Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
The rain didn’t stop. It continued through the long August day, then hammered down during the night. I put extra blankets on my bed that evening; it was as though autumn had come early, and there was a sharpness to the air. The next morning I waded to work in wellington boots, in a gap between showers, the trees waving along my little lane as the wind got up.
All morning, yellow weather warnings for storms and triangular flood warnings flashed onto my laptop screen. I did what I always did in London: turned them off. But at half past three Callum appeared at my desk, kitted out for wet weather and a kit bag slung over his shoulder. ‘The Madocs have phoned in. They need some help moving their animals and I’m heading off now. I’ll have a walkie talkie with me.’
As he spoke there was a flash of lightning and an instantaneous crash of thunder.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ I said, thinking please say no .
He grinned. ‘Nah, I’ll be fine. Log on to GPS if I’m not back in oh, six hours.’
I carried on working and we all tutted at each other about English summers, but there was something unnerving about the intensity of the wind and rain. At half four, Tally took a call from another tenant who said there was flooding. ‘They said one of the fences has washed away along with a bank at Elder Edge. The Stonemore ponies might get out,’ she said, a distinct note of panic in her voice. ‘You need to do something, Anna.’
I sat very still, trying not to panic. The Stonemore ponies had been introduced to an area of the estate before I arrived: four Exmoors, with the right to roam over a specified area. But if they got out, and panicked in the storm, God knows where they would end up.
‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ said Fi, but there was a look of worry on her face and she picked up the phone and dialled Jamie.
He was down in five minutes, in full storm gear. I felt a little jump of tension at the sight of him, but he didn’t look at me. ‘Walkie talkie?’ he said to me expressionlessly and I fetched him another handset and a set of keys for one of the Land Rovers.
‘Surely Anna can do this?’ Tally squawked. ‘I mean, it’s her job really. And you’re hardly expendable, my lord, unlike her.’
‘Er, thanks, Tally.’ I said. ‘What are you going to do, Jamie?’
‘I’ll work it out when I get there,’ he said.
I took a breath. Time to put my big-girl pants on. ‘I’ll come with you,’ I said. ‘You might need help.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Tally says it’s my job, so just let me come with you,’ I said. ‘Fi, can you keep an eye on Callum on GPS?’
‘Of course.’
Jamie hadn’t looked at me in the eye once since he’d walked in. Now he shrugged, and was gone before I’d even got my waxed jacket over my shoulders. ‘I take it that’s a yes,’ I said to Fi, who was looking after him with dismay. I put my hand on her shoulder as I passed. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Have one of those scones I made. The baby needs the extra calories. We’ll be back before you know it.’
She squeezed my hand, smiling, but the worry hadn’t faded from her eyes.
Jamie drove in silence at a speed which I didn’t think was advisable, especially when we hit a bump and my head hit the roof. It was still pouring and the sky was the colour of dishwater; as I stared at it, a vein of lightning flashed across it accompanied by a crack of thunder so loud that I had to try very hard not to squeal.
‘This weather is unbelievable,’ I said.
‘Just a bit of precipitation,’ he said, eyes fixed on the track ahead.
Thanks to some fancy off-road driving, we got to the ponies quicker than I thought possible. But the report that had come in was not correct. There were some trees down but the boundary was still secure, and the sensible Exmoor ponies were all gathered in their shelter, munching hay, so they’d clearly recently been tended to. It took us 45 minutes to check the boundaries and shamble back to our Land Rover. Our journey back started a lot slower: the rain was flying sideways, the wind was blowing in huge gusts, and the windscreen wipers could hardly deal with the intensity of the rain.
‘Is it my imagination, or is it getting worse?’ I said, watching Jamie as he hunched forwards, peering through the water-lashed windscreen.
‘Tiny bit,’ he said, under his breath.
We’d gone barely 200 metres when at a turn in the track, and to the accompaniment of a rumble of thunder, we found a huge tree down in front of us. There was another flash of lightning and an immense crack of thunder that felt as though it was reverberating through my body. I swore under my breath.
I was just regaining my composure when I noticed that Jamie was hurriedly putting the Land Rover in reverse. I looked out of the nearside window and could see nothing but rain and the lowering clouds.
‘I know another way back,’ he said. We were weaving down the hillside on narrow tracks when he braked hard and we skidded to a halt. ‘What the hell…’
‘What’s wrong?’
Finally, he actually looked at me. ‘It doesn’t normally look like this. I think there’s been,’ he cleared his throat, ‘a landslide. Just a small one, obviously, but the track is…’
‘Gone,’ I finished his sentence for him.
I did the thing I always do in grave situations. It’s annoying, but I can’t help it. I started laughing. Then there was a crash of thunder and I stopped laughing.
‘Are you alright?’ he said. ‘Anna, I think we’re going to have to get out and take shelter. I don’t know another way. My normal response would be to stay in the car but this weather…’
‘It’s fine.’ I didn’t want him to complete the sentence. I had a vivid vision of the Land Rover being taken out by a tree or a landslide and rolling down the vast hillside into oblivion. ‘Woah…’ My voice wobbled. I had opened my door. Two foot away was a sheer drop. ‘Shit shit shit.’
‘It’s alright.’ I felt his hand on my wrist, holding it. ‘Climb out this way, if you’re uncomfortable.’
I decided to throw dignity to the wind and scrambled over the seats and gear stick. He stood waiting for me. As I stood, dithering about jumping out, he put his hands to my waist and lifted me down so quickly and easily I didn’t have time to think about it, other than how absurdly comforted I felt by his closeness. ‘Okay?’ he said, as I stood staring at him in the howling wind and rain.
‘Fine,’ I managed.
‘Don’t worry. There’s a bothy a little way from here.’
‘A bothy?’ I echoed him stupidly.
He was opening the back of the Land Rover and pulling out its emergency kit bag. ‘Here, you can carry the axe.’
‘That sentence has never been said to me in my life,’ I said, but received it and followed as he strode into the woods.
The forest didn’t seem a great place to be in the middle of a storm so I hurried to keep up with him. The rain dashed into my face and branches swung violently. Everything felt muffled, and the air smelt clear and pure, but electric. Jamie loped ahead with his bloody tallness and long legs. I concentrated on not tripping over. Being clumsy whilst carrying an axe wasn’t a great idea.
We emerged from the strip of woodland and came to a small patch of land surrounded by grey stone walls on three sides. The bothy was built of stone, and had a corrugated iron roof. Its green front door shone out, calling us in from the storm.
‘Drovers would have stopped here way back when,’ called Jamie to me. I followed him through the unlocked green door.
Never have I been more glad to be inside. As soon as he shut the door, I felt relief burst over me, and a telltale throb of a headache. The rain drummed madly on the tin roof. Jamie tried the walkie talkie but it released nothing but a burst of static.
‘I thought it was meant to be long range,’ I said. He shrugged and shook his head.
It was just one room: bare stone walls, the woodburner in the fireplace on one side, a small stack of wood on the other. He was already on his knees, unpacking the kit bag. ‘Anyone who stops here has to restock the wood before leaving,’ he explained. ‘I’m going to build a fire. We need to dry off.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’ I said.
‘Check the bars on your phone near the window,’ he said, taking his phone out and looking at it. ‘Mine hasn’t got any reception.’
I checked mine too – nothing.
‘I’ll send a text. Then if I do get any reception, it’ll go,’ I said.
He nodded, removing some chipped logs from the small store near the far window. ‘Yes please. Send it to Callum and to Fi, tell them we had an issue and that we’re at the Dalawick bothy. If conditions improve and it’s still daylight, we’ll hike down.’
Hike? I thought but didn’t say. ‘And what if they don’t?’ I asked.
He paused in the midst of fire preparation. ‘If they don’t, we’ll stay the night.’ He looked at me. ‘And if you could take the look of horror off your face, that would be helpful.’
I opened my mouth to say it wasn’t quite horror that I was feeling, then closed it again. In fact, I was horrified, but only because the idea of spending the whole night with Jamie, on my own, had unlocked a cacophony of feelings in me which I didn’t want to look at too closely.
Jamie continued his prep. ‘There’s no sign of it stopping out there,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to put us at risk – or anyone else, trying to get us. We’ll be fine. You might remember, every kit has chocolate,’ he waved a family-sized bar at me, ‘and…’ He went over to the far corner and wobbled a section of floorboard with his foot, before lifting it with his hands. It was a big bottle – he cradled it tenderly. ‘We have whisky. Single malt. The Macallan. Good stuff.’ He gave me the slightest of smiles, almost as though he was smiling against his will. ‘Truce, Anna?’ he said. ‘I’ll try not to get on your nerves this evening.’
‘You don’t get on my nerves,’ I said, in a hollow voice. But he did. I was swiftly coming to the realisation that he got on every nerve, but not in the way he thought.
He returned to the fire box, lit a bit of paper with a match from a box in his bag, and the fire gradually began to take. Then he took out a fluffy tartan blanket. ‘Take your wet gear off,’ he said, then at the look on my face, ‘your outer clothes. I’m assuming your coat protected you from the worst. Wrap up in this, get near the fire. I’m going to get some water from the brook.’
I did as I was told. As I sat watching the flames, I hugged myself and tried to still the thoughts that were racing across my mind.
I do not want him , I told myself. I do not want Jamie . The storm had shaken me up and I’d temporarily taken leave of my senses, that was all.
He came back with a jerry can of water. ‘My grandfather used to bring me up here,’ he said, offering me water with a dash of the whisky and a few squares of chocolate. ‘He’s the one who started the tradition of leaving a good whisky here. You never know, you might enjoy this – it’s just like camping.’
‘Nooo.’ I was sucking the chocolate as unobtrusively as I could. ‘I hate camping.’
He laughed and I blinked at the unexpectedness richness of the sound. ‘I forgot, you’re a city girl. Warmer?’
I nodded. I wished Hugo was here – he would have given us something to focus on. After five minutes of sitting watching the flames, I couldn’t ignore something. ‘Jamie,’ I said. ‘Is there a loo?’
‘There’s a shovel by the back door,’ he said, without missing a beat. ‘Don’t go too near the brook. And be as quick as you can. I don’t want to have to come looking for you.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Don’t have all the whisky. I’ll want some when I get back.’