Yearn: Tales of Lust and Longing

• • •

It was past ten by the time Phoebe got home. Alan was already in bed, his suit, shoes, and tie neatly folded on the chair. Navigating the dim bedroom, Phoebe managed to pull her clothes off without waking him. She slipped in between the cold sheets, curling her feet up against his shins to warm up. Outside she could hear the rain dwindling down to slow steady dripping. She fell asleep with the image of Rupert’s furious face suspended before her mind’s eye.

That night she dreamt of a huge storm with hurricane force winds hitting most of the south of England: great winds bending trees almost in half as they swept through forests and fields, cars skidding across roads as the wind pushed them blindly into each other’s path, huge waves lashing the seafronts, people trapped on their roofs because of flooding, people dying. . . . She woke in a state of rigid fear, her body drenched in cold sweat. She glanced over at the clock: seven a.m., 14 October 1987. Alan was still sleeping, his snore a small wind that whistled around the corners of the bedroom.

Phoebe pulled the bedcovers back and stepped onto the carpet, then made her way over to the window. Beyond the lace curtains the day was breaking across the small concrete patio. Beams of early sunlight illuminated a family of sparrows pecking hopefully around the foot of a potted rosebush. Phoebe sighed in relief: maybe this nightmare hadn’t been predictive; maybe it was born out of guilt, guilt that she’d actually stepped into the life of the man she was obsessed with. Maybe this was a warning telling her to leave the weatherman alone.

Behind her she could hear Alan getting up and padding his way to the toilet; three minutes later it flushed. The sound of rushing water pulled her straight back to her nightmare—there had been the sound of rushing water in the background, and distant screaming. The image of a huge bank of dark blue clouds rolling across open sky, the shadow of which turned the water black below it, came back to her. It was a storm of biblical proportions, a storm that could change history. No, she hadn’t summoned this weather—rather, the storm had called her to it.

Her reverie was broken by the sensation of a warm body pressing against her back and bottom, a warm body with an erection.

“Fancy a quickie before work?” Alan murmured into her ear as his hands slid around to her breasts and his hips executed a couple of comical thrusts that, unfortunately for Alan, made Phoebe think of an overenthusiastic dog.

“We’ve got about ten minutes,” he continued, a little more eager in his movements. For a moment Phoebe wondered whether Rupert’s foreplay would be so ribald and clumsy. She couldn’t imagine so; the weatherman seemed far more sensitive and romantic.

“Oh, what the hell . . .” Resigned, she allowed herself to be led to the bed.

• • •

That morning Alan drove her to work. Inside the office building they parted to go to their separate floors. Once Phoebe had reached her desk she was hijacked by one of the senior clerks wanting her to take dictation for a lecture he had to give at a conference.

Sitting in front of a large window with the warm sunshine falling on her back, Phoebe found it harder and harder to concentrate as his voice droned on. Once or twice she found herself doodling on her notepad—great stormy clouds, showers of heavy penciled dashes, hail. Was it possible there would be a huge storm the very next day? If anything the weather seemed unseasonably warm, even slightly humid, like an Indian summer. Her predictive nightmare was beginning to feel like a huge ethical dilemma, but whom could she warn and who would believe her?

Phoebe gazed through the glass partition at the rows of young women in the typing pool—all of them would be thrown into a maelstrom tomorrow, she couldn’t helping thinking, remembering the image of trees flung like matchsticks into the air, electric wires vibrating like demented guitar strings between telegraph poles before snapping. People would die. People would drown. Thank God Rupert would warn them tonight, she thought, and again the warm rush of absolute power flooded through her. He would hear her dream, like he’d faithfully heard all the other dreams, regardless of any influence his fiancée had over him—true love would win out.

At lunch in a small Greek café around the corner from work, Phoebe fielded Alan’s questions about where she’d been the night before.

“At my sister’s,” she told him, gazing innocently into his eyes. “You

know how she’s been having trouble with her husband.” Disbelief did not leave his face. Phoebe leaned across and caressed his knee under the table. “It was nice making love this morning,” she lied. “Let’s go to bed early tonight. . . .” Phoebe tried smiling seductively.

“I won’t be back before ten; I’ve got to finish some reports at work.” Alan, still suspicious, fumbled with his pita bread. Phoebe’s hand moved up his thigh.

“Never mind, love, I’ll still be waiting,” she purred. Alan, placated, dropped both the pita and his questioning.

• • •

Phoebe poured herself a small glass of sherry, fed the meowing cat early, then switched on the end of the six o’clock news just in time for the newsreader to make some wry comment about a very late Indian summer before the program cut to the weather report. Rupert, in his suit, stood smiling, holding the pointer up against the map of the British Isles.

“Well, apart from the slight blip of the sudden squall early last night, with the mercury promising to hover around sixty degrees Fahrenheit, the weather has returned to being unseasonably warm for this time of year. Tomorrow we’re looking at fairly clear skies, with the promise of a shower early afternoon . . .”

Phoebe let her glass fall to the floor, where it shattered. Profoundly shocked, she didn’t even bother to look down at the spreading sherry.

“The storm! Why don’t you tell them about the storm?!” she yelled at the TV screen, causing the cat to bolt out of the room.

On the screen Rupert seemed to hesitate, almost as if he’d heard her. Then, after a slightly perplexed smile, he continued: “This will be good news for gardeners or farmers who are hoping to slip in some last-minute gardening before the winter frosts. . . .”

Phoebe’s heartbeat quickened to a nauseating fast pace and her mind raced. She couldn’t let this go—images of the nightmare swam across the kitchen ceiling, each increasingly more apocalyptic. Panicked, she picked up the telephone and dialed through to the switchboard of the BBC. Near tears, she pleaded with the operator, who, swept up by her obvious distress, put her through to the newsroom. Holding her breath, Phoebe watched the screen as Rupert appeared to receive a message through his hidden earpiece.

“We’ve just had a phone call from a concerned viewer, a Mrs. P. Rodehurst from Acton.” Phoebe winced: at least they could have got her surname right. Rupert continued: “She’s phoned to tell us there have been reports that a major hurricane is about to hit southern England.”

Phoebe held her breath. “Now—now is the last chance you have to redeem yourself, Rupert,” she said, speaking to the screen, convinced that he could hear her somehow, in a dim, remote, semiconscious way. “Now is your chance to be the first to give the warning—this could make your career!” She thumped the table, making the laid cutlery rattle.

To her horror Rupert smiled weakly, his voice taking on a patronizing, soothing tone, as if he were speaking to a distressed four-year-old.

“Well, Mrs. Rodehurst, let me reassure you—we don’t have hurricanes in England. And certainly looking at the reports from the Met Office plus the patterns of both temperature and wind change of the past few days, there is really no need for alarm. . . .”

“You bloody idiot! How could you betray me!” Phoebe screamed, throwing the remote control across the room, where it bounced against the wall. Unperturbed, Rupert continued, now pointing toward the right side of the map.