Storming Out

As they ate, sharing a plate, feeding each other, the panorama of the setting sun, though not visible from their window, was being played out on a long roll of cloud which lay across the sky, lit by all the shades of red that could be imagined, deep maroon in its innermost folds, scarlet on its curves and pale pink on its upper side.  Tiny bubbles of crimson and orange danced attendance on it and underneath it the sky was the sweet coolness of a robin’s egg, green and blue fading to gold.  Against this pageantry the television masts and the trees along the Parade stood out like skeletons, the buildings were reduced to squares of black.  

 “It makes you feel very insignificant, doesn’t it?” Paul said after a little while.   “Some parts of college have that effect on me.   One day I’ll walk under the Shrewsbury gate without feeling history closing round me.”  Suddenly he snapped his fingers.  “Hey, something I forgot.  Where’s my rucksack?”  He took a CD from it.  “I promised you this, then nearly went home without playing it.  Want to hear what you inspired?  It’s as much ours as it is mine.” 

The spare vocal intervals and dissonant piano chords with which Paul had enclosed his lover’s poem brought back memories.   Joss listened, frowning slightly, but at the end he only said, “Yes, I like it.  Let’s hear it one more time.”  When he’d heard it through again, he said, “You were right about the language, and the voice. Tout ce que nous avons entendu.  It’s written in the shadows, though. Even I can hear what you said about missing me. But at the end you make the sun come out.”