THE POISON TREE

He couldn't look at a blue sky without seeing the threat of rain up ahead and couldn't enjoy the sunshine without spotting an approaching cloud. Everything in his mind now was gloomy and the weather seemed to bend to his will wherever he walked like one of those permanent rainclouds that follows Charlie Brown above his head in that old American comic strip Peanuts.

Feeling increasingly like an outsider in his own country since the Brexit vote in 2016, he cursed his misfortune at ever being born in this godforsaken place and dreamed of escaping to foreign lands as soon as he'd saved enough money to.

The only trouble was Nancy.

She voted the opposite way to him and although he swore it wouldn't affect their relationship, it had altered it somehow like a slow release toxin. No longer could he look at her the same way since knowing how she voted and it killed him inside to admit he couldn't ignore what she had dismissed as being just a bit of fun.

He had a suspicion she truly believed in the disastrously misguided political project although she frequently denied it and tried to convince him otherwise.

A contrarian at the best of times, Nancy would often do the opposite to what others tried to persuade her to do. She'd always defied her father's ideas and it had been the same with him. Although he had presented her with all the economic realities backed up by facts and explained the ultimate futility of small minded nationalism with all that entailed, she still went ahead and did it. Was she testing him to see how much he loved her? It was the kind of twisted thing she'd do to make him prove his devotion above ideology and although he'd loved her madness back before the referendum, now he found himself less forgiving about it. It ate away at his heart like a worm through an apple.

As Jack wanted out of the country he needed to test Nancy and see if she would now come with him. How much did she really love him? He needed to know. Forced to choose between him or the country, how much conviction did she genuinely have all this time since the day of that treacherous vote.

It was the end of summer and Jack had acquired Irish citizenship, ready to leave Britain once and for all. He decided he would break the news to her where they had their first kiss by the scotch pine that Nancy called the lonely tree in a sloping lavender field overlooking the Northern seaside town where they'd both grown up.

She didn't like ultimatums at the best of times and so he tried to present it as an opportunity rather than a choice, but when it came to the crunch she said she would be staying.

"I like this crumby old place. It's still home to me. I love you Jack but I know you're not happy here anymore. I wouldn't want to commit to a dream of the future I don't share with you."

With their tears merging down their pressed up faces as they parted with a final kiss Jack eventually watched Nancy walk away into a backwards looking future while he prayed one day she would change her mind and join him in his better one.

Standing next to the lonely tree, he felt ill with sadness, more for her somehow than himself. In his mind she had chosen a deathly path where he had chosen a life giving one and he would never understand why.

And as if to compound his sadness a few specks of rain now started to land on his tear stained face.

A storm was coming and this time it wasn't just in his head.