Chapter Seventy-Nine
Seventy-Nine
Atmosphere
The next day, I do nothing except work through my duties in the binder, and when they’re done, and 5 p.m. comes, I doom-scroll on my phone and crunch my way through two packs of breadsticks, only just avoiding the temptation to get out the vodka.
I fall asleep on the sofa without even getting undressed, but when I wake up a couple of hours later, close to midnight, I don’t even have to look outside to know what’s happening. The ocean is roaring and hitting the cliffs with such ferocity – even on this more sheltered side of the island – that the house rumbles.
My glass of water is trembling. There are ripples on the surface every time a new wave booms against the rocks. Panicking, I look for Nemo and see him curled up in his cave bed, on his back, hind paws in the air. I’ll make sure he has enough kitty litter, food and water, so that he has no need to go outside tonight.
I look for Ted but can’t see him anywhere. He’s not in the garden either. I search every corner, struggling to stand in the gusts, and retrieve Buttercup from her shelter to bring her inside, turning on the way to stare at the sea, which looks terrifying, an angry mass of swirling whitewater.
Caleb appears in his garden, standing silhouetted in the storm light, his face tight with anxiety and Ted in his arms. He takes off his beanie, and both he and Ted have wild hair standing on end. Ted looks as if he’s been aggressively backcombed.
‘You let Ted out in this weather?’ he asks. ‘I just found him on my patio.’
‘He must have gone through the cat flap and into the garden for a pee, then gone looking for you. It’s not like he can use a litter tray,’ I say.
He steps into my porch and places Ted gently on the ground.
He unzips his jacket, revealing a sweatshirt that says AHOY THERE, SAILOR.
‘The sea is awful. I hope nobody’s down on the beach,’ I say.
‘Why would anyone go onto the beach in this?’ he asks, as we follow Ted into the living room.
‘I don’t know. Probably to get photos.’
People love a good photo of a stormy sea; who cares if there are freak waves that could crash in at any moment and kill you? Even watching for a few moments by the light of the moon, I’ve seen absolute monsters swallow the entire beach, and it’s not even high tide.
‘People aren’t idiots, Lindy. I can barely stand up out there, the wind is so strong.’
‘Was this forecast?’
I’m subscribed to the BBC weather updates on YouTube, but it’s been a while since I looked at that app – my mouth is still full of broken glass from Max and Greta’s engagement video.
‘It was supposed to go north and hit Scotland, but the jet stream pushed it down. Loor and the whole of Cornwall are going to bear the brunt of it.’
‘When will it pass?’ I say.
‘There’s a red weather warning for all of tonight and most of tomorrow.’
‘Red?’
Yellow would be bad enough.
‘Red, yes,’ he says. ‘Something about a sting jet. They’re even talking about tornados.’
I walk to the circle window. It’s hard to see outside because salt has coated the windowpane and given the view a frosted, blurry aspect, but if I stand on tiptoes, the top part of the window is a little clearer. I can see that there’s foaming whitewater in the entire bay. Waves are breaking so far out, past the lighthouse rock, where all the rare seabirds breed in their hundreds of thousands – one and all sheltering now. No birds are in the sky at all, the seals have hauled out and I can see their dark bodies haphazardly piled on the farthest edge of the beach, at the foot of the sand dunes. I’ve never seen them there before. Even at night, there are usually at least a few people around, either walking unfriendly dogs, stargazing, or taking a stumbling meander back from the pub, but nobody is out in this weather. Everyone has thought better of it. Except Caleb, it seems, who brought Ted back to me.
‘What did it look like from your house?’ I ask.
‘Insane. The noise of the wind is like nothing I’ve ever heard before and my ears are frozen, even though I was wearing my beanie and had my hood up. This is not the summer weather I was hoping for. It’s going to hit hurricane speeds.’
‘Great,’ I say. ‘I did read that Loor has had some of the most extreme weather ever recorded in the UK.’
He nods his head. ‘The tourism people like to go on about the clear skies stuff, about how it’s the best place in the country for stargazing, but funnily enough, there’s nothing on the webpage about hurricanes.’
I pace to the kitchen window, but the salt-coating is worse there and I can see even less.
‘Are we safe on this cliff, do you think?’ I ask.
At that moment, we both hear a low rumble of thunder, and the lights flicker.
‘Oh, fantastic,’ he says.
‘You’re not afraid of storms, are you?’
‘I’m afraid of the electricity going out and us freezing to death,’ he says, gruffly.
I think for a moment of something a pervy boyfriend told me years ago. That if two people get in a sleeping bag naked, they generate significantly more body heat than they would individually. That if the two people find each other attractive, it’s an additional 5 per cent on top. I always wondered if that was bullshit, but I could never bring myself to look it up.
The lights go out and we’re plunged into darkness.
‘Fuuuck,’ Caleb says.
‘Do you happen to have any candles in your place?’ I ask, feeling my heart race. I haven’t seen a single one here, nor did I have the sense to buy any, in case of power cuts.
‘Maybe. Somewhere.’
‘Do you have a lighter on you?’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t smoke, and I forgot to bring my fire-lighting kit with me.’
There’s an awkward silence, where I wait to see whether he’ll try to do something. When he doesn’t, I stand up and grope my way to the kitchen. My phone is in my handbag somewhere, but I don’t know where I’ve left it.
I’m feeling my way into the cupboards behind the sticky kitchen cabinets when I feel a hand on my arm and there’s a jolt. His hand recoils, as if he’s felt the same thing.
It’s not chemistry, it’s just static electricity, built up from the atmospheric conditions of the storm and the rubber soles of our trainers.
‘What now?’ he says.
‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘I think there’s a tealight on one of the windowsills. We just need matches.’
I feel my way across to a drawer full of utensils and clasp my fingers around a small cardboard box that rattles when I shake it.
‘Here,’ I say, striking a match and letting it burn out.
The light catches his face. His eyes are serious. Worried.
He takes the box of matches and exhales, as if trying to calm himself.
‘What’s wrong?’ I say.
‘Bad memories,’ he replies, as the lightning flashes again.
‘I can’t find the tealight,’ I say. ‘It’s not on the windowsill.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘Should we go up to the chapel?’ I say, suddenly. ‘Churches always stand during storms and earthquakes, don’t they?’
‘Speaking for myself,’ he says, clearing his throat, ‘I’m going to be retreating to the pub. The Merry Maid has a generator.’
‘It’s midnight,’ I point out.
‘I guarantee you it’ll be open,’ he says. ‘And what’s more, I’ll bet you any money that Goodithea, Radigon and my nan are already in there hitting the sherry.’
‘All right, let’s join them,’ I say. ‘Come on, Ted.’
I watch as Caleb zips Ted into his big, waterproof coat, leaving his little head out at the top. Ted seems to be enjoying this development, given he’s licking Caleb’s neck profusely.
‘Are you bringing Nemo?’ Caleb asks. ‘I assume Buttercup and the snakes will be safe in their enclosures?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, eyeing Nemo, asleep in his bed. ‘He’ll be all right here, won’t he? I don’t think he’ll much like the pub. All those strangers, and everyone’s probably going to be bringing their dogs. He’s only just learned to tolerate Ted.’
‘Leave him here, then,’ he says.
‘You don’t think the house will blow off the cliff, do you?’
‘No,’ he says, seriously. ‘It’s been here for decades. It’ll be fine.’
He unlocks the cat flap that Betty insisted we put in when she heard about Nemo’s newfound appreciation of the outside world – which she convinced Frank and Steve to permit – and it immediately begins whipping back and forth, with a rhythmic knocking noise.
‘Why are you doing that?’ I say. ‘I don’t want him to go out in this.’
‘Nemo’s got too much sense to go out in this weather, unless it’s a complete emergency,’ Caleb says. ‘But just in case it is an emergency – say, for instance, in the extremely unlikely event that the house does start to slide off the cliff – we’ll leave the cat flap unlocked so he has an escape route.’
‘Okay,’ I say, catching the faint scent of his sweat and feeling as if my whole world is about to slide off a cliff.