The Man Who Rained (28 page)

‘I have to confess, Elsa, I knew some of this already.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘When we made the cake it was obvious that it was for someone special. But also, well, little old
nuns are such fiendish gossips. Dot said you might need my support, but I don’t think you need much help from anyone except this Finn. It sounds like – if I may be so bold – you
have begun to know your own heart. I think perhaps that that’s what you came to Thunderstown hoping to do.’ He stood up and held wide his arms. ‘So,’ he said,
‘congratulations! I wish you all the very best.’

They hugged, then he stepped back with his hands still on her shoulders. ‘And you will take Michael’s car with you.’

‘What? No, Kenneth. I couldn’t.’

‘Yes. How else will you get out of Thunderstown? Don’t worry, it’s not a selfless gift. I hope it will remind you to send me a postcard now and then.’

She grinned. ‘Before long you’ll be wishing you hadn’t asked that. I’ll send you heaps of them. And I’ll call. I want to stay in touch. It might sound corny, but
you really saved my neck when you let me stay here. I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without you.’

He bowed. ‘You’re too kind, Elsa. Will I get to meet this strange lucky cloud of yours, before the two of you depart?’

‘Oh, of course. I’d like to see his face when he tries your chilli coal pot! Not even lightning burns like that stuff! But for now I’d better go and meet him. We’re going
to kiss goodbye to these old streets. I’ve become quite attached to them while I’ve been here.’

Kenneth remained on his feet to watch her walk away, and she wished somehow that she could take him with her, even though of course it was out of the question and he would never come. Before she
turned down Welcan Row she looked back over her shoulder and saw him still standing there. He looked older than she had thought him, even with his shirt like a fruit salad.

She waved, then set off down the road towards Saint Erasmus, although she knew she could walk in any direction and be pulled there. She would miss these circling streets and decaying buildings
when she left them, but she supposed that she and Finn were already being called elsewhere by another secret gravity.

Finn was waiting for her in the shade of the church. He looked smaller, down here in the town, and he kept shifting from foot to foot, as if the presence of so many bricks
unsettled him.

‘The walls can’t bite you,’ she said as she drew close.

‘It’s not that.’

Elsa embraced Finn, pressing her forehead against the underside of his jaw while he held her for a quiet moment. While they stood there, a haze again emerged from him, beginning as a white band
like a cloud tiara, then spilling out across his skin until it was a patina of mist. Above them a wind moved, and whistled under the church’s arches.

‘I went to see Daniel,’ he said, while she stroked her hand across his cheek, ‘and he was ... so nice to me.’

Elsa could barely even picture it. ‘You sure he’d not been drinking?’

‘No ... he was in a strange mood. He’d smashed up his house, for one thing. But I genuinely think that he meant it – the kindness, I mean. Do you know, I think this is the
first time in my life that he’s said a kind word to me?’

‘I can believe it.’

Finn looked thoughtful. The sun was too low now to turn his haze into a silver lining, but it flushed it nevertheless with the faintest rose hue, which found out the dimples and fluctuations in
the cloud. Then Finn told her about the letter from his mother and the money Daniel had offered them, and while he talked a handful of leaves blew in a circle around their feet and then skittered
onwards across the square.

‘I reckon you deserve all that,’ she said when he’d finished.

‘It certainly wasn’t what I went there expecting. It left me feeling so full of energy. I was here early, because I walked so fast from Daniel’s house. When I stepped out of
his door I felt like everything was new. If he could change so drastically, anything might be possible. It’s hard to explain.’

‘You don’t need to,’ Elsa said. ‘You’re growing into yourself. You’re getting used to whatever, whoever, you are. You’re getting used to being
Finn.’

She stroked her hand across his forehead and fragments of cloud broke around her fingers. It suited him, this faint second skin of vapour. She was about to kiss him again when she realized they
were being watched. A stern woman in a shawl stood midway across the square, then scuttled away when she realized she’d been spotted, breaking into a trot as soon as she reached the entrance
to Feave Street.

‘Shall we take our farewell tour?’ suggested Elsa.

‘Let’s,’ Finn said, and they joined hands.

When they were a little way down Feave Street, somebody behind them shouted her name. She looked over her shoulder and saw the woman who had been watching them, along with a small bunch of
townsfolk whom she must have alerted. One of them called her name like a summons, and a shiver rippled through her.

‘Ignore them,’ she said, ‘and just keep walking.’

This was a narrow street of three-storey terraces, each with an overhanging roof like a frown. Elsa had never much liked this road, whose paving dipped and bumped so that she couldn’t tell
what was supposed to be flat and what was supposed to be uneven. In the distance, the Devil’s Diadem and the crinkled cloud cover did nothing to help, forming a hatched backdrop of lined rock
and atmosphere.

Finn looked back. ‘There’s nine or ten people following us. Are they friends of yours?’

‘I have no idea who they are. Finn, I have a bad feeling about this. Can we just skip our tour and go back to your bothy?’

‘Elsa, I don’t think we need to be frightened of them.’

The small crowd was still out of earshot, but she whispered nevertheless. ‘You have a coat of cloud, Finn, all over your skin.
They’re
the ones who will be
frightened.’

‘Well, if they say anything, perhaps I can persuade them that there’s nothing to be scared of.’

Elsa sighed. She looked up at the rooftops, where the weathervanes were all pointing away towards Old Colp. ‘I don’t know, Finn. Call me crazy, but can we just get out of
here?’

She heard her name called again.

‘They want to speak to you.’

‘I don’t care what they want.’

‘Okay,’ he said, and they cut back on themselves down Auger Lane.

Before they reached the next junction a man stepped out in front of them, his hands tucked in his pockets. He wore the same rain cap and coat as most men of the town, but still she recognized
him from his plump neck and intrigued eyes.

‘Just thought I’d head you off here,’ said Sidney Moses, ‘to ask you a question or two.’

Elsa glanced across at Finn. He did not appear at all troubled, even though – she bit her lip – cloud still hung against his skin like dusty cobwebs.

‘We’ve got places to be,’ she said.

The small band of townsfolk caught up with them, one or two of them out of breath from the speed at which they’d followed. She didn’t like how grave they looked, nor how they all
hung back from taking the final few paces towards Finn, glancing instead to Sidney for guidance.

‘Haven’t you all got something better to be doing?’ she asked.

Sidney licked his lips but didn’t answer at once. A pair of magpies took off from further down the street and flew overhead, arguing in rasps as they went.

‘The thing is,’ said Sidney carefully, ‘that Sally Nairn just saw something.’

‘That’s him, Sidney,’ said the stern-faced woman in the shawl.

‘Sally said she saw a kind of fog around this boyfriend of yours. And lo and behold ...’ He gazed with a mixture of disgust and fascination at the delicate vapour that smudged the
air around Finn.

Finn folded his arms. ‘I have a name, you know, which you can address me by if you can be polite enough to ask for it.’

Sidney turned his attention to Finn. ‘When Miss Beletti arrived in Thunderstown, it wasn’t long before we all knew her face. Yet I don’t recognize yours, lest it’s from a
story I once heard. When did you arrive?’

‘I’ve always been here.’

Elsa winced. ‘Finn, this guy just wants trouble ...’

‘It’s okay, Elsa. They’re just confused by what they’re seeing.’

Sidney nodded. ‘What are we seeing, exactly?’

‘I have a storm inside of me.’

The crowd wrung their hands and whispered to each other. Sidney looked as if he had unearthed buried treasure. ‘Do you admit to it, just like that?’

‘I am not ashamed of it any more. And I’m sick of hiding up a mountain. I’m as safe to be around as any of you.’

Sidney puffed himself up. ‘You are very brazen, to come down here and say such things, after all that you have done to us.’

 ‘This is ridiculous,’ said Elsa, rolling her eyes. ‘He hasn’t done anything.’

Sidney didn’t take his gaze off Finn. ‘We know who you are.’

She tugged at Finn’s hand. ‘Come on, Finn. Let’s get going.’

‘You are Old Man Thunder.’

She bristled. ‘Don’t be so stupid. You know nothing about Finn. How could you possibly suggest that?’

Sidney glared at her. ‘Just because Kenneth Olivier says you’re welcome in Thunderstown, it doesn’t mean that you are.
He
isn’t much welcome here
either.’

One or two of the crowd looked doubtful at that, but they didn’t protest. Elsa’s stomach knotted when she saw how quickly their obedience overcame their doubts. She became acutely
aware of how greatly they outnumbered her and Finn. Again she tugged at Finn’s arm. He didn’t budge.

‘Daniel told me about you, Mr Moses,’ he said. ‘But I thought he’d made you out to be worse than you actually are.’

While they had been talking, the strands of cloud clinging to Finn’s bald head had thickened. Now they were as opaque as ash. Sidney watched them with grim interest, and turned to the
crowd. ‘Look at him! Look at his skin. What do you see?’ One of the townsfolk whimpered,
‘Weather!’
and they all started burbling like frightened hens.

Elsa remembered the fear on these same faces on her first day in Thunderstown, when Daniel killed a wild dog. A cold anticipation locked the joints of her elbows and knees. ‘Finn,
please,’ she said, wishing she could spirit them both away like a magician.

‘Prove it,’ said Sidney.

‘Prove what?’

‘Prove that you’re real.’

‘What do you mean? Of course I’m real.’

‘You would say that. But we don’t think you are. We think you’re a storm, pretending to be a man.’

Deny it,
Elsa thought,
even though there’s cloud all over you.

‘I’m not pretending. I am a storm, and a man as well. But I’m not Old Man Thunder.’

Sidney gaped at the crowd with theatrical disbelief. ‘Do my ears deceive me? First he looks like a storm masquerading as a man. Then we give him a chance to deny it, and instead he pleads
guilty!’

The crowd had bunched up shoulder to shoulder. Abe Cosser’s left leg was jittering, his old boot rapping off the stone road.

‘Come on, Finn,’ said Elsa, tugging at his arm.

He resisted. ‘No, Elsa. We can make them understand. What proof do you want from me, Mr Moses?’

Sidney reached down to his belt and unclipped the knife that was attached there. He offered it, still sheathed, to Finn, saying, ‘They say Old Man Thunder can’t bleed.’

Finn didn’t take the knife. ‘I’m not going to cut myself open for you. Don’t be ridiculous.’

But as he spoke a wind blew down the street and tried to steal away the cloud clinging to his skin, stretching it out for a moment like silver tresses, then scattering it across the air. In the
crowd, a terrified Abe Cosser commenced the Lord’s Prayer.

‘Does it always have to be the case,’ asked Finn, and there was a rumbling edge on his voice that didn’t come from his vocal cords, ‘that people find devils in the things
they don’t understand? Believe me, I’ve been frightened by myself too, but doesn’t that make me all the more able to explain it to you? I used to think I was a kind of monster,
but all it took was a little kindness to realize – ’ he squeezed Elsa’s hand in recognition ‘ – that I’m just like any of you.’

For a moment Elsa was proud enough of him to forget her anxiety, but when she turned triumphantly to Sidney he had spread out his arms to address the townsfolk and she could see where this was
headed and it was as if her heart had dropped out of her.

‘He admits to it!’

 ‘He didn’t admit to anything,’ said Elsa, but her voice sounded reedy.

‘He
admits
,’ declared Sidney with steely composure, ‘and that’s all we need to know.’

The crowd looked like a satisfied jury.

‘He didn’t admit
,
’ objected Elsa, ‘because there’s nothing to admit to.’ She wished they had just kept on walking. Even if the crowd had besieged them
in the bothy they could have at least locked them out. She remembered suddenly a fight on the sidewalk a few years back, some alcohol-fuelled altercation between a stranger, who had said something
about her, and Peter, who had drunkenly tried to stand up to him. ‘Let’s go, Finn. All he wants is a fight.’

Finn was about to say something more, but she pulled his arm so hard that he got the message, nodded and turned away. Together they walked down the street, but no pace was fast enough for her.
She felt like she was trapped in a flinch. All of her clothes felt too small.

‘Don’t look back,’ she whispered.

They walked fast along Auger Lane then turned off into Candle Street, which led uphill towards Old Colp’s reclusive slopes. A scruffy cat, who had been sleeping on a yard wall, fixed its
yellow eyes on Finn and hissed. The crowd trailed them and she hoped like hell that, when the going got steep on the mountain slopes, they would lose interest. Above Old Colp the clouds appeared to
be clearing. The sun flung late light through the gap, and all of Thunderstown’s shadows lengthened.

Suddenly Finn lurched forwards and clutched the back of his head. Elsa heard something rattle off the flagstones. It was a nugget of slate. Finn crouched, blinking hard with pain, one hand held
to his crown. She could hear the air hissing out where the slate had cut him. At first she couldn’t move because a panic filled her up as if with needles. Then she exclaimed
‘Finn!’ and grabbed hold of him. ‘Are you okay?’