Welcome to the blog post challenge.

Blogging Activity – Write the 4^th part of the story.

When the Rain Falls  Chapter 4

    The next day it rained. Rain poured from the sky; rain pounded the fields; rain filled the water butts and flooded the laggers, the pathways and the roads through the village. It was as if the sky had split apart and it would rain forever. Mrs Hill stood at the kitchen window, shaking her head, tut-tutting and muttering something about ‘The Flood’ and how we had all sinned and this was ‘God’s comeuppance’.

    But Joseph could wait no longer while Mrs Hill muttered away. If he left it any more, they’d be singing hymns and praying. Already time was ticking by. He had to save Aphrodite and that meant finding Billy Go-Lucky.  

    Outside, the rain soon soaked Joseph to the skin. It sneaked in every crevice – up sleeves, down his neck and soon filled his boots. Desperately, he searched the village, stumbling across the fields, calling and calling. But only the wind and rain answered back.

    He stopped at Mrs Partiger’s house and asked if she’d seen Billy. Mrs Partiger knew everything that happened in the village. Mrs Hill called her a rumourmonger, a scandal-chatter, a tittle-tattle and didn’t have the time of day to spend with the likes of her! But Joseph was at the end of his tether.

    Sure enough Mrs Partiger was at her kitchen window, watching. “Don’t you come in ‘ere, dripping all over my clean floor,” she snapped, shocked at the thought of her kitchen floor being messed up.

    “Sorry Mrs Partiger, but have you seen our Billy Go-Lucky, this morning,” said Joseph, politely. Mrs Partiger sniffed, distastefully, and eyed the small boy. Drowned rat, more like, she thought to herself. “No,” she curtly replied, closing the door sharply.

    Joseph stood under the yew trees at the edge of the church yard. He could hear the water dripping and the wind made him shiver. It was there, by the church that he got the idea. Like an answer to a prayer, it came to him. Maybe Billy had returned to find Aphrodite again? After all, he loved animals and always had a baby rabbit, a vole or pet mole tucked into his shirt. Maybe, he’d found the courage to go back? It would be the sort of daft thing that Billy might do… but how would Aphrodite receive him?

    Now all this happened almost 90 years ago. Billy had returned. Somehow, he had got over his fear and came back with a coney that he’d snared. I found him chatting with Aphrodite, tucked into a bush. “He, he, he’s my friend now,” stammered Billy, grinning from ear to ear.

    They are all gone now. Billy was older than me and was sent to France where he died in the rag ends of the war in 1945. He would never see his beloved village again or whisper his silly nonsense into Aphrodite’s ear. Still, I dream of her. The great black shadow slinking through the darkness, pacing the fields in my memory. She lived long after the war ended, long after I had returned home.

    One day several summers after the war had ended, Mrs Hill wrote to me to tell me that she could no longer find Aphrodite. Out great cat had disappeared with as little fuss as she had arrived. Sometimes, I can still see her. A dark ghost now in the night of my life. The shining memory of a friendship born out of chaos.

©Pie Corbett 2022

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