recently published in Meeting House:

The English Couple

by Conor MacDonald

Over tea and a proper English breakfast, the woman extended her hand into the sunlight briefly, curling
her fingers back a little too elegantly for this Sunday morning ritual of grilled eggs and toast. For the
briefest moment the light caught in the bean-sized stone and was thrown in cool white across her
face and around the room. Fire blazed and then smoldered inside the white rock in this fractional
moment when its mark on the world was more light than stone, perfect and clear and white. Barely a
second, she returned it to her white tea cup, under-lit from the table’s reflection just like her pale blue
eyes, back-lit from the windows behind like her tidy blonde ponytail. She resumed conversation
immediately with the provider of this indulgence, one of many small indulgences in a sturdy but luxurious
life in London, the wife of a young financier.

Slightly stooped over his beans and bacon, he reciprocated her conversation, light in the newly broken
sun, but pursued nothing farther. He was tired today, Sunday. Not the worn-down exhaustion that
registers on the faces of Londoners in the hollow cheeks and ringed eyes; they were above all that,he
and his perfect wife, perfect life. He had earned it. He wore his “f”-heavy accent like a badge of
his victory, how far he had come.

She dressed him in perfectly matched tennis sneakers, kakis and sweater, classic but with a modern cut.
He still wore a stiff collared shirt and smoothed his hair precisely.  He liked to and it was easy; he had
done so every day for years and was in the habit of it.

They ate breakfast at a comfortable pace but did not languish; when they finished they paid promptly,
greeting a similar pair, friends of theirs, on the way to the exit.

They were perfectly polite to the Indian gentleman who ran this bright and stylish place with aplomb,
along with his beautiful and sturdy daughters.

The brilliant cheery sea foam green the proprietor had chosen to wrap in from the front mediated the
spaces as elegantly as it mediated the traditional woodwork and the hip, modern spirit of this expensive
London neighborhood.

How he came across his refined modern sensibilities was of no consequence to them; they did not wonder
if he had been a politician or a scholar in India, gave no heed to the marks of a general or architect in his
past life. They declined to notice the loathsome indifference radiated by the daughters, as tall and beautiful
as the woman herself. In the heart of this old empire, where the spoils of victory are a settled issue, it didn’t
make a bit of difference.

The screeching of a chair he pushed aside with his thigh as he barged up from the table ricocheted, shrieking,
shrill, horrible against the walls and tile floor and the emptiness of this place became painfully clear;  the
distance from table to cash register was just a little farther than comfortable. For a moment in this space he
seemed to lunge awkwardly after his outstretched hand toward the gentleman proprietor, who accepted the
bill silently, not extending an arm or making any great effort to alleviate this momentary discomfort. The
young man ignored these things but it was clear that they made him a little uneasy.  The girls did not look
up as he met his perfect blonde fiancée, smartly dressed in light colors and diamond ring, by the door, holding
the umbrella they no longer needed.

The sunlight was crisp and clean and white, the streets of London pristine and reflective from the morning’s rain.