We are not all the same, he tells me in his infinite wisdom, we don’t all think alike. And we don’t. I know this, but I forget. My gestures are, I trust loving ones, but they may arrive or be received when the receiver is not open to them. In the end it doesn’t matter, we, I, can only do what I can do. I try, that is all. Do you understand?
I catch only snippets of the news, mostly on radio bulletins, be they on Radio 3 in the morning or Classic FM in the afternoon. Yesterday there was a brief comment about it being a legal requirement that councils in Kent and the SE house unaccompanied migrant children. We grow numb to such phrases and words – we no longer hear their true implications. Unaccompanied children. Children who are alone, away from family from home in an oh so foreign land. The children of migrants who are unable to speak English. Migrant is another such word. People who migrate, who move, nomadic people in such of another life. Hasn’t there always been such – what made them into semi-criminals? Pariahs, even? Is there not enough to go round? And why are they migrating? Are they not really refugees, seeking shelter, safety from abuse, war and poverty? Why are their children alone? What has happened? Give us the real story, their stories so that we may listen, and empathise and help.
I saw the milkman in his van this morning. It’s a little more sooped up than a float (now that is a sound of my childhood, it was a kind of wheeze, not an engine sound, more an expelling of air, a sigh even – I also remember the clip clop of the horse’s hoofs when the milk was delivered by cart to our Nanny’s flat) an open van of sorts all lit up. A comfort in the darkness. Though it wasn’t the man who looks like Bruce Springsteen that I used to see in Morrison’s on a Saturday with his kids. The lit Christmas trees and lights that are beginning to pop up in windows across town are equally comforting in these fast becoming thick black nights. Thank you.
I woke from a dream that perplexed me. What did it mean? He and I were looking at a boat, which was actually a carboard box (like a huge lever arch one) and all lined with text-covered paper. It was in the harbour and waiting for customers. Someone had written in hand – Free but can be Wild. They were clearly offering fishing trips. As we watched a man and a young boy turned up. Neither had coats or waterproofs. He wore casual office wear, a jumper and chinos. They climbed in and set sail. The boat by this time was full of water – the child was completely submerged and the man was up to his chin. Neither seemed deterred or bothered, clearly they were used to it. And I watched it sail off out of the harbour into a rough sea. Is it about my application? Is it my fear of being subsumed by it? They appeared so content with their situation, accepting and meeting it, however, hopelessly.
The town’s Christmas tree is up though still denuded of lights.
He has told me about her before. She works on the till at Tesco’s. Yesterday they were talking about illness and her mother who is dementing. Then she let it slip that her father had stabbed her and got 5 (or was it 7) years for it. Her mother has a collapsed lung as a result of it. And apparently both her sister and brother-in-law died of Covid-19. And then she told him that her father (when she’d visited him in prison) had ‘tried it on with me’.
What lives people have to live, and endure.
Bless us all.
We were driving into town so that I could draw in the coffee shop (there was a threat of rain, else we would have walked) when I saw it. It was climbing up the wall of a student house on the corner of Penglais Road before secreting itself into a cavity underneath a wooden window sill. Oh, my God, I said. What? he asked. It’s a rat. A long discussion followed about whether we should let the letting agency know. And I had an internal one too – they will use poison and so on. He said no, and that it wasn’t our business. They tell us that there are rats everywhere. And they must be right – I certainly saw enough of them in the students’ hall in Oxford. But there was something chilling about seeing it in the glare of day and so close to human habitation. It is always so hard to know whether to interfere or not. It’s a bit like the flies that have started to infest the window ledge again. Don’t they know it’s winter? And I have to clean them away though I shrink from it. Poor loves they only want to live, as we all do. And then I worry about the hyacinth bulbs I’ve planted. Seven are showing but what about the other two. Are they just slow in sprouting or are they dead? Be patient, I hear him say in my head.
The tides are getting fuller, stronger and higher. There are great trunks of broken trees on both beaches and shale lies in swathes on the Prom.
His light was on in his kitchen as I returned from my walk. I want to peer in to see how he is, we so rarely see him now. The TV, though on was barely discernible from our communal hall. No Rawhide this morning. I’ve taken the liberty (without asking him) of re-taping up their post box. His mother had mislaid the key so they have to have it semi-open and had used a bit of sticky bandage for the purpose but it kept gaping open. I’ve stuck it with some duck tape. Will he mind? How is it to be in the state of dying as he is? He has two kinds of cancer, diabetes and ulcers on his legs. Poor love. I want to ask how he is but he and I maintain a socially-manufactured distance of inane pleasantries. I keep meaning to break it and ask how he is really but bottle out. I must, just to show how much I care. For I do. I do.
She finally answered. I understand now why she has not done so for the last two weeks. She is still in hospital with Covid. Her voice sounds weak and her breath, strained. They have her on strong steroids and a few days ago she fell out of bed as a result, no doubt, of the heavy-sleepy stupor that they induce, onto her face. She has bruising down one side and a lump. She is miserable. I want to help and yet there is nothing I can do. Initially she seemed happy to be there, she clearly felt safe, while the symptoms of the virus terrified her. Now she is powerless against the mind-numbing effects of the drugs that render her senseless. They say that they are too strong but as yet, there is no sign of them being reduced. How can she, or indeed I, understand their reasoning? Perhaps her daughter talks to them, perhaps not. Neither of them trust traditional medicine but what is her/their alternative? Her lungs are clearly damaged, perhaps irretrievably. They say I will have to be on steroids for the rest of my life, she tells me. She is barely eating and struggles to pull herself up from her bed to reach her water. They won’t let her daughter in to feed her. She’s sent me a baby cup, you know the kind, so that I can drink more easily. I feel her powerlessness and weep. He admonishes me, and rightly so, I cannot help her that way. All I can do is imagine myself sitting on that chair next to her bed, a witness, a presence as she sleeps.
A short walk this morning as domestic duties took precedence and ate into my fresh air time. A few late-night revellers ambled their way home from a bar on Terrace Road, most huddled up into pairs. A man’s voice came out through the misty drizzle as I turned the corner onto North Road. It was a dismembered sound that I took some time to locate. It wasn’t loud or sharp, a gentle voice which I saw belonged to a young man talking to his friend outside their house. It comforted me. The quietness of it.
When I got home I could hear that our neighbour was still awake and his TV was on. That unmistakable, yet long-forgotten sound of a theme tune. A western, cowboys, Clint Eastwood looking mean. Yes. I remembered just as I point my key in the door. Rawhide.
I think Wednesday nights are dressing up ones in the clubs in town. As a result they were a motley crew ambling their way up the hill at 3.30 am this morning. By then the novelty of their costumes has worn off and they have forgotten that they are wearing them, like the girl I saw on Northgate Street in a Tigger onesie or the lad in ripped jeans sitting on the steps by The Marine with a purple velvet tricorne hat on his head. They also appear to have dressing gown nights, though I think that the girl I saw in the pink one by the fire escape behind Alexandra Halls talking to boy, had just left her bed in need of a cigarette. Anything goes in this town. Etiquette is a fluid thing. And I like it that way. I am the oddity, I think. And I like that too.
Alas, there is work to do. And the beginnings are always the hardest.
The full moon is due on Friday. I love to walk under its light. And when the clouds cross it it is so magical. The sea responds and churns and tosses. I am always glad to be out by the time I reach the Perygyl and stand on its end for then the world stretches out before me and its huge.
I found it hard to challenge her. She scares me a little. I know that there is an element of transference going on, I can’t help it. And sometimes, in repose, she can look quite sharp. She cried when she spoke of how she’d spend Christmas with her mother. There were just the two of them. I don’t mind that. Her emotions are near the surface and I like that she feels comfortable enough with me to let them show. I watched her as I spoke. She was defensive, naturally and the blame was mine. Or so it felt. So be it, my shoulders are broad enough. But it no longer makes me happy, hasn’t done for quite a while. We will try again next week. It will be boring, she said. Must it be? Isn’t it the teacher’s job to make it not so? We shall see.
He reported back. They’d told him what is wrong with him. And it is fatal. I hope he isn’t in pain. What must it be like to be dying and know you are? Of course, we all are, but for most of us it isn’t imminent. I imagine peace, a yielding but forget about the possible pain and discomfort and tedium and fear. I wish him rest, and ease and a gentle acceptance. But I don’t know him well, perhaps he will fight that dying of the light. Who knows?
I like living here. I like to hear and be amongst the other flat dwellers with the walls dividing us, that is. But I do struggle with the smells. It was ever thus. I remember in Cambridge the stink of curry coming through our fixed wine rack. Here it oozes through the walls and floors of both bathrooms and then up the stairwell. He can’t smell it mostly, though yesterday even he reeled at it. It was definitely meat. Though we discussed whether it was mince or beef stew. It was there for hours. It’s his brothers. At least one of them. The man downstairs, that is. He isn’t well, though they are keeping mum about what is ailing him. They appear to be taking it in turn to visit. One plays the saxophone. They all cook but pungent stuff, sadly. I must learn to be more accepting, though even a double dose of lavender oil in two burners couldn’t eradicate it.
And then there is the noise. I’ve grown used to their TV being on very loud. It’s even comforting at times. Last night we heard the fair. It must be over a mile away but the thumping beat of the music carries. I like it actually. It evokes so many dreams of childhood. I was always a bit scared of it, he said last night. He remembers it as a boy. I was scared of them too, but that added to their attraction – the dirt, the stickiness, the hard-faced men, the lights, and the muddied turf under foot.
I walked without a stick today. I’m slower but at least I can still walk. Four girls huddled in a group opposite the sail on the Prom. I caught some of their conversation as I walked past. She says that men help, one was saying. Yeh, replied another, but druggies always say that. And she repeated herself for extra effect. Druggies always say that.
We got to the coffee shop a little early and followed a bearded man inside. Give me another 5 minutes, said the assistant manager, we’re not open yet. Somewhat shamefaced we slunk outside to stand by the door. Is that patchouli oil I can smell? I asked the bearded man (he was small in stature and there were strands of grey at the end of his beard, though he can’t have been that old). No, I don’t think so, he said, smiling, perhaps it’s Shea butter. Yes, I said, not wholly convinced. We struck up a conversation, nevertheless and I learnt that he was a chef (‘an unconventional one’ – he used real lemons in his humus and got the push for it) and a sound engineer. We ended our chat by agreeing that coffee tastes different (and toast) when someone else makes it for you.
There were a few soldiers in uniform and ex-servicemen in civvies in the café, one who couldn’t have been more than 30 had two medals on his lapel. His friend joined him at the table with shaven head and beard and a very very sharp suit finished off with leopard skin winkle pickers. Fantastic. (He had nudged me when he’d arrived and hissed, look at his shoes!) I tried to draw them all but my confidence was ebbing and there was too much to capture.
We stood together in silence as the clocks struck 11. The silence was inner rather than outer, cars still drove past and parishioners at a nearby church chattered. I held you all in my head and heart wishing you peace. I hope you heard and felt it.