Changeable With Showers

He stands in the dark. The clouds blotting everything out. He is aware of the rain but only the distant sound of it. Beyond that there is an eternal nothingness. The signal of life is weak and he drifts like a leaf on the edge of absence, oblivious of his destination.

He stands for an age and awaits a moment that he knows will present itself to him. When the rains are spent and the moonlight is revealed, he at last blinks and comes to himself. His smooth face creases in something like consternation and he looks about him as though he has awoken from a standing slumber. The casual way that he walks from that place is disconcertingly incongruous. Discord hangs about him like a maiden aunt’s borrowed stole. It does not belong. Nothing belongs and it never will.

*

Matthew was not a fan of the rain. It wasn’t that he was vain. Far from it. Even the lightest of showers ruined his appearance. He looked scruffy and dishevelled. He was of a type that did not suit a sheen of moisture. Were he to emerge from blue seas and stride onto the beach, his appearance would not be accompanied by sighs and swoons. Instead, he would get noticed for all the wrong reasons. If his white shirt was soaked, it would not cling to his manly chest in an approximation of a passionate maiden inflamed by his dark looks and brooding manner. No, Matthew was not like that. He was solid and dependable. He was consistent in the way he behaved. In short, he was what a woman needed. But that was not to say that he was what a woman may want.

Marriage suited Matthew. There was certainty in it. He met the girl next door and everything fell into place. Sally worked in the office next to his and they saw each other in the shared car park as they went out to buy lunch at the sandwich van. They would discuss the selection of sandwiches and snacks as they queued, and having exhausted this topic they dared venture elsewhere. At first there was the obvious subject; the weather. The British talked about the weather because there was an alarming abundance of it. Sometimes in the same morning or afternoon there would be more weather than an entire continent experienced in a year. This meant that if Sally and Matthew felt safe on this ground, they could talk for the rest of their working lives and never run out of words that could engage at least on a polite and unassuming level.

One day, Matthew used the logical and natural progression to their situation. As they were purchasing lunch, it was obvious to him that they were both fans of the midday meal. So perhaps they could indulge in an alternative lunch at some point. He waited until they had both purchased their sandwich, crisps and apple.

“Can I have a quick word?” he asked Sally as they left the van and walked back to the red brick office buildings that they occupied during the formative weekday hours.

“You already have,” Sally smiled as she said this, but there was the ghost of a frown upon her face. Matthew was departing from their usual format and she had no clue where this was going. She worried that there was something on her face. Perhaps a small piece of snot hanging from her nose. Once, She’d accidentally tucked her skirt into her tights after a loo visit and did not discover her faux pas until she got up to go again. Every now and then, she wondered how many people had seen her state of undress. She resented those faceless voyeurs for not coming to her aid. She was aware of the inherent good in humanity but where was it when she had needed it?

Matthew laughed a brief, perfunctory laugh, stilling it quickly so he could get to the point before he lost his nerve, “no, I was hoping that I could take you for lunch tomorrow. Do something different from the usual.” He held aloft his banana, saw the curious smile on Sally’s face, then looked at what it was he was brandishing. He painted his face with embarrassment, “oh Christ! No! I meant we could maybe go for a pub lunch. Not…” He waved the banana around and then quickly hid it behind his back.

“I’d love to,” Sally said before almost skipping back to her office.

Matthew watched her go. Then he brought his banana of betrayal out from hiding and scowled his recriminations at it. As he made his way to his desk he considered her last words. She had introduced the concept of love and now he thought about it, he felt a warm feeling in his tummy. This must be love, he told himself. Whether it was or it wasn’t, Matthew would come to love that girl in the office next door, and a year and half after their first lunch, he would go down on one knee by the sandwich van and ask her to marry him.

Sally sad yes and that was that. They got on with the whole of the rest of their lives and life happened. Life happened a lot. As it has a wont to do. A multicoloured, vibrant life that rose and fell with the breath of an invisible force that could be real or mythical, but is likely a bit of both. There was fun and laughter. There was pain and tears. And in amongst all that living both Sally and Matthew took their eyes off the goal and drifted this way and that. They were busy, but they stopped being busy living. And they stopped living for each other, only with each other. Their roots did not entwine as a loving couples should. They remained separate and distinct even as they continued to masquerade as a couple.

Later, Matthew would blame their lack of cohesion on their failure to have children. This was a significant deviation in the plan. They had the Labrador, but the children had yet to make an appearance. Still they had plenty of time, so there was no rush. These things happened in their own time. And in every other way, their lives were a success. Matthew was only a year away from making partner and Sally was doing really well in her firm too. Their trajectories weren’t exactly stellar, but they were doing better than most and they had a secure future ahead of them.

He did not know exactly what it was that turned his head. By then, the changes were stacking up. Increments that took a while to be noticeable, like fine snowflakes landing in layer after layer until the white blanket became too visible to ignore. Even then, it was a feeling more than a thought.

Sally was sleeping with another man.

Once he felt it, he knew it. Sally was different. She acted different. She moved differently. There was an alien confidence about her. Facial expressions he had never seen before. Her routine had changed and her energy was pointed away from him. Then there was The Scent. If anyone had described the giveaways of cheating, he’d have expected a description of the smell of the other man. Maybe that was a part of it, but Sally smelt different and the worst of it was that it turned Matthew on.

Their sex life improved. Matthew felt a new desire for her. Wondered whether he was reclaiming her in some way. That new scent was maddening. He buried his head in her shoulder as they rutted and he wanted to consume her. Make her his so completely that they were one. He thought about her all day. The distraction was something else. He’d never felt like this about a woman before. Kidded himself that he was falling in love with her all over again. In the fog of his lust he almost believed his own lies.

Almost.

Then he saw them together and he understood everything. That he was fawning over her and weaponising his lust. That was never going to work. It couldn’t work. Not when they were leaning over a table, holding hands and staring deeply into each other’s eyes. This wasn’t a sexual fling. They had feelings for each other. Matthew couldn’t compete with that. He couldn’t suddenly become more desirable and exciting. Not to his own wife. Maybe to someone else’s wife. That would be far easier. Wanting something unobtainable was how the world worked. Matthew was a well-worn pair of shoes. He was wallpaper. He would have to come at this problem another way.

And he did.

Matthew was a natural problem solver. He knew this was his thing. If he applied himself, there was not a problem he could not solve. That was why he was going to make partner next year. Everyone knew it. If he didn’t make partner in his current firm, he’d be snapped up elsewhere and make even more money. In that respect, he was hot property. It was time to apply his skills and experience to the problem in hand and make damn sure he was hot where it counted.

Applying his forensic skills to the home front, he established why it was that they had not yet fallen pregnant. Sally was back on the pill. There was a suspicion that she’d never come off it. After all, Matthew did not know how long the affair had been going on, besides which Sally may have harboured an intent to cheat for some while before the actual, physical cheating occurred.

Next Matthew researched his competition. Initially he thought it would be a colleague at Sally’s firm. He was close, but he would win no cigar. James worked for a competing firm and had most likely met Sally at one of the networking events that were compulsory for anyone wanting to make it in the professional world. The man was single and quite successful but beyond that, his life was patchy. Few friends or interests. Matthew suspected that even without his own bias, he’d think James were punching above his weight. He couldn’t see why Sally had gone for this particular man. Unless it was a temporary thing. But Matthew doubted that. He'd seen the way they’d looked at each other. Perhaps it had started as a fling and then gotten serious. There was no way for Matthew to find out, even if he hacked Sally’s phone and that wasn’t something he was willing to do. There were limits and Matthew would abide by those limits. Here was where he safely dwelt and beyond the limits lay an insanity of loss that he knew he could not bear.

Project James moved on a pace. Matthew found time in his schedule to bring together as much information as he could. Soon, he referred to his gathered data as intel and he fancied himself a spy. And in a way, he was. His was a clandestine activity intended to thwart his enemy. He would have his day and he would triumph over James one way or another.

As with all operations of this nature, the timelines often have to be brought forward. Matthew spotted more changes in Sally and he knew that the time to act was now. And so he redoubled his efforts and not a moment too soon.

That morning, as he went through the bins, he saw the plastic object that looked a little like a pen and he knew today would have to be the day. He did not have to look at the small screen to see that it was positive. Sally was expecting. This would be a surprise to her. But it wasn’t to Matthew. After all, he knew something that she didn’t. Despite popping those little white pills every day, Sally was no longer taking contraceptives.

Matthew called the office and took the day off. He had much to prepare for and as he worked feverishly to his self-imposed deadline he prayed for rain. He needed rain. It wasn’t mechanically essential, there was far more to it than that. He’d never really prayed before. Had relied upon himself to deliver everything in his life. The exception to that was Sally. Sally was the random factor that he needed to tame.

Give me this one thing, he thought, and I will know.

Before he left the house he messaged his wife to say an unforeseen client meeting had come up and that he’d be having dinner with the clients afterwards.

Don’t wait up, my love.

He knew she would. There would be no sleep for her tonight. She was carrying something that she must communicate. He knew his wife well.

When Matthew met James for the very first and very last time, he felt sorry for the man. He actually felt sorry for the unfulfilled promise that was Sally. James would never have her and he would never know her. Not the way that Matthew did. No one would know his wife the way he did. That was the point. They’d made vows before God, family and friends and no man was going to come between them. Never would that happen. Matthew was God’s instrument tonight and James was a problem readily solved.

It took a matter of minutes to address an issue that had been eating Matthew up for months. He smiled at the absurdity of it. All that worry and strife! And yet, when he’d gotten around to actually doing something about it, there was only relief.

And as he walked away from the man he’d seen as competition but was nothing of the sort, his prayer was answered. The first caress of the rain was tentative and tender, but as it felt its way it became more insistent and forceful. Hungry even.

There he stood in James’ garden. The dark cocooning him in secrecy as the rain washed away the blood and the gore. He was stock still until he was fully cleansed. Falling into a statue like state and accepting his baptism. There was a knowing in those waters. Matthew’s cause was just and his life would now continue along the intended path.

As he came to himself, he was not quite the man he was. He was forever changed. A part of him was James. That intoxicating scent had altered his plan at the very last and he had consumed his enemy. Taking his brain and his heart into himself to become stronger and be more than he’d ever been. Everything Sally could ever want and more.

*

Later, he goes to Sally in their marital bed and her words of confession are stilled by a passion she has never known but that contains a strange familiarity. Something like coming home. Being where she belongs at last. She cries as her passion overwhelms her. She has never cried during sex. The release she experiences undoes her. She feels like she’s falling. When it is over she feels lighter and in that lightness is a happiness that has eluded her since she was a small child.

As she lays in Matthew’s arms and thinks of James she whispers to her husband, “you smell different,” and as the words escape her lips the world around them changes and they are bound together forever. She thinks about telling her husband about the life growing inside her but sleep claims her before she can utter another word. She sleeps a deep sleep and dreams she is standing in the pitch black as it rains upon her naked body. Matthew watches her and smiles a smile he’s never smiled before.