Wether beaten.

---

Born in a snowstorm at the beginning of an unusually harsh spring, fickle weather would be a constant in Sol’s life. Even on the journey home from hospital, snuggled against his mother’s breast and swaddled in a shawl she’d spent the last months of her pregnancy crocheting, the car had slithered on black ice in the driveway of the house, its rear twitching like the snap of a fish’s tail, the gate post demolishing the rear near-side light cluster.

His father bent to inspect the damage, face washed in white light from the exposed bulb, his breath a delicate, freezing caul around his head as he teased broken plastic from the damage. The boy looking up into his mother’s face as she stood with her husband in the crisp morning air, the shine of the infant’s eyes reflected racing clouds.


Burst pipes, slates rocked loose by freezing gales, garden fences ripped from the muddy earth and flattened like a row of dominoes marked the boy’s arrival into a stormy world. The enjoyment of a first baby ruined by hard work and the unwelcome expense of repairs. Sol, oh how he would later laugh bitterly at the irony in the choice of his name, grew to expect blustery rain, cold snaps, freezing fog whenever it was most inconvenient. Summer picnics aborted as the first heavy splashes of rain fell from a sky that had been washed in crystal shades of blue for days but which now had metamorphosed into an angry scowl of billowing grays.

Lettuce, tomatoes, chicken legs, sausages and peanut butter sandwiches, were hurriedly stuffed back into plastic containers, unfinished drinks tipped onto the grass, the picnic blanket snatched in exasperation from the ground in the rush back to the car. Sol clambering on to the backseat, legs wet with rain, the sting of sweat in the crook behind his knees, his thighs sticking uncomfortably to the vinyl seat. The toes of his white socks dirty beneath the daisy pattern in his new sandals. A smell of wet hair and wool filling the car as the windows misted with their panting breath. Sol wiped a perfect circle on the glass with a small hand, watched other families abandon the picnic site.


Soon, a line of cars like a platoon of heavy tanks on the edge of a muddy battlefield. One by one, they retreat to join the exodus along crowded roads back to dry homes, to picnics finished on lounge carpets before blazing fires. Holidays spent huddled in caravans rocked by wind, rain falling like nails on thin metal roofs. Board and boring games played to the clatter of the rain, the hiss of gas lamps and heaters. Playground swings and slides, roundabouts, climbing frames soaked and forlorn in a misty shroud. Red, white and blue triangles suspended by sagging string from the clubhouse roof, the bunting snapping like lizard tongues.

Walks along the beach in raincoats rippled and tugged by the offshore breeze, waxed fabric held tight between wet fingers, footprints evaporating in moist sand, the tops of the dunes sculpted into craggy peaks, coarse grass bent sideways, speech whipped away before ears could grasp the shouted words. Hair parted into single strands by the fine salty spray. A line of deserted deckchairs stare out across a dismal sea to the horizon and flap in an attempt to drive away the clouds. A parade of empty, desolate beach huts, water dripping from peeling paintwork, a double sheet of drenched newspaper plastered by the wind against an exposed side, the headline: ‘Mods and Rockers Clash in Brighton’.

It would be years before European holidays and exotic skies would be popular or affordable and even then a usual spell of cool weather would cause the temperature to dip by ten degrees.


Sol became used to swimming alone in hotel pools, the noses of his peers pressed against the windows leaving greasy spots on the glass, thunder rumbling around the mountains, the water’s surface teeming with expanding circles as if kissed by fish from below. Calm Mediterranean seas would be urged into waves crested with white foam, fishing boats sent bobbing in tiny harbors, sail ropes clanking against their masts. Birthday parties, school trips, visits to the zoo were all marred by a weather that seemed to hold an unknown grudge.


Sol’s life spent within easy reach of a raincoat or umbrella, usually both. For him, April showers could occur in any month. Forecasters, barometers and weather satellites conspired against him. Trips planned to the promise of fine weather stalled before they began. Weekend activities cancelled after warnings of cold weather or rain, were spent stifled in the house as the low pressure systems scurried away with wicked grins to other parts of the country. A kite, dug from the far reaches of his toy cupboard and taken in skipping steps to the park, would be becalmed by a sudden drop in wind speed before the knotted string had been unraveled. If snow fell, it would be too wet or fine to be rolled and packed into snowmen, balls of glistening white would turn instantly to grey slush, imploding, leaving his woolen gloves sopping and bedraggled. His sledge useless on snow which looked so promising but, in reality, was so thin it left the skis grating on the pavement beneath. Years later, stuck in a snow storm, drifts like poured sugar stacked up against walls and hedges, his car slued at ninety degrees to the road, wheels spinning futilely, tearing through the snow, a spray of grass and mud. Sol sat and pounded his fists against the steering wheel, impotent, waited for the tow truck as his father lay dying in a distant hospital bed.

As an adult he bypassed holidays altogether, throwing himself first into study then into stocks and currency movements, futures, options and performance analysis. His colleagues admired his work but gossiped in the city bars of his cold nature, declared his absence from their lunchtime drinking proof of a disposition far from sunny. And then the sun did shine, briefly. He met Teri during a pause in the annual staff meeting as they both reached for the same bottle of Chardonnay. They shared a few words, the last of the wine and smiles that originated in the shine of their eyes. Sol spent the remainder of the afternoon glancing in her direction and was rewarded with reciprocated grins.


An ill-matched pair, she the prospect of spring to his winter solstice, but something clicked and they were sharing beds within the week, a whirlwind romance followed. The summer wedding to this young, beautiful and vibrant woman held the promise of blue skies whatever the actual weather. She would be a climate to set his soul ablaze. A sudden downpour as the last photographs were taken outside a picturesque village church, the sound of tolling bells echoing around the churchyard. They stood with a group of guests, bemused beneath the spreading limbs of an ancient elm, the rain flicking the tips of emerald leaves above their heads, bridesmaids in pretty dresses and pageboys wearing their first ties, dancing playfully around them. Teri’s head-dress awash with limp flowers, a shower of white and yellow petals, covered in fine beads of moisture like perspiration, fell across her shoulders. A few had fallen down the cowl neck of her satin dress, pressed between her bra and breasts, clung to the soft skin, translucent, like the gossamer wings of brilliant insects. He removed each one with the tip of his tongue as they undressed each other later, their bitterness cut through the taste of her perfume.

It mattered little that it drizzled throughout their honeymoon. Sol joked their first child would, must, be called Rain. But the years had eroded a cleft through Sol’s heart, left him with a twitching nervousness like a bird caught aloft in the false calm, just before an electrical storm. His a temperament that leant towards low pressure, a soul overcast by cyclonic moods. Teri’s cheerfulness was soon defeated by Sol’s melancholy. She found a match for her sunshine in the smile and embrace of another and fled leaving Sol in a depression that matched the winter gloom. For a while he welcomed the fierceness of storms, actively sought them out. Stood on exposed cliffs, arms raised, fingertips stretched to touch low cloud, his breath stolen by the wind. Threatened to topple but didn’t. Swallowed the contents of bottles instead, threw up, tried again with the same result. Nights spent with red-rimmed eyes and a throbbing head. He recovered, worked harder than ever; his resolve drew admiration and jealous hostility in equal measures. Now it was Sol’s turn to flee. A job offer from America, the prospect of waking every morning to the welcoming glow of a sun beaming from a clear Californian sky. A climate too temperate, too stable, to be affected by any infection he could carry. He smiled as the captain warned of turbulence, the plane climbing to avoid the remnants of a storm. Sol promised himself that it would be the last bad weather he’d suffer as he drifted off to sleep, seat belt buckled loosely in his lap. Felt the warmth of the imagined sun permeate his chilly skin, setting his petrified bones aglow. Dreamed of turquoise water lapping against the dazzling shine of blue pool tiles, of bright bikinis and of sand bleached to the color of corn flour by an enduring sun, of bronzed bodies glistening with cocoa butter.

He woke to the sound of sirens and panic, the oxygen mask already swinging by his head. His last despairing thought: that the weather had had the last laugh after all.

The airliner faded from the sweep of the controller’s radar like the remembered glow of an extinguished light, the crash caused not by the tail-end of a storm, but by the failure of a small but significant mechanical part.


Back <