wave a car down. It speeds past me sounding its horn. I should’ve turned first right, trusted my instinct. Crying with frustration I had to retrace my steps, the same ginger steps, hesitant. It was OK in the end, it always is. But the upset, the fear shook me, more than I’ve been shaken for a while. I shouted at him on my return. He forgave me as he always does. I was discombobulated all day. All day.

The sun’s out. Cloudless. The phone rings.

London was a marvel. Two exhibitions, scribbles and mobiles. Marvellous. Good coffee. Tea-time chats. Christmas lights and the bridge. Then a rainbow. Quick, he said, catch it. Catch it.

I’d never been in there before, though I’d often walked past and wondered what it was like. It’ll be full of old ladies, he’d said, laughing at my suggestion. It doesn’t matter, I’d said, I like old ladies. It was on the first floor, its row of windows looking down on the street. I always feel a little nervous walking into an establishment with which I am unfamiliar. Do I order here? I asked the girl at the counter. No, just take a seat and I’ll come to your table. Only about half the tables were taken and there were several free banquettes. I took the one in the corner. The seat was soft and cushioned. Three men were seated across from me partly obscured from view by a heavily decorated Christmas tree. They were speaking Welsh. The man who was facing me had cow-eyes, with dark heavy rings. His hair was snow-white. In the far corner a couple were eating gammon, chips and peas. She talked as she ate. He chewed and swallowed it down with tea. I took my book and glasses out of my bag and stared out of the window. What can I get you? the waitress asked, pen poised. An Earl Grey tea, please. A sensation of pure bliss over took me. It was a quiet feeling. I wanted nothing else but to sit there watching the afternoon sink into night. Replete with life.

What was the bliss about? I’m not sure. I’d stepped out of my usual routine. I’d done something different. Stood still. Given in. It wasn’t our usual kind of place and there was something rather restful about that. No one knew me. I could just stare, or read, whatever I liked. There was peace in that. And the waiting. A good kind of waiting, with no expectations other than time passing.

I never see him outside. Does he go out? His skin is pale pink. No sunlight. You wouldn’t get me down the Prom in this weather, he told him the other day, not like your lady wife. He was at his window smoking when I passed by. Have you been away? I asked. Yes, he said, Berlin. So he does go out. Though I’ve never seen him.

A tall student walking up Penglais hill with a girl wearing a woman’s negligee, his arms and legs bare. The rain was heavy, the wind strong.

No umbrella again this morning. There was no point. Drenched. Rain-soaked face. Cleansed.