It began with one ( I usually have three) of my hot water bottles leaking in my bed. It was a horrible sensation making me dive out of bed and reach for the hairdryer. You’re not going to do that now, he said. Yes, I said, I am. It worked, eventually. And I’m glad for that is one more fear I’ve put to rest.
The real deluge was outside. On and on it went. It invaded my dreams. Such weather always unnerves. I feel vulnerable and I lay there barely sleeping thinking of all those homes being flooded. What have we done, eh? Is this how it is to be? 30 homes in Cumbria, railway lines submerged and so many lying in their beds praying for it to stop.
It has now. Finally.
She was a delight. I somehow thought she might be. And now I have to write it. Give me courage. Always.
It was pouring with rain this morning. Don’t go, he wrote on the message he left for me on the stairs, stay at home instead. I did go. I wanted fresh air and to see the sea again. And I rather like the sound of rain on my umbrella. It did ease a little and then I felt rather silly under all the layers (two rain coats and plastic bags over my socks and inside my boots to stop the rain seeping in). And hot.
We got back in good time yesterday giving me time to check my emails and unpack before making supper. I’m not receptive to emails when I’m tired, I’m always a little warped in how I read them. There is editing to do. Which I should welcome as it is a good learning process, isn’t it? He says it’s fine and that it won’t take long. After all, they could’ve spiked it if they didn’t like it. I will persevere. And be courageous. I promise
The students go the whole hog for Halloween in this town. There are pumpkin heads on windowsills, bats and witches stuck to windows and one house along North Road has fake police tape stretched several times across the front door saying DO NOT ENTER. THIS HOUSE IS HAUNTED. Bless.
And the rain this morning did not stop them clubbing. Why would it? I saw one lad, soaked of course, trying to flag down an ambulance (did he think it was a taxi?). And then a girl dashing through the puddles wearing a black and white polka-dotted mini skirt and pink cowboy hat. A boy chased after her waving his arms about. Both were coatless.
To work now.
It always amazes me how easy it is to forget routine when one has only been away four days.
They are like wild things when they flood out of the clubs on a Saturday night. I catch the worst of it when I’m out walking. They shout, scream, litter and kick things about. They are just normal everyday kids who don’t know how to hold their drink. Bless them. I give them a wide berth though. I don’t want their noise. Sometimes there are others amongst them, who sometimes can feel quite sinister by comparison. The quiet ones. Like the man I encountered on Queens Road. I took note of every detail of him. I do it automatically when I am out alone in the dark. Just in case. He was a thick-set man. And not wearing a coat, I could see that he wore a V-necked jumper, probably navy and a checked shirt underneath. And possibly navy or grey trousers. He was slightly bandy and walked reading his phone. I say walked. He lurched and leaned. That’s what made me wary of him. He was ahead of me so I walked close to the railings and houses expecting him to walk into the road. He didn’t but came closer and then very very near. My heart began pumping. I kept walking but all my senses were alive. Adrenalin was racing. And then he was gone. Could I have taken him on? He wasn’t tall but he was heavy, strong, I suspect. But he was clearly pissed. It didn’t come to that, thank god but my internal reaction surprised me. But we are animals, after all. And fear is a great leveller and energy-giver, in those circumstances, at least.
Two other slightly older men walked past me from Terrace Road. They were talking and laughing together. One of them had on a pill-box like hat in caramel. It doesn’t matter, said one, that you’ve been a fucking prick or that you’ve been more of a fucking prick than I was….
I’ve spent the last few mornings drawing in the café. I say ‘the café’ because, being the creatures of habit that we both are, we have our favourite, or at least it has become so. I look forward to going there, even though it is freezing on account of their having the door open the whole time. But the buzz and gentle flow of the people who come is lovely. And I’m growing used to the faces, particularly in the mornings. There’s the elderly gentleman who sits in the tub chair and reads from his phone, and there’s the young man whom he knows who he thinks has mental health issues. He always has porridge topped with chocolate chips and a Pumpkin Spice Latte. He sits alone mostly, though sometimes he is met there by one of (we think) his carers. He eats, stares into the distance a little and then leaves to go on to another coffee shop – Nero and then probably Costa. You going on the Prom, later? he asks him. Dunno, he says. Then there is the very pale, sad-faced blonde-haired lady whom I find quite hard to draw. Her features as indistinct. And then there is the elderly lady who sits on the end of the long table and reads her paper. She drinks cappuccino. The staff have their idiosyncrasies too. The nervy girl with a pony tail was on today. He asked if he could change the chair at our table (again, we always sit there with it having the best view of the queue for me to draw). Yes, she said but please put it back as I’m on my own this morning.
And I’ve just realised that we forgot.
While I was drawing a man burst in and strode over to us. I’ve seen them through the window, he said, and they’re very good. It took me a while to work out what he meant. Your drawings, he said pointing at them. I’ve been watching through the window.
I was touched, to take the trouble to come in and tell me. So nice.
They’re easily created. You do something that feels right and as far as someone else is concerned it isn’t. And then it seems impossible to make it OK again. They won’t allow the smoothing, the shaking of the hand, the hug that you long to give. I don’t like it when people misunderstand you, he said. My love. What have I done to merit so much loving?
This morning it feels better. An email comes and I think things are better. But I become warier.
I let her talk, though I would’ve preferred silence. She is a good woman though I feel like I’ve been in a boxing ring, and lost, after seeing her. My body aches with its desire to hold onto the stiffness and rigidity that has held it in place for months now.
I dreamt of choosing to clothe my nakedness again. How interesting. Don’t you think? It was a borrowed coat, but it shielded my vulnerability nonetheless. I don’t have to be so open, the dream and my subconscious seemed to say. I saw myself naked in a mirror and then decided.
I’m going to walk later for the wind is raging out there. And there is rain. He persuaded me to put it off till later. If he hadn’t woken I would’ve gone out. The wind unsettles that little animal inside of me. So I am at my desk, writing this early. And I wrote the other, yesterday. I’m never sure of what I write (or indeed of what I draw). I just do my best. It is all I can do. He says it is enough. And I must trust in that.
She writes and tells me of having to begin packing up her house. I can read the heartbreak and fear in between the lines. It is too much. And to do it alone. I want to help but know not how.
Oh, these wee small hours are a bugger. And I’ve missed being out there, drawing. It’s the energy, you see, and all that life.
It was a strange scene. They were on Llanbadarn Road. First I heard him calling her name. She was a tall girl, with long hair. Evidently intent on ignoring him she kept on walking before deciding to sit down on a low wall. He sat down also, about 500 yards away. Neither said anything. The odd thing was the third person, an older man in a high-vis jacket. Leaving the boy and walking over to talk to the girl (Hi, she said) he seemed to be the mediator. I turned round once more (I was heading towards the junction) and saw the boy push himself of the way and lope his way over to them.
The home-going students all seemed to be coughing as I walked through town. We discussed it over breakfast. Selfish, he called it. Perhaps they haven’t been taught to put their hands over their mouths, I replied. Coughing is the new smoking. Hated and feared. They do it nonetheless. I don’t want to judge them. They are as much a part of this town as the seagulls. Both equally noisy, at times. They’ve always done it at this time of the year (cough, that is). Perhaps we should be more charitable. They are young.
Taxis rush up and down Penglais Hill taking students home. This was last night when it was pouring with rain. They flood out of the clubs and bars, coatless, naturally and are too tired, pissed or unfit to make the climb on foot. There are no fuckin’ taxis in this town, I heard one student shout. There used to be more and you can’t blame them for clocking off early to save taking a load of drunk youths who are likely to throw up in the back of their cab. They speed past, their wheels making a whishing sound across the rain soaked tarmac. A group of students huddle by the entrance to the SPAR on the corner of Northgate Terrace. Two girls who had been standing further up the street on their mobile phones run down to join them, one of them exclaiming, we’ve got a taxeeeee!
I woke from a night of complex dreams. In the last one I was climbing a hill, it was daylight and I could see the winding path ahead of me. Then there were two women just by me. (It seems to happen that way with dreams, people just arrive with no ceremony or warning.) They were close to my face and I could hear them talking. They were mother and daughter but both were quite ancient. The daughter was doing all the talking. A cheerful woman, but her hair was thinning. It was drawn back with what looked like a barrette but looking closer as I could see that it wasn’t a clip at all but bones from her skull that had burst through her skin.
He keeps quoting him. He is the tree surgeon we used to see regularly in a coffee shop we frequented years ago (and have begun doing so again so that I can draw). We saw him and his wife again last week. He’s had cancer treatment and must be in his late 70s, as is she. He’d seen them on the way to the loo and asked how he was. Me and she, he’d told him, we’ve only one way. (A tall, rangy man, whom illness has made more craggy, he is prone to making big, long-armed gestures.) We’ve only one way, he’d repeated to him, forward. Forward, he’d said, his arm making an arrow and pointing, FORWARD.
It is too terrible to contemplate. And what good would it do him or his family? I want to put it somewhere neat, but it isn’t neat. It is a tragedy for all concerned and beyond. Let him rest in peace. And may his family find succour.
