Where the West Wind Blows

by Mary Middleton

  It must be easier to be James.

  To be past all this.

  The girl fidgets on the end of my bed, stretches out her legs, wiggles her plump ankles, her feet encased in grubby pink velour slippers, like my nan used to wear. “Is it your first cut?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  She nods at my bandaged wrists. “Is it the first time you’ve done it?”

  “Oh … yes,” I say, wishing she would bugger off so I could think about James.

  “Are they deep?”

  “Not deep enough; no.”

  “Nor mine,” she sniffs. “Next time I’m doing them deeper and in the other direction, up and down. I did it wrong this time but next time I won’t. I don’t want to end up back in here. The boredom is killing me.”

  I ignore the irony and store the snippet of information away while she sniffs again and twiddles her mousy hair, her mouth slightly open and a gleam of saliva on her lip.

  I am so useless I’ve even got dying wrong.

  The woman in the next bed lets out a wail and begins rocking back and forth, seeking comfort in a comfortless world. No one comes to attend her and the girl and I exchange glances. She raises her eyebrows dispassionately, leans forward to confide in me. “They found all ‘er dead babies buried in ‘er garden. She won’t say if they were dead when they came or if she smothered ‘em after. And there’s no way o’ tellin’.”

  I look at the sad, grey woman who now has only herself to hold in her arms and decide perhaps it is better not to be a mother after all. Everyone in here is lonely. It is loneliness that drove us mad, took away our options. We are all lonely, and every one of us is crazy. We do not ask each other’s names for we have none. We are like spirits in purgatory, a shuttered, clinical purgatory, with some of us passing through to a better place, while others remain indefinitely, wailing like wraiths until our time is done here.

  In the opposite bay another woman is sobbing as she has been since I woke up; she makes no sound but her cheeks are always wet, her eyes are raw as wounds. Empty boxes of tissues are abandoned on her bed, crumpled balls of sodden kleenex falling from the covers to litter the cold tiled floor. The ward sister will scold her when she comes and the junior nurse will grumble as she tidies up around her. Then they will administer her medication and the sad woman will cease weeping for a while and sleep and forget …but just for a while. I hope her dreams are happier than her waking. This woman never gives up crying for long enough to speak to us and none of us know her story.

  In the last bed there is a girl who never cries. She cannot be more than fifteen. She doesn’t seem to like her bed and so she stands and stares blank-eyed from the barred window and speaks to nobody, not even her shrink – therapist. Beneath her eyes there are old bruises, scars on her face and on her neck and she seems to be the saddest of us all.

  This girl is unreachable, unknowable.

  We are all sad here. Sad and alone and I am no different. My fine arts degree and reputation as an artist means nothing in here. Minor celebrity is irrelevant. Just like the rest of them, I am displaced and unloved and, just as in the outside world, I do not belong.

  My accent and life experience sets me apart and, because I am educated the shrink, therapist, seems to think it’s different for me; as if the division of a piece of paper and letters after my name makes me somehow different. But I am bloody well hurting.

  I comply with the therapist and do just as he says, answer with the words he wants to hear or I shall never get out. Escaping from here becomes my only aim although I have no idea where I will go next. I don’t want to go home.

  I shy away from telling my analyst the reasons I can’t return or he would know I am not as recovered as I pretend. I am running from the past into a future I cannot bear. My life with James is back there and I know I need to look forward, even though the future rears before me like a black impenetrable wall, I have to climb it. I just need to learn how to do that.

  Learn how to walk again.

  I don’t expect I will ever run.

  A few weeks before I am allowed to leave, the therapist, not ‘shrink’ you notice, gives me a pencil and some blank sheets of paper and I rediscover my art. There is a sort of healing in the act of reproducing the misery around me. For a few short hours every day I blank James’ face from my mind and make sketches of my fellow inmates – prisoners of misery. It stops me from thinking, numbs my sorrow and for a little while, I am almost me again – a sad, chastened, grown up version of me.

  Soon portraits adorn the walls around my cubicle. The old woman with her owl-like eyes stares wistfully at the floor, her arms crossed upon her breast; the light from the window shadows the scars of the sad girl’s unreadable features and my unlooked for ‘friend’ with her straggly hair and down-turned mouth, clutches her tea-stained dressing gown, her grubby bandages showing at the cuff.

  And, beside them, hang the faces of three of the nursing staff; worn out, upbeat and novice in turn. And I’ve drawn my therapist as I see him so often, his fingers probing his beard, watchful eyes, a slight frown on his brow as he struggles to understand. He will never understand.

  The sitters, those that can acknowledge me, ask to keep their portraits and, as I sign my name in the bottom right hand corner in dark, black strokes, I wonder if I am not committing some sort of perjury for I am not sure I am the person that used to bear that name.

  Four

  When they open the door to let me leave the sunlight blinds me, the traffic deafens me and the petrol fumes taint my tongue. I cannot stay here in London. I have to escape. I cannot go home, even though I promise my analyst that I am ready to return, ready for anything. Instead of taking a taxi to the house I shared with James I trudge along to the letting agent on the high street.

  I want somewhere far away, I tell him, somewhere peaceful, somewhere scenic where I can think, somewhere I can work.

  ***

  From the outside, the cottage is pretty with whitewashed walls, glossy red window frames and a solid wooden door, the paint peeling in the salt laden wind. We are two of a kind, the cottage and I, lonely and a little unkempt. Damaged.

  A path curls through a garden that sprawls with of the sort of things that grow well on a windswept shore; valerian, daisies and dog roses, the blossoms fading now, going to seed …like me.

  Inside it is dark and cool.

  The small rooms, ill served by tiny windows, smell of damp and the fireplaces are the sort that belch more smoke back into the room than can escape up the chimney. The beams on the ceiling are blackened with a hundred or more years of soot and the corners are dark, the furniture sagging, the carpets threadbare.

  But it suits me.

  To me, it is perfect.

  It is remote, small and the hamlet sparsely populated and best of all, I have never been here before and, as far as I know, neither has James.

  I am here alone. He hasn’t followed me. There are no memories to trip me up at every corner, none of his possessions to make me pause and allow my mind to turn backward into yesterday. It is better here where time is slowed and I can continue to heal, lick my wounds and come to terms with the fact I will never be wholly me again.

  The past is a place I must not visit, I must move forward, onward …at all costs …my therapist says so.

  Keeping things to the barest minimum I spend a fortune replacing all my possessions, ordering new clothes, new canvases, new easel, new paint, new palette, new brushes. I shall plunge myself in art, not for profit but for therapy. I don’t intend to live; instead I intend to work, as I never have before and the scenery that surrounds me here is unsurpassed.

  There is scope for healing here, as long as I don’t let myself think.

  Great craggy mountains rear to the back of me, and a stretch of golden sand and vast angry seas are to the front. From the cliff top, where I plan to take my daily walk, I can see the edge of Wales rolling like a siren in the surf.

  Here I will forget or I hope I will fo
rget, at least long enough for the weeping sore of loss to heal into a tight unsightly scab. Once the bleeding has been staunched I can live with a scar. I will always bear the wound, but now but I live only for the day when I can think of him again without losing the will to take my next breath.

  I see nobody, unless you count the woman at the village stores where I collect my daily pint of milk and sometimes a few eggs and a loaf of bread. I have begun to eat again now when I remember to, sparse meals and hot drinks when I fall in the door after a long, windy walk along the shore. But often, I am so eager to put what I have seen onto canvas that I don’t even make time to remove my coat. I take my hot, black coffee up the stairs to the attic room and straight away begin to hurl the dark hues of my torment at the pristine canvas, the sombre greens of the ocean, the dismal greys of the sky.

  It is a little like screaming or hurling anger, or rocks.

  It makes me feel better.

  I lose myself in oils, forgetting to hurt, forgetting to cry, forgetting to live. I have no need to breathe. It’s all about survival now, one day to the next, one foot in front of the other, one more step upon my way toward the end, where I hope, peace might be waiting for me, silently.

  The sun has just risen and I am walking alone in an amber world. The path is ragged with seeding grasses, scattered with the gold and ochre of early autumn and I do not at first notice the figure approaching from the opposite direction. When I do see him, I stop in my tracks and turn to hurry back along the path but realising how odd that will look, I brace myself, force my feet to carry on and allow our paths to cross. The outline of his body grows larger as we near each other. I try to look at the ground, across the sea to the horizon, anywhere but at him but, as we draw level, my eyes are drawn toward him.

  “Good day,” I nod as I force my mouth into an unfamiliar shape. He grunts and as the path narrows and we are forced together, a gust of wind lifts my hair, it streams out behind me and becomes snagged in his coat button, holding me captive. I cry out and, for a few steps, I stumble after him, held fast until he notices my predicament.

  “Hold still.” I feel his fingers moving in my hair. He smells of whisky, and fish and the ocean wind. Blood surges beneath my cheeks and, as soon as I sense I am free, I straighten up and give an embarrassed smile, as close to laughter as I have been for half a year or more.

  For a moment he stands still, accepting my thanks and, looking up at him, I catch my breath, for he has the most extraordinary face that I have ever seen. It is as if his features are sketched in charcoal, thick, harsh strokes, his eyes black as coals and his hair, streaked with grey, is as wild as the west wind. The shadows and plains of his face are ragged, as if the artist has drawn him in a hurry.

  I have the extraordinary desire to take a fingertip to smooth the unforgiving lines and blur his suffering. When his lips move the lines shift and change into something else, something a little softer. “You’re free now. I beg your pardon.”

  His accent has the lilt of the Scots. He doesn’t look me in the eye but sidles past as if he has something to hide and, shaken in spite of myself, I force another smile as if I am a normal person, open and undamaged.

  “It’s no problem,” I say, “have a nice day.”

  After a moment, as his footsteps die away, I turn and watch him tramp along the narrow path, his shoulders hunched against the wind, his head down, blind to the scenic beauty that he moves through.

  I shake my head and go upon my way.

  Five

  “Half a dozen eggs, a small loaf and a jar of coffee. Is instant alright, Bach?” Mrs Davis piles the groceries on the counter and I begin to transfer them to my shopping bag.

  “Instant is fine,” I say, “until I get to the big shops.”

  She holds her head very erect, like a hen and folds her hands across her tummy, fingers linked. “I keep a list here for people who can’t get into town easily, bach and I pick things up for them when I go to the cash and carry. It’s no trouble if you want to add to it.”

  Blinking at her in surprise, I find myself nodding, smiling. “That’s very neighbourly. Do all the villages run a similar service?”

  “In a small place like this it makes sense to help each other, bach. What brand shall I put down?”

  I add a few more things to the list. Some frozen pizza, egg pasta, that sort of thing, then I pick up my shopping bag, turn to leave but, as I reach the door, she calls me back and comes bustling round to my side of the counter to put a friendly hand upon my arm. She stands a little too close. “Now, forgive me. I’m not one to gossip, bach, but I feel someone should warn you. You seem like such a nice girl.”

  “About what?” My curiosity is piqued now and I put my bag between my feet, brush my hair back from my eyes and let her have my full attention.

  “Well, it’s come to my ears that you’ve been seen talking to Mr McAlister.”

  I shake my head, face blank, puzzled. “McAlister? No, I don’t believe I’ve met him. I don’t know the name.”

  She takes my arm and leans in closer. “The odd fellow who lives up on the point. You were talking to him on the cliff path not three days ago.”

  A sudden image of charcoal eyes, windswept hair, passes through my mind’s eye. “Oh, yes. You are right. I did speak to him briefly but I didn’t know his name.”

  “Well, he is not the sort you should be mixing with, bach, not good news at all. He is from ‘off,’ you know. You’d do well to stay away.”

  I raise my eyebrows. Surely this can’t just be to do with him not being local. I’m not local but I’m not dangerous either. I decide to treat her words with heavy scepticism. “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’ve been ‘mixing’ with him but why the warning? What has he done?”

  She clams up, closes her face, lowers her eyelids, folds her arms again as if to contain the tittle-tattle inside. “As I said, I am not one for gossip but take my advice, bach and stay away from him. He is not a very nice man and people talk.”

  As I walk back to my empty cottage I cannot stop wondering what terrible thing Mr McAlister can have done. I’d describe him as odd, quiet, withdrawn and he isn’t Welsh. In fact, he is everything that I am myself, I suppose, but I can’t imagine him hurting anyone. He seemed more frightened than frightening. The only effect he had on me was an irrational desire to paint him. At home in my makeshift attic studio I’ve already made a few rough sketches from memory and I think I almost have him. Subconsciously I’ve been hoping for another glimpse.

  I open the front door, dump the shopping on the kitchen table and stoke up the fire. The Rayburn here is rather like an untrustworthy partner, if you don’t keep a constant eye on it, it goes out. Afterwards, when I have roused a lazy flame, I wash the soot from my hands and look out across the bay and wonder again about Mr McAlister.

  How can he have upset Mrs Davis? He probably votes Labour or prefers Scotch to Welsh whisky or doesn’t support Wales in the rugby. That’ll be it, there’s nothing that comes between the different nations like a game of rugby.

  I peel off my wellie socks and slip my feet into warm fleecy boots, the sort that make you wish you were a sheep and able to encase your whole body in fleece. Slopping across to the sink I fill the kettle, put it on the range and, while I wait for it to boil, I make myself a hard-boiled egg salad and cut some thick slices of Mrs Davis’ home made bread and smear it with locally produced butter. When I sink my teeth into it, I am still thinking of Mr McAlister.

  I am eating more regularly now but that doesn’t mean I cook; most of my meals are taken cold or heated up in the microwave. There doesn’t seem to be much point in cooking for one person but I know I should make more effort, if only for the sake of my health. But when you are not sure if you want to carry on, health becomes less of a concern so I compromise by looking after myself but only to a point. I couldn’t be accused of total self-neglect.

  With my half empty plate in one hand and my coffee in the other I climb the stairs to th
e attic and eat without tasting, as I look from the window across the rain swept bay.

  I chew slowly, thoroughly, scooping bits of stray bread and egg from the far recesses of my mouth with my tongue. My mind is far away; I’m not thinking of myself, or James. I am thinking of my next canvas and what I should fill it with. And then I see him, the mysterious Mr McAlister hurrying, head down, across the beach.

  He is far away, not much more than a speck in the distance and it could be anyone but I know from his posture and the sense of drama that seems to follow him around, that it is him.

  I put down my plate and lean over to retrieve my sketchbook. I flip open the cover. He stares back at me from the page. Dark and brooding, like Heathcliffe but uglier. He is scruffy, wild, a scribble on the page of life as if God lost interest half way through his creation. It is an interesting face but not one that is easily read and I find I am curious, and slightly roused, as if he keeps secrets.

  Six

  I have everything I need here. A roof; a fire; food and warm clothing, but it is not enough. Contentment eludes me and each day I get through without spending a part of it contemplating my own end, is a milestone. Each time another day slips over the western edge of my world I mentally mark it as an achievement. I sleep, I wake, I eat, I walk, I paint. My life is like a black and white outline in a children’s colouring book, it needs tinting but I’ve lost my pencils.

  Until I find them, everything stays monochrome.

  The thing that is missing, the very aspect of life that brings colour, is laughter and love. When James was alive we laughed everyday. Usually it was provoked by small, silly things, some incident on the street or heard on the radio. Sometimes it was just a joke or a funny remark; occasionally one of us made a blunder in the studio that sent us both to our knees. Often James played schoolboy pranks. Although I shouldn’t let it, my mind drifts back to how it was before.