The storm

Janine wouldn't ring. She wouldn't ring him and for three days the world was dark and wild. It started with a low hum. Like a swarm of page 117wings, the flap of a hundred birds approaching. The temperature rose by three degrees, the sky cracked with light, and seemed to laugh. Then it pissed down. Water flowed over the gutters and after the first hour the garden and grass were a swamp. The drip in the hallway became a gush. Sylvia stood still at the window, her face moving with a bitter silent argument. Then she turned her back to the outside world and started to clean. She took every chopstick, paper napkin, cake slice, drink coaster out of every cupboard in the kitchen and scrubbed until the whole house smelt of Jif. She polished the silver. Then she took to every corner of the house with her bucket and brush. And while she worked she cried. Her eyes were full of salty water, and she couldn't make it stop. Even when she shut her eyes her lids shimmered like the skin on top of a puddle. She worked until her knuckles were red and torn, and the wind ripped the guttering off the south side of the house, the roof off the shed. He didn't go to school and she didn't go to work. They didn't talk. Sometime in the black hours of the third night when they had finally fallen asleep—only to dream of a world where transport was a boat that kept filling with water—it stopped.