One Damn Thing After Another

by Dan Latus

  WE DROVE THROUGH THE village, bypassing The Black Bull, and on up the valley. Now it was spring, everywhere looked different, familiar still but not quite the same. The grass beside the road, and in the fields, was a bright green now. The patches of gorse were a vivid yellow. The hawthorn was in leaf, and even in blossom, in sheltered, sunny places. Groups of lambs chased each other across the green sward.

  ‘It looks different,’ Lenka said suspiciously, as if she distrusted her eyesight, or perhaps her surroundings.

  I nodded. ‘Very.’

  ‘But it is still very beautiful,’ Olga pointed out. ‘Even more so, I think. Don’t you agree, Frank?’

  I did. Olga was right. Lonely, bare, desolate even, the valley might be, but it was also strangely, quietly beautiful.

  It wasn’t only the countryside that looked different, of course. The Chesters looked different, too. None of us had been back to see the old house since it had become a true ruin. Now, as it came into sight, I slowed slightly and there was a collective intake of breath and a leaning forward to peer at the view.

  I had been almost dreading the moment, and indeed it was a shocking revelation. Instead of a house badly in need of repair, there were gaunt, smoke-blackened walls reaching for the sky. No roof, of course. That was entirely gone now. Windows and their frames had disappeared entirely, as well. Where there had been a front door and an entrance porch, there was now a gaping black hole.

  I parked outside the gateway and we climbed out of the car and assembled quietly, ready to walk past the signs informing us of Danger, Falling Masonry, No Trespassing, Keep Out – and the rest – that officialdom had sensibly installed.

  None of us said anything for a moment. We were too intent on absorbing our first impressions. Lenka stared at the ruined walls of the house she had never liked almost with satisfaction. Poor Olga, whose project this had been, seemed to be looking everywhere but at the ruined house. I couldn’t blame either of them.

  As for me, I just wanted to get it over with, and get the hell out. It hadn’t been my idea to come here with them. Leon had asked me if I would. If he hadn’t been visiting his new fiefdom in Siberia, I might have told him to bring them himself.

  ‘Do you want a closer look?’ I asked eventually.

  ‘Of course,’ Olga said.

  Lenka sighed and nodded agreement.

  ‘Come on, then!’

  I set off up the gravelled drive, which was about the only thing that hadn’t really changed much at all. We trudged around the outside of the building and then risked a peek inside, through what had once been French windows opening onto the lawn. There were a few bits of floors and ceilings improbably still hanging by a thread, but mostly the interior was a cavity, an open space. I didn’t have to caution my companions about the danger of going any further inside.

  We moved on. Looking through gaps that had once contained windows, we could see that although most internal walls had simply disappeared, there was an arched stone passage, a tunnel, running from the main back door that seemed sound enough still. We ventured along it, and found that it led to the empty space that had once been the great hall in the centre of the building. From the foot of what had been the main staircase, it was eerily possible to look up and see a big blue sky.

  ‘Seen enough?’ I asked, touching Olga’s arm.

  She nodded.

  ‘Come on, then. We’d better get outside. There’ll still be masonry and half-burned timbers falling for a while yet, I would think.’

  ‘Bound to be,’ Lenka said with grim satisfaction.

  I felt dispirited, but I could see Olga was sick at heart, and perhaps in a state of shock too. After all, she hadn’t seen the fire raging, as I had. Being told was one thing; seeing was quite another. This was her first visit since the restoration project had begun, and had so quickly ended.

  Back outside, I ushered the two women away from the building. We walked through the rubble scattered across the derelict lawn and sat together on a wrought-iron seat beneath a big, old sycamore tree that was already in leaf, undaunted by the cataclysm that had devastated the house. The rooks in the nearby pinewood, too, seemed unconcerned as they went about the business of raising their young. We sat and contemplated the once great building. It was hard to come to terms with the damage that had been done.

  I stood up. The others looked at me expectantly. ‘I’m just going to have a quick look around the other side,’ I told them.

  ‘I’ll wait here with Olga,’ Lenka said. ‘I don’t want to see any more. Be quick, Frank.’

  I set off to circumnavigate the house. It was a sad prospect but I was curious and wanted to see how close the walls were to collapse. Once that happened, only the trees would still be here, the sycamore and the nearby pinewood. And an even bigger pile of rubble.

  Yet, oddly enough, from the corner of my eye as I walked, the house was still a powerful presence. Changed, totally ruined, but it was still here.

  ‘Wait, Frank!’

  I turned and allowed Olga and Lenka to catch me up. Then we walked on together. I was looking for major cracks in the walls, signs of impending collapse. There were none, none that I could see. That gave me a bit of a buzz. They built big, tough walls a thousand years ago, walls made to last. Look at this place! It was a ruin, but a standing ruin.

  ‘Is it going to fall down, Frank?’ Olga asked.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. Not soon, anyway.’ I turned around to gaze back at the towering walls. ‘It has survived the winter, and I think it will be OK until we get some really strong winds.’

  Then I noticed a bright eagerness about Olga that had not been there a few moments earlier. ‘What?’ I prompted.

  ‘Could the house be rebuilt?’ she asked.

  I hesitated. ‘It could, I suppose, but it would take an awful lot of money.’

  ‘But it could be done?’ she pressed.

  I nodded. ‘Probably. Anything can be done, if you throw enough money at it.’

  ‘We have the money, Frank. Putting some of it to such good use would be a fine thing, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘You could build a new house for a lot less.’

  ‘I don’t want a new house! I want to put this one back together again.’

  I stood and turned it over in my mind, my pulse quickening as I thought about it. ‘Well, if that’s what you want to do, Olga,’ I said slowly.

  She turned to her sister, who was nodding for once with what looked like enthusiasm. ‘We’ve still got the plans, Lenka, haven’t we? We haven’t got Andrei, unfortunately, but perhaps we can find someone to take his place.’

  ‘Let’s do it,’ Lenka said crisply.

  Then it was my turn. They looked at me expectantly.

  ‘What?’ I said defensively.

  ‘Will you stay and help us?’ Olga asked.

  ‘Me? What could I do?’

  ‘Please, Frank!’ Lenka said, taking my arm.

  I attempted to weight it up sensibly, but how could I say no?

  ‘For a time, perhaps,’ I said with a sigh, trying hard not to smile.

  ‘Leon will be pleased,’ Olga said.

  All three of us turned then to watch a helicopter coming over the nearby hills. It seemed to be heading straight for us. I stared at it, and shook my head. With another sigh, and another smile, I wondered if I would ever be free of the Podolsky family.