Ukraine’s President said that people are returning home, that he said he’d seen the traffic jams. And yet the news this morning tells Russia’s increased bombardment. They are so brave, those remainers and those now returning. I humbled by their courage.
As I am by his. He too returned, a different man, a transcendent man. Leaving us behind.
He mentioned that he’d said hello to him. I’d also seen him a couple of times from our upstairs window. He stands outside, or sits on the railing, smoking and reading his phone. A young man with a lean body and expensive trainers. Yesterday I watched as a woman drove up to the bottom of the stairs and opened the car door to let two children out. A girl and a boy, they both hurtled up the stairs, the girl lagging a little behind, being younger. They obviously knew where they were going. He waited on the step (having come out to meet them), not saying much to the woman before she got back into the car and drove away. He watched after the car for what must only have been a moment and then turned towards his flat and his children.
I dreamt I was looking at my lower legs which were very hairy. I remember thinking in my dream that I’d only just shaved them. I remembered this as I sat in the bath, thinking my legs never get that hairy. Does the growth of hair in a dream symbolise strength?
I wake with heartburn these mornings. Sometimes it comes in the night too. It’s just under the ribs. I try to endure it. And mostly I do. Those sweets he offers me are full of crap no doubt but sometimes I succumb, not that they do much good, but there is comfort in taking something, anything. Sometimes.
I remembered part of my dream about ten minutes after I woke. (I think there is moon stuff going on, it looked full to me when I looked out at it from my studio window at 2 am, so my dreams are bound to be vivid.) It featured a man I know from Norway, of whom I am fond. He was getting alternative treatment for a painful shoulder and back. His therapist spoke to me about him, not endeavouring to mask her obvious apathy towards him, and to him I noticed and remembered later. She told me how he could heal himself and showed me some drawings she wanted me to give him. One was of a cruel, despot and the other was a vision of happiness. They were like my drawings, quite dark and heavily worked. She wanted me to show them to him on her behalf. I did. Or at least I managed to show him the first. And he knew his name when I did not. Then he gave me a sweet, which he put in my mouth and said he’d return to see the other (or have me explain it to him). And then, inevitably, I woke up. The significance of all of this is clear to me. Is it to you?
I walked this morning hoping for moonlight but it had floated off behind a cloud. I walked with music in my ears so that I might not focus so heavily on my iron legs and shallow breath. It helps. And sometimes I sing. Who cares, there is no one about, except a girl who stops to stare at me, swerves a bit and then takes another drink out of bottle and moves on, up the hill. Returning home and climbing the gravelly path the light from my torch found a tiny snail making its was across the stones and leaving a minute trail of dotted lines. And then there was a spider scurrying off down past me. The air was warm, almost breathless.
And now I must write. And to celebrate I will make a pot of tea, Lapsang Souchong to perfume the room. So breathe, relax and all will be well.
I’ve been writing. It’s an immersion of sorts. I don’t know any other way to do it and my drawing must, inevitably be side-lined. It hurts for it to be so. I miss it, even though I find it as equally difficult. I suppose it is because I care. Too much? Possibly. One down another to go. And then I shall return to it.
I get them sometimes, those days when a decision becomes wobbly – should I walk in the rain or should I start work early instead, should I keep the top he bought me or send it back? Such dithering usually ends up with me questioning everything, from the sacred to the profane. Is it a means of sabotaging my peace, my equilibrium at a time when I have so much work to do, and work about which I am fearful? Probably, my mind is that powerful, or at least I allow it to be.
Perhaps that best thing is to allow the dithery-ness to accept it and let it be. I will try it. And now? To work.
I forgot to mention the last week’s brief visitation. I was waiting for something, oh yes, I phone call when someone rat-a-tatted on the door. I rushed down, forgetting my key on the way (and my mask) and opened it to two policemen. There’s nothing to worry about, said the one nearest the door, but does a _ live here? He said his name, though it was the long not the short version. Yes, but he is not here, I said, with my cardigan covering my mouth, getting more alarmed as the seconds passed. He then explained that someone from a garage in town had called them to say that they were worried that he’d seemed a little distrait when he had been in there. I explained that we’d just spoken on the phone (which we had, about something very trivial, something to do with shopping probably) and he’d seemed fine. That’s OK, then, said the policeman, and by the way, you don’t need to cover your mouth. I called him again when I got upstairs and he was fine, again, though I didn’t tell him why. I did later and he was touched by the garage ‘girls’ concern and promptly called them to thank them. Why they thought he had gone doo-llally, we will never know. He said it was because he forgotten his glasses and couldn’t read his phone properly. If this is the case, well having seen him ‘loose it’ on many such occasions, I can imagine what they must’ve thought. Frightening, what?
I walked this morning, stiff and slow. Coming to the end of Llanbadarn Road I saw a huddle of three students, with two of them, girls, sitting on the pavement edge. One seemed to be complaining about her foot. I gave them a wide berth (I don’t like doing it or even mentioning it but I am cautious in the dark, of viruses and alcohol-fuelled aggression) and heard one of them call after me, a hello. Were they talking to me? Hello, she said again, adding, I could do with your stick mate. I didn’t turn round, though I did make a mental note to suggest that she go to A&E if she was in real pain and point out where it was. When I returned they were gone.
He called himself wise the other day. And I agreed with him. He is. I benefit from his greater years. Fifteen more than I. Or is it me? I never know. He has that too, a better grounding in grammar. He would know. He does know. And I rely on him for so much. My rigid back is back. Symptoms of anxiety move around the body. I accept them and even try to embrace them. What are they trying to tell me? Meanwhile the war goes on and I try to put my little issues in perspective. I’ve an interview today and I’m nervous, inevitably. All will be well. People are generally good and warm and loving. And writing, though scary, is, when it is flowing, a lovely occupation. See, there is so much to be grateful for. Isn’t there?
He didn’t want to be beholden to me or anyone. Or at least, that is is the sense I make of the fact that he eschews any offer of help, even my innocent one of saying I would carry his coffee up the stairs. I could see him hesitating, looking at his bag and then his coffee. Can I help? I said standing up (I felt a reluctance at touching his bag – not sure why, oh let it not be repugnance), I could take your coffee. He didn’t even look at me, but promptly lifted his bag and taking his cup in his other hand raced up the stairs. Do you think he sees us as the enemy? I asked him. I hope not, he said.
It rattled my window all night and I turned about, over and over, barely going under. It is a potent force. And I still make myself walk into it, legs stiff and rigid, hips as metal. It is better that way. I face my fear of it. And I love the smell it conjures up. Everything is stirred, all is revealed. The wet stink of earth, the flurried confetti of cherry and magnolia blossom, the dying slippered cases of daffodil heads, and salt, carried from the sea. I walk into it, seeking streets where it is not so strong and am unable to find them. It is funnelled down them, catching me unawares and I reach out to cars, to railings, to walls for support. And then I am home, aching from the holding in of breath and muscle.
He was waiting by the door when we arrived. I tried engage him in conversation (a way of alleviating my my awkwardness, not his). I don’t know that he feels obliged to respond any niceties of behaviour, why should he, he lives on the street, after all. I mentioned that I hadn’t seen him sleeping in the doorway of the ex-barber shop. No, he said, I’ve got a house near the castle. Yes, I said, I suspect it has been too cold to sleep out. (I saw him this morning though, back on the street clearly, but this time lying under his blanket in the doorway of the Barnado’s shop. Perhaps he prefers to be out. He had his violin in pride of place, standing up in it’s case with a single tulip resting against it.) The chat (one-sided though it was) soon tailed off, that is after he offered to buy him some food from SPAR. No, he said, I’ll get something in here. There is no thanks, again why should there be. He is graceless, not rude but empty of the need or the desire to please. Again, why should he wish to? He is freer than me. Then she arrived.
Her movements were jerky. They were the first intimation that something was awry. Then there was her voice. She shouted, but it was if she couldn’t manage the controls, as if she made a noise without being able to perceive it’s possible effect prior to making it. She asked the time, of the homeless man first. He ignored her, no doubt sensing that she was off the rails before I did, and turned his face away. I answered the question and told her that the coffee shop would open in about 5 minutes. That’s good, she said, stamping her feet, I’m dying for a drink. Her clothes were a cacophony of pattern, her leggings, with their psychedelic swirlings were particularly so. She had a huge rucksack on her back and another holdall in her hand, and draped around her neck hung a cloth bag. She’d clearly spent the night on the street. I watched as she opened her little bag and pulled out a half bottle of brandy, took a swig and then another. Did he see? I felt him he stiffened.
Once inside she marched over to where we usually sit and I tensed. Not our table? NO. And then ashamed of my smallness, I saw that she’d thrown her bags by the one next to it. Everything was wrong about her. She jerked and writhed and then grew sad. I heard her phone conversation with a man called M. And how he put the phone down on her when she told him that she was there, her voice unnaturally high. She sank then. I smiled at her when she looked back but she did not respond. Her eyes were sad, lost, scared. Unlike his, azure-blue though they are, they are dead behind the light. Gone.