It’s a long way from anywhere. Not a house, not a shop, not a hut, not a fence. Not even a tree. The size of Britain. Six Million people. Bound to be a lot of open space. No people. No people except you and I. You and I and heat. We’ve walked for an hour and now we’re on a grassy meadow filled with wild flowers and warmth. The sun was out but clouds are rolling in. That’s a huge understatement. Gigantic, towering storm clouds are gathering from all sides and seem to be converging on us.
You ask whether we should make a run for it. I look at you with one eyebrow cocked and ask just where you’re intending to run to. We can’t outrun a storm like this and there isn’t a building for five miles nor even a tree. Even if there were a tree we know better than to stand under it in a thunderstorm. No, we have no choice but to weather it out (ha ha). To make the best of it.
We don’t even have an umbrella. The clouds are thickening and the world is dying into darkness and light and sound. The darkness is surprisingly real and thick, the light of the lightning jumping and popping on the horizon surprisingly bright and jagged, the thunder is loud as bombs. The earth is setting up for an almighty battle, we are to be caught in no-man’s-land with nothing but our bodies, the clothes we stand up in and a large waterproof bag full of sandwich boxes and Thermos’.
‘We’re going to get drenched.’ You looked worried. We’re supposed to visit your mother later and we don’t want to have to go home and change. But an idea occurs to me. A wonderful, excellent, entirely practical idea.
It is so muggy that to lose all our clothes is a relief.
The waterproof bag is just zipped up as I feel the first big, fat, incredibly warm drop of rain hit my shoulder. The heavens are going insane, flash, flash, crash.