She seems to me to one of the happiest people I know. Though I recognise that I only see what he calls her ‘public face’. And I can see that things do make her anxious and she cares what her clients think of her. But when she talks about setting off in her camper van on a Friday afternoon (‘We call it Bessie,’ she said) with her beloved W and her dog she is happy. It makes me feel so free, she said. And I share that joy, for those ten minutes I sit with her as she trims my hair. Though as I say her clients do trouble her. ‘The teachers are the worst,’ she said. There was one who didn’t turn up for her appointment and so she called to see if she ‘hadn’t fallen off the bus’. The woman clearly was put out by the call and was unapologetic about missing the booking. ‘How about we rebook now, ‘she suggested, ‘and you can put it on you calendar?’ ‘No,’ said the woman, ‘I’m frying bacon and eggs.’
It doesn’t bring out the best in me. I like and need order. And he, for all his care, and for a decorator he is careful, brings disorder. It makes me tetchy, scratchy and emotional. And he responds in kind. It was ever thus. And we bicker. And he can hear. It is a grubby business. And I wake feeling blue. It will pass, he won’t be here for ever though his daughter’s illness has delayed things somewhat. Bless her. I hope that she isn’t too scared. And I know it’s only a mindset but it all seem like it’s unravelling – the rain lashes the window, my studio is cluttered with piles of books and extraneous matter from other rooms, my body hurts in numerous places and I don’t know what to do about the application. I don’t truly. Will it all become clearer?
He doesn’t seem to think that wood paint fumes are toxic and yet when we put the bar fire on or light the gas I get a strong sense that it is all going to go up into a huge conflagration. Oh, it isn’t for long, is it? And it will be worth it, won’t it? It’s just the chaos of it. I’m not good with it. And we’re only two days in. And my poor little lovely studio is a mass of books and bits. It muddles my thinking. And now there is the suggestion that I ought to resubmit. Ah, should I? It is so much work and I’m no longer sure it is what I want. If you don’t know what to do, do nothing. Who said that? I can’t remember. Is it good advice? All I can think of doing for the moment is trying to impose some order and cleanliness. I took it out on the doctor yesterday. Though he said I was fine. The ultrasound was inconclusive. More research is needed. He talks of a cyst. Is that was it is really?
We’d asked for it for ages. Haranguing the management company of our flat for permission from our landlord to get it decorated and to change the scabby stair carpet. And now, finally it is being done. We both struggle with the intrusiveness of it. It’s not only the mess, the having to move everything from room to room but its having a stranger here in our intimate space. It wobbles us. But he is a nice man. Young and fresh-faced, he doesn’t look old enough to have two kids. He bangs about a little but no less than the man who comes every year to check the gas fixtures, now he really crashes up and down the stairs, leaving the front door to bash behind him. I like him too, a bit of an Eeyore but still likeable. In fact, I am always struck by how blessed I am by the people I encounter here in this town. Even the carpet-man who pulled up the scabby one last Friday seemed to soften (once he was allowed to be mask-less and to leave his boots on) and become amiable (he had been positively stand-offish the week before). But there is so much to do, such as the book case I have to ‘unpack’ and all those books to shift. It will be worth it. Already it is looking fresher though the stink of paint is a challenge. Heigh ho. Be careful what you ask for eh?
Oh and the woman he/we thought was a red cross volunteer sitting with our neighbour downstairs, wasn’t. No. She’s her daughter.
She seems to have a new lease of life since his death. Can I say that? Is that kind? Perhaps they had grown tired of each other. They were clearly very different – he a little torpid, sleeping late into the morning, online gambling or maybe it was gaming through the night, smoking, clearly an interior bird though one who loved to travel alone, as he did whenever he could (was it to escape?) whereas she is up in the mornings, supremely independent even at 104, a walker, a stalwart of life, religious, artistic, perhaps a little no-nonsense, telling it like it is. Were they good companions at the end, or was it cohabitation of mere convenience? Now he is dead she seems to manage. Her other boys have let her remain in her home. He tells me a cross-faced woman comes in daily to see to her needs, from the Red Cross perhaps? She follows behind her when she does her daily circuit of the estate and sits with her as she listens to her music. Now that is a new thing, the music. Does she have an old gramophone? It is loud. It comes through our floor boards. Do I mind? I don’t think so. I want her to have that pleasure. And it does create a gentle atmosphere. The other day it was a string piece, last night a piano. I can’t hear it clearly enough to identify it.
As I’ve told you, we’ve been putting out food for the birds on our neighbour’s vacated (for the moment) balcony. We’ve filled their bird feeders with seeds and fat balls. Well, at the weekend I saw a man doing the same. I called to him up in the kitchen. There’s a man, there’s a man feeding the birds, quick. Anyway he went down and spoke to him. Apparently, the Americans, as we call them, are coming back as ‘visitors’ ( a visa protocol) soon and that he is a friend who they’ve asked to see to the birds on their behalf. How nice, and how like them, gentle couple that they are. So there will be two of us doing it now, good.
He drew up at the harbour and rolled down his window to say hello. He is a fisherman. I asked him about the RNLI burial I thought I’d seen. Oh, that was Willy Street from Penparcau, he said, clearly delighted to pass on the information. And he gave it us all. All the detail, well not much detail really – a real example of a restricted code. A spot on the lung, within three months, life and soul, a bit of a drinker, not been with the RNLI for long, always hanging around, the Greek chorus and so on. It wasn’t a burial. Silly me, but just a drive round by the hearse, who, apparently went too fast and forgot to drive down along the harbour. All those RNLI comrades waiting with flag in vain. May he rest in peace.
Did I tell you that the hyacinths are on their way?
I woke from a dream in which I’d just broken a window. I was in someone else’s house, though lots of people lived there. It was an old house with lots of stairs and huge windows that seemed to reach into the sky. I’d opened it wide to let in some air but as I did a gust of wind caught it and ripped it from it’s hinge. I heard it crash to the ground and shatter to tiny pieces. I turned to my host and apologised profusely before rushing out to begin gathering up the pieces. (I heard myself say but what about the animals? Was I scared that they would cut their paws on the glass?) I found broken shards of pottery too and spent sometime holding them and then turning them in my hand. The sun shone.
I watched as two women began talking in the coffee shop whilst waiting for their drinks to be made. Have you been swimming lately? one asked. The other woman, rather fay, pale haired and skinned, looked a little bemused at the question, said that no, she hadn’t been for a while and then asked, what about you? Oh, yes, the other one replied, an altogether more robust specimen, yes, we went in yesterday, though it was cold. Oh, you mean the sea, said the other. Yes. Oh, no, I never go in the sea. Oh, I couldn’t. Though people do say it is very exhilarating. Yes, said the other, visibly losing interest in one whom she had assumed was a compatriot.
I didn’t get it. Am I disappointed? Not really. The money would’ve been nice but the weight of it, the expectations and the doing of it would’ve been a huge responsibility, that to be honest I’m not sure I want anymore. I want this, this freedom to explore, to see where my mind and my creativity takes me. But it is amorphous, unshaped, and that scares me. And where am I going to make my money now? That perennial question eh?
He said that he hadn’t wanted to wake me. Poor love, and he was in such a state. With the sweet logic of a child he’d decided the best thing to wear in bed to withstand the volatility of his bowels after taking the laxative they’d prescribed prior to his colonoscopy the next day were his waterproof trousers. It didn’t work. Everything was soaked and it reeked. And he was so cold. I did what I could to make it all clean, including him but without upsetting or chiding him. Getting him into the bath was easy, getting him out again wasn’t. He has no feeling in his feet so can’t get a purchase. Keep calm, I kept telling myself. In the end (after he’d pulled the top of the hot top off trying to use it as a something to grasp) we decided that the best thing was for him to go onto his knees and then use the edge of the bath to hoist himself up. I become aware of his need at such times and I feel the love and weight of responsibility surge through me. Grant me the strength to be what he needs me to be.
The procedure went well. They only found one. And he won’t have to do it again. I made the bed eventually after a day of airing his room. I felt better for doing so. And I burnt sage. I love the smell, associating it with cleaning the house through. I feel it in my head. It’s an old smell, an old-fashioned smell. It feels safe, good, balanced and wise.
I was discombobulated all day. What will I do, be without him? He is the centre of my life. He alone makes sense of it for me.
I remembered the day before and the radiologist not being able to proffer a word to describe my fanny. He needed to go deeper down into my groin and told me to pull down my leggings. Though even that command was difficult for him. (If he is so awkward why don’t they have a nurse in there?) I did so and he said, ‘Use some of the paper to cover up the……’ I did so and noticed that the radiologist pulled the curtain across, though to protect my modesty from whom I am not sure.
The dentist has had to postpone my appointment for a filling. Well, that is something less to dread next week. One less intrusion. We’ll manage, he says. And we will. I know we will.
It was his funeral yesterday morning but it was to be just for family so we couldn’t go. His body doesn’t exist anymore, he said when he returned with the shopping. No, I said. I heard them in the flat downstairs when I returned from my walk in the afternoon and put out some fat balls for the birds in the feeders hanging outside the flat the Americans vacated oh so long ago (are they ever to return?). There was the noise of talking voices and a child. I hoped that they couldn’t see me as I made piles of birds seed on the step and struggled with the now rusting feeder lid. He wants to get new ones but I have a thing about discarding things (even when they are clearly no longer efficient) – an age thing perhaps or was I always like that?
She called in the middle of our supper. Can he come round and measure the carpet? He’ll be there in about half an hour, she said. We both sink. We share that privacy thing. The prospect of the interruption, the intrusion even, gives me indigestion and makes him snappy. He does it though and often with more grace than I can must. Aright? asked the carpet man as he came to the top of the stairs. Made grumpy at having to remove his shoes and wear a mask, he made no attempt at customer-focussing. Who’s supposed to be lifting it up then? You are, we said in unison. Oh, he replied, first I’ve heard of it. I am impatient with the way other people do things. Why does it always have to be so drawn-out and then forced into this last-minute affair? But then I pull back and remind myself we don’t all see the world in the same way.
I felt discombobulated by the day. And even when I walked out into that glorious day I felt little moved by it. Is it the prospect of the investigation today? Ugh how I hate being tampered with. And yet, she, poor love, is having an operation today. Mine is nothing by comparison. Such a smiling woman, so warm. I wish her well. Keep her safe. And her, and her, and her.
The moon is full. Or is it new? Either way it has been playing merry hell with my dreams. Playing merry hell, who was it that used to say that? My night time visions have been very lucid and very symbolic, or so it seems. I have conversations. I talk things through and try to resolve them. The night before it was with my mother. She is long dead but she was alive and well that night. I was cleaning a lamp of hers. I remember it from when we used to live on the farm. I thought it a lovely thing, as special thing, then. It was a reproduction of an old oil lamp, electric, of course, with a glass inner funnel and a too-shiny brass base. This one had a little more patina. I was scared that I would break it as she watched. Then she began to tell me that it wasn’t actually hers that she’d just acquired it because the previous owners of the house (was it the farm?) had left it behind. She seemed to imply that she too would do the same. Last night I dreamt of a boat. I’d been sailing on it. It was a huge liner with thousands of cabins. All my things were there. Then I was watching it from a window with him and it was on fire. Great rolls of smoke and fire was emitting from it. It was very dramatic, almost filmic. I went to see how I could recover my things and spoke to a very officious woman who told me that all would be sent on. But how do you know who owns what? I asked her, for, as I explained, there were several people in the cabin. For instance, I said, how do you know what belonged to the mother, or the daughter? In the end she began to see my point and did something on her phone. I woke feeling satisfied that I had been understood.
We walked early, before the rain came and the sky was yellow, orange and pink.
We are mystified as to where she has gone. Perhaps he’s killed her, he says and I laugh knowing he is joking but still discomforted, as he is, by the change brought about her son’s death. Someone is down there. Or at least they are on and off. Lights are on in the kitchen sometimes and I’m sure that it was there smoke alarm that was screaming at 8.30 am yesterday. But her window isn’t open and she always sleeps with it slightly ajar. It isn’t our business but you can’t help but notice and be involved, however much at a distance, with the lives and cares of one’s near neighbours. Her other sons take care of her clearly, but how can she possibly remain here alone at the age of 103? (Or is it 104?) Another smoke alarm went off in the afternoon. Is everyone burning toast?
She told me her father was an arc welder. I love such details, they immediately form stories in my mind. She was telling me that he is now virtually blind and dementing. Bless him. All that life shrunk to nothing. Or is it? Perhaps there is still a wealth of knowing behind the forgetting. I hope so. I watch her as she works on me. I close my eyes but I am still acutely aware of her as she lays crystals on my head, my stomach, my chest, my groin and my neck. I sink into the couch and if it wasn’t for the desperate need to empty my bladder I would have fallen in the deepest, kindest of sleeps. She carries so much but is still such a generous healer, keeping her hand on my leg right to the very end.
