Sophie's Run

by Wells, Nicky

  I didn’t really want to go to sleep, I wanted to hold on to this moment forever and ever. Ecstatically happy, content, spent and newly engaged to the right man. I hugged myself under those duvets, pulling Steve’s arms close to me as well.

  “You do know they are actually attached to my shoulders and won’t, therefore, come off?” Steve muttered sleepily in a halfhearted protest.

  “Are you awake?” I whispered back superfluously. “I can’t sleep, I’m too excited.”

  “I’m not really awake,” Steve grumbled good-naturedly. “But I’m excited, too.” He kissed the top of my shoulder and I snuggled in closer again. I had to have fallen asleep mere seconds later, because when I next opened my eyes, it was light outside and the bedside clock read ten a.m.

  “Morning, sleepyhead,” Steve greeted me from his side of the bed and I turned around swiftly to make sure he was still there, right there.

  “Morning, stubbles,” I greeted him back, caressing his sandpapery chin.

  “Stubbles,” he smiled. “I like that. Nobody has called me that before. It sounds kind of cute.”

  “It’s meant to be,” I confirmed and sighed, stretching luxuriantly under the warm duvet. The window did its now-familiar rattling act and I pulled the duvet high against my chin.

  Another gust shook the windows all over the cottage and there was a peculiar howling that I assumed was coming from the chimney.

  “Storm’s coming,” I announced like a veteran islander, and Steve didn’t contradict me. We lay contentedly for a few minutes chatting about nothing in particular, until a sharp volley of knocks against the front door indicated that one or the other of us would have to get up.

  “That wasn’t the storm,” Steve observed dryly.

  “I guess we have company,” I declared. We looked at each other.

  “You go,” we said at the same time.

  “You go, and I’ll tidy up downstairs and sort out the fireplace,” Steve offered. “No doubt there’ll be ash all over the place with the wind catching into the chimney as it is.”

  “Deal,” I confirmed and jumped out of bed with surprising alacrity. Pulling on my dressing gown, I bounded downstairs to let in our visitors. Steve followed not far behind, wearing yesterday’s jumper to complement his pajama bottoms.

  Of course, it was Dan and Rachel.

  “Ah, look, the lovebirds were still in bed,” Rachel teased me, and stared accusingly at Dan. “Told you we should have come later.”

  “I’m hungry,” Dan protested. “I couldn’t wait any longer.” He handed me a big wicker basket laden with food stuffs. It had Greetje’s handiwork written all over it. I took it curiously and stepped back to set it down on the kitchen table. Rachel and Dan entered gratefully, and the wind whipped the door out of Rachel’s grip before she could close it softly.

  Ka-bang!

  “Sorry,” Rachel offered apologetically, but I shrugged.

  “This is going to get much worse,” I told her cheerfully. “We’ll have to batten down. Now what’s this?”

  “Morning, you two.” Steve bustled in full of cheer. “Apologies for my fiancée’s very rude manners…” He winked at me as he planted a kiss on Rachel’s cheek and shook hands with Dan.

  “Morning, morning, morning,” I added hastily, dispensing kisses all round. “So what is this?” I returned my attention to the basket.

  “Present from someone called Greetje. She says to come and see her later.” Dan was a little surprised at the familiarity with which Greetje had addressed him—“She knew my name. How did she know my name?”–as well as the generosity of the present. The basket contained everything for a proper brunch, and more. Bacon, eggs, croissants, and Greetje’s famous homemade pastries, jam, honey, butter—everything. I unpacked packet after packet of delightful goodies, and Dan grew more and more cheerful by the minute. “I love Greetje,” he announced. “I’ll have to tell her properly later. Shall I get on and make some breakfast?”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Three hours later, the storm was picking up pace by the minute. Thick grey clouds were scudding across a darkening sky, the wind was phenomenally strong, the rain spectacular. I switched on the telly for a while, and we caught the end of a severe weather warning for the region.

  “Not looking too good,” Steve observed, and I launched into a rendition of Greetje’s insights into storms on the island.

  “I’d love to have a go look-see,” Rachel suddenly announced. “You know, before it gets so bad that you can’t set foot outside anymore.”

  Needless to say, I was all for it, and we convinced the boys that it would do them good. Once more we togged up, and this time I equipped the visitors with spare wellies from the storage cupboard.

  As soon as we got outside, it became obvious that our venture was one of pure madness. It was almost impossible to stand upright.

  “Are you sure we want to do this?” Steve hollered.

  “Les—ha—loo—” Rachel’s voice came from the left, the wind tearing at her words, and she took my hand and dragged me forward. Holding on to each other, a little bit like last night, the four of us struggled and wobbled up the uneven path once more. For a brief moment, the going got easier as the dunes protected us from the worst of the wind, but as soon as we crested the hill, the storm hit us full force. Rachel was nearly swept off her feet with the unexpected impact, and Dan and Steve had to hold on really tight.

  When we reached the top, we stood and stared. It would have been sheer folly to go any further.

  Gone was the beach. Where we had stood a mere twelve hours before, there was a foaming, seething mass of swirling water. The storm was driving the waves sideways across the beach in a spectacular display of natural histrionics.

  “The tide should be going out,” Steve shouted into my ear, obviously having done his calculations. I nodded. “This is going to be bad, really bad,” he continued his observations, and I nodded once more.

  “We ought to go back,” he instructed, pulling vigorously at my hand. “This isn’t safe.”

  “Okay,” I shouted, tugging in turn at Dan and Rachel’s hands. A little reluctantly, but seeing the necessity of it, we all returned to the cottage.

  “That was quite something,” Rachel enthused, once we were all safe and dry.

  “That wasn’t even the half of it,” Steve muttered darkly.

  “You realize we’re on the lee side of the island?” I posited cautiously.

  “Even worse,” Steve retorted. “If this is what it’s like on the sheltered side, what will it be like on the weather side? Have you got candles? Storm lanterns? Matches?”

  I acquiesced to each of his requests and filled him in on Greetje’s emergency instructions. Faced with the inevitable, we turned necessity into virtue and hunkered down for a mammoth game of Monopoly.

  It turned out to be one of those priceless, perfect afternoons. In between bursts of playing and bartering, we toasted more marshmallows, although only on candle-flames as it was far too risky to light the fire with the wind howling down the chimney. We made pots of tea and I got an opportunity to educate the newbies in the delights and exigencies of the local tea ritual. We tried to watch a movie but gave up as my gorgeous friends struggled with the German dialogue and reception became more and more disrupted. We laughed. We sang. Yes, we even sang that song, all of us together, voices only with no instruments. We played charades. We were happy, and we had almost forgotten all about the storm.

  At six o’clock, the phone rang, startling all of us out of a little afternoon snooze.

  Greetje. “When are you getting here?” she demanded without preamble.

  “Who? Where? What?” was all I could muster in response, not having the foggiest what she was talking about.

  “You, all of you, of course. To your engagement party.”

  I turned to face Rachel and Dan. “My engagement party?” I repeated in English for their benefit, then switched back to German. “What do you mean, my engage
ment party?”

  Greetje erupted into bursts of agitated speech that were beyond me, and quite uncharacteristic of her.

  “Slow down,” I tried to get a word in edgewise. But she was talking to someone else in the room with her.

  “Right, sorry,” she offered, sounding slightly breathless when she returned to me. “I gather your friends forgot to tell you…or maybe they didn’t understand. Anyway, I’ve sent Arne to come and get you.”

  Arne was the horse-and-carriage man. In all the time on my island, I hadn’t had an opportunity to take a trip in the horse and carriage, although of course I had done my little stint of horse riding. I had met Arne then, seeing as that he owned the stables. But why would he come and get us?

  “We’ve got you a little party going in your favorite pizza restaurant,” Greetje finally explained. “We’re all here and waiting. Which is a good idea anyway because I’ll be much happier with you out of that remote little cottage. You never know.” Another fabulous non-sequitur, but I was following her logic. She was worried about us landlubbers out here in the cottage on our own.

  “Arne will come and get you so you don’t blow away, okay?”

  I grinned. Greetje could fix anything on this island. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll be ready. And…thank you.”

  “It’s nothing,” she said graciously, “just get here and don’t keep your guests waiting.”

  Three faces looked at me expectantly.

  “Why didn’t you tell me there was a party going on for us tonight?” I chided Dan and Rachel, but only as a matter of protocol.

  Steve gave me a hug. “You must have made quite an impression on these people for them to do so much for you,” he surmised.

  “Of course,” Rachel exclaimed. “Everybody loves Sophie.” She was making a dig at a TV series that I quite used to enjoy, but I didn’t rise to it.

  “We’d better get ready, I don’t think it’ll be long until our lift gets here,” I suggested.

  “Our lift being the horse-and-carriage?” Dan confirmed curiously. “How exciting.” He was remembering our last horse-and-carriage journey, and so I quickly disabused him of any notion that this impeding ride would be even remotely as luxurious.

  Already, there was a knock at the door.

  “Arne is here, come on, quick now,” I bellowed, rushing to open the door. Arne gave me a quick smile but his manner was serious.

  “Please to lock all the windows and shutters if you can, and turn off electric and light. Please to bring blankets and torches with you. And please to hurry. I stay with the horses because they are quite pretty frightened.” He doffed his hat and returned to his team of horses, patting their noses gently.

  I tried to catch his attention to gesture that I would have to shut the door, but failed miserably. Feeling mean, I shut the door anyway and relayed his instructions. Dan and Steve immediately bounded up the stairs to take care of windows and shutters there. I heard muffled swearwords and much banging about but within minutes, all was quiet and the men returned. Rachel and I sorted out downstairs, flitting about like headless chickens, turning off lights, extinguishing candles and gathering up blankets and lanterns. All in all, it took us about five minutes, but poor old Arne was properly drenched when we got out.

  “Occupational hazard,” he grinned affably as we piled into the carriage and set off. “I’ll be collecting more stragglers from all over the island before the night will be out. We like to stick together, you see, get people from in the most remotest houses into the village. Just in case. You know?”

  We nodded, feeling a little better at not being the only source of Arne’s discomfort today. Arne drove us to the Italian restaurant, then swiftly turned the carriage around to conduct his next mercy dash. We hurried inside to escape from the weather, clutching our blankets and torches. The restaurant was on two levels, ground floor and basement. Previously, I had always enjoyed sitting by one of the glass doors looking out at life while I enjoyed my food. Tonight, however, the ground floor restaurant was deserted and the action was downstairs.

  We were greeted by the amazing smell of pizza, loud voices, and cheerful music. Balloons and banners had been strung criss-crossing the room, and there was a great centerpiece made up of pink and white heart-shaped balloons.

  “Überraschung,” Greetje shouted when she spotted us and hastened across the room to say hello. “Surprise! We thought for a moment you weren’t coming.” She hugged me briefly and whispered in my ear, “I am so pleased for you, congratulations.”

  She turned to Dan and Rachel. “Hi, good to see you again. Did you forget about all this?” She gestured loosely at the balloons and the party. Rachel had the grace to blush.

  “I don’t think we quite understood what you were telling us, I’m afraid,” she admitted.

  Greetje took this in her stride. “That’s why I rang the telephone,” she grinned.

  “Thank you for the amazing gift basket,” I suddenly remembered my good manners. “And this is Steve, of course!” I tugged possessively at Steve’s sleeve and Greetje beamed at him.

  “Very pleased to meet you, Steve,” she said solemnly and shook his hand. “How do you do?”

  “Nice to meet you, too, Greetje,” Steve responded, managing to pronounce her name correctly. “Thank you for everything. For, you know, looking after our Sophie.”

  Greetje waved off his praise with an airy disregard. “Oh no, she was looking after herself all by herself,” she exclaimed. “Now then, I think the food’s about ready. We’ve ordered pretty much everything on the menu and it’s going to be a big buffet, so help yourselves.”

  Sure enough, at this moment the chef came through with the first load of pizzas. He had abandoned the normal serving-size pizza trays and was presenting huge rectangular trays full of party-size pizzas. A loud “oh” and “ah” went through the room as folks realized that food was arriving. Dan and Rachel joined the fray immediately but Steve and I hung back for a little bit, observing.

  “Who are all these people?” Steve wanted to know. There were probably about fifty or so adults and children at the party. “How did you manage to get to know so many people so well in such a short time?”

  “I didn’t,” I conceded, trying to identify the folks around us. “I don’t know everybody here, like, personally. Let’s see…” I subtly pointed out individuals as I saw them. “There’s Greetje, obviously, and her husband Klaus… Their two grown-up children and the grandchildren… Folke, the ferry man… Anna from the supermarket… The teachers from the school… The postman… The bank clerk… The pharmacist… Some of ‘my’ children from school and their parents… Oh, and the choir of course…”

  I grinned at Steve. “On reflection, I probably do know everybody here.”

  “You joined a choir?” Steve asked in surprise.

  “Of course! I missed singing. I wasn’t very good at their style of music, but they didn’t mind.”

  Greetje bustled toward us, munching a slice of pizza and waving energetically with her free hand. “What are you doing, standing here at the back? You are to eat, and to be merry,” she mock-scolded, dragging me by the arm toward the buffet. Steve followed us, bearing a big smile. He appeared at ease in this environment, he seemed to positively revel in the hustle and bustle. I was glad.

  There was a lot of admiration for my purple “plastic” ring which of course I had to show off, and Steve wasted no time dining out on the story of how I mistook his designer gift for a plastic ring. I took the opportunity to have a quick chat with Greetje.

  “Thank you for organizing this,” I said humbly. “I can’t believe you’ve all come, and all this food and everything…”

  “It’s nothing,” she assured me. “We wanted to celebrate. Besides, I suspect that you’ll be going home to England soon?” She looked a question at me, and I nodded my head reflectively. Yes, I supposed I would.

  “So this is a kind of farewell, too.” She beamed. “Everybody has greatly enjoyed meeting yo
u and hearing about your wonderful escapades.”

  I cringed, but only slightly. In reality, I had quite enjoyed the good-natured interest that everybody here was taking in everybody else’s life. It meant that people were looked after.

  “And lastly, before you get too overwhelmed by it all, it’s only partly for you.” She tried to appease my discomfort at the grand and unexpected celebration of my engagement. “We come quite often together like this in bad storms. It means all people are in a safe place and we can look out for each other and everybody is less scared. There’ll be more people coming soon, Arne is—”

  “—collecting them all,” I laughed. “Yes, he told us. What a wonderful tradition.”

  “Isn’t it just? And it distracts the children from the howling and wailing of the storm. Why sit at home, where it may be cold and there’s nothing to do?”

  I shook my head in amazement. I would miss this island and its fantastic little community quite a lot when we left. But this wasn’t the time to dwell on departures. Steve had been to the buffet and returned with pizza and wine for both of us, and I tucked in gratefully.

  As Greetje predicted, more people arrived over the next hour or so until the restaurant was packed out. Steve and I were duly toasted and celebrated, but the islanders also went about their business of resisting the storm and making merry in the face of adversity. When the rush on the food subsided, we cleared a big space to create an impromptu dance floor and the music cranked up. Adults and children alike were bopping and dancing and singing along; it was quite raucous in a harmless kind of way. The evening was a whirl of colors and food and dance while the ferocious storm outside hit and battered the island. High tide was due at eleven p.m., and if there were going to be waves crashing over the sea defenses, they would be at their worst then. We feigned ignorance and carried on.

  By and by, the children drooped and faded and the adults created a big sleep area in one corner, bringing out sleeping bags and blankets. Incredibly, despite the music, the kids went off to sleep, having tired themselves out with wild dancing, running around, and lots of food. We turned the music down a bit but kept it going, and the mood changed, became a little more grown up, more serious. Couples appeared on the dance floor, holding hands, even doing proper rock’n’roll or jive-style steps.