The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon (41 page)

^{"I daren't open the door, get in through the window!" she shouted, appearing suddenly in the door connecting kitchen and zoo. He grabbed a barrel-lid that was floating past and used it to smash the glass, hoisting himself sideways through the frame and falling headlong at her feet, breathless, battered and bleeding about the hands. Water was already more than a foot deep in the room and she was standing in the pool of light with the zoo lamb, Bambi, under one arm and a rope-handled crate under the other.}

^{"The bloody fools!" she shouted at him, "I could see it was going to happen. I phoned two hours ago and they said they'd send somebody with a lorry . . ."}

^{"I've got transport. It's out at the front," he yelled. "Go through and open up before the water reaches the engine," and he splashed through into the zoo, pushing her before him.}

^{There was more light here for the bus headlights were on and she waded between the cages to the main door unlocking it and pushing it outward with her feet. The flood water caught her off-balance as it sought a lower level and she stumbled but he caught and steadied her and together they staggered down the steps to the coach where he flung open the rear emergency door. Bambi and the box were hoisted inside and they battled their way back to the zoo. She shouted; "Open the bird-cages, they aren't locked, only the}

^{toucan's! I've got the monkey cage key here," and she turned her back on him while he groped his way along the upper tier opening the cages of the canaries and budgerigars but not waiting to see if the birds flew out. At the far end of the hut was the railed-off enclosure for the dogs, two spaniels, a labrador and a fox-terrier, none of them chained and all barking furiously. He tore at the flimsy gate and it came away in his hands. The dogs splashed past him and he heard them yapping around Rachel near the door. Then he remembered Teena the Siamese cat, who occupied a run built against the east wall. He climbed on to the rail of the dog-run and opened the wire door, expecting the cat to emerge but she did not and when he flashed his torch into the cage he saw her crouched behind her basket, glaring at him with eyes full of fear and hate.}

^{"Come on, Teena, run for it!" he called, hoping the cat would pick her way along the top of the bird cages, but Teena remained motionless so he lunged forward, grabbing her by the scruff of the neck and jumping down into water that reached his waist. The cat bitterly resented his rescue attempt, writhing and spitting in his grasp and attempting to claw his face but he managed to hold on and wade along to the monkey cage where Rachel was coaxing the last monkey from the topmost trapeze. He was so concerned with getting the cat to the coach that he spared her no more than a glance. It was enough, however, to impress him for she stood thigh-deep in water with both arms raised, detached from the chaos around her, and calling softly to the terrified Charlie, encouraging him to join his mate on her shoulder. Sebastian thought, 'That's her vocation all right! Nobody in the world could improve on Rachel Grey in a situation of that kind!' and he felt a kind of reverence for the degree of trust she was able to instil into birds and animals.}

^{By the time he had deposited Teena in the coach, Rachel had rejoined him, carrying out another crate but he had to tell her there was no time to save the remaining animals for flood water, cascading down the zoo steps,was now knee-deep in the yard.}

^{"Drive on the cottage foundations near the gate!" she said. "It's higher ground over there. I'm going back for the hamsters and rabbits," and before he could protest she was gone.}

^{He jumped in and drove the coach across the yard to a spot where}

^{the foundations of a demolished coastguard cottage made a little island in the flood. Somewhere behind him was Bambi, the Siamese cat, and whatever pets Rachel had managed to save in the rope-handled crates. Rain was still falling in torrents and as he jumped down into the flood and sloshed his way back to the zoo he heard a warning crack and saw the south wall bulge and the swirling water shift its course to sweep away the topmost planks of the entrance steps. He pulled himself up by the handrail, calling, "Hurry, Ray! The building's coming down on us!" and suddenly she was there, silhouetted against the light of the kitchen lantern, with a small wicker basket under her arm and a terrified hamster on each shoulder.}

^{"Take the basket," she said calmly, "I'm afraid Dinah will lose her nerve and jump!" and she passed over her burden and put up both hands to steady the terrified animals. 'Great God!' he thought, 'she went back to save a couple of rats!' but he grabbed the basket, lowered himself and waded over to the coach. He was in the act of closing the emergency door when he heard a second and louder crack and swung round in time to see the entire front of the building subside and slither outward. Debris spewed across the yard into the wash created by the collapse and then Rachel materialised from the wreckage.}

^{"I'm afraid the snakes have had it," she muttered and then, almost casually, "Open the boot, the monkeys are inside but they'll travel together-not wide!" as he gripped the handle, "just a crack in case one of them pops out."}

^{He did as she asked, feeling curiously humble. She was not so immature after all, not in her own private world but only in the world of people like Sybil and himself and Ben Bignall the Town Clerk. Out here, in a tempest of storm and flood, she was a goddess, exercising a mystical influence over all creatures that flew and crawled and swung from hoops and each of them acknowledged her power as the sick place themselves in the hands of a surgeon. He recognised something else too, another legacy of her father who possessed the same unexpected strength in the world of the young. It was this that he had transmitted to her but it had taken a freakish turn, converting itself into power over animals.}

^{She said, closing the boot: "All right, let's go! And thank you for}

²⁶⁰

^{coming, Martin. We've done what we can I suppose, I don't see how we could have done more."}

^{The coach engine was still running and he hesitated a moment before choosing a route to lower ground.}

^{"Pull over left and then hard right!" she said decisively, "there's a patch of rubble alongside the putting green, the lorries come in that way when it's wet."}

^{He followed her directions carefully, inching down from the foundation block and groping under the flood water for the half-made path that ran beside the greens. The water had spread out here and was not more than a few inches deep so he was able to follow the line of the palings until he reached the esplanade. The animals seemed quiet, all save Teena who was snarling and swearing on the luggage rack.}

^{"Well, what now?" he demanded, when they had turned east on to the sea-front. "Where the hell can we take the wretched things?"}

^{"I've thought of that," she told him, "drive up to the main Council Stores in Coastguard Road. Someone is on duty and I can find a place for them in the bins and sheds. I'll sort them all out in the morning."}

^{She was right again, the depot was showing lights and two or three of the Surveyor's staff were there to help them unload and house the animals in various corners of the store sheds. There was plenty of packing straw and shavings and between them they made a rough check of the survivors. None of the birds had been brought away but Sebastian told her he had opened the cages and she said it was likely they had flown off when the front of the building fell out. The snakes were drowned and so were most of the rabbits but Rachel had saved two Chinchillas in the first crate. Only the fox-terrier had had the sense to jump aboard when he had released the dogs but Rachel had no fears for the spaniels and the retriever. "They'll show up in the morning," she said, "and I dare say we can track down some of the birds. You didn't manage to free the toucan, did you?"}

^{"No," he said, "the cage was locked and I didn't have the key."}

^{"That was my fault," she said, glumly. "It was on the monkey house ring and I should have thought of it when I was opening up."}

²⁶¹

^{Then, bitterly, "Someone is going to get the rough edge of my tongue for this! I warned them by phone two hours before I rang you and they promised to send someone with a lorry!"}

^{One of the Surveyor's men overheard her and growled: "We got enough on our hands up at Moorend. Twenty to thirty houses flooded and some people lost half their furniture!" Rachel said shortly: "Damn their bloody furniture! Furniture can't drown!"}

^{He noticed then that she was shivering, perhaps more from shock than cold for the rain was warm and only his feet were cold. "You'd better come home with me and have something hot. You'll get short shrift at those digs of yours at this time of night," he told her. "You can have a bath and I dare say I can find some of Olga's clothes to tide you over until you can drive over to school. We'll borrow a Council van, old Bignall won't mind after all we've saved the ratepayers!" and he piloted her to a van used by the head gardener and they drove back to The Coombe. She said very little on the way and seemed very cast down by the disaster.}

^{"Don't blame yourself, Ray," he said, "you were wonderful and I shall see to it that everyone knows what you did!"}

^{"It's a curious thing," she said as though she had not heard him, "everything I take up develops into a washout one way or another and I didn't intend to make a pun! It's just that I seem to be bad luck for everyone, including animals! I keep thinking of that toucan drowned in its cage!"}

^{"Everything there would have been drowned if you hadn't kept your nerve!" he said. "From here on I take over," and he opened the door and flung her his raincoat that had been drying before the stove. "Wrap yourself in that while I light the fire and run the water. You can soak first and have your soup afterwards. I'm not giving you alcohol, you're suffering from shock!"}

^{She submitted meekly to his fussing and sat warming herself by the stove while he bustled about lighting the sitting-room fire and filling the bath. He found a skirt and a high-necked sweater in Olga's chest of drawers and took two bath towels from the airing cupboard, leaving one in the bathroom and throwing the other across his shoulder. When the bath was ready he called to her and went into his own room, stripping off his wet clothes and towelling}

²⁶²

^{himself until he was breathless. As he rubbed it struck him that there was a curiously repetitive pattern about the evening for here he was, once again peeling off wet clothes while the woman who had shared his adventure took a hot bath, exactly the way it had been with Olga when they came home after the incredible coach journey.}

^{When he was dry he went down to the kitchen and opened two tins of soup, helping himself to a large tot of whisky while he watched the saucepan bubble on the stove. A year ago, he reflected, he would have been very alarmed over the prospect of catching a severe cold but. now he hardly gave the matter a thought. He supposed he was getting thoroughly used to wettings, and rough living and adventures, they were just part of his new way of life and new personality. He looked at his hands and found them crisscrossed with Teena's scratches and when he rolled up his sleeve there was blood on both arms from a dozen small cuts inflicted by the broken glass of the kitchen window. Casually he wiped his arms with a dishcloth, thinking that if something like this had happened to him in Wyckham Rise he would have scampered all over the house shouting for disinfectant and sticking plaster.}

^{When she came down wearing Olga's skirt and jumper he was relieved to note that she was her cheerful self again.}

^{"That hot bath was heavenly, Martin," she said, "what a thoroughly domesticated creature you are! Soup ? Whacko! Give me a quart of it and, in passing, why doesn't Olga throw away garments like these? Does she hoard everything, like those girlish bath cubes I found? I used to give that brand to people for presents when I was a little girl!"}

^{"Drink your soup and shut up!" he said. "We've had enough excursions and alarms for one night. And the moment you've finished you're going to bed!"}

^{"In Olga's bed? Why can't we keep one another warm?"}

^{"You'll find this just as effective," he said, carrying a hot-water bottle from the pantry and filling it from the kettle.}

^{She watched him, grinning broadly and he realised that the sense of failure that had oppressed her an hour ago had now bounced away like every other mood she had revealed to him. He envied her resilience, thinking it must be wonderful to possess thaj kind of}

²⁶³

^{nature, almost like being reborn every hour. Then he went up to Olga's room and stripped the blankets from the bed, carrying them down and making them up on the sofa in the living-room. The arm-chair and a stool would have been comfortable but somehow he could not bring himself to put Rachel to bed in that arm-chair. The fire had burned up brightly and the room was cosy now so that when she came in from the kitchen, having accounted for two plates of soup and three cups of coffee, she cooed delight.}

^{"Martin, you're a dream husband!" she said. "No one ever made this kind of fuss of me! Are you really such a stuffy old puritan as to want to retire modestly to your cold little room upstairs?"}