THAT MARCH
March isnt just a month; its a yearly stress test for your sanity.
Especially when your love life is as unpredictable as the weather outsideone moment it feels like spring is peeking in, the next like the apocalypse, or as if someones splashed grey paint over the entire city.
Tom and Sophies love story kicked off in March, and that pretty much explains everything.
Other couples met beneath showers of cherry blossom; these two met when Tom accidentally splashed Sophie with muddy water from a puddle.
Instead of getting upset, she took aim and lobbed a melting snowball straight into his windscreenand Tom swears it felt like there was a brick inside.
It was love at first ricochet.
March in their town was when romance stomped out into the streets in wellies.
Shall we go for a stroll? Tom whispered tenderly down the phone.
I dont own a boat, Sophie replied, perfectly reasonably.
Ill carry you, Tom offered.
Their dates resembled military training in the marshes.
Tom would heroically carry Sophie over lakes of slushy porridge, while she held a stubborn umbrella over him that seemed determined to take flight towards Portsmouth, along with any hope of keeping their socks dry.
You know, Tom mused, his right boot making watery noises, this is what true depth feels like.
Were a bit like those two ducks in the park right now.
Ducks flew south for winter months ago, Tom.
Were like two reckless penguins who missed the turn for Antarctica.
Their odd love showed itself in tiny gestures.
In March, real depth isnt a ring dropped in a champagne flute (thered just be an ice cube in it, anyway).
Its the last Berocca tablet, split in half.
This is for you, Tom declared, handing her a half-yellow powder.
Im tearing this from my heart.
Whys it covered in cat hair?
Thats seasoning.
Good for your immune system.
Sophie looked at himwearing a daft bobble hat, red-nosed, eyes gleaming with a kind of madnessand realised: this was it.
The famous glitch in the matrix joining two people who could still laugh even with feversparticularly impressive in Toms case, which, as everyone knows, is practically a near-death experience for the average British man.
the most romantic moment arrived at months end.
The sun finally broke through, revealing all the winters secrets hidden beneath the snow.
The town looked like a set from a civic uprising film.
They stood on the bridge.
Wind blasted at thirty miles per hour, wrestling Toms jacket off his back.
Sophie, he began, shouting above the growing roar of spring, I wanted to say youre like like the first snowdrop!
Pale and blooming through rubbish? Sophie clarified, fixing her scarf for the third time around her head.
Tom stalled.
Noresilient.
Despite this blasted March, youre still with me.
Even after I dropped your phone in a snowdrift that turned out to be a puddle.
Sophie glanced at him, sneezed in perfect harmony with a passing tram, and laughed.
All right, hero-snowdrop.
Lets head home.
I bought a kilo of lemons and found a mulled wine recipe.
If we survive Sunday, Ill declare our love a historic monument.
They made their way down the street, dodging pavement icebergs.
It was indeed a deep love.
Deep as their kneesexactly how much water sloshed in their entryway.
But none of that mattered.
Because in that March, what counts isnt how clean your shoes are, but whose hand youre gripping as you both slide into inevitable April.
A year went by.
Another that March arrived.
The city once again looked like a scene from Waterworld, filmed on a three-pence budget.
Tom and Sophie stood before the enormous puddle that had occupied their courtyard overnight.
Neighbours huddled by fences, trying to stay on the edge of the ice, while an elderly man gazed hopefully at the skylooking for either a rescue helicopter or at least a dove with an olive branch.
Tom, Sophie looked down at her new white trainers, bought in a bout of misplaced optimism.
Were grown-ups.
Weve got a mortgage, jobs, and a year-end report due.
We cant just
We can, Tom interrupted.
Like a stage magician, he produced two bright yellow wellies covered in happy duckprints from behind his back.
Bought these yesterday.
Your size.
Sophie sighed.
This was the proper deep lovewhen your partner not only knows your shoe size but the limits of your willingness to go completely daft.
Five minutes later, they were standing in the very middle of the puddle.
Water splashed gaily, sunlight bounced off grimy ice, and passersby looked at them as though theyd escaped an exceedingly friendly, but locked, establishment.
You know, Sophie bounced, sending a spray onto the neighbour in a mink hat, this is the perfect way to launch spring.
Its code Yellow Duck, said Tom, deadly serious.
The world tried to drown us in gloom, but it turns out weve got waterproof heels.
There they stood in the midst of springs absurdityridiculous, soaked, but completely in sync.
A peculiar love, understood only by those who see the bottom where others spot only muck.
Tom hugged her, and in that moment the sun heated so fiercely that steam rose from their jackets.
Were smouldering, remarked Sophie.
No, Tom grinned.
Were finally warming up to the right temperature.
That March, they discovered the secret: when life gives you puddles, buy the brightest wellies and learn how to dance in them.
