A Dark and Stormy Night (5 page)

‘It's the wind, blowing things about. Devil of a wind, I've never known one like it. That last crash was something hitting the house, something big. I'm going down to see.'

‘Not and leave me here by myself, you're not!' I fumbled for my slippers as I reached for the bedside lamp.

Nothing happened. The switch clicked uselessly.

I have a recurring nightmare about waking in the middle of the night and trying, frantically, to turn on a light. I try every lamp, every wall switch. There is no light.

My nightmare had just come true. ‘Alan, wait!' I shouted in panic. ‘Alan!'

‘I'm here.' His voice, raised over the tumult, was calm, and calming. ‘I'm looking for the torch. Do you remember where you put it?'

I tried to remember what I'd done with the flashlight we always take along when we travel. ‘I think it's on the table on your side of the bed. Or in the drawer, maybe.'

An interval. The wind howled, and when it let up for a second or two, we could hear voices.

Light, blessed light. Alan pointed the flashlight at me and nearly blinded me. ‘Sorry, love. I wasn't sure where you were. Let's go down.'

I put on my robe and followed him out the door.

Other lights were dancing in the corridor. Ed Walinski and Mike Leonard came out of their rooms. Tom and Lynn followed closely in their wake, with Alan behind them while I brought up the rear.

Our host and hostess, sketchily clothed, were already in the hall. ‘It's the oak!' Joyce screamed over the wind. ‘We think it fell on the house!'

They rushed to the door into the old abbey, and we followed, while other guests arrived in various states of undress, carrying flashlights or candles.

The Moynihans were having trouble pushing open the door to the old cloister. Tom and Alan helped them shove and kick and shoulder it part-way open, and then shone their lights on what lay beyond.

Branches and leaves. Broken glass, splintered wood, dust, water.

The wind rushed through the open door, bringing rain and debris with it, extinguishing the candles. Jim Moynihan withstood it for a moment, then moved away and let the door slam shut. He took his wife in his arms. Tears were streaming down her face.

‘It's OK, sweetie,' Jim said gently. ‘Lucky it happened there and not in the main house. Nobody's sleeping in the cloister. Nobody's hurt, just the house, and we want to keep it that way. It's dangerous to go out there until the storm lets up. Come away, hon. Nothing we can do till morning.' He stroked her hair. ‘We'll see what the damage is then, and start doing something about it.'

Joyce was still crying. Well, I'd cry, too, if something awful happened to our house. An old house is more than a pile of bricks. It has a soul, a life of its own, echoes of the lives of all the people who have lived there over the centuries, the master craftsmen who built it and put into it their pride of work.

I wished I could say something to make Joyce feel better, but I didn't know her well enough, and all she needed right now was her husband.

Who was treating her with great kindness and understanding. He kept his arm around her shoulder, looked up to the rest of us, and raised his voice. ‘Meanwhile, I don't suppose anybody can sleep. How about some coffee?'

The word fell on my ears like a blessing. Coffee! I suddenly realized how cold I was. I took Alan's arm and snuggled close to him for warmth, and we all trooped to the kitchen.

The kitchen walls were thick; the noise of the storm was less terrifying there. A gentle light pervaded the vast room, and warmth, and the heavenly smell of coffee. Mr and Mrs Bates were up, dressed, and busy. A fire blazed away in the fireplace. The Bateses had lit kerosene lamps and set out cups, sugar, cream.

‘The Aga is out,' said Mrs Bates, ‘but the water was still nearly hot. We boiled it over the fire. There's tea, as well, and toast is coming, and I can make cocoa if anyone wants some.'

The scene took on a festive air, rather like an illicit midnight feast at some boarding school for superannuated children. We chattered eagerly about the storm. ‘Well, I couldn't sleep anyway, and when I heard that awful crash . . .', ‘I hope the house isn't badly damaged. Irreplaceable . . .', ‘. . . and I swear to you I positively
leapt
out of bed, a
grand jeté
if you will . . .'

‘If the power is out for very long, I'm afraid we'll have to put you all up at the White Horse in the village,' said Jim. ‘We have plenty of lamps, but the Aga is electric, and so is the central heating. We wouldn't be able to make you very comfortable.'

‘Oh, but this is so exciting!' Now that I was warm and no longer frightened, I was beginning to enjoy myself. The kitchen cat lay purring in my lap, having devoured the saucer of cream I'd slipped her under the table. ‘Lynn, you'll laugh at me, but I do feel exactly as if I've walked into an Agatha Christie. Any minute now, we'll find the body.'

‘I certainly hope not,' said Jim dryly. ‘But that reminds me. Are we sure nobody's been hurt? There's a lot of debris flying out there, and something could have come through a window someplace.'

‘Perhaps a head count is in order,' said Alan. He stood. ‘Joyce, remind me. There ought to be fifteen of us, am I right?'

‘Right. Jim and me, Mr and Mrs Bates, and eleven guests. So let's see – Jim and me and two, four . . . I only find nine more. Am I missing someone in the shadows?'

‘No,' said Alan. ‘I believe your sister and brother-in-law are missing.'

I could have sworn I heard someone mutter, ‘No great loss,' but it might have been only my own uncharitable thoughts. The party atmosphere of a moment before was certainly gone, though, and that
wasn't
my imagination.

There was an uncomfortable pause before Tom Anderson rose from a kitchen chair. ‘I'll go and look for them, if you like. They may still be . . . asleep.'

Well, they would have had to be the world's best sleepers to slumber through the uproar of the storm. But Dave had been drinking heavily, and for all I knew Julie might have joined him after they went upstairs. Maybe they had just passed out.

‘I'll go with you.' Jim and Laurence spoke at the same time. Each stopped, hesitated. Finally Laurence spread his hands in a deprecating gesture. ‘Jim, it's your house, and they're your family. I should—'

‘My wife's family,' Jim corrected in a voice with no expression whatever. ‘And let's have none of this “After you, my dear Alphonse” stuff. You know the house a whole lot better than I do. If they're not in their rooms, they could be anywhere, and you're qualified to search. You go ahead, and thanks. They're in the back wing, at the end – the Palladian suite overlooking the river.'

‘Yes, of course. Shall we, Mr Anderson?'

‘If I take my flashlight, I'll leave Lynn without one. Jim, is there another somewhere?'

‘Excuse me, sir.' Mr Bates materialized with a lantern. ‘This will provide brighter light, and will be more dependable. Mind you carry it by the handle – it can get quite hot.'

‘I should go,' murmured Joyce.

‘You're not going,' said Jim flatly. ‘The storm is getting worse, if anything. This is the solidest part of the house, and the safest. You're staying here, and I strongly suggest the rest of you do the same. The damned wind can't last forever.'

We stayed. Nobody wanted to go back to bed. In moments of stress, humans crave company. But our cozy mood was gone. The cat, sensitive to atmosphere like all her kind, had jumped down and vanished, and my coffee was cold. We sat in silence, watching the flicker of firelight on ancient stone walls and listening to the roar of wind down the chimney.

I was beginning to feel sleepy again by the time the search party returned half an hour later. They were alone.

Joyce, who had been nodding on a bench next to Jim, sprang up. ‘You didn't find them?'

‘We found them.' It was Tom who spoke. ‘They're not hurt, just a little . . . er . . .'

‘It seems they've both drunk a bit too much, Mrs Moynihan,' said Laurence, being very formal. ‘We found Mrs Harrison asleep in a bathtub three bedrooms away from her own, and Mr Harrison on the floor of the small sitting room next to the Blue Room. We did attempt to rouse them, but it proved easier to leave them where they were, so we found blankets and covered them. I fear there'll be . . . er . . . some cleaning up to do in the morning.'

‘Oh. Well.' Joyce bit her lip and then visibly pulled herself together. ‘Thank you so much for checking on them. In the morning I'll . . . do what I can.'

‘The morning, hon, is now,' said Jim. It was still dark as the pit outside, but the kitchen clock chimed six. In less than an hour the sun would rise behind those lowering clouds and the day would, officially, have begun.

I was suddenly unutterably weary.

FIVE

‘
W
hat time is it? Why did I wake up?'

‘Getting on toward eleven,' said Alan, ‘and I have no idea why you woke. I was trying to be quiet.'

‘Quiet. That's it. The quiet woke me. That awful wind has stopped. Well, died down, anyway. How long have you been up?'

We'd all gone back up to bed to get what sleep we could for what little remained of the night, and I'd conked out as though I'd been hit on the head. I still felt muzzy.

‘About an hour,' said Alan. ‘I went down in search of breakfast, but the pickings are a trifle slim. The electricity is still out, and from the look of things – well, see for yourself.'

He pulled open the draperies, letting in light. The rain had apparently stopped. I staggered to the window.

‘Dear God.'

I had seen such devastation before. On television. In the newspapers. The aftermath of tornadoes, floods, hurricanes. Of war. I'd never seen it outside my window.

The little wood we had driven through yesterday when we arrived was gone. Just . . . gone. As far as the eye could see, no big trees were left standing. They'd been torn out of the ground, their twisted roots pointing distorted fingers at the sky. Among them, saplings looked forlorn, bereft. Nearer the house, what had been the garden was a sea of mud with a few twigs shivering, naked, in cold, unforgiving sunshine. What must once have been a greenhouse lay in a heap of glass shards, and broken slates and bits of carved stone were strewn everywhere.

‘But, Alan, this is . . . what
happened
?'

‘Hurricane-force winds. That, coupled with the saturated ground, and the trees went down like so many wisps of straw. I listened to the car radio for a few minutes. A storm the like of which we haven't seen since 1987. And even that one wasn't as bad as this, not in this part of the country at least.' He shook his head and held up his hands in a despondent gesture. ‘Joyce and Jim are beyond distraught. The house can be repaired, but the landscaping! The famous Capability Brown landscaping was one of the things they loved best about the house. They keep talking about it. It's a bit depressing.'

‘Alan, let's go home! They don't need company at a time like this. And I want to see what's happened to our house, to Sherebury.'

Alan is a lovely man. He was patient with me. ‘My dear woman, how precisely do you think we might get home? Remember the drive, that picturesque mile-long drive from the road to the house? With trees on either side?'

‘Oh. I suppose they're all down.'

‘One good big one would be enough to block the drive. Not to mention the state of the roads once one got to them.'

‘Trains?' I asked hopelessly.

‘Not running. Nothing's running. The entire south-east of England is shut down.'

‘We'll go to the pub, then. The White Horse. We can walk there if we have to. Jim said last night . . .'

Alan just looked at me pityingly. ‘It's nearly five miles, and your knees aren't up to that yet awhile.
If
they're open, which I doubt.'

‘We could call and find out.'

‘Love, get a grip. The phone lines are out of service and the mobile masts are down, which between the two of them also puts paid to the Internet and email. Let's just hope Jim and Joyce laid in plenty of food, because until crews can get the thousands of trees cleared away, we are well and truly isolated.'

I sat down hard on the bed. It was sounding more and more like an old mystery novel, but I wasn't having fun. ‘Satellite phone?' I suggested – one last, feeble attempt to pretend there was some kind of normality within our grasp.

Alan smiled wearily. ‘Joyce and Jim might have one, I suppose. But not many people do, so whom could we phone?'

‘Oh, but . . . other people will be trying to reach us, and when they can't—'

‘They'll try to reach the authorities, and be told the situation. It's no use, really, love.'

I gave it up. In this age of instant communication, it was hard to believe we really couldn't communicate with anyone, but I would accept the idea for now. At least Alan was here with me. Isolation from the rest of the world was bad enough, but I didn't think I could manage if I were isolated from him.

When hunger and cold finally drove us downstairs, there was little cheer. Oh, it was warmish. A big fire in the kitchen fireplace heated the place a bit, but not enough. Lynn was the only person there. She came over to us when we entered.

‘Fry your face and freeze your backside – or the other way around? Your choice. Have you ever used a toasting fork?'

‘Um . . . maybe for marshmallows, a long, long time ago.'