Flood Tide (16 page)

Reah remembered his strong hands gripping her, his passionate kisses. His cruelty had been in words, clever lines, products of his fertile and active imagination.

“But you’re not going to rule my life, Ewart Morgan,” she said aloud. “I’m not that meek.”

She longed to see him again, to be part of his life. They could work together. She sighed at her fanciful dreams, knowing that she did not belong to his world.

When the roses came to the door, Reah was immediately transported back to the flower market in Florence. They were yellow roses, of course. Ewart had not forgotten. There was a card with the roses. It said: “Thank you for the coffee. I could become addicted.”

Reah buried her face in the yellow petals. Their perfume was delicate and English, quite different to the robust scent of their Italian counterparts. He could become addicted. It was a one-liner from a professional television dramatist; nothing more.

Her restlessness overflowed into the afternoon. A grey, rain-laden sky made her feel apprehensive. When she found Ewart’s silver birch stick hidden away in a cupboard in her tote bag, the impact of that first meeting returned. She held the stick, half laughing to herself, half fearful; how little she had known then. Ewart had brought a passion into her life which would be difficult to tame.

She knew a walk would clear her mind of these confused thoughts, so she put on some strong shoes, a jersey and her Trilby hat. She took the trail path through the National Trust land; to be part of its remoteness and scenic beauty would be calming.

The background of bird chatter came from the nesting wildfowl on the lakes; dandelion clocks blew in clouds across the salt marshes and meadows like early snow; the river meandered along the estuary, free flowing and clear.

Reah loved walking on the old grasslands; the tiny blue chalkhill butterflies were chasing each other in pairs across their vast playground. In the distance, the sheer chalk and flint cliffs of the virgin sisters rose from the rock shore…Haven Brow, Short Bottom, Short Brow, Limekiln Bottom, Rough Brow, Rough Bottom, Brass Point… Reah smiled at the names, a litany of her childhood and echoes from the Middle Ages before the Black Death wiped out the local farming community.

Cows and sheep grazed on the banks of the river and a single yellow canoe paddled towards the sea, the ebbing tide taking it out to Cuckmere Haven. It was a favourite area for canoeists.

Reah began to climb the steep slope using the terracettes as footholds. Her breath came fast as she pushed herself to climb the first sister in record time; from shingle shore to three hundred feet in three minutes. It was exhilarating.

At the top, she surveyed the view around, the strong wind whipping at her clothes, her ears humming with the sound. From here the sea looked smooth, shimmering with weak sunlight that was breaking through the clouds. The canoeist was a mere yellow blob, paddling determinedly. Ewart was down there in the coastguard cottage, working on his play.

It was in the air that Reah first sensed the storm. What had been a still grey sky moments before was on the move. She strained her ears, listening intently, and detected a different note. It came again, a long long way off… the low, faint rumble of thunder.

She hesitated. If it was coming inland, she would not want to be caught out on the hills.

She noticed white flecks below where earlier the sun had been dancing on the waves. The sea’s colour had changed, darkened; all the blue had vanished into the depths. There was not a sea bird in sight, not a single fulmar or herring gull on wing.

This decided Reah, only just in time. The first drops of rain fell as she began the tricky descent. It was too steep and slippery to hurry. She was going to get wet.

Suddenly the storm hit the land. The force of the wind almost knocked Reah flying. She gasped, struggling to her knees, clutching at a tough crop of tor grass. She stuffed her hat into her waistband and using both hands moved crab-wise down the chalky path.

Lightning flashed vividly in the sky over the Seven Sisters; loud cracks of thunder erupted deafeningly overhead; the rain wiped out the distant sea view.

Reah hurried downwards, slipping and sliding the last few yards to the barbed wire fence. She wanted to get away from the cliffs quickly. They were unstable and the rain could loosen the chalk.

It would be quicker to reach the shelter of the coastguard cottages. She ran along the shingle, the rough waves cutting irregular patterns in the glistening pebbles, rock pools and runnels forming beneath the onslaught of the incoming tide. The rain blew hard and needle-like against her face.

When Reah reached the flood bank, it was already too late to wade across to the other side. The tide was racing in on the current, blown by the storm and moving up the estuary in a relentless formation of white-topped waves. She stood, panting. She had come this way all for nothing. The cottages were so near, just across on the other bank, a little way up Short Cliff.

Two figures came out of the cottages. One was the coastguard in glistening oilskins; the other she knew at once was Ewart. They were running down the concrete path that led to a small sandy shore, pulling a boat out from under the cliff and dragging it down to the sea edge.

Reah gasped as she realised their intention. They were putting out to sea in the storm.

“No! Ewart! Come back,” she shouted. The wind tore her words away and tossed them into the air. She knew why they were going. The canoeist was out there in his frail yellow craft, a boy in a yellow life-jacket. Ewart would have seen him from his desk.

She ran alongside the channel, calling and waving, but the men did not hear. She heard the phut-phut of the engine as the boat slipped into the sea, almost immediately bucketed and tossed about by the waves.

“Ewart…” she cried, her voice an agony of despair. She watched the boat head to sea, the mist and rain swallowing it as if it had never existed. The sea was taking the other man that she loved; she knew she loved Ewart.

Lightning flashed across the sky with pronged streaks, stabbing the dark clouds. A crack of thunder followed immediately and violently, jolting Reah out of her dazed horror.

She must get help. She ran back to the trail path already awash with water, stumbling over unseen ruts. In some places she could not even see the path and found herself floundering near the edge of the mudflats, half blinded by the stinging rain, in league with a ferocious wind that took Reah’s breath away.

The storm did not frighten her, but she was scared of losing her way among the salt marshes and mudflats of the estuary. The tide was racing in, driven by the wind, and the trail was disappearing fast.

That fear was caught in her greater fear for Ewart and his companion somewhere out in that tempestuous sea. Their boat would be like a toy on those mountainous troughs.

She was chilled to the bone, gathering all her strength to reach the inn at the entrance to the trail. She had to telephone the lifeboat station to tell them that the men had put to sea.

The mist was thickening, throwing Reah’s sense of direction. She panicked, and began to run, stumbling, gasping, her feet often ankle deep in the surging water, not just rain but waves. The tide was coming in faster than she could run.

Her own danger suddenly struck her. No one knew where she was. She could just disappear, sucked under by the mud.

Wet feathers brushed her face and she screamed. The bird flapped its wings and veered off into the darkness taking strands of her hair in its claws.

When she pitched into the wooden entrance stile, she almost collapsed against it in relief.

She knew where she was now, near the road. Lights loomed through the rain. Where there were lights, there would be people…telephone, cars, help…the norm of civilisation which had not existed in the last ten minutes.

“Please, help. Someone help,” she cried, rapping on the door of the inn.

The door was open and she fell inside, a wild-eyed drenched creature, muddied to the knees, her red hair plastered to her skin.

“Get the lifeboat,” she gasped. The faces at the bar were just a blur. “Please telephone. There are two men out in a boat and they need help.”

“This lass is all but done in,” said the innkeeper, putting down the glass he had been wiping. “Get her a brandy, Mabel. Steady now. I’ll telephone the lifeboat station though I reckon they’ve already been called out in this storm.”

“They went to rescue a boy in a canoe,” said Reah, shivering.

“Where d’you say this boat is?”

“They put out in C-Cuckmere Haven, near the old coastguard cottages. Please hurry.”

The innkeeper shook his head. “These heroes. We never run short of heroes. I’ll get on to them right away. Now you drink this before you catch your death.”

A glass was put in her hand and she drank obediently although her stiff fingers could hardly hold it. Someone guided it to her mouth. It almost choked her, fiery and heart racing. Mabel drove her home.

Later, the police called to tell her that the lifeboat had been called out several times in the storm; that Ewart Morgan had reported his sighting of the boy in the yellow canoe, but there was no sign of any of them. No news at all.

She sat huddled in front of the fire, her clothes still wet and steaming on her. She should have known that Ewart or the coastguard would have telephoned before putting out to sea. They were both sensible, responsible people.

Reah was living her nightmare now. The familiar cottage was no comfort. Ewart…Ewart…without Ewart there would be no point in living…anywhere.

Her heart ached with numb misery. She could have borne the knowledge of him taking another woman to that Alpine meadow, however hurtful that might have been. But he would have been alive, living, loving, giving. He would be somewhere, breathing, working, taking his full allotted span even if it was with some other woman.

She could have lived with that agony, learned how to live without him.

But if he died…she saw his face so clearly: those dark granite eyes, that taut profile, the soft fringe of hair. She did not want to be part of a world that did not hold him.

How long Reah sat in the gloom, she had no idea.

Time had no meaning. She was hardly aware of the door opening; it was only the coldness of the draught on her already chilled body that made her turn. A dark figure filled the doorway.

“Ewart?” she whispered.

“Reah…darling.”

They were in each other’s arms, clinging, fiercely, unable to speak, the relief of being together was enough. There was no need to kiss. The kisses would come later. They were overcome with the joy of finding each other and knowing without a doubt that they cared.

“Ewart…” Reah sobbed against his wet cheek. “I thought you were never coming back. I thought that you had drowned and that I would never see you again and you would never know that I love you.”

“I am here. Don’t cry,” he soothed. “Nothing can part us now. Never again. We are together. But…tell me again.”

Reah looked up at Ewart, her eyes warm with hope. She saw his strength and gentleness.

“I love you,” she said. “I love you so much.”

“Darling girl, at last!” His voice was impassioned. He flung his head back as if unable to bear the joy. “I always thought you were too proud and too independent to love anyone, let alone me, an arrogant writer, whom half the time you acted as if you hated. When I’ve loved you to distraction almost since that first day when you lost your hat over the cliff!”

“Me?…I?” Reah was incoherent, bewildered. “You hardly showed it.”

“I’ve been running away, scared out of my wits. Scared of losing my precious freedom, afraid of being caught by a skinny, young woman with red hair. When I dashed off to Milan, I was running away from you.”

Reah drew back from him so that she could see his face. His eyes were blazing down at her; the fire ignited a warm throbbing glow in her veins.

“You were running away from yourself,” she said.

“I know. I was an idiot. We were both blind. Why do you think I’ve been coming to your rescue so often? I’ve spent hours, days, worrying about you. I couldn’t bear to let anything harm one hair of your dear, impetuous head. I wanted to take care of you all the time— and you wouldn’t let me.”

“Of course not,” said Reah, but the softness of her voice belied the words. “I can take care of myself. But what can I do if you go out to sea in s-storms, when I love you so much. I didn’t want to live if you…if you had…”

He brushed his mouth gently against her lips to stop the torrent of anguish.

“No more tears, Reah. I’m safe and so is the boy. The lifeboat picked us up about a mile from the shore. The engine of the small boat was swamped with water.”

“Promise me you’ll never do anything like that again,” she cried, gripping his arms. “Promise me.”

“You know I can’t make that kind of promise, Reah,” he said. “Besides, who was running a one-woman marathon against the tide? You could have just as easily been hurt.”

“I knew what I was doing,” said Reah, defending herself. “I’ve known the estuary since I was a child, which is more than I can say for you.”

“There was no way I could watch that boy being carried out to sea and do nothing. We are not the kind of people to tie each other down with pointless promises. Our marriage won’t be a bonded cage but something gloriously free. Loving and trusting each other will be its strength.”