Snapshot Part II

Durham was first. The following day Helen drove us up there, and it seemed that the thunderclouds I’d seen reflected in the window followed us north. I rested my hand on her thigh and turned to face her until me neck ached while the car was buffeted by the wind. It seemed that the muscles in her face relaxed the nearer we got to the university city, the faster the fifteen years passed. By the time we caught our first glimpse of the ancient cathedral, almost white against the storm-black and sky and lassoed by the Tees, the sad smile of the previous day had been replaced by a broad grin.

“Things were odd here, weren’t they?” said Helen as we sat in a tearoom. “You’d changed. You seemed nervous and somehow...distant. Why was that?”

I was silent for a few moments. I sipped my cup of Earl Grey, and its flavour seemed to float around my brain, lulling me. “I don’t know. I think that the older I’ve got, the shyer I’ve become. I know it’s normally the other way round, but I guess I’m just twisted that way.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she replied and rested her hand on mine. “You certainly weren’t shy coming to see me after such a long time. Most people would just have ignored my letter.”

“How could I possibly have ignored a letter from the person who’s filled my thoughts all these years? There was something else as well though. Durham was weird that time because I’d realised it was too late to say what I wanted to say to you. I’d missed so many opportunities. That first night in your house stands out. And you’d been seeing other people at uni. I just wasn’t sure what was between us anymore.”

We walked out into the crowded streets. A chill wind blew in from the moors to the north. Back in our guesthouse we lay silently in the dark until the early hours of the morning, stroking our bodies while the moon gushed through our thin curtains. Eventually I heard her breathing settle down, and in its sound I heard her voice, all the things she’d ever said to me, and the happiness we were experiencing seemed so ephemeral again. I drifted into sleep and woke only minutes later, drenched in sweat yet shivering with cold. I listened in the darkness and heard nothing than the odd car cruising past, the creak of boards somewhere else in the old guesthouse. I could no longer hear Helen breathing.

I looked towards her, and for a moment it seemed the moonlight had blanched her face, changed it to a ghastly white. My skin bristled with goose pimples; reaching out I feared that as soon as my fingers touched her cheek her skin would crumble away until there was nothing left of her on the bed but fine, white powder.

I touched her and yelped, withdrawing my hand. Her skin had felt so cold that it burned my finger, and I grasped it with my other hand.

“Mark...what?” She rose, and against the fluttering curtains I could see only the strands of her hair. Her features were dark and indecipherable. “Oh Helen!” I exclaimed, and hugged her. She was warm and firm again. I had suffered only from the after-effects of some nightmare.