Cloudy Thoughts

The rain battered down in West London until the redbrick mansion blocks were subdued under the torrents of water. She and I sat outside the pub, surprisingly well sheltered by the thick overhang of trees. Ensconced, we drank and talked and were smugly amused at how we somehow remained dry. As the shower subsided and the eight o’clock sun dipped, the sky took on a pixalated hue, clouds of grey and red spiralling lazily through the open air.

‘Look at that,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it beautiful? I love British skies.’

I agreed, even though I wondered how much thought I’d ever given to it before. The wide American skies, the clear star speckled nights above the Mediterranean, yes, but had I ever truly looked up at home?

That night, on the bus between Victoria and Peckham, I inexplicably dreamed about my ex for the first time in months. Only, rather than a paranoid dream fuelled by whiskey and bitter confusion, it was more like a memory resurfacing. I dreamed of a rain sodden afternoon in a park that no longer seems to exist. We watched people ride flight platforms, inflate translucent bubbles of sky and think wishfully of surfing the napes of clouds.

*

‘Aaannd ah saw tailll-lights, laaast nnight, in a dream abhout mah first wife, everybahdy leaves so whay shouldn’t you?’ sang the retro-American, angrily, when I turned down the music to answer the phone.

A couple of hours later I drove straight through clouds that clung to the asphalt of the M40 as rain thundered backwards off the car’s bonnet. I drifted too close to the car driving frustrating slowly across both the outside and middle lanes and flicked my headlights angrily. As I did so, I wished I had the swirling blues that
I was chasing the slipstream of all the way to the hospital.

By the time I was wandering through the wards trying to find the right one it was
finally starting to seem real and trepidation was nibbling away at my gut. When my mobile rang, I looked at the display and hung up on her thinking ‘not now.’

*

‘You should go, anyway,’ said Boss later that afternoon. ‘I’m all right. Really. Go.’ And he pointed to the exit.

And, unusually, I did as I was told.

*

The clouds were thick and low in Snowdonia, drifting in clumps to occasionally reveal glimpses of sharp descents and scambled ascents, razor sliced ridges and implausible jumps, as we, typically enough, went up the back route. The clouds defined the scope of the land. Those shadowy figures that lurked just beyond the edge of our vision were like visitors from within the mists, the Gods of Olympus stepping down off their immortal cloud to taunt us. From within the murk the occasional blurt of a haunted train distilled across the air. Whilst we continually threatened to loose the path we were never going to lose each other, if only because of the radiating baby-blue glow from B.Eagle’s rather dapper footwear.

And on the final descent, the wind finally blew the clouds clear and the valley opened up. Green, green land spread itself across the slopes in all its glory.

‘It does make it all rather more pointfull,’ said John, ‘when there’s something to look at.’

*

With Boss successfully liberated from the boredom of hospital, I roared through the East Midland flatlands and felt the sun dapple through the muck on the windscreen. Above, the sky opened out, almost entirely cloud free, wide and welcoming in a way that reminded me of New Mexico. I idly day-dreamed of dust and cowboy hats and visions of an imaginary Billy the Kid slouching in the Lincoln drizzle.

*

‘I think there’s some serious cloudage coming in,’ said Stu and we turned to look at the distant rain falling relentlessly once again.

It did indeed come and then it went and then it repeated itself all over again and again.

In a brief respite, Clare-without-an-i and I stood amongst the tents finishing our last drinks whilst around us others struggled into their swine-flu swathed sleeping bags. The sky, once again, seemed open - stretched across like a prepared canvas. Thick black heavy clouds were scattered like the first dollops of water-sodden paint.
Clare spotted a shooting star in the far distance.

‘Did you make a wish?’ I asked and she screwed her eyes tightly shut for a moment. ‘You see that cloud?’ I continued, once she had reopened them. ‘Don’t you think it looks a bit like the Loch Ness Monster should?’

*

Finally I got to tromp in unexpectedly glorious sunshine. To either side of what momentarily felt like a plateau, yawing plains spread all around, as Claire-with-an-i excitedly talked about going to Venezuela and a nine day rain forest trek up into the mountains.

‘Wow,’ I thought, unable to really get across quite how jealous I was.

Later, as we took a quick drink in the pub on the hairpin bend, google-Steve said to someone else: ‘I think you should just do it. Nobody ever had any regrets about doing something, only about not doing things.’

Even later still, as the fine drizzle came down across the meat being steadily charcoaled in the garden and the clouds circled in the dark, Google-Steve added: ‘Do you think that the Chinese factory workers who stuff the novelty Loch Ness Monsters wonder what the hell they are?’

‘Legless green camels, wearing tartan caps – its self explanatory.’

*

‘I’ll ring you on Tuesday, Boss,’ I said breaking the embrace. ‘After you’ve seen the doc.’

‘Look after yourself,’ he replied. ‘Don’t do anything too silly.’

‘Me?’ I replied. ‘You don’t need to worry about me. I bounce. Eventually.’

*

Returning home to the city after ten days, the cloud circled and the sky seemed inexplicably full of grit and grime – a smogged up, dirty ménage of brickdust and exhaust fumes. It was good to be back.

I exited the flyover into the centre of town and pulled over. I looked at the phone in my hand.

‘No regrets,’ I muttered to myself. I scrolled through the numbers and hit dial.

‘The person you are calling…’ I held the phone away from my ear and thought about leaving a message, but couldn’t think of anything to say and so hung up.

As I fired the engine again, the CD restarted and the folksy-Englishman sweetly sang ‘I mean if love is just a game, how come it’s no fun; if love is just a game how come I’ve never won? I guess maybe it’s possible I’m playing it wrong.’

‘Baaa-baa-bah; baaa-baa-bah,’ I tunelessly joined in as I headed on home.