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vanished without a trace. So
please, don’t tell me it’s fine because the garden could do with some
watering.”
Vincent never normally swore at his wife, but when he did, she
knew he was upset over something.
“I’m sorry dear. I didn’t mean to annoy you.”
He wasn’t going to be mad at Mary for very long as it wasn’t her
fault it rained like a waterfall. “It’s all right. I’ll just have to do it
again on another day.”
Vincent placed the dirty clothes by the washing machine,
slipped on some clean ones, and walked away from the kitchen. He
felt grumpy that all his good work seemed to have been for nothing,
but knew he would get over it.
He entered the living room and sat down in his favourite chair.
Mary followed him in after a few minutes. She held two mugs of
tea, placing them on the sideboard before sitting in the seat next to
his. Both were like quiet little mice for the next fifteen minutes. By 3.00pm, Mary had gone into the kitchen to prepare Vincent’s
lunch. He thought about watching some daytime television but the
noise of the thunder made him change his mind on that idea. Knowing my luck , he thought, the lightning would aim a bolt right at
my aerial and blow the bloody thing up.
    Mary returned with Vincent’s rations. He was supposed to be on a strict diet and his wife didn’t trust him to make his own lunch. Vincent’s version of a diet was a lot different to hers. “Here you go, love. Get this down you,” she said, grinning slyly.
    Vincent produced a fake smile. He knew his life was under threat if he didn’t eat properly and didn’t want to let Mary down, but sometimes, the food she gave him tasted disgusting. “Cheers love. It looks tasty, yum, yum.”
    Mary slapped him on the shoulder and huffed. She wasn’t going to give in and returned to the kitchen. The weather change had stalled her daily plans so preparing food for later on was now top priority. Dinner was going to be a treat for her moaning old husband.
    Vincent prodded the sandwich then lifted it up to determine what was in it. There was no meat, no cheese, nothing resembling a dairy product, not even butter, but it did contain lots of salad, lots of salad on brown bread. Vincent sighed, but ate his sandwich to please Mary. A few minutes later and he contemplated about going to bed for a nap before dinner. “I think I’ll have a lie down. I’m a bit worn out after all that gardening,” he shouted out to her in the kitchen.
    “Okay,” she replied. “I’ll wake you when dinner’s nearly ready.”
Vincent headed upstairs while his wife carried on peeling the potatoes.
    SIX
    During the past hour, Blake and Karen had gone home, dried themselves off and had changed into fresh clothing. They hadn’t been able to avoid the onslaught of vicious splashes of water tossing down from the sky. The weather wasn’t letting up as raindrops, almost as big as table tennis balls crashed onto pavements, while drainpipes up and down the street gushed out water. There were no signs of humans or animals at this time. Even the birds had flown to safer and drier places. No one was stupid enough to be caught up in this, unless, like Karen and Blake, were heading home from somewhere.
    If the roaring thunder, lightning and rain kept up this pace then Blake’s plan for them to have an amorous meal somewhere was probably going to be scrapped.
    “Maybe our romantic dinner might have to be put on hold for a while. Well, at least until the rain slows down.” Karen looked disappointed and Blake knew he needed another plan of action to make her smile again. “If it doesn’t go away before seven then I promise to make a romantic meal here. What do you say?”
    “How can I resist such an offer,” she replied.
“Problem solved then,” he said with a smile.
Last night had rekindled the flames of desire between the two of
    them but today the water from the rain was close to putting the flame out again.
    He gave Karen a comforting hug, she