Roof Weather

Nineteen floors.
No air conditioning.
(roof weather)

July. The cooling system died
on the hottest Thursday anyone could remember.
The landlord said Tuesday. It was not Tuesday.
By the second night we were all on the roof.
Nineteen floors of people and one sky.
Nobody with anywhere better to be.
A chair, a blanket, a bag of ice,
a door propped open with a fire extinguisher.
Mrs Achebe from four brought a blanket and a chair.
The lads from nine brought a speaker and no manners.
Somebody's dad rigged a fan to a long lead
that ran two flights down to a socket.
And you came up last, at half eleven,
in a T-shirt from a race you did not run,
and lay down on the tar about a metre from me,
and neither of us said a single word.
There was a plane. We both watched the plane.
That was the entire conversation.

Nobody sleeps in roof weather.
Nobody goes back down.
You just lie there on the warm tar
listening to a city that can't cool off.

Roof weather, roof weather —
too hot to sleep, too close to care.
The whole town down on the warm tar,
you one metre from me. One metre.

Too hot.
(too hot)
Nobody's going in.
(going in)
Too hot.
(too hot)
Roof weather.

By Saturday it was a small civilisation.
Someone had brought a paddling pool with no water in it.
Someone had brought a lamp. On a roof. A lamp.
It was, we all agreed, the correct decision.
Someone had brought a door mat, which I still think about.
The lads from nine had learned manners from Mrs Achebe.
There was a rota. There was, genuinely, a rota.
You started bringing two of whatever you brought.
I started leaving space that was exactly your size.
Someone taught the kids the names of two stars,
possibly wrong, and nobody checked.
On the fifth night your hand was on the tar
four centimetres from my hand,
one hour and eleven minutes,
and neither of us moved it,
and neither of us moved it,
and neither of us moved it.
There was a helicopter. We watched the helicopter.
There was a siren. We let the siren go.
Nineteen floors of blankets and no one asleep
and four centimetres doing all the work.

Nobody sleeps in roof weather.
Nobody goes back down.
You just lie there on the warm tar
hoping the engineer takes his time.

Roof weather, roof weather —
too hot to sleep, too close to care.
The whole town down on the warm tar,
you half a metre from me. Half.

That's the whole story.

They fixed it on the ninth day.
A van, a toolbox, a man whistling.
No stranger has ever been less welcome.
I came home to cold air and a note under my door
in handwriting I had never seen,
that said: it's meant to be thirty-one again Friday.
And I have kept that note
longer than I have kept most people.

Roof weather, roof weather —
too hot to sleep, too close to care.
The whole town down on the warm tar,
your hand four centimetres from me. Four.

Too hot.
(too hot)
Roof weather.