Returning
to the hotel from a night spent drinking in town, Brother Skunk and ache1
both remark on the change in temperature, this night being noticeably colder
than that previous, a fact which when remembered establishes its context as the
final night of their one summer.
Illuminated
by ankle-high lights rising at both sides of the road, they struggle up the
main driveway within each other’s support, discussing their agenda for what
little of the day remains.
ache1:
Okay, let’s, we’ll have one last drink before bed. And then it’s bed, then.
Skunk:
Agreed. We’ll get, do you want to go to the bar or will, we can get them to
send it up.
ache1:
No no, no, there’s
At
the fork Brother Skunk bears habitually to the left for the main entrance.
ache1:
No no, come this way. We’ll go, there’s
leading
him instead off to the right and onto the lawn, the immediate effect of which
is his circling her in a weird lopsided gallop accompanied by loud maniacal
bellowing.
ache1:
Jesus Skunk what the fuck shut up! Skunk!
Skunk
(sheepish): Sorry.
ache1:
What the fuck was all that about?
Skunk:
I… Nothing, just a little in-joke between me and Mr Bill.
She
jams her fists to her hips and stares off as if begging help.
Even
at this hour there is light enough to colour the parched grass they trample,
grown through a soil baked damn near solid by weeks of heat despite the best
efforts of the garden staff at its irrigation, but creeping on through between
the cedars they must wait for their eyes to accommodate the darkness, careful
even in their inebriation to avoid collision with the rocks they know are
there, and falling into the little pond itself.
ache1
lies along its edge to plunge her arm in elbow-deep, disturbing the still, dark
water,
ache1:
Fuck that’s cold. I didn’t…
her
hand moving about beneath the surface
ache1:
Proceed.
then
breaking back through with tight in its grip a bottle of Moosehead beer, the
cap of which she buckles off on one of the decorative border boulders.
ache1:
Always keep a spare in the chamber…
her
accompanying conspiratorial wink wasted in the dark, only then stopping to
ponder the expression as if this might be the first time she had ever used or
even heard it and wondering therefore how it might have come to be so readily
at her disposal,
ache1:
..whatever that means.
After
flipping the bottle-cap back into the pond
Skunk:
Don’t forget to make a wish.
ache1:
You can have mine this time, Skunk.
she
takes a long swallow at the bottle before passing it across to him.
ache1
(pointing with just visible pistol fingers): Oh yeah,
belching
ache1:
and I do believe I’m pregnant.
