‘Cuts and bruises’ was the description of my injuries, nothing was broken, there would be no permanent damage. It didn’t seem fair when Maureen was dead but I knew that never again would I hear the words ‘only cuts and bruises’ and think that the victim had got off lightly.
Despite her death being sudden and so unexpected Ted had found an envelope in the top drawer of her desk marked ‘ To be opened upon my demise’. One sheet of paper listed all the people who would be important in the event of her death, her solicitor, particular friends and family members who should be contacted with details of her funeral. Another sheet described her wishes for her funeral, listing the music to be played and the poems to be read. I was surprised that there was a request for Ted to play my mother’s tape, the same tape of her singing and reciting poems that had been played at her own funeral. I hadn’t imagined it could still exist. I had listened to her re-recording that poem until it was, to her ears, perfect. There’s a breathless hush in the close tonight, Ten to make and the match to win” and singing, again and again Noël Coward’s words I’ll see you again, whenever Spring breaks through again, until she felt it was as good as it was ever going to be. Only Ted and I, the two who had also been at that funeral 16 years before, could possibly understand the significance as we sat together in the church.
I had looked for some clue as to when she had made these notes and sealed the envelope. There was no date but the address for Ted was Greensand Hill. I didn’t know exactly how long he had lived there but it was not long. There was no mention of me. Perhaps she had made the notes because it was the sensible thing for her to do, she was, after all, in her late 60s. I had never thought of her as being ‘an old woman’ but I supposed she must have thought herself one at times.
I really hoped Maureen had not done anything deliberately to hurt herself. Or me.
The church was not full but it was not embarrassingly empty. Most of the congregation were friends of Maureen’s from the village. Maureen had requested bright colours for her funeral, apparently she had talked of it to Ted when they had both been at my mother’s funeral. She didn’t want people to be sombre in blacks and greys, so there were many bright hats and ties in the late summer sunshine.
Carl didn’t attend the service though I know Ted had written to him with a copy of the notice he had put in the Telegraph. Charles and Linda were at the church, with Josie and little Andrew but they didn’t come back to the cottage afterwards. I think they had told Bill, Al and Jack to stay at home, wary of us all meeting for the first time on such an occasion. I couldn’t believe they would be so petty, the day was about Maureen and what she had meant to all of us, not about family differences, however long-standing and significant.
I threw the roses I had picked from her garden that morning onto Maureen’s coffin concentrating on the brass nameplate with the words Maureen Shelton 1918 – 1987 as they were lost forever under handfuls of soil.
It wasn’t long before everyone had made their excuses and left Ted and I alone to tidy up. We would be back in a few days to clear all her things, there was no one else to do it. In the meantime I would be staying with Ted and my daughter. I wasn’t ready to be on my own, especially in the emptiness of Maureen’s house.
“You’re quiet.” Ted said as I dried the dishes he was washing and put them away in the familiar cupboards.
“It’s been a long day.”
“And an emotional one.”
“Were you ever in love with her? Maureen I mean?” I had to ask.
“No.” He didn’t seem surprised at the question and weighed his answer carefully. “I can truthfully say that I never was in love with Maureen.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“No, never, not even a little bit.”
“But you knew she was in love with you.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it was difficult to ignore at times. It was never spoken about. I just knew and she knew I knew and because I didn’t say anything she knew the answer.”
“How sad.”
“I think she was sad for much of her life. She had many friends, just look how many turned out today, but none that were really close, that she could confide in. Alicia was too flighty and self-centred to be interested in anybody else, David had been her boss…”
“You knew?”
“Yes, of course, it wasn’t a secret. She worked for him at the Ministry during the war. I think they tried to find jobs for people whose husbands were missing or in P-o-W camps. She was his secretary.” As I listened to Ted talking about Maureen’s war work I realised that he had no idea of what David’s work had really been. “I think it was all pretty mundane stuff, supplies or some such.”
Or perhaps he knew and wasn’t letting on.
He lifted his soapy arms from the washing up bowl and pursed his lips, drew a breath and sighed deeply. “She had no one she could confide in, no real friends, so I think she was really quite lonely at times. Which is why,” his voice brightened up “that is why she loved having you to stay.”
“There was so much she could have told me if I had thought to ask, known to ask.”
“Maybe she has.” He said gently as he put his arm around my shoulders and held me gently to him and I cried tears of pain, frustration and tiredness. “Come on, you’re tired. You’ve done far too much today and you’re still not well. We’ll come back next week. There’ll be plenty of time to finish clearing up then.”
So I left the cottage to drive past the scene of the accident to Greensand Hill, where I would finally meet my daughter and try to make some sort of sense about everything.
It was mid October before I felt up to going back to the cottage but we were finally setting off, after a quick drink at the Fox to allow the rush hour on the M25 to clear.
Ted and I had soon got into the habit of spending an hour or so every evening in the pub a short walk from Greensand Hill, it gave Josie some private time with Andrew. We usually got home in time for the Archers but enjoyed the company of the varied group of farmers, professionals and self employed who congregated at six o’clock in the comfortable, old-fashioned bar.
“They say there’s going to be a bit of a blow tonight.”
“Someone’s said a hurricane’s on the way.”
“You don’t get hurricanes in this part of the world.”
“Well bloody strong winds then.”
“No way. It’ll all blow over….”
“Ho ho ho.”
“It’ll all be a storm in a teacup…”
“Ho ho ho.”
“You’re having a laugh aren’t you?”
Half listening to the conversation going on around us Ted and I planned the evening. We had put off going back to Maureen’s cottage for too long, every time Ted had suggested it I had found a reason not to. ‘We’ve got to go together, I can’t do it on my own.’ he said patiently. ‘We’ll wait until you’re ready.’ And now I was ready.
Since the day of the accident I had watched Ted, trying to read what he was thinking, how he was looking at me. I never saw anything but friendly concern. Apart from the one time when he had taken my arm at the funeral as my mother’s voice rang out through the packed church he had done nothing that could be misunderstood. We had spent a lot of time together and had talked without tension or embarrassment about many things. He had never given any indication that he felt the way Maureen had told me he did.
“Quick, drink up, we’d better be on our way if we’re going to get there.”
“What do you think about the weather forecast?” I asked as we drove through the woods down to the main road. Ted turned on the news and we listened in silence. “Nothing about an impending storm. We’ll be fine.” He took his hand off the wheel and squeezed my knee in a familiar gesture of reassurance.
“Please…” I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice and he replaced his hand on the steering wheel.
As we passed Greensand Hill I thought of Josie and Andrew, how good she had been about my coming to live with them, how understanding she had been of the interloper in the household that she had largely run. She had been absolutely wonderful. As long as you babysit whenever I ask I don’t mind one bit’ she had said. I was enjoying spending time with my grandson. He was beautiful and I realised what I had missed by being such a bad mother to my own children. Josie put me to shame. In the previous month I had renewed my acquaintance with Jack, Al and Bill, neither Charles nor Linda had wanted to see me. The boys often visited their sister and we had established a relationship that ignored the fact that I was their mother. They had offered to stay with Josie and Andrew while Ted and I were away. ‘You never know what might happen in a big empty house isolated in the dark woods.’ Al had teased their sister. ‘They may be bears’ Jack added ‘or wolves’ Bill completed the argument and Josie had laughingly agreed. She hadn’t had a night alone since Andrew was born.
It was still light when we pulled up outside the empty cottage after a trouble free journey. It was warm inside the house as we had left the Aga on, thinking we would be back much sooner, but there was a pile of post on the doormat and the house felt unlived in and unloved.
“We should have come sooner.” Ted spoke aloud what I had been thinking.
I put the jumble of envelopes on the kitchen table and went round the house switching on lights and closing curtains. I hesitated outside the room that had been Maureen’s bedroom but took a deep breath and opened the door, striding across the small room to the windows and pulled the curtains shut with two brisk movements.
I was going to hate the next two days.
“Come on, we’ll have a bite to eat at the pub and then come back to sort this lot.” Ted had read my mood and realised that sitting in the house without a little bit of Dutch courage would be impossible.
We missed the 9 o’clock news but we caught the end of the weather forecast which now was talking about ‘very high wind speeds expected along the south coast’.
“Force 9 or 10 is bad isn’t it?” I asked.
“It won’t get that bad inland, look they say it will go up the Straits of Dover. I wouldn’t want to be on a cross channel ferry but we’ll be fine here.”
“And the children?”
“They’ll be fine.”
“Can we listen to a later forecast? If you think about it every one we’ve heard has got worse and worse.”
“You know something Annie?”
“What?”
“For the first time in my life I’m listening to you being worried about your children.”
“What the hell was that?” I sat up in bed, aware I was shouting and rigid with fear at the noise outside. There had been a gigantic crash, as if a bomb had gone off or a lorry had driven into the front of the cottage. A number of alarms were sounding discordantly adding to the chaos. I got up out of the bed I had slept in over the years and put on my dressing gown and bumped into Ted who was on the landing.
“What’s happening?” I screamed trying to make myself heard. “What’s going on?”
“I think it’s that hurricane that wasn’t going to happen.”
We went from room to room together, checking windows and seeing what damage had been done to the house. The noise of the wind and the alarms was horrendous.
“Can you see anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Can you hear the phone?”
At that moment the lights went out but Ted turned on the torch he had in his hand, it was a dim beam but at least there was some light as we felt our way down the narrow stairs.
I found the phone and picked up the receiver. I could hardly hear the voice at the other end of the line.
“Mum? Mum?” It was Josie.
I could never remember her calling me Mum. And she sounded very upset.
“Yes darling.” I don’t think I had ever called her that in her life. “What is it? Are you alright? Are you all alright?” I realised I was shouting to make myself heard. She shouted back “No. Oh Mum! Everything’s falling apart! There’s trees down everywhere! Jack went out to see what was happening and came back with his crash helmet on so many tiles were flying off the roof! And the big tree’s down! There’s branches in the…”
“Josie! Josie! Are you there? Oh Ted. The phones gone dead. There’s trees down, tiles off the roof. Oh Ted what can we do?”
“We’re not going anywhere in this, all we can do is listen to the radio.”
“What time is it?”
“Two thirty.”
“Do you want a coffee?”
So we sat in the dark kitchen and listened to the transistor radio. Ted twiddled the knob backwards and forwards to find anything that was talking about the storm.
“Do you think they’ll be alright?”
“The house is well built.”
“But they’re surrounded by millions of trees and trees are coming down all over the place.”
“I’d be worried if they were on the coast, or at the top of the hill, but they’re not, they’re protected. They’ll be fine. They’re probably all sitting round the kitchen table drinking coffee listening to the radio. Just as we are.”
“I hope the boys aren’t stupid enough to try to go outside again. It sounds like it’s getting worse.”
There was nothing we could do but drink coffee, listen to the noise and the crackling radio which Ted continually retuned to try to find out what was happening.
It was a long night.
When the shipping forecast came on the radio just before 6 o’clock we listened in awe at the storm warnings and coastal reports. I knew next to nothing about the sea, despite having been born and brought up in a coastal town. Hoylake had been, as my brother Charles used to say, ‘Orpington on Sea’, a suburb of Liverpool first and foremost, not a real coastal town. But even I knew Force 7 was pretty bad, but they were talking about ‘Gusting Hurricane Force 12’.
“They said there wouldn’t be a hurricane.” I complained.
“’Hurricane force’ doesn’t mean a Hurricane it just means very, very strong.” Ted was being pedantic.
“How strong? What does ‘hurricane force 12’ do?”
It was beginning to get light and there was enough for Ted to find the books that Maureen had used to complete her crosswords. “This one will have it in.” He thumbed through the index and found the pages he wanted. “It doesn’t say what Hurricane force does.” He sounded disappointed but carried on reading. “Force 11, Violent storm, Very rarely experienced, accompanied by widespread damage.”
“What does ‘widespread damage’ mean?”
“Well Force 10 says seldom experienced inland, trees uprooted, considerable structural damage. We definitely had that.” Looking outside as the day began to establish itself we could begin to see the mess that had been the garden. “Force 9 says slight structural damage occurs, chimney-pots and slates removed. That must be what that is.” He pointed towards a pile of bricks in the middle of the lawn.
“What about Force 8?” I asked.
“Breaks twigs off trees, generally impedes progress.”
We both laughed. In the middle of the lawn was a complete tree, on its side, surrounded by bricks and slates, the remains of someone’s garden furniture. “I recognise that,” I said somewhat hysterically, “that belongs to the pub. We were sitting on that last night. It should be 100 yards away.”
“So should that.” Ted pointed to the door of the red phone box, caught up in branches leaning against what was left of the garden hedge.
“Oh my God.”
Ted took my hand and we walked through the house and opened the front door. The wind was nothing like as bad as it had been but we watched as tree branches, dustbins and rubbish were blown down the lane.
Ted shut the door. “Come back in, Annie. Let’s get back to that radio.”
‘Under no circumstances should you attempt to travel anywhere.’
‘There are no trains or buses, many roads are blocked.’
‘The area around Sevenoaks has been particularly badly hit.’
“Sevenoaks! Ted! They say Sevenoaks is particularly badly hit. Should we call the police?”
“They’ll be inundated.”
“What about Charles? Linda?” Surely they wouldn’t continue their feud against me under these circumstances. “We can try them to see if they know what’s going on?”
“I’ll try, I doubt they’d be asleep.” He picked up the phone and dialled. I noticed he knew the number without looking it up.
“No. There’s nothing. Just number unobtainable.”
There was nothing that could give either of us peace of mind. There was a continuous stream of warnings, not to go out on the roads, not to venture out of houses while trees, chimneys, roof slates were likely to fall at any time, not to try to get to work. “They’re all telling us what not to do. What can we do? And please don’t say have another cup of coffee.”
“Thank goodness for the Aga. Eggs, bacon, sausage and tomato. Just what we need to start the day.”
I opened the cold box we had brought with us and began to cook breakfast.
“We’ve got to try to get back, Ted.”
“I don’t think we should. We should stay listening to the radio. Then, later, we can try. If you want to.”
“Of course I want to. God knows what’s happened to them all. What are you smiling at?”
“I know it’s not nice, worrying, but really they will be fine and it’s wonderful to see you caring.”
“Of course I care.”
“No ‘of course’ about it. You spent a large part of your life not caring.”
“And a lot of the rest of it caring for the wrong people.”
I couldn’t begin to interpret the look he gave me before he changed the subject.
“There’s nothing you can do for a few hours, get some rest because once we get going, oh yes, we’ll try at lunchtime, of course we will, you’ll need all the energy you have.”
So as the last of the storm died down I lay in the bed that had once been mine and tried to relax to the sound of Ray Moore on Radio 2 telling no one in south eastern England to attempt to leave their homes.
It was just past 12 when we put our bags back in the car and settled in for the unknown.
“We’ll come back as soon as we can.” He said as he tuned the radio into a station that was talking about travel and the weather. “I’ve made the house as secure as I can and spoken to the neighbours, they’ll keep an eye on the place but we’ll get back as soon as we can.”
He reached over and put his hand on mine. “Everything will be fine. Trust me.”
And I did.
“So far so good.” Ted said as we drove slowly up the main street of the village, our usual route, and out onto the deserted main road. Although we had to zig zag to avoid fallen trees we managed to reach the final roundabout before the motorway. The road there was completely blocked so we had to turn towards the town centre. There was simply no alternative if we weren’t to turn back, and we weren’t going to do that.
“This is a one way street.”
“I know.”
“And we’re going the wrong way.”
“I’m following that chap in front, he seems to know where he’s going.”
“He might be going home.”
“In which case we’ll join him.”
Ted concentrated on following the car in front. The zig-zagging stopped as we neared the centre of the town where there were fewer trees. But by now we were the centre car in a convoy of five and entering the pedestrian precinct.
“This is ridiculous.”
“But look, there’s the road to the motorway.”
“But we’ve got to drive down these steps!”
“That didn’t do the suspension any good. Still here we are, clear road to the motorway.”
There was nothing on the slip road to say the motorway was closed but I was very worried. There seemed so little other traffic. Were we the only ones stupid enough to be out ignoring all the warnings? We crept along never faster than 20 miles an hour, often considerably slower. There was so much debris. Every few yards there would be a carpet of leaves and twigs, branches, even large trees, but we managed to get through to the Reigate turn off where we were flagged down by the police cars parked across the carriageway.
“You can’t go any further I’m afraid. Sir. Madam.”
“But we’ve got to get to Westerham, my children, my grandson.” I was so tense from the journey and disappointed not to have got those extra few miles that I was nearly in tears.
“Sorry madam, but the road is completely shut. You could try the A25, though I think you’ll be lucky to get through. You’ll get close to the town but they want the roads clear for the police and emergency vehicles.”
“Emergency? Are people hurt? Are people injured?”
“I’m afraid so madam, there are tens of thousands of trees down, many onto houses and there have been injuries. Haven’t you been watching the news? Listening to the radio?”
“They don’t go into much detail.”
“It’s not the town that’s worst hit, it’s the hills around. It’ll be some time before any of those people get out.”
“What about helicopters? Can’t you get to them like that?”
“There are hundreds of people trapped by the trees, People are cutting roads through, now the wind has dropped and people are they’re walking through.”
“But my son’s in a wheelchair, my grand-son’s only a few weeks old. How are they going to cope?” I don’t care what impression I gave I wanted them to help, and if they thought it was only a woman, her baby and crippled husband in the house I didn’t care.
The young policeman looked concerned, I tried not to catch Ted’s eye but out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw him trying not to smile.
“Give me the details and I’ll get onto the radio.”
A few minutes later, after he had muttered urgently into his radio, the young policeman said “Follow me. I’ll escort you as far as I can. I won’t be able to take you into Kent but I can get you to the border.”
“Why were you smiling back there?” I asked Ted as we followed the police car off the motorway and down Reigate Hill.
“It’s just that you’re like a lioness trying to protect her cubs, but those cubs are pretty grown up and have been looking after themselves for years. I have far more confidence in them than you do, I suppose it’s because I don’t think of them as children. You still do, but they are as grown up as you and me. Whoops!” He interrupted himself as we turned sharply to the right, following the police car through someone’s drive. It was a very large house with an in and out drive, which was handy as there were a number of trees blocking the main road exactly half way between the entrance and the exit. “Neat!”
“Where do you get expressions like that?”
“From your daughter.”
It took a long time to get to Westerham and as we got closer our worries increased. We had thought Surrey was bad, but as we travelled eastwards the devastation was getting worse and worse. Our police escort stopped short of the town. The young officer got out of the car and wished us luck. We thanked him saying we hoped he wouldn’t get into trouble. “No one really knows what anyone’s doing today. I hope your daughter is OK and your grandson.”
We drove the final few miles in awed silence, it seemed that nothing had been untouched by the wind, every house, every garden, was affected. We reached Brasted and at the point where we should have turned right off the main road to head up the hill there was a ‘Road Closed’ sign. It was completely redundant because no one could have thought for one moment that they could drive up the lane, it was as if the cables and trees had been woven together in an impenetrable three dimensional tapestry.
“I’ll try the pub.” Ted did a three point turn in the road where usually there was so much traffic that such a manoeuvre would have been unthinkable and drove back to the White Hart where the car park was full of pick up trucks and four wheel drives.
We were welcomed as if from another planet, the lady behind the bar handed us all drinks.
“On the house, if you’ll just tell us what it’s like in the outside world.” There was no electricity here either and they had been relying on a barely audible transistor radio for any news.
“Is everyone alright on the hill?”
“We’ve heard from the Fox,” she said “well not actually from the Fox, about it.”
“As far as we can tell. They’re all using a car-phone, it’s the only contact anyone has. There’re hundreds of men working with chain saws to clear the lane, they’ve even got the army involved.”
“Has anyone heard from Josie?” Ted asked.
“No. Sorry. There’s that many trees down in the drive.”
We were only half a mile from the house but today it might well have been a hundred miles.
“There’s no reason why not. We haven’t heard of any problems. Well here’s your answer…” She pointed to the door.
“Jack!”
“Ted?” He sounded shocked and relieved. “Mum?”
He couldn’t help but show his surprise as I got up and gave him a relieved hug.
“How is everyone? Josie?”
“Everyone’s fine. Tired, no shattered, but we’re all OK. Andrew slept through the lot.”
“How did you get here?”
“Down the lane, crawling over and under the trees. The chainsaws are making a bit of headway but it’ll take days. You wouldn’t believe it up there. It’s like all the trees were matchsticks and someone’s just tipped the box out. It’s unbelievable.”
“Are you sure everyone’s OK? We’ve been so worried.”
“We’re OK but we haven’t got much food. We’ve no milk and so I came down to see if I could get some, anything really. We were only expecting to be there last night. They say we won’t be able to get through with a car for three or four days.”
“Three or four days!”
“You can’t believe what it’s like up there.”
“We’ll get some food, there must be some in town, and then we’ll all carry it back.”
“I don’t think you’ll find much in the shops, everyone’s clearing the shelves.” A man sitting at the bar with a shopping basket interrupted our conversation, “I’ve been into town and this is all I could get.” He pointed out a single bottle of water and some packet cheese.
“No bread?”
“Nothing, the shelves were cleared.”
“What are we going to do?”
“There’ll be stuff tomorrow, we’ve only got to get through today.”
“I’m so stupid, Ted, we both are. We could have got everything we could possibly have needed in the village and brought it with us. We just didn’t think.”
“Why would we? We couldn’t have known it was like this.”
“We’d still have to carry it up the hill and it was difficult enough coming down hill not carrying anything.”
“We’ll have to try.”
We sat in the bar sipping at the beer, Ted making a list of what we would need for two or three days for six people and a baby and how we could possibly, even if we managed to buy anything, get it up the hill.
“Come on Jack,” Ted suddenly stood up, “come with me, no, Annie, you stay here. We’ll be back in an hour or so.”
It was the middle of the afternoon already, it might be dark before they got back and then we had to walk two miles up the hill, a difficult enough walk even without the hundreds of fallen trees it looked like we would have to negotiate.
I watched Jack leave with Ted and sat down at a corner table by the fireplace. I didn’t know any of the men and women standing around the bar sharing their experiences of the night before. I picked up the menu that was on the table and read the brief history of the pub that was printed on the back. The White Hart… The Pub of the Few … There was a picture of a blackout screen with chalked signatures Dickie … Brian… Michael … Tony … Jimmy … Elizabeth had sat here, under this low beamed ceiling and had waited for Jimbo. David had sat down with her and had told her what she had already known. I was too tired to cry so I just thought as hard as I could about them both, trying to connect with them across the gulf of 45 years.
Just over an hour later Ted and Jack came back grinning and excited.
“Come on, we’re setting off up the hill. But first, here, put these on.”
They had thought of everything, even a pair of decent walking shoes for me, the ones I was wearing would obviously have been completely useless. Outside they handed me an anorak, a pair of gloves and a rucksack which clattered as I manhandled it over my shoulders. When they had helped me prepare myself for the trek each of them put on an identical anorak and hoisted vast rucksacks, at least twice the size of the one they had given me, onto their backs.
“It looks like we’re heading off into the Himalayan foothills. I hope you’ve got the…” and as Ted silently held up a white slab “…Kendal Mint Cake.” We laughed together. It was a wonderful feeling.
I caught Jack’s eye and he grinned, “Here, put this in your sack” we might not get there by dark.
Ted was suddenly very serious, “It’s not going to be easy, Jack’s told me what it was like for him coming down, going up’s going to be hard work.”
“And Ted’s worried about you Mum, he thinks you’re not really OK after the accident. But I’ll help. Don’t struggle on, tell me when you need a rest.” I couldn’t believe this thoughtful young man was the same Jack who had made my life such a misery in Cambridge.
“It will probably be dark anyway before we get to the end of the drive.”
I saw Jack and Ted exchange a look, I realised they were both thinking I would not be able to make it. I was going to show them.
We started off up the lane, Jack in front, Ted in the rear and me in the middle. At first it was quite easy going and I wondered what all the fuss was about, there was a relatively clear path along the middle of the road. There were twigs and leaves covering the tarmac and they were slippery from the rain which was still falling and I was very grateful for the anorak and the gloves. The cut trunks of trees littered the side of the road, but as we walked the clear road got narrower and narrower until every yard became a struggle.
When we turned a small bend we reached as far as the chainsaws had reached in a day.
We were maybe 100 yards up the lane.
It had taken them a day and we had hardly started. Ahead, in the gathering dark, there was a haphazard tapestry of trunks, branches and cables. Everything suddenly seemed overwhelming; the storm, the disruption, the implications of all this damage, what it was doing to so many people’s lives suddenly seemed immeasurably vast. I just sat down staring at the mud and leaf covered tarmac.
“Come on Annie. We can do it.” Ted saw the tears in my eyes and knew encouragement was all I needed.
“Come on Mum.”
I thought, for the second time that day, that my children calling me ‘Mum’ was one of the most wonderful things I had ever heard.
“Here we go then!” I clambered over the first trunk and slithered down the other side. “What are you two waiting for?”
We struggled up the lane, pushing through the branches, hoisting each other over the trunks, pulling branches and cables out of the way for the others, squeezing through narrow gaps. As it got darker Ted turned on his torch. “Let’s just use one for as long as we can, you never know how long they’re going to have to last us.” Jack nodded seriously in agreement. Two men together, facing up to whatever the elements could throw at us. Somehow we kept going until we reached the drive. It seemed to have taken hours and we were exhausted when we turned to face the final hundred yards to the house.
“There’s no lights.” I should really have known better but I was exhausted and was worried about what we would find. The effort of actually getting back to the house had kept that out of my mind all the way up the hill. Now we were almost home I began to worry.
“Nearly there. I cleared some of the drive this morning, Al and Bill were going to do what they could during the day.”
“Bill?” I couldn’t help asking.
“His chair was really useful. Once we cut stuff he could carry it out of the way. His arms are really strong, he’s much stronger than either of us. They’ll have cleared most of the drive, only a few yards to go.”
“Look, there’s a light.”
“Hey! Jack! Is that you?” We heard the relief in Al’s voice.
“Yeah! And I’ve got company.” Jack yelled back to his brothers.
We stumbled towards the light, thankful not to have to climb any more. As we neared the house Ted shone his torch upwards.
“Oh my good God!”
The large cedar tree that had occupied most of the front lawn had fallen onto the house. It was leaning against what was left of the front gable of the roof, its branches poking through what should have been windows.
“Where..? Are you..? What…?” I knew I should be calm and collected but so many thoughts came to my mind at once.
“When we’re inside we can find out everything.” Ted took off my rucksack and slung it over his shoulder, he put his arm around my waist and almost carried me the last few yards into the house. A few minutes later we were sitting around the table in the kitchen, the candlelight flickering, the bread and cheese a feast.
“We had to turn the Aga off.”
“A tree’s fallen on the oil tank.”
“We didn’t know whether it was safe or not.”
“So we thought we’d better turn it off.”
“You did absolutely the right thing.”
“So we cut up some of the branches.”
“There are a few around.”
“Ho ho.”
“And lit the fire.”
“But it smoked.”
“I told them the wood was too wet and too green.”
“But we found some dry stuff in the shed.”
“Well actually it was the shed.”
“Well anyway we found some dry stuff and made a fire.”
“We didn’t burn it all.”
Everyone around the table was talking twenty to the dozen and we carried on talking for most of the evening about what we had all gone through the night before. As I listened to Ted and my children I realised how happy I was.
Scared, bewildered, exhausted.
But happy.