by ToClark
Chapter 2
Black Monday.
The Footsie 100 had plummeted to just over 3500 by lunchtime in a morning of near-complete panic in the stock exchange. After bottoming out by early afternoon things became very quiet other than a ‘Dead Cat Bounce’ of 50 or so points bringing it back to 3645 at the close.
“Worse than when the ‘Dot Com’ bubble burst” cried headlines, even the normally conservative Financial Times.
“Storm in the old teapot” declared William. All be back to normal by the end of the week, you mark my words!”
Annette found her father’s solid, middle class conservatively staunch belief in the status quo to be greatly comforting. Her mother’s ability to produce a hot and delicious roast dinner come what may and regardless of the seasons or the time of year also did much to lift her spirits, not that she really had any reason for them to be otherwise. Only this morning she had suddenly felt unexpectedly low and as Alexander had gone off to his so-called place of work she had left him a note perched on top of his Ipad and gone home to her parents for the day.
Food supplies were beginning to reappear in the shops by Tuesday morning although the ‘big Four’ supermarkets were applying an ad-hoc rationing policy. Restaurants were cautiously reopening with typically restricted menus. Petrol stations remained closed and the roads were refreshingly traffic free and accompanied by a bit of a bicycling renaissance. In London you couldn’t get hold of a ‘Boris Bike’ unless you hung around waiting for one to be dropped off at one of the pickup points. Mostly it was easier to walk!
Sporadic rioting still plagued the nights and a cowed population obeyed the dusk-til-dawn curfew and stayed indoors while battles between a confusion of disjointed and impromptu rent-a-crowd gangs made life wearing for the forces of law and order.
Nonetheless, the State of Emergency was withdrawn at midnight on Thursday. It looked as though William’s words were proving to be correct.
It was effectively all over by the weekend.
All those who were old enough to remember it said that the hurricane was much worse than the one in southern England in 1987 that uprooted five million trees. It was actually classed as bordering on Category 4.
The footsie 100 dropped by 277 points but had substantially recovered from the aftermath to reach 4009 by Friday’s Close. In the meantime it had been Harry’s misfortune to be driving South again after yet another marketing conference and road closures meant he had to hole up in a Holiday Inn near Cambridge. He was there by 6.30pm and felt as though he was almost being blown over just walking in from the car park. It was destined to be a noisy and rather alarming night although Harry found it sneakily appealing to an anarchistic streak in his personality that he didn’t actually know he possessed.
In the bar he joined in with a little gaggle of similarly displaced refugees from the elements and found the company to be tolerable, if not particularly stimulating. They had run out of topics besides the weather quite early on so he had excused himself to take a quick wash and change into his ‘drinking trousers’ before heading into the restaurant.
Where he met Bessie. There were few people present and he was the only person occupying a table on his own as she came in. She briefly looked around before pausing opposite him with her hand on the facing chair and gave him a smile as a means of introduction. “Do you mind if I join you?”
Harry grinned and nodded his head, pleased at this sudden change in his circumstances.
“Of course! Can I get you a drink. Share a bottle of Red?”
“Why, yes, thank you.” She had a melodious voice. She was also, to his rather astonished delight, immediately and extremely attractive.
“But how about an aperitif first?”
She looked directly into his eyes and her smile widened.
“I’d love a G&T”
“Let me” he said. “Meanwhile, I’m going to have the rump steak, medium rare, of course. Can you decide and I’ll order for us while I’m at the bar.”
The empathy between them was immediate. “Yes, that’ll do fine. With chips and peas.”
“The pleasure is mine!”
Returning with a glass in each hand he said “about ten minutes. I took the liberty of getting doubles. The firm’s picking up the tab” he added with a knowing wink.
She raised her glass, squinted through the stream of rising bubbles, saluted him. “Bessie!”
“Harry”
They clinked glasses. She had big, brown open, frank and enticing eyes.
His were twinkling roguishly, a sparkling blue, also frankly enticing and inviting.
“I’ll get another, he said. Same again?”
This time, as he returned, he looked directly into those beguiling eyes, handed her the glass “I’m married, two children, one of each.”
She wasn’t smiling any more.
“Happily?”
“We rub along. Familiarity breeding content. She does the housework and the cooking. I earn the money and mow the lawn.”
“You didn’t really mean ‘content’ did you?”
He frowned, paused then took a swig at his G&T. “Yes, I think I do up to a point but right now I’m here and she’s there.”
“At home?”
“Yes. I don’t think she would mind what I do” he added. “As long as she didn’t know. You?”
“Recent divorcee. Forty-ish. Children both grown up, daughter’s just gone off to Uni. Professional woman. A bit lonely at times. Used to have a gsoh.”
“I’m sorry” he said.
“Don’t be – he was a pig! I was only 21 when we were married. I was pregnant, you see.” She pulled a wry face. “Glad to be free of him at last.”
“And life begins at forty!”
“Well, forty-ish anyway.”
The evening advanced rapidly. By 9.30 they were in bed together. By midnight they were asleep, relaxed in their mutual release, the hurricane outside blowing itself into oblivion, its destructive passage eventually dissipating somewhere over the Irish Sea.
Behind it several billion pounds-worth of damage left power lines down, roads blocked with fallen trees, roofs stripped from houses and several days of clearing up to be done before the infrastructure could be said to be anything approaching normal.
Bessie and Harry finally parted on Sunday morning with a future social calendar pencilled in that would mean he would be going to even more marketing conferences.
‘It was’ as he said to himself as he finally set off in the direction of home ‘an ill wind that blows nobody any good!’
While England was clearing up after the hurricane, Annette was two weeks overdue, had swollen, tender breasts and was throwing up most mornings. She wondered how Alexander was going to react and she found herself afraid to tell him. A wonderful lover and delightful fun as a social companion but she was beginning to realise that these qualities gave her no idea how he might respond to the responsibilities of fatherhood. His boyish charms overlay a degree of immaturity that now were worrying her.
She decided to wait for a while before saying anything. It was, after all very early days.
The second severe storm, though not quite classified as a hurricane meted out further destruction, again bringing down trees and power lines but carried a more worrying aspect because there was no accompanying rain to speak of. Most of Epping Forest was set alight as burning brands from an initial fire rapidly scattered through the dried out woodland, overstressing the Essex Fire and Rescue Service to the point where they had to pull back and protect surrounding property as firestorm conditions raged.
The smell of burning permeated as far as central London, an ominous precursor to a week of high, dry and scorching winds in which woodland and forested areas all over England and especially Wales suffered devastating infernos. The first properties were destroyed and lives put in danger with a number of lucky escapes but happily no fatalities. A ripening grain harvest, expected to produce a bumper crop
, also suffered as fires swept across the fields.
By the time it was over much of Britain’s grain including around an anticipated 3.2 million tonnes intended for export had been destroyed. Importing grain was going to prove expensive and difficult to source from other overstretched suppliers. And worse was to come.