Everyone knows she writes one. You do not want to get on the wrong side of Miss Lister or she’ll immortalise you in her diary. She’s known for her pocketbook and pocket watch. People talk as if it is very strange, but I think it is admirable to record everything. An unusual hobby, but writing things down somehow makes them seem important. I should write one too. I start my list again. From lunch onwards. Sat with Aunt. Stroked the dog. Had some tea.

Dear God, is that all I did for the entire afternoon? What wasted hours. What a well stroked dog. He will not like me writing a diary if it starts to occupy more of my stroking time. Perhaps that’s why she started it, to fill up some time, to have an excuse to retire early to write it up each evening. Perhaps she never writes it up at all. Perhaps most of the volumes she showed me are empty and it is all a lie. She scribbles things down to create an illusion, so that everyone fears to be recorded, and then she retires early and just stares out of the window, or strokes her dog, knowing she has gained some peace and quiet under a lie that she has maintained for her entire adult life!

Of course she writes a diary. I’m just jealous because I do not have the patience to do it myself.

Perhaps I should stick to painting. That will be my legacy. But my pictures are not very good. They never look how I intend them to and mostly end up on the fire.

Never mind writing my own diary. I will find a way to read hers. Will she ever let me? But do I really want to read what she has written about me? As though being confronted with oneself in the mirror and unable to look away, but worse, you are seen through someone else’s eyes who may not be as forgiving. The desire to read them now starts to burn in me. Miss Lister and her precious diaries. I’ll read them one day. I’ll make sure of it.

Miss Lister

I write about Miss Walker in code. I write about our walks in the woods and kissing in the shelter of the trees away from prying eyes. I write how she lets me hold her and she seems willing and never wants to leave.