Sometimes it’s the smell of lilies and the look of them boxed on her kitchen floor. Sometimes it’s the fluster of silk on her wooden stairs, how people busy themselves around her as she sits.
Now and again it’s the smell of nail varnish, sharp and clean, almost fruity, cutting through her day. Quite often it’s the thought of her mug of tea to her right, going cold as women fuss. One kneels down and laces her boots while the other stands behind her and sticks clips into her hair.
She notes how the moments jump haphazard, back and forth. The barefoot giggling, the squealing down the phone line, the faces waiting as she rustles down the stairs and then the door.
Sometimes it’s the front door open wide, the look of April grass, sap-full of promise in the sunlight but always it’s the crisp smell of taffeta, the feel of it, the weight of it, the look of it around her form. And then the leaving.
Most times it’s the leaving and her ivory heels on the mat in the foot-well of the car. And everyone who wakes up on that morning, who passes them as they drive by, will notice her, will smile and wave and she will know that decades later, that she’ll recall their faces even though they’ll have forgotten her.
And then the stone path comes into view, her clipping and shuffling into the heavy hush, dust particles hanging in the air like prayers. And most times, in fact all of the time, it’s the haze of photons, marking seconds, as if to say they’re waiting, just like he was. Waiting as she smiles towards him, knowing. And she moves through in slow-mo silence to his side.
Again and again and again. With her shield of flowers.
Sometimes later, it’s the metal sound of the hotel fire escape, as they sneak their way back in, when the guests have waved them off, when the guests think they have gone. High heels and alcohol, such a potent combination but they still make it to their room.
And then the cathedral looms up out of sequence, permanent against drunk daffodils. She tilts, she swirls against the ancient backdrop, arms outstretched with wings of chiffon, secure against the stone, pearlescent in the rays.
In the evening yards of taffeta bunch up to make a bustle and she inhabits it as though it’s intrinsic to her form. Music frays, lights and faces twirl, handshakes, hugs and tiredness falls.
And it flips back to the waiting and then the moving out towards. Always. Moving forwards, always holding flowers, a beacon to light the way.
The waiting there, this waiting here with purpose, with belief and certainty. And this is how it was, how it is.
And it makes me wonder what I’d say, if I could say all the things in my head, if I could give you all the images and moments, all the feelings, thoughts and words.
And if I could shape them, if I could form them out of the mist rolling in by your door, would you hold them, would you take them in your arms and keep them close?
I move as if unhindered by time, the mist rolls in, softening me, droplets of water around my words. And beyond the bustle, in the place that only we know, there is calm.
Her mother’s best table cloth, the awkward smile over chicken salad or was it ham?
Churchyard trees smelt of Radox, pine crumbled in her hand.
Closed restaurant, tattered menu through the window reflecting them.
The lager soaked pub carpet, did she mention modern art, and lost her train of thought?
The Mason’s Arms, the slight hill by the Job Centre.
In Brueton Park the aviary was empty, a sense of space, of absence in the caged birdshit and lost feathers.
And from the bench the mowed grass, sap full, fell away from them like rolling years then stopped at the sudden gate.
Red t-shirt in the evening, pushing chicken round a ceramic bowl. Trying to be elegant. White cold stone, little Bistro walls, The Fat Cat in Solihull, it’s probably a nail bar now or tattoo parlour.
Later. The quiet house. The Fleur de Lys of her parent’s sofa. Running her finger over its edge.
The kettle boiled, she turned to him, she felt the kitchen cupboards up her back before she made the tea.
The chime of her parent’s mantelpiece clock, the weave on his fair isle jumper.
These things.
She dropped by to watch them as though it wasn’t decades ago.
Following myself along is sometimes confusing. I do get lost at times. I start out down by the river by the ancient bridge. I wonder how I’m connected to the woman in the photo from 1905, with her skirt brushing the pavements. I jump-cut, I fly.
But I know how I’m connected to the woman in 1962, sipping strong tea, exhausted and her brand new warm pink baby has a heavy head, it makes her arm ache, her thin arms that would entangle mine on-top of Pendle Hill, years later. You know the hill? That hill, her arms, that baby, this life.
You know how it goes. So I keep following myself. The river flows over rocks, timeless. There are words in the river. I wander by waters. Fluid.
1. Right. Fine. I’ll just look at the sky then, I’ll just notice how the may tree berries echo the salmon shade of clouds. Soft charcoal trees on the Ridgeway where I used to walk. I know, I know – someone made it February. What can I do?
2. Pale lime and almost moss green of the parsley into soft lemon, fading now. Bright spots of chrome, diamonds on my tap, underneath uncertain cloud. Strawberry pink plastic peg on the Delft flower pot like a boiled sweet, almost translucent, promise of a saccharin hit. Not right now. Nameless old lady walks Jasper. I know the Jack Russell’s name but not hers.
3. There’s too much sky to my left, in the place where the Medical Centre used to be. How the building site disturbs me, can’t they see what they’ve done. I’m there somewhere in the rubble and cement dust, somewhere in tiny pieces, as if to ram home the point under their bulldozers. The High Viz jackets upend me.
4. If I iron, if I ease out creases and watch the smoothness spread then I’ll be able to take deeper breaths, then there’ll be control, of sorts, even if it’s only control over fabric. It’s a start.
5. Cursor flashing, marking time. Come on in, the keyboard’s lovely. You’ll be alright, I’ll take your hand, your tapping finger, the one with the Lapis Lazuli ring. You know the one, the one with the hidden depths.
6. My body starts to regulate. I feel tears drop off my cheekbones. I focus on the sound of the heating creaking through the walls. I notice the cold slate sky but it still warms me. I wipe my eyes, the boiler clicks off. Round we go again. I will be fine. My breathing settles.
7. Shhh, I’m not really here right now, so I’ll be quiet. It’s a honed skill but one of which I’ve grown tired. Workmen are tearing up the street, new fibre optics coming in, territorial parking in dissary. They saunter with wheelbarrows, owning the day, smashing up the pavement where I used to walk. Shovels scrape. I might nod to them if I go out, might not. See how I feel.
8. Boiler firing up, pipes chuntering regardless of where I sit or what I do. Underneath it all, like Miles Davis in the background, softened but there, inescapable. And through windows Yesterday’s Girl catches my eye. I’m trying not to look at her but she’s coming close.
9. The radiator tries its hardest. Still fails to get through to me. For a while all it can do is watch me go into a flat spin.
10. Hello granite, it’s been a long time. I’ll just lie here then, I’ll just be smeared out under your might and grace. Don’t mind me. Do your worst. And then. Throat punch. I swallow down, gag on my words.
11. The reliable expansion of my ribcage, my diaphragm filling with air. And in the micro pause before the outbreath all the other worlds play out around me. The possibilities of all the lives not lived and all the moments of this one cascading, overlaid, looping in a numinous form, every second a symphony again and again and again. And then I breathe out.
12. What do I do with this then? White lines on the window ledge almost as though it’s a bright day, almost like a reflection of the sun, as though spring is demanding of me. I have noticed. It’ll be Thursday soon then I’ll look. I mean it will be Friday. Friday, not Thursday. It’s Thursday I’m careening into. I stumble over words and thoughts. Fraying.
13. It rained today, of course. I fought it hard, did my best, even tried my salsa moves. But my body knows better, it takes me to the Relative’s Room, too much orange paint, I don’t like orange paint, not now. Why didn’t they paint it blue, something calming? I press my face up the window, it’s cold. Black buildings reflect back at me. Harsh, empty, soulless shapes. Rain smacks the glass. I push my forehead into the pane. I feel nothing. I try to breathe. Tomorrow’s coming.
14. Rooms. Faces. Magazines, low coffee table. Their soft sofa. More faces. Mouths move. I forgot to take the food out of the oven last night. Some things I forget. I make a fist with my small hand, neat nails digging into my palm. Little indents, tiny smiles. Fade. Repeat. The heat in my lower back, push against the radiator, bring me back to now. Branches tremble in the faint breeze. Yes, watch the branches. Faces. Mouths move. Repeat.
15. I don’t remember my shoes. I wonder what I wore, not that it matters. I remember my coat. Blue. Blue curtains. Flash frame, freeze frame. Repeat. And yet sound is distant, vague. Unsure shoes always walking corridors. Rooms. Faces. Words. Always words. Mouths telling me things. Moving mouths. Still, the berries have almost gone off the may tree outside my window and the starlings in my roof embrace the day. Berries drop, some get eaten, some rot. Some I brush out of the way. I make movements with my arms, hold the broom like an oar, heave myself through thick waters and remember I have a body. My body tries to come back to me, hesitant, fracturing. Leave my head with the berries. They roll around, relational, atomic. I notice crocus pushing through the lawn, hesitant, striving. I brush my thoughts into the road. Spring soon. Always flowers. So many flowers and scents and dancing to come. And music. And colours. My body starts to come back to me. Carry me back. Bring me back. Make me Now. Make it magnificent.
Back in November 1895 someone was feeling the warmth of their new born baby. Someone whose name I do not know. And I wonder if she watched the sun come up like I do, if she saw the edge of a winter’s sky bleed into the day. Soft, quiet bleeding like the pulsing that bought my grandmother into the world.
And I wonder about this woman I never knew, did she look up into the velvet sky, streaked with tangerine, did she pause from staring into the eyes of her baby to wonder about her descendants, did she listen to the birds, in their agitation, sensing gentle heat to come.
And wherever she lay and breathed on this winter’s morning 128 years ago, her breath made me possible. Her cries of pain enable my words now, allow my thoughts as I watch the street waking up, my neighbour scraping the blush of frost off the windows of his car. He doesn’t look up though, he doesn’t see the soothing sky, the swaddling clouds around me now, around my great grandmother back then.
And I think of her, reach out to her, wonder about her joys and losses, the places in herself where she felt most alive, as though she was the only person to experience such intensity. And could she imagine this world 128 years ahead?
I look up, nothing is still. The birds quiver, the steam leaves the flue of my boiler, spiralling, dissolving into the air like the unseen atoms of all the generations before me, holding me while I’m here.
And my thoughts seep out, a snapshot of a moment, of all of us alive right now, now as I put these words out into the universe, now as you read them, all of us doing our best to find certainty in this unending change.
And just before the sun spills over the rooftops, just before I’m dazzled in its spitting helium, I wonder about our world 128 years from now.
Will someone be looking up, watching the heat and light come back, will someone know my name, will someone remember me at all? And the planet spins on its axis, chemical reactions take place and people affect each other.
And in the photons dancing all around me I feel the echo of my great grandmother, the gift of new life in her arms and the capacity for love.
And people busy themselves with work and commitments, responsibilities, rushing into the day. I want to shout to them from my window. Live, just live NOW.
128 years from now the sunlight will come back, there will be dawn to melt the frost on a winter’s morning and I wonder who will be grateful that I lived.
And 96 years ago last week that tiny baby girl at my great grandmother’s breast, gave birth herself and held the youngest of her three girls in her small strong arms. And 37 years after that moment, one of her daughter’s eggs which nestled in her abdomen when she was born, merged with another force and sparked and burst into life.
And there in the bitter blackness of an early winter’s morning I pushed out. There, on an unknown bed in a hospital that’s long since been pulled down, I took in air. My lungs filling in consequence of a woman I never knew.
128 years ago, and I am grateful for her womb, for her love, her strength and her life.
I’m called to stand on my doorstep, I’m almost outside.
I need to feel the cold air bite my skin, the wind whip my hair, the rain brush the pavements as I feel my way to you.
There’s something about the blackout of early evening, something pulling at me to leave the house, escape the four walls that surround me.
And the rain shines the pavements as I puddle jump, rushing, a sense of hurrying to find you.
I’m wrapped up in red fleece, blown to kingdom come but I still know where I’m going.
The tall trees beyond my house twist and yearn like they know, like they truly understand despite the storm. I stand in the cold, hugging my earl grey. I crave this weather.
And if I’m still and listen, if I stop and feel then it’s almost as though there’s nothing inbetween us, no distance, no space and no time.
I shove my hands deep in my pockets, things rustle, like gifts, like precious moments to come. I hold tight to their promise.
Street lights, shop lights break the black, dazzle in the darkness, reflect up at me as I splash towards you. People blur, irrelevant.
And then later I’m there, shimmering, sparkling at your side.
Still in her chair approaching year end and she wanted to be his blanket. Hours peeled across the day, time was moving though she wasn’t.
She appeared to have put herself on pause. It was a limbo where she breathed in and out. She remembered the shape of this place from many years ago, from a time when all she could do was process thoughts. And she thought about his blanket.
Maybe that was all she could do for now. If there ever was a time when she knew she was more then flesh and blood, when she knew she was a soul in human form, then it was now.
Now, when she felt the restriction of her edges, when everything inside her yearned to reach him. Now, when she sat up late in the corner of her lounge that they knew well and she wondered if he was on his sofa trying to reach her? Were they somehow together now, in this second at 22:40 as she typed?
She still had a body, but it was only an encasement, while everything else, the very essence of her, left her form and wrapped itself around him.
And just like that, her head scattered across the fields. Wings battered into wings and feathers drifted down to nestle in the hedgerows underneath.
It was as though no decibels came before her, or after her, as though she, herself, created all disturbance on the air, that her thoughts created sound waves through the universe.
The fields shook under the force of her birds in flight. The sky heaved. She waited.
I don’t mind that the night is here, blowing through my letterbox or that the trees are tousled and distressed. I’m safe inside.
And deeper still, inside my mind I’m casting shadows on white concrete, with linen draping off me in the heat. Saturation turned to full, in the welcomed citrus hues outside Matisse’s house, the shuttered windows winking at me, telling me that everything will be ok.
If I lived there, I’d be up early every day, lace- trimmed skirts, bare shoulders in the sunlight. I’d buy oranges just for the scent of the juice, for the feel of the pith under my nails. I’d always smile.
But here, autumn is gearing itself up to shed. It’s fine. It’s all fine though. I spend my hours in Nice, where time frayed, where the white sand said don’t worry. And I listen in the tangerine light, I let it show me the way.
There was a fuchsia toy poodle in Cannes, in the afternoon, the owner dressed in the identical shade, both of them teetering and glittering. I didn’t see them myself, but I heard a tale about them.
Janey L Foster 