The Night of the Flood

by Zoe Somerville

  Jack didn’t slow down. Was he doing it deliberately? Arthur remembered his face in the door of the hall. What was Jack trying to prove? He didn’t want to frighten Arthur. He wanted to damage, to hurt, to maim him.

  On an empty lane, heading west, Arthur saw the Hall up ahead, sick with relief. He wanted to get off the bike alive. Jack wanted him dead.

  Without warning, Jack swerved violently to the right. In the thin headlight beam a flash of movement and colour. Something orange flew across the road. The bike skidded, out of control, along the lane. There was no time to do anything. He braced himself to hit the ground, still clinging on tightly to Jack as if they would go down together. But at the last moment, he let go and fell alone, spinning, into darkness.

  *

  The clock said eleven forty-five. Something must have gone wrong. ‘Just a short spin,’ she’d heard Jack say to her brother, but they had been gone longer than that, too long, now. She picked at a pork pie and sipped her ginger beer, gazing at the door, willing them to return. The hip flask was empty and she was thinking how she would very much like another dose of her brother’s whisky, when Peter himself streaked out of the room.

  ‘Peter, what is it?’ she called, running after him.

  ‘Fellow told me there’s been an accident.’

  They ran together out onto the driveway. It was dark now and a steady drizzle fell. The driveway made a tunnel of darkness. The hanging lights looked forlorn without the chattering couples illuminated beneath. From inside the Hall came the low, slow hum of the final tunes of the night.

  ‘What did he say?’ She looked around her as if the empty scene could give her some answers.

  Peter peered at her quizzically. She must sound desperate. ‘Just that someone’s been hurt. Two chaps, out on the road. Bad crash, apparently.’

  ‘One of them or two of them?’ She tried to make herself sound calm. One, Peter thought, but he didn’t know which one. The man who found them, out for an evening drive in his recently purchased motorcar, was in the Hall now, making a telephone call. Someone else from the dance had run out to the scene of the crash. He was bringing them back, Peter said. There was nothing they could do. She had an image of a bloodied head and a broken, limping body. It alternated between the two of them. One of them. It was only one. It shouldn’t matter which one it was. Yet she knew with a nauseous inevitability that she ought to be concerned about Arthur. She had been kissing him just a few hours ago! But the face of the injured man in her head would not rest on Arthur. It kept turning into the bright-haired American.

  ‘God, will you stop pacing up and down, you’re making me nervous,’ said Peter.

  ‘Shut up, Peter.’ She lit a cigarette, hesitated, then offered one to her brother.

  ‘Did you get these from Jack?’ he said accusingly.

  ‘I might have done. What do you care?’

  His long body visibly bristled and she saw a flash of pain on his face. He did care. She scrambled in her head for something to say but nothing materialised. Then from the end of the driveway tunnel came the noise of feet on the gravel.

  From the gloom, two men appeared on the drive. They were holding up another man, hanging down between them like the carcass of an animal. His hair hung limp, orange-red in the yellow pools of light. Blood dripped onto the gravel in neat red dots.

  She must have called out his name because Peter grabbed hold of her. He held on fast and she remembered almost tipping forward but she didn’t hear herself saying anything. One of the men carrying the body looked up. It was Arthur. She caught his eyes and there was anger and hurt in them. She saw immediately what she had done, in her thoughtless, idiotic way. A gust of rain blew across her face, clearing her head, and she knew she mustn’t act like a fool. She broke from Peter’s grasp and ran to Arthur and held onto his arm.

  ‘What happened? Are you all right?’ she garbled at him, more words tumbling out.

  ‘Crash – he swerved – bike’s in a ditch. Jack needs an ambulance.’

  ‘Other fellow’s already called. It’s on its way. Let’s get him inside,’ Peter was saying. Thank God he was there to take charge. He didn’t seem drunk any more.

  Jack lifted his head, bloodied and streaked with dirt. She heard her own intake of breath. He looked up at her, his eyes shining and with a twisted smile on his gouged, red-streaked face.

  A scattering of dancers were drawn to the scene. Peter, Arthur and a group of other men made their way through the throng and laid out the invalid on the floor of the hallway. Through the open door to the ballroom, the band was still playing and shadow couples were swaying, unaware of the commotion outside. Verity stayed with the group in the hallway, unable to leave the scene. Muriel was there too: she’d appeared with the others and barged through and started bossing them around. Verity could do nothing. She was torn with anger at Jack for his arrogance and at Arthur for letting him do it. But most of all, at herself, for shouting out the damned American’s name. Why did she do that?

  Arthur was bruised and cut, and his clothes torn but he was walking at least. He sat on a chair someone fetched for him and took a cigarette with trembling hands. Someone else brought him a drink of water. Jack, on the other hand, had clearly broken something. He was propped up against the gold-leafed vine-patterned wallpaper of the hallway. There were trickling lines of blood from his face down his neck, and onto the blue collar of his uniform. He submitted cheerfully to Muriel’s ministrations while the rest of them looked on uselessly. Muriel wiped Jack’s face gently with a cloth and picked out gravel from his cheeks and Verity hated the busy, confident hand that touched his face. She knew she should go and sit with Arthur. It was the right thing to do. It should have been her who fetched him the chair and the drink. She tried to tell herself that he didn’t need her, that he was fine. It was natural for her to be concerned for Jack. If she could just make light of it, it would be all right. It was a trifle. But instead she hovered at the back of the crowd, watching the American. Arthur turned away from her and she felt rejected even though she had failed to go to him. She knew what she should do but she couldn’t do it. Her jaw was clenched so tightly, little jags of pain shot down her neck.

  When the ambulance came, the crowd fell back and drifted into the ballroom. Peter went with the invalid and she hung back. The ambulance man was talking to her brother.

  ‘Is he going to be all right?’ she said, thinking of only a year before, running down to find Peter and him turning her back to the house. Knowing something was wrong but not believing him when he said their mother was dead. How did it happen? she’d asked him, and he said she must have got out of her depth.

  Behind her, someone crunched on the gravel and she looked around expecting to see Arthur but no one was there. She watched the ambulance leave. In the ballroom, the band was striking up a rendition of a Perry Como song. Someone asked her to dance and she shook her head. She looked around for Arthur and saw that another American was handing him a flask. She must do something. It was becoming harder to pretend nothing was wrong.

  She moved over to him and touched him tentatively on the shoulder. ‘Are you all right, Arty?’

  ‘Couldn’t be better,’ he slurred.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, alarmed at the bitter tone, as if it was directed at her. As if he knew the disloyal thoughts she’d had. A burst of anger flared through her that he should make her feel like this. ‘You’ve had a shock. Why don’t I take you home?’ She sounded impatient. Her fingers touched his arm but instead of responding to her in kind, he shivered and she withdrew as if the tips of her fingers had been singed.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said.

  Helplessly, she cast about for something to say. Was it only that she had called out Jack’s name? It did not seem, in itself, so very awful. Yet it was clear that she had done something terribly wrong and could not undo it. That she had somehow created this entire, disgusting mess. The moment that she and Arthur had shared under the trees was long gone, so f
ar away it was like a different night. ‘Arthur,’ she started miserably, but couldn’t finish. The recriminations and unsaid apologies hung in the air. She felt nauseous. ‘Shall I help you get home?’ she tried again. ‘I really think you should go home.’ She wanted to go home herself now, was all of a sudden overcome with tiredness and guilt and confusion.

  ‘I’m worried about you,’ she said, although she was just as worried about herself.

  ‘You too,’ he said in a faint voice. ‘I should never have trusted him.’ He took hold of her shoulders. ‘Jack—’ he said. He swayed a little. ‘He tried to kill me.’

  PART 2

  FLOW

  October

  Four months before the flood

  Deep depression

  Early morning frost and fog

  Squally showers followed by persistent rain in the evening

  Waxing gibbous moon

  1.

  ‘Bloody hell, if he doesn’t come soon, he can’t come at all. There are rules, you know. They are there for a damned good reason.’

  It was well into the shooting season and Arthur and Peter were in the boot room, strapping up for the day’s shoot. Mr Frost and his group of local farmers were still in the dining room, discussing the prospects for the day over an early breakfast. Peter was jumpy. They were, once again, waiting for Jack.

  ‘He’ll be here,’ Arthur said. He would be quite happy if he never saw Jack again. He had a bitter taste in his mouth at the mention of the American or the airbase. But it was only he who felt like that – everyone said that whatever they were doing must be for our own good – so he kept his thoughts to himself. The naïvety of it! And Jack was always present. Always the three of them, never just he and Peter, and the latter only seemed animated when Jack was there.

  ‘You’ll never guess what I found out about the base.’ He waited for Peter to bite.

  ‘They’re all spies?’ said Peter, laughing.

  Arthur smiled to himself. Something like that. The local lad at the Shipwright’s had been quite a talker when he’d had his tongue loosened with a free pint or three. ‘My source tells me they’re carrying atomic bombs.’

  Peter stood up. ‘Your source?’ he said, amused.

  ‘It’s not funny. Do you know that most of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project are against nuclear armaments? Einstein himself has warned of the dangers. He talked about it on American TV a couple of years ago. He said the idea of security through nuclear weapons was a dangerous illusion. I know it sounds apocalyptic but it is. He’s talking about the annihilation of life on earth for God’s sake, Peter.’

  ‘Is he?’ He sighed theatrically. ‘Though I’m sure I heard that the Americans think old Albert is something of a fellow traveller—’

  ‘That’s bloody ridiculous, Peter. They say that about anyone who gets in their way,’ Arthur snapped.

  Peter shrugged. ‘I suppose you think Jack knows—’

  ‘Of course he knows, Peter, he flies the bloody planes, doesn’t he?’

  ‘You’re rather harsh on our mutual friend, Art old boy.’

  ‘Don’t call me Art, Pete,’ he said petulantly. ‘I think you’re a bit smitten, old boy.’ His teeth were clenched together.

  Peter stared at him, his mouth twitching. For a horrible moment, the two of them faced each other as if across a trench.

  ‘You sound envious, Arthur. It’s not an attractive quality.’ Then Peter smiled, his open, sweet smile that Arthur knew from childhood, and lightly punched Arthur on his shoulder. ‘I’m sure you’re right about the nefarious goings on at Holkham.’

  ‘There’s more, I think,’ Arthur said, wanting to move on from the awkwardness. ‘There’s something else. I think they’re carrying bombs and they’re spying on the Soviets—’

  ‘Don’t we want them to be doing that, old boy?’

  ‘But if the Yanks have hidden all this, what else could they be hiding?’

  ‘Christ, we’re all doomed then, aren’t we?’ said Peter, sarcastically, running his hand through his hair.

  ‘But Peter, don’t you see? We are. It’s real. The threat is real. We’ll be a target for the Soviets. Think about it – how safe is Holkham? Can you imagine what might happen if there’s an accident…’ But he trailed off. It was pointless continuing. Peter didn’t want to hear him or believe him. He must think he was paranoid.

  ‘God, if he doesn’t get here soon, his shoot’ll be doomed.’

  ‘Whose shoot?’ Verity had appeared and was leaning against the doorway. She was wearing a dark polo neck which made her skin luminescent and her eyes darker. Although on the surface she gave nothing away, her body was arched towards Arthur, her breasts sticking out under the tight wool of her sweater just above his eyeline. But perhaps he was imagining it. He wanted everything to be how it had been before the dance at Harborough Hall, but in his worst moments, it felt as if everything had been destroyed.

  The sudden summer storm had dissipated the heat and, with it, their closeness. He pictured her rain-soaked in the dripping blue dress. Such a strange night. He remembered feeling dizzy and sick after the crash. It was incredible to think they were all here as if nothing had happened.

  And everyone was so concerned about Jack after the crash. Poor Jack, everyone said, and he, Arthur, was forgotten, because he had not broken his nose or twisted his ankle. The ass hadn’t even broken his ankle. You’d have thought Jack had smashed all his bones the way people went on. And no one cared that he’d had to endure the wild, drunken driving of a lunatic on dark, wet country lanes. The idiot could have killed them both. Jack said, ‘Forgive me,’ but he never said sorry. No, he hadn’t broken anything. It was galling how people like that always got away with everything.

  *

  ‘Jack,’ Arthur told her and she raised her eyebrows a little, nothing more, but he felt a familiar nausea.

  ‘Oh well, I can’t stop, got to cram.’

  ‘Do you really think they’ll let you in?’ said Peter, standing now, boots on. The Oxford entrance was imminent. Verity had passed all her exams with decent grades and seemed to have spent most of the summer cramming for the entrance exam.

  ‘Oh bugger off,’ she said to her brother, and to Arthur, ‘See you at the lunch after.’

  ‘You can’t come to that,’ said Peter. ‘You’re a girl and you’re not shooting!’

  ‘I shall be there. You can’t stop me. Bye, Arthur!’

  Outside, Peter grumbled on about the rules and whether he’d beat his father’s tally this year. All Arthur could think about was feeling along the line of Verity’s chest and down to the bottom of her sweater, lifting it up and touching the skin beneath. He was imagining her interest in Jack; she hadn’t looked at all bothered about whether he was coming. If she failed to get in to Oxford – and of course he didn’t want that, he was just imagining another scenario – then he would take her to London. They would marry in secret, find digs, he would get a job as a cub reporter on a paper… but it was hard to keep this narrative going with the thin mist of a sea-fret in his face. God, how he wished himself back in the house with her rather than out in the dreary drizzle of the autumn morning, wearing a preposterous outfit cobbled together from Peter’s cast-offs. Peter was well over six feet tall, rangy and thin. He, on the other hand, was significantly shorter and stockier. The cap was fine, but the bloody trousers had had to be turned up by his mother and she’d gone too high. They looked all wrong: tight round the thighs, flapping around his ankles. His shoes were wrong too. They were his black work shoes, polished to a high shine, whereas everyone else had old brown brogues.

  They walked out into the stubble, and as they did, the weak morning sun broke through the cloud cover and cast the fields and woods in a sudden golden light, sparkling slightly where it met the sea mist. You could see the sea from up here, a silver streak in the distance.

  ‘Peter?’ Mr Frost’s deep growl rang out across the quiet fields. He was in charge of the shoot and wouldn’
t want his son racing ahead to nab the best positions. He had always been competitive about Peter. Perhaps it didn’t help that Peter had been a bit of a dunce at school, while his little sister had flourished. Once upon a time, Mr Frost had taunted Peter with Arthur’s aptitude for numbers and word-puzzles, and when Arthur had passed his eleven plus and gone to the grammar, Mr Frost had presented him with a Boys’ Compendium of Useful Facts. ‘Keep it up, old boy,’ he’d said, but it was rather like a sending off abroad – an exile from which he wouldn’t return. You’re on your own now, he seemed to say.

  They trudged back to the house, where four whiskery old men in tweeds were gathered on the patio at the back of the dining room, their guns crooked under their arms, dogs snuffling at their feet. One of them was De Vere, a portly man with startling, bushy eyebrows. Peter had pointed him out as ‘Ver’s future father-in-law’, which made Arthur want to trip him up and see him sprawled on the stone. A local man, Skitmore, with a wide, pink face in a lop-sided black hat, was acting as gamekeeper. He usually worked for Lord Crake of Harborough, but Mr Frost had a long-standing arrangement with the lord to borrow Skitmore for his little shoots. When Arthur had first seen one of these shoots at the farm, he had felt himself entirely out of place, and although he was used to it now – the language of ‘guns’ and ‘coveys’ and ‘brace’, the outlandish outfits and, inevitably, however bad the day’s shoot, the death – he still didn’t quite fit.

  Verity was by the back door, smoking. Mr Frost bore down on them with a black look.

  ‘What are your plans now then, young man, now you’ve done your National Service?’

  Arthur thought he detected the tell-tale ochre-yellow of liver failure in the man’s eyes, something his mother always liked to note in her customers. My mother needs me in the shop at the moment, Sir, but I don’t want to stay there forever.’