This week’s story is about a couple that fears that a fierce storm is going to bring a tree down on the power lines near their cabin in the countryside, potentially endangering them and their young daughter. When did this scenario first come to you?
Although readers will receive this story very much through the prism of fiction, this happened to me. Not necessarily in the order or with the exact events on the page. But, yes—I was woken up in the pitch-black middle of the night by a tree bringing a power line down on our house. I had no sense I would write about it until much later, and even then I was hesitant. Trying to reframe a real event into a working piece of fiction is more challenging than making something up from scratch. And trying to judge whether you’ve adequately transmitted the true feelings of a situation you’ve been through is nigh on impossible. Hopefully, though, the impact is there.
The story is told in the third person, but we experience events primarily from the husband’s point of view. Did you know from the outset that you’d stick so closely to his perspective?
Early drafts tried to bring in other perspectives. There were a few iterations in which I also wrote from the climber’s point of view, climbing the tree with him. And I also experimented with the wife’s voice. All the different approaches helped me to get a better sense of the characters themselves, and of how they navigated the scenes. In the end, the story wanted to compress itself into the one person.
The cabin has been leaking, and it becomes clear that the couple had meant to seal the wood, but hadn’t had the time or energy to do so. Does this seeping water change their relationship to their home—and to each other?
Relationships are not linear. Things can happen at any point to unsettle them, or make them stronger. Maintenance of the basics, though, is key, and if that maintenance is foregone, for whatever reason, it’s more problematic if pressure comes to bear. The story joins this couple at a point when they’ve been hit by something unexpected—a child they did not think they would have—and the impact that has had on how functional they are able to be. Their energy to do the small, fundamental things has been poached, and that has led to niggling issues that up to a point can be sidelined or ignored. But, when things get more severe, the problems are clear. The cabin is neglected. Their togetherness is neglected. Cracks are appearing.
The man recalls an event that happened years ago, when an electricity line came down on a wet field full of cattle and some of the animals burned to death. It’s a disturbing image. Do you want the reader to keep that in mind throughout the story? Or should they forget it until later?
Small, passing details should bring this image back at various points in the story. But my aim is to have these flicker across the more present nowness of what is happening. I want to relegate the fear the image brings to the husband—of the wet ground itself becoming electrified—to something he is consciously trying to suppress. Ultimately, though, it continues to terrify him. What if the ground could kill him?
The man goes out into the storm with the aim of sawing off the branches of one of the pine trees on their land. It’s only when he’s on a metal ladder, with electricity crackling above him, that he realizes the foolhardiness of his venture. Does adrenaline take over at that point?
I believe fear takes over here. Adrenaline is one of the products of that, but at a certain moment it is overcome by a more powerful frozen horror. A force that briefly immobilizes him among all the motion and unpredictable energy. He’s in an unnatural and overwhelming situation, and adrenaline is of no real use.
Eventually, workers from the power company arrive. First, an assessor orders that the power be turned off, then a climber, supported by a groundman, cuts back the overhanging branches. At the cabin afterward, there’s a measured steadiness to the climber. He tells the couple that they’ll have to sort the other trees out—that once you have one tree like that they’ll all go. What kind of distinction did you want to draw between their panic and his calmness?
At a point in the relationship when the couple is finding it challenging to even achieve simple, necessary tasks, this centered, capable person appears. Unshakable. He’s everything the husband is not at that moment, and there’s a draw to that. A magnetism to his competency.
The groundman brings up the weather while they wait for the electricity to be switched back on: “New storms, see. Twenty-year storms all the time now. With the climate.” How significant is that line in the story?
It’s a significant line even outside the story. We’ve started naming storms!
You’ve lived in Ceredigion, in West Wales, for most of your life. Have you seen changes in the patterns of the weather? Are you seeing more extreme storms? Do you consider this a story about climate change?
I think the word “patterns” here is at issue. There seems to be no pattern. People have always joked about the amount of rain we have in Wales, but the joke’s over. The ground is sodden. Seeds are rotting in the soil before they have a chance to sprout. It’s unseasonably cold, but when the sun appears it’s intense. The wind has dropped, but for weeks it’s been brutalizing. That violence in the wind is new, and how frequently it comes.
This story is not about climate change. Everything is about climate change now. This story is because of climate change.
We published your story “The Edge of the Shoal” in 2017. That was about a man who has drifted out to sea in a kayak and must try to get back to shore. Do you see a connection with this story? Will the elements always win?
We are in battle with the elements; they are not in battle with us. But, in our battle, we have exacerbated their impact on us. And stayed too stupid and hubristic to recognize that.
Is there a connection between this story and “The Edge of the Shoal”? A man put to threat by a gigantic force of electricity brought about by storm. That’s just coincidence. . . . ♦
