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Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Flood
The most frightening thing about floods is the sound.
That’s what Minty’s mother had told her when she was little, and she should know; she’d been in Valencia in nineteen fifty-seven when the Turia burst its banks and so many lives had been lost. Minty hadn’t understood it at the time. How could the sound be the worst part? Soon she would know that her mother had been right.
It was the noise that had wakened her, late on Christmas Eve morning, when she sprang suddenly from her bed at the ruckus, thinking the earth was splitting apart, immediately trying to get to Jowan in the ballroom, hoping he was still there.
Even though Minty had seen floods on television reports and everyone in these parts knew what it meant when waters massed in sudden violent torrents and swept down a steep valley, she still didn’t make the connection. It had happened in gentle, wooded Lynmouth. It had happened in historic Polperro. It had happened in beautiful Boscastle, but not here.
Only when she stepped into the foyer and saw through the grand doors the wide river, only a few metres away, of dirty, debris-filled water flowing over the far lawns in bubbling, gurgling gushes at least three foot deep, did she understand what was happening.
The house itself was raised up just high enough on its mighty stone plinth to avoid the water but to the west of the building and all down the rhododendron valley and over the lawns towards the visitor centre car park, the water took the quickest route downwards and into the village.
When her brain registered what was happening she ran straight for the ballroom, heaving the doors apart only to find the place empty and Jowan’s bed folded away neatly in the corner.
The flash flood had begun miles inland where thousands of hectares of waterlogged fields had reached saturation point, rivers had risen and burst their banks, tarmacked roads ran like canals, and metal covers had been lifted from drains and sewers, all overwhelmed by last night’s deluge. Every drainage channel, well, gutter and stream had filled to bursting and overflowed.
All of these sources had combined with the four inches of rain that had fallen during last night’s electrical storm and were now gushing into unsuspecting Clove Lore.
To Minty, standing breathless in her Big House, the water sounded very much like jets flying past, mixed with underground thunder.
She paused only for a blank, terrified moment before she ran for her mobile, dialling the number while dashing up two flights of stairs into Leonid and Izaak’s rooms. They weren’t there either. Where was everybody?
‘Coastguard, ambulance, police, fire, send everyone to Clove Lore!’ she shouted as soon as the call connected.
Holding the phone between cheek and shoulder, she heaved herself up the ladder to the porthole window and saw it: the wall of water washing violently into the village.
‘Launch all lifeboats, and helicopters too,’ she screamed. ‘Please, hurry!’
There was little time to think. As soon as Magnús saw the square outside the bookshop filling with water like a paddling pool, he knew he had to investigate. Down the little side street where the bookshop stood, the water level rose gently, but when he reached the turning for Down-along he immediately grasped its severity.
The water gushed at great speed and almost high enough to claim each of the cottages’ raised front gardens.
He’d stood close enough to an erupting volcano before to recognise the sound of the earth in chaos. Now he knewbothfire and water have the power to shake the earth beneath a person’s feet like an inferno.
Fresh mud and gasoline scented the damp air. Magnús was too alarmed to register much more than that. All he knew was that Alex was nowhere to be seen.
She’d said she’d be gone for ten minutes. That was almost an hour ago.
A sled carried past him on the tumbling water’s surface, then kindling and hewn logs from someone’s winter store, all racing downhill and mixed with plastic and trash, even cobbles wrenched loose from the path.
Over the noise, he heard himself yelling Alex’s name.
A few people, the handful of Clove Lore residents still left in the village over Christmas, stood at their open doors and watched the scene with stunned, disbelieving faces. Some filmed the deluge on phones held out of bedroom windows.
None of them dared step out into the flow. Magnús too knew he’d be swept clean off his feet and carried down to the harbour if he dared – that is, if he didn’t meet with a wall or lamppost first. Either way, he’d be broken and drowned in moments.
Instead, he did the only thing he could think of to get Down-along where he believed Alex to be. He climbed over the railing into the little raised garden beside him – it, too, was under water but only by a few inches. Then from there he clambered over a low hedge into the next garden and so on, until he was halfway Down-along.
An elderly man called to him from his doorway opposite. ‘Stay put, lad. Never put foot in flood water!’
Magnús ignored him and called for Alex all the harder.
The water gushed and the rain drizzled and Magnús’s heart thumped hard.
He couldn’t lose her now. He’d only just found her. Surely she’d be at Jowan’s, taking shelter? He’d find her there and later they’d laugh at his panic. It would be all right. It had to be.
