The Cornish Affair (17 page)

Oliver
gave her a hug, and I found myself swallowing some tears, too. I’d never thought about how hard these two worked, and as I looked around the sparse bedroom with its cheap furnishings and sagging bed. I knew that no matter how hard they worked it would never pay them enough for the labour of love they performed in giving Port Charles its daily bread. I tasted a pang of guilt. The childish chant of ‘it’s not fair, it’s not fair’ sprang to mind.

There
was a shout from the stairway, and then a burst of laughter.

“You
daft bugger!” I heard Isaac call.

We
all got up and went to look.

Richard
and Will had split a sack of flour and a white cloud of dust had settled on them all. It rose in the air, making a delicate mist before our eyes.

Jace
was coughing and laughing, pointing at Isaac who was slapping the surplus off him with his hands. Will and Richard looked like snowmen.

Doris
was smiling, and I saw a glance of love pass between her and Isaac.

She
scolded them all into the bathroom to wash off the worst of it, whilst we tackled the stairs.

“No
wonder there’s something called Bakers cough,” spluttered Oliver, waving the insidious white dust away from his face with flapping hands.

“Right
deadly it is too, all that flour in their lungs, see,” Doris agreed, wiping down the banister with a damp cloth.

Isaac
and the boys emerged from the bathroom, and we clattered downstairs again. The empty shop and small backroom of the building was a dismal sight, with water lapping at the skirting boards.

Isaac
and Doris put their arms round each other and thanked us for our help.

“Will
you both be alright?” I asked.

They
nodded, and we all paddled back across the road to The Ram. My mind was busy trying to calculate sleeping arrangements, but it was far too complicated for me to try.

We
paddled through the pub to the staircase and wearily made our way upstairs. There was a grandly named ‘function room’ up there (The only function I had ever seen it used for was meetings of the debating society, consisting of about five very argumentative bar room philosophers. I’d once been in there for a twenty first birthday party where all the participants had been sick drinking too much cider). There was a broken pool table, and a stack of chairs ranged along the back wall with folded down trestle tables.

Sam
sank down on one of the chairs with a sigh. “Reckon we’ll all have to kip down in ‘ere,” he said.

I
glanced at Oliver, to see if he was as thwarted as I was. Noticing that he was, I felt a stab of satisfaction.

In
reality of course, there really was no option. I felt like a spoilt brat that had its sweets taken away. What was I going to do? Walking back to Penmorah was out of the question, it was far too wet, not to mention dangerous. I suppose we could have broken into Mrs Trevellyon’s cottage and made out on her sofa…

I
went round The Ram, picking up every cushion I could find, whilst Sam hunted down blankets. We made a very unprofessional looking row of sardine beds along the floor and all fell into them gratefully. We were all exhausted.

“I’ve
never slept on a pub floor before,” I said, trying to get comfortable on my meagre pile of cushions.

“I
should think not,” Oliver said next to me, “I don’t see you as a barfly you know.”

“I
once fell asleep at the Cat and Fiddle, oh, sorry Sam, and I woke up in the gents!” Richard proudly boasted.

Jace
snorted with laughter, whilst Sam gave a disapproving grunt. I couldn’t tell if this was about falling asleep in the gents, or whether it was the fact that it had been at The Cat and Fiddle (a very inferior sort of establishment according to Sam, although he wouldn’t ever elaborate due to some sort of secret publicans honour.)

“We
should find a radio with batteries in it, an’ listen to what’s goin’ on,” Jace said.

We
all agreed, but nobody moved. We were all too tired.

Will,
who customarily never spoke at all, became almost chatty under the cover of darkness. “I’m right worried about me chickens, they’re roostin’ an all, but with this rain… they’m could well be flooded out. The geese are OK, so’s the ducks, o’course, but the chickens, well… I don’t know, I really don’t.”

This
was more words that I’d ever heard him say in my life.

Richard
and Jace made re-assuring noises, whilst from Sam came the unmistakable sound of snoring. We all fell quiet.

I
felt Oliver move beside me, and his hand felt for mine. I reached out and held it. Eventually I fell asleep, lulled by the sound of the rain and the comforting feel of Oliver’s hand in mine.

Chapter
Seventeen

In the light of the morning we could see exactly how bad things were. Port Charles was flooded.

Great
gouts of water had come off the hills and were joined by the rain that was still falling. Thousands of gallons of water that had been stored underground from the disused tin mine had breached it’s shores, and were flooding the soaking land. It was chaos. Heartbreaking chaos. I could see that everyone was trying to calculate insurance money. Of course, not many were insured here.

Judith,
who had gone home last night, came back and diffidently asked for some help in covering her roof, half of which was intact. The other half had joined the rest of the debris littering Port Charles. Fire engines arrived to pump water, but it was a long slow process, and the water had very little place to actually disperse. It was high tide, too, and the sea looked about ready to come over the small harbour wall.

There
was still no word from Kev the Beard and the rest of the fishing crew from The Queen Mab.

Reports
of disorder and chaos were reported on the roads and railways, with a massive landslip by Truro station. The line near Bodmin was submerged under two inches of water.

It
was a disaster.

Oliver,
in between helping everyone as much as he could, spent a lot of time with his phone clamped to his ear.

I’d
cooked breakfast for twelve of us. I was sneaking a bit of bacon to Samina, who was delightedly trying to eat it without her mother seeing, when Oliver asked to see me. I wiped my hands on my jeans, wishing that I could have a bath, or had the foresight of bring some make up with me, and went into the function room with him.

Our
piles of blankets and cushions from the night before gave the room an air of a disused orgy den. It looked as though a group of drunken teenagers had held a slumber party there, which wasn’t far from the mark really. Listening to the whispered chat between the boys last night had really drummed into me just how very young they were.

“Fin,
I’m really sorry, but I simply have to get back,” Oliver said, running his hands through his hair, looking distractedly at me, “I hate to leave you with this mess, but I have no choice-”

“But
how are you going to leave?” I asked, fairly secure in the knowledge that it was going to be impossible.

“I’ve
spoken to Boo and she’s sending a helicopter for me.”

Blimey.

I thought only rock stars and prime ministers had that sort of treatment.

He
grinned, “It’s just cheaper to come and get me than it is to cancel the filming,” he explained, “I don’t want you thinking I’m some sort of pop star.”

“It
hadn’t crossed my mind,” I lied.

He
stared at me, and I realised with a jolt just how much I was going to miss him.

“Look,
come back with me. Penmorah is going to have to be looked at by someone, we don’t even know if it’s safe yet. You can stay with me, or Harry, of course,” he added quickly, “Please say yes. This place is a mess, and there’s nothing you can do here now. Professionals need to come in and help. What do you think?”

I
was so tempted.

To
be wafted away in the sky from all of this mess and chaos was a dream come true. But I knew I couldn’t.

I
couldn’t leave here.

I
shook my head at him, “You know I can’t. These people are my friends, they need help. Even if I only make soup for them, it’s something I can do… I’m sorry. I’d love to, but I simply can’t.”

“Shit.
I knew you’d say that.”

I
stared at the floor.

Oliver
walked towards me and put his arms round me. I hugged him, with an intensity brought on by the knowledge that I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to see him again.

I
sniffed very unbecomingly in his ear.

“When
are you going?” I mumbled.

“Soon.
I really wish I didn’t have to, you know that, don’t you?” he asked, pulling me away from him so that he could look at me properly.

I
nodded, feeling furiously that life was bloody unfair. The least I could do was act like a grown up instead of a snivelling adolescent.

“Have
you got everything?” I asked, in attempt to sound normal.

He
laughed. “I do like it when you try and be sensible, come here.” He pulled me towards him again, and we kissed goodbye.

After
a very long time, we stopped kissing and he said, “I’ll be back soon and you’ll be in London. Oh, Fin, what are you going to do about the dolphin party?”

“I
don’t know,” I said, thinking that it was the least of my worries at the moment.

“I’ll
call you, either here, or at Penmorah. Harry’s surveyor will be here soon, and they’ll we’ll know if it’s safe for you to return, OK?”

“Yes,
go on, go… please.”

I
walked to the window and saw with great happiness that the rain had finally stopped. We’d got so used to hearing it that we hadn’t noticed. Another thing we’d got used to was the buzz and whir of helicopters. They had been bombarding us all day, from the air rescue service and TV crews with news cameras had been circling Port Charles for hours.

I
saw that Pritti was paddling in the street, carrying Nelson in his cage up the road. I leant out of the window, and yelled, “Where are you going?”

“Home,
to see what damage has been done, and Nelson here needs some fresh air, he is too bad tempered with Baxter!” Pritti called upstairs. She waved at Oliver, who was standing beside me and he blew her a kiss.

“Bye
Pritti, I’m off to London, but I’ll be back soon,” he called.

She
lifted her hand in farewell and keeping her shalwar kameez as far from the water as she could, continued her stately progress down the road.

“Now
that’s not a sight I’ll easily forget,” Oliver said, pointing to the small Asian woman carrying a parrot in a cage down the flooded road.

“Go
on, you. Go!” I said.

Oliver
hugged me briefly and went.

I
had no time to think. There was too much to do. The clearing up operation was a slow, messy business.

We
alternated between wild jubilation that the rain had stopped, to black desperation when we saw the amount of damage that had been wrought.

A
sack of chapatti flour that had been left downstairs at Pritti’s had set to a cement like consistency, Miranda’s hand woven rugs, looped over trees to dry started sprouting weeds and mildew, Mrs Trevellyon’s roof was dangerously close to toppling inwards. The mud covering everything was painstakingly cleaned away, only to be discovered in hidden pockets and crannies, the horrible cleaning process had to be started again. Mermaid’s eggs were seen bobbing along in the tide of water outside the shops on the harbour, and a huge chunk of the Giant’s Thumb had fallen away. That was just the superficial stuff.

The
main problems were somehow too big to be tackled. There were talks with insurance reps and council officials to be set up and I was somehow nominated as the official Port Charles spokesperson.

As
evening fell, I realised that we’d not seen Judith, or had any word on The Queen Mab. I stopped what I was doing, a singularly unlovely task of jabbing a bamboo rod in an outside drain by the post office, and called to Richard, who was on the opposite side of the road doing the very same thing if he’d seen Judith at all.

“Yeah,
she’m been there all day!” he said, pointing towards the harbour.

I
followed his direction and saw that Judith had taken up a French Lieutenants stance at the end of the harbour wall.

“All
day?” I shouted back.

He
nodded.

I’d
have to tackle her later, I decided, pulling out great clumps of grass and leaves from the drain and slopping them into a wheelbarrow in the middle of the road. My back was breaking, and I stood up to stretch.

It
was early evening, and the sky was grey with small patches of pale blue fading to dusk. No signs of rain clouds anywhere, thank god. In a way it was rather beautiful, the pale reflections of the cottages were wobbling in the water on the road.

Richard
splashed over to the barrow to dump another load of rotting vegetation in it; we paused in our work to look around. People were working everywhere we looked, carrying furniture, banging nails into roofs, or sweeping mud. Jace and Will were on top of Pritti’s cottage, replacing slates. Samina and Sunita were going round the village with trays of small samosas that Pritti had somehow cooked on Sam’s range. The power was back on, but intermittently, we could see up on the hill, the lorries and vans from the electricity board were fighting to reclaim what nature had destroyed.

The
sea was a troubled foaming mass, and the waves were big, but nothing like it had been yesterday.

I
wondered if Oliver was home by now. I hadn’t watched his ride back in the helicopter, there’d been too much to do. But I’d seen him slip and slide and climb his way up the hill to where it could land. Looking down at my filthy hands and cold aching wet feet I envied him from the bottom of my heart.

“Jesus,
I’m knackered!” Richard called out.

“Me
too,” I said.

“Tea
break, do you think?” he said.

I
nodded. “Definitely.”

We
paddled back to The Ram. The water was definitely receding. We steeped over the sandbags, and removed our boots. The smell of damp and water was everywhere, in every home. I knew it was something that we’d have to get used to for a while, but it still made my nose wrinkle with distaste.

Sam
was moving the last of the tables and chairs back into their customary places, and The Ram, at least had begun to revert back to normal.

“Business
as usual tonight, I reckons,” Sam said proudly, “Fin, there’s a list of messages for yer. I wrote ‘em all down,” he said, passing me a scrap of paper.

I
scanned the list. Sam’s writing was near illegible and I had to squint at a few of the names, they seemed so unlikely. I sank into a chair, and massaged my damp feet into life. What I really needed was a clean pair of dry socks, but the thought of climbing the stairs and rummaging through my bag was too daunting. I knew that I had mud all over my face, but that too would have to wait. I gave a jaw breaking yawn. God, I was tired.

Sam
gave a chuckle behind the bar, and said, “I reckon that Samina and Sunita are proper geniuses, d’you know how they kept them two kids quiet last night?”

I
shook my head.

“They
tied them to the legs of the table, and then read them a ghost story.”

I
laughed delightedly. Well, no doubt they would be able to bore a therapist about it in later years.

The
power was back on, and Sam went round switching lights on.

“Shame
Nancy ain’t ‘ere,” he grumbled.

I
sympathised with him. I wished that Nancy was here too.

I
glanced again at the paper Sam had given to me.

“Sam,
who the hell is Trudy?”

Sam
came over to squint at the paper as well.

“No,
it’s Truro. Truro council, they’m sendin’ over some damn officials tomorrow to see what’s what.”

I
read the rest of the list. Nancy, Harry, Martha, Oliver, a lot of insurance companies and the local TV station.

“What
do the TV people want, Sam?”

“An
interview. They’m asked me who would be a good ‘un to talk to, an’ I said you,” Sam said proudly.

Oh
dear.

“That’s
very sweet of you Sam, but I really don’t think I’m the one for the job – anyway, what about yourself? Nice bit of publicity for The Ram,” I said sneakily.

Sam
shook his head, “Not on your life! I don’t hold with all that meedjia malarkey,” he said, disapprovingly.

I
laughed, and swung my feet up on a chair. I was so tired I could have slept right there at the pub table.

I
think I must have closed my eyes for a moment, because the next thing was I awoke with a start as Sam said ‘bugger’ in a loud voice. He was peering out of the window.

“What
is it?” I said sleepily, wishing I was at home in bed so that I could snuggle under the covers.