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was almost midnight. He’d been up on
the cliffs for two hours.
    â€œTomorrow,” he said to the terrible empty
house. “I’ll go and find it tomorrow.”
    He dragged a duvet down from upstairs
and curled up on the sofa, staring into the
flames as the coals caught.
There are caves in
there!
Toby used to shout as he watched the
fire, and Ray saw them now, bright glowing
caves inhabited by fantastic creatures and a
child’s innocent hopes.

3
    We drift through the storm where no bird dares
fly. The sense of being alone is staggering;
there are no contrasts between up and down,
here and there. Wind surges like angry breaths
of forgotten gods, and rain lances through the
air. Lightning bursts all around — the gods’
fury given form — and the world shakes.
    Down, floating down onto the village, the
life to be witnessed past midnight is different
from that during daylight hours. Descending
over the full harbour and past seagull shit-streaked rooftops, an old man walks through
the warren of streets and alleys. He is making
his sad way home after several pints at the
Flag & Fisherman. Twenty years ago he went
out on a fishing boat with five of his mates,
and he was the only one to return. He still
dreams of them, especially his brother’s face
as the sea took him down, and sometimes in
those dreams he remembers other things in
the water with them that day. Amorphous,
amorous things, waving hair and smooth skin,
claws and the insinuation of sharp, sharklike teeth. His name is Duncan, and he can
still remember the day they found his friend
David’s body. Drowned, the doctors said when
they opened him up, but there was no mention
of the other wounds on his corpse. No one
even seems to remember those other wounds.
Duncan drinks alone most nights now, and
he knows that many in the village think him
mad. He walks home in the darkness, still
scared of what the storm might contain.
    As we move away from Duncan, he pauses
in the street and looks up into the storm.
There’s nothing to see, but still he staggers
sideways and leans against a wall. Perhaps
madmen can see farther.
    We
peer
down
into
a
small,
overgrown
garden, where two teenagers on their way home
from the pub are rutting. She’s called Maxine,
and as she bends over she clasps her knickers,
worried that they’ll drop and get dirty and her
mother will see. She’s soaking and cold from the
rain, but hot inside. The boy’s name is Flynn.
His family has lived in the village forever, and
he has some vague idea that he and Maxine
might
be
distant
cousins
somewhere
down
the line, but she has a sweet arse and cute tits.
He looks around warily, worried about getting
caught and eager to get it over with, but he’s
had too much to drink, and this might take a
while. When he’s older he’ll think back to this
moment as the time his life changed, because
he’s not using a condom and Maxine isn’t on
the pill, and lightning thrashes in a new life.
    Beyond the young lovers, giving them their
privacy, the house is not too far away. It’s an
old rundown place, great swathes of cement
render crumbled from the outside walls by
frost. Rachel does her best, but with Johnny
run away to Bodmin with that slut Lucy-Anne Woodhams, she’s left here with Ollie,
a house that needs maintaining, and two
jobs. She can only do so much. She’s sitting in
Ollie’s room, the curtains drawn against the
storm, a tumbler of whiskey in her hand, legs
drawn up under her on the large wicker chair.
Ollie is sleeping contentedly in his bed, and
Rachel is confused. Her boy has been sick
for several weeks now, and the doctors have
given her varying diagnoses. Her GP told her
that it was tonsillitis, and that sometimes
young lads like Ollie can suffer from it badly:
fever, terrible sore throat, swollen tongue,
vomiting, breathing difficulties. She’s been
to hospital with him twice, and the tests
have come back indicating he