Relief flooded through Nancy’s system, as she turned round to look at the boat, where Bill and Ernie were still patiently securing extra warps and springers, making sure nothing was going to damage her.
Nothing?
“Holy Mary Mother of God,” said the Irishman standing beside her. People crowded against them, rubbing misted breath from the glass to see better, staring in horror at the huge wave coming up the river.
“Just like a bore,” said someone who had obviously seen one of the rivers in Europe acting like a funnel for the rising tide. “What the French call the Mascaret.”
Nancy abandoned the children and ran outside. “Bill!” she screamed, her voice dissipating on the wind. “Ernie! Come ashore! Hurry!”
The men, and all the others still tending their craft, had seen what was coming, and scrambled on to the pier. Ernie slipped and fell, and Bill turned back to help him. Then the tidal bore struck. It was already carrying, high on its 15-foot crest, an assortment of shattered boats and pieces of driftwood and various flotsams. Now it smashed through the pier and the moored boats like an axe through pastry, sweeping them on up the river, a foaming maelstrom of destruction, boats, animals, shore side houses… and men. The last Nancy saw of Bill and Ernie was them clinging desperately to pieces of the destroyed pier as they were carried out of sight. She looked up at the heavens to scream her agony and grief… and found herself looking at blue sky.
National American Broadcasting Service Offices, Fifth Avenue — 3.00 pm
The lights in the NABS building had flickered several times before finally going out. By then Richard, to whom everyone left in the building had instinctively turned for leadership, had had the emergency generator started, and he had also assembled all the staff in the main studios, which had no external windows and was by far the safest place to be; all broadcasting had naturally ceased — if they still had the power to put out, they knew no one in the city still had the power to receive. They were all suffering from at least shock. In addition to Julian, several people had been badly hurt either by flying glass as more and more windows had shattered, or by falling down stairs when caught by sudden gusts of wind rampaging through the building. These had been treated and sedated as far as possible. But the building itself was a wreck; nearly all the windows had been blown in or sucked out, and the resulting damage to offices was shattering; that the roof had remained on was due not only to the strength of its construction but to the prompt closing of every possible door. Those doors were in fact failing, one by one, but slowly, and Richard had some hope they might just last the storm; he knew they had to be approaching the eye.
The principal horror was Julian’s body, lying beneath a sheet on the studio floor, with the room around him packed with frightened people — even if the generator kept the air-conditioning going. The Mayor had said, justifiably enough, that the most acute danger was that of drowning, that those in buildings situated more than fifty feet above water level would be physically safe, whatever damage their dwellings or offices might have to suffer. Julian had been in such a building, and the storm had not even reached its height when he died. If only they had evacuated the offices a few minutes earlier — but not even Richard had envisaged such a tragedy.
The thought of that happening to Jo was unbearable. He had tried to reach her by phone several times, but without success; now the phones were all dead. Then, once he could no longer fulfill his role as a weatherman he had thought of attempting to get to her… it was only a few blocks. But he had known that no one could survive, much less move on those streets. So he had waited, and now… others had heard it too. Heads began to raise as a huge, deathly stillness overtook the afternoon; the sudden cessation of the almost intolerable racket with which they had existed for so long was stunning. People stared at each other in bewilderment, and when they spoke, they shouted, as they had had to do all morning, and then hastily dropped their voices to whispers. But they were euphoric whispers; could the catastrophe be over?
“Not quite,” Richard told them. “This is the eye of the storm. It was travelling so quickly last time we had an update that it’s not likely to last more than half an hour at the outside. Then the wind is going to blow again, just as hard as before, only from the other direction, west, instead of east. But we’re winning. We know the storm is passing through; things can only get better from here on. And with the wind in the west that water level is going to get pushed back down to normal pretty rapidly. So just sit tight for another few hours, and we’ll all be able to leave.”
Reassured, they were chatting now. Richard went over to Jayme, who sat on the floor staring into space; Julian had been a special friend. “Listen,” he said in her ear. “I’m leaving now. If anyone wants to know where I’ve gone, tell them I’m trying to find out what’s happening out there, and that I’ll be back. But keep convincing them they’re better off here than anywhere else, at least until the wind has dropped.”
For a moment she just looked at him, eyes blank. Then her head jerked. “Going out? Where?”
“I must get to Mrs Donnelly. She’s alone in her apartment with her children… God knows what they must have gone through.”
“Mrs Donnelly…” she blinked at him, then gave a faint smile. “You and her? Well, what do you know. But you can’t go outside. When the storm comes back you’ll be killed.”
“I reckon I have time to make it, just. I have to go, Jayme. So, see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” Her eyes were wide. That wasn’t a thinkable thought.
Richard let himself out of one of the doors leading into a side corridor. The utter silence of the building outside the studio was uncanny. He didn’t want to chance the elevators just in case the generator failed or the mechanism had been damaged, instead took the stone stairs, hurrying down, panting less with exertion than apprehension.
At the bottom the street doors were closed, but he leaned on the bar and stepped out, blinking in the sudden bright daylight, looking up at the blue sky above him, and then gasping at the destruction to either side. It was some hours since the breaking of the office window, and he had not looked out since. Now he gazed at automobiles tumbled one on top of the other, trees down in every direction; broken glass crackled beneath his shoes, water flowed everywhere — if the area was above any possible flooding from the sea, it had certainly been flooded by the fantastically heavy rainfall which had been unable to run off through the waterlogged sewers.
He hurried along the avenue, meaning to turn to the right when he got to 48th Street, picking his way through the debris, listening to sounds of returning life, windows being thrown open, people calling to each other… he hoped they knew that this respite was only going to be of the most temporary kind. But he could no longer help anyone, nor did he want to help anyone, save Jo. His mind was clouded with fear — 48th Street was only just on the 50-foot mark, and although he was certain that no sea could really have reached it, he could not stop his imagination doing its worst.
He was still several blocks short when the daylight faded, and he looked up in time to be blinded by a vivid flash of lightning, accompanied simultaneously by an ear-splitting clap of thunder. The blue sky had disappeared, and instead the black clouds were back, and with them, sudden teeming rain and the enormous roaring of the hurricane wind.
Richard knew he had to reach the nearest street, where he reckoned he would obtain a lee. But crossing the intersection was going to be no easy task as the wind picked him up and sent him sprawling. He made no attempt to rise, clung to the sidewalk and began to inch his way to a pile-up of automobiles on the corner, only to be caught by another gust and sent rolling, splashing through the water running out of the gutters. He came to rest against an uprooted tree, held on to it, and worked his way once again towards the hopeful shelter of the automobiles. These were shuddering and threatening to break loose from each other with every gust, but for the most part were so tightly crushed together they acted as a windbreak, although even
as he inched his way along beside them one was picked up and hurled over his head, to land some fifty feet farther down the avenue, and the whole pile threatened to disintegrate on top of him.
He got up and made a dash for the street, and was thrown down again, battered and bruised, against a bent railing which had once surrounded a trashcan. He lay there, watching water bubbling out of a sewer hole only inches from his face. It would be damned silly to lie there and drown on Fifth Avenue, he thought, pushed himself up, and once again fought his way forward.
Park Avenue — 3.30 pm
“What’s in that box, Mom?” Owen Michael asked, indicating the heap dumped in the shower stall, topped by an old cardboard box.
“Photos, waiting to be fixed in those albums.”
“Can we see well enough in this light to do them?” The power had been gone some while and they were trying to economize, using only one candle.
“Let’s try.” It would help occupy their minds, an alternative to racking her brain to invent children’s stories: no drama could compete with the current destruction of their city.
Together they knelt on the bathroom rug and set the photos out in neat piles.
“That’s an awful one of you skiing, Mom.” Tamsin held up a shot of Jo slithering down a slope, a flurry of skis and snow in the air.
“What about this one of you and Owen Michael under water, last year?”
Owen Michael grabbed it. “Heck, I don’t recall that. What camera were you using?”
Every few moments they held their breaths, listening, mentally and physically shaken, even shut away in their inner sanctum.
The sudden silence took them completely by surprise. “Holy shit!” Owen Michael exclaimed. “What’s happening?”
“It’s the eye,” Tamsin said, trying to control the quivering of her lower lip. “We had it in Eleuthera.”
“You mean it’s done? It’s over?” Owen Michael shouted, scrambling to his feet.
“No, it’s not done,” Jo told him. “Don’t open the door.”
“It’ll start again,” Tamsin said, her voice containing a sob as she remembered that terrible night. “Worse than before.”
“But…” Owen Michael looked from her to his mother. “It must mean something good.”
“Sure it does. It means we’re halfway through,” Jo told him. “That has to be good. Now sit down and relax.”
Reluctantly Owen Michael sat down again. “Do you reckon Marcia and Benny will have been flooded out?” he asked. “Greenwich Village isn’t 50 feet above sea level, is it?”
“No. They may have been flooded. But they’ll have left town. I think they must have gone away yesterday.” Jo didn’t want to think about Marcia and Benny. They had to be safe. Surely.
“What about the cottage?” Tamsin’s face was screwed up with worry, looking for all the world like a little old lady.
Jo put an arm round her. “That’ll be all right. It’s completely shuttered up and, anyway, Bognor is twenty miles from the sea. And on a hill. No problem there.”
“But they’ll have a lot of wind,” Owen Michael went on, pessimistically. “What if a tree falls and smashes through the roof?”
Jo gave him a warning frown over Tamsin’s head; the poor child was quite upset enough. “I’m sure…” she began, then checked, listening.
“That was a knock on the door,” he said. “I know it was.”
“There it is again,” Tamsin said. “There’s someone there, wanting to come in.”
Jo leapt to her feet. Richard! He’d come during the eye. Thank God he was safe. But she hadn’t told the children he might be joining them, so she said, “I’ll see who it is.”
“Are you sure it’s safe, Mom?” Owen Michael cautioned.
“I’ll be careful. But listen, you bolt the door behind me, just in case the wind gets up before I’m back.”
“Mom…” he said uneasily, but she had already opened the bathroom door and stepped into the corridor.
Everything was amazingly quiet. “Bolt it now,” she called through the door as she closed it behind her. As soon as she heard the bolt slip into place she hurried eagerly across the lounge. It was such a relief to know Richard was here; she couldn’t wait to hold him in her arms.
And he was only just in time. The lounge had seemed startlingly bright compared with the enclosed bathroom, but before she could reach the main door the room was darkening and there was a flash of lightning which made her gasp, while immediately huge drops of rain began slashing at the window again.
“Richard!” she shouted, running into the lobby to release the bolts, pull the chain free and swing open the heavy, security door… to gasp in horror. It wasn’t Richard. It was Stuart Alloan. And another man.
“Hi, there,” Alloan said with a sneer. “My lucky day. I was afraid you might’ve gotten away.”
The wind had returned, whistling up the stairwell and into the apartment. Breathless with shock, Jo staggered back against the lobby wall, held there, momentarily, by the force of the sudden gust. If only she’d had time to slam the door in their faces… but they had been blown into the lobby with her.
“Let’s get this goddamned door closed,” the second man shouted, and it took the strength of both men to swing it back on to the latch.
It gave Jo a few moments in which to recover her breath… and her senses. She could see at a glance that this new man, small and dark with a vicious curl to his lip, would probably prove to be as evil as Alloan. Her legs felt weak, but she had to keep her head. “What do you want?” she asked, trying to sound calm, praying that the children would remain locked in the bathroom, no matter what happened out here.
“That depends what you have, sister,” Garcia leered at her before staring about him, mentally assessing her material as well as her physical worth.
Alloan stared at her, unsmiling. “We want you, for a start,” he said. “I owe you plenty, remember?”
Jo licked her lips and looked right and left. But now she was helpless; even the statuette was out of reach. And anyway, there were two of them this time.
“I’m gonna fuck the ass off you, you bitch,” Alloan continued. “And I promise you, it won’t be an act of love. I been dreaming of fucking you, ever since last time I was here and you turned nasty on me. You feel like fucking her, too, Domingo?”
“Sure,” his friend replied from the lounge. “But I feel like a drink, more. Bring her in here.”
Alloan advanced on Jo.
“All right,” she said, trying to reject the blind panic clawing at her brain. She was about to be raped, twice, by these men. But she could stand that if it would save the children. As for what Alloan meant to do to her afterwards…
He caught her as she went through the door, slid his arms round her waist, began to squeeze and fondle her breasts. She wanted to kick him but didn’t dare, watched Domingo at the bar, pouring himself neat whisky, draining the glass in two gulps. “Christ,” he said, “I needed that.” He turned, “You got food, sugar?”
“Yes,” Jo nodded. Anything to keep them busy. “Let go of me.” She tried to shake off Alloan. “Let me go.”
His fingers scraped across her flesh, but he released her.
“It’ll have to be cold,” she told them. “There’s no power.”
“So it’ll be cold; just get it,” Garcia said, sitting down. “You watch her.”
Jo went into the kitchen, Alloan at her shoulder. She opened the icebox, and he began to touch her again, at her waist now, playing with her belt. “Let’s get these pants off,” he said. “I want to look at your ass. I remember it, you know. The sweetest little ass in town.”
“Leave me alone,” she muttered, taking out ham and tomatoes and lettuce, opened the kitchen drawer to find a knife, and had her wrists seized.
“Forget it, baby,” he said. “I know you. We’ll eat with our fingers. You got bread?”
“In that bin. If you’ll let me go…”
Still holding her wris
t, Alloan opened the bin and took out a loaf of bread. “Take the plates,” he said.
She took both plates into the lounge, and Garcia grabbed one and started cramming food into his mouth. “Christ!” he said. “I was hungry. And hell, we only just made it, kid. Listen to that.”
The wind seemed even louder because now it was blowing directly at the building instead of coming from behind.
“Yeah.” Alloan grinned, and finished eating. “But I told you we’d be snug here, Domingo. Right?”
“Right.” Garcia stretched. “That feels better. Now what d’you say we play with the dame a little.”
“Yeah,” Alloan said. “Yeah.”
Jo had stood between them, trying to make up her mind what to do, hoping that maybe they would fall asleep after their meal — they certainly looked sufficiently beat up, with their wet clothes torn and disheveled, to need sleep. She was taken by surprise when Alloan threw his arms round her waist and stretched her across his knees on the settee. She cried out and struck at him, and he laughed and caught her wrists. “She’s a fighter,” he said.
“I like them best. You hold her arms.” Garcia got up.
Jo strained and twisted, but Alloan merely moved from beneath her and then knelt, one hand on each wrist, pinning her to the settee. Her legs flopped away from it, and she kicked at Garcia, but he laughed and knelt beside her to unfasten her belt. “Let’s see what you got in there,” he said, and then jerked his head. “Holy shit!”
The outer door had burst open before the force of the wind, and as the lobby door had been left ajar, an almost solid mass of air rushed into the apartment. Jo heard a tremendous crack from behind her and knew that the picture window had at last gone. She also knew what was going to happen next, instinctively.
Her Name Will Be Faith Page 38