Waterfall

William Letford

This particular night was sometime in the middle of January. No Christmas glamour. No snow. Just January and driving rain. I was trying hard to keep my head up but I was walking straight into the wind. I'm stubborn though. The weather wasn't going to beat me.

Appreciating Scottish weather is all about posture. When the rain belts it down keep your shoulders back and your head high. As soon as your head drops you start to slump and when that happens; you curdle in on yourself. Stand tall.

So that was me, the tall man.

I wasn't dressed for it either. At nineteen my wardrobe wasn't the only thing full of vanity and fashion. Warmth and practicality rarely entered my head. You could see my moles through the shirt I was wearing. I came to a compromise. Don't slouch. Don't curdle in on yourself. Slip into a doorway. Wait for the worst of it to pass then ease yourself out as tall as you like.

The first doorway that came my way was the entrance to Oxfam. I sidestepped into it and had to kick a couple of black bags to make room but once I was out of the wind my breath came less shallow. I looked down at the bags.

I knew I wasn't going to steal anything. I only wanted something while I was standing there. One bag was full of board games. The other was full of women's clothes. Useless. I went back to the women's clothes and picked out a cherry coloured cardigan. The arms didn't reach as far as my wrists but it would do for five minutes.

The gutter across the street was running full. The down-pipe was choked so an urban waterfall had formed. It battered against the pavement. A woman came to the waterfall and stepped onto the road to avoid it. She noticed me in the doorway and crossed the street.

Her hands were stuffed into her coat pockets and her shoulders were bunched. I remember she was older than me and I had clocked right away, as you do, that she wasn't attractive but for some reason I stared at her all the way across the road. She came right up to the doorway and crouched down over the black bags. After she had rummaged she stood up and said, 'No umbrella.' She looked at my cardigan, 'but then you could have told me that couldn't you?'

I hadn't even thought of it. I looked at her again. She still wasn't what I would've called attractive but...there was something. She drew her wet fringe across her forehead, tucked it behind her ear and walked away. Then it hit me.

I was fourteen. My Uncle had taken me out to work with him for the summer. He was a roofer. We were in the van, driving through town, and a girl I knew from school waved at me. He whistled at the ceiling. 'What about her?' he said to me, 'she's a wee cracker.' I showed him the eyes. 'Uncle Casey,' I said, 'she's roastin.' He pulled in to the side of the road. Stopped the van and turned off the engine. 'Listen son,' he said, 'when you get older, and if you're lucky, you see different things in girls. They don't always have to look gorgeous. Sometimes they've got lights. You can't see them. They're under the skin but you know they're there.'

Standing in that doorway to Oxfam, nineteen years old and wearing a cherry coloured women's cardigan, I noticed it. The woman that walked away in the rain. She had lights.