He isn’t well. We’ve both said it. He even stopped the district nurse on her way back to her car to ask how he was. He’s doing OK, she said. When he asked if it was cancer, she said she wasn’t at liberty to say. I shouldn’t have asked her, he said, afterwards. He is failing, people would say. His body is shrinking. And he is unkempt. His hair and facial hair go uncut and untended. Is he imploding, is he in pain, is he willing his demise? And he rarely smokes. We never hear him coughing out of his open window. I want to say something but he doesn’t invite confidences. You well? I ask. Not bad, he says. I fear you’re ill, I want to say. Not because I am nosy, or wanting to pity but because I feel for him. I do. Though of what help we can be, I don’t know. Will she outlive him? Their family are rallying, brothers have been back and forth. It’s the silence. And the waiting.
And autumn comes swiftly. Already the pavements are made gold and yellow and orange with leaves.
A crap drawing day yesterday. I was too tired to think and make good decisions. I ended up drawing a left-behind Peroni bottle that someone had put a twig in, in lieu of a straw perhaps. It was perched on a wall on North Road. I drew it with a continuous line – a failsafe rush of mark-marking when your head is full of mush and you must do something, draw something.
Paul Hogarth always tried to surprise himself with his drawing. And I realise that I do the same. I want to break out of my habitual methods of beginning, of the materials I choose to use and the places I opt to study. Always trying to get better, to draw, make or write something that feels as if it has come from somewhere or someone else. It takes energy and boldness and confidence – none of which I have much of, though some might question this. But I do have the drive to improve. I always have. Nevertheless, after a day of doing battle with my funding application (and all those little things that must be established and ironed out) my afternoon session of drawing was a lack lustre one. I ended it with a continual line drawing of a pristine red moped parked outside the Church Surgery. Perched on the end of a little wall I worked speedily, aware of but not really hearing all the chatter that walked or buzzed past me. Like the woman on the phone saying to someone, ‘ It’s the then and now that matters’. Or one of the gentle boys from Goa (with names like Shubert and Wellington) who we used to see in the Shilam when it was still a restaurant and not a fast food delivery outlet on the industrial estate, who rushed into the doctor’s leaving his little two-seater car double-parked and flashing. The last drawing made me late getting home. But then, climbing hill onto North Road I saw something I shall try to draw today and that felt better. To have a plan is good. Don’t you think?
Town was quiet this morning and the wind a mere nothing (Kettler’s was wrong, eh?). A gaggle of lads hung around on the corner of the street opposite The Pelican Bakery, shouting and throwing things. Just japes, no doubt. There was a girl in shorts. Then, walking down the Prom towards Terrace Road I heard the pulsing of music and loud voices. There was no one about, except a few lonesome stragglers. I saw a opened window in one of the terraces facing the sea. It was wide open and a throbbing yellow light came from it and a voice. It sounded disembodied. COME BACK! it implored. COME BACK TO US.
The Prom has been quieter these last few mornings. There are a few students dotted about but nothing like it has been. Perhaps it is a sign of the end of Fresher’s Week and the novelty of being here or being back. Or maybe they have settled down into the reality of having to actually work. Or perhaps it is symptomatic of the new ‘passport’ regulations for clubs imposed by the Welsh Government. I still saw some, like the two girls leaning against the window sill of the ‘Vaults’ eating, or the boy on a bench by Castle Point hunched over and reading (in that dim light) from a book or the lad, lying on a backless seat across from the sandpit staring up at the sky eating chips from a carton on his chest. The rain didn’t come and the wind was a mere whisper. It was nice to be out and quiet.
I read from Paul Hogarth’s book on pencil drawing while I waited for him to return with our weekly shopping. I had no idea that he too felt fear at the start of a drawing. He had his methods, some of which I might try and adopt. And he’d use the observers as a kind of energy boost. Not sure that I can do that. And that he would not look at a drawing he’d made for three days and if he didn’t like it when he did he’d chuck it. Should I be braver and draw bigger? And perhaps even invest in a camping stool?
They don’t want me staying in their homes. I understand.
I need to explain. It’s not that I have noisome habits, or talk with my mouth full or put my elbows on the table ‘or nothing’. It’s more that I am singular in my waking and sleeping. I wake early, as you know, and it has become ingrained, to stop now would unsettle me. So my routine disturbs theirs, which is, of course, more normal. I understand. And if I’m honest I prefer the anonymity of a hotel. I feel constrained in the other people’s houses, I always have. I try too hard to do what I think is best. I try too hard to be a good, an exemplary houseguest, except, that is, in my rising. So there we have it. She loves me and I love her but she pulls a face when I suggest we might stay. A hotel it is then.
Mostly I feel safe walking through this town in the early hours and in the dark. Though it is never wholly dark. There are streetlights and squares of light from windows from those still awake or newly so, like me. Nevertheless, the feeling of being out there is different from the day time. Particularly on a Saturday night Sunday morning. Like this morning. There is a sense of something vivid, frenetic. It’s the kids, students mainly. They drink too much – whether it is a coping mechanism, habit or peer pressure, I don’t know. There was a group of them coming home from a club, no doubt and walking along Llanbadarn Road. Two lads broke away from them with the excuse that they needed to get something and would join them later. Text me when you are near, one of the girls said to them, or if you are not coming. One of the boys was noisy. I heard them as they walked behind me, commenting on my stick and then kicking some cans off a dustbin. I felt uneasy and took another direction. They are or were no doubt perfectly kind and good but instinct, particularly at that liminal time is a strong one and should be followed.
All the chores are now done and I’m ready for proper work. I’m so enjoying reading Middlemarch (I do so at breakfast). What a beautiful study of marriage. And its characters are so compassionately drawn, all of them.
It’s the imposed stillness that struck me the most. She is held captive by her stroke-ridden body, wholly reliant on others to tend to her needs. The room was pleasant enough, though it had a slight miasma of detergents and urine. And we had to go through all the hoops regarding keeping the lurgy at bay, gloves, aprons, flow tests and not being able to use the loo (for half an hour almost) until we were in her room. All understandable of course but it meant we had to rush off next door right after saying hello. We went into his bathroom (they’d had adjoining rooms) and his dressing gown was still hanging from a hook behind the door (his bed had been take away, not sure why). His funeral is next week. We talked about it. I watched her as we did. She holds all the grief in. It was so sudden. I thought it was dementia, she said. They wanted his childhood teddy to put in the coffin. (He couldn’t stand the idea of cremation, she said, so he’s to be buried in a wood. His sons have organised it all. She can’t go. She can’t travel, they said.) They asked us to raise it with her, about the teddy, that is. We did. His name is Osborne (though we both thought she said Oswald, her voice is a whisper). She has three others. All with names and of varying heights and sizes. Osborne is the largest, a great spread-legged bear, much battered for who she had knitted clothes. I sat with him on my knee until we had to go. She holds herself with such elegance, even though she is constantly rubbing, and flexing her hand and leg. We do ballet exercises, she says, in a chair, obviously. She had so much and it is gone. What can you say? I wanted to hold her.
I remembered what I meant to say about my walk yesterday. As the rain poured down on me, I’d thought about Jane Austen and how I read in some of her letters of her intermittent frustration when bad weather and dirty roads kept her from walking. Striding out was clearly both a pleasure and necessity to her – she needed to get out, away from that to small house of women and feel the air, the freshness and the freedom from domestic obligations. Perhaps it also helped her think about her writing. They didn’t have what we have now. Umbrellas yes, but no waterproofs or rain-resistant shoes. They were shod so inadequately. And people got wet, and sometimes died from it. I do love to dress up cosy, but even I in this wild and windy place cannot keep all the elements out.
And there are still three tents on the Prom, those small one-man affairs that are slightly domed. They used to be hitched on the beach but the crashing waves evidently were too much for them. I watched them being buffeted this morning. Poor loves, how can they sleep? There was a row of wheeled shopping carts neatly aligned by the railings next to them (there worldly belongings, clearly). The tents, blue, orange and yellow ( I think) made me think of wobbling jellies or blancmanges. And the effete, bookish homeless man had moved his sleeping bag and himself to the other side of the Prom shelter – aping the shifting of the wind, now coming from the North West. At least he is dry. What will he and the tent-dwellers do when winter comes proper?
I drew in the café and the wind and rain blew an almost constant stream of people in. I am warming (even if it is freezing in there and the windows leak, there were spits of rain on my crayons) to the being in there (we have a specific table perfect for capturing the queue) and like to see the regulars, such as the thin-faced, bearded man whom he knows and is something to do with football, or the now pot-bellied young man who has to take strong medication (hence the belly) to combat his mental illness. I’ve seen him open up and he mostly comes in with friends now. People sometimes comment on what I am doing. I do it openly now with my paints and crayons spread out on the table. A couple spoke to me. They are on holiday and staying in a caravan in Borth, she told me that last night they’d had trouble getting the boiler to work. She talked fast in a continual sentence telling me that their boiler at home was 50 years old and that they weren’t used to these modern ones. She seemed unaffected by the wild weather and was looking forward to going to Devil’s Bridge later and perhaps to seeing the dolphins the next. He was more self-contained than her and read to her from the newspaper while she asked him crossword clues. I liked seeing their companionship. She commented on my drawing. Do you illustrate books? she asked. I did music at school, she said.
He saw someone he knew who talked about needing new staff. We clearly thought about it at the same time for later he rang him to see if they might be interested in taking me. I don’t know. I need to earn some money. I’m working harder than ever but I make nothing from it – its richness is all internal. (He would say that that is enough but I struggle with a sense of inadequacy at not contributing financially.) So we shall see and meanwhile I imagine it, trying on another life for size. How much will it shake my working week? Who knows. Isn’t it always this see-sawing with no real key as to what is the right thing to do?
I was just coming down the hill from our section of the estate when we crossed paths. I called out hello, and she responded likewise before doing a double-take and saying my name. I was touched that she remembered it. It has been a long time since he and I went over to their house for tea and cake. He’d spoken to him a few times at the bins and then we’d seen them at church one Christmas and they’d invited us over. It was an awkward couple of hours. She tried her best but her husband was scratchy (and possible ill) and we were edgy. I think it is what they do, but it isn’t for us. We don’t do visiting, and I made it clear (as politely as possible) that we don’t invite people in. But she smiled warmly yesterday and I returned the gesture with one equally warm. I like her. She looks so fragile in that tiny thin frame. They’ve made so many compromises coming to live here in this parochial town to be near their daughter (who lives two houses away). And I think she makes the best of it, he perhaps not as much. I ache for people sometimes.
Well I went, though it wasn’t conclusive. He is a gentle soul and so petite. He asked if I wanted a nurse present while he examined me. That would be nice, I said. I lay there on the couch, denuded of my trousers and offered to unpop my body before realising (and blushing for my stupidity) that the examination wasn’t an internal. He was very solicitous, while the nurse hovered in the background. It’s something to do with the two arteries that come from the hips to the thighs, apparently. Yes, said the nurse, I can see it moving your fingers. They are pulsing too hard and are swollen. I need to read up on it, he said, admitting that he didn’t know what it was. I liked his honesty. Meanwhile there will be blood tests and so on. Maybe it will remain a mystery. Perhaps that is OK. Must we know everything? She is a noble creature my body, carrying me well. Should I listen to her more?
I meant to write something about my walk but I’ve forgotten what it was. The wind has grown wild. I eschewed the Prom and walked through the little streets of town trying to shelter from the wind, my umbrella blowing inside and out. I notice things more now that I’m drawing regularly. The details high up catch my eye. I saw them as I drew yesterday afternoon sitting on the pavement on the corner of Bridge Street and Vulcan Street. I love the chimneys, all higgledy-piggledy, the pastel shades of the house walls and the rickety, ill-kempt roofs. There is so much to capture – though I still struggle with my desire for more finesse. I need to look harder, and breathe before committing pen to paper. Another café drawing session this morning – what will it bring?
I went out in the rain (with two coats on). I try to find good things about it, such as the sound of the pitter pat on my umbrella, and the smell of the air, fresh, clean and cold but still it gets tedious. One finds oneself trudging. The Pelican Bakery was omitting some lovely smells of bread as I walked past but this was annihilated by the breath of young woman stinking of drink. She was drunk, and lurching. A student, I would guess by her insufficient clothing and no wet weather gear. Bless her, bless them. They are too young for such excess. And to be out alone. Do their families know what they get up to? This town is generally a safe one, but I ache for them.
I’m to see the doctor today and mostly I worry that he will think me a time-waster. It’s a malaise, a general malaise. I wish I’d left it alone, all it does is make him fret. It would be nice to be fit again but if it isn’t to be then so be it. I can manage.
I went out to draw yesterday afternoon despite the threat of showers. It was magnificent – the clouds, the wind, the sharp thrown light. But my drawings were not so. I tried, and that is enough. I’m still trying to find my way with the materials and what to include and what to leave out. He is supportive and celebratory. What would I do without him? What will I do?
