Not the half-arsed drizzle some of us have come to expect but a full-blown storm of biblical proportions.
Icy cold rain hit the ground and the unprotected heads of unfortunate passers by, drenching them in seconds. The water ran in rivulets across roads and into gutters, blocking them with its cargo of cigarette butts, cans and dead leaves. Thunder and lightening played tag across the sky.
The storm was so near Miranda that she could hear the thunder roll before the flash of the lightening was over.
The ancient windows of her house were rattling in their wooden panes, threatening to break and shower Miranda in shards of glass but she didn’t care.
She was waiting for someone.
Several people passed, but the rain was coming down so thick and so fast that she couldn’t tell who they were. It was never the right person anyway; they always hurried past the house with hands covering their bowed heads in a futile attempt to keep the rain off.
The rain continued on, the sky getting ever darker, but Miranda was too absorbed in her task to turn the lights on. If she had tried, she would have found that the storm had cut off the power supply.
Finally a likely person came along.
A small thin figure with a plastic bag clutched in one hand and its other outstretched, trailing along walls and hedgerows.
The sleeves of the shirt had been rolled up, and drops of water glistened on brown skin. The shirt itself clung to it’s wearer and the figure’s short hair was plastered to it’s forehead.
The person meandered along slowly, sometimes stopping to tilt it’s head back and catch the rain in it’s mouth.
Miranda couldn’t wait any longer. She ran to the door, throwing it open and shouting:
“I’m sorry!”
Her words were snatched away by the howling wind and lost among the raindrops. The figure didn’t even look up.
After what seemed to Miranda to be an eternity the figure reached the gate and saw her standing in the doorway, a silhouette against the darkness of the house.
Immediately the plastic bag was dropped and the figure came rushing toward Miranda, enveloping her in a tight hug.
“I’m sorry,” the girl said before Miranda had a chance.
Instantly the nervousness that had been building up in Miranda’s gut fell away and she hugged the girl back, feeling the fine fragile bones through the girl’s clothes and her thin layer of skin.
They broke apart finally, smiling faintly at each other and themselves, and moved away from the door.
Sometimes a hug is all that is needed.
The boy picked up the phone. Nothing. Not even a dial tone. He tried his mobile. The same thing.
He had no reception at all.
A man could die in these conditions.
He opened the curtains a crack to see if he could see his mother’s car, but he couldn’t.
She’d gone out three hours earlier in search of ‘bread and milk’ and still hadn’t returned.
Could something have happened to her? No. Impossible.
He shook the traitorous thought out of his head and put their ‘quirky’ iron kettle on the black Aga his mother had salvaged from among the junk that had been left in the house when they’d first bought it a year ago.
The whole kitchen was modelled around that Aga.
He picked up his phone again and checked the screen.
Still no reception.
With a sigh he threw it down once again.
The thunder growled and he growled right back at it. What kind of weather was this anyway? It was meant to be June, all sunny and gorgeous.
And it had been until about an hour ago, when a mass of dark clouds appeared out of nowhere, and it had rained relentlessly from then on.
The kettle began to whistle from the kitchen, forcing the boy to postpone his mental rant about bipolar weather for a while.
He poured the water on the teabag; added milk and sugar then took a sip.
“Ow! Damn, damn!” he shouted, hastily slamming the cup back down on the work surface, spilling some of the scalding hot tea as he did so.
He searched around the kitchen for something; swearing under his breath and stopping occasionally to stick his tongue out and fan it with his hands.
He found what he was looking for eventually, in the top shelf of a cupboard, behind vials of translucent tinted liquids, bottles of Neurofen and cough medicine, and little boxes of painkillers. A jam jar with a colourless substance lurking in the bottom.
He opened the jar and sniffed at the contents cautiously. His face wrinkled up, and he drew back hurriedly: it was definitely what he was looking for.
He took a piece of kitchen towel, damped it in the liquid and then placed the soaking tissue on his tongue.
The rank taste of pure white rum filled his mouth and his face screwed up again in response, but he didn’t take the tissue out of his mouth.
After a minute or so, the burning died down, and then faded completely.
He pulled the tissue out of his mouth and dumped it in the bin, sighing in relief.
He picked up his own cup and walked back into his living room, sipping his now bearable tea.
He flopped onto the chair, sighing once again.
He was so bored.
Once the storm had started, he’d lost his internet connect. His TV was working, after a manner of speaking. It kept on cutting out. Even terrestrial was failing.
In the end he just turned everything off and opted for not doing anything at all.
He’d almost finished his cup when there was another flash of light.
He opened his mouth as the thunder rolled over and drowned out his words, nature’s idea of censorship.
“Screw this,” he said finally to an invisible audience, once the thunder had done. “I’m going to bed.”
Julia.
That was the thin girl’s name. Looking at the two, you wouldn’t believe it, but she was older than Miranda by five years.
Like this, Julia looks like the child.
She had a towel clutched round her, and she was staring at her reflection in the mirror by the light of two small tea lights.
Miranda was towel drying her hair for her. Her skin was no longer cold; as soon as they had broken apart Miranda had pushed her upstairs and into the shower.
“That’s about as dry as it’ll get,” she said finally, the damp towel hanging limply from her hands.
Julia nodded, and let the towel fall.
Miranda watched her dress, a feeling of pain and sorrow that couldn’t be expressed with mere words welling inside of her as she did so.
Whenever Julia bent over, Miranda could see her skin gliding over her ribs like the unveiling of a statue. Her thin arms that seemed like they would break if you looked at them too hard.
Miranda reached out and squeezed Julia’s side. Her hand was slapped away. There was nothing but skin and bone there.
“Don’t squeeze my bones,” Julia complained, frowning.
“How much have you eaten today?” Miranda asked sternly, ignoring Julia’s protests.
“Umm…” the question had shown her up. “Well I had three apples and some raspberries.”
Miranda frowned. “Haven’t we talked about eating so much fruit before? You’re going to yet stomach ache again,” Miranda’s frown deepened, her lips puckering up in concern. Julia simply rolled her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair, ruffling it up till she looked like a downy duck.
“I was meant to be going out,” she said, looking at her reflection in the large mirror. “But I don’t really want to and the weather is…” she trailed off, casting a meaningful glance at the window, through which a plane tree could be seen being bent and battered like the wind’s stress toy. It was illuminated fitfully by the frequent lightening.
“Yeah,” Miranda nodded in complete agreement.
“We can turn in here into a sort of den,” Julia said after a short, thoughtful silence. “Get all the candles in the house and light them, all the cushions from downstairs and the blankets and covers and duvets and stuff. It’ll be fun, and we’ll stay warm while the heating’s out.”
Miranda nodded assent, without even pausing to think about the idea.
So that was what they did.
They fell asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms with covers weighing them down, the sound of thunder in their ears.
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