Thursday

by David Ridgway

  Nothing changes, thought Michael Varley. You’d think, after all this time, that we might have learned by now how to live with each other.

  As so often appears to be the case, the weather forecast was also pretty grim. The storms in North America had featured on the news, but with widespread blackouts, there were few pictures. David had watched the tracking of the weather systems and concluded that this was all caused by the El Nino Effect, bringing the warm mass of sea water to the west coast of Southern America, although no comment of that was made by the newscaster. Nor was there any comment about the rising sea levels caused by the melting of the Thwaites Glacier.

  “I sincerely hope we don’t get that snowfall over here,” Michael commented. “If it’s causing that degree of disruption in the USA, then Britain would simply fall apart.”

  “I told you that my science teacher, Mr Smith, has asked me to do some research into how the El Nino effect might affect our weather systems over here.” David responded.

  “Yes, I remember saying that I hope it won’t be diverting your attention away from your ‘A’ levels.”

  “It’s supposed to form part of the General Studies paper,” David reminded his father glibly. “The awful snows in Canada have been caused by a particularly intense La Nina last autumn.”

  “When I was a boy, it was accepted as common knowledge that the weather in America would be followed by similar weather over here, only a couple of weeks later.”

  “It’s not really as simple as that,” David replied. "It depends on the velocity and direction of the jet streams in the upper atmosphere and how low the temperature is over the North Pole. People don’t seem to realise how important the wind is as far as the future weather is concerned.

  “Anyway, I’d better get to my room and do some more revision.”

  David got up and quickly left the room. He did have some revision, but when the subject matter is rather dull, it doesn’t come easy. He wanted to look more closely at the weather systems in the USA and to see what effect they might have on Europe.

  He switched on his computer and waited for it to warm up. He entered his password and opened up the internet. He clicked on ‘current weather map USA’ and was rewarded with a number of maps showing the cyclones and the anticyclones, the winds, the temperature, the rainfall and even how these systems were tracking during the day. He moved onto the Caribbean, to see what was brewing. There appeared to be a warm front tracking northwest, between the mainland of South America and the Greater Antilles.

  I wonder how many people realise that the Greater Antilles is a general term for Cuba, Jamaica and Haiti, he thought. That weather front appears to be deepening. It might cause some concern if it links up with the latest weather coming in from the Pacific.

  He checked to the west and saw a front tracking up the west coast of Mexico, up the Gulf of California and into the western seaboard states. This was following the same track as the front which had veered to the East and caused so much damage over the past few days in Texas and Louisiana and, indeed, the snow in Canada.

  Gosh! he thought, This new front looks even more intense that the last one. I wonder where the old one’s got to.

  He moved his mouse and found that the area of low pressure was now leaving the Eastern USA, just to the south of the St Lawrence and Labrador. It was being predicted to pass over the Atlantic just to the south of Iceland and the North of Scotland, finally moving into Scandinavia.

  That’ll bring heavy snowfall to Scotland, I expect, he thought. Probably in a couple of days. Mm! And more rain for us. I suppose.

  Oh well, I’d better get some revision done. He texted John to check which subjects he was supposed to be doing and then sent a text to Jackie. She had also been busy revising so, recently, there had been very few opportunities to get together. David really hoped that their relationship wasn’t drifting apart. After that intense afternoon in the woods, way back in May, for one reason or another, there had only been a few opportunities to be alone together. Being educated at different schools didn’t help, of course, and the weather through the summer and autumn had been plainly awful. They had kept in touch through texting, but Jackie lived just a bit too far away to allow them to meet easily.

  His thoughts continued to drift away from his studies. It’s going to be difficult if I get a place at Sheffield and Jackie gets her place at Bristol, he thought. I just wonder what she wants from me. It seems such a long time since we were last together.

  Across London, in his small house in Poplar, Fred Shemming was getting ready to go to his evening shift at the Poplar Fire Station on the East India Dock Road. He was a big man, six foot five, with broad shoulders, black hair and an easy manner. Popular with his colleagues and reliable in his work, he had been promoted to station commander at the early age of 28. Now 35 and married to his pretty West Indian wife, Dinah, he had two children aged 6 and 4, Fred was content in his work and with his life. He kept fit playing football and coaching the youngsters. An enthusiastic Christian, he was a church warden at his local Pentecostal Church. In his spare time, he was studying through the Open University for a degree in Business Studies.

  It had been a quiet winter to date. The most serious incident had been a kitchen fire, when a pan of oil had been forgotten and caught fire. He had led Blue Watch that evening and the fire had been extinguished with no loss of life and surprisingly little damage to the property. Even more surprising was the reception he had received when he visited the property after it had been renovated. He was invited in by Mr and Mrs Khan, introduced to their children and offered tea. After discussing the reason for his visit and passing over the advice and leaflets concerning fire prevention, he suggested that the eldest boy, Adnan, a rangy lad of 8, might join the local football club.

  But it had been a difficult season with the continual rain throughout the autumn, making the pitches unplayable on too many occasions. Adnan had fitted in well to the team and was becoming a reliable central defender. He had that uncanny ability to read a game and what he lost in speed he fully made up in anticipation. Fred was of the opinion that if Adnan could get his speed up, then he might even become a real prospect for the senior team, even the youth team at West Ham.

  Out to the east, near Hadleigh in Essex, Thatched Barn Farm was a well-run and well-organised business. Predominantly arable, Martin Havers, the owner, had recently introduced a small herd of 25 Herefords. He had become increasingly concerned at the amount of chemicals that he sprayed onto the land each year. The soil had become as hard as concrete in the summer and thick mud in the winter. His yields were being driven down because of a lack of worms, to nourish and aerate the soil and he thought that some natural cow dung might redress the situation. His land stretched from the main road, down the slope and over the railway line, as far as Hadleigh Bay. The southern boundary gave way to the sea wall and, on the other side, the tidal mud flats.

  When he discussed the suggestion of cattle with his wife, she was enthusiastically in favour. He explained that the quality of the soil was deteriorating and this was forcing him to spend far too much on fertilisers.

  “I’ve been saying that for some years,” replied Jennifer. Jennifer was a typical farmer’s wife, rosy of cheek, bright of eye and becoming just a little plump. She did the books for the business, leaving Martin to get on with the ploughing, seeding and harvesting. Now that the children were grown up, the workload naturally increased, of course, as the available, free labour disappeared. Charlie, the eldest, worked in the city as a lawyer. Megan was dating the local blacksmith and happily pursuing her love of horses. The youngest, James, had joined the army and had recently been commissioned.

  “I haven’t calculated how much we might save on fertiliser, but natural dung will have the added benefit of encouraging worms back into the soil.”

  “I don’t expect we will see any real, financial benefits for some time,” said Jennifer. “And there will be additional costs for housing and feeding them over winter
.”

  The experiment was reasonably successful and the cattle had thrived. After only five years, there had been a noticeable improvement in the land. The expenditure on chemical fertilisers was now contained and Martin was looking forward to seeing it reduce over the next few years.

  Frustratingly, over the current autumn and winter, the weather forced him into a seemingly idle existence. He needed to get his land ploughed, but he couldn’t get onto it. He had done all the necessary maintenance on his farm equipment, even spending time cleaning the plough and the harrow. All his spring seed was ready for planting. His elder son, James, was coming home for a fortnight’s leave towards the end of February. He just hoped that the weather would relent sufficiently to get the fields ploughed.

  The weather was good for Andy. Working as a cabbie in the city and the West End, the rain was creating a never-ending supply of fares. With the economy visibly stagnating, while the succession of weak Governments each appeared incapable of presenting a sensible manifesto for improvement, there was a general degree of depression throughout the country as everyone waited for the politicians to act. And to add to the misery, the weather had been so wet that an increasing number of people were ignoring the Underground and using cabs to get from the office to their stations. He had toyed with joining Uber but had found that there were no real benefits while he remained successful in picking up his fares on the street so, to date, his decision had been a good one.

  He lived on his own in Kennington. He had previously been married for five years, but his wife had died in childbirth. Two days later, the baby had also died leaving him with no children and, having come to terms with his joint loss, he now preferred living on his own, appreciating the freedom. His wife’s life insurance policy had paid off the mortgage, with a tidy sum left over. His income allowed him sufficient lassitude to get involved in his passion, photography. He specialised in panoramic scenes, especially sunrises and sunsets. Mind you, there had been precious few of either to write home about, over the past few months. He also dreamed of building a reputation as a fashion photographer and, somewhat to his surprise, he had been able to persuade a number of his fares to model for him.

  He was parked on the London Wall rank, when a customer leaned into the cab and asked to be taken to Waterloo Station. It was raining again and Andy waited for the young lady to settle herself before setting off. She was soaking wet and her blonde hair was hanging down like rat tails, dripping with the rain.

  “I see you got caught in the shower,” he commented.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “It never seems to stop raining these days and my office is too far from the tube to walk easily.”

  “You seem to have a lot of stuff.” Andy looked through his mirror as she settled her handbag, her shoulder work bag, her computer and her umbrella. “It can’t be easy carrying that lot around.”

  “It isn’t.” She looked up and smiled. Her whole face lit up, the tiredness sloughing from her eyes. Andy turned onto Queen Victoria Street before crossing the Thames via Blackfriars Bridge for the short run to Waterloo.

  “You a secretary, then?” he asked.

  “Not really. I work for a couple of blokes who deal in finance and I have to keep track of all the contracts they do. It’s all on the computer, of course, but with interest rates different all over the world, I have to make sure all the documentation is done to reflect the exact costs at the time of the deals. It’s a bloody nightmare when the computers go down, because then everything has to be recorded by hand. They went down again, today. They say it’s the weather, but I reckon it’s because they’re trying to do everything on the cheap.”

  As she chattered on, Andy watched her face and wondered whether she might be interested in doing some modelling work with him. She was quite tall, with an elegant neck and shoulders. Her face was slightly drawn with pale blue eyes. She looked tired, as though she alone carried all the responsibilities of her employers on her shoulders.

  “You seem to be catching it all ends up,” he commented. “Doesn’t sound like ‘job satisfaction’ to me.”

  “It isn’t, really,” she agreed. “When the electrics go down, I have to take home all the paper trades and re-enter them into the systems to make sure that all the appropriate paper trails are up to date. It’s really boring work. I was hoping, when we voted to come out of Europe, that the company I work for might relocate somewhere more exciting in Europe. But the exit negotiations took so long, everyone seems get used to doing business electronically. And,” she added, “no one now seems to be moving abroad. So we’re just stuck here in wet and miserable London, with barely enough to live on.”

  Just as Andy was exiting the roundabout outside the station, he wondered again whether she might be interested in earning a bit extra cash in hand.

  “Do have enough time in your day to fit in another job?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, in my spare time, I do some photographic work. I’m always looking for new talent.”

  “Get out of here!” She laughed. “Me? Don’t be silly! My face looks like a washed-out pair of jogging pants. But thanks for the laugh!”

  He pulled up at the front of the station as she gathered her bags together. She paid the fare through the sliding window and he released the door. As she got out, he said, “Listen, here’s my card anyway. Have a think about it. If you want to, give us a ring and we can take it further. It’s up to you.”

  “Cheers.” She put the card into her purse along with the change and walked into the station.

  Andy watched her, tall, assured with her coat flapping around her legs, as she disappeared into the station. Don’t suppose I’ll ever hear from her, he thought.

  The young lady walked into the station and looked for the trains to Richmond. She had about twenty minutes to wait and went to the newsagents to buy a magazine and a bar of chocolate for her short journey.

  That was a strange suggestion, she thought. I wonder what he sees in me. I suppose I look a bit vulnerable since Michael seems to have stopped seeing me. Mind you, I knew that would never last, but he has been a bastard, taking everything for granted and then just spitting me out. Will I ever learn?

  I wonder what sort of photos he wants of me. And I wonder how much he pays. I expect he will pay, but it’ll never be enough and I suppose he’ll just use me and then spit me out as well.

  Turning over all these thoughts, she got out at Richmond and walked through the rain to her ground-floor apartment.

  Chapter 5

  Friday – Six Days to Go

  Over in America, the new weather system had now moved out into the Atlantic. Although the winds had been strong and the rainfall heavy, it hadn’t added significantly to the damage of previous week in the other states. It was now tracking eastwards at a rather leisurely pace towards the Azores.

  The previous system was combatting a large anticyclone centred over Greenland. This was having the effect of slowing down its passage across the Atlantic and at the same time making it deeper and more vicious. It was currently to the south east of Labrador.

  The clear up in the southern states had begun and interstate travel had been resumed.

  In the United Kingdom, after all the rain of the previous week, the sun had made an appearance, although there was no warmth in it and the wind stayed cold. The temperature had dropped, but everyone was hopeful that a full football programme would be played over the coming weekend.

  In the city, Andy was taking the day very steadily. He knew, now that the rain had gone, that his workload would be light. He wondered whether it might be worth while taking the day off.

  David went to school with the promise of a school match on the Saturday morning, should the pitches be playable.

  If the wind stays, it’ll keep any possibility of frost off the pitch, he thought. It’ll also help to dry it out. Then we just might get a match at last. He sent a text to his gran up in Yorkshire, telling her that he might be playing a school match the
next day.

  Up in Yorkshire, the sun had also made a surprising appearance.

  “Well, love,” said Robert. “I didn’t expect to see the sun today. But it’s still welcome.”

  “I wouldn’t hold your breath.” Christine answered him in her normal, pragmatic manner. “There’s no warmth in it.”

  “I reckon! The wind’s dropping as well.”

  “Then we’re going to have frost, aren’t we?”

  “After all that rain, if the temperature gets low enough, then that could cause some damage. It won’t do the roads any good and we’ll only get more potholes.”

  “I don’t know about you, but all those promises given by the Brexit people, you’d think that some of the saved money could have been spent on our roads.”

  “Anyway,” continued Christine, “I’ve had a text from our David this morning. He reckons they’ll be playing their school match tomorrow, if the frost holds off.”

  “Well, it should do, down in that there soft southern Jessie country!”

  The appearance of a thin, wintery sun in Essex had made precious little difference to Martin’s day. The land was still too sodden to work, but he hoped that the wind would start the process of drying the topsoil.

  We’ll need at least three weeks of this, he thought. And that’ll still not be enough. Could do with a week of hard frost as well, to break up the soil.

  He walked towards the cowshed, just to check that all was well. His cattle had all been under cover since the beginning of October and the cost of winter feed was beginning to hit Martin’s pocket. He wondered whether the cost of the feed was less than the cost of fertiliser for the land.

  Down in the East End, Fred Shemming was coming off the night shift. It had been another long night of inactivity. His log showed no incidents, not even a false alarm.