The Coastal Cottage – Part 1: Pembrokeshire

It rained on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and nobody could have been happier.

Bethan stood at the window of the little stone cottage with a mug of tea, watching grey sheets of water sweep across the bay. The sea thundered on the rocks below. Gulls clung to the cliff like wet washing. Behind her, a fire crackled in the grate, and Gareth was attempting to make soup.

"What's that smell?" she asked.

"Onions."

"They're burning."

"They're caramelising."

"They're a tragedy."

She was forty-five, a nurse, with a fierce laugh and a shawl round her shoulders. He was forty-eight, a quantity surveyor, big, comfortable, bearded, in a hand-knitted jumper that she had made him in a fit of enthusiasm eleven years ago. Twenty years married. Two grown children. A house full of other people's belongings.

They had come for the walking. There had been no walking. The cottage had no television and a single wonky radio, and the signal on their phones had vanished somewhere around the second hairpin bend.

"I can't remember the last time we had nothing to do," said Gareth.

"The week after the wedding."

"I mean, nothing."

"The week after the wedding."

He laughed. The onions hissed. She crossed the kitchen, took the spoon out of his hand, and stirred, and he leaned against the counter watching her, grinning.

They ate soup and cheese by the fire, then played cards on the rug. She beat him four times, then let him win. He read aloud from a battered novel they had found on the shelf. She fell asleep on his shoulder.

"Can I ask you something?" said Bethan, waking.

"Yes."

"When did we stop being silly?"

"We didn't. We just stopped being alone."

"Green?" she said, softly, the old word.

"Green," said Gareth, tenderly. "Very green. Listen. The rain's stopping."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Clearing.