POGGIO, April 2003
Tuesday, 1 April
Merry has let herself out of the stall a second day in a row. She came innocently out the barn with hay sticking out of her mouth. I will need to get electric fence if I am to teach her to respect boundaries again.
I am taking a drive over to Rodolfo’s to take the Myler bit for Rais’ new owner. I’ll take the whole head piece; the bit on its own may be lost too easily.
Pat bought a new type of cat food for Matisse, new for him but not to me. He doesn’t eat everything she brings, so I’ll give it to the outside cats who are less discriminating.
I am so tired of living in what amounts to someone else’s garbage heap. I was amused by the fact that Vincenzo never throws anything away. He keeps it to reuse and tells me to do the same.
The men who are putting up the fence have stretched a line of barbed wire across the top. It looks really ugly, like I imagine a prison camp might look.
I am going to paint the gallery/living room white. If people are coming out to visit they may have to bring their own picnic lunches or something to cook on an open fire.
There is a light but strong wind blowing, thunder yesterday and rain. I’d taken Merry for a walk, all the dogs came too. I did not stay out long. Putting her back in the field, as I close the gate, I say, “I do miss Rais,” and she gallops off whinnying, looking for him. That horse had a real presence and I miss him a lot.
Wednesday 2 April
I took the bit over to Rodolfo’s. The house was locked up tight as a barrel. I went around the back and waited. Three Maremanno dogs greeted me. One in a friendly fashion, it might have been Daisy, who knows me. I waited in the car trying to make phone calls with the cell phone. At that moment Maria the helper showed up. She must have recognised me; she said the last time I “came in three”, meaning I suppose that we were three on horseback.
I asked her about Rais and she took me to see him. He was sniffing the ground looking at the strange food they had given him. I know it has to be good, it is just not the hay I’d been feeding. We startled him, but he put his head over the fence to rub his head against me, once. He may have done it more but I was standing on a flat, square stone that wobbled and I fell off.
“What does that mean?” says Anna. I could say a lot of things, but I’m not too sure myself. Rais went back to sniffing the ground. I still don’t know if I’ve done the right thing by selling him.
I made another bad choice for the dog food, Zuppa di something or other. You add water and it turns into brightly coloured mush. I thought dogs were colour blind. Anyway they eat the meat from the cans, which is quite something at 1 euro for an enormous can that feeds just about all three of them at once. I notice someone has been nibbling at the wet mush, but it looks more like the work of a cat than a dog.
I went out at 930pm to check on Merry. She was in the stall staring into Rais ‘empty room’. He has left himself in there. “He was better off with us,” I say, and then, “but I know we are better off without him”. He stirred her up. Now, she is quiet and friendly. I can catch her without a problem; suddenly she doesn’t see me as someone to escape from. She doesn’t toss her head in that Rais way, but in her way, with a little squeal attached.
Flora calls; she tells me Mara has told her that I don’t have anyone to go riding with. I tell her that I don’t have a riding horse at the moment. I tell her my new thoughts on popularity and tell her, “I’m not so sure if many people liked Picasso”. Flora adds, “Or Salvador Dali”. What I am trying to say is an artist should not be thinking about trying to please people when they do their art.
Thursday 3 April
I was up early and found Merry standing in the rain. She was hungry and angry because I suppose in her horse brain I had left her out in the rain, (or made it rain?) and no one had fed her. Fact is, she had only to turn around and walk back into her stall, and she’d kicked the door open. The hay hadn’t been touched all night. I made the mistake of shouting at her. She stands in front of me squeaks and squeals and stamps her feet at me. Is she imitating me?
Off to
Friday 4 April
The saddest thing was to deposit the check for Rais. At the bank I told them the money was for a horse. I am surprised when the man at the desk tells me softly and gently, “You don’t sell horses, a horse is for life”.
Met Annie and we ate at the Chinese restaurant. The owner wasn’t there. The service was very slow. The owner usually grins and gestures raising his glass to his lips and tells us the cooks are drinking too much. I let the friendly boy who served us choose for me. I guess I won’t be doing that again. Whatever it was tasted very good, but a fried something is not my style.
Now I have put Merry in Rais’ old stall, the one closest to the house. She seems happier there and I wonder if it is because she can see me going in and out of my “stable”.
Yesterday it looked as though Porgy was setting up to bite Matisse. He saw Navaho coming, but I said, “No,” and Porgy sat down. Navaho was totally unaware that he was being asked to join in a game of bite the new cat.
I see the dog bowls are clean. I think they must have got boiled chicken on a Thursday and a Sunday. Now only Porgy waits on the spot the boiled chickens miraculously appeared flying through the air.
Dogs have exploded in barking. Usually Merry follows them to see what all the fuss is about.
Birds singing, wind, Matisse is on the chair in the sun.
Saturday 5 April
Had a message from Liz Martin my old pal at the Women’s Press (in the 1980s). She told me they don’t do picture books because they’re expensive. My advice to anyone who ever has a yearning to write is to never do picture books unless you want to be doing them for the rest of your life. Or, you’ve already written your first five books for the adult market. Meaning you get type cast and no one ever considers you might want to do a book with only a bunch of words and no illustrations.
Remo tells me Sully has had a foal, another little bay. Remo tells me he doesn’t understand why. I explained about the pairing of genes. I said both the stallions Eros and VIP have dominant and recessive genes, and so does Sully. There are three mares that always give colour, they are not very colourful themselves. This means they must have two dominant, colour producing genes to pick from. Sully is a leopard. I showed Remo a diagram of the possibilities. I am certain it is all more complicated than this.
Vincenzo was here, he wanted me to send a fax. I said I would lend them the fax. He muttered something about it being the same as borrowing a horse and what if something went wrong…then he confuses me with several pieces of paper. Seems the water bill ha not been paid since 1998 and we are in 2003.
He tells me they have not deposited the rent check, oops! I don’t have all the money I thought I had. It seems they think they are helping me out. On top of this Lucia tells me her cousin and her companion no longer want my painting.
In the junk room I found two walking sticks and a metal frame walker, the type my mother has, or used to have. I wonder who needed them. Mummy is now in a wheelchair. The seventh of April is her birthday, and my brother’s.
My arm still hurts. Seems I had an ache in another part of my body for a long time and it went. Maybe I have a moving ache. Actually this one comes from the little accident I had with the horses, the same day Rais hurt himself and started to limp. Vincenzo tells me that if he limps going in one direction and not the other it is the shoulder. He says he wants to be here when I “break” Merry. With any luck we will be at Remo’s, where she will be trained and not broken.
I say I want to send Sully to the stallion again. Remo says we will think about it. Sully is mine, but two years bay in a row. Something must change, the stallion.
Sunday 6 April
Tomorrow is Mummy and Peter’s birthday. I have been calling her in my mind. I regret to say that my feelings about my sister block my wanting to call. She told me she had found Jesus and I didn’t know he was missing. Her voice was dead and flat as she told me. I wanted to hear Hallelujah in her voice, but there was none of that. She used to be so happy to hear from me and now no spark.
For a moment I thought Antea and Luigi’s horses had escaped to my side of the fence. An optical illusion, because maybe being chestnut and larger they seem bigger. Now they are galloping around and I don’t know who started it off. Navaho is out there sitting by the fence watching the show.
Matisse was attacked yesterday when I was out in the field spreading horse manure on the bald spots in the field. Then, Porgy is limping, I heard him yelp twice yesterday and a lot of barking was going on.
I had half an appointment to translate for my neighbours. Roberto drove by on the tractor with his mini excavator. I raced down the road, followed by Cherokee and Porgy and found him unloading the machine in a field on the corner. He thinks I have got tired of waiting and am on my way home. He tells me to hop up beside him and we drive down the lane to Paul and Judith’s house. Crossing their land, avoiding the olive trees, Judith appears with a lunch plate in her hand. She stands and eats as she directs traffic. Her husband, Paul, seems to have lost a tooth. I ask him if he painted out his tooth. He laughs, and tells me he really has lost it.
Judith wanted to make a flat area for the tent they put up each summer to house her overflowing house guests. Roberto refuses. He does not want to ruin the land. He makes Paul and Judith find another spot for the tent. We are invited in for a drink. Roberto says he doesn’t drink and that he no longer drinks coffee. Work, work, work. We leave, and he lets me take the controls of the mini-excavator. He thinks I should be able to operate it. In the summer, if and when he has more time, he says he will call me. This is actually something I really wouldn’t mind doing. I imagine myself out in all weather working with a bunch of guys, going to drink a beer after work.
I now have both cats here eating. Matisse is sitting in the doorway; at least now he sees two orange cats and knows they are different beasties. Houdini now gets up on the table, a trick he learned from Matisse. I’ll leave the Friskies box out so the cats can help themselves.
Sunday, peace. I don’t want to feel rushed. It being Sunday I can be seen to be doing not very much. I know I will take the hoe (zappa) and attack the thistles.
Houdini has now gone to look for Matisse. Matisse has his own little sound, so I recognise him without seeing him. I wonder if the other orange cat will ever be tame enough to hold or even touch.
Dogs barking in the distance. These take up the chorus. Matisse comes out to sniff the Friskies box. He keeps close by remembering being attacked.
The days are now long enough for me to do all my outside jobs. I move through the day slowly. At least this is how it seems. Antea invited me to go riding with them on Monday. I told her I like to go painting on the Monday.
Monday 7 April
Today is my mother and my brother’s birthday. I don’t know if I will ever see them again. There is really no reason why I shouldn’t. I only seem to be tied here and find it very difficult to leave, even for a short stay away. The last time I saw my mother was at breakfast the day I left for the airport. I caught Mummy staring at me. I felt there was too much adoration and that she was worth more than that. There was something else. I think, like me, she was wondering if and when she would ever see me again. When she fell and broke her hip, I know she expected me to go home. What was happening that I could not go?
I have woken up in a snarling mood. It is bitterly cold and there is a strong wind. I have let Merry out and, luckily for her, the horses are still in the next door field. I could have gone riding but I thought I was going painting. I am not. Maestro is still sick with his bad back, and I told Antea that I will not be going riding because my arm still hurts. I feel it is getting better. The pain is a prickling sensation in the middle of my left forearm. I have become aware of how I use my left arm more than my right.
Pat, I learn from Liza, has her leg in a cast. She had gone out with a friend to look at a garden; Pat is to do paintings of the view. They are trying to open a rusty lock and Pat falls backwards down a few steps and ends up driving all the way back to Bracciano in dreadful pain. Maybe the friend did not know how to drive.
Will take Houdini to the vet tomorrow, for some reason Monday is more my Sunday then Sunday. I think it has to do with work deadlines, where sometimes I have to work flat out over a weekend and deliver the goods on the Monday morning. I will go out later to dig up more weeds. I have Vincenzo’s pick axe to dig up the thistles. They can grow taller than an average sized person (me). I love them, but then they will seed and it is like the Little Prince and the baobab trees.
Even Navaho is eating the leftovers this morning. He lies down to lick up the soggy bits. They will have the taste of cold fat, not so bad if you are an old dog with not very good teeth.
I have left the garden gate open so Merry can come in if she wants.
Tuesday 8 April
I woke up in the night and a male voice in my head told me I should call my mother. It was
It is freezing out there, a biting wind that cuts into the back of my neck as I sit in the warm sunny spot writing my diary. Matisse is up beside me cleaning himself. Yesterday it was so windy and cold I was reluctant to let him out. I did in the end. After the time he was attacked by the orange cat I have wanted to be outside with him. Anyway I let him out and heard a cat squawk, went out. No Matisse, only the orange cat licking his lips as though he had just taken a bite out of Matisse. He had not, but something had happened.
Matisse has his wise look on. Maybe he knows it is freezing cold out there. When I got up in the night to call my mother, my cat looks at me in horror. He is snuggled down into the covers and does not move even when I rattle around in the kitchen to make myself some hot chocolate.
This morning my ankles are freezing cold, I am wearing those little dainty white socks tennis players wear. Pat tells me she pays 100 euro a month for heating. I used to pay 23 to 30 euro because the people above and below me kept their heat on all the time. Now I have a draughty house to heat.
Antea tells me Vincenzo is 81. I hope that I am as active if and when I reach his age and hope that I have as many houses.
Wednesday 9 April
I think of taking Houdini to the vet. As usual, he is not around when its time to go. I start work on the stables and as soon as he shows up, climbing through the old grey gate, I pick him up. At the vet he purrs as his ears are cleaned out. I’m told, “He knows we are curing him”. Now I am to give him four pills a day. I give them all at once hidden in wet cat food. Maybe I should put my glasses on and read what is written on the package.
Pile on the wood. Matisse seems to be the last to be fed. Do I imagine that the dogs look at Matisse more intently when I am not feeding them what they like? Porgy eats the dry cat food, but won’t eat the highly coloured dog food I set out for the dogs.
I have asked Remo if he can bring me the other filly to keep Merry company. These beasties go into decline if they are on their own. It is not as though I can ride her yet. He tells me we have to wait.
Visited Pat with her broken leg. Gillian was there. Afterwards, Pat tells me how nice the visit has been because no one helped her up or fussed over her. She ordered me around, apologising before hand, and was pleased to hear that I had spoken to my mother. I told her how I had explained to Mum how I’d not yet sent her birthday card. I imitate her, “Yes.” It is the yes of someone who would become worried if she were to receive a birthday card from me on time. A yes that is full of love, of memories of years of forgotten days. Of one who does not wait for a sea change soon.
Thursday 10 April
The gas man came at last. It cost 20 percent less than the last time, so I think it best to buy heating and cooking oil in the summer. I also found out that I don’t have to be here. He can deliver the gas all by himself, write a bill and stick it in the letter box. The only thing, he tells me, he’s afraid of the dogs. The dogs are never here, I say. Maybe not the right thing to be telling him.
The door bell rings in the afternoon and it is Don Giorgio. He is tall enough that his beaming face can be seen through the top of the gate. He comes to bless me and the house. I feel very humble. I am not a Catholic, I tell him. Doesn’t matter, it’s the same, vale uguale,” he says. Which is as it should be. Blessings are given with a wide open heart to anyone or thing within blessing distance. I see a sparks of white light whiz from the end of Don Giorgio’s blessing device. I know they are drops of water, but they take on a shimmering quality; I have always considered this priest special.
One year, on the feast day of
Judith asks if my pal Roberto is married. As far as I know, No, I said. Who’s interested? I do know that he is looking for a wife like his mother, Judith sighs. A woman who knows how to plant a good vegetable garden, one who knows how to dig in the earth and how to cook what she grows, and well. I make sure Judith understands that the equipment Roberto brings belongs to him, that he is a young man on the rise.
Friday11 April
I wake up with the miseries and a headache. I may have been more imaginative at one time, but I never seem to get the balance right. Either I have lots of time and no money. Or lots of money and no time. I realise I am always asking the universe to give me a break. What I mean by this is a
I went and had my hair cut and coloured and then they folded it up on the ends. Like my cousin’s hair in the sixties. My hair won’t stay that way, so it is silly even to try. I have fine baby hair, Italians have hair they can do pretty much what they want with, obedient hair that will stay in place.
The dogs are howling, they ate what I gave them at
Saturday 12 April
I wore a suit into the lunch appointment yesterday. I was told that my clothes were getting too big for me, as in I’ve gone and lost a lot of weight. (On my chocolate cake diet?). Others expressed total amazement that I even owned a suit.
Last night, around nine, the bell on the gate rang furiously. Once, twice. I get up to check. The dogs didn’t even bark. I realise I make them feel secure; I protect them, and not the other way around. When there is thunder, and I am standing outside, I’m mugged by three dogs as they all try to hide between my legs. Matisse is the bravest, he goes to the window to see who is there. No one.
I remember that when I get back from
I called Roberto and asked if he’d been at the door. “What? Around nine at night?” He sounded concerned. “Put on all the lights,” he says, and I did. He told me to call him back, or he would call me back. Anyway, in the end he did not and I did not.
A friend calls to talk me through my anxiety about going back to work in an office. I worry about the war in
Sunday 13 April
I have ordered my kitchen cupboards. Liza came with me and she helped me pick something out that is more me. She had invited me to lunch where she serves fish with orange sauce and slices and spinach, “for the green,” she says. This was followed by fruit and little chocolate eggs. I ate five of them. Nice, but I still prefer dark chocolate.
Little cat was out yesterday and he is out today. Silence. Yesterday I saw him with two orange fur balls. I don’t know if he was attacked by one cat and then the other cat attacked the one that had attacked Matisse. Anyway, Matisse sped into the kitchen to hide under the cupboard. When he came out he seemed puzzled. How could anyone dislike him enough to hurt him? He bites Houdini in such a gentle way, Houdini flips him on his back, Matisse squeals. Houdini looks at me. “He really has to toughen up,” he seems to say.
Merry is squealing now, I must go and check. The horses had disappeared from the other field. I have now scratched my thumb on the gate and am now bleeding. Two men on horseback went by. Merry was flirting with them. She looks big today, maybe she is on heat. She didn’t come in last night, in the light of the half moon she glowed, pale as a unicorn.
I found Claudio outside the gate when I got back from visiting Pat. He came and fixed the bolt on the front door and told me no one should be able to come in that way. I told him the cat had learned to open the doors. He did last night when I went into the kitchen I’d closed the door into the kitchen and the next thing I knew Matisse was sitting on the step ladder looking at me as though he had been watching me for a while.
The last tenant left a box full of blue and white china. I don’t have to wash up for ages and I will still have a clean plate to eat off. Now I can pile them one by one into the dish washer.
Vincenzo came and showed me how to use the small zappa to weed. He cheats and just cuts the plant off at the roots. I dig up the whole plant. He doesn’t laugh at me but tells me I’m making too much work. He was doing a lot of talking and I wasn’t listening. He was showing me plants the horses won’t eat.
A very dishevelled Matisse has just flown in. There was the sound of falling something and who knows, maybe he fell down the chimney. If he had I think he would be covered in soot. He is all ready to go out again. He seems very pleased with himself, as though he has accomplished some kind of cat task that he set himself.
The dogs are quiet. Navaho seems more pensive than usual, then maybe it is me. Porgy turns somersaults to be tickled on his tummy. The end of his tongue sticks out and he turns into melting butter. Cherokee solemn and detached. She was barking last night, continuously. I will go and check the tree I dragged across the gateway. It doesn’t stop a dog or a cat from going in and out. I tell Vincenzo I want to close the gaps in the fence. He tells me the dogs must run free. Vincenzo grew up in another world, less cars, fewer neighbours.
Monday 14 April
I painted. I had intended to stay in bed all day. Ha Ha. Roberto called. “I’m here,” he said. Where is that? He wanted me on site to look after the English language contact. I act as interpreter for the building of a stable in Judith’s back garden. It is always more exhausting then I think it will be. Roberto takes me away when he leaves for lunch, he drops me at Poggio and says, “See you later”.
So, in the afternoon I am feeding the dogs and the phone rings. “Where are you?” its Roberto and, “We’ve been here for a while”. I get to Judith’s and there is a crowd of English people in the garden watching the men build the stable. One is called Emma, a name I really like.
I get to talk to Paul about the stinking drains. I tell him the land lady told me to flush the toilet. He said she had a point. He tells me his are the same and that we are living in an area where they have not installed enough pipes going above the ground to let out the fumes. So, they tend to escape back up the bend, which is situated between the house and the main drainage system. Sometimes the water that remains in the pipe evaporates allowing the stinking pooh smell to come out. He has the same problem in his son’s bathroom.
It is a lovely day. Merry stands by the fence waiting for her new horse friends to materialise. She followed me back across the field nibbling me on the back of my neck. I better put a stop to that. Slowly, slowly divert her. She used to bite Rais on the bum, perhaps it is the same for her.
Now Porgy is yipping, because Merry is squealing as she waits for her horse friends, who won’t be appearing since they only get put in the field on the weekend.
Tuesday 15 April
Matisse was very quiet, just wanted to sleep. I was worried. Houdini had thumped him in mock battle, but Matisse’s fur flew. I wonder if he has been stung because he has been chasing and eating any fly he comes across. I also wondered if he could be suffering from lead poisoning since he got my yellow powder paint on him with the lead warning on the package. He had a little bump on his tail and whimpered when I touched it. He is sleeping in the box high up in the cupboard most of the night. He has also stopped eating.
He carries his tail down and not up, as he usually does. Can a vet mend a broken tail? I mean, you couldn’t put it in a cast. I think a broken tail may just remain a broken tail. Maybe Matisse stepped over a boundary and got whomped. Yes, Matisse has a hard bump on his tail, very hard. I better investigate.
Flora came by with the friend who wants to buy the saddle. She’d warned it would be a flying visit. Maria had put leg protectors on her horse and I told her they were upside down and back to front. The part she needed to protect was uncovered.
Wednesday 16 April
Took Matisse to the vet. Judith, who is a nurse, said it sounded as though Matisse had a dislocated tail and all I had to do was pull it straight. I’m glad I didn’t follow her advice because his tail had been bitten into and was infected.
There was a lot of noise last night. A woman, a man in a car a revved engine, dogs barking and me too tired to get up and look. Porgy and Cherokee set up a howling, she does the bass to tenor section and he does the staccato soprano.
Matisse is more lively today. The bite on his tail must have really hurt. He has been bouncing around the kitchen, visiting the cat food on top of the fridge, the dog food beside the store. I finally got the idea he might be hungry. So now he is eating left over tuna fish. The vet charged me 10 euro for a 25 euro visit, he tells me I’m always there.
The man who is to measure the kitchen called. He said he was in Bracciano. I said I was in Anguillara. He said he would come to measure the kitchen and I told him I could not be there, could not change direction. I was on the way to talk to a man about a horse.
It was Remo I went to see. He tells me he would have brought the filly up last weekend, but the wheel fell off the van and he had to get it fixed.
Thursday 17 April
Aldo called to ask directions to my house. I could tell he was with someone who thought they knew how to get here, like the other one who got lost.
It is sad to see Matisse sitting on the mat beside the door. He doesn’t go out unless I’m outside. He is now growling at the cat that is not Houdini. So, I wonder if he bit Matisse. He is now crouched by the empty bleach bottle growling intermittently.
When I went to see Sully and her foal, she saw me and trotted up to me. Stopped at a certain distance between me and the other mares and bent her neck to nuzzle her new baby. I wondered if she was showing her to me.
Hooray, just opened something I thought was a bill and it is a check from the electricity company! A refund!
Friday 18 April
When I went to let Merry out of her stall I saw a white truck with a white Bob Cat going down the road. They slowed, was it Roberto? I only hope Judith has told her friends that they are going to show up.
I went to Viterbo with Aldo and he stayed a long time in the water, about four hours. Way too long, according to some. Liza goes with two bathing suits and I will, if I remember. She goes in the water for 45 minutes, then comes out changes into her dry bathing suit and sits and reads her newspaper or book. Maybe she will have a light lunch, then she gets back into the water. She has stayed there as a client at the spa, so maybe it is something they tell you.
I’d like Merry to spend more time in the garden. There is a lot of grass and nettles, which I see she eats. I notice that she nibbles at the rose leaves and the buds off the roses. She aimed herself for the strawberries, but I got there before she did and headed her off.
Matisse sounds very busy. I don’t know what he is up to. He did something I didn’t quite understand. I had put his food down in the kitchen and he was eating. He must have tipped the glass saucer because I heard it on the tile floor. Then he made a scraping motion with his paw, the same kind he does when he covers his pooh in the cat litter.
I see that Rodolfo was in a long article in the newspaper about trekking on horseback. Again, if I have the time I may not have the money and if I have the money I may not have the time.
Saturday 19 April
My life is changing. I had two calls last night. One from Hugh Dunphie, the owner of Bolivar Gallery in
I realise I need to be in the garden when Merry is there. She eats the fruit tree leaves. I have no idea what the trees are and am trying to work it out. Not being a botanist, I will have to do it the slow and simple way and wait until the trees bear fruit.
Sunday 20 April
Porgy is barking at the ground again. I thought he was barking at Mary Rose (Merry), but he was not. I think he just likes to bark. He is such a silly dog. He hears me put the cat food out and pretends he is not planning to eat it as soon as I have turned my back. Trouble is, he looks so guilty, it is as though he prints up flyers to tell me what he is going to do.
The “gallery” is waiting to be painted white. I will not try and do it in one day. This is actually preventing me from even starting because I become exhausted just thinking about starting. There are three large walls and the fireplace angle and one side is mostly window. It may take me four days to do it, since I will have to do more than one coat to cover the pink.
Yesterday I saw Matisse running in one direction with his tail all fluffed up, and then I saw one of the orange cats running in the other with his tail all fluffed up.
Matisse is on the couch. For a moment I stop writing and his left ear turns towards me. No scratching sound.
Monday 21 April
In the morning I find Luigi and Antea looking at their horses’ hooves. I worry that they have hurt themselves galloping around with Merry. Luigi lectures me on how I must have an older horse to ride. One that is about eight or ten years of age. He tells me that it will take two years for my young horse to be trained and before anyone will want to go riding with me. I am to ask Leena to help me get an old polo pony.
I keep quiet. I have not told anyone how many horses I have and that I have decided to raise Appaloosas because I am interested in their history and in their coloured coats.
I go to Antea and Luigi’s for dinner. We talk about crafty horses that know how to open gates.
Tuesday 22 April
I would like to run an experiment. How many days can I sleep, read?
Hugh Dunphy and his wife showed up with friends. They look at my paintings. He said he wants to do a show of the large abstracts and did I think I could get them to
I wonder if my arm is getting better. I now have bruise where the large wooden table I was trying to carry fell on me
I stepped on Matisse twice while opening the windows and the shutters. Today is sunny and a cold wind blows. I will drag myself out. Matisse is so soft, light and gentle that I must have mistaken the bumping of his body against my legs and the bumping of the long down coat I wear in the mornings. He’d got between my legs and that was when I stepped on him.
I hear poor Merry calling to her friends. Luigi tells me not to bother to try and grow hay. He said Vincenzo always advised him, but when the time comes to cut it, everyone is cutting their own. If it is not done at exactly the right time you are done for.
Matisse has a pale pink nose. When I first got him as a kitten he was one sick cat. He was full of crusty sores and a bad cold, sneezing all the time. Now he hides in his box in the tall cupboard. “Matisse?” I hear an answering squeak.
Wednesday 23 April
Vincenzo came over on his way to talk to someone else. Antea told me his wife threw away all the cups he ever won in riding events. Maybe she had no room for them. I remember once I won a cup in a horse race. I was the only female rider that showed up, so raced against the guys. The horse was a male and he was doing the running, not me. I came in second (the horse did). I got the winning female cup. There was some excitement. They said I rode like a boy and there were plans to have me ride in other races. It was perhaps fortunate that I was going back to
I see that Matisse recognises his friend. The two orange cats are sitting on the kitchen windowsill, Matisse touches noses through the glass with his friend Houdini.
Hugh Dunphy has grown his white hair all the way down his back. His wife is a soft, old-time Jamaican woman. I yearn to be a soft old-time Jamaican woman, but so far lack the accent and the softness of spirit.
In the night I wake up, Matisse is so quiet and still I poke him to make sure he is still alive. He squeaks at me. He does the same to me when I’m sleeping on my stomach, he bats me on the nose until I wake up, roll over and make a cave under the covers so he can crawl in, curl up and go to sleep.
Thursday 24 April
My Chinese colleague tells me there is a proverb in
Friday 25 April
Went to see Remo and found his mother and father. I was invited in for a taste of three types of cake that Simonetta had made for Emanuel, her younger son. Later, I am shown the house Donato is building, with his own hands, stone by stone. I find the mosaics he designs and the wooden trellis very beautiful, although it is not finished.
As I write the diary in the garden I am visited by Merry who is eating down the grass in the garden, not fast enough. I can tell she is happy by the way she swings her tail back and forth, not in an impatient fly switching way. She now wants to taste my coffee, already spilt, licked off the surface of the table. She smells of sage, perhaps she ate my sage plant, or just brushed against it. Cherokee barks at her, an old lady with huge teeth just centimeters from Merry’s velvet muzzle. I threaten the dog with shortened life span, and now I feel badly. It is as though she understood every word. The old dog looks at me and blinks when I call her.
I have missed the right time to photograph the blossoms. Already the time has passed. The moment is the second I first think, how beautiful. Now the leaves have grown, petals lie on the ground like drifting snow. I hear bees as though I am inside a hive and do not see a single one.
I hear a cuckoo and the dripping kitchen tap. Merry is peacefully munching in the front garden. The dogs wonder if they will get more water now that Merry has drunk all theirs. I notice she eats mud, like the dogs will, she was desperate to lick her salt lick, which she is now doing inside her stall.
Saturday 26 April
Edith called to tell me to expect an invasion of around 25 people for a barbecue on the first of May.
Cherokee rumbles at Merry then turns her head to look at me with her brown sad eyes, worried that I’ll get cross. Merry is now trying to bite me, she knows she has gone too far, she pretends she was really meaning to bite a scratchy place on her left hind leg.
Sunday 27 April
Remo did not contact me about bringing the foal as company for Merry. Dogs had attacked Melody’s foal just as it was born and killed it. This is the same field Sully had her newest foal. After hearing this news I went to visit Sully and her foal. Now that I have such close contact with Merry, I feel I know when I am being looked at with a horse smile. Something about the movement of the eye while they are grazing.
It is a platinum grey day, I expect rain.
Monday 28 April
I have painted the base coat of white paint in the “gallery”. I was waiting for people to arrive, so it seemed like a good waiting job to do. The walls look patchy and incomplete, making me wonder why I ever started.
I have dug up more weeds in the field and spread the manure on the bald spots, reducing the heap by half.
Today is misty and damp. Porgy pushes his wet head against me. He has probably been running through grass that rises above his head.
Merry is in the front garden. There is a strange bird call, Merry becomes agitated and gallops around. Maybe it is the man with the baggy panted legs whistling and not a bird at all. If I do not take care there will be no more roses because Merry is eating them.
I see my horse is not eating the grass fast enough and I will have to ask someone to come and clean the front yard so people will not have to worry about wading through long grass and meeting the possible snake.
I now have trouble telling the two orange cats apart; Houdini’s hair has grown back.
Tuesday 29 April
Merry is up against the fence at the end of the field talking to the young chestnut gelding that looks like Rais. I wonder about animals because Matisse did not seem to be able to tell the difference between Houdini and the other orange cat. I see that Merry is drawn to this gelding. Is it because he has the same white blaze that Rais has?
Rolando, the painting teacher, has been suffering from back trouble. It seems we all suffer from back trouble when we are carrying too much weight on our tummies. Now, he has lost weight and seems more cheerful.
When I return from the class, I open the windows to close the bedroom shutters. Matisse streaks out the opening and up his favourite tree. He climbs in the branches relishing the cool night and his freedom. Rustles in the grass, he sees two orange cats, one friendly the other not. Down the tree he leaps back inside the house.
Wednesday 30 April
I have painted the “gallery”. White over the pale pink, which is amazingly difficult to cover. The paint is thick as glue and needs to be watered down. I do this in bits and the paint is too thick or too thin. As I was painting someone passed on a motorino and said, “Yes, she lives here, see her name there?” No one buzzed the bell at the gate.
I notice that I have to leave the paint four to five hours to dry. If I paint wet over wet it comes unstuck, just like tempera! This means that the folks who develop these paints don’t use them. Just like many who design kitchens don’t seem to cook. And, where was the gallery that got designed without one single toilet?
The paint man at the hardware store tells me that all the instructions are written on the can. The paint must be diluted two-thirds to one-third. I am not exactly measuring with a beaker. I still have not figured out if it is best to use the roller or the big brush.
As I was in the field I heard a weed zapper and it was one of the men that work with Roberto cutting the grass and weeds. I prefer the one from
Merry has been troubled by flies and goes whizzing up and down the field trying to escape them. She comes when I call her. I had an apple cut up in a bucket as bait. I covered her with vinegar, it seemed to help, and I checked under her tail for horse flies. There were none.
Matisse went missing with Houdini for a long time and then they came trotting in together. When Matisse has that cross-eyed look, I believe he thinks he is invisible. He looks at me as though he is looking through me. As long as he doesn’t try this with Fat Cat; though Fat Cat is getting tamer. I don’t know why two cats that look so alike can be so completely different.
After the weed zapping is done, I throw a lot of wood I cannot burn in the fireplace on a heap. I have noticed that Vincenzo picks the windy days to light his big fires. I only hope I am around when he decides to light the next one.
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