Story a Rain Morning

A morning full rain.She worked in an art gallery. It wasn’t a good job, meaning neither did it pay well nor did it help to make the world a better place, but it was a harmless one, more harmless even than his own, in the lettings department of an estate agent’s. Did this render them safe? They didn’t shut their eyes to harm. Maria liked to have the TV switched on all the time, a constant grind of injustice and unreason and hilarity – to know that she wasn’t alone, to know that they were not alone. The game-show prizes she could take or leave, but someone had to win them.

            She worked in an art gallery. And on a Tuesday in February – the week the rain began, the rain that would rain until all records were broken – she was sitting behind her desk, doing whatever she did (Michael still has no idea, the desk was minimalist), when she noticed a visitor on the far side of the gallery. And then what? He stood in front of one of the paintings, he took off his coat and slung it over his shoulder, he turned towards Maria and smiled and Maria recognised her father, who had been dead for ten years.

            ‘You didn’t see me come in,’ her father said. He was leaning stiffly on a walking stick. It was a criticism, and Maria wasn’t used to criticism. She was perfect for the job, everyone had said so: the gallery owner, her sister, friends, Michael too. And then this small matter of resurrection.

            ‘Though I could hardly have walked off with one of these in my pocket,’ her father continued. His hair was plastered down by the rain. The smallest of the paintings in the gallery on that wet afternoon was around six foot high. They were paintings of women, and of women with men, in some kind of early-hours, post-party location, and they were so new that the paint was barely dry. Maria had thought they were exciting. 

            ‘They’re expensive,’ Maria said. Her father didn’t look rich. Her father looked as if he might ask her for the price of a cup of tea.