ellen bell

I felt stripped bare yesterday, skinless, and exposed. I think it was from listening to the radio docudrama about the man who left his family for over 18 months and to all intents and purposes disappeared. It was so moving, so gripping and with no happy endings (though I’ve not reached the end quite yet). The man talked about sleeping rough, drinking, feeling like he was dissolving, and waking up to being pissed on. My heart opened to him to them his family, so much so that when I had to go out, out into the world to deal with ordinary things I was unprepared, fragile. And then work. Everything clanged and clashed. I drank too much tea to compensate and my nerves jangled. Then coming home there was the smell.

He couldn’t smell it. What is it? he asked. I couldn’t describe it. A stink. A rank odour. It smelt of rotting vegetation, fish, guano. It was bitter and acrid, vinegary. It stank of what I imagine lutfisk smells like when the tin is finally opened after months of ‘curing’ or should I say rotting. It seems to be coming from our neighbours’ flat downstairs. Had someone died? Was it a decomposing body? No, I heard cutlery against plates. Were they eating it? That foul odour, was it actually food? It was still there this morning. I left the back door open wide to the cold morning air but it makes little difference, it is still eeking out. How can they stand it? Or is it just me, being too sensitive. I lit a sage stick and walked around the flat wafting it, trying to avoid setting off the smoke alarms.

A cold walk. The moon is shrinking and the light dwindling. We go deeper into the tunnel of winter.

He stopped me as I walked past. I’d seen him ahead of me. The Prom, except for this man, was empty. A whole stretch of emptiness. I was wary. He was standing in front of a row of B&Bs as if he’d just come out of one of them. What made him stand out was the fact that he was only wearing shorts, socks and no shoes, and it was what, only 5 or 6 degrees out there. He called out to me, and pointed at the sky and then moving closer showed me his phone. The screen revealed a online article about the meteor shower due that morning. I remembered hearing about it. He pointed up at the sky ahead. He was clearly have trouble articulating what he wanted to say. Was he pissed? His accent was North Walian, though he spoke to me in English. The photographers are all down there, he said, pointing towards the harbour. It’s at five past three, he said, again pointing at the sky. Thank you for letting me know, I said, and walked on. Keep looking, he shouted after me. And I did. And kept looking. Nothing.

I don’t know what a meteor shower looks like. And as I made my way home I could see that clouds had begun to form across the semi-moon. Did I miss it? I had kept looking up, feeling a little silly like some ever-hopeful Chicken Licking.

I need a seminar, my love. Can we go and sit and I can talk it through? So many things swirling, it would be good to ground some of it. Glimmers of hopefulness come through. I think it is the sun. Off to add a codicil to my Will soon. A change of name, that’s all. I want it all neat and tidy, ready, taken care of. I think about it often, the leaving, and how to do it neatly. It’s all I can do really. Wrap it. Order it. Taking care.

I heard it several times overheard, flying over our roof. They must be looking for someone, he said, his head bent over the newspaper. It was early, before 6 am. It’s a sinister sound. I don’t know why. Insistent, like an insect buzzing, chasing, haranguing.

I dreamt I was trying to make a dress and the pattern I was working from was a lot more complicated than I’d bargained for. (How like life. And indeed this sampler I’m working on for one of the poppets. Ugh, I keep mis-counting, and I want to throw a tantrum at my incompetence.) I kept looking back at the picture on the pattern. It looked like a wedding dress but the loose folds at the front of the bodice didn’t appeal to me. Did I really want to make this dress? I kept asking myself. Then I saw other images of women in it, though the dress had changed. Then I saw bits of women’s torsos – naked, like a painting. Then I was due to start teaching again, or was I just applying? It was at a post-ed college – and someone was telling me about all the meetings I’d have to attend. Some are at midnight, the person was saying. My heart sank. Do I really want all that back? Then my colleague at work was on the phone, could I do the booking for midnight? Why can’t you do it? I wanted to ask. I’d do it, he said, but I have to drive all the next day. Alright, I said, I’ll do it. Then I woke, a little before my alarm.

A cloudy day. Writing done and sent. One more to do. Sewing today and my fingers are already sweaty with the tension of doing it wrong. Will she notice? It’s a bit like one of the Spot the Difference puzzles my niece and nephew love to do. Who can spot that the giraffes are not exactly the same size?

I’m always a little uncomfortable writing about her. I know her sensibilities, she is diffident, she keeps close to herself and I in turn wish to vouchsafe such needs. And yet, I also want to celebrate her, remember the things she shares with me, the nuances of her speech, for that is all I have to go on as we’ve never met. So I keep it anonymous, I keep her safe. We talked about the cold, the biting wind. She doesn’t have central heating in that little house of theirs. There is a cold fire and several electric heaters. And when its really cold I’ve got my poncho, she said. I delved a little deeper yesterday. I asked her what she used to do. She was a secretary from what I could gather, working for an author and educator. Someone Ellis. She expected me to know of him. I don’t. Then I delved deeper and she spoke of her ex-husband. I presume they are divorced now. He used to hit her when he started drinking and he was jealous of their daughter. She threw him out in the end. She went to his place of work to tell him. I wanted it to be public, she said. It was the day after he’d bashed the door down and beat her severely. She told him she didn’t want to see him ever again, in front of all his work colleagues. She finds courage. She always finds courage. That’s when she and daughter left the family home and found the house they live in now. It’s up in the hills. We don’t have much, she said. But it’s nice now that I have my pension. She had to make do when the girl was small. It was hard. But she never complains. I have so much admiration for her. It’s those small victories that speak the loudest.

The morning was dry and the wind, though keen was bearable.

A girl in leggings and an oversized orange anorak skateboarded passed me in the middle of the road. She looked unsure of herself, gangly.

I begin writing today. I’m always nervous. What if it doesn’t come? Just sit with it. It will. It will.

I’ve only ever heard him shouting at them, in their garden mainly and like yesterday when he’s trying to get them all into the car to take them to school. She, by contrast appears so gentle, so attentive towards them. They are both tall and stringy. Both runners. But he is sharp edged where she is languorous. I’ve never spoken to them. We watch them, he and I from afar, intrigued. They rarely connect with their neighbours. Are they part of a religious sect we muse who frown upon contact with those outside of their faith? Perhaps. Arthur, Arthur, he was shouting at his son yesterday, get out. Get out now. And the boy was hauled out of the back seat of the car. Arthur is a dreamy child. I’ve watched him singing and dancing outside his house, in his own world. Happy it seems. Does their father’s ranting disturb them or does she soften his carping?

The milkman was delivering to the flats through the hall as I left our home for my walk this morning. It is always slightly alarming to encounter someone in the early dark like that. Hi, he called, as he slipped through the door, a dark figure, faceless. Good morning, I called back.

They got it wrong. There was no wind or rain. Though that must be little compensation to those in Yorkshire or indeed Venice. May they find some comfort, some succour and may the hell recede soon.

My ribs are still giving me gip as is my finger. Healing takes so much longer when you are as old as the hills.

I dreamt she and I were talking. We were outside in a kind of pleasure garden, rather like Tivoli. She was telling me of her boss. He was called Duncan. It’s the most she’s said to me in a long time. Her face was softer, kinder. It felt good to be on better terms with her, though nothing is ever revealed. Then there were two children, up close, near my face. They were smiling and laughing, the little boy, I knew had been fathered by a movie star. I wandered around the garden, there were lots of people sitting at tables, chatting and eating. The light was dappled, shade and sun, I wanted to find a patch of sun and saw an empty deckchair. Was it owned, was it free, could I sit there? Then I woke.

I’ve much to do – strands and notes and preparations. She was a delight to interview – so full of life. I felt honoured. Thank you. x

I only remembered the tail end of it. I was in some sort of hospice or rest home. There were many other women there, mostly middle-aged like me. We were friendly towards each other, connected by a common experience of being unwell. However, being there helped – we all agreed that we were feeling better for the rest, for stepping out of our domestic, busy lives. We were all seeing consultants, men in suits and white coats. Men who looked over the rim of the glasses at us. Two of them had gone for lunch and I was alone in their consulting room when they returned. I’d been looking at a working small internal combustion engine on the floor, knowing that it was part of me, or at least symbolic of one of my organ. Was it my heart? They weren’t angry that I was in there, more happy that I was interested. You see, one of them said, you’re behaving like you are still young when you are not – you are asking too much of it, he said, pointing at the engine.

The supermarket is getting full with Christmas stuff. Above the bread were large boxes of Christmas Crackers. He saw me looking at them. Can we not bother with those things? he asked. Can we just do lights, candles and carols and not go to church either? I said yes, but reluctantly. I like to go to take communion but, like him, I don’t want to bump into neighbours either. If only I could go somewhere anonymously. It’s hard in a small town, even if few people know my name. But the crackers haunt me a little. I know they are a waste of money. Gimcrack tat, but they tap into a childish love of such stuff. The glitter of it, like snow domes, it, they give me something like joy. Just a frisson. I’ll go with whatever you want, he said in the car. I know. I might not bother, but it would be nice to think maybe.

My alarm went off early. Is that a full moon thing? I got up anyway. It’s nice to have a stretch of time.

Nervous about the call. And about the writing. I always am. Sometimes I just want, need to keep life small, pocket-sized.

I don’t know him well. He was a flirtation. We both did it. It was light, trivial, a nothing but it gave me, and I believe him, a fillip. He even turned up at the same restaurant once after I’d told him a few days before that I was going there with a friend. What was that about? He there with his wife, and me with a girlfriend. We both sat on tables on the terrace – it was hot. We nodded to each other. I didn’t know what to make of it. He invaded my dream, out of the blue. We can have a cuddle, he said. And I knew he was waiting for me to join him in his bed. I wanted to but hesitated, taking a long time to appear. What about your wife? I asked. She’s dead, he said. It’s a good time. He had a girlfriend, who I also spoke to, but he implied it was not solid, not important to him. I wanted him. But I still hesitated. I even asked him if it would be OK. Or perhaps when I woke for a pee that was what I decided I would do. I kept returning to the dream – should I or shouldn’t I? The last few nights I’ve dreamt of lovers. Is it the moon? It is big, huge. I walked under its gleam. I love that. The dark is less sombre. A good walk. My legs are less heavy. The symptoms not so raging. Is it passing? Is it all an illusion? Was the consultant wrong?

He didn’t sleep well again last night but he is less miserable about it. For now the sun shines. Let it remain. Let it stay awhile.

Our kettle died this morning. It makes me sad when things die. I was fond of it. A lovely duck-egg blue with a plump bottom. Rest in my peace little kettle and thank you for the seven years you have given us. He will take it to the tip perhaps someone clever can resuscitate it. I hope so.

I’ve made a mistake in my sewing – the counting is awry. I’m not good at following patterns. It’s always been so. I am not going to unpick – no one would know – I will just adapt it. I’ve come on, in the past it would’ve thrown me berating myself for my incompetence. He would say you’re learning. It’s OK. And it is. To be perfectly imperfectly human is OK. OK?

Can it be a shared thing? Do we tap in whether willingly or unwillingly to a grief felt by nations or even by the world? It felt like it yesterday. It overwhelms me – that 11th hour, that 11th day. All that grief. A tsunami of grief. It isn’t mine. I wasn’t there. I haven’t lost anyone to a war, well not directly, but I still feel it, I still feel something. And the tears come. I see the imagery in my head. It is borrowed imagery from First and Second World War Pathe newsreels, from films, from literature. It is all I can focus on, oh and the radio stories I’ve heard from soldiers of today, or those I’ve listened to down the phone line as a Samaritan. Their grief is a known sadness, a true sadness, I am one step removed but I still weep, as I did at a neighbour’s funeral all those years ago. I am a sponge, I soak it up and emote, wholly taken over with compassion for another’s sorrow. Does it make me fraudulent? I hope not. I remember hugging her widow in the street, alarmed by what had come over me. He was so lost to it, so shell-shocked by her death, and left with a young daughter to care for alone. Sometimes all I can do is feel for others, be with them in their grief, standing alongside. Your grief story is my grief story. Always.

My dreams are so multi-layered at the moment. Mostly lived out in the dark, subterranean, cave-like. There was a marketplace and a table with a few remaining hyacinth bulbs for sale. Yes, I thought, that would give me some pleasure. I watched a woman chose one, breaking off a bulb from a cluster. I walked over to join her. Then David Bowie appeared at my shoulder. Let me buy one for you, he said, beginning to reach over and select one. I hand one in my hand and he took that one too. It’s a shame that they are last weeks, he said, implying that they were not quite up to scratch. He then disappeared and I remembered that he or we hadn’t paid and searched around in my purse for some coins to put in the charity box. (Is that what they are called?) The rest is lost.

A wild morning. I didn’t walk the Prom, they’d promised winds of 42 miles per hour and I don’t want to chance it. The sun shone yesterday, russets, oranges, reds and browns bedecked the trees as we drove by. The town was bustling with people, many army personnel there for the remembrance parades. We sat in the car in silence. A woman walked past talking loudly on her mobile phone. It was good to see her. My other life. I like to be with her, she lifts me, there is so much possibility when I am with her. Outside the light is lifting, somewhat, though the clouds are a murky grey. I shall write today. I don’t relish it. I have no plan. Just begin. Find my way through the dark. There is power in beginning.

She has such a sharpness to her. Just like her. I feel ticked off by it. Hammered on the head by it. Where is her softness, her yielding-ness? I wouldn’t have wanted her to do it. I want love at the end not practicality. And there are enough who love me. Yes. As I love in return.

She seems to keep herself to herself mostly, or so it appears whenever I am in the studio at work. She is self-contained, a tall, long, sylph-like figure who is made enigmatic in her muteness. Then, all of sudden yesterday she spoke. She was on her way out, coat on handbag in hand and I looked up to say goodbye when she stood at the door and turned round. She spoke in English, probably because she could see I was looking. There was one other person in the room and she directed her narration to both of us, though she is used to speaking Welsh to the other person. It was about cat food. She was popping out she said to get cat food. I use mountains of the stuff, she said. I think she has three cats. My mother bought some cheap stuff from Tesco’s, she said, so I thought I’d try it but it made Hank, who’s the fat, greedy one, throw up. Then I realised that the other cats weren’t eating the Tesco stuff and that Hank was eating theirs too. So he was throwing up from overeating. She laughed. So I now have to go and get their usual stuff.

I like these small insights into other people’s lives. I watch them all steadily, making up stories as I do. Do they do the same with me? I don’t know what they think of me. Some are friendly others are not. I don’t socialise with them. I say no to the Christmas Party. It is too much all that, I’ve always find it hard to be in groups. All that forced jollity. All out of context. I listened to Proust as I walked writing about how our social personas are formed by other people’s opinions of us. We have no control over this, prejudices are believed, acted on. We must bear it and try to change them, soften them by gentle degrees. Or not. For what in the end does it matter?

I watched a pale apricot-coloured food carton dancing in the wind, sliding, pirouetting across the road. On the roundabout before the station a gritter truck span round the circle twice, the sand and grit gushing out behind. A taxi joined him in the dance.

She texted me to say she may not be able to make it – though later she said she was determined. Floods and snow. Poor loves. All those mourning the loss of their safe houses. A house behind the Alexandra Hall has flashing lights in its window. First Yuletide comfort I’ve seen. More please, I need to lift this gloom.

Fingers crossed, I wrote back to her. Fingers crossed.