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Weather - First Prize Winner
A well deserved first prize goes to Sarah Holman of Burscough, Lancashire. This story resonates on a number of levels, cleverly weaving the weather theme into a story of relationships.
Weather Permitting
Today the Weather Woman’s cardboard sign reads ‘HAIL/SUNSHINE’. It hangs from her beer garden umbrella. She sits underneath like a faded garden gnome, glancing at her watch as I leave the Travel Agents. It’s hailing. My husband had urged me to take his golfing brolly before I left the house and I’d refused.
“Looks like rain, Polly. What’s so pressing in town?” James had said, kissing my cheek.
I smiled. “Bits and bobs.”
I was going for his birthday present; a trip in a hot air balloon. Something on James’s list of ‘Things to do before I’m 40’. Something on my list too. We could never afford it normally, except I’d seen a special offer in the Travel Agent’s window.
I tuck the ballooning voucher and brochure inside my coat and cross the road to the Weather Woman. Folded umbrellas hang from the beer brolly’s spindles, and traditional umbrellas lie before her like bright candy canes. There are macs and clear plastic head scarves. The Weather Woman has been around since I was a child; a permanent town feature. Sometimes I buy an umbrella to help her out. When it’s sunny she sells sunglasses. When it’s icy; scarves and hats. The sign always tells the weather.
I huddle under her shelter. “Hello,” I point at an umbrella. “How much?”
“One fifty, love.” Her face is creased like badly stored leather. She passes the umbrella in rhizome hands.
I frown out at the hail.
“Sunny later, love,” she says, smiling. Her round cheeks hint at a once beautiful face.
She’s right. In the afternoon I pop round to mum’s with her groceries and we sit in the garden. She has a new patio set and wants me to admire it. I make the right noises and then mention the Weather Woman’s prediction.
“Yes, Polly. People always used to go to her… but town’s changed since developers moved in.”
Mum’s current pet subject. I move on quickly:
“Why did people go to her? Anyone can see what the weather’s doing.”
Mum gives me an odd look. “Goodness, I’m surprised you never knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Of course, it’s nonsense.”
“What is?” I ask.
“But you must’ve heard…”
“Heard what, mum?” I stay calm.
“Well, dear. That she doesn’t predict the weather. She directs it.” Mum gives a satisfied shrug and sips her tea.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“It’s ridiculous really. But it’s what people used to say. Not like that anymore…”
“Who did?” I ask.
“Mr Barry used to go; early August to book sunshine and showers for his veggies ready for the Shows. I don’t know what he paid. People booked for sunny weddings.”
“Did it work?”
Mum gives me her look. “You know what the weather’s like... If I was cynical, I would say if she charged for rain and sun on the same day someone always got what they wanted.”
One of mum’s cats slides onto her knee.
“Did dad ever go to her?”
Mum’s head snaps up. “Perhaps for your wedding. But your dad was given to fanciful ideas,” she tells me. “You’re like him that way.”
I look across the regimented garden and remember it being bigger and wilder. My father, long-limbed and light-footed in his gardening shoes, gliding me silently round the lawn on his shoulders.
I realise I haven’t mentioned the balloon trip and as I reach for the brochure, I suddenly recall the day dad and I made our hot air balloon. We traced the pattern on tissue paper in his shed. We used a candle, glue and string. Then we stood in the fading light, my hand in his, as our creation rose nobly and sailed away into the fields.
“Love to go in one, one day,” he’d said.
Mum had banged on the kitchen window and told us it was a fire hazard. It had been ideal weather; a dry light breeze, a grapefruit sunset. As I leave, I wonder if he booked it.
***
I can’t sleep. It’s raining again and my thoughts are jumbled half memories.
Mum liked to organise ‘family days out’ to boast about at WI. The ‘day out’ was planned and booked ahead. Mum chose a stately home and rang them to check about garden tours and whether their coffee shop served real scones, or shop bought.
“Fresh air and culture,” she said, brushing my dad’s jacket. I can’t remember a ‘day out’ when it didn’t rain, sleet or snow. Dad and I looked out of the window watching metal-grey clouds steel the sky. We glanced hopefully at the jigsaw drawer.
“Rain never hurt,” mum said, getting the big brolly from under the stairs. As soon as we pulled into the car park, mum sent dad to get the umbrella from the boot. He held it over mum’s perm and carefully trowelled makeup.
After an hour or so, once we had done one stately visit and viewed the garden from the window, mum declared grimly:
“Right, home and dry?”
It wasn’t a question.
We gently steamed home and got out the 2000 piece jigsaw; the difficult seascape, or dad’s favourite, the air balloon race.
Mum gave up on the days out after a while. Perhaps the weather was no coincidence.
I turn over and snuggle into James. After we’d married (in glorious sunshine) and settled into this house, dad’s height diminished a little more on each visit; pulling inwards like a drying, warping plank.
It rained hard the day we buried him. As we pulled into the graveyard, I looked over at mum in her carefully perched black ostrich feather fascinator. Blush powdered her face like a dusted peach. She hesitated as she opened the car door and I saw sincere loss in her eyes for the first time. Martyr-like, she stepped into the rain. It bounced off the ostrich feather; drooping it against her cheek. I sent James over with a brolly and she silently took his arm. I wonder, as I nod off, if dad booked that weather too; if you can book for events when you are unsure of the date.
It’s still raining in the morning. We eat our breakfast and James reads the newspaper.
“Wash out summer. Record rainfall all this week,” he says. “Lucky we decided against the BBQ for my birthday.” He smiles at me and my heart sinks. I rise from my half-eaten toast.
“Just nipping out,” I say. I head into the rain before my better judgement, or James, can stop me.
She is where she always is. Today her sign simply says ‘RAIN…’ I pretend to look at the macs.
“What d’you want, love?” she asks after a few moments.
“Some sunshine?” I say weakly. She looks at me. Her eyes fog across, then she nods and pulls a battered notebook from her pocket, taking a pencil stump from the spiral binding. She thumbs through.
She waits, pencil poised.
“Erm.” I hesitate. “Good weather, tomorrow? Early?”
“No such thing as good weather. Sun is good; rain is good. Depends who you ask.” She squints at me. “What’s it for?”
“We’re… Me and my husband. His birthday. We’re supposed to be going up in a balloon. But only weather permitting.”
She looks at me, a little too long and I turn away. When I look back she is writing in the note book.
“Weather permitting,” she affirms. “Yes.”
“How much…”
She waves. “Already paid.”
“No, really.” I feel my cheeks redden.
“Already paid for.” She puts away the notebook, and nods upwards at a storm-puzzled sky. “Hot air balloon man.”
I thank her and, as I walk away, I think how funny it is that the ballooning company should believe in this woman too.
Early the next morning I leave James asleep and peep outside. The storm has gone. It is calm. I push open the window. A peaceful breeze dries the garden.
“James?” I whispered gently. “Get dressed quickly. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
We are in a woven basket clutching champagne flutes and the sun is a watermelon on the horizon. The sky is the most beautiful I have ever seen; each cloud lit orange, peach and scarlet. A tender wind moves us over fields and, between the blasts from the burners, it is silent as I look out.
I think of the air balloon dad and I made years ago and how we watched it disappear over the roof tops. The weather was the same that day. And suddenly I wonder if that was who the Weather Woman meant. The hot air balloon man. My father. I smile and wipe my eyes. James lays his hand over mine and squeezes it.
I look down. Far below, I imagine I can see her. Not much more than a dot. She pauses, looking upwards with her hand to her eyes. I imagine my father too. I am on his shoulders gliding along. He stops and we squint at the rising sun together.
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