‘Dreadful thing—those poor people—’ Mrs Butterworth commented.
‘Shh,’ Tom hissed, straining to hear.
‘Tom!’ Moira exclaimed, scandalised.
‘Quiet!’ Tom insisted.
‘In Essex, there was widespread flooding in the Clacton-on-Sea area, and at least six people are known to have drowned …’
Tom felt clammy with fear. Six drowned in the Clacton-on-Sea area. That would include Wittlesham. And there was nothing but low-lying fields between Marsh Edge Farm and the sea wall. Was Annie still living at the farm? Or was she with the father of her child, safe somewhere miles away? He had no way of knowing.
His mother, who was sitting next to him, dug him in the ribs.
‘Wake up,’ she muttered fiercely.
He became aware of talk going on around him.
‘… knew it was stormy last night but I never thought it was that bad,’ Mr Butterworth was saying.
‘Of course, it’s very low lying all along that coast. You were there the first year of the war, weren’t you, Margery?’ Tom’s father said.
‘We were right by the sea wall,’ his sister Joan butted in. ‘Do you think those chalets are all right? Poor Silver Sands! That was a lovely holiday.’
A great ball of anxiety filled Tom. If Annie was still at Marsh Edge, or still anywhere in the coastal area, then she might be amongst those terrible statistics quoted on the news.
‘How awful to have your house flooded in the middle of winter like this,’ Mrs Butterworth was saying.
Moira was sitting across the table from him. She was staring at him in surprise.
‘What is the matter, Tom? You’ve gone quite pale.’
‘Oh … nothing …’
Tom tried to pull himself together. He had never told Moira anything about Annie, although she did know that he had met a local girl when on holiday with his family at Wittlesham. He had certainly not told her that he had gone down to Wittlesham just before he’d proposed to her, saying instead that he was visiting an RAF friend. Moira, however, was still looking at him suspiciously.
‘I—er—it’s like Joan says, it’s sad to think of our holiday home being flooded. That was the last family holiday we had together.’
‘I suppose so,’ Moira said.
‘I shouldn’t think there was anyone in the chalets. Not at this time of year,’ his mother said.
‘No. They didn’t say anything about Wittlesham on the news, did they?’ Joan agreed.
Talk drifted on to a more general discussion of holidays. Tom let it flow on without him, while he tried to think of a way to find out more. The police, he decided. The police at Wittlesham were the best people to contact.
‘… Tom, as you went out this morning.’
His mother nudged him again. ‘Tom, your father’s talking to you.’
‘Sorry—what?’ Tom asked, aware that he sounded stupid.
His father laughed. ‘You were well away with the fairies, weren’t you? I’ve not seen you go off in a dream like that since you were a lad. I said, I’ll go and see the buses in as you went out this morning.’
Tom jumped up immediately. If he went up to the yard, he could use the phone there. Otherwise, he would have to wait till the morning.
‘No, that’s all right, Dad. You stay here. I’ve got my bike with me.’
‘Tell you what, we’ll both go in the car,’ his father offered. ‘If you don’t mind hanging about in the yard for a bit, Moira, you and Mikey can come too and I’ll run you all home.’
Moira smiled prettily.
‘Thank you so much. That’s so kind of you. It’s a cold night out there.’
Which put an end to Tom’s hopes of a phone call.
‘Just come upstairs a minute before you go, Tom, dear,’ his mother said. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’
Puzzled, Tom followed her. His mother shut the door of the front bedroom behind her and folded her arms over her chest and fixed him with a determined look. It felt freezing in the unheated room.
‘Now, just you be careful, son,’ she said.
‘About what?’ Tom said, though he knew. It was as if he were seventeen again, caught out in his lie about the cycle club tour.
‘That’s a lovely girl you’ve got there for a wife, and now you’ve got a splendid little boy too. Don’t you go doing anything to spoil it,’ his mother warned.
Tom spread his hands in innocence. ‘And just what am I supposed to have done?’
‘I saw your face,’ his mother said, sidestepping the question. ‘And so did poor Moira. What’s she supposed to think when you’re so keen to hear about those floods that you’re rude to your mother-in-law? I don’t think Moira knows anything about That Girl, because she certainly hasn’t heard anything from my lips, but anyone could see that you were acting very strangely.’
She was right, of course.
‘You’re talking rubbish, Mam,’ he said. ‘You’re reading a whole lot into something that means nothing at all. Talk about a mountain out of a molehill! The last time I saw Annie was—when?—in ‘forty-one, the summer before I joined the RAF. That’s nearly twelve years ago, for heaven’s sake!’
His mother ignored this. ‘You do know she’s an Unmarried Mother, of course?’ she said, lowering her voice to a stage whisper for those two shameful words.
Tom felt as if he had been kicked in the guts. ‘What?’ he said.
He could see Annie so clearly in his mind’s eye, telling him that the father of her child was coming back to marry her.
‘Some American, I believe. At the end of the war. I’m not surprised. I always thought she was flighty. Not your sort at all.’
‘Not—?’ Tom was still struggling to come to terms with this news. ‘How do you—? Oh—Madam Sutton, I suppose.’
It was all becoming clear. His mother had known this for years and had kept it from him. He did not trust himself to pursue it any further.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said brusquely. ‘Dad’s waiting.’
All the way over to the yard this new information about Annie buzzed round his head, making it hard for him to concentrate on what anyone else was saying. One thing stood out—this meant that Annie was almost certainly still living at Marsh Edge Farm. His own words to his mother came back to him—that he had last seen her twelve years ago. It wasn’t that long, of course, but it was nearly eight years ago. A considerable time, and a lot had happened to them both since then. He couldn’t understand himself, why he had felt such a strong reaction on hearing the news of the flood. The rational part of him knew that he shouldn’t even try to find out more, but the need was too pressing to deny.
He lay awake worrying most of the night and hurried off to get to work early in the morning. As soon as he got in, he found out the number for the Wittlesham police station and tried to book a trunk call, only to be told that the lines to Wittlesham were still down. That only increased his anxiety. He asked to be put through to Colchester central police station and after a number of delays finally got hold of someone who knew what was going on.
‘I’m very concerned about a family on the marshes near Wittlesham,’ he explained. ‘I can’t contact them or anyone in the town.’
There was a long rigmarole of name-taking.
‘And what was the name of the family, sir?’
‘Cross. Of Marsh Edge Farm.’
He could feel a pulse beating in his throat. It seemed to be affecting his breathing.
‘Ah, yes, sir.’ The same bland tone, giving away nothing. ‘And are you a relative?’
‘Yes,’ Tom lied, knowing he would get nowhere otherwise. ‘I’m a—nephew. Of Mrs Cross.’
Nothing was going to induce him to claim Annie’s father as a relation, even as a lie.
There was a slight pause, then the official voice softened just a fraction.
‘In that case, sir, I’m very sorry to have to inform you that Mr Walter Cross was drowned on the night of the flood.’
>
‘Oh—’
Her father was dead. It took him a moment to take it in. That wicked old bastard who had made her life a misery was gone.
‘I’m very sorry, sir.’
‘Yes—right—’ Tom gathered his thoughts. ‘But the rest of the family—they’re all right?’
‘No one else by the name of Cross on my list, sir.’
‘Right—er, thank you—goodbye.’
Tom put the phone down, feeling stunned. Annie was safe—that was the most important thing, and for that he was immensely relieved. But he was nothing like calm. A deep part of him wanted to get in his father’s car and drive straight to Wittlesham to see what he could do to help her.
He sat with his elbows on the desk and his fingers dug into his scalp. In front of him was a photograph of Michael taken a year ago on his birthday, with a Featherstone’s Coaches driver’s cap set lopsidedly on his head. Tom picked up the picture and stared at it. He was a married man with a son. He couldn’t go chasing after rainbows. But still he could see that sea wall snaking across the landscape, with nothing but dead flat land between it and Marsh Edge farmhouse. Annie was not amongst the drowned, but things might still be pretty desperate for her. He couldn’t just leave it. He had to find out.
He reached for a sheet of Featherstone’s Coaches headed notepaper. If he was going to do this, he certainly mustn’t risk a reply coming to the house. And, as he decided that, he realised that if he didn’t want Moira to know, then he was admitting to this being more than an enquiry from one human being to another. He ran over a form of words in his head, knowing that it had to be short, concerned but distant. There were so many ifs and buts that he hardly knew what to do. Should he mention his own situation, or would doing so imply that she would take this letter the wrong way? Should he indicate that he knew what her situation was, or pretend that he still thought she was married? Should he mention her father?
When he finally put pen to paper, it was like a floodgate opening. The first stilted sentence melted into a rush of worry about her, along reminiscence of their times together and a potted version of all that had happened to him since last they’d met. He was telling her all about Michael when the office door opened and his father came in.
‘That’s what I like to see, someone hard at work.’
‘Oh—’
Tom was so engrossed in his letter that it took him a moment to come back to reality.
‘I—er—just jotting a few ideas down. Easier when you put it on paper, isn’t it?’
‘Never found that myself, but each to their own. I’m just going to look at that loose door.’
‘Right you are.’
Tom went limp with relief. That had been a very close call. He looked at the sheets of paper he had covered and knew that there was only one place for them—the bin. He tore them up into very small pieces, took a clean sheet and wrote:
Dear Annie
I heard about the flooding on the news last night and wondered how you had all fared there in Wittlesham.
I trust that you and yours are safe and well.
Yours sincerely,
Tom Featherstone.
He addressed it simply to Annie, c/o Marsh Edge Farm, sealed the envelope and slipped it into his inside pocket, ready to be posted at the first opportunity.
CHAPTER THIRTY
ONCE the country became aware of the terrible flood all along the east coast, help began to arrive, disaster funds were set up, gifts of food and clothing and furniture were sent to the stricken areas. The first priority was to mend the broken sea walls before the next spring tide. The armed forces, the unemployed and a host of volunteers laboured for a fortnight in wintry conditions to close the gaps with sandbags. Then began the clearing up and drying out.
It was a depressing job. At Marsh Edge Farm the tide had flowed in and out for ten days before the sea wall was fixed. When it finally drained away, Annie went back. Her mother had wanted to come too. Her mind had become fixed on the need to go home. She felt lost and uncomfortable at the hotel, imagining that people were wondering what she was doing there and wanting her gone.
‘I want to sit by my own fire,’ she kept repeating.
‘Let me get the fire lit first, Mum,’ Annie insisted. ‘You stay and be here for when Bobby comes in from school, eh?’
As she trudged up the lane to the farm on a bleak February day, she was thankful not to have her mother beside her. The bare fields that should have been green with winter pasture were covered with grey silt, topped with a crust of salt. The land looked dead.
She was aware of the hawthorn tree on the edge of her vision. Try as she might not to look at it, to keep her eyes on the dreary fields, she could not avoid it. She tried to set her mind on what she had to do today. Air the house, clean up, rescue anything that could be used again. But as she came up to the tree she could hold the memories at bay no longer. The black water came rushing back. She could smell it and taste it. It roared in her ears. Her father’s face bobbed in front of her, his voice cried out.
‘Ann, for God’s sake—’
‘No—!’
Annie put her hands over her ears and ran, head down. She did not stop until she came to the farmyard.
She stopped a few feet inside the gate, appalled. The devastation here was enough to jolt her mind back to the present. A team had been round to remove the larger animal carcasses and destroy them, but otherwise the place was untouched. The flood had left behind a disgusting layer of slime mixed with a flotsam of rotting vegetation and ruined household goods. A smell of decay hung over everything.
‘Oh, my God,’ Annie said out loud.
She could not even begin to think where to start. She picked her way slowly across the yard. Odd gloves and wellingtons lay amongst the mud, a wooden spoon, a filthy rag that on closer inspection proved to be one of her mother’s precious crocheted jug covers. It was several minutes before Annie realised what was also wrong. It was the silence. Their neighbour was still looking after what was left of the stock, so except for the wind whistling through a broken window and rattling loose boards, there was no sound but for her footsteps squelching through the mire. No clucking of hens or snorting of pigs or lowing of cows. No human voice. It was oppressive and strangely eerie. She almost found herself wishing for her father’s hectoring tones. Then she heard a scrabbling sound. She turned sharply towards it and caught sight of a rat running into the hay barn. Squealing with disgust, she picked up a scrubbing brush that lay in a heap of straw and seaweed at her feet and hurled it after the creature. Then she went into the house.
The smell there was worse. Food in the larder was going off. The rugs mgs that she and her mother had made together on winter evenings were sodden and muddy. The table linen and tea towels in the dresser lay mouldering in their drawers. The horsehair-stuffed sofa and chairs in the parlour were still wringing wet. And over everything was a slimy grey-brown deposit of mud, salt, soil and excrement. As Annie wandered, horrified, from room to room, the only thing she could be glad of was that her mother wasn’t here to see it all. She had suffered enough. To see her home ruined like this would be too much.
It was all so dreadful that it was difficult to know where to start. There was so much that just needed to be thrown out. Annie propped the kitchen door open, then decided that fresh air was what was needed and forced open the front entrance, which was only used for important visitors and funerals. Then she tried to open all the windows, but that wasn’t easy as the frames had swollen and many of them were stuck. She was about to start taking up the rugs when she heard a car arriving at the farm. Surprised, she went outside.
A stately maroon and black Riley had come to a standstill just outside the yard. Two middle-aged ladies in tweed coats and wellingtons got out of the front, and three younger women in dungarees and overalls climbed from the back. The lady who had been driving gave a cheerful wave when she saw Annie and marched across the yard to meet her.
‘Hello, my dear. Yo
u must be Annie Cross. Molly Selby, how do you do? We’re here from the Wittlesham Flood Committee to see what needs to be done. We went to see your mother, poor soul, and she told us that you had come out here. Now, what can we do to help? We’re calling ourselves the Mrs Mop Brigade, and that’s what we’re here to do—mop up.’
Without waiting for an answer, she called across to the rest of the women, who were busy getting cleaning equipment out of the boot.
‘Come along, let’s get going! Plenty here to keep us out of mischief, I’m sure.’
Annie was flabbergasted. ‘But—I—’ she stammered.
‘Now, then, my dear,’ Molly Selby interrupted, ‘no standing on foolish pride. You can’t possibly do all this by yourself, now can you? And we’re all more than glad to pitch in for emergencies like this. I’m sure you would do just the same if it was one of us who had been flooded out.’
Even if Annie had wanted to refuse, it would have been impossible. Molly was as unstoppable as a tank, though a kindly one. She could not resent her as she had done the WRVS lady in the car on the day after the flood.
Annie found her house invaded by the team. There was Molly’s friend Joan, who was as silent as Molly was talkative, and the three younger women, Jenny, Sheila and Glenys whom she knew already by sight. They all had children at the same school as Bobby. Together, they set about putting the farmhouse to rights.
At first, Annie couldn’t understand why people who had been very cool to her in the past were now going out of their way to be kind. Gradually, clues emerged. As they worked together, sweeping and hosing and scrubbing and disinfecting, she realised that she was no longer regarded as a scarlet woman. She was now a brave survivor. Being deceived and abandoned by Bobby Joe was still seen as being her own fault, but the flood was a terrible tragedy and she was one of its victims, with her father drowned and her home and living ruined. Now they were pleased to be of use to her.
On the second day of clearing up, Jenny asked what was happening to Bobby after school.
‘He goes back to my mum at the hotel,’ Annie told her.
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