I’m not good with failing, or making mistakes. Is anybody? I try hard, too hard sometimes. Perhaps that’s the problem. I got irritable. I stood too long and my legs started to feel heavy. The mix for both the bread and the scones is still too wet and consequently takes twice as long to bake. He seems to like them though, even though he refers to the scones as rock cakes. I want to get it right. Is it the oven? Or me? The sea was sublime this morning – the gentle lapping. Though the air was still a little nippy. I made the wrong decision about the gloves. Heigh ho. Sometimes being slightly cold is preferable to being too cold. The Reunion this week was a repeat of a session with some ex POWs from Japanese camps. It was harrowing listening. And yet, such dignity. But it was the one who couldn’t forgive……
I worked hard. I think it’s OK. He seemed pleased with it. There is always more to say, more to do. I got agitated this morning about all those 10,000 things that have to be done before you get to the nub, the real work. They’re not particularly satisfying tasks, accounts, lists and admin, mostly. Just do them. You’ll feel better for clearing the way. Done now. All done. Tea and coffee for him then sew.
It can happen. Louis Theroux talks of it on his new podcast during the lockdown. Petty quarrels. They boil up over nothing. Or perhaps not. I irritated him and that made him say what he did. Fair enough. I’d sunk again. Up one day down the next. And my lowness had manifested, as it usually does, into nitpicking. First it was his liberal use of flannels and then it was the bits of leaves and undergrowth he’d brought into the house under his shoes. Neither were important, as the Theroux’s consumption of the last of avocado wasn’t. And I kept trying to ‘make it better’ and failing miserably. Both of us trying to reasonable when we just didn’t feel that way. It ended up with my sitting alone on that pallet on our borrowed wasteland. I lay down and looked at the sky, and let the sun warm my face hoping all the while a bird wouldn’t pass by and shit on me. One did eventually but on my foot rather than my face. He came back out after about 20 minutes to say that he didn’t mean it. It wasn’t his fault, it was mine. It usually is. He is much more even-tempered than I. Much. I have a lot to do today so I will get on. Begin and it will feel less scary. I promise.
I’m always a little nervous going into framing shops with work. It’s the anticipation of judgement. When I got him to ask him if he framed textiles I immediately sensed his rolling his eyes and making all sorts of assumptions about me. What does it matter what he thinks, if he thinks anything at all? I always wanted to say whenever I took stuff to the framers, and there have been so many during my life – I can do better than this, this isn’t all I can do. And now I feel just the same. Will he know that it’s a gift? And yet, as always the judgement is not coming from them but me, most after all in my experience have seen it all or are just not curious, it’s a job to them that’s all.
Can you smell his lunch? he called from downstairs, I think it’s mince. I didn’t say anything but I suspect what he was smelling was my lunch, not mince but tempeh and mushrooms. Sorry, love. Was it so bad?
When he asked him about framing textiles I asked him to check whether he would stretch it or if I had to. I used to have a woman who laced, he replied, but she’s got arthritis in her hands and can’t do it anymore.
He called the other night, well afternoon, to us it’s evening, saying that he only had 25p left on his electricity and would he drive round and collect the key to put some more on in SPAR. I got irritated. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t but he is one of those people, I can’t remember how Julia Cameron described them, who cause if not outright chaos, disruption. How could he have let it run down so low? He is self-isolating, he has been ill, is ill, so he has to ask, I get that, but so late in the day that he leaves you no choice. My love is uncomplaining, a real boy scout. Off he goes. I’m the one who takes longer to forgive. He thinks he is charming, he is not. Funny sometimes, perhaps but mostly a misogynist and he doesn’t even know it. Poor love, he is alone though. And so chaotic. Can I be kinder to him? Yes. I can.
The promise of more work and I am lifted. The tea helped too. Thank you.
It’s always about the detail, it always has been. The detail defines us, sharpens us. I’ve called her a few times during this strange period. It’s the least I can do. She is alone. She manages, she is a very capable woman but this time she said she was finding it hard. She is a sociable being. She likes company, it lifts her. She chatters away about much and nothing. I meant to pop out into the garden to tie up a rose, she said, before the rain came. The detail, you see. Proust knew this, telling us in Swann’s Way how his grandmother would loosen the rose ties in her garden in Cambray to make it seem more natural, ‘the way a mother runs her fingers through her child’s hair after a visit to the barbers’, he wrote.
There was a tent, a light blue mini jousting-style tent with pointed tip, it’s cloth adorned with sea creatures, lying capsized on the pavement outside Cwrt Cenydd. Had the wind carried from some child’s garden or even the beach? It looked sad, upended like that. Later, returning from my walk I heard the crunch of a snail’s shell under my boots. I’m so sorry. It’s dark I cannot always see my way. I hate to take a life. Any life.
He said he knew, he knew that I was struggling. I could sense it, he said. It made me feel good to know that he’d felt it, that I wasn’t alone with it. I don’t always know what to do, he said. Sometimes you don’t want to talk about it. No, he is right, I don’t. What a precious man he is. What a lucky gril I am.
My line manager writes to say that work can’t participate in the furloughing scheme. So that’s that then. It never was a safe job, I said. Now don’t run with it, he said. He is right. No point being histrionic. It is what it is. So what can I do? Be imaginative. Get that thinking cap on. Something will come. The universe is generous. And the sun is out regardless of the promise of rain. See.
I know why I dream it, it came to me as I walked. The important thing is that I solved it, or at least got myself out of the dilemma. I found myself walking in a desert. There was just sand, nothing but sand, no landmarks whatsoever. I wasn’t too perturbed, but I remember thinking to myself that I was lost, or that I could be walking this terrain forever. Then, as I thought it I found myself (which is often how it happens in dreams) in a busy bookshop, sharing a table with another person, a man I think, and waiting to give a talk of some sort. Then I was walking beside a waterway I knew. I recall thinking to myself I know this, this is familiar, this is nice, I know this. At first it made me think of my time in Covent Garden (I know, there is no water there) then of our trips to Norfolk, and Blakeney in particular and then of Cornwall. Not that it looked like any of these places. Then I was in a waterside cafe and asking for a job. Two women interviewed me. The one who seemed to be the boss was reluctant, standoffish but as we talked I could feel her soften. I’ve waitressed lots of times, I said to her, all the time knowing that I didn’t really want to do it but I’d come all that way and I wanted a resolution. She was hard to soften. At one point, in my eagerness to show willing I put some dirty plates on the dumb waiter. Does that go to the kitchen? I asked. It was an odd contraption that appeared to be going round rather than upwards. Don’t do it like that, the boss woman snapped, you’ll hurt yourself. But I knew even in her abrasiveness, or perhaps in spite of it, she would employ me. That will do for now, I thought. That’s work solved. But it’s funny how the current climate is feeding in. They are sitting too close, I remember thinking. And how come the cafe is still busy? The boss said that they did over 10,000 covers during the day in the summer. I shall be exhausted, I thought to myself, but think of the tips. All very prosaic, but I write it to fix it in my mind. I slept better. Just waking once in the night and then again five minutes before the alarm. We keep it tight, he and I, disregarding the mayhem of the lockdown. Life flows onward. I work as usual, and he reads the papers as usual, though online. We breakfast at the same time and we walk at the same time. Is it mad not to implode, to soften, to yield, to grow flabby with ennui? Are you doing that? She always accused me of rigour. Did she mean it was unnecessary? I do it for myself. To hold it all together. I have done so in even more extraordinary circumstances, believe me. Personally extraordinary, that is, not globally. Still no news from work. Will they furlough us? Huge organisations have no conscience. I keep nudging, will it do any good?
The newsreader on the 8 am bulletin said that museums all over the country are asking for our contributions to help mark this lockdown experience. A spokeswoman for The Museum of the Home was then interviewed in which she asked for the general public to send images of their homes during the self-isolation. But we don’t want Instagram-style images, she said, don’t clean them first. The rest of the news was taken up by the fact that the government are going to debate a bill that will give 3.1 million to help children suffering domestic abuse during this period. Two sides of one coin, eh? Some are doing OK, those with gardens, space, a safe income and a loving family, others without those things are not. My heart goes out to them. Always.
I’m not sleeping well, though I do sleep. I can remember at least three dreams. Paul Weller has a song called 22 Dreams. Can you dream 22 dreams in one night? And remember them? In mine I was losing my hair, in another the Prom was jam-packed with holiday-makers sleeping in their cars or sitting outside them on the pavement and I couldn’t walk passed them and keep my required distance. In the final one I was visiting the gallery I’m do a project with and the director was making me coffee but the pan from which he was pouring still had a cloth in it, which was soaking up the liquid. It’s almost all gone, he said, not noticing the cloth. I said it was fine and I’d make my own. People were milling around and again not keeping their distance and then I was outside looking for him but he was nowhere to be seen. The landscape was different, I was now in a suburban setting, more like Guildford than North Wales.
They’re just anxiety dreams, he said at breakfast.
I saw no one this morning apart from an Eddie Stobart driver in his cab waiting for the night workers at either Tesco’s or Marks to let him into the loading bay. Oh, and the man on his computer. He had headphones on this morning. I wonder what he does. A mizzly, drizzly morning which wasn’t unpleasant to walk in.
Onward. Work. Licorice tea. Two days to go with my fast. A bit of hotchpotch but I believe I’m better for it. Though the hunger never really went away. Saved money though.
I listened to a consultant from Ilford on The World at One yesterday talking about the impact of the pandemic on him and his staff. They’ve been working 13 hour days. I was humbled and moved. He sounded a kind man, but a tired one. Two patients have come out of intensive care, he said. That is good. Bless them. All of them.
We’d passed the time of day before, said hello, nodded, that sort of thing but never actually properly spoken to him before. We’d gone to the wasteland (now our wasteland) to sit in the sun and he came along with what looked like a large bag of garden waste. Where’s he going? he said, watching him head towards what he calls ‘our little dell’ (though we’ve not yet been down there). Probably to empty the bag, I said. We greeted him when he returned. He has a nice face, open and friendly. Though he has two grown up children, I’d say he was in his late forties, sporty and fit, he bounces a little as he walks. I’ve watched him often. We can see their house below us, the lawn he cuts lovingly every weekend and now the bench he sits on at about 11.30 am every day with a cup of tea. He’s as regular as I am. I do my yoga then and can see him as I do. Do they watch us? We exchanged names and talked a little of the situation and of their neighbours who have since left. They were a little distant, he said. These were Elephant’s parents, do you remember me telling you about them? We thought they might be part of religious sect that discouraged mixing with ‘non-believers’. He told us where he worked and what he did, which makes our supposition perhaps a little less likely, but you never know. It’s nice to know their names now. He makes me feel safe. He looks capable, kind. I wonder what he does. He is less worried about coming across as nosy then I am and asked all sorts of questions. A common cultural attachment exists between them after all. He had a real local accent, he said, could you hear it? They are very Welsh. She is a diminutive woman, who loves the sun. She’s as brown as a berry now. I am interested in people but I try to hold back. Let them be. We saw our nearer neighbour yesterday on our return from the dump. Over a hundred now she does look frail. Do you think she is thinner? I asked him. She may be failing, he said. It was strange this new rule of standing away. It feels awkward, rude. She did it and so did we. One tries to be friendly at the same time but the body language belies the smiles.
I lay in bed struggling to sleep and fretted over the situation. How will it be once it is relaxed. What will normal feel like? How will it be to return to work? Will work be open to me? It is hard to find out what one wants in this stasis. Let it be then. Just be here in the present, breathing, being alive.
A misty morning, not unpleasant. And I am feeling a little better. My tastebuds are beginning to reawaken. I am grateful.
My phoning is at the moment rather redundant, she isn’t alone, her daughter is with her all day and yet I persist. It’s partly that I don’t want to put her in the position of having to say no to me. She is a gentle being, so alive to causing offence. So I continue calling her every Friday. I like hearing her voice, though at time it is a burden, especially when I have other things I feel I ought to be doing. But it does both of us good. I like to think she believes (and it’s true) that I think of her, hold her in my head for that period of time, my time is hers and I want to hear her stories. She tells them well. Often they are repeats but it doesn’t matter this is her life and I treasure it, no matter how small. To her it is immense, her world, her whole world. Yesterday she told me of her cat. A feral creature, well virtually who lives in her shed. She’s had a second litter. Though she couldn’t work out where the tom or toms had come from. I hadn’t seen any, she said. But pregnant she was and has had four kittens. The cat allows her to pet her generally but when she has kittens she is aggressive and tense. Understandably so. And the other day when they’d gone in to see them there had been only three kittens in the basket. The mother had the other one in her mouth and was trying to secrete it in a gap in a pile of lumber. They rescued it but not without her baring her teeth and puffing up. Was she trying to protect it? I asked. She couldn’t say. It’s a concern for them, as is how to get her spayed in this lockdown. She can’t bring herself to slaughter the kittens, something that most farmers, he would say, would not think twice about. I ask about deliveries. They have one for this week but they are hard to come by. I think of her, wonder what she is like. I imagine someone bird-like but I could be wrong. Sweet woman. Keep well, keep safe. Enjoy your garden this weekend.
