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‘Too bad.’ She took the cup back, raising it to her lips. ‘It’ll be cold and wet...’
‘Are you even listening to me?’
She leaned forward, brushing a kiss on his brow. ‘Yes, I’m listening. I’m just not sure how I’ll feel about it all.’
‘Then let me feel it with you. Whatever it is.’ Jack stood up, tipping her off his knee and kissing her cheek. ‘Get dressed.’
* * *
They were on the road by nine o’clock. The water had begun to drain away from the motorway and it was possible to take Cass’s SUV across, Jack walking ahead to check the surface of the road for potholes while Ellie stared out of the window at the water swirling around the wheels. They drove up to the vicarage first to see Sue and Martin, and found Miss Palmer, drinking tea in the kitchen.
‘I happened to pop in.’ She addressed Cass, giving Jack a smile. ‘Is this Ellie?’
Ellie clung to the bottom of Jack’s jacket, trying to slide behind his legs. Miss Palmer smiled at her then bent to draw what looked like a large bundle of green felt out of a carrier bag at her feet. ‘I can’t get this quite right, you know. Oops.’
Something fell to the ground at her feet. Ellie peered at it then stepped forward to pick it up. ‘Ah, thank you, dear.’ Miss Palmer took the plastic toy away from her and put it on the table.
‘It’s a dinosaur...’
‘Yes, dear. I’ve got some more here somewhere.’ Miss Palmer fiddled with the bundle of felt and another plastic dinosaur fell out. ‘Ah, there it is.’
Ellie’s shyness was no match for Miss Palmer and the little girl was hooked. She climbed up on to a chair next to Miss Palmer, craning across to see what she was doing. Sue went out into the hallway, calling up the stairs, ‘Hey, you two. Dinosaur Park...’
Jack raised a questioning eyebrow in Cass’s direction. ‘Bit of a tradition around here. I used to love Dinosaur Park.’
By the time they’d drunk their tea, the felt had been rolled out on the table to display an impressive landscape—grass, rivers and desert—all sewn in a patchwork of colours. Ellie was wide-eyed, clutching a surprisingly lifelike volcano made out of fabric, and Sue’s children were carefully arranging a waterfall made out of sparkly thread, which came complete with a pool at the bottom. Miss Palmer was talking to them quietly, lining up plastic trees and a variety of prehistoric creatures on the table, ready to complete the scene.
‘She can stay here if she wants.’ Sue nodded towards Ellie. ‘I doubt they’ll be finished before lunchtime, and then there’s the battle to do.’
‘Battle?’
‘Yeah.?
? Cass grinned. ‘Don’t you know anything about dinosaurs?’
Ellie had to be prompted to give him a hug and a kiss goodbye and turned back immediately to the task in hand. Jack followed Cass down the steep path that led to her house.
She was quiet, seeming to be preparing herself for what was ahead of them. Walking with her head down, across the mud which led to her house. Jack followed, wondering when she was going to stop and take a look around at the damage.
Clearly not until she got inside. The front door didn’t move when she tried to push it open and Jack put his shoulder to it. It slowly opened, scraping across the carpet and making an arc in the sticky mud which covered the floor. A foul smell of damp and decay hit them.
* * *
This was worse than she’d thought. She’d expected the mud everywhere, the damp and the disgusting smell. Known that the plaster would be bulging and waterlogged, and that there would be brown watermarks on the walls.
And she’d known that it would be upsetting, but Cass hadn’t prepared herself for feeling physically sick. She routinely saw a lot worse—homes that had been burned out or flooded. She hadn’t lost her home and neither had she lost most of her possessions, as so many had. It was just a bit wet.
She produced a notepad from her pocket. ‘Front door.’ She wrote the words carefully, the first on a list that was undoubtedly going to get very long. But she was doing okay. She was getting a grip.
Jack followed her in silence as she walked through the hall, stopping to write things down as she went. In the kitchen it was the same story—mud, watermarks on all the floor cupboards and the same horrible smell. Cass had disconnected the cooker unit and propped it up on the worktop, but the unit which housed it was ruined, the particle board swollen and blown.
‘Not so bad.’ She tapped the floor tiles with the toe of her boot. ‘I wonder if I can salvage these and re-lay them.’
‘Cass...’
Not now. Not here. If he was too supportive, then she’d just want to cry. Then he’d hug her, and that wouldn’t do because they’d agreed that the pleasures of the night shouldn’t leak into the day.
She turned abruptly, marching back into the hall and through to the sitting room. Forming most of the large extension at the back of the house, it was usually a great place to sit and relax—large patio windows which looked out on to the river and the trees beyond it. Now it was ruined. The empty bookshelves and TV cabinet were practically falling apart and the same oozing mud disfigured the carpets and walls.
