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Description
Miles away.

She looked up. A look of astute defensiveness flickered across her face, like a cat in the night that has been caught toppling rubbish bins. It was a light whisper in the trees that had roused her imagination, and, stretching her limbs in a fashion that did further justice to the feline metaphor, she put down her book and wandered towards the window. The window was closed, but she noticed the tremble of the mid-afternoon light as it glanced through the lace curtains. She raised the curtain and peered out. The window looked out into the back yard, and she could see the trees they had planted two years since – a strip of young elms lining the southern limit of the property – dancing in each other’s arms.
     She took up the humming of the leaves, and in her mind it swiftly grew to a whistling and from there to a roaring; before long she heard it softly wailing in the walls of the house. Idly, she fancied that the moaning in the pipes was a code, meant for her ears and no one else’s – a message from parts unknown. Yet she couldn’t interpret it. Putting down her book, she turned the latch and slid the window open. Then she let the curtain fall, to float on the slipstream at its leisure, and went from room to room, turning latches and opening windows. In one of the upstairs bedrooms she found a burnished leaf lying on the threshold of the glass, and she turned it over on her palm, thrilling at its skeletal fragility. When she clenched her hand shut, it dissolved into red dust, like calcified bones.
     She returned downstairs. In the western corner of the sky, silhouetted by a fading sun, a bank of clouds came on. They were a herd of dark, smoky faces against the sky, bearing down on the house with an inexorable will. Looking out the kitchen windows, she looked up at them, thinking that she might see her future wreathed in steam; but the clouds held their peace. Yawning, the natural light began to withdraw in sorrow to its high pavilion, to lie in wait for a clearer, newer day. By now the wind had reached a high pitch, sawing accents and shifting pitches in a rage. If indeed it had had something to tell her, the message was now unintelligibly delivered in a hundred different voices and thirty different languages.
     One by one, she turned off the few electric lights that were on. She smiled at the effect that resulted from the combination of the dying light and the billowing curtains, tossed on ethereal seas.
     She started as a bright pair of headlamps washed the walls. Her discomfort increased, though only momentarily, as a loud motor drowned out the wind. She collected herself, tying her hair and fussing with some papers which had blown off a nearby coffee table. Presently the door swung inwards. He trudged in, hooking up his keys and his coat and wiping his shoes on the inner doormat, but not before their white cat had scampered through his legs into the house. The cat, Isabel, shot across the living room, jumped on to the coffee table, and nuzzled her wrist.
     ‘Someone’s glad to see you,’ he said, with a sigh, looking at Isabel.
     ‘She’s been out all day. And you know how she gets when it rains.’
     ‘Yes, yes, I know. Why is it so dark in here?’ he added.
     ‘I … well, I find it more peaceful without all the lights buzzing around me.’
     ‘Peaceful?’ he grunted. ‘Yeah, I sure do find it peaceful to crack my shin against every low-lying object,’ he frowned. ‘It’s freezing as well. It almost feels colder than it is outside. Why don’t you shut some of these windows?’
     Now it was her turn to sigh. She stood up and stepped over to the door. He brushed past her and stomped off to the kitchen, his hands thrust in his pockets. She held the door open a moment longer, letting her body soak up the pregnant air. Isabel leapt down from the coffee table to wind about her feet.
     She disentangled herself from the cat, left the front room, and moved to the fireplace, where she took down a tall, tapering candle from the mantelpiece. She permitted herself another smile as the first drops of rain began to dance, almost reluctantly, on the roof. Coming from the kitchen, he moved past her again, caught in his own storm cloud. He went upstairs while she went to the kitchen and shook a match from the box. After igniting the sulphur tip she stared at it for a few suspended seconds, before placing it to the wick of the candle. She put the candle in a shallow china saucer on the kitchen table, where it was an illuminated buoy in an encroaching sea of wet dusk. She put some canned food in Isabel’s bowl, secretly a little sore that he, once again, had neglected to.

     He threw water in his face, trying to efface the worry of another busy day. He wiped himself off with a face towel and left the en suite. Descending the staircase, he paused to let the tribal rhythm of the falling drops reach a muttering crescendo within him. He was still chilly, but he couldn’t completely deny that the storm was pleasurable to him. He liked to imagine that even safe within these four sturdy walls, the falling water could come down and wash him clean. He pictured a bubbling spring that welled up within him in joyous sympathy with the turbulent weather, a pure fount that could purge his most intimate places of weariness, the ones trapped deep in the angles and aches of his body.
     She knew, and relished, how much she loved the wet weather; but as she gently scratched and tended to Isabel, her exhilaration was mingled with a well-worn fear; a fear that she might be flooded, from the inside out, and be unable to keep any of her most precious thoughts hidden, where they belonged. It was the exchange she inevitably submitted herself to when it rained; that she should know herself best, know the exact layout of her own intricacies and the precise extent of her extremities, but inversely suffer the risk that these intimate details might be borne out, out, forever out, on a tidal wave of inescapable emotion. Every moment spent knowing herself might itself be the last.
     He paused, at length, by the kitchen candle. The small island of light showed a bright moment in his eyes, both a longing and a quietude. He glanced down to see Isabel standing at his feet, an entreaty painted on her small face. He cursed her fondly under his breath, and left the room.
     The gentle downpour which had so far characterised the storm reached the limits of its temerity. The rain slackened, almost ceased, and withdrew to the wings, as the dark conference of clouds swirled and gathered about each other, shoulder to shoulder, to discuss the best plan of action. The energy of the thunderhead built, each moment fuelling the next to greater heights, until it reached a point of inevitable cyclopean fury.
     Around this time they sat and ate together, in the grip of a seemingly endless silence. Frequently he looked up at her, trying to gauge her, to quantify, to classify her. She withdrew, almost visibly, from this surveying; she felt too vulnerable, just now, to undergo evaluation. Oblivious to the sparking storm outside, she felt the terrible thunder of his eyes.
     She longed for Isabel’s freedom; she wished, at that moment, that she could drop out of sight and slip away, through a cat flap, out into the flooding rain. If she could only get outside, away from the prickling electric light and his smouldering brow, there would be a harmony between the inner and outer flood; whatever flowed out uncontrollably from her could be replaced by newer, sweeter measures.
     Each peal of thunder raced through his veins, as fluid as music. Somehow the vocal violence of the storm fed him, urged him up to dizzying peaks of power. The storm had centred him; he lay, baited and breathless, waiting for victory.
     But soon the spell broke; she left the table and went to wash her plate. He sat there some minutes longer, spent; his exultation bleeding off into frustration and apathy.
     Later on she lit another candle. She took it to her favourite corner, where the air smelt of her and every wrinkle was lovingly familiar, and put it down on the windowsill. She curled up on her beanbag, trying to make herself as small as she comfortably could. Isabel came over the furniture like a jungle climber and settled next to her. As the house shook and sung with tempest, she opened her book to her marker, and withdrew.

     Miles away …

Description
Miles away.

She looked up. A look of astute defensiveness flickered across her face, like a cat in the night that has been caught toppling rubbish bins. It was a light whisper in the trees that had roused her imagination, and, stretching her limbs in a fashion that did further justice to the feline metaphor, she put down her book and wandered towards the window. The window was closed, but she noticed the tremble of the mid-afternoon light as it glanced through the lace curtains. She raised the curtain and peered out. The window looked out into the back yard, and she could see the trees they had planted two years since – a strip of young elms lining the southern limit of the property – dancing in each other’s arms.
     She took up the humming of the leaves, and in her mind it swiftly grew to a whistling and from there to a roaring; before long she heard it softly wailing in the walls of the house. Idly, she fancied that the moaning in the pipes was a code, meant for her ears and no one else’s – a message from parts unknown. Yet she couldn’t interpret it. Putting down her book, she turned the latch and slid the window open. Then she let the curtain fall, to float on the slipstream at its leisure, and went from room to room, turning latches and opening windows. In one of the upstairs bedrooms she found a burnished leaf lying on the threshold of the glass, and she turned it over on her palm, thrilling at its skeletal fragility. When she clenched her hand shut, it dissolved into red dust, like calcified bones.
     She returned downstairs. In the western corner of the sky, silhouetted by a fading sun, a bank of clouds came on. They were a herd of dark, smoky faces against the sky, bearing down on the house with an inexorable will. Looking out the kitchen windows, she looked up at them, thinking that she might see her future wreathed in steam; but the clouds held their peace. Yawning, the natural light began to withdraw in sorrow to its high pavilion, to lie in wait for a clearer, newer day. By now the wind had reached a high pitch, sawing accents and shifting pitches in a rage. If indeed it had had something to tell her, the message was now unintelligibly delivered in a hundred different voices and thirty different languages.
     One by one, she turned off the few electric lights that were on. She smiled at the effect that resulted from the combination of the dying light and the billowing curtains, tossed on ethereal seas.
     She started as a bright pair of headlamps washed the walls. Her discomfort increased, though only momentarily, as a loud motor drowned out the wind. She collected herself, tying her hair and fussing with some papers which had blown off a nearby coffee table. Presently the door swung inwards. He trudged in, hooking up his keys and his coat and wiping his shoes on the inner doormat, but not before their white cat had scampered through his legs into the house. The cat, Isabel, shot across the living room, jumped on to the coffee table, and nuzzled her wrist.
     ‘Someone’s glad to see you,’ he said, with a sigh, looking at Isabel.
     ‘She’s been out all day. And you know how she gets when it rains.’
     ‘Yes, yes, I know. Why is it so dark in here?’ he added.
     ‘I … well, I find it more peaceful without all the lights buzzing around me.’
     ‘Peaceful?’ he grunted. ‘Yeah, I sure do find it peaceful to crack my shin against every low-lying object,’ he frowned. ‘It’s freezing as well. It almost feels colder than it is outside. Why don’t you shut some of these windows?’
     Now it was her turn to sigh. She stood up and stepped over to the door. He brushed past her and stomped off to the kitchen, his hands thrust in his pockets. She held the door open a moment longer, letting her body soak up the pregnant air. Isabel leapt down from the coffee table to wind about her feet.
     She disentangled herself from the cat, left the front room, and moved to the fireplace, where she took down a tall, tapering candle from the mantelpiece. She permitted herself another smile as the first drops of rain began to dance, almost reluctantly, on the roof. Coming from the kitchen, he moved past her again, caught in his own storm cloud. He went upstairs while she went to the kitchen and shook a match from the box. After igniting the sulphur tip she stared at it for a few suspended seconds, before placing it to the wick of the candle. She put the candle in a shallow china saucer on the kitchen table, where it was an illuminated buoy in an encroaching sea of wet dusk. She put some canned food in Isabel’s bowl, secretly a little sore that he, once again, had neglected to.

     He threw water in his face, trying to efface the worry of another busy day. He wiped himself off with a face towel and left the en suite. Descending the staircase, he paused to let the tribal rhythm of the falling drops reach a muttering crescendo within him. He was still chilly, but he couldn’t completely deny that the storm was pleasurable to him. He liked to imagine that even safe within these four sturdy walls, the falling water could come down and wash him clean. He pictured a bubbling spring that welled up within him in joyous sympathy with the turbulent weather, a pure fount that could purge his most intimate places of weariness, the ones trapped deep in the angles and aches of his body.
     She knew, and relished, how much she loved the wet weather; but as she gently scratched and tended to Isabel, her exhilaration was mingled with a well-worn fear; a fear that she might be flooded, from the inside out, and be unable to keep any of her most precious thoughts hidden, where they belonged. It was the exchange she inevitably submitted herself to when it rained; that she should know herself best, know the exact layout of her own intricacies and the precise extent of her extremities, but inversely suffer the risk that these intimate details might be borne out, out, forever out, on a tidal wave of inescapable emotion. Every moment spent knowing herself might itself be the last.
     He paused, at length, by the kitchen candle. The small island of light showed a bright moment in his eyes, both a longing and a quietude. He glanced down to see Isabel standing at his feet, an entreaty painted on her small face. He cursed her fondly under his breath, and left the room.
     The gentle downpour which had so far characterised the storm reached the limits of its temerity. The rain slackened, almost ceased, and withdrew to the wings, as the dark conference of clouds swirled and gathered about each other, shoulder to shoulder, to discuss the best plan of action. The energy of the thunderhead built, each moment fuelling the next to greater heights, until it reached a point of inevitable cyclopean fury.
     Around this time they sat and ate together, in the grip of a seemingly endless silence. Frequently he looked up at her, trying to gauge her, to quantify, to classify her. She withdrew, almost visibly, from this surveying; she felt too vulnerable, just now, to undergo evaluation. Oblivious to the sparking storm outside, she felt the terrible thunder of his eyes.
     She longed for Isabel’s freedom; she wished, at that moment, that she could drop out of sight and slip away, through a cat flap, out into the flooding rain. If she could only get outside, away from the prickling electric light and his smouldering brow, there would be a harmony between the inner and outer flood; whatever flowed out uncontrollably from her could be replaced by newer, sweeter measures.
     Each peal of thunder raced through his veins, as fluid as music. Somehow the vocal violence of the storm fed him, urged him up to dizzying peaks of power. The storm had centred him; he lay, baited and breathless, waiting for victory.
     But soon the spell broke; she left the table and went to wash her plate. He sat there some minutes longer, spent; his exultation bleeding off into frustration and apathy.
     Later on she lit another candle. She took it to her favourite corner, where the air smelt of her and every wrinkle was lovingly familiar, and put it down on the windowsill. She curled up on her beanbag, trying to make herself as small as she comfortably could. Isabel came over the furniture like a jungle climber and settled next to her. As the house shook and sung with tempest, she opened her book to her marker, and withdrew.

     Miles away …