Getting Hitched Fiction - Waiting for the Thunder

By David Cookson

The man snuffs the green scent of rain on drought-dry earth. A light shower pecks at the tin roof. It is so still. They’ve forecast a storm. Absorbed, his wife reads.

The phone rings.

They look at each other. Often they can guess who’s calling, attuned as they are to each other and their life, but neither says they’re expecting anybody. She puts down her book and pads over to the study phone. He can hear only muffled yeses and noes. But there’s a silence too, followed by a no.

The call lasts less than a minute. When his wife returns she does not say who called. The tepid air drifting through the open window is as clammy as a damp tissue. The rain seems a little steadier.

‘Tea?’ she asks, and he agrees and they finish the pot in silence, wash and put away the tea things and still she says nothing about the phone call.

The man wonders who it was. He hasn’t asked because in the past she has always told him. It’s no different now. He wants to be told, has to be, shouldn’t have to ask.

Not a charity begging for alms, for she has a set piece for those, one way, no chat. Nor did it sound like one of her friends. It might have been one of those annoying surveys, her curtness lent weight to that. It could also have been just her bridge club changing dates. But to say nothing…yet asking now smacks of mistrust or nosiness and she doesn’t deserve that. For both have private crannies in their lives the other never dreams of asking about - details of her bank account, his occasional Thursday nights with mates. Their jobs – never, too boring. Because of this, he believes their relationship is the stronger. But – there’s that silence.

He tunes into the news. The forecast confirms the storm, then rain to become general ahead of a cool change about midnight. Already far away in the south he can see glimmers of lightning.

The man doesn’t even know if the caller was male or female. There did seem to be an edge to his wife’s voice he had heard previously when she spoke with men, an edge that was not there with women. But perhaps that’s his imagination. Probably she’s said nothing because the call was so unimportant no explanation was needed. A wrong number. Yes, of course. That would account for the brevity and short answers. Nothing more, for she hadn’t changed in any way since the call, still quiet, still smiling, talking a little about the news. All the same, the silence … An hour has passed though and still not a word. That irritates him. If he’d have taken the call he would have said something, he wouldn’t have left her wondering. He stands up and crosses to the window to watch, but not watch, for lightning.

She picks up on his mood and asks why – all he dares reply, without turning, is, ‘Nothing’, – an answer he knows she doesn’t believe, but surely she must guess. She doesn’t ask again. For a foolish moment he thinks perhaps she is arranging a surprise party, but his birthday is many months away.

An uneasy thought sidles into the man’s brain. Someone else. Another man? Who? He mentally lists those she knows. Don’t be foolish, he chides himself, it couldn’t be one of those, they’re all so, married. And you know her so well. You trust her. Of course it’s nothing - perhaps it was that loopy woman down the road who pesters her to go to Tupperware parties. That silence, though. Just fifteen seconds, but you can fit a lot into fifteen seconds, all sorts of things.

Outside the sky is uniformly overcast, heavy as an overcoat. The lights of the great city reflect from its underbelly, imparting a plum coloured, black eye look. He wonders about all the phone calls taking place out there at that moment and how many are wrong numbers, how many for assignations. The rain eases, but no thunder yet, although lightning flashes are more frequent.

She is reading again, never as interested in the weather as he, needing to know merely if she might need a pullover or umbrella outside. But the man can’t settle, preoccupied with that silence and the storm. An affair. Dear God, no. Some man he doesn’t know. But his mind gingerly explores the possibility. It could be made to fit – the brief phone call in the privacy of the study and that silence.

He looks at her for the first time through other eyes, sees her not as partner and friend but as a woman and yes, men could be attracted to her and yes, the opposite could well be true. He wouldn’t have thought it though, believed they were happy together, certainly he hasn’t, doesn’t, want anybody else.

The where and when would be easy – their jobs at opposite ends of the city, hers, she says, very busy. Someone from her work. Yes. The perfect cover. And now… Did this mean their relationship is about to change, that what he’s regarded as impregnable, when he’s regarded it at all, is crumbling? Will there be more unexplained phone calls, indifference, nights she gets home late, if at all, when she’s supposed to be at the cinema or bridge?

Lightning lights the room like an arc lamp. Dazzled, they both gasp. The lights flicker, steady. The thunder clap following is so loud they jump, then look at each other a little shamefaced. Just thunder, they smile. But even now, close as they are, she still says nothing. Perhaps even now behind that smile, she’s thinking of that caller, the two of them naked in some anonymous hotel bed, bodies sliding on each other, soft cries and gasps, another silence, but different, sated.

Another flash, another thunder clap at its heels. The storm is overhead, the rain galloping horses on the roof. God, he just doesn’t know anymore. Everything’s changing, slipping. His mind is a grey morass of suspicion and uncertainty. Even the room is seems smaller, cramped. Air. He rushes outside.

The storm savages the man. Its power is overwhelming. By comparison everything else is of no account. Rain lashes his skin, trickles into his mouth. Lightning sears his eyeballs as it splits the clouds and one thunderclap is so close his guts resonate with it. He’s being purged and not just physically, for like a wound healing, the grey morass starts to contract.

At last, reason prevails. All that because of a single phone call. Who cares if it was a wrong number, Tupperware, schlupperware, bridge or business? He loves her, trusts her. She didn’t mention it because it wasn’t worth the telling. How could he have ever thought otherwise? And there’s any number of rational reasons for that silence, none worth the brain fag.

Though bedraggled and half deafened, he luxuriates in the warm rain, lifts his face to it, yells a paean at the thunder. Yes.

Inside, the phone rings again.

***

© David Cookson 2008

The short stories on this website are copyright and cannot be copied for any purpose. However, you are welcome to link to any story.

More Features

• Short Stories
• Subscribe to Newsletter
• Further Reading