The Fleethaven Trilogy (107 page)

‘If only ya grandpa hadn’t gone out in it,’ Esther
muttered. ‘But that’s him all over.’ She gave a huge sigh
and seemed to pull herself together. ‘Eh, what am I
standing here for? What am I thinking of? Go upstairs,
Ella, and take ya wet shoes and socks off.’

‘What about you? Aren’t you coming up?’ The upstairs,
far from seeming a sanctuary, looking black and cold and
lonely.

‘I’m going to try and save some o’ me things. Do as I
tell you and then you can come back down here and carry
some bits up. But don’t get in the water again.’

Ella felt her way upstairs and into the big bedroom
where her mother slept.

She was sobbing silently to herself, crying inside. ‘Oh,
Mum, please come back. Come home – now!’

While Esther waded about in the water downstairs,
Ella, with shaking fingers and trying to gulp back her tears,
lit the candle on top of the big chest standing in one corner
of the large bedroom and went into the small, narrow
bedroom where she slept, leading off the larger room. The
gale was even louder here, howling only just outside the
sloping ceiling. Snatching a clean pair of socks she went
back into the big room and shut the door. Her teeth began
to chatter as she pulled off her drenched shoes and socks
and, picking up a towel from the rail on the wash-stand,
rubbed her legs and pulled on the dry pair. Then she found
her slippers and went to the window. Could she see the
road to Rookery Farm from here? Were there car headlights?
But the world outside her window was like a black
void. Not a light twinkled anywhere. She shuddered again,
gripping the curtain tightly, overwhelmed by a fierce
longing to be back in the city with the glow of the street
lamps just outside her window, the sound of traffic on the
main road at the top of the street, doors banging and the
sound of voices. But now there was only the sound of the
roaring wind and the rushing water below and that awful,
interminable blackness.

‘Mum, oh, Mum, where are you?’ she whispered aloud
and felt sick with fear. What if she never came back? What
if . . . ?

She turned from the window, went out of the room and
down the stairs again to where the water was already up
to the first step.

Standing there in the darkness, the tempest raging
outside, Ella tried to swallow her fear. ‘Gran,’ she called
croakily and then louder, ‘Gran?’

For a dreadful moment she could hear nothing except
the storm. ‘Gran,’ she shouted, panic rising in her voice,
‘where are you?’

‘Here,’ came her grandmother’s voice from the kitchen
or pantry, Ella could not be sure which. ‘Stay there . . .’

Ella stood on the stairs, straining to hear her grandmother
splashing about in the water, muttering crossly at
the invasion of her home. With something to do, Esther
seemed calmer. Now she was angry: at the sea, at Jonathan
for going out, maybe, even at Ella for being an extra
responsibility. The girl watched the flickering light from
the oil lamp as her grandmother took it from room to
room, deciding what she could carry upstairs, trying to
salvage as many of her belongings as she could. Ella wished
she could go to her gran; she needed to be with someone,
she didn’t like being left alone in the dark and the cold
watching the water rising, rising . . .

But for once, the girl did as her grandmother had told
her and stayed where she was. The water was lapping over
the first stair and encroaching upon the second by the time
Esther appeared again carrying a heavy, low-seated chair
from the front parlour, its legs already wet. She lugged it,
step by step, up the stairs. ‘Out the way, Missy,’ she
ordered as Ella stepped backwards up the stairs with each
step that Esther took. Next she salvaged an odd assortment
of items; an embroidered fire-screen, a footstool, the huge
family Bible . . .

‘Oh, heck! What am I doing?’ Esther swept the hair
back from her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘I aren’t
thinking straight. Food. We ought to take some food up.
Stand there and you can carry it up as I bring it to the
stairs. Don’t get in the water again, Missy. There’s enough
of us getting soaking wet already.’ As she moved away into
the darkness, Ella heard her mutter, ‘I wish he’d come back.’

So do I, Ella thought fervently. And Mum.

Esther was back, thrusting dishes and tins into her
hands. ‘Look sharp, Missy. Mek ya’sen useful. Tek these
up and put ’em in one of the rooms. Anywhere, it dun’t
matter.’

After several journeys to and from the pantry, Esther
came to the stairs carrying a small lamp. ‘I’ve left the big
one burning on the kitchen table for yar grandpa to see by
when he comes back. I’d got this little one in the pantry.
It’ll do us for upstairs.’

She pulled herself up out of the water and paused a
moment, leaning against the wall, obviously feeling suddenly
exhausted by her efforts. ‘I’d best get me stockings
off, an’ me skirt. By heck, that water’s perishing. I dun’t
reckon me feet’ll ever feel warm again. I’ve brought me
rubber boots from the scullery if I need to go paddling
again, but they’re wet inside now. They were already
floating afore I thought about ’em.’ She gave a click of
annoyance and began to climb the stairs.

Ella took one last look at the black water in the hall.
Floating on the surface, swollen and ruined, was the
cardboard draughts board.

She turned away and, keeping close to her, followed her
grandmother. She held the lamp whilst Esther, panting and
shaking with cold, pulled off her stockings, dried her legs
and pulled on a clean pair. Suddenly, above the noise of
the gale, they heard a loud banging from below and for a
moment they stared at each other in the flickering
lamplight.

‘Is that ya grandpa?’ Esther said. ‘Oh, I hope to goodness
it is.’

Heedless of the fact that she had just put on dry clothes,
Esther rushed down the stairs. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’

Left to carry the lamp, this time Ella followed her down
and, tucking her skirt up into her knickers, stepped once
more into the water; now it was up to her knees. The
intense cold was a shock, but she waded through the scum-covered
water sending waves rippling out to splash against
the walls. As she passed through the living room, everything
looked so odd, half-submerged in the water, rugs
floating just beneath the surface, wrapping themselves
against her legs like some creature from the deep.

‘Gran,’ she called, her voice quavering. ‘Wait for
me . . .’

Now she could hear voices, a commotion near the back
door, and reaching the doorway from the kitchen into the
scullery, she saw three figures struggling together in the
darkness.

‘Here, lean on me, Beth. That’s it,’ came her grandmother’s
voice.

‘Esther – oh, Esther,’ Rob’s grandma cried, her bulk
swaying against Esther, her fat arms clawing for support.
‘I thought I was going to drown. He saved me. Jonathan
saved me life.’

‘Ya safe now, Beth. Come along.’

Quickly, Ella turned back and put the lamp in the centre
of the kitchen table, pushing her grandpa’s wooden chair,
floating in the water, out of her way. She splashed back
into the scullery and, skirting round her grandmother still
struggling to bring Beth into the kitchen and towards the
stairs, Ella reached her grandpa who was leaning against
the door frame, his eyes closed, his breathing laboured
and rasping. He was drenched, wet through from head to
foot.

Ella tugged at his sleeve. ‘Grandpa, where’s Mum? Have
you heard where Mum is?’

He coughed painfully, bent almost double, unable to
take another step, shivering uncontrollably. He shook his
head and his voice was hoarse. ‘No. Nothing.’

He put his arm around the girl’s shoulders, the water
from his clothes soaking quickly through her wool jumper
and chilling her shoulders, but she put her small arms
around him and tried to help him into the house. Staggering
like drunks, the young girl scarcely able to keep her
balance under his weight, they reached the foot of the
stairs, but Jonathan was unable to find the energy to
climb. From above, Ella could hear her grandmother’s
voice. ‘Get out o’ them wet things, Beth. Wrap ya’sen in
blankets.’

‘Gran!’ the girl called up. ‘Gran, come and help me with
Grandpa.’

In a moment her grandmother was rushing down the
stairs and taking hold of him, easing his weight from Ella
on to herself.

He rested his head against her shoulder. ‘Oh, Esther, I –
I got bowled over once by the waves. I – I thought I’d had
it. I thought of you – knew what it would mean to you if –
if . . .’ He left the sentence unfinished but Ella saw him
raise his head and look searchingly straight into Esther’s
eyes. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, my love,’ he said
softly. A spasm of coughing seized him, but he struggled
between coughs to say, ‘But I had to go. I couldn’t leave
folks there in trouble. Please, try to understand.’

Esther stared at him for a moment and then slowly she
nodded. ‘Yes, I know, Jonathan,’ she said quietly. She
sighed deeply and a small, wry smile twitched the corner
of her mouth. ‘You and your blasted conscience . . .’ She
left the sentence unfinished and said instead, ‘Come on,
let’s get you upstairs. Ya’ll catch ya death.’ Though she
gently chided him, the anger was gone from her tone; she
was too thankful to have him back with her.

Somehow between them they got him upstairs and into
his own room. For the next half-hour Esther went between
the two, helping first her husband then Beth, asking
questions all the time.

‘What about the Maines and the Harris boys?’

‘They’ve – they’ve gone to Rookery Farm. But poor
Beth couldn’t make it any further. They’ll tell Danny she’s
safe here. He’ll be frantic.’

‘How far’s the water gone? Mebbe Rookery Farm’s got
it as well.’

‘I should think it has,’ Jonathan said grimly, as his
breathing became a little easier. ‘God knows how far it’s
gone.’

Hovering outside the bedroom doors on the tiny landing,
Ella’s question came again. ‘Mum? What about
Mum?’ But no one knew how to answer her.

‘Get into bed with you, Jonathan,’ she heard her grandmother
say briskly. ‘I’ll fetch the bricks up from the range
oven. Lucky I’d put ’em in already to warm the child’s bed.
But she’ll not mind.’

‘Oh, don’t let Ella be cold. She’ll feel it more . . .’ even
from outside the door, Ella heard his teeth chatter suddenly,
‘. . . than us.’

She raised her voice and shouted to him. ‘No, I won’t,
Grandpa, you have the bricks. Shall I get them, Gran?’

‘No, no, you stay where you are.’ The bedroom door
opened. ‘Ya can come in now and sit with yar grandpa
whilst I fetch ’em.’

Esther crossed into the other room to say, ‘You all right,
Beth? I’ll bring a brick up. Get into the bed and keep
warm.’ Then as her grandmother went down the stairs into
the black water, Ella once more stripped off her soaking
footwear and crept under the quilt on her grandparents’
bed pressing herself against her grandpa through the
covers, trying to warm him.

Jonathan was lying back against the pillows, his eyes
closed, his breathing a rasping noise. A few moments
later her grandmother returned with the two bricks
wrapped in pieces of blanket and pushed them beneath
the covers, one at his feet, and the other half-way up
the bed.

‘I’ve got another couple for Beth. The water’s not got
up to the fire in the range yet. I can boil the kettle and
make us all a hot drink. I’ll put a tot of whisky in ’em to
warm us.’

Jonathan did not answer; it seemed to be taking all his
energy to concentrate on dragging in the next breath. Ella
and her grandmother exchanged a worried glance.

‘You go and snuggle in beside Grandma Eland,’ her
grandmother’s tone was unusually gentle, ‘and I’ll bring
you both a nice cup of something warm.’

The girl shivered. ‘Don’t stay down there too long, else
you’ll get a chill.’

‘Me, Missy?’ Her grandmother raised a small smile,
but it was forced. ‘Not me! I’m tough as owd boots, lass.’

There was a ghost of a smile on Ella’s mouth and in this
moment for the first time she saw what it was that Rob so
admired about her grandmother. In the midst of the drama,
after that first initial shock, she was strong and determined
once more. Not even the might of the sea invading her
home could intimidate Esther Godfrey for long.

‘Oh, me pigs! What about me pigs? They’ll all be drowned,’
Esther said suddenly as she handed mugs of steaming
liquid first to Grandma Eland and then to Jonathan and
Ella.

‘Esther love, they’ll have to take their chance. I really
can’t . . .’

‘No, no. You stay there, you’re not moving again. I’ll
go . . .’

‘No, Esther . . .’ But she was not listening.

‘Wait for me, Gran. I’m coming with you.’ Ella quickly
swallowed the hot milk that tasted odd but warmed her
and put the mug down. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘You stay there,’ her grandmother began, starting down
the stairs. As the girl followed, she snapped, ‘Do as I say,
Missy.’

‘No. I’m coming to help you.’

In the fitful light, they glared at each other. ‘You get
back upstairs. I dun’t want you catching cold an’ all.’

Suddenly, Ella grinned cheekily. ‘Who me, Gran? Not
me . . .’ And adopting the Lincolnshire dialect so strong in
her grandmother’s speech, Ella mimicked, ‘Not me. Ah’m
tough as owd boots, an’ all!’

‘Eh, ya saucy minx,’ her grandmother said, but suddenly,
amidst all the chaos the two were laughing. ‘Oh,
very well then. Wait there ’til I get you a pair of rubber
boots from the scullery, if they’ve not floated away, an’
all.’

Ella waited on the step just above the water. Bet she
doesn’t come back, she thought, but then she heard her
grandmother wading through the water towards her.