The Cornish Affair Read online

  But Port Charles was not sophisticated, the Calvinist streak ran deep here. And Judith tried the patience of these, on the whole, good, kind people. She paid no lip service to the yearly rituals here, she didn’t bake a simnel cake at Easter, she didn’t put cowslips on her windowsill – hell, she didn’t even send Christmas cards. This in itself wouldn’t be enough to alienate her, Nancy could have easily got away with far more outlandish behaviour. It was the monthly trips that did it.

  It mattered not that she had a sister who lived there. The witch association stuck. And then, of course, there were the rumours.

  Groups of women were seen in the Green Man pub over there, barring men from entering on certain nights – a post-feminist piss up? I’d ventured to enquire, only to be hushed. A tragic accident involving a rival fishing boat family, where a small boy had drowned, a cat that had been run over, a chicken coop where no fox could enter, yet all the chooks had been decapitated. You know, that sort of ever so charming rural madness.

  Judith stood in the doorway, and repeated herself. “He’m still not back.”

  Her eyes were an inky black, her manner of a woman about to lose control.

  I wished with all my heart that Nancy was here, she’d know what to do. I felt the eyes of the pub on me. They all obviously thought that it was my role to do something, anything. It seemed collectively that none of them were going to budge.

  I moved towards her, my mind reeling with all the things I should be saying to her. Things like Kev had a boat full of satellite navigation, radar, had she called the coast guard? Had she heard from any of the crew’s families? I put my arm around her wet shoulders and drew her into the pub. The silence was still going on, and for a moment I cursed them all.

  “Judith, come in. Have you eaten anything?”

  I knew that I sounded like a Jewish mother, but I truly couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment.

  She shook her head. Her eyes staring round at all of her neighbours. The very same people who’d had a drink bought for them by her husband only last week.

  Oliver came forward, a glass of red wine in his hand that he offered to her. She took it automatically, and drank from it.

  It gave me time to throw Sam a glance of entreaty, which thank god, he picked up, and he too came forward, talking about how seaworthy Kev’s boat is, and how she mustn’t worry.

  The rest of the pub had started to talk again, but it was muted, and I saw that they had all moved away from her, as if they were children at a party who had just discovered that there was one with the chicken pox in their midst.

  “When was he due back, Judith?” I asked, drawing her to sit at a table. Oliver joined us, and I gave him a quick look of gratitude. I wasn’t sure that I would be equipped to deal with her on my own. Sam had moved back behind the bar, shrugging his shoulders at me, no doubt trying to convey that this was way out of his depth, and better left to women.

  “The Queen Mab was due back this mornin’ early. They’d been out far, a good cod haul, he reckoned,” her voice was flat.

  That was deep water, a long way out. I nodded encouragingly, but she seemed to have nothing else to say.

  “But that’s good news,” Oliver said enthusiastically, “The further away he was, the better! He must have known about the weather and gone to shore, or outrun it. He’ll be sheltering somewhere, away from the rough stuff and be waiting it out.”

  Now, my guess was that Oliver had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. It made good sense to me however, and I joined in as best I could. The picture I had in my mind of the raging sea was not something I could dismiss lightly, much as I’d like to help Judith out.

  Pritti appeared at my elbow holding a plate of food. She placed it on the table and pushed it towards Judith. The two women did not acknowledge one another. I saw Oliver glance curiously at me, and I gave an imperceptible shrug.

  I positively longed for Nancy to be here… I was feeling uncomfortable, small talk with Judith was something I had never been able to achieve, and under these circumstances it was beyond me. I looked at Oliver for some help, and thank god, he picked up on it. He started to ask Judith about what it was like to be a fisherman’s wife.

  “You say goodbye a lot,” she said, her mouth starting to curl slightly at the edges.

  I left them to it, and went to order another round of drinks from Sam, asking for them to be put on a tab for me. He nodded and started to pour drinks. I saw Miranda edge her way towards Oliver and Judith, so I callously cut her off at the pass and asked her to help me to collect plates.

  I was balancing five empty plates in one hand and a couple of empty, sticky glasses in the other when I heard a shriek. I turned towards the door and saw that Doris was standing, pointing at the floor.

  “It’s coming through!” she cried out.

  Sure enough, water was seeping under the door. It had obviously risen over the sandbags, and was now trickling into the pub.

  Shit.

  That meant that nearly all the cottages from here down would be flooded.

  We all sprang to our feet, but didn’t really know quite what to do. It was as if we were all mesmerised at the inexorable stream of water, slowly gathering force on the floor.

  “Right, let’s get what we can upstairs,” I said, after a while.

  The Ram became a blur of action, with everyone helping to carry what we could upstairs. I noticed that for the boys, this meant many trips down to the cellar. Bottles and casks soon littered the side of the steep stairs. Will, Richard and Jace climbed out of the window. They ran splashing down the road to do the same in Mrs Trevellyons house, whilst Miranda decided that Oliver should help her to move her loom and her candle making stuff from her kitchen into her bedroom.

  Doris gave a great nudge in the ribs, “Trollop! She’ll do anything to get that man in ‘er boudoir – loom, I ask you!” Her voice rose to a shrill cry, “Watch it! The water, it’s fair comin’ in now!”

  We all watched water swimming over the floor of the pub, helpless before its path. I heard Judith groan, and cover her face with her hands, “Everywhere I look, there’s water,” she sobbed.

  I gave her a disapproving look. I mean, I know we were in a pickle, and I know that she was worried about Kev, but she was carrying the Greek tragedy queen a bit too far. I half expected her to say that we were all doomed, doomed forever. The house of the Beard was about to fall.

  Oliver winked at me, and I winked back, absurdly happy that he and I were obviously sharing the same thoughts, which of course, then led to a bewildering series of mind bending feelings which took a split second. How did I feel about Jace? Was Oliver really interested in me? Could I get him to throw away that bloody kilt? Was there enough food for tomorrow? Where was I going to sleep that night? And, more importantly, would there be enough room for two? Oh yes, and let’s not forget, how was I going to get bloody Miranda the hippie earth mother off his back? How could we get Mrs T home? Had Baxter and Nelson mauled Willow and Sienna? Was Penmorah safe? Were the dolphins alright? You know, the average things you think about when water is lapping round your ankles at ten o’clock at night in a pub in south Cornwall.

  The night wore on, with the rain never ceasing, not for a minute. It provided a constant background noise, and like muzac in a lift, after a while you simply stopped hearing it.

  Oliver did go and help Miranda, but was back in double quick time, looking slightly shell shocked (I’d guessed he’d seen the state of her bedroom, and for such a clean man was quite shocked – bless him.) Mrs T was tucked up, along with Pritti, Samina and Sunita in Sam’s bedroom, which I had, I was enchanted to discover a four poster bed in it, complete with scarlet drapes. Baxter, who knew when he was on to a good thing, joined them.

  “Good god, Sam, it looks like a bordello!” Oliver exclaimed.

  Sam beamed with pride, “Right proper job, innit?”

  I choked with laughter. The evening had definitely taken on a touch of surrealism. />
  We then all climbed out of the window and wearily splashed over to the bakery, helping Doris and Isaac to move anything we could upstairs. Sacks of flour, by the way, are very, very heavy. After having shifted my fair share of them, I can say without a shadow of doubt that I will never need to go to a gym again in my life.

  Doris clutched a gaudily painted tin to her bosom, and looked around her bedroom for a safe place to store it.

  “What’s in there then Doris, the family pearls?” I teased.

  Doris looked faintly shocked, “Lord no! ‘Tis the saffron!”

  She was quite right to guard it. It was, quite literally worth it’s weight in gold.

  “Iranian?” Oliver asked, genuinely curious, I knew.

  “Don’t be daft,” Doris sniffed, “Valencia’s finest,” she boasted. Oliver whistled approvingly.

  I flopped down on her bed, wrinkling the shiny purple eiderdown, suddenly exhausted. Doris joined me, then Oliver. I could hear Isaac directing Sam and the boys up the stairs, they were carrying the last of his baking equipment.

  “First time the ovens won’t be lit for comin’ on twenty five years,” Doris said, sadly.

  Oliver patted her hands, and I could see that she was close to tears.

  “It’s not me I mind for, it’s Isaac,” she said, twisting her wedding ring round and round with her right hand. “He works so hard, and for what? We never even had an holiday, he gets up so early in the mornin’s, still dark it is. I don’t like this place any more, I tell you!”

  Oliver gave her a hug, and I found myself swallowing some tears, too. I’d never thought about how hard these two worked, and as I looked around the sparse bedroom with its cheap furnishings and sagging bed. I knew that no matter how hard they worked it would never pay them enough for the labour of love they performed in giving Port Charles its daily bread. I tasted a pang of guilt. The childish chant of ‘it’s not fair, it’s not fair’ sprang to mind.

  There was a shout from the stairway, and then a burst of laughter.

  “You daft bugger!” I heard Isaac call.

  We all got up and went to look.

  Richard and Will had split a sack of flour and a white cloud of dust had settled on them all. It rose in the air, making a delicate mist before our eyes.

  Jace was coughing and laughing, pointing at Isaac who was slapping the surplus off him with his hands. Will and Richard looked like snowmen.

  Doris was smiling, and I saw a glance of love pass between her and Isaac.

  She scolded them all into the bathroom to wash off the worst of it, whilst we tackled the stairs.

  “No wonder there’s something called Bakers cough,” spluttered Oliver, waving the insidious white dust away from his face with flapping hands.

  “Right deadly it is too, all that flour in their lungs, see,” Doris agreed, wiping down the banister with a damp cloth.

  Isaac and the boys emerged from the bathroom, and we clattered downstairs again. The empty shop and small backroom of the building was a dismal sight, with water lapping at the skirting boards.

  Isaac and Doris put their arms round each other and thanked us for our help.

  “Will you both be alright?” I asked.

  They nodded, and we all paddled back across the road to The Ram. My mind was busy trying to calculate sleeping arrangements, but it was far too complicated for me to try.

  We paddled through the pub to the staircase and wearily made our way upstairs. There was a grandly named ‘function room’ up there (The only function I had ever seen it used for was meetings of the debating society, consisting of about five very argumentative bar room philosophers. I’d once been in there for a twenty first birthday party where all the participants had been sick drinking too much cider). There was a broken pool table, and a stack of chairs ranged along the back wall with folded down trestle tables.

  Sam sank down on one of the chairs with a sigh. “Reckon we’ll all have to kip down in ‘ere,” he said.

  I glanced at Oliver, to see if he was as thwarted as I was. Noticing that he was, I felt a stab of satisfaction.

  In reality of course, there really was no option. I felt like a spoilt brat that had its sweets taken away. What was I going to do? Walking back to Penmorah was out of the question, it was far too wet, not to mention dangerous. I suppose we could have broken into Mrs Trevellyon’s cottage and made out on her sofa…

  I went round The Ram, picking up every cushion I could find, whilst Sam hunted down blankets. We made a very unprofessional looking row of sardine beds along the floor and all fell into them gratefully. We were all exhausted.

  “I’ve never slept on a pub floor before,” I said, trying to get comfortable on my meagre pile of cushions.

  “I should think not,” Oliver said next to me, “I don’t see you as a barfly you know.”

  “I once fell asleep at the Cat and Fiddle, oh, sorry Sam, and I woke up in the gents!” Richard proudly boasted.

  Jace snorted with laughter, whilst Sam gave a disapproving grunt. I couldn’t tell if this was about falling asleep in the gents, or whether it was the fact that it had been at The Cat and Fiddle (a very inferior sort of establishment according to Sam, although he wouldn’t ever elaborate due to some sort of secret publicans honour.)

  “We should find a radio with batteries in it, an’ listen to what’s goin’ on,” Jace said.

  We all agreed, but nobody moved. We were all too tired.

  Will, who customarily never spoke at all, became almost chatty under the cover of darkness. “I’m right worried about me chickens, they’re roostin’ an all, but with this rain… they’m could well be flooded out. The geese are OK, so’s the ducks, o’course, but the chickens, well… I don’t know, I really don’t.”

  This was more words that I’d ever heard him say in my life.

  Richard and Jace made re-assuring noises, whilst from Sam came the unmistakable sound of snoring. We all fell quiet.

  I felt Oliver move beside me, and his hand felt for mine. I reached out and held it. Eventually I fell asleep, lulled by the sound of the rain and the comforting feel of Oliver’s hand in mine.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the light of the morning we could see exactly how bad things were. Port Charles was flooded.

  Great gouts of water had come off the hills and were joined by the rain that was still falling. Thousands of gallons of water that had been stored underground from the disused tin mine had breached it’s shores, and were flooding the soaking land. It was chaos. Heartbreaking chaos. I could see that everyone was trying to calculate insurance money. Of course, not many were insured here.

  Judith, who had gone home last night, came back and diffidently asked for some help in covering her roof, half of which was intact. The other half had joined the rest of the debris littering Port Charles. Fire engines arrived to pump water, but it was a long slow process, and the water had very little place to actually disperse. It was high tide, too, and the sea looked about ready to come over the small harbour wall.

  There was still no word from Kev the Beard and the rest of the fishing crew from The Queen Mab.

  Reports of disorder and chaos were reported on the roads and railways, with a massive landslip by Truro station. The line near Bodmin was submerged under two inches of water.

  It was a disaster.

  Oliver, in between helping everyone as much as he could, spent a lot of time with his phone clamped to his ear.

  I’d cooked breakfast for twelve of us. I was sneaking a bit of bacon to Samina, who was delightedly trying to eat it without her mother seeing, when Oliver asked to see me. I wiped my hands on my jeans, wishing that I could have a bath, or had the foresight of bring some make up with me, and went into the function room with him.

  Our piles of blankets and cushions from the night before gave the room an air of a disused orgy den. It looked as though a group of drunken teenagers had held a slumber party there, which wasn’t far from the mark really. Listening to the whis
pered chat between the boys last night had really drummed into me just how very young they were.

  “Fin, I’m really sorry, but I simply have to get back,” Oliver said, running his hands through his hair, looking distractedly at me, “I hate to leave you with this mess, but I have no choice-”

  “But how are you going to leave?” I asked, fairly secure in the knowledge that it was going to be impossible.

  “I’ve spoken to Boo and she’s sending a helicopter for me.”

  Blimey.

  I thought only rock stars and prime ministers had that sort of treatment.

  He grinned, “It’s just cheaper to come and get me than it is to cancel the filming,” he explained, “I don’t want you thinking I’m some sort of pop star.”

  “It hadn’t crossed my mind,” I lied.

  He stared at me, and I realised with a jolt just how much I was going to miss him.

  “Look, come back with me. Penmorah is going to have to be looked at by someone, we don’t even know if it’s safe yet. You can stay with me, or Harry, of course,” he added quickly, “Please say yes. This place is a mess, and there’s nothing you can do here now. Professionals need to come in and help. What do you think?”

  I was so tempted.

  To be wafted away in the sky from all of this mess and chaos was a dream come true. But I knew I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t leave here.

  I shook my head at him, “You know I can’t. These people are my friends, they need help. Even if I only make soup for them, it’s something I can do… I’m sorry. I’d love to, but I simply can’t.”