Night Watchers of the Rain

It was that kind of rain; rebound romantic, film-noir. Stars rising up from the concrete, playing strobe to the night, a ricochet of orbs under the streetlight. Silver-screen, cinematic black and white, like Bogart had never been buried and Marlowe was out there somewhere casting shadows. Collar turned up on his trench coat, one foot against the wall, fedora tipped… Here’s looking at you kid…

She waited. Sheltered in her doorway, one curved flight above the street, the sultry Bacall. One last draw on her cigarette, firefly orange, flicked over the rail. The end to be washed away, carried downstream through the gutter-spill while the cars would pass in a blinding rearview surge of icy effervescence, their accelerated sound deceiving…

Taxi…! An illuminated sign, an open door. Umbrella up, how her heels would click, and how steely-sharp the echo. Liquid diamonds on her dress, and in her hair once she’d brought the umbrella down and had shaken it out. She was Hepburn now, and Peppard was in the backseat. Off to find their honeyed moon in some putrid kerb-side river, to piece together that heavenly body’s shattered reflected parts, to wonder at the rainbow iridescence on its surface, else rescue some bedraggled abandoned cat. No more breakfasting from skips. No more skulking in the alleyway with the rats.

The watchers - ex partners of the couple in the car - knew that they'd been punching. Up on that part-covered balcony. Scratched wooden table between him and her, a bottle of red – Chianti, perhaps, or Merlot – black cherry scented candle in a pound-shop glass. Might as well have been Scotch on the rocks and a handgun. Still smoking. The ashtray was full.

It had all been a dream – that last part at least – where they’d kissed and got together. Settled. Cosy like. Brief Encounter’s final scene. Mr and Mrs Quaint Morality twisted out of the (less glamorous, granted) Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson they secretly yearned to be. And who took any notice of dreams, even those which were shared, unless your mind was set on turning them into a springboard? Look up! They’ve no need for each other. They want to be punching still. Even if it is at the faces of ghosts.

A beating down on the bins like bongo-drums. A cascade from where the guttering was broken. Had he leapt to his feet, he could have been like Gene Kelly, tapping away, spinning slick, and the woman here would be singing, stepping out of her everyday slacks, mirror-shine on her shoes, sequins enough to dazzle the pair of them bright. They could hold one umbrella between them. Hand on hand, head on shoulder, huddled in to follow the crowd downtown as they gathered pace along the pavement. Neon one-night-only signs, pink flamingos and A-lister names shimmering up, abstracted in potholes and puddles. Given half a chance they might muddy the old red-carpet, leave it threadbare. Looks weren’t the be all and end all, after all. But they were both of them too tired, enamoured more by watching the rain from a distance, creating symphonies of the mind which no one would ever play. Better silence than a clash and a clang of non-complimentary notes.

Flakes, that’s what they were, those which came from dry sticks. The sort people rubbed together in the hope of producing a flame, and when this didn’t work – for sparks required effort - they were simply cast aside, left in the woods to be trodden on. Not sturdy enough for a dog to chase, let alone retrieve. Miniscule, insignificant. Dirt on the forest floor. No one would think any more about this than they would that candle blown out, or those glasses which sat empty now of the wine which had slowly depleted having never been filled to the brim. In the heart of town, the soles of men would spit, and women would teeter clear of being splashed until they caused the splashes themselves. The technicolour ones. The ones which matched the light strips on the road by the taxi rank, and the more intense ones by the cinemas, bars and nightclubs. All laser beams and special effects. All flickering fractured action. George and Audrey, Holly and Paul, whoever, wouldn’t remain for long. Mere holograms conjured up, they’d be altered along with the rest. Might even alter themselves. The ‘wild thing’ reinvented, and as far removed from the past as she could possibly flee. Her slick-suited companion peacock-strutting round Tiffany’s, Rolex on one wrist, rich widow’s cold, liver-spotted fingers around the other. Still the alphas belonged together while the betas were like the rain. A deluge of drips, no control over where they fell. A thing to be accepted. Soaking in or landing on the outside of a window or a fourth-storey ledge. No way back up until the day of evaporation.

Sympathy, one had to have it. But these two had sympathy enough for themselves. The other would be punching, see. And self-absorption, best remedy yet. Whoever said they needed the sun?

But Marlowe, ah Marlowe, he took note. Could stop the pelting down if he wished. Could turn the lights off on the balcony, give these fools their happy ending, make the sign at the end of the road read ‘Coward’s Way’ if he really wanted to. Not that he did. A maker and breaker of dreams he might be, but a conclusion such as this was hardly in keeping with the atmosphere, the one he’d taken such pains to create, standing as he was, faceless, casting giant elongated shadows. Just a raincoat and a hat, recognizable enough, but invented none the less, like the entire non-existent cast – doers and watchers alike – of this, his latest fiction, flitting in and out of character, going somewhere or nowhere, incognito or simply nameless like Holly Golightly’s cat. He might work on that later, have some new-age femme fatale take it in and call it Ginge, add a breakaway collar, put her lover on a lead. The lover could wear his cast offs. Call himself Rick or Philip. Or Mallory. And he? He might even change sex. Anything was possible – and without any 'big sleep’. He was ‘no one person’ either.