Why Don’t You Come for Me (34 page)

Although the water was no more than an inch deep, it was flowing fast, and Jo decided to follow Sean’s example, picking her way along the verge, until she got within sight of the bridge. He was absolutely right about that, too. Only a fool would attempt to negotiate it in an ordinary vehicle. The beck had overflowed the bridge on either side, spreading itself across the tarmac for several feet in either direction and out on to the bridge itself, where the two channels from each side almost met in the centre. The water was moving at speed, rippling across the stones and other debris which had accumulated in the road. The boulders around which the beck normally picked its way had entirely vanished beneath the dirty brown torrent which was roaring down the gulley. It crashed against the old stone archway, throwing up a spray which was unnaturally white against the gloomy backdrop of wet tree trunks and drooping ferns.

Jo decided not to venture any nearer. When she had retraced her steps to the gates of The Hideaway, she decided to test the strength of the flow by placing one foot cautiously on to the tarmac. This caused the water to surge angrily over the toe of her boot, creating a bow wave from verge to verge. A shout made her look up. Shelley was hurrying towards her, clad in a dripping anorak and pastel-coloured wellington boots. The thought of that pile of unreturned books flickered momentarily, but Jo could tell from the urgency of Shelley’s approach that the Pre-Raphaelite Movement was probably the last thing on her mind.

‘Is Marcus at home?’ Shelley called out, when she was still some yards away.

‘No. He left about four hours ago.’

‘Damn. I was coming to see if he would help.’

‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘You know the little stream that runs through the field at the back of us? It’s normally just a trickle but there’s masses of water coming down it. It goes through a sort of culvert under the track up to High Gilpin and the culvert’s almost blocked, so the water’s starting to find other places to go, and if we don’t do something it’s going to be into the Perrys’ bungalow soon and maybe Honeysuckle Cottage and The Old Forge as well. There’s some big stuff blocking the culvert that we urgently need to shift. I rang Mr Tyson to see if he could bring his tractor, but he’s already out helping some motorist who’s in trouble. Brian reckons we could do it between us if we had a bit more help – he’s down there now, with Fred Perry.’

Jo did not hesitate. ‘We’ll come. I’ll get Sean.’

It took her only moments to explain the situation to Sean, who appeared to relish the idea of action and could scarcely be restrained long enough to don suitable clothing. They splashed along the road together, turning in through the gap in the stone wall where the track went up to High Gilpin. From here they could appreciate the problem at once. Just as was happening with the main artery down at the bridge, so this normally insignificant vein of water had trebled or quadrupled in volume, and was haemorrhaging across the field towards the dry-stone wall which marked the perimeter of the Perrys’ back garden. The channel which marked the stream’s passage was deep enough to contain the water until it reached the culvert, where the blockage was starting to divert it elsewhere. Not only Brian and Fred, but also Shelley, Maisie and Gilda were labouring up to their ankles in water, prodding and poking at the edges of the obstruction with various implements brought out for the purpose. Brian was using his weight to lever a crowbar against something. His hood had fallen off to reveal a red knitted hat, which had taken on the appearance of a tea cosy fresh out of the washing machine and ready to peg on the line. When Sean and Jo reached the water’s edge, the source of the problem became apparent. A large section of branch – perhaps six feet long and half the circumference of a pillar box – was lying within inches of the culvert, where an ever-growing accumulation of smaller debris was forming a dam against it.

‘I still think the only answer may be to get my chainsaw,’ Fred was saying. ‘If we could reduce the size of the log, it would be easier to pull it away.’

‘It’ll take a long time to saw through it,’ said Brian. ‘And I’m not sure how it could be done, with the water level as it is. It certainly wouldn’t do your chainsaw much good. Let’s try to shift as much of the other stuff as we can, so that we’re not pulling against that as well; then we’ll have another go at shifting it.’

During this pause to discuss strategy, Jo could see that a climbing rope had been tied around the rogue branch where one end protruded from the water and some of the smaller branches and stones had already been dragged clear.

‘The trouble is, there’s more debris coming down all the time,’ said Shelley.

‘We need to get as much away as we can if we’re going to have any chance of dragging that big branch out of the way,’ Brian said.

‘If we all work together, I believe we can do it.’ It was the first time Gilda had spoken since Jo’s arrival. She sounded brisk and sensible.

A variety of implements, rakes, a draw hoe, a crowbar and a mattock had already been assembled, but when all seven of them set to with a will, it immediately became clear that if serious injury was to be avoided, some degree of organization was required. Brian divided the process into three stages with himself, Fred and Sean standing in the water to drag the debris loose and shunt it in the direction of Maisie and Gilda, who then pulled it to the edge of the shallows where the two smallest women shifted everything right back from the water, so that there was no possibility of its being swept back against the log. They worked mostly in silence, with Brian grunting occasional instructions and Maisie reminding Fred to be careful on account of his dodgy hip.

‘It’s working,’ said Shelley. ‘There’s less water coming across here than there was a few minutes ago.’

‘It’s only temporary,’ said Brian. ‘Unless we can get this big bugger shifted, it will all build up again in next to no time.’ He leaned on the crowbar for a minute then said, ‘Let’s have another go at it, shall we?’

Brian organized them along the rope, making everyone stand well apart. ‘We don’t want to step straight back into one another,’ he said. ‘We’ll have the men at the front, where there’s more chance of losing your footing.’

Jo experienced an unexpected stab of pride as Sean took a place between Brian and Fred. He had worked as keenly as any of them – in fact, if she had not known any better, she would have thought he was enjoying himself. She found herself immediately behind Gilda, looking straight at her broad shoulders and back. Gilda’s wet cagoule shone like newly laid tar: she was in black from head to foot, cagoule, waterproof trousers and, singularly among the women, old-fashioned black wellingtons. (Jo and Maisie had country-dweller green, while Shelley’s were pink with pictures of sheep on them.) Although they had exchanged no words directly, Jo knew that for the moment at least there was no animosity between herself and Gilda. All that mattered was curbing that rushing water before it got too far across the field and invaded people’s homes and gardens.

‘Take up the slack,’ Brian instructed, sounding for all the world like the captain of a tug o’ war team. Jo sensed that, in an odd sort of way, Brian was enjoying himself too. His voice echoed across the open ground, reducing the rain to a whisper, putting the beck on notice that it might not be having things all its own way for very long. ‘On three. One, two, threeee …’

‘I wonder if it’s worth trying Mr Tyson again,’ mused Maisie, not really loud enough for anyone but Jo and Shelley, who were nearest, to hear.

‘One, two, threeee …’

‘I don’t think we’re going to do it without the tractor.’ Maisie’s voice was much louder this time, and carried more conviction.

‘Rubbish,’ Brian bawled back. ‘How do you think people managed before there were telephones and tractors? Really put your backs into it this time.’ His voice rose to a roar. ‘One, two,
THREEEE
…’

Whether it was a collective determination not to be outdone by pre-industrial man, or fear of Brian on the warpath, there was a different feeling on the rope and all of them – even Shelley, who was right at the rear – felt a movement on the end of the line.

‘That’s it,’ yelled Brian. ‘We’ve got it moving now. OK, Sean, me lad? You all right Fred? Ready? Again – one two,
threeee
…’

‘That’s got it this time,’ cried Gilda, who, unlike Jo, could see the end of the obstructing branch. ‘We must have moved it a good six inches with that last pull.’

‘Everyone move round. Change the angle.’ Brian shouted, waving an arm to indicate the direction in which they needed to move. ‘We’ve got the bugger. Now we need to shift it sideways, so that it starts to swing round this way, right out of the beck. We’ve already freed up a lot of the channel. Come on, let’s have another big effort …’

It took perhaps fifteen minutes of steady work before the huge branch was dragged into a satisfactory position. The Easter Bridge tug o’ war team had been victorious in its first and only contest, and with the task accomplished there was almost a reluctance to abandon the site of battle. They nodded to one another in the near darkness, sharing their moment of triumph.

Jo’s back and shoulders ached horribly, but in spite of this she felt renewed. The task seemed to have galvanized those brittle twigs inside her into sinew and solid bone. Looking round at the faces of the others, she knew that whatever mysterious energy had seized her, they were gripped by it too. Fred had forgotten that he was seventy-two; Shelley was grinning in spite of the rain trickling down her face and neck; Sean looked shyly pleased with himself and at least an inch taller.

‘You must all come inside and have something to warm you up,’ said Maisie.

Everyone began to protest, saying they were close to home and far too wet, but Maisie was having none of it. ‘You’ve saved our home today. Another hour or maybe less, and the water would have been inside. No one is going anywhere until we’ve had a chance to say thank you properly. Our fire will still be lit, and it won’t take a minute to get it going properly again. So what if you’re wet? Our veranda is always full of wet gear; just leave your outside stuff in there and get warmed up. I can soon rustle up some hot drinks.’

‘I’ve got a nice drop of scotch in the sideboard.’ Fred winked at Brian. ‘Just the job on a day like this.’

Jo’s first instinct was to decline and beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of The Hideaway, but she knew that it would appear churlish if everyone else accepted. Then she caught sight of Sean’s face, and realized how mean-spirited it would be to drag him away from what was taking on the semblance of a celebration: the victory of the Easter Bridge Irregulars over the Elements. So she fell into step with the others, following Maisie back to Throstles, where everyone peeled off their soaking outer garments in the veranda as instructed, before hesitantly entering the sitting room in their stockinged feet.

While Fred switched on the lights and stoked up the fire, Maisie conjured up a pile of towels, which she handed round for people to mop their faces or rub down their hair. The towels were followed in remarkably short order by plates of biscuits and fruitcake, mugs of tea and hot chocolate and optional tots of whisky. Catching Jo’s eye, Fred said that he was sure it would be OK for Sean to have some, provided it was diluted with a drop of water. ‘He’s done a man’s work today, haven’t you, lad?’ Fred said, in that hearty way which childless septuagenarians think the ideal tone to address a teenage boy. Sean accepted the glass and mumbled, ‘Thanks,’ blushing to the roots of his hair.

‘I don’t understand how that tree got swept down in the first place,’ said Jo. ‘It’s such a weight: you would never think a little stream like that would be enough to shift it, not even with the amount of water coming down today.’

‘It wasn’t swept down today,’ Shelley explained. ‘It came down ages ago when we had that big blow, this time last year. Mr Tyson did say he was going to cut it up, but I suppose he never got round to it. It wouldn’t have mattered normally, because the way it was lying across the beck, the water usually passes right under it with loads of room to spare. But with the beck running four or five times higher than normal, smaller stuff started to catch on it and build up, so that before you know where you are there’s a blockage. Then of course, the water starts finding itself another route.’

‘We’ve been so lucky,’ Maisie put in. ‘If Gilda hadn’t spotted what was happening and alerted everyone, the first thing we would have known about it was when water started coming into the house. We’re in a little dip here, and once it came down the steps at the back, that would have been it.’

‘It was pure chance,’ Gilda said. ‘I happened to go upstairs for something, looked out of my bedroom window and saw the way the water was spreading out across the field. If I had gone up just a little bit later it would have been too dark to notice.’

‘Well, we’ve Gilda’s sharp eyes to thank – and of course all of you, for turning out to help. That’s what’s saved our bacon,’ said Fred.

‘To good neighbours,’ said Maisie, raising her glass.

‘To good neighbours,’ everyone repeated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The scale of the flooding which overtook Cumbria that night emerged gradually via the television news, the internet and word of mouth. Towns in the north of the county captured the majority of the headlines, for here the devastation had been most marked, with bridges collapsed and loss of life. The inundation left its mark further south, too, where lakes rose dramatically, rivers burst their banks and water found its way into hundreds of homes, businesses and vehicles, spreading across roads to a depth which turned normally landlocked communities into islands, enforcing the closure of shops, schools and offices, which, if not entirely cut off, were deficient in stock, pupils or staff.

Marcus telephoned, alarmed by what he was hearing on the news, only to be reassured that all was well. Jo made a point of emphasizing to him Sean’s part in the work of defeating the rising water. Credit where it was due.

In places where no real damage had been sustained, life swiftly returned to normal. It even stopped raining for a few days, and when Marcus was at home he began to talk enthusiastically about Christmas. His last tour of 2009 was scheduled to finish on 22 December, after which he would be at home for almost a fortnight. ‘We’ll get some walking done,’ he said. ‘Maybe we could have a look at some of your suggestions for the Artists in the Lakes tour.’ His heartiness struck an artificial note. They both knew that she had done nothing about the idea for months, and the deadline for inclusion in their 2011 programme would soon have come and gone.