POGGIO March 2003
Saturday 1 March
Went riding, Rais was very good until I was bringing him back and he saw a horse running in a field chased by dogs and he bucked (in sympathy?). I got off him and lunged him on the spot. He reared. I led him back up the path and lunged him at a wider spot. He is not cured of running for home. Also I think I am safer on his back and not on the ground.
As I went out for the ride I saw Vincenzo arriving on his motorino. When I got back he was still here. He had made a mess with all his pruning. He had forgotten the contract the last time he was over, so I gave it to him and he told me it had to be signed. I explained that it has already been signed and registered. Things seem more difficult then they need to be.
I have taken the trekking saddle in to a saddle shop to be sold. The owner advises me not to sell it. He mutters darkly about how I am not getting any younger and a saddle like this holds you on. Yes, but if it is too big for my little Appaloosa? She will disappear under it. I admit that she is not fully grown.
Dear Katherine was here for lunch. I think she was disappointed because she came with a bottle of prosecco and a jam tart to share with all the people. Some of my friends prefer one on one and Katherine likes a crowd, she seems to be always having her 78th birthday. I hope I get to be as young as she is soon.
Sunday 2 March
The rain was falling hard and I did not want to get up. I was aching all over and feeling depressed. In the end I did get up and cleaned out the stables and fed the horses. They don’t exactly like it in the stable and I can’t say I blame them. Merry started banging on the door with her front hoof, like Rais does. I stopped her with my voice and she squeaked at me. I went up to the door and she was conferring with Rais what she should do next. I told her not to listen to him because he would only get us all in trouble.
I took the saddle to the shop. As Annie says, since I got the saddle and the horse I have been riding less and less. It does seem that way. I used to be invited out to ride other people’s horses. So I would get there by car. Now my horses are always where the others are not, or that is what it feels like.
I just found my teapot on the mantelpiece, it must have been there the last two days. It has survived Matisse. I took the balding orange cat to the vet. Only about two hundred metres from here he escaped from the cage and underwent an instant name change. He is now called Houdini. I found the sweet vet in Anguillara. There was a man there who also had a cat in a cage and was upset because Houdini was crying so much. When it was my orange cat’s turn he began to purr as we were handling him. The vet did not make me pay. He tells me I’m always there and he would make an account.
I stopped by the butcher and his wife gave me a huge amount of bones for the dogs. I have to stand and throw them their food because they are not too careful with their teeth. Navaho takes himself off to a distance and asks to be fed there. I still have not figured them all out.
I made a fire and when I thought it had all burned out I closed the flue, bad move because I almost killed myself and the cat with the smoke filled house.
Monday 3 March
My brother called. He is moving. His new wife has bought a house. He told me he would not be able to come to my 50th birthday. I appreciate that he would even think of coming. Things have not been exactly breezy for any of us.
My pal Roberto saves me again. He will fence the field and go to pick up my hay with his truck.
It is raining again and my horses are tucked inside.
I found two boiled chickens tossed over the fence only half touched. Only Navaho seems to go there and he seems to do it guiltily looking over towards the house. This may be why he hangs back saying, “Oh, let the others eat”.
Last night I dreamed of a woman with long black hair who drove a black car into the driveway. She had keys in her hand, the door was already open. I asked her who she was, but I feel in the dream she might just as well have been asking me. I may have been standing in her house.
Roberto is late for the job at Judith’s. I have to explain to him why they do not speak Italian. Why should they? I say, they never know how long they will be in one place. They are a bit like the military, here today gone the next. He understood. He had a beautifully designed form with his estimate. He tells me his cousin did it. There are green plants and a little picture of a man on a bulldozer.
Tuesday 4 March
It was years ago that I knew the Canadian Poet David McFadden. We had been the writers taken around to advertise our books in the
Pat called me with an unhappy voice. She told me she was not going to the art class. I said I would not be going without her because I don’t like to be driving in the dark on my own. It is really not that far and it is still light at 5.30. Sometimes I don’t trust my car. Yesterday when I got back the horses were going through the motions of eating. When they heard my voice it was as though someone had switched a light on illuminating a bucket of feed. I do not give them much, only to sweeten the fact that they are cooped up inside. The fields are soggy wet now without the pools of standing water.
Yesterday did a painting and il Maestro patted me on the back and said he liked it. Next thing I will ask him how to sign my name properly with a brush. When he helps me he makes suggestions and then turns and hands me the brush. He laughs when he tells me I know what to do and sees the face I make. He tells the others that I am an expressionist painter.
I wanted to tell Judith that if she thinks Roberto is being too expensive to do everything in pine board and forget the tongue and groove. After all, the horses down at Remo’s were in the open. They had a roof and that is really all they need. Actually it is best to give them a roof and somewhere to hide behind from the cruel north wind, tramontana, that can cut through like a knife.
I dreamed that I sold Rais, I am anxious about the time that someone comes with a truck to collect him.
Wednesday 5 March
The horses are filthy from being inside. Merry lies down and is covered with dirt. It is not warm enough to give anyone a shower. I need to pick up the hay, but the ground needs to be dry enough to be driven over with a truck. I am down to one bale of hay.
It was Pat’s birthday. I apologised about forgetting. She tells me, “We do not DO birthdays.” Wait a minute. It is ME who does not do birthdays. We were a very unbirthday family. We DID Christmas. Birthdays always came around at school and so at Christmas with everybody at home we went overboard and put Daddy into debt.
Matisse is staring intently at a spot beside me. I think it is the movement of the shadows of the trees. He is now going to pounce. Turns out the moving shadow may have something to do with my pen.
Thursday 6 March
I was dreading going to pay the rent. I took the rent, was given tea and then taken for a walk with Vincenzo. I met his two grandchildren, a girl and a boy. For country children they both look thin, pale and ill. There was a pleasant blond-haired woman. I would have stopped and spoken but Vincenzo was striding off behind the fence. He has three cows, a baby calf (female), sheep, two donkeys he says have nothing to do with him. He gave me sage and twisted the ends telling me to plant the cutting straight into the ground. I must dry some. He tells me to water it a lot, because even if it rains the water wets the surface and does not go down to the roots. He also gave me his ancient battery holder and tells me it still works. He is worried about the chestnut trees, which were planted by his grandfather. We have a good ways to go before any chestnuts appear.
Margarita tells me that if I have trouble paying the rent I must tell them and they will wait. She did not want to hear about the electrician. Only said they were looking for work when they talked of doing new electrical installations.
More rain is coming. I sit inside wearing outside clothes and smelling of horse manure.
There was so much barking in the night that I went out to take a look. There were two Maremano dogs in the field, I wonder if it is them who harass the horses at night. When the horses are in there is peace and quiet.
Friday 7 March
Last night was the first night I had dinner/supper in my kitchen. I’d love to know where they fit that huge yellow wooden table. There is no room for it in the kitchen. I am told the last tenant only had antiques. I have seen a lot of plastic, but in time I too will give the impression of only having antiques.
Matisse is busy cleaning out the pot I use to mix the dog food, which the left last night. He was chased up a tree by the three dogs and when he saw me he thought it was safe to come down. He leapt out over the heads of the three dogs and sped around the corner of the house into the kitchen.
I will have to go for two bales of hay soon. Still too wet to go with a truck. The ground is still soggy.
I have to train Matisse to stay off the table when I am eating. Pat tells me to bang a rolled up newspaper on the table and he will get the message. I did as she told me and made a nice cracking sound. Matisse looked at me with surprise then batted my “weapon” with his paw. No fear, no getting off the table because of the loud noise. So I have to put him on the floor. After the third or fourth time he goes off to play with something else.
Pat called me to go to see a film that I have been wanting to see for some time about Frieda Kalo (?) the Mexican painter. I had to call her back because I was struck by how peaceful everything was, me doing my little bits and pieces, cleaning my shoes, filling holes in the wall, cleaning the worst of the dust off the floor, emptying more boxes and bags.
Saturday 8 March
I went to dinner with the Peruvian couple that took over my old apartment. Many flavours I never eat here. They showed me the dreadful refrigerator the landlord had given them to use. Ancient and corroded.
Changed Matisse’s cat litter. He was making his please change my cat litter noises and going into odd corners and staring out at me. Threatening me. I went to drink my coffee and then hear meows coming from the bathroom. I go there and find him lying stretched out on the clean kitty litter in his box. Then he leapt into the empty kitty litter bag and disappeared, another toy.
Matisse is cuddly in the morning. His fur smells of different things, dust, perfume. I can’t think who that can be. I am certain I don’t smell like that. Then I find him rolling around in the bottom of the bathtub. Bubble bath smell.
Sunday 9 March
Roberto arrived with the truck and his Albanian helper around
Again it is colder in the house than it is outside. The coldest room is where the computer is installed.
Liza is over and we see Luciano riding by. Liza says, “He looks like a man who knows he is a character.” He is, he may even be pleased if I share this with him.
Monday 10 March
I do not think I am feeding the horses enough. They look like deer. Remo says that when they eat grass they slim down because hay tends to puff them up.
I rode Rais in the field, walked and trotted him. He was quite good considering Merry was making running dashes at him and then skipping in a sideways motion away from him. A movement I have seen Matisse do.
I am going to sink into a depression for a few words. Here I am approaching 50 and I don’t have a pension. So what?
I need to figure something out for the hay so it does not get trampled. Rodolfo, a friend, has made something where four horses can stick their heads and eat at the same time. It is even covered so the rain does not wet the hay.
Matisse is up on the windowsill looking out the window. I am afraid to let him out on his own. At least now he is afraid of the dogs, which I feel is a step in the right direction. I take him out with a lead on. He gets to go where he wants, it is that kind of walk. I want him to know where he can go. Although some places look like hiding places and maybe they are already someone else’s safe spot. I have still not yet decided who’s side Houdini is on. Matisse sniffed him recently and dashed back inside. I expect it is because Houdini is always rubbing himself up against Porgy’s face, so he must smell like a dog.
Tuesday 11 March
Today I make up rabbit skin glue and gesso and prepare some canvases. Yesterday I finished a painting and Rolando said he liked it and did I have a canvas to start another painting? No. I did not even have a pencil.
Enza had brought me a magazine on the Expressionists. I was in the first phase of struggling with my painting and maybe did not say thankyou. She ended up copying a painting that Maestro picked out for her, one of a building. I would have chosen something easier to follow, such as the Franz Marc painting of the blue horses, maybe she felt she could not paint animals. If I ever get to teach drawing I will teach about drawing the negative spaces.
I told Pat that she must not wait for an invitation, that no one I know waits for an invitation. In fact they usually invite themselves. She told me she would let me know in advance. I said that was only to make sure I had food in the house and she was not to bring lunch. I think this is from time spent in
Saw Flora. I thought she had already been to see me or been riding. Later I hear her calling from the woods on horseback. She had been in
Now, writing this, I have Matisse curled up beside me. I am wearing the long down coat. I will have it cleaned in the spring (soon/now) because it is useful as a house coat!
Wednesday 12 March
Vincenzo came. I cleaned everything away that he had pruned. He seemed to wait until he did that and then he cut some more. He probably tied up the kiwi vines and found other branches that he hadn’t seen before.
He liked my idea of making another loose box for Sully, he doesn’t think the dogs will bother her when she is having her foal.
On the other side of the fence there are a couple of teenage girls who have been feeding carrots to the horses. Now I know why they hang around along the back fence. I told the girls they could come on over any time. They did not seem impressed. They all seem to be paler and thinner than children I find in the city.
There is much running around outside. Merry suddenly wakes up to the fact that Rais is not on her side of the fence. This happens in the morning when she comes into the garden to eat grass. Suddenly she misses Rais and starts to gallop around the garden. The dogs bark and I hope she is not eating the dog food.
Thursday 13 March
Took Matisse to the vet. It was the one I mix up with the god Pan. When it was my turn I couldn’t understand why he was leaning towards me on the table. He was listening to me and was misunderstanding what I was saying. I had been telling him that I did not want Matisse to suffer from the diarrhoea. He said, “the other cat you want to put to sleep?” Geesh. NO! OK, I said, there are two cats. One with bald spots and this one with the runs.
The difference between this vet and the other vet is this. This one remembers me, the other remembers my cat, so it is the other I prefer. This one asks about my horses. He knows the area I live. He suggests we go riding together. I tell him where I am is about three hours from Anguillara. He says you don’t have to walk the whole way.
In the night I wake up to find Matisse is under the covers in the middle of the bed with his head on the pillow. How did that happen, I wonder. Most times he taps me on the nose to wake me up and he seems to be deciding which direction I should be facing. He seems to get into a panic if I am on my belly with my head to one side. He will dig under me with his paws until I turn over.
Judith called to ask me if I could give the pizza delivery person the right directions to their house. So I did. She called me back to say they had never shown up. Dreadful, it was a child’s birthday party. Trouble is when I give directions if the Italian does not understand what a fontanile is (water trough in this case) then we are already off to a bad start.
Today the little tree has burst into white blossom and I wonder if I should bar the horses from the garden.
Friday 14 March
Got mixed up with the electricity company. Three ugly men showed up to cut the chestnut branches that touched the wires. I remembered what Vincenzo said about fearing for the chestnut trees and maybe became over protective. I wanted to see their documents. I took photos of them and the licence plate of their truck. Another man drives up in a white jeep. I have seen him all over the place wearing the blue electricity company boiler suit. So thin, I think they have painted his uniform on. I refuse to let them in.
He gives me his number and I am to call the electricity company. It is a tape telling me to contact the web site. Great! I keep trying. Finally I get through to a nice uncomplicated female and then a male voice. After the second call I tell them I am calling to verify the number of the thin blue man who came to cut the plants. The three ugly men are quiet and subdued. I tell them that if they had not been so rude at the start I would have let them in.
They are let in, cut Vincenzo’s grandfather’s chestnut trees and leave the wood on the ground. Later they are eating lunch in the woods. One shouted and waved and I waved back; although I had to get up and move inside because Porgy was circling me, eyeing my lunch.
I may pay one of Roberto’s helpers to cut the pile of wood. If I had my own chain saw I would pay the Peruvian man who moved into my old apartment. He does this kind of work as well.
It is still quiet, as though waiting to rain. The house is cold again.
Saturday 15 March
Matisse just jumped to the ground from the window causing a huge crash. He gets very busy around the house.
There is a fierce tramontana blowing again. Pat was here and remarked how cold the house is and why didn’t I put the heat on. I said because it costs money and I am always outside except for when I’m inside.
I have bought a pretty yellow and blue axe to cut the wood. It doesn’t look as scary as the red plastic handled roncio, a type of machete with the curled up end. The man in the hardware store explained the different uses for the various blades. One for underbrush, another for straight up and down hedges and then the axe, which he felt would be easier for me to handle.
In
I need to give Matisse another shot of antibiotics. He is curled up asleep on a spot of sunlight, which is getting smaller as the sun goes around the edge of the house.
Sunday 16 March
Today is so windy not even Rais wanted to go out. I will be leaving the horses out because I have noticed that Merry only pees once she has gone a few paces from her stall. The wind means that, without calling anyone, I know that no one is coming out here. Aldo, said it was the same high wind in
Matisse has been crawling all over me trying to get up the sleeve of the down coat I am wearing. He has grown too big. I am warm enough dressed in my outside clothes inside. I am used to it.
The horses do not enjoy being buffeted in the wind. There is no rain and there won’t be until the wind dies down.
Judith has been given ten years to live. I don’t know how to process this. I wonder if she was always the way she is now, or if she has become this way because she might have to face a shortened life span. I find her brave. I remember when I thought I was mortally ill and went to my gynaecologist he looked at the test results and threw them against the wall and shouted, “I don’t like this! I don’t believe it!” So, having a high regard for my doctor I went away and did as I was told. Well, I must admit he sent me off to someone he trusted for a follow up mammogram and all was well. But I was not brave.
Ten years is a long time when you consider we can be swept from the face of the earth for a minor slip having nothing to do with good or bad health.
Monday 17 March
Nobody came yesterday, as I knew they would not. The tramontana is still blowing. I was going to put the horses out but then Rais shook his head in that way that tells me he thinks I’m not worth a blade of grass and I put him back inside again. Merry, on the other hand, was licking her lips a lot and I think it’s what Monty Roberts calls a chewing motion, telling me she is a nice horse.
The dogs were asking to be fed. I have been trying out different types of dog food. There is one kind that stinks of old meat. They pick at this with the air of connoisseurs who have eaten caviar in their day and hope things will improve. They have been used to a boiled chicken each. The neighbour told me she has been throwing them over the fence for a year.
Matisse has shoved me aside on the chair so he gets to sit in the sunny spot. It is either this or he sits on my lap and I have to write at a strange angle. How my little cat can sleep there so trustingly when I have stuck him with a needle the past three mornings giving him an injection. Yesterday was the worst because there seemed to be no point on the needle, so I gave up.
Roberto tells me he will send someone to fix the fence. I told him I was thinking of buying a chain saw. We were driving back from Judith’s at the time and he nearly crashed his car into a tree. What do I need a chain saw for, he asks. To cut fallen branches, to clean up. Oh, he says if you need to clean up then I will do it. I asked him if I should buy the barbed wire for the fencing. He asks me how I will transport it, in my car? He will bring it. I must admit it is nice being a girl.
Tuesday 18 March
Went to the vet. Houdini showed up just as I was leaving. He probably heard my thoughts. He’s a good cat, makes a lot of noise, resists being put in the carrying cage but no claws. I wonder if he has any. It was not the vet I wanted.
I took my painting to class. Il Maestro takes one look at it and tells me to paint it over with white. I do. I agree that there are too many problems. I paint a nude man. The other women in the class come over to look. One shrieks. Rolando asks her what has she seen. “Il pisello!” she shouts. Later, he laughs and tells me I have painted a big stick. Fact is, if he looks at the other drawings of this particular model he would find that he was very well built. In the end Rolando liked my work. I lay down the shapes of light and the shadows. Keep doing this over and over and build up the form.
I look at the other drawings of the man. He looks Japanese. Now I don’t remember if I drew him that way or that he himself was Japanese.
Whatever happens today I’m doing horse stuff. I’ll whirl them around. Mara called and asked if she could give my number to her friend Franco who is looking for a horse. I would lower the price because I like him and I know he would look after my horse. Franco goes on long rides but not that often, it would be a good life.
Sounds in the house. Matisse is somewhere. I told Jancis that the heat has been at 10 degrees centigrade so that I can flush the toilet.
Wednesday 19 March
Today I waved at my neighbour but from this distance I don’t know if it was her or her daughter. On top of that she was faced in the other direction with her back to me.
I have not seen Vincenzo, on account of the wind.
Matisse spent a lot of time outside with Houdini, who is now teaching him to protect himself. Matisse is confused by Houdini’s behaviour and retreats and sits down like a good boy. Matisse practises his bites and manoeuvres on me, flinging himself across the room to do a somersault and he catches my leg as I step out. I watch for him now so as not to end up on the floor, thrown by a fur ball weighing less than a kilo in a cat judo throw. He meows to go out. He has, no doubt, learned from Houdini that he must not run past the dogs. Matisse now walks by them on stiff legs and keeps a wary eye. Houdini rubs himself under Porgy’s chin as if to say, “Make this one your special friend”.
Merry was half asleep when I went to give the horses their hay. I was not as successful with the influenza and tetanus shot when I gave it to her. Under the skin, rather than into the muscles. I wonder if she is having a reaction. I feed them hay in the morning and let them into the garden, but not together, not enough space. Rais will be sold soon. My plan is that he will be gone by September. I am in no rush because I want him to have a good home.
I am not happy with how the dogs react to the food I give them. Maybe I feed them too much and too often. I am not happy about where I feed them. At the moment they are outside the kitchen window, so that I can spy on them. I see that Navaho, the large shaggy black dog eats when I am not there. He won’t take food from my hand. I believe he was trained not to. He was trained to wait for a command to eat, he is so big. After being brought up with a bunch of unruly Irish Setters I know what it is like to feed dogs while they eat out of the bowl as you put it on the ground.
Seems a shame to wake Matisse, who is curled up beside me. He has his routine in the night. First he goes into the little cloth house that Pat gave him. Then, when he is sure I’ve warmed up the bed he comes to me and curls up under the covers; a fur covered hot water bottle.
Thursday 20 March
It is a bleak day. I have already been out and fed the horses. Yesterday I was actually on the train by
I took bread and cheese with me to Jancis’ house because I thought it would be rude if I showed up and immediately asked for breakfast. She was in fine form and look younger than I remember. (Is she 60 something?). She had spent a week in
When I fed the dogs last night I laced their boring biscuits with tuna and now it is gone.
I let Matisse out as I got back from
It is cold, there is green stuff growing at the top of the tank in the bathroom. I put bleach in there and hope that will take care of it.
Friday 21 March
Saw Remo, I had glimpsed Magic Elegance, Cornelia’s foal, on the hill. He’d had to bring her back because someone could not keep her in their field anymore. Bring her to me? No. People are interested in buying her. OK. Five million lire, 2, 500 euro. I don’t feel as rich with the euro. He tells me how to do an injection properly. Too late. Anyway, put the needle in first, then pull out the plunger to make sure there is no blood (haven’t hit a vein), then push the plunger in. Must not take a vein for those injections going into muscle.
Judith called to tell me they had decided to do Roberto’s expensive version of the stable. She also told me about a visit to
Pat called. Guy, a mutual friend, had died at
Last night when I was in the bath the bell on the gate went. It was the hay man. I had to make him wait while I put clothes on. He was on the way to the pool. He apologised for coming so late. It was not late, I said, only I did not expect him because he said he may not come out. Anyway, I have got tired of waiting for people who do not show up. Now I carry on with my life and whoever shows up does and will have to muck in, or wait while I make myself presentable.
Matisse’s face looked swollen last night. He looks better this morning. When this little cat is outside I am worried. Houdini is out there sitting on the chair outside the kitchen door.
I am down to 10 percent of gpl heating gas. I suppose if I go out and look during the day when the sun is on the tank it will read higher.
Saturday 22 March
Went to Guy’s funeral. On the way in the car I said my own good bye to Guy, “What you go and do a silly thing like that for? Go and die and leave your sweet wife and daughter.” His wife arrives with the coffin, a light coloured pine with a simple carving on each side at the head end. It was already closed. He had a lot of friends, men friends who looked a bit like him, well-read books, dog eared and torn at the corners. Men who had probably lived life and done things that Anais Nin would have accepted and I might not have approved of in the dark corners of my puritanical heart.
We are “at war with
At the funeral a woman comes up to me and says, “Let’s be friends,” she calls her daughter, the one who had thumped me in the street and screamed at me. “Come, let’s be friends”. Who can refuse. I couldn’t. Anyway, I like this elder woman, it is her daughter I cross the street to avoid.
A Chinese couple I know are also at the funeral. They are surprised to see me there. They make me feel important, as though I am a diplomat. I would like to be able to do that to people. Have them feel important.
I go to
Judith tells me about a life class with a clothed, or barely clothed model. I tell her that I like life drawing classes and have done a few with naked men or women. I tell her that I find a model with underwear pornographic. Actually, Egon Schiels (sp) drawings of semi clothed women are erotic, more so than if they had been nude. A thought to bear in mind, says Judith.
Sunday 23 March
I called Rodolfo and told him I was selling Rais. Moments later his companion, Patrice calls. She asked the price. I told her, I said I could go down, she makes a sound that says, piffle!
The upshot of
All along the road people are building large houses. Another one goes up on the corner where two horses used to be, or still are. Saw a face I recognize, a man with longish hair. His face is already tanned to a leathern brown. I know folks who go and get themselves tanned in a shop, so they can look more like farmers and gardeners. I may cultivate the look of pale nobility. Not a chance!
Have woken up to sun, wind, the horses may stay in, though it rained so little. I may keep them in for two days and give the field a break, or let them out into the garden. There is grass there but they cannot gallop around. Although, they will, clunking around the house and making the walls shake.
Monday 24 March
My friend Lucea called and said they were coming out to see me. They arrived around
My friend is an architect and we walk around the house. She suggests that I close the walk in cupboard from the bedroom side and open it into the hallway. Put shelves in there. She said I should paint everything white, it is now pink and green, and put a white cover on the couch. We talked of the lighting, but I must go with what I can afford. She tells me to bring the glass table into the kitchen (I will need six men). I now have two yellows in the kitchen, because I didn’t know there were yellow-painted tiles under the ripped off wood. Lucea tells me to paint a line in a different colour between them. Some good ideas.
I lunged Merry, forgetting that she has never been lunged. She goes well in one direction but not in the other. I miss having a round pen to use. I know there are movable round pens that I can put up in this field, but have not yet found where to buy them in
Merry escapes into the garden. Rais wonders why she is getting special treatment and sticks his head over the stall door, hay sticks out of his mouth, some drops to the ground as though he’d opened his mouth in surprise. “Take my advice,” I tell him, “Eat the hay.” And he does.
Tuesday 25 March
The horses are in the garden, I am inside and can hear their hooves hammering on the ground as they change from the back to the front, change their minds and go from the front to the back. They are now in the front garden working at cleaning it of tall grass. Merry is also eating the blossoms on the white-flowered tree.
Lucea had told me that I must make a place for human beings instead of a place for animals. She has a point, I’d spoken of my bed and breakfast idea. However, if anyone does come here I will have to tell them about the animals first. She tells me I could share the house with someone. I am afraid to do this. If people are not painters they do not understand about paints being left out.
I was telling Pat the other day that I had decided that it shouldn’t bother me if people found me difficult. Or if they did not like me. How many people found Picasso easy to get along with? She laughed. She tells me I must hold tight to my dreams. She reminds me that I had been telling everyone for ages that I would have a house in the country and a place for my horses. “No one had believed you or taken you seriously,” she says. “Now look at you.” It is not my house, I say. “Also this remains to be seen,” she says.
Enza asked how much my painting of the nude man would cost. I haven’t a clue. She sits behind me and follows the way I paint. This is the second male nude. Rolando tells me this one is better than the first.
I hear a noise. I think the horses tried to come into the kitchen. Something has fallen. Rais seems to have the air of a confused horse. There was a question mark balanced in the air over his head. I think Merry came in, there are apples on the floor and one has a bite taken out of it.
Wednesday 26 March
Vincenzo has brought me the “corrected” form. Now it reads that I was born in
Am sitting on the couch bed, Matisse is licking my hand. He is now seeking a more comfortable position. Maybe I should let him out.
Outside, I notice that when Vincenzo fixes things it is slapped together, it looks strong but isn’t. However, I am amazed at the pruning job he did. I think he had a small saw rather than clippers. I cannot clip with my two hands, my left arm still hurts from the time when Merry acted up and I felt a muscle tear. I think the only way to heal this is to wait.
Vicenzo tells me he will put down hay seed. I don’t know how long I will have to wait for it to grow. There has been no rain to speak of.
My little cat has short, thick legs. Today he is looking small. I think I must be sitting on his usual morning spot. He has curled up beside me purring in the sun. Today his fur is silky soft. Sometimes he feel rougher. A day to day thing, maybe it has to do with the food I give him.
Thursday 27 March
I took Vincenzo to Bracciano to the town hall. I had to explain why I could not be born in
Vincenzo tells me that I must clean the stalls out once a week, he says I am not running a riding stable. He points out that the manure makes a soft bed for the horses to lie down on. However, I am on a run of cleaning out the stables in the morning.
Rodolfo called he says he will bring a person to see Rais. I had told him that he reared, now he wants to know if he continues to do this. Yes, the last time was when I wanted to make a longer ride and he didn’t like the idea. I tell him that I have too many Appaloosas, he sounded interested. I will let him know about this later.
The dogs burst into their yipping and howling twice last night. At
Matisse is curled up in his sunny patch. When he goes out he circles the house and pounces on Houdini, who fights back, but with none of the force he uses on the other cat. I cannot read Houdini’s expression. He looks like a commander of a battalion who cannot give his emotions away. I think a dog’s face is easier to read. Matisse is easy only because, I think, he is so young and has been a house cat for most of his life. He is changing for the better on the outside.
There are fewer and fewer places to ride around here. Everything is being asphalted over. The trees have been cut, I cannot remember, maybe they have always been cutting the trees around here. Rotating, how many centuries has this been going on? Chestnut.
Porgy is barking continuously
Friday 28 March
I let Matisse out. He seemed so sad, it will be another hour and half before I take myself off to
I am again going to try to get my residence permit. Annie says she will meet me for lunch because she will be driving back from
I see Rais chase Merry around the field. She gets her own back when I am lunging him and winds herself up as far away as possible and then launches herself across the field at the gallop. I stop Rais. Yesterday I put her in the pen and she squealed with rage and then forgot when she found a couple of blades of grass in there. Remo tells me that if I sell Rais they will bring Merry’ sister for company.
Saturday 29 March
I had to wait some time in
Then Luciano, Sonia and Celia with the little baby showed up. Sonia made the mistake of standing in the door, she wanted to ask the kind of question we all learn not to ask. What should we do, how long will it be. She was told that she had to wait her turn.
All that needed to be done was that my address needed changing. They needed the original residence permit and two copies, two copies of the form with my corrected birth place on it, two copies of my tax code. Celia walked in as my residence permit was being changed. This man did not even look at the form I’d been sent away to change, he later told me it wasn’t important because they could see where I was born in my passport.
Once outside I called Annie and was able to link up with her because of the tidy joy of having a cell phone that works. I knew a few restaurants in Santa Marinella, we met there and chose one I’d wanted to try even though it did not have a view of the sea. We had two huge plates of mussels, wine and chocolate mousse. Annie tells me that 50 euro for lunch is too expensive. The girl is sullen and when I go to pay young women were smoking in the kitchen. Won’t go back there again.
As we were taking Leopoldo for a short walk after him being shut in the car while we had lunch, Luciano drives by with Sonia and Celia. They are probably looking for a place to stop for lunch. I hope they have better luck.
Before Rodolfo comes I want to clean out Rais’s feet, but I won’t put that black stuff on them, it will look too obvious.
Sunday 30 March
Three men came to look at Rais. Rodolfo, a man in a Smart Car and a man in a jeep. It was the man in the jeep who recognised me, I am afraid I don’t remember him. He had a pencil thin moustache like Douglas Fairbanks.
The man who wants to buy Rais has an open face and I like him. Pencil moustache rode Rais around the field and said how light he was. I told him it was the Myler bit I was using. It had changed the horse. I was asked if Rais stopped with whoa or a whistle. I said I could never stop him with a whistle since I’d never learned. I always thought you had to take your two front teeth out to whistle, like my father did, so had never tried.
Seems Rais is sold. There is a small limp. I must write down when he was last wormed, vaccinated. They complimented me on Merry. I said she was 18 months old, well, maybe two years. They say she is big. The man with the pencil moustache says he is please to have met me and gently strokes my head as though I am a little wild horse he has met in the field.
I have horses in the garden, the grass is long and needs eating down. Whatever was growing in the plant pot has now disappeared into Merry’s mouth.
I am sitting outside writing at the stone table. The only sounds to break the peace are the hum of the fridge, the birds’ song and a crackling mew from a cat. Matisse has found Houdini, they are having a play fight but Matisse keeps running away.
The men are dividing the field. Roberto brought them and they are working well on their own.
I hear a truck in the night and get up to look at the horses. I find Merry lying down. They are resigned about my spot checks with a flashlight bursting in on them at an odd time in the night.
Merry has found a grassy spot in the garden where Vincenzo tells me to put the vegetable garden. The water from the trough runs off there so it is always damp. I ask Roberto if I should fence this area. And how much I must pay for the two men who came to do the job. He tells me that we will talk about the money another time. I ask him about Judith’s stall and am looking at the back of his head and know he is smiling. Another week, he says.
I will take coffee to the men who are working on the fence. There is silence, I hear the bell at the railway crossing warning that a train will soon be passing and the neighbour’s barking dog.
I have fallen into a depression because of selling Rais. Remo tells me, “This too will pass.”
Monday 31 March
I was, or had been getting used to the fact that maybe Rais was not being sold. Anyway, at around 3.30pm or so Rodolfo called and said he was coming with Patrizia to pick up the horse. Pat had brought lunch, but hearing they were coming she decided to leave. They arrived. Rais put on a show, he refused to get onto the trailer. Only four times, I said. Rodolfo said the other times must have been dreadful. I had been there when Remo had put him on the trailer and it had been quiet, with feed in a bucket and placing his hooves one at a time by hand. Finally, Rodolfo got Rais on the trailer and he paid me.
Every time this horse gets on a trailer his life changes radically. He lived ten years in one place, then went to Remo’s for two years and then lived with me for two months.
Now I have sold my horse I can barely stand it. It feels like I broke up with a boyfriend. The exact same physical feelings. I don’t want to eat, don’t want to get up in the morning. I feel a hollow aching around the whole centre of my body. I think in his horse way he was fond of me. There was a time he could have knocked me out with his front hooves if he’d even half thought about it.
How awful this feeling is, I am pretty much surprised. It feels like a death. I could phone and say I can’t stand it. The horse is mine forever. Maybe it is that I could not take the forever part, and maybe this is why some people change their horses in continuation. So they never have to feel the separation.
Rodolfo had to slap Rais on the face to make him focus on him. Rais had a good, lazy life with me. I rode him twice in the two months I have been here. It had been hard to catch him, either of them. I see that I must talk myself into all the reasons I could not keep him. It is clear that it was him who was doing all the clunking in the night. The vibration of his shod hooves on the hard ground vibrating in my bedroom.
As the trailer went through the gate, Rais looked over his shoulder at me standing in the field. How did I feel in that moment? This is how I felt, exactly as though I had betrayed a friend who had trusted me with his life.
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