Where the West Wind Blows Read Free Page B

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 forget, 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