The Cloud. Episode 10

2019. Portobello, Edinburgh

Cyril didn’t want to go. Janet had pulled his Perspex travel box out from under her bed, taken it into the bathroom and waved her hand towards the open lid. The cloud was having none of it. He floated out of the room, well above her reach, and made his way to the kitchen ceiling, spreading his wisps out across the Roman white plaster until he was only around an inch thick. Janet followed him, calling that it was alright, alright, there was nothing to worry about. The first ice-crystal, the size of a pea, hit her brow. The next few stung her lips and cheeks. One of them drew blood. She retreated into the hall and patted the blood off with a tissue.

The crystal shower stopped. She pondered. The weather wasn’t the problem. It was a cool, clear evening. Nothing in the sky apart from a few planes, and a pale half moon rising up behind the sea. The instruction manual showed pictures of a smiling person with their happy cloud dropping into its box as soon as the lid was open. And if that didn’t work, to use the cloud catcher. Janet thought that was a bit extreme. It was one thing for Cyril to drop into the catcher voluntarily in the mornings and then arrange himself over her hair. It was something else to use it in apprehending him against his will. She wouldn’t like to be grabbed from behind by a fine steel mesh net on the end of a stick. It would be like using a choker chain on a dog. The problem was the owner, not the animal. So she didn’t use it, and now she was out of options. She’d have to go without him.

She arrived at the bar ten minutes late. She hadn’t wanted to be first. Sitting there like a lemming on her own, people staring, pointing, or worse, ignoring her altogether. But as soon as she entered, Amy shouted across the bar.

‘Over here’, she called, ‘over here, Janet.’ Amy was waving a glass at Janet. ‘So pleased you could make it!’ Three men sitting up at the bar turned around and looked, appraised Janet, and went back to their beers. Janet tripped over the rug at the entrance, blushed, and made her way to the back of the room where a large group were laughing and talking. Amy was at the head of the table, telling someone to get Janet a seat. There was shuffling, and moving, and switching around, and Janet found herself pushed down onto a chair beside Amy and handed a pint of dark frothy beer.

‘You do drink,’ Amy said to her, ‘or would you prefer a glass of wine? Or gin even?’ Janet hadn’t drunk a whole pint of beer for at least thirty years. Nowadays she preferred a vodka tonic or a small bottle of pear cider. But she wasn’t telling them that. ‘Now’, Amy said. ‘Let me introduce everyone.’ Janet stopped listening after Olivia. Or maybe Charmaine. There were two Erics. She got that at least. And there was the friend Dan, draped over Amy’s shoulder in what looked like a chocolate brown cashmere sweater. There were at least eight in the group and all of them must have been under half her age.

‘Cheers,’ one of the Erics said, raising his glass. ‘To Janet. And her pet cloud!’ There was more laughter and clinking and reaching and gulping. Janet took a mouthful of the beer and screwed her eyes up. It was bitter, far too bitter.

‘So,’ said Olivia or Charmaine. ‘We want to know everything. But first, where’s the cloud? One of the Erics, sitting beside her, dug the young woman in the ribs with his elbow. Janet leant back in her chair, trying to get out of the young woman’s immediate line of sight. The woman frowned at him and pushed a pile of thick blond hair back behind her ear. She shuffled forward, put her arm out and pointed a finger at Janet. ‘You haven’t killed it have you?’

‘That’s enough, Char,’ said Amy. ‘Let her be, she’s only just arrived.’ Janet looked at Amy and nodded a thank you. ‘They’re just disappointed, that’s all. They wanted to see the cloud. To check, you know.’ One of the young men who wasn’t an Eric interrupted.

‘But we do need to know it’s alright. That you’re doing the right thing by it.’ He looked at Janet earnestly. That’s why we’re all here, right?’ He waved a hand around the group.’ We couldn’t stop the sales but now they’re in captivity we can still protect them.’ Janet stomach knotted. Heat rose up her neck and into her cheeks. Her hands trembled. Cyril had known. And she hadn’t listened. Hadn’t listened to her cloud.

To be continued.