Читать книгу Soundtrack to Torment - Julian Clyne - Страница 7

Autumn’s First Snow

It was one of those autumn dusks when the time for afternoon coffee coincided with nightfall. It was not all that warm, but the couple had decided to sit on the terrace of the café regardless. He always felt the cold more than she did but he knew that she liked the season for its humid winds and for the smell of moist old leaves in the air, and so he conceded to staying out of doors.

Their coffees came separately because she had ordered a flat white and he, a pot of filter coffee which it took a long time to prepare. She was going to wait, but he told her she should go ahead, not let her drink grow cold, that would be a shame. He watched her as she drank, chuckled at the milky moustache she did not notice she had on her lip.

They talked of inconsequential things, of what had happened at work, of the stupid mistakes that same old useless colleague had made again, of a bit of news that had made it into the headlines and no one really knew why. It sparked a discussion, a difference of opinion, a debate. Suddenly –– neither of them could have said, later, who had got on the topic –– they were having a row about who never listened to whom, and vice-versa. They could not even remember what they were bickering over, but they knew that it was not really about that anyway.

It was true: just then she did not listen to him. Her thoughts wandered. She felt that such empty fights had grown more frequent lately. It was as if they were drifting apart and did not notice.

A gust of wind swept over the terrace. She breathed in the fresh air and looked up. A veil of brown leaves fluttered out of the darkness above the street lamps and appeared in the light until they fell, one after the other, on the two of them. The moment was serene, unique, ephemeral.

It was she who said to him, interrupting him, but calmly, lovingly: “Look up, please.”

He did as he was told. They watched in silence, with their heads in their necks, until he said, into the sky: “It’s this year’s first snow. It’s beautiful.”

And they understood what it was that pushed them apart. It was like the coffee. For too long they had not really shared moments, had not really experienced things together. They had merely lived side-by-side and only ever looked ahead. Now, together under the spirals and whirls of the leaves, they were reminded of other perspectives and they found each other again, for they knew that they would not want to share such moments with anyone else.