Six
A drowned rat would be dry compared to Greg. By the time he reached the front door
of Bluebell Cottage and let himself in, there was not a millimetre of his clothing that was not saturated. A puddle formed around him as he stepped onto his doormat. His shoes squelched as he kicked them off, and he peeled sodden socks from his wet feet.
His dark brown hair was dripping like a faulty tap, and even his eyelashes had little droplets of rain on them, that fell onto his cheeks. He hurried into the kitchen, the tiled floor cold beneath his soles, and he tugged off his light grey, linen jacket and tossed it on the draining board, followed by his trousers. His white shirt clung to him like a second skin as did his boxer shorts. They both went straight into the washing machine. Now shivering, he ran upstairs and stepped into the shower.
Warm water cascaded over him and he let out a sigh of relief. So much for flaming June. This had not been a good start to a new month. But things could only get better.
Couldn’t they?
Having dried himself, he smiled as he dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and then he grabbed a couple of hangers from the wardrobe, and headed back downstairs to make a cup of tea.
Instead, once in the kitchen, he removed a bottle of beer from the fridge and gulped down two large mouthfuls, before placing the bottle on the counter. He carefully wrung out his jacket and trousers, making sure he didn’t splash himself, put them on the hangers, and hung them on the kitchen door. He tore off a few sheets of kitchen towel and laid it on the floor beneath his dripping garments. Then he retrieved his beer and went into the sitting room where he collapsed dramatically into his favourite armchair, feeling more like a seventy-year-old than the thirty-five-year-old man he was.
He clicked on the TV with the remote and settled down for yet another Saturday night filled with game shows, adverts, and generally, rubbish programmes. He didn’t plan to watch them; they were just for background noise while he read a book. He wasn’t in the mood for listening to music, but there was something about the silence that bothered him lately.
He took another slug of beer, picked up the book from the table beside his chair and started a new chapter.
If only he could do that so easily with his life.
