A Tangled Summer

by Caroline Kington

  ‘No you don’t. It’s what friends is for,’ said Charlie gruffly. ‘And I meant what I said, Lin: I’ll be here whenever you need me. I enjoy this bar lark and I can do any humping and fixing you need.’

  ‘You’ve got enough to do already, Charlie. Don’t worry. I’ll look out for a temporary barman until Stan and I decide what to do about the pub. I shall be sorry to see The Grapes go, though. I like the life, but I can’t afford to get a place on me own and no brewery is going to employ a single mum.’

  ‘What you need is a partner, to buy Stan out.’

  Linda smiled wanly, ‘If only – they don’t grow on trees, Charlie.’

  ‘Maybe not. But don’t give up, Lin.’ He gave her a brief hug. ‘I’ll be back this evening.’

  About to let himself out, he hesitated and turned to her, ‘Lin, do you mind if I ask your advice about something?’

  ‘Of course not, Charlie. You’ve been saying all afternoon that’s what friends are for…’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but this sounds…well, a bit silly, really, compared to what you’re going through, only it’s starting to bug me.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘My whiskers. What do you think of them?’

  Linda’s face lightened, and for a moment Charlie was afraid she was going to laugh. But she didn’t. ‘They are magnificent, Charlie.’

  ‘So you don’t think I should get rid of them?’

  ‘You’ve had those whiskers ever since we left school. You’re like my little brother – as soon as he got hair growing on his face, he grew whiskers. My mum hated them, the school banned them, his girlfriend moaned, but he wouldn’t shave – he thought they made him look older.’

  ‘Yeah, right…’

  ‘But do you need to look older, now you are older? As I remember, you’re quite good-looking under all that hair. Perhaps it’s time to see what Charlie Tucker really looks like.’

  The rain lashed down as Charlie shot across to his van. ‘Blimey’, he thought to himself, wiping his face dry and staring at the windscreen teeming with water. ‘Nothing I could do on the farm today, even if I wanted to…’ He had been planning to make a start on ploughing, but the long night and then working in the bar had left him feeling tired, and he relished the fact that the rain gave him an excuse to have a kip in front of the telly instead.

  Visibility was so poor, he drove back slowly, thinking about his whiskers, and about Linda and her plight. If only he could afford to buy Stan out. Be Linda’s sleeping partner. He cackled coarsely at his pun. But then, he thought wistfully, she was a bit of all right. Stan was bloody mad to have thrown her over for a pair of big bazookas and bed-me eyes. Charlie no longer had any regrets about Beth, and contemptuously wrote them both off.

  He thought of working on the farm. He thought of working in the pub. ‘I could do both,’ he thought. ‘Perhaps I should get Lin to train me as her relief barman... If only,’ he sighed wistfully, ‘if only I could make enough money and buy Stan out.’

  His daydreams came to an abrupt halt when he turned off the road. Even through the deluge, the track to Marsh Farm, running along a slight rise, brought the riverbank and fields on either side clearly into view and he could see that the river was in flood.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he exclaimed aloud. ‘What’s caused that?’ Although it had rained solidly since the night before, the summer had been long and dry and the water levels had been very low. Even with the run-off from the hard ground, the river shouldn’t have been that high. The storm must have brought a tree down, damming the river somewhere.

  He abandoned his van, ran into the barn and collected the chainsaw, ropes and a chain, then jumped into a tractor. He found his mobile, turned it on and was just about to phone his brother when he remembered that Stephen always turned his phone off when he was at his rehearsals. ‘Bloody Norah!’ Charlie snorted in disgust, and phoned Lenny instead. Lenny, who had just got home from the Lesters, groaned, but came out immediately.

  The two of them set off in the old tractor, crossed the yard, drove behind the house and bumped across an empty pasture down to the river. The rain blotted out the windscreen of the cab; the wipers had stopped working ages ago and Charlie had to peer out of his window to see where he was going, so by the time he arrived at the river’s edge, his head and shoulders were already soaked. Trundling along the river’s bank, keeping just clear of the edge of the flood, they crossed several fields before Lenny let out a shout and pointed. ‘ Over there, Charlie… On the bend… Bloody hell, this is gonna be some job!’

  The culprit was a huge old ash that had completely up-ended, and now straddled the river.

  Leaving the tractor, Charlie and Lenny waded through the flood, which swirled ankle deep around their boots, and stared up at the huge root ball, which was easily six foot high. Charlie was aghast, and for a moment quailed at the size and difficulty of the task in front of them. ‘Blimey, Lenny, you were not wrong…Well, come on, no point in hanging about – it’s not going to get any better.’

  ‘How on earth are we gonna shift this, Charlie? We can’t do it by ourselves…we’re gonna need help.’ Lenny, completely bedraggled by now, his hair a dripping rat’s tail hanging down his back, stood, gaping up at the tree.

  ‘From whom, Lenny boy? You can try raising the fire brigade, or the Environment Agency, but by the time we get help, the river will have flooded as far back as Summerstoke. You’d better put in a call to ’em both while I check it out…but as sure as eggs is eggs, we’re gonna have to do this ourselves.’

  Leaving Lenny punching numbers into his mobile from a list in the tractor cab, Charlie waded a little way along the bank, upstream, to get a clearer view of the tree, which straddled the river completely, with half of its branches submerged. In a short space of time, he was joined by Lenny, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘The Agency just had an answerphone; the fire brigade says they’re busy – they’ll come when they can, but they’ve got a lot of calls to deal with and it’s people rather than trees that have to have priority. Morons! If this tree ain’t shifted, they’re gonna be a lot more people with water in their sitting rooms, includin’…’ – his eyes widened with sudden shock – ‘my missus and the kids. Blimey, Charlie – what are we waitin’ for?’

  ‘OK, Lenny, this is what we do – see that big branch, there, clear of the water? First thing we do is we get a rope round that. I’ll have to shimmy along the trunk, cutting off the other little branches first, so tie a length of rope to the chainsaw handle will you, in case I drop it, and start it up for me.’

  With water dripping off the end of his nose, trickling through his scalp and running down his neck, he attached one end of a rope to his waist and Lenny attached the other to the tractor. He placed a muddy boot onto Lenny’s knee, then his back and climbed up onto the tree ball. Lenny handed him the chain saw once he was aloft, then, straddling the trunk, Charlie slowly edged forward, cutting off the branches in his way with the chainsaw as he went.

  The tree was slippery with the rain, and once or twice he nearly slid off. The water churned and boiled only a few feet below, and Charlie, who had absolutely no head for heights, even little ones, kept his attention grimly focused on the next branch in front of him. After what seemed eternity, but was probably only half an hour, he reached the substantial branch he had identified earlier, which was approximately half way along the trunk By this time, he was sweating profusely; his hands were numb, and his thighs and calves were trembling convulsively with the effort of keeping himself balanced on the trunk. He carefully lay the chainsaw down on the tree trunk behind him, and slowly untied the rope from around his waist. Up to this point, it had been his life-line in case he fell, but now it was needed. Feeling incredibly vulnerable, he pulled at the rope until the chain that Lenny had tied to the other end was in his hand. Feeling as scared as he’d ever been in his life, he leaned forward and attached the chain securely a
round the branch. His heart in his mouth, still not daring to look down, he felt behind him for the chainsaw, then slowly, slowly, edged back along the trunk, occasionally snagging on the sawn-off stumps of the branches. He finally got to the top of the root ball and half-jumped, half-fell to the ground, where he landed with a huge splash. He lay there for a moment, trembling with the effort, limp with relief, sodden and muddy, but past caring.

  Lenny started the tractor. Slipping and spluttering on the sodden ground, spraying Charlie with quantities of mud, he drove the tractor downstream of the tree, pulling the trunk in the direction of the river current. Charlie could do little more than watch and guide the tractor’s path until, finally, the combination of the tractor pulling and the force of the current pushing against the trunk, became irresistible. The tree swung on its axis, releasing the swollen waters, which then swept through, fast and free. The flood reversed its flow, sucked back over the banks, and almost immediately the water level started to fall.

  Weakly, Charlie climbed back into the cab. He was so covered with mud he was barely recognisable.

  ‘‘You’re a bloody hero, Charlie Tucker,’ Lenny said, gruffly.

  ‘Thanks, Lenny.’ Charlie stretched and groaned. ‘I owe you a pint. See you at The Grapes, later?’

  ‘I’m knackered, Charlie. Maybe not tonight. But Charlie, mate, wait, there’s summat I’ve gotta tell you…’

  ‘Not now, Lenny. I’ve promised Lin I’d help her open up and if I don’t get some shut-eye, like right now, I won’t last five minutes.’

  ‘Blimey, you’ve got some stamina, Charlie – up all night, all afternoon shifting that bloomin’ tree, then down at the pub for opening time. Surprised yer don’t sleep there.’

  * * *

  At the manor, sandbags in place, the workers, drenched and exhausted, gathered in the kitchen, where they were served mugs of tea and thick slices of fruit cake by Nanny, aided by Elsie who had insisted on accompanying Alison. The next task was to be the evacuation of the furniture from the ground floor of the house should the waters continue to rise.

  ‘Where’s Stephen?’ Angela asked Alison, anxiously.

  ‘He’s outside, keeping an eye on the water level,’ Alison replied. Like everyone else, she was tired and wet. She had earned both Simon and Marcus’s admiration for the way she tirelessly ferried the wheelbarrow full of sandbags from the top of the cellar steps to wherever they were needed. The urgency of the situation and the strenuous physical exercise had temporarily banished her unhappiness, but it lurked, a great, black, throbbing bruise.

  Taking him a mug of tea, Angela went to find Stephen. It was still raining hard and she could just make him out on the terrace, standing at the edge of the flood, staring down at the water. She called out to him, and he turned, beaming with relief. ‘It’s stopped, Ange. It’s stopped.’

  ‘What has?’

  ‘The waters have stopped rising. Look, you can see from the line of sticks and foam, it’s retreating.’

  Angela stared in disbelief, ‘But how? It’s still raining hard. Why should it stop, just like that?’

  * * *

  All afternoon, the inhabitants of Lower Summerstoke had waited for the disaster to strike. Many had taken the vicar’s advice and had pulled out sandbags lying, long forgotten, in garden sheds or garages; others had panicked and left their homes for the higher ground of Upper Summerstoke, congregating anxiously in the shelter of the church (where they found the vicar in unusually high spirits, helping his long-suffering wife dispense tea and biscuits to the refugees); others had struggled to take television sets, DVD players and other items of inestimable value upstairs.

  When it became clear that the danger had passed and the fire crews, not having needed to hand out a single sandbag or wrap a sole, shivering body in a thermal suit, had cheerfully departed, (stopping on their way out of the village, to have a quiet ‘word’ with the vicar) the ungrateful villagers, muttering darkly about ‘a false alarm’ and ‘what a waste of a Sunday afternoon’ and ‘what was the vicar playing at, giving us all a fright like that?’ returned to their homes, and returned their homes to rights.

  Lenny, returning to his home, found Paula and his mother-in-law half way through his bottle of Jack Daniels and shrieking with laughter at Tales From the Crypt.

  * * *

  The kitchen at the manor was warm and convivial. A huge old white Aga popped and burped at one end of the long, low-ceilinged room and was the source of the much-welcome heat. Gigantic cream painted dressers lined the walls, filled with at least three different dinner services and hung with pots and pans of every description. A vast porcelain sink and wooden draining board sat under a casement window that looked out over the lawns; a long refectory table dominated the centre of the room and a battered but very comfortable assortment of armchairs were scattered around the room.

  The danger over, Mrs Merfield, erect, gracious and utterly formidable, wanted to express her thanks to her rescue team. The staff from The Foresters Arms hadn’t stayed – they were keen to get back to collect their afternoon’s tips; and Alison’s friends had made good their escape just in case ‘the stiff old bird in black’ was to get it into her head to ask for the sandbags, which were twice as heavy now they were wet, to be taken back to the cellar.

  Angela’s clothes were still drying, so the party from Marsh Farm had been persuaded to linger longer. Simon volunteered to go and collect the chocolate cake he had planned for Elsie, and he had returned with it and Duchess, who immediately made a bee-line for Alison, nuzzling and licking her.

  Marcus, who knew Simon’s dog of old, raised his eyebrows, ‘She obviously likes you, Ali. She’s a fussy old hound and picks her friends carefully.’

  Alison, buried in the depths of an old armchair, damp, exhausted, was pleased. She liked Marcus and so his approval mattered. He was obviously a bit older than Simon and very tall. His bald head seemed to emphasise his eyes, which were bright and shrewd. When they had first met, she felt herself being appraised by him and had felt oddly nervous, until he had smiled with a warmth which touched even her frozen soul.

  But now, a growing melancholy was taking her over and she felt distant and detached from the general activity in the kitchen. It was certainly an odd bunch assembled round the kitchen table. Mrs Merfield sat at the head, upright, imperious, but chatting to Stephen, who was becoming less awkward by the minute. Angela sat at his side, listening, head cocked like a scraggy little bird, thought Alison. Nanny was helping Simon divide the chocolate cake and Marcus was entertaining Elsie and the other two Merfields, an incongruous duo, in their chiffon dresses, high strappy sandals and carefully applied face-paint, among the muddy, soggy gang who had fought the flood. Elsie, Alison noted with amazement, was flirting with Marcus. She had never seen her formidable old gran like this before, chatting animatedly with the other two old ladies, digging Marcus in the ribs, and dimpling when he roared with laughter at some acerbic remark she’d made.

  Simon brought her over a piece of chocolate cake. ‘Penny for them, Ali?’

  ‘Nothing, really. I’ve just never seen Gran like this before.’

  ‘You’re right, though, she’s a rare old bird.’

  Elsie turned in her chair to look at them. ‘Now that we’ve had your chocolate cake, Simon – and very nice it was too – are you and Ali going to tell me what you want from me?’

  Simon was taken aback, but Alison was never surprised by her Gran’s perspicacity. ‘It’s family business, really, Gran, and I’m not sure that we should…’

  ‘It also involves my aunt,’ Simon reminded her.

  ‘Me?’ Mrs Merfield was dignified, but curious. ‘What is all this? Why are you both being so mysterious? Explain.’

  ‘Yes, what’s this all about, Ali?’ Stephen was equally curious.

  ‘But we don’t want dirty linen washed in public!’ Elsie interjected, sharply. />
  ‘Where else should it be washed, Elsie?’ tittered Louisa Merfield. She was ignored.

  ‘It’s nothing for the Tuckers to be ashamed of, Elsie, but it’s important that you know what’s going on before it’s too late.’ Simon was sombre, and the company fell silent as he and Alison described what they knew and what they suspected of the Lesters’ plot against the Tucker family.

  By the time they had finished, the mood had shifted from polite attention to disgust and anger. Amid an eruption of indignation from the rest of the company, Stephen groaned and held his head in his hands. ‘They’ll succeed, I know they will. They’ve got money and power – they’ll get what they want. So I’ll manage to get the milking parlour up to scratch, but then it’ll be something else…and if the bank is against us, what hope do we have? We pay them what they ask this time – then they just up the stakes. It’s hopeless…’

  ‘No it’s not!’ Alison was angry. ‘I knew you’d react like that, Stephen. Are you really just gonna lie down and let them walk all over you? You’re such a wuss!’

  ‘No, he’s not!’ Angela leapt to Stephen’s defence. ‘Your brother’s not a coward. It’s just that he can see all the problems, and that’s what upsets him, but he’d never let anyone walk over him. He wouldn’t!’

  Since it was the first time Angela had spoken since they had assembled in the kitchen, everyone, including Stephen, stared at her. She blushed, ‘I know it’s none of my business, but you’re kind, decent people, and it makes my blood boil to think of those horrid people trampling over you.’ Stephen found her hand over the table, squeezed it and did not let go.

  ‘I agree with Angela,’ Simon smiled at her.

  ‘And so do I,’ chipped in Marcus. ‘I’ve only met you this afternoon, but the way you rallied round to help…we could all do with neighbours like you. Wouldn’t happen in London!’

  ‘I quite agree,’ said Mrs Merfield. ‘We are very fortunate. And we saw this afternoon just what sort of neighbourly support the Lesters give! My sisters and I have never liked them and when he came here to besmirch your brother’s reputation and suggest we hand over our meadows, we were as one in sending him away with a flea in his ear.’