Day 50

My partner is sitting at the living room table, browsing through the Hay on Wye Festival back catalogue of videos. The door is open onto the garden, an occasional breeze carrying into the house. Outside, the sun is beating down on our garden, the grass parched and low, the Spring plants dead or dying.

I walk past my partner, my hand brushing her neck, and step outside. I pour much needed water into the pots containing lily of the valley, mint, and an unknown plant. We picked up the last two from a garden front with a sign for ‘free plants’ during out daily walk. We only recognised the mint from its smell.

I crouch to the pots level. The lily of the valley is only just beginning to poke its first leaves out. Some of them look quite different than others and I wonder if something else is growing in there too. I can’t tell which leave is the one I want, so I let both be.

I get back inside, walk past my partner, and without stopping drop the remaining water down her back.

‘What!’

I burst out laughing.

‘You!’ My partner comes running at me but I am faster and already up the stairs.

‘It’s not funny, you know!’ The smile on her face doesn’t match her words.

‘Yes, it is.’

She shakes her head and goes back to the table. Slowly, I creep back down the stairs, fill my glass with water and head to the living room. My partner has heard me and jump outside. I rush after her and throw the content of the glass in her general direction. Her white t-shirt is drenched and showing the skin beneath.

She tries to hug me but again I escape up the stairs. I hear her climb the stairs to the bathroom. I sneak by the door but before I can say anything, a curtain of water splashes half my face.

‘Got you!’

I laugh, water dripping down my left cheek.

‘It feels good,’ I comment as my partner hands a towel over. ‘Nice and cool.’

‘Yeah.’ We both smile. ‘But enough now.’

‘Okay.’