Marcus, the punt and Mattie arrived in style in front of her cottage. Marcus threw Anna a rope and she clung on, while he helped Mattie disembark. The water was not as deep here and the punt scraped on the bottom, but even so the water was over Mattie’s red boots and Anna was so wet she barely noticed any more.
Mattie fumbled for her key, her face taunt with anxiety at what destruction she’d see. She handed the key to Anna. ‘Would you mind going in first Anna, I know it’s going to be a disaster, but I’d just like you to see it first, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I will, but take care not to fall.’ Anna didn’t want her standing in the water too long.
She braced herself for a scene of destruction as she took the key from Mattie’s trembling fingers.
‘I’ll come back in about twenty minutes,’ Marcus said, as he picked up the pole and sped out into the middle of the water, which covered the street, eager, like a child faced with an adventure.
Anna unlocked the door, but the wood had warped in the wet so she had to shove it hard to open it. Was it only a couple of days ago that she and Freddie had come here for coffee? She turned round and tipped out her boots, then leaving them off padded into the cottage in her soaking socks.
It was the smell that hit her first, damp, putrid, clinging smell.
Then it hit Mattie, who let out a little cry. Even if, as some people had said, you could come back and live upstairs while the lower floor was repaired, the smell was horrendous, even dangerous if the water held sewage and perhaps chemicals from the nearby fields.
Anna went further inside the small hall and made her way to the living room. A thick coat of sludge covered the living room carpet and the bottom of the walls and clung to the curtain hems. She squelched back to the front door hoping to shield Mattie from the sight; she could fetch whatever was needed from upstairs while Mattie stayed sheltered in the church hall, but Mattie was made of firmer stuff.
‘I’ve got to see it, Anna, face up to it. It can’t be as bad as seeing streets demolished in the war, their belongings and sometimes bits of them scattered everywhere. I was only seven, but I’ll never forget it.’
‘OK, but it’s… unrecognisable from the comfortable pretty rooms you had,’ Anna was almost in tears herself, imagining how shattering it would be to find her home stinking and ruined like this.
She put out her hand and grasped Mattie’s and Mattie stepped into the cottage and looked around. Her face set hard there were no words. Mattie let go of Anna’s hand and went into the living room, feeling her feet squelching on the wet carpet beneath her. She opened the cupboard, which held the toys Freddie had been playing with, and water dripped out. She went into every room, the kitchen, a small shower room and a study, while Anna stayed in the living room, leaving Mattie to absorb the devastation in her own way.
When Mattie returned, there were tears on her cheeks, but her voice was firm. ‘It’s obvious there’s a lot to be done, but the important things are safe, my photographs are high in the bookcase in the study, but perhaps this damp atmosphere is bad for them. Somehow I’ll get through this. I must ring the insurers, perhaps get everything into storage.’ She went over to her desk to search for the file to find the emergency number.
‘I wonder how long you should stay here with the smell if it’s toxic,’ Anna said.
‘That’s the least of my worries, dear,’ Mattie said, ‘but if you see Marcus floating around perhaps you could ask him to come and help lift some things upstairs. He’s a dear boy, an unexpected child to a now retired couple who live near Lucy. The medics have given him some fancy label, but I was taught to take folk at face value, and just look how kind he’s being to all of us today.’ Mattie located the folder and took out her unwieldy mobile, stabbing in their number.
Leaving Mattie to her call, Anna went outside and, seeing Marcus and his punt not far off, she ushered him over. It had been obvious to her that Marcus still held onto a childish excitement of adventure, which she might have found disconcerting, but Mattie accepted, and Anna sensed, respected him as he was, so she would do the same.
‘Is Mattie ready to go?’ he asked eagerly.
‘Not yet, she wondered if you could help her. I’m Anna, by the way. I’ve come with my son, Freddie, to stay at the castle, and look after it while Philly and Sidney have gone on holiday,’ she explained.
Marcus seemed to be too busy tying up his punt to Mattie’s fence to show much interest in her introduction. He smiled at her in a friendly way before coming into the cottage, looking round with interest. ‘Very dirty,’ he said.
Mattie called to him and he went to her and she, still waiting for the insurance firm to answer, told him what she wanted taken upstairs. ‘Put them in the room at the top please, Marcus, high up in case the water comes in again, and shut the door on them in case this damp atmosphere gets to them… and perhaps we could open the windows, let in some fresh air.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Anna said, going over to the front window.
‘OK, Mattie,’ Marcus looked round, wandering from room to room. Anna said nothing, wondering if he understood what Mattie meant him to do. Then, opening a cupboard in the kitchen, he began to take out any large bowls he saw, picked up the washing up bowl and some large saucepans high on a shelf over the cooker and piled them all on the kitchen table.
Anna was about to say she thought these things were safe and would he like her to help move some of the ornaments and more fragile things, but he picked up a large saucepan and went into the living room, where Mattie was now grappling with her insurers, and filled it with the things off the mantelpiece and carried them upstairs. He filled all the containers he had taken from the kitchen with various things and carried them all upstairs.
‘That’s a good idea, far quicker,’ Anna said, and he beamed with pleasure and asked if they were ready to go back in his punt yet.
‘Marcus has his own way of seeing and doing things,’ Mattie said, after Marcus had dropped them off and while they were waiting back in the church hall for Simon and Luke to drive those staying in the castle to their rooms. ‘He goes to a special boarding school, but we are all pleased to see him when he comes back for the holidays, he’s as much part of the community as the rest of us are.’
‘He’s certainly been very helpful with his punt,’ Anna said.
She was beginning to wonder if she should call Lucy and see if she wanted her to collect Freddie. It was dark now, even though it was only four o’clock.
There were half a dozen people waiting to go to the castle, their faces drawn and sorrowful, they slumped in their chairs with the few belongings they were taking with them around them. Mattie had a couple of bags with her; she roused herself.
‘Everyone, this is Anna,’ she said, ‘She and her son, Freddie, are sitting in for Philly and Sidney and the poor woman has come here from London, no doubt hoping for a little holiday in the fresh air of the country.’
Mattie went on, going clockwise round the group, ‘Raymond and Patsy,’ a middle-aged couple, he concentrating on his iPad, she giving her a shy smile. ‘Everard,’ who she remembered speaking to earlier. ‘Nicole and Ingrid,’ two rather classy women who nodded royally, appearing as though they thought they were in this group by mistake.
Simon and Luke came into the church hall, approaching them smiling, though Anna could see the exhaustion on Simon’s face.
‘There’s no more rain forecast for tonight or tomorrow, which is the only good news I have, I’m afraid,’ Simon said. ‘But are you all ready to come up to the castle to the dry, warm rooms we have ready for you?’
‘Thank you, I’m longing for a hot bath,’ Patsy said, getting up from her chair.
‘Let’s go, then. We’ve managed to find five keys to the outside door, so couples will have to share for the moment. We have left the one you have, Anna, at the flat, and if you don’t mind letting people in and out if they lose theirs until we get more cut – though I expect after such a traumatic night and it being so cold most of you will be glad to stay inside. Luke and I will be sleeping in the castle tonight and we’ll make sure we all have each other’s mobile numbers.’
Various questions were asked, which Simon did his best to answer, all seeming to be concerning Julius one way or another: when was he back, would he cope with the council, would they get compensation?
Before the people who were staying in the castle were led away by Simon and Luke, Anna said to Mattie, ‘Do come and have some supper with us later or pop in if you want anything. I’m going to fetch Freddie from Lucy now and then I’ll be at the flat.’
Mattie smiled and shook her head. ‘Thank you, dear, but I’m longing to tuck up in bed with a hot-water bottle and a good book and forget about all this until tomorrow.’