The trees closed above me, hollow and wind-whipped, spattering leaves across my windscreen. Above the trees, the low ceiling of the clouds, glimpsed occasionally when my cover broke, a malicious iron-grey. We would be sunk if there were more rain. My hands, chilled by the sandbags or by Downland Flora, I was not sure which, gripped the wheel of the ancient Land Rover. I crossed the bottom of the main street, looked up the road towards Lucy’s cottage. Because of the power cut, not a single house was lit. The street looked much as it had done during the war.
I turned for home, ploughed towards the dip in the lane. The hedges thinned out here and I could see clear across flooded fields squared out by half-drowned fencing. Some creature was perched on the fence on the other side of the field, across the vast expanse of water. I brought the Land Rover to a halt and peered out in the lowering light.
It was a figure, definitely. A person in an anorak, hood up, back to the road. The person – a child, I was certain now – clung to the fence with an air of great anguish, frozen in fear like a bear cub or infant monkey at the top of a swinging tree.
It, the child, must have waded through the field.
My feet were made of ice, my hands numb, and I was hungry. All I wanted was a bath, a cup of tea and a crackling fire. Perhaps even a small luxurious nap, before heading out again to fetch William for supper.
‘Oh, hell,’ I said aloud. ‘Oh, absolute bloody hell.’
24
I GOT OUT of the Land Rover, stepping straight down into the water. The road gate, I saw immediately, was padlocked.
‘Hello there! Are you all right?’
Perhaps my voice hadn’t carried. Or perhaps the question was too ridiculous to answer. Either way, no reply came. I screwed up my eyes. I could see the small body was quaking with cold. Or fear, or sobs, or all three.
I climbed over the gate, landing with a splash into soft mud, and set out across the field. The water rose only to my knees but inside the waders my legs rapidly began to chill. My boots swished through the water as I approached but the child didn’t move. The sight of its mud-caked shoes, entirely soaked trousers, was appalling. I didn’t say anything. To ask, What on earth are you doing? was almost as stupid as Are you all right?
I came closer and leaned over the top of the fence to get a better look. It was a girl – a pinched little face, hanks of hair protruding from her hood. She shrank away from me, shaking so wildly with the cold that I thought she might slip and tumble down into the mud.
‘I don’t know what’s happened,’ I said, ‘but you need to get down off this fence.’
She shook her head vigorously. ‘I’m absolutely fine here, thank you very much.’
I gave a laugh of exasperation. There was such a thing, it seemed. ‘What are you planning to do next?’ I was genuinely curious.
‘Cross this next field.’ Her teeth chattered. ‘And keep going.’
I leaned further over the fence, glimpsed a violet edge to her lips.
‘Did you know that the cold can be dangerous?’ I said. ‘It can stop you thinking straight. I think that’s what’s happening to you. You’re too cold to think straight. If you were warmer, you’d realize that wasn’t much of a plan.’
Her head turned then, and as her body twisted she lurched sideways and clung on. Her fingers whitening against the wooden rail.
‘Mummy will be irate.’
‘Where is Mummy?’
Silence.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’m going to try and carry you to my Land Rover. Piggyback-style. OK?’
She stared at me, blinking. I recognized that hypothermic fogginess. At last the message penetrated. She lifted one cautious leg, and then the other, over the top of the fence, staring hard at the swirling water below. It made me shiver simply to imagine her walking through it. What on earth could have made her do that?
Now her feet were firmly on my side of the fence. I stepped in front of her and reached behind me.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Put your hands on my shoulders.’
Her arms yoked me, pulling back against my neck. Her knees dug vice-like into my hips. As her weight settled on me I felt the bones of my back pressing down, one upon the other, and my feet were driven deeper into the mud. Now I wasn’t even sure if I could walk at all. I hooked my hands under the backs of her knees and started to move. Just then she shifted, pulling herself up over my shoulders, and I staggered sideways, my right foot skidding out from under me.
‘Keep still!’ I hissed from between my teeth. Her forearm was jammed against my larynx.
‘I’m going to fall off—’
‘You won’t.’ My left leg, carrying all her weight, was threatening to buckle now. ‘I promise you.’
Surely the rashest promise of my life. I regained my balance, managed a proper step, then another, dragging a weight of mud and pressing water each time I put a foot forward. The field seemed immense, the water leaden as the sun lowered. I was slow as an astronaut. Strange, since they were weightless and I was carrying – what, four stone of child? A grey wagtail landed on the road gate: I focused on it, counting the dips of its tail, and made headway. Every half-minute or so the child was racked by deep shivers, and I had to slow down for each bout and endure the delay. The only sound was our breathing, mine harsh and regular, hers whiffling in the region of my right ear.
We reached the gate and she scrambled off me to cling to the bars. After a pause, during which I hung my aching arms over the gate and heaved in any number of strangled breaths, we negotiated the last few feet to the Land Rover, where I pulled the door open and let her down onto the driver’s seat. Relief flooded me, and with it a heady mixture of incredulity and near-indignation.
‘Now,’ I said, still panting. ‘What on earth did you think you were doing?’
She scrambled away from me into the back of the vehicle where she sat gasping and squeezing her hands together. ‘Running away.’
A high little voice. Of course she was. She hadn’t gone out there for fun.
‘Who from? Mummy?’
She made no move to answer. But there was no time. There was a car coming up the lane. I ducked out of the Land Rover to see it breasting the floodwater, headlights on. It was small and white and, as it toiled through the rising tide towards us, I realized that the driver wasn’t slowing down. The water, already churning around the tops of the hub-caps, would flood the engine at any moment. I ran with a heavy, splashing stride out into the road, waving my arm. ‘Stop! Stop!’
The car came to a halt, its mud-brown bow-wave settling and stilling. The driver, a woman, wound down the window. ‘I’m looking for my daughter.’ She spoke in a sort of controlled shout. ‘I was trying to get her to Upton Hall, and—’
‘She’s in my vehicle. She was sitting on a fence, so I helped her down.’ I didn’t say which fence, or anything else. I didn’t have enough breath.
‘For crying out loud. I slowed down for the water, and she jumped out. She’s the absolute bitter end.’ She peered reproachfully up at me. A strange, frowsty odour emanated from the interior of the car, rather as if bottled fruit had gone off.
‘Her lips are turning blue.’ I spoke slowly and with emphasis, for the only course of action was rapidly becoming clear to me. ‘She needs to get warm, now. You must both come to my house. It’s not far. Please turn round and follow me.’ I began to walk back to the Land Rover.
‘You don’t understand,’ she called. ‘We’re going to Upton Hall School—’
‘Forget the school,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘It’s closed. I’ll explain later. Now please turn your car.’
It was a relief simply to give orders. The girl’s mother glowered at me for a moment longer, and then yanked her steering wheel round.
I kept an eye on the white car in my rear-view mirror. She chugged along competently enough. Soon we’d be on the track to the mill, and safe. Occasionally I glimpsed the child’s pale little face, her wary eyes.
‘I should have carried on,’ she whispered. ‘Even if the mud had got to my waist.’
I pictured a small lone figure travelling over a distant field, struggling through the mire.