“Don’t look so serious!” he said. “Only joking! I’d draw the line at a flesh wound.”
Alison led Alec inside. Went to the bedroom, saying the carpet needed to be removed before it stunk. He breathed the humidity, moving through him like swallowing something half chewed. He walked from room to room. That table can be cleaned up. Those chairs with cushions are ruined. The books can’t be saved. Would the fridge work again?
Alec heard Alison crying. The sound muted, threading through curdled air. He followed it to where she knelt, her back twitching. He stood, his shadow faintly over her, wishing she was under his hands, reaching her with body warmth and slow breath, layering his chest down her spine, lying lightly across her skin.
“What’s wrong?” he said quietly.
“Look,” Alison said. She held up an ear ring. “I had them hanging on a little stand. Some of them washed over to here. Except none of them match. Not one pair.”
Alec looked over the top of her shoulder. They lay in a dull mixture of jade, red, blue and pearls, as if their light had rinsed away.
“Do you want me to look for them?”
“I’ll wear them unmatched won’t I? Let’s see what else is missing. Maybe half my shoes are gone so I’ll have to wear odd ones of those too.”
He left her. Carted furniture outside, lining it up in piercing sunshine to dry out the timber. Glasses in cupboards lay broken. Coffee cups tipped over but remained intact, sludge inside them. “Happy Birthday” written on one faced upwards.
Alec dragged wads of paper from the front yard mud. Found three saucepans and shattered bottles of port he’d been ageing. Outside Alison drew a cloth across her forehead. Sometimes her short movements took him back years. Two decades ago twirling in that wedding dress, diamantes like dew drops across a shoulder, other shoulder bare so he noticed the machinery of her bones. They’d attended dancing lessons for the bridal waltz, giggling and clumsy together. At the wedding her father stole the show, whisking her through turns so the room must’ve blurred at the corners of eyes.
