Out in the Cold

The bottle was empty. An inevitable conclusion. Martin examined the dregs clinging to the inside; disorientating the otherwise clear glass with a petrol fume-like haziness. He’d been nursing his glass of gin for a long while - perhaps an excuse not to return to bed where his wife was soundly asleep; her mind in a faraway place. The night air seeped through the not-quite-shut window frame, slowly layering the kitchen with a coat of icy freshness. The floor tiles and the polished granite benchtop glistened in the moonlight streaming through the skylight; the energy of the day revealing itself. Martin broke his gaze with the haze on the glass and arose from the wooden chair that clearly no longer belonged in this sleek, new kitchen. He took the bottle in his left hand and stepped, bare-footed, away from the table, towards the back door.

 

The recycling bin was already perched at the edge of the curb with the moonlight reflecting off the smooth plastic. An over-arching street lamp highlighted the fact it was the only recycling bin visible in the cul-de-sac. For once, Martin put it out on the right night, albeit forgetting about the public holiday earlier in the week. The interweaving notions of forgetting and remembering painted Martin with a slight smirk - “will I ever get it right?” He gently closed the door behind him and walked down the driveway; the pebbled concrete providing a comforting massaging quality. As he moved away from the house, the moonlight began to gradually illuminate him; revealing his breath before it was claimed by the night. The fairly-freshly cut grass sparkled with a diamond-like sheen, softly coated with an emerging frost. Martin eventually reached the recycling bin, lifted the lid and dropped the bottle into the darkness. The shrill sound of bottles clanging together sent an electric current throughout his body and Martin could feel the sound reverberate around the silent cul-de-sac. He gently closed the lid, took in a large breath of the night air and gazed at the blackness above. No stars tonight. No clouds either. He couldn’t help but focus on the beauty of the moon. The tide turner. A beacon of light in an ocean of darkness.

 

“Martin? Is that you?”

 

Martin looked to his right and saw Joan, his petite elderly neighbour walking towards him. She was wearing beige slippers and a giant, thick navy dressing gown that looked like it might swallow her up. Joan’s hair was usually immaculate, but clearly not at 2 o’clock in the morning.

 

“Hi Joan. What are you doing up so late?”

“I can’t sleep. What about you?” Joan replied.

 

Martin paused for a moment. “Getting some air… Thinking, you know,” Joan nodded quickly and turned her head away to conceal her face.

 

“Are you ok?” asked Martin.

 

She took in a deep breath. “Yeah, fine.”

 

He knew this wasn’t the case. It was almost the anniversary of her husband’s death. He passed in his sleep last year, totally out of the blue. Martin couldn’t even begin to envisage the shock Joan went through; turning over to say good morning to her husband of 52 years and finding him dead. Stiff and cold to the touch. An empty shell that once held such a loveable, gregarious soul. Joan had never been quite the same; she was clearly still grieving. Perhaps she would never stop. Their relationship was as close to perfection as any could get. If a news network ever did a feel-good story about the secrets to a lifelong marriage, Joan and Bill would have been ideal interviewees. But now here was Joan. Just Joan. Small and weak; the token old woman of the cul-de-sac. The mysterious old lady who looked out her window at the schoolchildren walking by. But Martin refused to see her in this way. To him she would always be the friendly neighbour that never stopped smiling and radiated warmth even on the coldest day. Since Bill died, Martin had been mowing Joan’s lawn. There was always a sense of closeness between them despite her unplanned isolation of sorts. Bill’s death was an inevitable conclusion; but there is nothing inevitable about love.

 

Martin let a couple of beats of silence fall. “Would you like to go for a coffee tomorrow? Well, today I guess.” Joan hesitated for a moment and looked up. A slight grin began to form. “That would be nice.”

 

They were both smiling. They shared a mutual understanding of how treasured this was. A cup of coffee was never just a vessel of caffeine. It was a conversation; a confession; a fit of laughter; a gulp of gossip. A connection.

 

“Just come over whenever. I’ll drive,” said Martin. “Sounds good to me,” Joan replied.

 

Joan took in another deep breath as she walked back towards her house, arms crossed, shoulders up. Her hands disappearing into her thick dressing gown. “You must be freezing. You’d better get back inside before you catch your death out here,” she said as she continued to move away before activating her security light and disappearing into her empty house of comfort.

 

Martin remained next to the recycling bin. He didn’t feel particularly cold, but it was probably time to get back to bed anyway. He took one last gaze up towards the moon, wondering if perhaps Joan ever looks at it and thinks of Bill. He made his way back up the driveway; the house’s shadow progressively erasing the moonlight that illuminated him. The almost overlapping qualities of light and darkness gave Martin an ethereal sensation. He wrapped his hand around the door handle, pushed it down, pried open the door, entered and closed it gently. An eerie silence. His ears had become used to the icy wind that was passing over him. He noticed again the moonlight streaming through the kitchen windows. It was perhaps even brighter than before. Martin crept his way towards the stairs. The once inevitable creaks of the floorboard were now replaced with quiet taps of bare feet on polished concrete. It was like a one-sided conversation. He reached the top of the stairs and softly pushed open the slightly ajar bedroom door. 

 

Martin’s feet sank in to the newly-laid carpet like it was foam; the natural wool rug gently relieving his feet of the rough sensation of the driveway and the hardness of the stairs. Martin gently climbed into bed and carefully draped the thick duvet coated with two extra blankets over himself; like the layers of the earth. His wife murmured something. Sleep talk, probably. He inched the duvet all the way up to his chin and stared blankly at the ceiling. Even though he knew it was there, the blackness above felt like a great void. An abyss.

 

It was freezing.