I’m the sort of person who
believes that if I were to step out of the house without an umbrella, it will
rain. And if I slip one into my back-pack, it won’t. When I first told Saffy
this, she said it was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard in her entire life.
“And I’ve heard a lot,” she said to me severely. Even her legendary bosom
seemed to vibrate with disapproval.
But I don’t care. I know what I know, and it’s true.
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking home from the
bus-stop. Well, I was trotting more than I was walking because the sky above me
had turned a very nasty bruised purple. The kind of colour you associate with
people who’ve been in a very bad street fight and are in desperate need of some
stitches.
Of course, I hadn’t brought my umbrella.
“Do you think it’s going to rain?” I’d asked that morning
as I was leaving the apartment for a meeting.
Amanda looked up from her latest issue of Vogue and
stared out the window. “Are you mad?” she said eventually. “It’s clear blue
skies and boiling hot! Why would it ever rain?”
So, I told her about my Law of Umbrellas to which the
second best student in Harvard Law School’s Class of 19-something said it was
the second stupidest thing she’d ever heard in her life.
In spite of myself, I asked what the first was.
“Oh God,” Amanda sighed, putting down Vogue. “It was when
I first met Saffy and she told me that she was sure her breasts were
intelligent life forms and had emotions!”
It says something that I was barely moved. “Uh-huh. So,
you think I shouldn’t bring an umbrella?”
“Not unless you want to look like a complete dork walking
around the bright sunshine with a completely dry umbrella.”
Later that afternoon, I thought of Amanda’s parting shot
as the sky practically split open with a sharp, painful crack. Two seconds
later, the first fat drops of rain hit the pavement. I swear I could hear the
sizzle. Another three seconds later and I was practically pushed to the ground
by a thick flat slap of rain. I could barely see. And there was no point rushing
to the nearest shelter. I was soaked to the skin.
I squelched into the apartment like an irritated
jellyfish. Saffy turned from the window, took one look at me and put her hand
to her mouth and gasped. “Oh my God! Did you get caught out there? Why didn’t
you bring an umbrella? You always
bring an umbrella!”
I rolled my eyes. “Amanda told me not to! And so, it
rained!”
“Well, hurry up and change out of those clothes and come
sit with me and watch this storm.”
So here’s the thing about Saffy and me. We love watching
it rain. She thinks it’s a primal thing. Something about feeling safe indoors
while outside, heaven rages and bawls a huge tantrum. The trees are washed
clean of dust and the air is cooled with a moist caress. The world feels clean.
We particularly love the smell of rain as it wafts on
soft wind currents. “Petrichor, it’s called,” I said during one of our first
storm viewings together. “That’s what you call the smell of rain after hot
weather. Karl told me.”
Saffy rolled the word silently in her mouth. Petrichor.
Such a lovely word, she decided.
So, soon as I had changed into dry clothes, I pulled up a
chair by Saffy’s side. The storm was driving the other way. This meant only a
very fine cool mist drifted in through the open window. We watched the
jacaranda tree outside sway gently as its branches hula hooped in slow motion.
“Oooh,” Saffy sighed. “This is so lovely!”
“Where’s Amanda?”
“Out for tea. I hope she brought an umbrella because she
ain’t gonna find a taxi in this rain.”
I perked up. “Remember that time she was out without an
umbrella and it suddenly started storming and she had to wrap plastic bags over
her Louboutins?”
“That’ll teach her to spend a thousand dollars on a pair
of sh…oooh! Look at that!” Saffy pointed to a jagged flash of lightning.
“We’re so evil,” I said over the very satisfying clap of
thunder.
“It’s so weird,” Saffy told me. “But I didn’t always like
the rain. But now I love it!”
“We’re getting old.”
“We’re getting old.”
“My God, tell it. My knees!”
When Amanda finally walked in the front door, soaked to
the skin and in the foulest temper, Saffy and I were still seated by the window
cackling at each other.
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