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Sandra put her arm out of the kitchen window. A couple of tiny raindrops landed on her hand. IT IS NOT GOING TO RAIN. She didn’t really know who she was thinking this to. She hadn’t been to church since last summer when she’d tried to will the vicar into helping with the tombola.

Sandra closed the window and turned back to her kitchen. Rows of sandwiches were arranged with military precision on trays. There were bowls of hula hoops. Enough, by her calculation, for everyone to have five hoops each. More than enough.

There was no cake. She’d left the cake to Dorothy. A risk certainly. But a calculated risk. Last year Dorothy had brought one cake along (Sandra had made the other six). And all anyone had spoken about for three months was how nice Dorothy’s sponge was. Well, it’s all very well making springy sponge when you only have to make one, and you aren’t making the sandwiches, sorting the drink, making Matthew collect the drink, so Matthew can talk about how he’s sorted the drink, getting the council to close the road despite the objections of the Robinsons (as usual). It’s all very well making cake in those conditions.

This time Sandra had made it quite clear to everyone that she was making no cake and that it was all Dorothy’s responsibility. Dorothy was a flake and couldn’t really be trusted. In fact the only thing she could be trusted to do in Sandra’s opinion was to cause trouble – something that she excelled at. So by that reckoning there would be no cake a all. Sandra turned and strode into the back room and opened the door to the larder. There were two victoria sponges each in their own Tupperware with a third Tupperware container with some raspberry jam, long spoons and some napkins.

Nobody knew of these sponges, not even Matthew. Would, Sandra worried, Matthew know how to collect these when Sandra sent him back for them? She couldn’t have there be no cake, that would reflect badly on her. That would mean poor organisation. So she had some backup cake. It shouldn’t be necessary, but if Dorothy didn’t appear then Matthew could run and fetch them. She’d have to keep Matthew off the lager until the cake materialised one way or the other.

Everyone, except the Robinsons, had removed their cars from the road as asked. She had taken Reggie out for a walk and seen that it was all done. Then she had made the sandwiches – all the other food had been done the night before. If there was one thing Sandra didn’t like, it was soggy sandwiches. Then she had attacked the hoovering pausing loudly near the children’s rooms and knocking repeatedly against their doors with the hose. And now she was ready. She took her pinny off and hung it behind the kitchen door. Now to shower. She looked back over the room. She slid open a drawer and pulled a pad of Post-It notes out and a pen. Then she wrote on a note that said, “Matthew, I know how many hula hoops there are in this bowl – don’t even think about it”. She placed the Post-It note on top of the bowl and went for her shower.

As she left the kitchen the clock ticked over and proclaimed the time to be seven o’clock.

Amber lay on the sloping bank, her feet cooling in the river. She looked across the river to a house. A dragonfly hovered in front of her nose. Dragonflies do live up to their name, she thought. They seem so old. Amber felt old, too old to be lusting after young boys, well, young men. On the opposite bank of the river, in the garden of the house, were three such young men. They were probably about 25 and they were mowing the lawns. She had been walking along the river and one of their naked torsos had caught her attention. She hadn’t really thought about it but suddenly her feet had felt quite hot and tired. Perhaps cooling them in the water might be good after all.

Amber stopped, sat and took off her shoes. She suddenly wasn’t sure about the water. It looked clean enough but it had only really been warm for the last few days. The water was liable to be freezing. She didn’t have a towel to dry her feet afterwards either. But she decided that it would look better if she was cooling her feet. Otherwise somebody looking might have thought she was just there watching. She wanted it to be clear that she had just stopped to cool her feet. That the lawn mowers had probably arrived afterwards and that their noise was probably an annoyance rather than anything else.

But the noise was perfect. The drone of the mowers, the slipping of the stream, the birds calling out to each other. Amber wondered if there were bashful birds? A Zeppelin-like bee came poot-pooting past. It was doing a pretty fair approximation of the lawnmowers. The breeze was making the grass tickle Amber’s fingers. The sun was warming her face and chest. Amber experienced the summer version of “did-I-leave-the-gas-on?” which is “did-I-remember-sunblock-this-morning?”. Which of course she had. What about her feet? The water was probably washing it off. It was supposed to be waterproof, but she had never really believed that, when the children were young she had always rubbed sunblock back in the moment they had come out of the water. She started wondering how the children were doing. Neither of them had called for a few days. What were they doing? She hoped they were happy.

Amber caught herself. She had forgotten the moment she was in. For a second she wondered if any of these three had called their mothers recently. Of course they had, she decided, they were good boys. Despite the sun on her the running river was robbing Amber of her heat. It was probably time to move on. Amber began to worry as she often had in the last few weeks. Even in the perfect situation she didn’t seem to be able to live in the moment. Her brain kept cycling on.

She wondered when she last did something impulsive. Something tried to tell her that just stopping and admiring the view had been impulsive. But not really, she knew it wasn’t really. She had worried what people who saw her would think. There are no bashful birds, she thought.

And with that she stood up, and threw herself into the river. She righted herself and launched herself upwards, breaking the surface of the water. She started treading water and shouting, “Help, help”.

Her dress, waterlogged, had stuck itself very tightly to her body. All three of the young men who had been mowing the lawn heard the noise, downed tools, and started running towards Amber.

“Interesting,” Amber thought, “I wonder what I should do next?”

“No,” another part of her brain said rather firmly, “we will just have to find out what happens next. For now, it is not for us to decide.”

She is sitting opposite her boyfriend. She is wearing a brown, lightly patterned figure hugging dress and knee high leather boots which match the thin black strap around her neck.

She looks worried behind her glasses. Her chin dimples. She casually puts her hand on his forearm. He flexes his muscles as she touches him making his shirt tighten around his bicep. He has said something to her and she wants to challenge him. Can she at this stage? Is their relationship strong enough to let him spend the evening with his ex girlfriend? Why does he want to anyway. She knows he said why. But that isn’t the reason.

He is explaining further. Too much. Clearly too much explanation. But then why explain it? Why bother. If he wants to sleep with her so much why doesn’t he just do it?

“Fern?”
“Yeah, Gary?”
“Fern, you’ve excreted some formic acid over here.”
“Sorry, Gary.”

There was a pause while Fern walked over and took a look, “Oh man, sorry Gary, I feel so ashamed. Eat me now. Seriously eat me now.”

I looked at Fern, an ant who had hopped off a bus and into my life. Hi, I’m Gary, I’m a spider. Normally we eat ants, but Fern was funny.

He piped up again, “Seriously Gary, for a second, I know you had a big lunch, two wasps wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, after a big lunch like that, I thought you might have a little indigestion. You might want some ant acid. No? C’mon?”

Or at least I thought Fern was funny. For an ant.

Some music struck up in the apartment next to where we were standing.

“Fern, do you like rappers?”
“What chocolate wrappers or gangster rappers?”
“Ganger rappers I guess, I mean rap music more than any particular gangster connotation.”
“I don’t know. I mean, yeah it’s okay I guess.”
“Okay, so I’m going to ask you this question. Do you trust me Fern?”
“Yeah sure Gary. I mean, of course.”
“Would you be willing to step onto my web?”
“Um…”

Fern knew that if he stepped onto the web his only chance of escape was for him to be given the chance to eat away at the silk which would attach itself to his legs. He could do it. We both knew of ants who had escaped, but he’d have to trust that I’d give him the time to do it. I would of course. I didn’t need to eat him.

“Why Gary? Why would you want me to step onto your web?”
“Just because Fern, until you’ve listened to rap music while standing on a spider’s web you’ve never experienced rap music. What I’m talking about is the vibrations, even rap artists have never experienced rap music properly.”
“So you’re not just talking about rap music are you Gary. You’re talking about anything with a thumping baseline.”
“Yeah, in theory,” I said, “but this is 2008 in South London it’s not like we’re going to hear any drum and bass.”
“You really haven’t been off this window sill in a while have you Gary?”
“You’re right,” I said, “ I’m not one of life’s travelers. I was one of life’s waiters.”
“All right, in that case I’ll have the nettle soup.”
“What? Oh. Waiter. Right.”

A few seconds passed, more music was playing and vibrating the web very hard.

“Alright Gary. I’ll come and listen.”
“Thanks Fern, it means a lot to me.”
“You not eating me means a lot to me, remember that.”
“I promise.”

Fern walked away and climbed up the wall. He then walked upside down onto the ledge of the next floor up, twisted his body and dropped off the bottom of the windowsill. He wouldn’t have been able to get to the middle of the web any other way. One step in from the side and he’d be stuck. As he dropped I wondered how he’d ever get off the web, I was sure we’d work it out together.

He landed a strand over from me. After the initial rocking the strong vibrations of the bass line started to vibrate us up and down.

“Gary.”
“Yes, Fern.”
“This is a very moving experience.”

He walks in, flicks the light, picks up the post, puts it on the tray and closes the door behind him. He steps forward and cocks his head slightly, is she home? He walks down towards the kitchen, there is a sign on the cooker.

“Gas Mark 6”

He puts his coat on the hook on the back of the back door and turns the cooker on to Gas Mark 6. As the light comes on he can something pastry like in the oven, he wonders if it is Beef Wellington.

He looks around and notices that the fridge poetry magnets have been arranged to give him a signal.

“Openly Whine White Coldly”

He reaches into the fridge and pulls out a bottle of chilled Viognier. He goes to the side, finds the corkscrew and opens the wine. In the cupboard he selects two of their crystal glasses. And holding them in one hand, and the bottle in the other, he leaves the kitchen and heads upstairs.

The lighting is low, none of the room lights are on, just the side lights in the rooms that have them. He heads for the bedroom and finds her there. On her is a sign.

“Turn me on”