The Accidental Time Traveller (33 page)

He looked at Billy. ‘I don’t know if you want to go and check on your house …’

But Billy was already pulling on his raincoat.

‘Alan, can you run the desk for a while? I must check on Carol and the kids. If the river’s running high, it could be well up towards the house.’

‘Glad to,’ said Alan. But Billy was already gone. I could hear him dashing down the stairs two at a time to get to Carol. So much for that small show of affection for me. So much for my anticipation, the fluttering insides, my eager-ness to get into the office to see him. He was well and truly spoken for, and by someone who could get him leaping downstairs two at a time, a wife and family he had to look after and protect.

‘Are you making the tea then, Rosie?’ asked Alan as he shook his hair dry and looked at the work left on Billy’s desk. I turned, deflated, to get the kettle. I knew my place.

The rain didn’t let up. I ate my sandwiches at my desk and was finishing the women’s page (‘Meals in a hurry for busy mothers’), and Kiddies’ Corner (this week’s competition is how many words can you make from ‘Thunder and Lightning’?) when the electricity went off. It was so dark that we’d had the lights on even though it was early afternoon.

Alan cursed, lit a cigarette and then went groping around in the back of a cupboard from which he produced a paraffin lamp. He cleared a space for it in the middle of all the clutter and lit it. After a few failed and smoky efforts it finally got going and cast a cosy glow over the office, though God knew what would happen if anyone knocked it over in all those heaps of paper …

By now phones were ringing from reporters in other offices and members of the public wanting to know what was happening. Alan was already talking on two phones at once when the third rang and I answered it. It was Billy.

‘Is your house OK?’ I asked.

‘Probably not for much longer. But we’ve moved all we can upstairs and Carol and Libby have gone to her mother’s. There’s nothing more we can do.’

That little house already smelt of damp. How much more so now?

‘Look Rosie, can you get Alan? We need to be out and about. The river’s burst its banks and people are going to have to be rescued. There are great stories. I’ve seen George and Charlie, but we need another reporter out.’

‘I’ll come!’ I said.

There was a crackly silence on the other end and hope in my heart. ‘Alan has only just dried out, and he can run the desk better than I can,’ I said. I let the thought hang in the air.

At the end of the phone line I could hear the wind and rain – and almost hear Billy thinking. It took a second for him to make the decision.

‘OK. I’m down by the old quay, so get yourself to Watergate and see what’s happening there. But for goodness’ sake be careful! Now put me on to Alan.’

I interrupted Alan’s two phone calls, handed him the receiver and fled.

Floods! A real story! Worth getting wet for! And Billy had told me to be careful. Maybe he did care about me after all. Adrenalin and happiness were surging around my system.

Now I know journalists are always said to like bad news, but the truth is that they are the dramatic stories. It’s when you feel part of the action. You spend so much time doing routine stuff – those worthwhile things about concerts and councils – that you long for something different. It’s exciting, an adventure, and also you feel useful and part of the community at the same time. So it wins on all fronts – and you know that lots of people will buy the paper the next day.

As long as
The News’
generator worked of course …

The receptionist on the front desk looked horrified as I clattered down the stairs. ‘You’re not going out in this are you?’ she said, and when she saw that obviously I was, she said, ‘Well at least get yourself something sensible for your feet. Haven’t you got any wellies?’

‘No. Where’s the nearest place to get some?’

‘Woolies, of course.’

It was only across the road. I dashed in and found some wellies, the last pair in my size said the assistant, and some woolly socks. I went back to
The News
to change and left my soggy shoes in reception. Certainly, as I strode down to Watergate my feet felt warm and dry, about the only bit that did. I slipped my bag across me, like old ladies do, and marched out into the storm.

Down at Watergate it was chaos. The river was already over its banks and the road was disappearing. A stream ran down into the river under a low old bridge. The water was already up to the arch of the bridge and was roaring through in a torrent, bringing branches and debris down with it. It looked as though it would start backing up soon.

I splashed along on what had been a pavement but was now about a foot deep in water. It was already lapping near the top of my wellies and rising fast. I moved away, up higher towards the Market Place and the water seemed to follow me.

A policeman in fisherman’s waders was standing in the middle of the road directing traffic, up to his knees in water. A tractor and trailer were ploughing through the water sending up huge waves, but people were wading across to get into the trailer, bringing babies and possessions. A little short fat man came waddling out nearly bent double under the weight of a huge cardboard box full of papers. I was sure the rain would make the box collapse and the wind whip all the papers away before he got to the trailer, but he made it. Just. Then he dumped the box and went waddling back to his office for more.

You could see the water rising as you looked. A lorry load of volunteers arrived with sandbags and a fireman sent them elsewhere. He was shouting into the wind and rain, but his voice was whipped away.

Normally on occasions like this I dart in and out talking to people, grabbing a chance and a quote where I can. But it’s tricky to dart when you’re wading in water in wellies. It was hard going. Police and firemen were too busy to talk, but generous enough to throw remarks out into the wind and rain. I guess they were pretty excited by it all too. Someone was waving out of a bedroom window. A fire engine arrived and the firemen put a ladder up to the window. It looked very puny in such weather.

But a fireman – in a huge and heavy uniform, made even heavier by the weight of the rain – climbed up and took a bundle from the woman at the window. The bundle shrieked. It was a baby. The fireman in his yellow helmet took the baby down the ladder and it was handed from arm to arm to the safety of a lorry parked in the shallower water. Then there was a slightly larger bundle, a little girl of about two.

At that point, hooray! George arrived. He got some good pictures and I paddled through the water to the trailer and got the names of the mother and children.

I tried to write them down in my notebook but it was hopeless. I struggled into a covered alleyway that led around the back of some derelict-looking houses. Quickly I scribbled down the names of the people I’d talked to, ripped the already wet pages out of my notebook and stuck them deep down in the pocket of my bag where there was a chance they might not get any wetter.

The alleyway was damp, but at least the rain wasn’t as heavy there. It was quiet too. I hadn’t realised how noisy it was outside. I leant against the wall and took a breather. There was a strange whispery noise …

A rat. It sleeked past my toes and down the alley. I yelped and went back into the rain.

The little fat man with the cardboard boxes was shouting at the policeman, who didn’t want him to put any more on the trailer as it was fully loaded and starting to go. ‘But my businesses! My papers!’ the fat man was shouting.

He would have gone on like this for some hours, I’m sure, only his cardboard box really did start to collapse and he ran, cradling it like a baby to scrape into one of the lorries.

By now I’d had to retreat. What had been the road was just part of the river which was growing wider every second. A group of lads, about fourteen or fifteen years old, appeared. They had their shoes tied around their necks and their trousers rolled up.

‘Right you lot!’ bellowed the policeman in waders. ‘Make yourselves useful and get along to those houses at the end. See if anyone needs help getting their stuff shifted upstairs. If they want to leave their houses then wave something out of the window so we know. And be bloody careful!’

The boys splashed off up the waterway, full of excitement and adventure and ready to help.

My sense of adventure was definitely beginning to pall. I was soaked and getting cold. It had been a long day, and I had been walking back and forth in the deep water for a long time. My leg muscles were killing me. My feet were wet now and I was probably getting blisters. Time, I thought, to get back to the office. The policeman was shouting at me to get out of the way, when suddenly I saw a rowing boat coming up what had been the street, but was now under about four foot of water.

It was a bright red little boat with the number forty-two painted cheerily on its side. Despite the wind and rain and current, the man rowing it was doing so competently and confidently, regular easy strokes as he guided the little craft around the lamppost and past a telephone box.

‘Want a lift?’ he yelled across at me. It was Billy.

He brought the boat as close as he could to me and I waded across and climbed in. The boat rocked terrify-ingly, but Billy got it steady as he helped me in. ‘Do you like it?’ he asked, grinning. ‘I requisitioned it from the boating lake.’

‘Brilliant!’

‘Yes, the bloke wanted five bob – five bob! – for the hire charge, but I told him it was a national emergency and as a member of Her Majesty’s Press I demanded the use of it and he couldn’t countermand my air of authority. Mind you, I did promise to look after it carefully and bring it back when the floods have gone down.’

I clung to his arm for maybe a fraction longer than necessary and then settled down opposite him. It was a very small boat and our knees were touching.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Have you got some decent stuff from here?’

‘Oh yes, babies being rescued, businessmen complaining, boys helping, old ladies hugging policemen. Everything.’

‘Great stuff. So have I. But I thought we’d have another look around, see what’s going on.’ He grinned at me and suddenly I didn’t feel cold any more …

It was really weird rowing around the streets. The water had spread all through the town. I thought that the Browns’ house would be all right because it was quite high above the river, but I imagined the cellars were well and truly flooded.

The water was running fast, and every now and then a particularly fierce current would catch us and the boat would swoop and dip before Billy could steady it. We were on the main road between the Market Place and Watergate when a sudden torrent came. Billy tried to keep the boat on course but in the end it was easier to let the current send us down a narrow pathway, one of many that led through Watergate down to the river.

The buildings were grim. Suddenly I could see why Mr Brown thought the whole lot would be better off demolished. They were narrow, dark and virtually derelict -certainly the flood would finish most of them off. There were no lights anywhere and although it was still only late afternoon, it was dark.

‘All right?’ asked Billy as I clung to the sides.

‘Never been better!’ I yelled back up at him.

And as I did, I spotted a face at a window above him.

The window was broken and part of it was stuffed with old material, but there was a woman looking out, clearly terrified. ‘Help me! Please help!’ she shouted.

Billy managed to pull the boat around and tie the rope around the spear-shaped top of a railing – all that showed above the water.

‘We need the fire brigade!’ I said to Billy. ‘We can’t get her out of there.’

‘And I can’t see how the fire brigade would get down here – even if we could get to them in time,’ said Billy.

By now he was out of the boat – rocking it hard in the process – and had pulled himself up onto the railings, one hand holding on to an old light bracket that can’t have held a working light for decades.

‘Pass me an oar up, Rosie,’ he shouted.

I did and, telling the woman to step back, he smashed the window. Not that it took much doing. The frame was rotten. He took the bit of blanket that had been stuffing one of the missing panes and laid it across the windowsill to protect her from the splinters of glass.

‘Now what I want you to do,’ he said to the old woman, ‘is to sit on the windowsill with your legs outside.’

‘I can’t! I can’t!’ yelled the woman who seemed to be wearing a heap of raggedy clothes, her hair escaping from a greasy, untidy bun.

‘Yes you can, of course you can,’ said Billy soothingly. Even though he had to shout over the noise of the wind and rain and roaring water, his voice was kind and gentle. And, still perfectly balanced, he caught hold of the woman in her ragged clothes and battered shoes and guided her down.

‘Pull as hard as you can on that rope, Rosie! Right,’ he said to the woman, ‘can you just jump into the boat? It’s not far. Just a step really.’

‘No I can’t! I can’t!’ yelled the woman, clinging harder to Billy. Quick as a flash Billy bundled her into the boat. They landed with a thud and a scream and the boat rocked wildly. I was sure it was going to capsize and flung myself to one side to try to balance the weight. It sort of worked. The boat rocked a bit more, and the woman lay in the middle of it whimpering, but at least she had the sense to stay fairly still.