#fuocogo

The dark clouds roll in with torrential rain, beating heavily at the windows in steady monotony. The thick glass dulls out the rumbling thunder, which grumbles ominously as the newborn girl takes her first breath, face wet and eyes screwed tightly shut. Her first cries are met with a ragged tattoo of lightening, arcing across the sky in forks of brilliant white against the inky shadows.

But, as she is wrapped neatly into a warm blue blanket, and brought close to her mothers skin, her temperament softens. Her tiny hands stretch forwards, grasping earnestly, and her wide, dark eyes dart open. There’s a matted scruff of black hair on the crown of her head, two plump legs squirming haplessly for purchase, and she is beautiful. She blinks, sleepily, too young to recognise much more than warmth and safety, but for now, it is enough.

The thunder eases, settling into something of a steady rhythm over the house; ponderous rain continuing on, but softer now, calmer.

Peace falls over their house, and her mother holds the tiny baby in her arms, fragile and impossibly perfect, and names her Irene.

-

When Irene Baker is four years old, her mother sends her to kindergarten, in part because she needs to pick up the extra shifts, in part because Irene craves more company than she can give. There’s a local centre run by two older women with kindly eyes, and although they are both unwilling to let go, they do, and her mother turns and heads to work.

She’s smaller than the other children, her thick hair tied in two plaits, sticking out from her round face, and a fringe that flutters over her eyes when it’s been a little too long since a trim. At home, Irene had negotiated tea parties with her dolls and bears, but here, she finds her peers a little more difficult to coordinate.

But, of course, she gets there in the end.  

She works out why Yoni is afraid of Jess, and makes sure that there are no big sticks in sight when they sit down to play charades. She notices the way that Pasquale tugs at the ends of his sleeves and watches the others eat from a safe distance - then makes sure to ask her mother to pack her two lunches, sitting down beside him each day and sliding the second bag beneath his hands without a word, too quickly for anyone else to notice. She learns how to count to ten in Japanese from Tomi and in turn, teaches him how to paint with fingers in the place of brushes.

They gather around her, in a way. Not that she is a leader, she doesn't sit at the head of the table, or choose the next game. She doesn’t even speak up, not that much. She just, in her own, chubby-fingered, simpleminded way, nudges things back into place when they fall, and keeps an eye on those who tend to slip beneath view.

She may not be recognised, or even loved, by those around her. But they are there, and they are happy, and she is content, for now.

-

When Irene Baker is ten years old, she comes home from school crying.

She’s never been called fat before, not to her face. She knows that she does not look like many of the other girls, and nothing like the ones on TV, and she is not naive to the world and all its cruelty, but she is horribly unprepared for the harshness of such malice, directed at something so personal.

Her mother finds her in the bath, the water running steadily, slowly, just loudly enough that the splashes should drown out her gentle sobs. They’re only meant to use the bath once a week, but she isn’t mad with Irene. Instead, in an inexplicable gesture, she steps into the bath next to her, jeans and all, and pulls her close, pulls her into a loving and unquestionable embrace.

Now, with this permission, Irene can cry as loud as she needs to.  

And when she’s done, her mother pulls off her own shirt, and pants, and runs her fingers along her arms and her legs, across her round, soft stomach. She shows Irene the scars stretching around her sides, around her thighs. They match, she explains. And she tells Irene that she is beautiful, so beautiful, and it helps to hear it out loud and definite, like that.

As they are drying off, her mother shows her how, really, when you look at them, those jagged lines over her shoulders and below her hips look much more like lightning than anything else. Like a storm, she explains. Lightning is dangerous, but it’s also beautiful.

By now, Irene isn’t crying. Her fingers follow behind her mothers, tracing over her skin, trailing the lighter skin as it tracks over her curves. They really do look like lightning, now that it’s been said out loud, and definite.

She likes that.

-

When Irene Baker is sixteen years old, Dan Lancet kisses her behind the basketball shed at the Bloomsfield High Winter Ball. He’s wearing his fathers old tuxedo, which doesn’t quite fit, and she’s wearing a fluttering teal dress she’d put together over the last two weekends, with some help from online tutorial videos, her mother’s old sewing machine and the kindly assistant at the local fabric store.

Well, more accurately, Dan Lancet tries to kiss her, behind the basketball shed at the Bloomsfield High Winter Ball. Tries being the operative word.

She’s had something of a wonderful night, up to that point. Sure, she doesn’t quite look like some of the other girls, with flowing hair and whimsical gowns, but she’d taken silly photos on her front porch at the request of her mother, with borrowed mascara carefully curled along her eyelashes, painstakingly painted points of black framing the corners of her eyes. She insists on some photos cuddled with her cat, Bernard, of course, but then there are the others (at her mother’s request) where she is posed like a movie star - and tonight, she’d almost felt like one, too.

And, sure, no one had specifically asked her to come to the ball with them, like as a date, but then again, she wasn’t really the type to be brought along, posed on someone else’s arm. Not that she doesn’t watch the other couples dances with a tiny pang of longing, surveying the way their bodies lean against each other, fingers tightly entwined. But, really, that isn’t for her, and she has a wonderful time dancing with her many friends throughout the night. Her feet are aching but her heart is full, and so when Dan suggests they step outside to get a little fresh air, she honestly thinks very little of it, other than that she could probably use a short break.  

It is only once they are outside that it occurs to her, for half a second, that this, this, might have been the scenario her mother had warned her about, all those years ago.

But, that’s silly, she knows Dan, he’s a nice sort, better than the friends he hangs out with after science club, before football training. She knows him and this is nothing sinister, nothing dangerous. They are just walking behind the basketball shed, the music still tinnily echoing out beyond its thin roof, accompanying hoots of joy dissipating into the cold night air above them. And they walk in parallels, neither approaching or creating distance, until they reach the edge of the shed. The glistening sea of green field before them, devoid of its usual inhabitants, seems as vast as the dark sky above, and Irene wonders if anyone has ever thought of putting on an open-air play here, illuminated by the stadium lights and amplified by the curved shape of the seating, and thinks aloud that maybe she should talk to the school’s improv group, because it really is a beautiful spot for it, particularly in late September, when its still warm enough to coax an audience outside - but then Dan Lancet is leaning in to kiss her, and her mind goes blank.

In hindsight, she wonders if the problem was that she didn’t see it coming, not even one bit. Maybe the problem was the way that Dan’s hand wrapped around her shoulder, over the stretch marks carefully hidden by capped sleeves. Maybe the problem was that she didn't want this. Either way.

There’s a moment, a pulse, where she turns to ask the question, but then his lips are about to press against hers, his hand has found a way onto her shoulder - and there’s a moment of pause. Time doesn’t freeze, so much as it just slows down, impossibly slow, and Irene is not okay with what’s about to happen. And then he’s flying backwards, her hand outstretched where it had collided with his chest; but he flies too far, arcing through the air before colliding with the wall opposite, making an awful crunching sound and then sliding to the ground.

The sky darkens with a rumble overhead.

And Irene steps back with a cold shudder, until her back is flush against the basketball shed, her fingers numbs and her palms clammy as they press against the hard wall for support. Then she turns and vomits onto the ground beside her, her stomach heaving, her mouth acidic and burning.

Then she goes and gets help.

-

When Irene Baker is twenty two years old, her mother dies.

It doesn’t come as a shock, not really. She’s been sick, too sick to properly get better. They’ve both been easing into the idea, with every test result, every failed treatment, every smiling, solemn doctor. It doesn’t come as a shock, but it’s still a surprise.

It comes softly, on a Tuesday afternoon. She’s sitting in the navy armchair that the nurses let her drag in beside the hospital bed. Her legs is aching from sitting in it overnight, but that’s okay. It’s a Tuesday afternoon in May and the rain is beating down like a blues baseline, steady and sure.

And then, like everyone does, eventually, her mother just stops breathing.

She is watching as it happens, which means that at first, she blinks several times, and she thinks that it must be an illusion, a trick of her anxious mind and her tired eyes. But her gaze is steady and her mind is true, and her mother is no longer breathing.

They are still holding hands. So she does not call in the nurses, not right away. They are still holding hands and, as long as they are, her mother’s hand stays warm, and real. As long as she is holding on, those long-familiar fingers stay soft and warm, and she can almost believe that they are holding her back. So she does not let go.

Not yet.

-

When Irene Baker is twenty three years old, she falls in love.

Liz works in the local bakery, and as if that wasn’t cliche enough, as romance goes, she's from out of town. In fact, she’s come all the way from Yorkshire and comes with all the best and worst that Northern England can bring (according to Liz). She has a coarse accent, wiry brown hair and cheeks that always seem flushed red against her pale skin. She swears in great swathes of colourful terms at lazy delivery men when they drop their parcels and sneaks treats to small children when their parents won’t buy them and aren't looking. She smokes like an old chimney, sitting on the back doorstep between customers, cursing at the cold wind that whips around her, sucking on the dying embers of her cigarette with a knowledgable smirk at Irene as she passes, before flicking the end into an empty garden pot and stomping back inside.  

Most people agree that Liz is a human disaster, who balances it out by making sinfully good cookies, but then again, most people are wrong. She’s much better than that, or at least, she is in Irene’s eyes, anyway. It’s improbable, and all together inconvenient, but that’s love.

And Irene is madly in love with Liz.

It’s unexpected, and catches her off guard. To be fair, she hasn’t been in love before, not really, not properly, so she almost doesn’t recognise it when they first meet.

When the bakery opens, Irene drops by to pick up a loaf of bread on her way to work. She’s always been a big advocate for supporting local businesses, and she does love a slice of fresh sourdough with lunch, so it seems like the perfect morning detour. The store is about halfway between her house and the train station, and Irene always leaves for work with time to spare. What she doesn’t anticipate that morning is, well, Liz.

She greets her with a hearty wink and a tray of samples, hair already escaping from the confines of its messy bun, shirt already covered in a mess of flour and chocolate stains. Irene’s not entirely sure where the time goes, but she leaves forty minutes later with two loaves, a white-chocolate chip cookie, tingling toes and a racing heart. It’s the one and only time she’s ever been late to work, and she’s not even upset. She can’t stop grinning.  

The bakery becomes a steady fixture in her life and her routine, and so does Liz.

Later, when she’s comfortable enough to tut softly at Liz’s choice of words, at times, close enough to lend her an old, thick, woollen scarf as the colder days roll in; Irene finds out that Liz’s birthday is coming up. “Finds out” is a soft term to describe some carefully executed detective work, but Irene wants to come off more friendly that stalker, so ensures that she has the information from a reputable source (Riya from the flower store next door), then makes sure that the topic comes up in conversation at the grocery store check-out, so that she’s not the only one aware of the fast-approaching date, and so that she won’t be the only one to get Liz a present. Irene is definitely not the only one who has taken notice, not the only one to appreciate her fiery wit and her delicious baking.

The more difficult task is working out what to give her as a gift. For a while, she tosses up between a hard-back book on the history of baked goods across the world and a ticket to the upcoming Patti Smith concert, neither seeming quite right, but for some time, she can’t think of any other options that would be better. But then she notices a sticker in the corner of the bakery window, which matches the flag hanging over the back door, and with some assistance from an online store from the UK, Irene hatches a plot.  

Turns out she was the only one to get Liz a present, after all.

Irene isn’t entirely sure what she was expecting to happen, but what does happen is that Liz opens up the parcel carefully, even if Irene had always thought of her as the paper-ripping type, and unfolds the Liverpool Football Club jumper with cautious fingers, as if it is more a precious archeological finding than an object of clothing. Her expression is unreadable, even for Irene, but then she places the jumper back onto the bench, her face splitting into a wide grin, and walks around the counter to pull Irene into a ferocious hug. She smells like tobacco, in that persistent, pervasive way, where its scent is woven into the threads of her clothing, which Irene wouldn't usually enjoy, but finds that she doesn’t really mind so much, not when their bodies are pressed together, and she feels warm and solid, firm. Real.

She doesn’t sleep easy, that night.  

And after that, it changes. Irene doesn’t stop visiting the bakery, or Liz. But she never does more than just that, visiting, and after that night, something is different. Not with Liz, who swears and smokes and smiles softly at Irene, but with Irene. She steps back, she makes room. It just seems like the right thing to do.

-

When Irene Baker is twenty seven years old, she gets her first tattoo.

She has to get some help with the design, because even if her mother didn’t deny her heritage, she didn’t celebrate it. Irene knows, now, that this is more to do with the fact that she had other things to worry about, like food, and bills, and her danger-prone daughter, but as soon as Irene gets the idea in mind, she can’t think of anything else she’d want more, and if she’s going to commit to this, she wants to do it right.

Kalli is more than enthusiastic about her mission, and together they peruse over the books at the cultural centre, copying out some of the designs found in old photographs and drawings by anthropologists. Kalli has several tattoos of his own, ancient characters and animals, woven together in swirling patterns across his arms and back, making their way down his spine. Irene isn’t ready for that, but she does want something, even if it's something small. She tends to wear long sleeved shirts anyway, so it won’t cause any issues at work, or with any uniform policies she may encounter.

They make it down to a final three designs, and then Irene takes them to an artist, who helps her choose the third, with a pattern undulating, geometric waves held safely between two thick bars. It feels right to her, even if it hurts as the needle dips beneath her skin with endless, sharp jabs; but Kalli lets her squeeze his hand until it’s white, and once it's done, the black ink wraps around her forearm, just below her elbow, as if it's always been there, like it belongs.

She likes that.

-

When Irene Baker is twenty nine years old, she leaves her hometown.

In some ways, it feels like the most difficult thing she’s ever done. She’s leaving behind every connection she’s made, every friend she smiles at on her way to the local cafe, every name in her phone book, every face smiling back at her from photos on the fridge. She’s leaving behind her mothers grave, her school and her childhood house. She’s leaving behind everything she’s ever known and cherished.

In another way, it’s the easiest thing in the world.

All she has to do is leave.

She packs her belongings into six cardboard boxes. She gives the majority of her books to the school library, saving only her very favourites and the photo albums, and gives her bed to Mr Perry across the road, who’s always complaining of an aching back and cites the springs of his old mattress as the major culprit. She shares her tea collection, which is ridiculously large and not convenient for interstate shipping prices, with her co-workers, who respect her more than she feels is deserved. It’s good tea, too. She gives her grumpy old cat to Anita and Andrew, and their twin girls. Bernard is too old for new beginnings, and the twins have been begging for a pet since they'd learnt to talk. Irene already has all the bits and pieces, and a years supply of food ready to go, so Andrew doesn’t have to furrow his brow and weigh it up against school fees, like he’s always done when their birthday came around. Bernard won’t mind so much, he’s lazy these days, and will accept affection from anyone.

She gives her mother’s sewing machine to Liz, with a few patterns for warm winter coats and a cool kiss pressed quickly to her cheek.

Then, all she has to do, is leave.

The flight across the country is longer than she’d expected, but then again, its the first time Irene has taken an airplane, so it’s all a rather new experience for her. There’s a mediocre romantic comedy on the entertainment system that she’s never seen, and it does its job of making her smile, blush, and nearly cry within an hour and a half. There’s an aluminium box with partitioned food, including blueberries (her favourite). When they finally land, she’s aching for a walk, and fresh air.

Her new apartment is smaller, cosier than her old one. She pulls her boxes into the front room, unpacks her diary and her mother's old ceramic vase, and puts them on the bedside table, then leaves the rest for tomorrow. The apartments on the third floor, and it has a gorgeous little balcony that faces over a communal garden, and even though it's already dark when she arrives, she can't wait to sit out there the next morning, experience the sounds and smells of what her mornings are going to be like, from now on, and get to know her new neighbourhood. There’s a few bakeries in the area, and she’ll find some time to establish a new routine, new patterns amongst the streets. She'll make new friends, she's sure of it, with time.

It's new, and it's different, but that's alright. She's ready for it.

-

When Irene Baker is thirty one years old, she receives an odd invitation. It comes to her in the form of an email - a job offer.

When it comes to her, Irene is sitting at the bench in her kitchen, combing her fringe into some form of submission against her forehead, sipping from a mug of steaming tea, updating the weekend roster to make sure that everyone’s requests for time off have been attended to. It's tricky, but as long as she's careful, she's pretty sure that no one has to miss out on their requested dates, which would be fantastic.

It’s late already, and she has half a mind to close down her laptop and curl up in bed. She needs to be in early tomorrow morning; she’s organised to meet for coffee with one of the new interns who’s struggling a little, and she doesn’t want to be too tired to properly gauge the situation. But there’s something about the notification, when it pops up in the corner of her screen, that piques her interest. And, once interested, Irene has never been good at ignoring her curiosity, not for long, for better or for worse.

She already has a job, and a good one at that, but she opens it, nonetheless.

-

Irene Baker was born in a thunderstorm. She grew up in a sun-shower, and blossomed in a hurricane. There are those who judge her by her calm exterior, her shy countenance, and her soft heart. There are those who believe that she is gentle sunbeam, that she is warm radiance, but they are more the fool.

She has seen the world and she knows how it fits together, she sees the pieces where others see a puzzle, and knows that there's always some way to fit it together. She knows the benefit of a raised voice, even if not her own, knows the comfort of a soft confirmation, of the truth. She's been a coward and she's been brave, but at the end of the day, she only has herself, to blame and to hold.

She is a wild wind brewing, and she is on the verge of deluge.