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While he spoke, people gathered to watch and listen and ask him questions. It happened so gradually that it felt strangely natural, but soon nearly everyone was in the street, light spilling in puddles of gold from open doors. I recognised most of my neighbours, some of them I even knew by name, but I did notknowthem.
Tonight there was something different. Something both deeper and shallower than friendship. Familiarity, perhaps, the sudden realisation that we lived our sealed-up little lives in closeness to each other. That we had something to share and something to lose. Something to protect together.18
He did that, somehow. He reminded us. And I watched it happen: the chain we formed for passing sandbags down the street, the way people took turns to help each other build their barriers, the handing out of cups of tea. Even the children had been allowed to stay, running here and there, as though it was a party.
Maybe it was. Of a kind.
And he was right in the middle of it, not controlling it or taking charge, but part of it, easily smiling, endlessly helpful. Effortlessly belonging.
His accent wasn’t strong, but it was unmistakable, its own rough music, and my ear seemed to seek it. I think I was waiting for him to call someone else petal. I caught the occasional “duck,” and even a “chuck,” but he never said petal again. I had been so sure it was just a habit of speech. Why else would he have given the word to me?
After a while, I retreated to Mrs. P’s kitchen to help with the tea-making.
Something to do that wasn’t watching.
It was probably close to eleven o’clock when the rain began to fall again. Drizzle at first, making the night glisten, growing heavier and heavier until at last people began to drift away, disappearing into their homes.
I finished washing up, and then I realised I’d been so busy hiding that I’d forgotten to look after my own house. I didn’t expect there to be any sandbags left, but there was a neat row of them waiting for me by my front step.
Mrs. P had lent me one of her umbrellas, which I tucked into the crook of my elbow as I shoved the sandbags into position. I was building them into a pyramid, as I’d been taught, when the voice I’d been half-hearing all night long said, “Don’t forget to stamp ’em down.”
The rain was sliding all over him and his hair was soakedthrough, lying tight against his skull. The weight of water had pressed all the gold out until it looked almost respectable, red-brown and ordinary.
I rose from my crouch and put a tentative foot atop my sandbag stack. It wobbled, which meant I wobbled, which meant he caught my elbow.
Just kindness, I reminded myself. Like his smile.
But it had also been a long time since I’d been touched by a stranger.
I’d tried. After Marius had left me, I’d tried. I’d gone to clubs because there wasn’t much expectation of talking, and I’d found bodies to move against my body, but it had all felt so meaningless, the pleasure as random as notes hammered on an out-of-tune piano by a man who couldn’t play.
Once, because I hadn’t gone far enough afield, I’d seen Marius. He’d looked so…so…
He’d looked happy.
Bold and laughing and full of life, and me all full of nothing.
I hadn’t been clubbing since. Sex wasn’t the answer to whatever I was asking. Sometimes I wasn’t sure I even knew what the question was anymore.
Once I was steady again on my sandbag, I didn’t know if the stranger let me go or if I pulled away from him. All I knew was the warmth of his hand was gone. We worked in silence for a minute or two, stamping the sand flat, and then disembarked to bundle the bags in plastic sheeting. Then he stood back to survey our work, and pronounced it “grand.”
The rain was everywhere between us now. Even the tips of his lashes.
And all I wanted, in that moment, was to say something to him. Something that wasn’tyes, orno, orthank you, or some forced-out half-thought that wasn’t what I meant at all. “I d-don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so happy over some sand.”
Or, alternatively, I could just randomly insult him.
But he only shrugged, smiling a little, as if it were already a joke we shared. “Simple man, simple pleasures.”
I thought of everything he’d done that night, the way he’d talked to people, including me, and I didn’t think there was anything simple about him. “Sand and the tragedy of the commons?”
“Apparently so.”
God. Edwin. Do—
Something. Anything. “The t-tragedy of the commons. That’s a game th-theory th-th-thing, isn’t it?” I asked.
Twoth’s in close conjunction. What was I thinking? And such a scintillating opener too.
