Clouds
Dimitra opens the door to her apartment. She looks like she’s just got home. From work, I imagine, but looking at her I realise I have no idea what she does. She is dressed in a professional manner, but I just can’t place the occupation. It could be clerical, like an accountant, or something in business. She could be an interior decorator.
I’m not sure what to say, I didn’t think she’d answer. And now, I expect her to slam the door at any second. But she doesn’t. She speaks. She addresses me.
“Lucy?” she says, surprised. “You’re dirty.”
“I know.” I gesture to the towel tucked under my arm. “Can I use your bath?”
“Lucy, you’re bloody.”
“So, can I?”
Dimitra looks me up and down. “Lucy, what happened? You’re all scratched up.”
My eyes find the floor. She has nice shoes. A rich burgundy.
“Got robbed,” I mumble. “Got chased.”
“Oh, oh! No, you poor thing!”
Her apprehension drops away immediately, and it is like she has seen me properly for the first time since I moved here. Like I was an estranged family member, and it wasn’t until I showed up covered in filth that it registered. Maybe my hair had been too glossy—like a magazine.
She takes me by the arm and pulls me inside, “Take a seat, here. I’ll put the kettle on.”
“I just need a shower.”
Dimitra holds up her hand. “No. Lucy, you need help.”
She moves into her kitchen and throws on the kettle. She opens her cupboards, pulls a few things out. Hums busily to herself. “Any allergies?” she asks.
“I don’t think so.”
Her place is as I expected. I would describe it as nice, if nice meant anything. She has a lot of little things, trinkets really. Each placed deliberately about the space. She has a mural taking up an entire wall, as a feature, though it isn’t finished yet. Paint palettes and tubes are scattered across the base of it. It’s about half done, the line art is complete, and the painting covers about a third. It’s abstract, I can’t quite make out what it is, no matter which way I tilt my head.
“Do you like it?” she asks, catching me looking.
“I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s the sky,” she says. “Those white streaky blobs are clouds. And that there is a plane. And there are some birds just there. The smaller looking ones aren’t smaller, they’re just further away. To give some perspective, you know?”
“I do.”
Dimitra returns from the kitchen. She offers me a large mug of cocoa. Steam rises up from it, twisting and curling this way and that. I find myself drawn to its movement; it’s a songless dance. Through the fog comes a biscuit, clutched between unpainted nails and spiralled fingerprints.
“Thanks,” When I take a sip, a wave of guilt rides up to meet the drink. “You didn’t have to.”
“Yes, I did. It’s what friends do.”
My heart feels funny, overstuffed. “A friend?”
“Yes.”
I hadn’t considered that a possibility. I hadn’t considered that Dimitra had considered it a possibility. Dipping my biscuit in my cocoa, I take a bite and as it crumbles on my tongue, I realise that aside from an ice-cream, this is the only solid food I’ve had all day. It’s been nothing but sugar and fat, do I really need more of it?
“Thank you,” I say. “Did you make these yourself?
“I did, old family recipe.”
Her apartment isn’t so different to mine, everything is laid out the same, but reversed because she is on the opposite side of the hall to me. But compared to mine, hers seems so busy, cluttered, I guess. Really, really full. Mine is empty. Barren. It’s just her in here, but it’s just me in there. So why does hers feel so different?
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yes, why?”
Dimitra holds out a cloth handkerchief. “You’re crying.”
“I am?”
She nods.
“I shouldn’t be.”
“Are you so sure?”
Dimitra’s voice is a comforting blanket. I could crawl up inside it and sleep. Remember sleep? That thing you used to do, Lucy? You should try that again some time.
“No. I’m not sure at all, really.” I take the cloth and dab away the tears. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why am I crying?”
She doesn’t say anything, she just gives me a look. It’s a look that tells me she knows, she understands. It says she is here. For me. My throat constricts, my fingers tingle. A hot poker worms through my chest and I gasp from the heat of it.
Tears boil over my eyelids.
My hands tremble and Dimitra rushes to take the mug from me before I drop it on the floor. In the same second, she is by my side. I find my head on her chest, her hand on my hair. And I am sobbing. Muffled wet sniffly sobs. A grotesque ghost of my face soaks into her work shirt. She softly coos, stroking my hair. The warmth from her chest is almost like a fire on my cheek. But I don’t pull away. This is a cleansing fire.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she says, her voice somehow distant, but comforting. As though she has stepped away from herself, or at least the person I think she is. It is seeing another dimension. Not a reflection, but a refraction. Dimitra filtered through a different glass. I tighten my grip on her hip, gagging on my own sadness.
“I know,” I say, after catching my breath and sitting back up. I wipe my nose with the back of my hand, catching my wet face imprint staring back at me. “I know. It’s all wrong. You should have painted the ceiling.”