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11
April, Two Months To Go…
Georgie loved her journey to work, through the fields and across the narrow little lane where most mornings a robin perched on the fence to greet her – a bit different to her previous commute in London. The mornings were the worst, always the sausage in a sandwich between smart young suits and too-strong aftershave.
Now that the seasons had turned and the robin had become a regular feature, Georgie started to bring along a crust of bread for the journey. She watched as he hopped from post to post on the fence along the narrow lane next to her, waiting for what had become a daily treat.
Why on earth was she comparing this to London, anyway? A good question, and one that she’d been asking herself since Paul Mellon’s email had pinged into her inbox a few days earlier. It was a generous offer, one that she wouldn’t have dared to dream of a few years earlier.
She would have to go over there, meet with Paul and the other members of the board. She’d agreed to a time the following week. Absurdly, Iris too had business to complete in London. Georgie hadn’t asked what sort of business could send Iris trotting over to the big smoke; she really didn’t want to hear about a lovey-dovey reunion with Myles.
These thoughts were clouding her mind as she made her way through the narrow gate at the rear of the distillery. She was early. No-one was due in here before eight-thirty, but Georgie loved to have a cup of coffee, mooch about the office and check any urgent emails before the day began.
It was as she was keying in the alarm code that she noticed the insistent beeping noise, like a buzzing bee, whirring with supreme urgency. It took a moment to register exactly what it was, but then she knew, even though she’d only heard it once before. It was the fire alarm. A warning signal that should be sounding in the nearby fire station to alert them that something was going wrong, something could be about to blow. And now she was racing along the factory floor. Moving from vat to vat, from still to still, checking each valve and then, stopping, checking again. With the rational part of her brain, Georgie knew she should leave, but the sensible part of her had shut down and now she was working off her gut. She was not going to see her father’s work go up in smoke without doing her damnedest to stop it.
She rounded the last of the gin stills – all clear here. Then—
‘Georgie?’ Robert’s voice came from the far end of the distillery.
‘I’m here. I’m just trying to figure out where that beeping is coming from.’ Somehow Georgie managed to sound a lot calmer than she felt. She shivered. A fire would be a disaster on a scale never seen before in Ballycove.Don’t think about that now,she told herself.
‘Georgie, come out now, the fire brigade are on their way, it’s not safe here.’ Robert’s voice was moving towards her. She could hear his footsteps squeaking along at a faster pace than she’d ever seen him move. Then more voices as the men arrived to go on shift.
‘Who’s in there?’
‘I think it’s Georgie.’
‘No. No.’ She heard the men making their way down the factory floor behind her.
‘Go back, go back,’ she called to them. The last thing she needed was those people who had come to mean something to her over the last few months being led into danger because of her. ‘I’m coming out now.’ She took a final glance around. There was only one more still to check. Of course, this one had been giving trouble. Robert had talked about shutting it down as soon as they could to have some repair work carried out. She looked at it now; the needle was riding at twenty degrees above the others. It was simple enough to just reduce the temperature, surely? She reached in, fiddled with the dial, pulling it back down to twenty below the others, hoping that would do it. Perhaps it would just slowly cool down.
Wrong. She was rewarded with a loud thumping and thrashing sound from inside the still, as if a hurricane was brewing, building up and pressing violently against the walls around it. She could almost feel the ferocity of heat pumping out from within. Terror seized her.
Oh, dear God.
‘Georgie, where are you?’ She could hear the men searching for her at the far end of the distillery.
‘Go back, go back, it’s going to bloody blow,’ she screamed at them.
And then she spotted it. Just beneath the ancient barometer on the wall opposite. A small green pulley at the base of the wall, locked behind glass, but there for emergencies. She flung herself on it, broke the glass with her elbow. She pulled the switch, immediately severing the power to that end of the distillery.
The sudden silence was ominous. Then a huge belch from the overheating still almost made Georgie jump out of her skin. The whiskey would be ruined, but she was almost certain they were now safe.
‘Thank God, you’re all right.’ Robert was first on the scene. He threw his arms around her and held her close for a moment, before stepping back self-consciously. ‘You are all right, aren’t you?’ She noticed then that there was an obscene amount of blood flowing from her elbow – it must have happened when she had broken the glass. But all she felt was an overwhelming surge of relief. As if, with the saving of the distillery, she had taken a deep breath and somehow, even her bones felt lighter – she felt elated to have been here in time to avert what could have been a catastrophe.
‘The whole still is probably lost.’ She sniffed as Robert put his arm around her shoulder and half-carried her back down the factory floor.
‘Maybe, but the distillery is saved and without your fast thinking, it was only a matter of minutes until that bloody whiskey still blew the whole place to kingdom come.’
‘Oh, God.’ She shivered. Had it really been that close a shave?
‘Really, you were very brave—’ He didn’t get to finish the sentence because as they arrived back to where the other workers were waiting for them, they were greeted with clapping and cheering. It was the closest she was ever likely to feel to being a hero and as each of the men shook her hand she tried not to blubber with this newfound feeling of belonging.
Later, as she sat outside, her legs stretched out on the grass waiting for the fire officer’s opinion on the incident, she felt as if she was somehow changed by the experience and her eyes began to fill up with tears. It was an odd feeling, cathartic and almost a revelation, since she’d always been so keen to avoid any great show of vulnerability. She’d thought she was much too strong for any of that silliness. Perhaps she’d been wrong all along. Maybe it was only those who were courageous enough to allow themselves to feel something who could let themselves cry.
And she did feel something. She’d risked her life to save the distillery. Her work here – not just putting together a marketing plan, but on the distillery itself, the employees, the history and the future of it – meant more to her than she’d realised until it looked like it was about to go up in smoke. Georgie smiled as she thought about this and the fact that here at least, her colleagues actually cared about her, enough to risk their own lives and try to rescue her.
It didn’t change the fact that she would be travelling to London to hammer out the details of her return to Sandstone and Mellon in two months’ time when her father’s will had been settled, but it certainly took the shine off it. If she was honest with herself, at this moment, as she lay back on the grass, with the warm sun resting gently on her skin, the very idea of going back to London felt like the last thing she wanted.But you can’t just turn your back on your life’s work. Can you?
