The Man Who Rained

by Ali Shaw

  Perched on the edge of the bed, Dot looked like a storyteller poised around a hearth. Elsa sat down cross-legged on the hard floor.

  ‘One day,’ continued Dot, ‘up in the mist on the mountain, what did Betty see but a figure! A silhouette standing in the fog. No doubt it was a trick, a Brocken spectre, her own lonely shadow projected on to the clouds. But to her, in that moment, it was someone who had heard her! The next day she came to see me again. She wanted me to explain what she had seen.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’ ventured Elsa.

  Dot pointed to a glass of water on the window sill. Elsa got up and fetched it for her, and the old nun sipped from it and smacked her lips. ‘What would you have told her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess I would have tried to show her it was just the weather.’

  Dot frowned. ‘Well, I would never do anything like that. No. It was something to believe in, was what I said.’

  Elsa frowned. ‘And that was enough for her?’

  ‘That was enough. That kept her sneaking up to look for her spectre. I don’t think Betty ever did see it again, but she imagined signs of it in every rock and landslide. Then, one day,’ Dot lifted up the first cloud atlas, still showing the black tower of the storm, ‘Cumulonimbus came to Thunderstown. Betty was convinced that he was the one she’d seen in the mists. She said she knew it in her belly. So she climbed Drum Head in the pouring rain and tried to drink the raindrops until nausea overcame her.’

  ‘And? What happened?’

  ‘Have you ever tried to catch rain in your mouth? Enough to make you sick?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s as near impossible as you’d imagine. And Betty never managed it. Maybe, if she had, the legend would have been proved true. But no. Instead, Betty was struck by lightning. Bang! A million volts of electricity, aimed right at her belly. And then the storm cleared and it was a fine evening.’

  Dot put down the book, and closed it so the balmier skies of the cover hid the cumulonimbus within.

  ‘What had happened to her?’ asked Elsa.

  Dot’s eyes twinkled. ‘This much you already know, Elsa. She had become pregnant. She told it to the search party when they found her sleeping peacefully on the mountain, though they thought she was raving. Pregnant! Only, it wasn’t quite what she’d wanted. It wasn’t her baby, just as it wasn’t anybody else’s baby. It was Cumulonimbus.’

  Elsa was too lost in the story to notice at first that Dot had removed her glasses and plugged up her eyes with her bent palms. She joined her on the bed, placing a gentle hand on her shoulders. ‘What’s wrong, Dot? Why are you crying?’

  Dot found a handkerchief from under the pillow and dabbed her eyes. Then she reinstated her spectacles and patted Elsa’s knee. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that I didn’t want to stop her. She was so happy to have him that I couldn’t bear to remind her he’s not yours. Because she thought he was, you see? And I wasn’t ever sure if it mattered.’

  ‘No. I don’t get it. Who else did he belong to?’

  ‘Himself! He was Cumulonimbus. Elsa, in these mountains the weather can take many forms, but never a person, or so I always thought. A person would be too complicated. But that night, Cumulonimbus did it! He made himself into a speck of baby, even though it took all of his power to do so.’

  ‘Wait ... wait.’

  Dot reached for her hand and squeezed it with all her small might. ‘You have fallen in love with a storm cloud, my dear.’

  ‘Wait! Nobody said anything about love.’

  ‘Oh. Forgive me. I thought that was why you came up here.’

  ‘I ... I ...’ She swallowed. She had kissed him. She had touched her ear to his chest. She had chatted with him and he had been nervous and embarrassed and pleased to be with her. ‘I ...’ she said.

  Dot retained her grip on Elsa’s hand. ‘When Finn – Cumulonimbus – was sixteen, he struck his mother with a bolt of lightning. Daniel Fossiter brought Betty here to be treated, but I did not get to talk to Cumulonimbus, as I would have liked. I must confess, I am somewhat jealous of you for getting that chance. But you deserve it. And I think you do love him, don’t you?’

  ‘How could I love him? We only just met. I can’t even work out how – if – I can I ever get close to him.’

  Dot’s eyes were half-closed. ‘Put it this way: one of the terrifying things about my life is that it belongs to me. It has never been lived before, nor will it ever be again. Every second is a brand-new possession.’

  ‘You’re talking in riddles again.’

  ‘And you still haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘What question?’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘You can prove that love is just chemicals and electricity in the brain.’

  ‘Of course you can, but that doesn’t help you deal with it. Do you love him?’

  ‘What if I can’t answer?’

  Dot shrugged. ‘Be lost, Elsa. That is the best advice anyone can give you, and I get the feeling your father would have approved of it. And now be on your way.’

  14

  BIRTHDAYS

  On the day when Finn had shown her the sunbeam birds, she had made a secret plan to throw him a birthday party. The idea had come to her when they’d returned to the bothy. He’d kicked off his shoes and left them in the doorway, where they’d looked so tatty and busted open that she’d wanted to bury them. She had sneaked a look at the inside heels and seen his shoe size in faded ink, then remembered he’d said he had not celebrated his birthday since his mother left Thunderstown. Her plan had formulated in that instant, then been forgotten amid the distractions of the subsequent days.

  Now she stood outside a cobbler’s workshop on Welcan Row, admiring the overstatement of its tradesman’s sign, which read, Bryn Cobbler: Cobbler. She pushed open the door and took a deep sniff of the polished air. Whatever in the shop wasn’t leather was fashioned from wood just as brown, and Bryn Cobbler himself was a tanned man in a buff shirt and hide apron. She’d envisaged buying Finn a pair of colourful sneakers such as she might choose for herself, but she quickly realized that was out of the question. From moccasins to boots, everything on sale was made from a leather as brown as caramel. ‘It gives you lucky feet,’ explained Bryn, ‘and makes you tread as safely as the goats it’s made from.’

  She bought two pairs of shoes, since the prices were reasonable and she wasn’t sure which would fit Finn better. Then she headed back to Prospect Street, where Kenneth had promised to help her with the second part of her plan.

  Kenneth was chuckling with enthusiasm when she reached him. He had all of the ingredients lined up on the kitchen counter, and when the electric whisk purred too hard and threw mix all over the two of them he guffawed and she thought, At least I have made his day, which is a good start.

  Then, when the cake came out of the oven, he provided her with the pièce de résistance: a set of fine, tall candles, each with a crisp new wick and a scarlet thread twisting through the white wax. She paused for a moment, staring at them.

  ‘Everything all right, Elsa?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Perfect, thank you.’

  She had been remembering a cake that her mum had once baked her: a sloppy chocolate mound with candles drowning in the icing. Nevertheless it had been delicious and she had been happy sitting at the table with her parents, eating and eating until their bellies could take no more and their chins and cheeks were sticky. Then, after they had cleaned themselves up, her Mum and Dad had given her a present in a long thin package. She had caught them glancing conspiratorially at each other as she unwrapped it: they knew they’d found her something perfect. It was a parasol, an artwork of stunning lace, with silky white clouds sewn into its canopy.

  She helped Kenneth plug the candles into the cake, and was soon on her way.

  En route to Old Colp, in a yard in Auger Lane made green by weeds uprising against the flagstones, a pair of old women had set up spinning wheels. They talked in a hushed p
itch as they spun, only their consonants carrying over the click and whirr of their machines. Elsa slowed to watch them for an engrossed moment, and as she watched the spokes turn and the thread cycle through the wheels, she remembered the afternoon of that chocolate cake birthday, when they had gone to the hedgerow maze in which she had run off ahead, trying to find the centre on her own. She remembered trotting along one leafy route and hearing familiar voices from the path parallel to hers. The hedge grew too tight to see through, but she knew the voices were those of her parents, laughing and teasing each other about who knew best which turn to take. There was no question about it, they would not take different paths, and Elsa eavesdropped with pleasure until at last they headed along the one chosen by her mother, jibing each other as they went.

  When she shook off that memory and left the women to their spinning, she was too distracted to remember where she was going and ended up back at Saint Erasmus. Still, she was pleased to find that her memory had left her resolute. If she were to be lost, she would be lost along with Finn.

  The first thing Elsa noticed when Finn opened the bothy door were the blisters on his cheeks. Each was a cauterized pink and teardrop-sized, such as a case of frostbite might leave. His eyelids were red and lacerated around the ducts. He looked abject, but cheered up when he saw her. ‘I didn’t think I’d see you again.’

  ‘Finn! What happened to you?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘I suppose I just can’t hide the things I feel.’

  ‘Finn, I was angry at you.’

  ‘You were within your rights to be.’

  She plunged her face forwards and seized his lips with her own. She reached up her hands to hold his bald head. She realized when he whimpered that she was holding him as tightly as a treasure, almost biting to hold his lips between hers. She pulled back and loosened her grip.

  He looked astonished. ‘I thought—’ he said, but she silenced him with a finger over his lips. With her other hand she traced lines between the sores on his cheeks. At her touch they gave up little whispers of steam that followed her fingers.

  They kissed again, and once more she couldn’t help but cling hard to him, locking her arms around his back and shoulders. When they stopped he gave a bewildered gasp. She savoured his breath against her face, breathing it in. It smelled like dew at the crack of dawn. It made her lungs feel fresh and full of him. Then she noticed a diffuse glow across the side of his scalp. It was a fine haze of cloud picked out by the sunlight, and then it was gone in the blink of an eye.

  ‘Finn ...’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘There was... a kind of haze across your head. It’s gone now.’

  He rubbed his head cautiously.

  It had been such a fine, ethereal substance that she could not find it frightening. ‘Never mind,’ she said, and kissed him again. Then she squeezed his hand and said, ‘Happy birthday.’

  ‘Um ... it’s not my birthday.’

  ‘It is now.’ She opened the cake tin to show him. ‘I just need a plate and a knife.’

  In the bothy, all of the paper birds had gone, although the bin overflowed with white litter. In place of them Finn had been making paper people. With these he seemed to have been having difficulty, and had only managed a dozen.

  He cleared his throat with embarrassment when she saw them, then hastily began to scoop them up to press them into the bin. She grabbed his arm to stop him, and took the damaged models from his hands to admire. Half of them were paper women and half paper men, and she knew without asking that they were meant to be the two of them.

  ‘Yesterday I visited the convent on the Devil’s Diadem.’

  ‘That old place? What were you doing up there?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Asking an old nun some questions. She made me realize that I’d treated you badly.’

  ‘No, Elsa, you were right. I should have told you about what was inside of me.’

  ‘But you were right too. I might have freaked out and we’d never have got to where we are now. And anyway, it’s not what’s inside of you, is it? It’s what you are.’

  He hung his head. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘See, I think it’s wrong to be upset by that. It’s what makes you who you are, and it’s the reason that I, you know ...’ She gulped. ‘Like you. I mean ... the reason why I more than like you.’

  He blushed gratefully. ‘I more than like you, too.’

  ‘You know, Finn, I think we can work. I’ll trust you as long as you trust yourself. Then you’ll know, I reckon, and be able to warn me if things become too much.’

  They kissed to broker the deal.

  ‘And now,’ she asked, ‘have you got any matches?’

  ‘Matches?’

  ‘For your birthday candles.’

  After she had pulled the curtains and brought the cake through with its tiny flames wavering in time with the tune of her happy birthday song, he blew them all out in one great big puff. She thought of the blowing cloud faces carved into the wardrobe in her room in Thunderstown, and about huffing out the sinking candles of that sloppy chocolate birthday cake, and about being blown loose from her old life and drifting into this one.

  ‘There’s a present, too. Two presents, actually, but they’re both the same. I just hope one pair fits.’

  The larger ones were just right for him. He walked around the bothy with a grin on his face, and the new leather creaked luxuriantly with each step. As he walked, she saw again a momentary gleaming brushstroke of cloud across the top of his head, such as she had seen after kissing him earlier, and then it was gone. She sat back and reckoned she would be happy just to watch him walk in circles, around and around forever.

  15

  PAPER BIRDS

  On the morning of Betty’s departure, Daniel had paid an unexpected visit to her house on Candle Street. It was a chill day, a premonition of autumn adrift in summer, and over the rooftops the sky was pressed white by clouds as fine as swan feathers.

  He was surprised to discover her car parked on the curb, its boot open. Two bags had already been packed inside it, and now Betty hurried from the house carrying a third. She jumped when she saw him, then collected herself and put down the luggage.

  She looked cold there in her threadbare jumper. Her blonde hair was a damp mess and her makeup had been applied in a hurry. ‘Hello, Daniel,’ she said. ‘I was just on my way to see you.’

  He looked suspiciously from Betty to her car. He disliked the distance a vehicle put between a person and the ground, which was a damned deal more than its foot or two of suspension. ‘You’ve a lot of luggage for a trip across town.’

  ‘Daniel, listen, I’m ... going away for a bit.’

  He frowned. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Just somewhere I can find some perspective.’

  He panicked, although he didn’t show it. He wanted to dismantle the car’s engine and run his knife through its tyres. He licked his lips. ‘Can I come with you?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Daniel. No, you can’t come with me. Nobody can. I need space. Everything that’s happened ... it’s just too much.’

  He had to look away for a moment, up the street towards Old Colp’s ebony dome. ‘What about Finn? Are you taking him?’

  ‘No, and he doesn’t know about this just yet. He’s gone up into the mountains today.’ She gestured to the open front door. ‘Come in out of the cold for a minute.’

  He had forgotten the temperature, but he followed her gratefully into the house. The rooms were the cleanest he had ever seen them. Everything had been put away, unless it had been packed into the final bag lying in the hall. The house was as tidy as a show home.

  He held a hand to his forehead. All of a sudden his knees and ankles felt like nuts and bolts worked loose. ‘Betty,’ he managed to ask, ‘how long are you going for?’

  She shrugged.

  Commit every detail of her to your memory, he thought to himself. He stared into her face, at the green hue of her i
rises, the diamond-shaped space where her lips parted.

  ‘Daniel?’

  The mole on the underside of her chin, the patterns of her earlobes, the drift of freckles over her narrow nose and the tops of her cheeks.

  ‘Daniel.’ She stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around him. She pressed the side of her face against his throat, her head fitting neatly between his beard and collarbone. His back was too broad for her arms to wrap tightly around it, so her hands held to the knobs of his shoulder blades. Her thighs touched his, her hips his, her breasts his ribcage. She was warm and skinny and smelled of fresh soap and water. He looked down into her hair and refused to blink, knowing there was no second worth losing, and no hope of committing this to memory in all its fullness.

  ‘Betty.’ Her name came out of him like the groan of a beast bleeding in a trap. ‘Don’t go.’

  She stepped apart from him. Very carefully, he reached out to support himself against the wall.

  ‘I have to. I’m sorry.’

  He could barely feel his legs. His belly was in free fall. He knew if he were to let go of the wall he would collapse into a heap on the floorboards.

  She emptied a smile at him. ‘Please do something for me. While I’m gone.’

  He managed to nod.

  ‘Take care of Finn for me.’

  He would do anything she asked.

  ‘Okay, then,’ she said.

  She stepped up on tiptoes to kiss him, then backed away and picked up her final suitcase. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I think that’s everything. Will you lock the house for me?’

  He nodded.

  Then, as if a leash she had been straining against had suddenly snapped, she sprang out of the door and down the path and quickly climbed into her car. He staggered out into the yard to watch her disappear along Candle Street. When the car turned out of sight he let himself drop. He hit the paving like a stack of stones. He stayed there for a long time, staring down the length of the road. Then at last he dragged himself back into the house and moved slowly through it, sitting on every chair, inhaling the air of every cupboard, pressing his face into Betty’s pillow. Eventually he came to Finn’s room and noticed on top of a pile of his things an envelope, crisp and newly sealed, with Finn written on it in Betty’s beautiful handwriting. When he picked it up it weighed as much as all the jealousy and confusion that accompanied the discovery. Why had she left no envelope addressed to Daniel?