Christ but it’s cold. I spent half an hour this morning wrestling with the controls, trying to generate any sort of heat, but the whole system is run on Economy 7, which is next to bloody useless. My attempt at running a bath was an utter failure. All I’ll say is that if that boiler isn’t capable of providing enough hot water for me to poach, chin-deep, at least once a day then the two of us are going to have a serious falling-out.
Lit a fire which brightened things up a little, but at this rate the small bag of coal and the two or three logs are going to be used up in no time at all. So I have started a little list: ‘Logs … coal … kindling’, closely followed by ‘booze … fags’. Maybe those last two should go at the top. I added ‘Milk … bread … etc.’ almost as an afterthought. I’m not very big on eating at the moment. The drinking remains quite constant, but the eating comes and goes.
Called in at both pubs last night. The first has been heavily gastrophised and is nothing like how I remember it, with too many lights and too few people making altogether too much noise. I suspect the place is roundly despised by the locals as the clientele seems to consist almost exclusively of boaty types and second-home owners. Whoever they are, they certainly didn’t lack self-confidence, on any number of issues. You must’ve been able to hear them halfway down the street. And they seemed to take quite a bit of interest in me. Not to the point of actually speaking to me, of course. Just sly little glances in my direction, as I sat in the corner, doing my crossword, steadfastly ignoring them.
The other pub – the Lord Nelson – is more traditional and doesn’t seem to have changed too much, with a low ceiling and barrels of beer propped up behind the counter and lampshades that haven’t been wiped in twenty years. The kind of place John would’ve liked. But at least the drinkers at the bar were fully engaged with one another and didn’t seem to give a toss about me. Perhaps it was because I was onto my third or fourth drink by then, but as I sat there I could feel myself begin to relax a little. To the point that I started to look up from my paper and peer around the place. And when the barman came along and took my empty glass he gave me a smile that made me feel, perhaps quite mistakenly, that there was a real kindness to it – so much so that I very nearly burst into tears again.
It’s true what they say about the kindness of strangers. In fact, to be honest, I haven’t the first idea what it is they say about such things. All I know is that some unsolicited kind word from the chap behind the counter in the newsagent’s or the boozer has a way of lifting the heart, and breaking it at the same time.
Of course, I’m an utter wreck at the moment, so my judgement is probably a little skewed. The emotional stuff I can more or less weather. At least you can convince yourself that it’s somehow helping you let off some steam. It’s all the other stuff – the panic attacks and so forth – I can’t be doing with. I find it hard to put a positive spin on that.
When I left London in such a hurry I was aware that I’d been seriously jumpy for a good couple of hours. I often am these days. I hate this time of year, when it starts to get dark before the afternoon’s even over. I’m afraid of the dark. Can you credit it? I’m sixty-three and I’m frightened of the bloody dark.
But it was worse than that. I’d had a bath, with a few essential oils dribbled into it (‘Yes, I’d like an oil to stop me being terrified all the time …’), and had a bit of something to eat. I was watching telly and I could feel myself getting more and more agitated. I don’t think it had anything to do with what I was watching. I can’t even remember now what was on. I just had this irresistible urge to get up and start moving about the place. Like some wild animal in a cage.
Then, suddenly, it seems I’d made a decision, and I was grabbing clothes and swearing and locking up the house. Then I was in the car, and heading north as quickly as possible, which was already too late. Because I needed to be out of London … now. Needed to be far, far away – immediately. With luck, I might just about manage to get clear of the city without actually killing somebody. And if not, then what the hell.
Whatever propelled me felt utterly instinctive. Almost primitive. Which makes it sound quite natural and even reassuring. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t like that at all.
*
I bought a bottle of Gordon’s and a box of tonics from the Spar shop this afternoon, along with a couple of bottles of Sauv Blanc, a few nibbles, etc. The woman on the till was quite impassive but I have a funny feeling that round here one’s alcoholic purchases are quite closely monitored. Ah well – fuck ’em. For all I care they can put a big blackboard up on the wall and keep a tally of my daily intake. I’ll write it up myself.
I assumed I’d also be able to pick up a few bags of coal there, but for some reason they don’t stock it, so I had to drive a couple of miles out to some windswept garage. How do you cope, I wondered, if you don’t happen to own a car? What if I never quite muster the courage to leave this neck of the woods and end up hanging about until the old legs pack up? I’d have to have it delivered, I suppose. I’d be the old dear with her face up at the window, waiting for the coal.
I was halfway to the garage before I noticed something flapping on the windscreen. A parking ticket. And suddenly there I go again. That terrible tripping-up of oneself, when my first thought is that I’m going to get an earful from John for being so stupid. And the next thought is, Well, actually, no. Far from it. Because John is dead, and therefore not about to give a stuff about parking tickets or any other thing.
The whole sequence of thoughts is over in a flash. It’s as if I’m just footling along, come round a bend and disappear into a walloping great hole. It’s the same hole. I just keep finding new ways of approaching it. If I have a hunch what’s coming I can sometimes steer myself around it. Somehow give myself a fraction of a second in which to swerve. But most of the time I just go sailing in.
So yet another of the nation’s unsuspecting garage employees is forced to witness the strange, snivelling lady. Thankfully, this one was good enough to help me load the coal and logs into the boot of the car. From the forecourt I could see the sea all laid out below me and was tempted to have a little drive down there, but ultimately decided against it. Couldn’t quite commit. So I drove back to the village and pulled up as near as possible to the cottage (which is to say, not very close at all) and discovered that the bags of coal in particular weigh an absolute ton and it took me about twenty minutes to drag everything down the alley to my widow’s cottage, by which time I was dripping with sweat.
Parked the car in the village car park where I’ve been assured I can leave it all week without getting a ticket, but managed to scrape one of the wings as I squeezed through the gateposts. Strange. I scrape the paintwork of the car and it doesn’t bother me. But an hour or so earlier I get a parking ticket and it feels like the end of the world.
*
I don’t really feel like walking, or frankly doing anything much at the moment. But I thought I should at least get outside for ten minutes before the last of the daylight goes.
I think that’s why I first fell for this part of East Anglia. You have the sense of so much sky above you. So much space. Which can be a bit overwhelming. One feels exposed, somehow – vulnerable. But the saltmarshes, which are actually a good deal greener than their name suggests, take the edge off the bleakness. They give it a kindness. And there’s that word again.
Winter suits this landscape. Winter and autumn. Those are the only seasons I’ve been up here. I’m not sure I’d be inclined to visit it any other time of the year.
I only walked a couple of hundred yards but it was enough to get clear of all the houses and hear the wind in my ears. The tide was in, which is not to suggest that there were waves crashing about the place, only that all the little creeks were full. The saltmarshes are like a sponge. When the tide comes in the ground turns soggy. The tide goes out and the sponge dries out a bit.
I was just wandering around when the sun came out for a couple of moments. Nothing spectacular, but enough to feel the warmth on one’s face. I thought of that poem by one of the First World War poets – Owen, I think – called ‘Move him into the sun’. About some poor wretch who’s half-dead, and how one of his comrades suggests they drag him into the sun, to try and revive him.
Well, I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the sun and waited – for it to revive me … to heal me … to help me out in any shape or form. I could actually feel it failing to penetrate. Feel it failing to do its stuff. I think I could have probably stood there all afternoon and it still wouldn’t have done me any good.
*
Now at least I’m tucked up by the fire. I’m tempted to do a bit of reading. But I know the moment I start I’ll just nod off. I’m doing my best not to watch any telly. I’m not sure why exactly. It’s not as if I consider the TV to be particularly evil or anything. It’s just that if I watch it I forget where I am, and when I suddenly remember I go into a bit of a panic. Whereas if I just sit and stare at the fire I know that I’m here. I still worry, but after a while it’s not so bad. Which must sound mightily pathetic, I’m sure, but right now that’ll just have to do.