Category: Writings

I enjoyed my walk this morning. My hips moved well. And the Perygl was dry. I like to feel my feet bounce along the wooden slats and that stretch of horizon when I get to the end is magnificent. Tuesday morning is bin day across the town and the seagulls seem to know it too. The bin bags that the homing-students put out before they catch the train are ripped to shreds and all sorts of detritus is strewn across pavements and roads. It is a sorry sight. Such is this town. It is my home and, more importantly, his. He rages about it. I think I accept it more, or at least better. I find my beauty and my escape. I won’t stay when he’s gone.

I think of her and of him when I wake and when I go to sleep. I wish her grace and for I him I wish the succour of family. Let it be enough.

I woke to the sound of heavy rain. He’d warned me of it. I lay in bed planning what to wear and whether to take an umbrella, which is always a pain to manage with a stick. It had eased when I eventually got out, though as always I’d gone prepared with two layers of waterproofs. The air smelt good though more like autumn than summer. Those poor loves in Southern Europe with extreme heatwaves and wildfires. It feels like we’re in a different universe. I walked the length of North Road surrounded by the cacophany of seagulls. That interminable din of young gulls with their keening, heart-renching cries for food and companionship and the adult birds screeching and cawing over nests, territory and scraps of food they’ve scavenged from bins and plastic bags left by students returning home. The noise is deafening at times and yet at times I stop hearing it so lost am to the narratives and chatter in my head. Be here now, Ellen. In this moment, always.

Sometimes it just grips me. It is mostly nameless and formless. I feel it in my back first. It tightens in the muscles and holds my shoulderblades rigid. And then, its only then that I realise that I’ve been holding my breath and I have to consciously encourage my lungs to taken in air and let it out again. I am safe, I have everything I need and yet, I still yield to fear. I am ashamed. I know of others’ pain. I hear of it and know it. When I do know the fear, recognise it, it is mostly that of not feeling good enough. This too is a nonsense but it is deep-felt and deep-carried. So be it. I will accept myself and this being that I have formed. I do my best. I know this. Breathe now. In and out. Slow.

He read out a text he’d had from them. She’s falling. As is he. They’ve told her that there might be bleeds and that they could come at any time, without warning. Her skin has become so thin. There is no protection, no safety. She cannot be saved. My heart bleeds for her, for him and for their children. As she will bleed, does bleed. What can be done but wish them grace, light, and as he wrote – ‘more time to make memories’.

The child in the flat across the way began crying again last night. It wasn’t late by most peoples’ standards but for me it was. It wasn’t crying but screaming. He, or she, I’m not totally sure was screeching. Was it in pain, was it in anger, frustration or fear – I couldn’t tell and waited to hear a soothing adult voice. I couldn’t. I got out of bed in the end and went to him. Shut your window, he said. But I cannot. I need the air and to hear the rain. So I have to let the child be. I slept eventually as did it. I think, though I heard the distant crying long into the night.

I notice that the light mornings are dwindling. It is a sad realisation, how I love that opening up of blue.

There were several night-time wanderers about this morning and we all seemed to have sticks. We’re a singular group, most walk fast with heads and eyes trained forward, onward, going somewhere but not ever getting there, or so it seems. Some I recognised, some I didn’t. Do they notice me as I notice them?

It was just that, happy. And it began with a phone call. He’d emailed me the day before asking for my number. And I’d fretted, naturally. Was he just trying to let me down gently because I was a friend of a friend? He called early to tell me it was mine. I have it. I’ve been chosen. It’s mine. IT IS. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I’d been looking forward to it, I’d even pictured some of the drawings I would make in there. The rain had grown steadily heavier by the time we arrived there. We were the first customers and wandered around trying to find a table we wanted to sit at. Sit anyway, one of the numerous waitresses and possibly owners, said in the blithe manner they were all to adopt in the end. He asked if they could possibly shut the doors, Oh, no, said another girl, we’ve got all sorts of deliveries today. It was cold. The tea was weak. And there was a new trainee on who didn’t know what Lapsang Souchong or Soya was, bless her. She traipsed around like a whipped pup, head down, shoulders hunched. I felt for her but a part of me (the nasty part found her really irritating). And then the drawing wouldn’t come – I couldn’t focus. The drawing I did in the car while he was in the loo in Tesco was better. A bedraggled day.

And now there’s an email asking for my phone number and my stomach drops to the floor. Is he riinging to put me down gently or is it good news? Oh, the misery of waiting…..

I’ve begun reading Gerda Saunders’ book about her early-onset dementia. What a pleasure it is to read a well-written account like that. She shares her life-story generously. I’m currently reading her foray into making sense of short term memory and think about my own. It is sad that it is so fleeting. I think about my first steps outside in the early morning and all those senses enlivened and awakened by the experience – the smell of the air, the feel of it on my skin, the sound of rain, the rushing of wind, the creaking of the beech tree – and how soon they are gone from me. And yesterday walking with him, in particular when I walked over the bridge as the steam train was trolling along under it giving me that snatch of a stink of cold, wet metal and the acid, acrid dry aroma of coal smoke. So much life and so soon to disappear.

The film has come to an end and I will miss watching Gordon Pinsent’s face, so impassive, with all his emotion shown in the way he carries his body, bovine-like and heavy with grief. And then there’s the other grief. Mine. I’ve heard nothing. Is that a good sign? Is there still a chance? It weighs on me.

She isn’t a friend. She’s a coffee-shop acquaintance that is all but she weighs heavy on me. Or perhaps I should say that I allow her to. I’ve touched her, that is I’ve held her when she cried. Twice now. I think the first time she cried was genuinely about her erstwhile fiance but this last time I’m not so sure. Not now that we know (and I wish we didn’t) about her misdemeanour. She’d mentioned the happening months ago saying that she’d been falsely accused of taking money from the launderette she often helped to lock up. She was indignant about it, pronouncing her outrage loudly and vociferously to all and sundry. He came back from the cafe yesterday saying he had some ‘gossip’. The FA man had told him that he’d been told that she’d appeared in court and had pleaded guilty. She hadn’t told him but someone else had. Small towns. I ache for her. Is that why her daughter won’t speak to her? She’d asked him to borrow some money. I hope her friends turn to, I hope she is held. And safe.