After the Rain

by Natália Gomes

  ‘My social room.’

  ‘A social room? What is that?’

  ‘A room where my friends and I can hang out without anyone bothering us.’

  ‘And the booze?’

  ‘We only house the fifteen-year-old scotch here and mildly matured wines. The good stuff is down in the cellar.’

  ‘The “good stuff”,’ I smirk. ‘I wouldn’t even know what that is.’

  ‘Take a guess.’

  ‘Tequila.’

  ‘Tequila? This isn’t spring break in Mexico. We’re in London. I’m talking about a 1982 Bordeaux Pauillac.’

  ‘Wow. Your life and my life couldn’t be further apart,’ I laugh, settling into one of the armchairs. My body melts into it and I suddenly feel a nap coming on. These really are comfortable.

  ‘Maybe we’re not as different as you think,’ he mutters, rolling a black ball under his palm on the pool table.

  ‘No, I’m not a marathon runner, if that’s what you’re thinking, although I know my athletic physique can be deceiving,’ I smirk.

  He launches the ball against the edge of the table, it bounces off and steers directly into an empty pocket.

  ‘Oh right, yeah, we’ve both been almost blown up. Forgot about that. Is that what you mean by “not so different”?’ I say.

  He rolls his eyes and wheels himself away from the table over to the large window.

  ‘Whoa, is that your garden?’ I ask, coming up behind him. The back of his chair is covered with stickers, inked markings of messages from friends at school. WE MISS YOU JACK to SORRY to COME BACK SOON!

  ‘Nice shrine.’

  He doesn’t turn around. ‘They’re stupid. What do they know?’

  I nod, lightly tracing each message with my fingertips. How do you convey sympathy or empathy for something you could never understand unless you were there? I was there and I can barely understand it.

  ‘At least people care about you. I didn’t get any Get Well or Thinking of You cards. Not even from distant relatives.’

  ‘You can take mine, I don’t know what to do with them. Line them up? Frame them? They come by the dozen almost every day. I’m not dead, so is it even appropriate to send a sympathy card? Mum’s started donating the flowers to the local hospice. They were beginning to swamp the shelves and tables.’

  ‘Have you had many visitors since you got home?’

  ‘Not so much. Do you know the papers contact my parents all the time asking for an interview?’

  ‘Yeah, I had a couple of calls too. My mom just pretended they had the wrong number and they stopped calling.’

  ‘Smart. My mum made the mistake of talking to one. Now they ring all the time.’

  A dull creaking seeps in from under the door, followed by some muffled footsteps.

  ‘That’s just my mum. She’s always just outside the door, waiting to see if I need anything.’

  ‘That’s nice of her.’

  ‘Everyone just wants to feel useful.’ He rolls his eyes.

  ‘Is that so wrong?’

  He pushes himself away from the window and slams his chair into the armchair. Then he edges back and drives into it again.

  ‘Careful, I don’t think the expensive leather can handle the impact,’ I smile, dropping down into it again.

  He scoffs and shakes his head.

  I lean forward and rest my hands on my lap. They’re only inches from his knees. We’re physically closer than we’ve ever been before, pulled into this little bubble we’ve created around us. Him in his wheelchair, me in my fog of anxiety. My loud breathing stifles his, and I can feel my chest pounding. Suddenly, I feel like we’re the only two people in the whole world. And that doesn’t scare me. In fact, it calms me. I close my eyes for a moment and continue feeling the breath building in my body, from my toes to my fingertips. He doesn’t pull back or turn his head away. ‘I feel … I don’t know how to describe it,’ he says, finally breaking the silence between us.

  ‘I know. I feel it too,’ I whisper.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if we’d died too.’

  A warm tear escapes my eye and before I can catch it, it spills down my cheek and onto my collar. ‘But we didn’t die. We’re alive,’ I say. His hands quiver in front of me. I place mine on top of his and his trembling stops. I swallow my next tear and it burns my throat. ‘So let’s start living.’

  ‘I don’t know how,’ he mutters.

  ‘Well, what do you want to do?’

  ‘What kind of question is that?’ He slides his hands out from under mine.

  ‘A simple one. What do you want?’

  He throws his hands in the air. ‘Look at me! I want out of this chair! I want to get back to all the normal things I used to do! I want to run! I want to play tennis, ski, climb a mountain, hang out with my friends without them all looking at me with that pitying expression they all have.’

  ‘So, let’s do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You want to go outside?’

  ‘Yeah, I want to go outside! I hate being cooped up like this, with my mum hovering outside every door I close!’

  The creaking intensifies then the footsteps move away.

  ‘I think she heard that.’

  ‘Good!’ he yells at the door.

  ‘Well, I want to learn how to be outside without freaking out every time, without thinking another bomb is going to go off. Because unlike you, I actually would prefer to stay cooped up, to never have to leave the house again.’

  He shrugs.

  ‘So let’s do it.’

  ‘You want to go for a run?’ he laughs. ‘I might find it hard to keep up.’

  ‘Actually, I think you’d still be faster than me. But no, that’s not exactly what I had in mind. We can find other things to do that gets us both out the house and away from all this.’

  He rolls his eyes and starts backing up, away from me.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, sliding off the chair. I start for the door. ‘Stay here – all summer, all cooped up.’ I turn the knob and yank it towards me.

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  I try not to smile, but I can feel the corners of my mouth creeping upwards. ‘Not sure yet but I can come hang out tomorrow?’

  ‘See you tomorrow then.’

  Jack

  Instagram.

  Facebook.

  Snapchat.

  TikTok.

  Strava.

  I have profiles on all of them. Before this, I uploaded group cycles with friends, travel adventures, race times, event images. I used social media to document my achievements and engage with similarly minded people. I didn’t post photos of what I had for dinner or filtered selfies where I have dog ears or twinkling stars around my head, but retweets, reposts, tagging, likes, loves, comments, hashtags, Insta-stories, all competing for engagements feeds – I did all that. And I did it well. Every time I posted a new photo or a personal update from a holiday, the likes poured in. I got a new Facebook friend request almost every day. Followers flooded my Instagram account and many of my photos were featured on athletic and travel group feeds. I never understood people who didn’t have a profile on at least one social media platform. Until now. I realise now, having not posted anything since the day before the bombing, that if you’re not doing something then you have nothing to post. I don’t know if I’ll ever post again. Anything I do upload will just be met with messages of condolence, sympathetic comments and that annoying emoji that holds a heart.

  A light knock on the door startles me. I log out of my Facebook app and slide the phone in my pocket.

  ‘Jack? Alice is here,’ says my mum.

  ‘I’m coming out.’

  I wheel myself down the hall and bump across the threshold into the kitchen. Alice stands at the centre island, hands clasped in front. A plate of pastries and croissants sits on the counter beside her with a teapot and small ceramic pots of sugar cubes and honey. My mum is over by the kettle filling the c
afétière. The smell of coffee floods the kitchen, spilling aromas of chocolate and oak around us.

  ‘Hey,’ Alice says.

  ‘Hey.’

  My mum potters around, placing the French press next to the platter of breakfast treats, then sorting napkins. Alice smiles at me awkwardly, hands still clasped. She gazes around the kitchen and starts to whistle.

  ‘What is that?’ I ask.

  ‘The tune? Star Wars.’

  I nod and we continue standing in the kitchen while my mum circles around us. She’s now watering the plant pots on the windowsill. The sun shines sharply through the windows, striking us in the face. ‘Want to go sit outside in the garden?’ Alice nods, then slowly slips a custard pastry off the plate onto a napkin. She licks her fingers and turns for the back door. I ease myself down the ramp behind her, and out into the sunshine. It hits my face, warms my cheeks, my hair, my hands.

  The garden stretches over fifteen acres, some of it lost to the woods by the farm. Most of it is trimmed, watered, and flooded with vibrant flowers, many I can’t name. My mum loves being out in the garden. We have a landscaper and gardener who are here regularly, but in between my mum does the maintenance work. I often find her reading a gardening book on rainy mornings – the best mornings for longer runs in the country.

  ‘Wow. This is all yours?’ asks Alice, gesturing to the garden. ‘And here I thought an eight by ten shed and a rusty swing was a big garden by British standards.’

  We head down the stone path towards the rose patch, by the apple and peach trees. There are blackberry bushes over to the right that my mum makes great jam from. The strawberries by the bird baths are often picked at by the rabbits and birds. We follow the path to the left and head further away from the house, until it starts to fade at our backs. The bench by the duck pond is my favourite place to come to. There’s a patch of grass that seems to always get the sun, even in the winter months. You can see the pond and the ducks from here, and you’re close enough to smell the gardenias and roses. And if you’re lucky, you can pluck a ripe fruit from one of the trees.

  ‘I can’t believe you live here. I’d never leave this place if I lived here. Why do you travel so much?’

  ‘I won’t be travelling so much anymore.’

  ‘You can get a wheelchair on an airplane, you know.’

  I shrug and gaze around. It really is beautiful here. There are so many places in this garden to explore, to hide in. There’s even a small cairn at the bottom by the brook that runs through our property and onto the next. London feels like thousands of miles away. I pull the brake lever on my chair and lean back. The sun beats down on my face. It’s probably around 25 degrees and it’s not even midday. Alice tiptoes carefully between the flowers. She weakly lifts herself up onto a low wall that separates the roses from the fruit trees, and sits on the top, legs dangling over. She starts picking at the pastry in her hands, flakes falling around her. My phone vibrates so I slide it out. A Facebook notification tells me I have four friends with birthdays today and there’s a new message on the Messenger group labelled ‘Ski Trip Plans’. I won’t look at that one. They know I can’t go, but my mates would never take me off the group. My thumb hovers above the ‘Leave Chat’ option.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

  ‘Nothing. Just scrolling through Facebook,’ I mumble, stuffing my phone back into my pocket. I can’t do it. Not now anyway. I’ll just mute the notifications from the ski group until I can find the courage to leave the group discussion completely. I don’t want to know their plans, everything I’ll be missing out on.

  ‘Why?’ she asks. She kicks her legs off the wall wildly, like she’s on a rollercoaster or something. ‘Social media messes with your mind.’

  ‘You sound like my mum,’ I scoff.

  ‘I’m serious. No one actually puts their real life on social media. What you see is just the highlights reel.’

  I think of my travelling, my events, my races, my ski trips – that was my real life. Not this. ‘Are you on social media?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘I’m off the grid,’ she says, sliding on her sunglasses. Frames as red as the hair that curls down her back.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone not on social media, even if it’s just to keep in touch with friends.’

  ‘See, that’s where we differ, Addington. I’ve never been in one place for a long enough time to make friends to warrant a social media account to stay in touch.’

  ‘You don’t talk to anyone from your old schools?’

  She shrugs and rests her hands on her knees. ‘Do you think if I moved tomorrow you and I would stay in touch?’

  I shrug and look up at her on the wall, high above, floating over the yellow roses and white gardenias. Honestly, I don’t know if we’d stay in touch. Do I really know Alice Winters at all? She hops down off the wall, stumbling over a rock at the bottom.

  ‘So where to tomorrow?’ she asks.

  ‘You want to hang out again tomorrow?’

  ‘Unless you don’t?’

  ‘Sounds good. It’s not like I have any other plans,’ I shrug, backing the chair up onto the stone path again.

  She walks slowly beside me. ‘Let’s go somewhere away from here.’

  ‘I don’t know if my mum will let me leave the house grounds.’

  ‘Well, she’s going to have to at some point. You can’t stay here all summer. I’ll talk to her.’

  ‘Good luck with that!’ I laugh. ‘Where are you thinking of anyway?’

  She looks around, glancing back at the roses and gardenias. ‘I have an idea.’

  Alice

  ‘What are you wearing?’

  I stand at his door the next morning, 9:55 a.m., wearing beige chinos, a sun visor and a large oversized pair of sunglasses.

  ‘Are we going on an expedition to an animal safari?’ he laughs.

  I slide the glasses off. ‘I thought for the summer it might be fun if we adopted a herb patch in a community garden in the city.’

  ‘Adopted a herb patch?’ he says slowly.

  ‘Yes, you’re saying it right, don’t worry.’

  ‘That’s the concern.’

  ‘It’ll be fun! We’ll go down there once a week and tend to it. It’ll give us something concrete to physically take care of and watch all summer.’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Of course! Now, do you have a hat to keep the sun off your face so you don’t burn?’

  ‘I tan really well.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ I mumble, reaching for his chair handles.

  ‘How do you propose we get to this ‘community garden’ once a week? You going to wheel me there by hand?’

  ‘We drive. Your parents put me on the insurance last night so I’m going to drive us.’

  ‘Can you even drive?’

  ‘Sure,’ I shrug.

  ‘Can you legally drive over here in the UK?’

  ‘It’s the same thing as driving in the US.’

  ‘Actually, it’s not. We drive on the opposite side.’

  ‘Really? You do?’

  He grabs his wheel, immediately stopping himself as I try to push him up the ramp of the van.

  ‘Kidding!’ He exhales loudly as I laugh.

  The guy from yesterday appears from beside the van. He gently takes the chair from me. ‘Here, let me help.’

  I stand aside and watch as he wheels Jack up and into the van with complete ease, anchoring his wheels down to the metal flooring. I lean in, watching him. ‘See this here? Back the chair up into the Q-Lock until you hear it click. Don’t forget the wheel brakes.’

  ‘Into the what?’ I ask.

  Jack shrugs. ‘I can show her. I do still have function in my brain … for now.’

  I roll my eyes at him and nod my head towards the guy like I understood everything I just heard and observed. Hopefully, I won’t send Jack ice-skating around the van floor on the return jour
ney. After he leaves, I slide into the driver’s seat. It still has that brand-new-car smell even though I don’t exactly know what that is as we’ve never owned one before. A star-shaped car deodorizer hangs down from the mirror, apparently filling the vehicle with a scent of ‘newborn baby’ which both confuses me and freaks me out. I yank the belt across my chest and adjust the mirrors. Then I readjust them, and then shift them once more.

  ‘What’s happening up there?’ he calls to me.

  ‘Just going through all the safety protocols before I start the engine.’

  ‘Oh God, you swear you can drive, right?’

  ‘Like I’ve driven all my life.’ The engine roars to life, the van pitches forward, immediately shutting down again. ‘Oh, what happened there?’

  ‘You stalled.’

  ‘How can I … oh of course, it’s not an automatic. Gears, yes, right. It’s all coming back to me.’

  ‘You can’t drive a manual?’

  ‘You mean can I drive stick?’

  ‘What’s stick?’

  ‘Stick is stick.’

  ‘I think we’re having a major language barrier issue here. Have you only driven automatic transmissions before?’

  I readjust the mirror, seeing Jack bury his face in his hands from behind. ‘I learned using stick, I mean, on a manual car, so I just need to …’ I wrestle the gear back into place and push my foot down onto the clutch. ‘… jog …’ Then I gently release the clutch, catching it in first gear. ‘… my …’ The engine builds and starts to move forward. ‘… memory. There, perfect.’ We start edging forward down the driveway, but the van feels like it’s dragging a crate of bricks behind us; is that the weight of Jack’s chair? I’ve never driven a vehicle this large before. ‘See? Easy. How awesome am I?’

  ‘Hey, Captain Awesome, your handbrake is still on.’

  When we pull up to Godolphin Garden, the car park is bustling with retirees, volunteers and families. Some carry large ceramic pots in their hands, others heave bags of soil over their shoulders, or pull empty watering cans, shovels and hand rakes from their car boots. I ease the van into a space at the back, far away from other cars I can potentially hit, and turn off the engine.