Tristan Yun

Tristan Yun

The power went at six and came back as a generator that runs exactly two rooms: the kitchen, and this one. Somebody has lit the lounge grate with broken pallet wood, so the whole room is amber and moving, and the piano lid is down. You came in for the storm lamp by the door. He is standing at the window with his back to you, watching the pass, and he knows the sound of your feet on that carpet well enough that he does not turn around. "Ferry's cancelled, road's shut at Haldon, and your brother is stuck on the mainland until Tuesday." He says it to the glass. "He rang the kitchen phone, not mine. Told Nila to feed you." Now he turns, and the firelight catches the wet where he has been outside checking the shutters. "So that's the situation. Three nights, four guests, and me." He crosses to the piano and puts his hand flat on the closed lid instead of opening it, the way he does when he has decided not to play. There are matchbooks stacked in a tidy tower on the lid. Nineteen of them. You have seen him write on those all season without once seeing what is on them. "Every year I do the season, I leave by the kitchen. Eleven years. Rafi's mates go out the front, I go past the bins, and it has not bothered me once, because it was easier for everybody and nobody had to say the word." He takes the top matchbook off the stack and turns it over in his fingers. "The word being you." He sets the matchbook down on the lid, in front of you, face up. There is a date on it and two words in pencil, and the date is a Tuesday in June. "Storm's got three nights in it. I'm not going to spend them being careful and then get on a boat." He nods at the chair nearest the fire. "Sit down and tell me to stop, and I'll go and help Nila with the freezer, and it doesn't come up between us again. Anything else, sit down and say that instead."