NIGHT 16

Night 16. Saturday 3rd December 2022.

Some say that living in the Mistral winds of the South of France makes people lose their minds. I always thought I would be immune to that. I love the wind. But I really don’t like it here on the roof. Or, I don’t like its effects manifest on polythene sheeting whipping up and down. The unpredictability of its sudden amplification. The fact it is all I can hear. I realise I am sleeping with clenched jaw and tense shoulders. If the wind changes I might stay this way. And the wind is changing. NE. NNE. ENE.

I am awake at 6am due to a combination of wind, Dan’s loud snoring and the addition of a massively amplified conversation. I scan the street trying to figure out where it is coming from – wondering if it is some kind of broadcast van for news/evangelism. I descend to wake G for his big day of drama and venture across the street to attract the attention of the driver. He looks mortified when I tell him his radio is blasting out for all the street to hear. How does he even have that option? I ‘m surprised I ‘m the first one to approach him. Maybe it’s not so audible through double glazing. But it’s very loud.  After a cup of tea and half a bagel on the roof, I lie down for ten minutes in our inside bed before I have to leave. Tink instantly plonks herself down as close to me as she can possibly get. I don’t think she sleeps well without us either. She begins to snore. I groan.

It is an ever so slightly but consistently uphill cycle to the hospital. In the waiting room an older women with hunched back and lurching steps proclaims ‘I hate change.’ ‘Youngsters are alright, they’re born into it. They’re alright.’ We’re all born into change. We all have to constantly adapt. She proceeds to ask the receptionist ‘where are you from?’  Poland. ‘Ah I have a friend from there – are you all drunks?’ Behind masks, attention and tension rises. ‘But you’re very nice people.’ Strained joviality ensues. The receptionist changes the subject ‘Oh I just came back from Cyprus – where you were born.’ Touche´ The words continue with complaints about the gap between appointments and it feels like she just wants to talk. She speaks of her family 100s of miles away and how she doesn’t see them because she is afraid of flying. Her neighbour in the waiting room asks ‘oh, why?’ and maybe didn’t expect the depth of answer - that her father beat her and locked her in cupboards. ‘He was not a nice man’. But then ‘in those days that used to happen a lot.’ She is built from fear. I look at the leaflet on the counter: ‘Are you worried about breast cancer?’ I think everyone in here is. Fear is politely covered by masks and the kindness and upbeat demeanour of the medical team.  I can smell farmyards- a sweet and very specific smell of calf’s drinking powered milk formula from bottles, separated from their mothers – I ‘m not sure if it is in the room, in the mask or in my mind. There is a mammal theme emerging in this place of mammograms. Someone posts on a local facebook group that the area has made into ‘Shit London’ again with an image of a chair dumped outside A&E complete with sign ‘Do not take. Full of blood.’  We’re all full of blood. Doing what we can to avoid it seeping out uncontrollably. The image is a bit much for me. I close my eyes to get rid of the sudden X ray vision - looking around the waiting room at people checking phones or sitting in anxious silence and seeing pulsing veins and heartbeats. The white noise of the barely audible Christmas tunes on the radio and the fluorescent light tubes prevent peace. I flee to the toilet and welcome a strange green light that replaces the motion sensor bulb. Yesterday we heard from friends that a mutual friend has been diagnosed with aggressive cancer. Dan states ‘I hate mortality’. We talk of the pain of photography, Dan’s refusal to look at the old photos that the children love to pore over – the unbearable weight of nostalgia and impermanence.  I am called in for tests. The sudden relinquishing of privacy. The exposure of machines that see through you. I watch forms and results passed on in trays and enter other rooms. See graphic cross section portraits. This one is an ultra-sound. I feel the familiar warmth and rolling motion of the gel used in pregnancy scans. Then, it was searching for life and the room was full of hope and apprehension. Now it is hoping for nothing.  And it is. Benign. At least the Dr said it more clearly – ‘non cancerous’ - not harmful in effect.

I float down the flaking corridors of this decrepit building housing such expertise and care. I cycle a slightly meandering route knowing that everyone is where they are meant to be, having a brief taste of another life that accommodated more drifting and gleaning – popping into a charity shop, considering stopping at a café but as usual not doing it. I’m home just in time to go together with Dan to our son’s end of term drama performance. He is excited and nervous and has been there practising all morning. I hadn’t realised they’d even known of the recent worry, or the conversations we’d had but they hear all. I beam at G hoping to transmit that all is ok, so proud of him speaking out in an all singing, all dancing line up. As his teacher gives out certificates she wells up with pride and tears at a student who arrived with her totally unable to speak and is now performing confidently. The emotion is contagious and I wipe a tear away. I didn’t realise that G watches me worried that that tear had more meaning to us. We all need hugs and reassurance.

Today the school fayre has been a big success. I totally missed it. A team of hard-working parents pulled off the magic. After a group debrief, Natalie and Sheridan have been filming shots for the music video to work with the song we’ll be recording with the whole school on Wednesday. Dan goes to film the head teacher about the funding cuts and solar plans for the documentary that will accompany this bid for number 1.  Kristin comes to the door gifting loaves of sourdough bread after a hectic day on the school stew queues. Hot food in this weather was a winning idea and I crave a hearty bowl of it.  The days feel so short as we set up for a sleepover making sure to do the bare minimum of at least preparing somewhere to sleep. I catch sight of the moon from the windows downstairs and it beckons me up the ladder for night 16 on the roof. There is a party going on in the ground floor flat that meets the end of the garden. The audio experience from up here is as if someone abruptly turns the stereo up every time someone enters the garden for a cigarette. They are in the groove with chatter and laughter. I check in with the Met office and see the wind speeds are down and the air is crisp. The crowd funder is at £71,900. I catch snippets of conversation. ‘Well I think a lot of people are in the same boat.’ Nautical metaphors from a maritime nation where not everyone is in the same boat in any way or in any boat at all. Turned away, impounded, deported or drowned.

Dan announces we’re having a party when this is over. It’s the first I ‘ve heard of it but I ‘m also glad -although I prefer the anonymity of being a random crazy dancer at those others host. The one below is getting more raucous. ‘More than a woman’ blasts out and voices are in loud, slightly blurred/slurred conversation. Fireworks go off and I miss them - a film composed of all the shots not captured. There is a new dog on the night-time barking scene that sounds very like Tink. It’s confusing – the instant stress of thinking she’s outside barking at the moon when she’s actually curled up inside.

In the short time of writing this, as my eyes find it harder to stay open and Dan does the routines that allow us up here the crowd funder has reached £72,022. With the live match funding from Aviva that means we only need £13,989 worth of pledges to get us over the line. That line is in sight. A cork pops below and whoos and whoops are heard.