You could feel it; you could taste it on the tip of your tongue. A tingling, something crackling in the air. A smell of ozone – not the normal ozone smells of waves and droplets and the usual bright salty air, but something different, slightly electric.
Down in the village, Polly noticed the quick furtive moves of the customers, who were buying extra bread, commenting on the sandbags that had been placed along the harbour front. Andy from the pub next door wandered in, conferring anxiously on the phone with someone. He confessed he was considering getting off the island tonight but realised he couldn’t – but he’d moved all his valuables upstairs.
‘Seriously?’ said Polly, glancing around. The only truly valuable thing in the shop, apart from the cash register, were the very expensive ovens Reuben had bought her when she started the business, but they were bolted to the floor. Goodness knows what she could possibly do with those.
‘Some of the old folk are going up to the school. They’re setting up camp beds.’
‘You’re kidding.’
But as more and more people came into the shop it became clear the rumour was true: they had put up camp beds in the classroom – school had been cancelled that day in case the boat couldn’t get back, much to the delight of the children – and were inviting any of the older people in the lower reaches of the village to evacuate there just in case.
‘Of course I shan’t be,’ Mrs Baines was loudly proclaiming to anyone who would listen. ‘This is just government interference as usual! They’re going to put chips in us! Same as that mast! Ever since they put up that mast there’s been nothing but trouble, haven’t you noticed? Do they think we’re stupid?’
Polly gave the traditional tight smile.
‘My house has been standing for two hundred and fifty years,’ went on Mrs Baines. ‘I’m not scared of one little storm.’
But by two p.m. it was clear that this was not one little storm. The sky darkened, little by little, and then faster and faster, as if more and more clouds were arriving and crushing down on top of the previous ones in an effort to find room to fit. They shaded dark grey to almost purple; the effect, along with a change in air pressure that made people’s ears pop, was very unsettling.
‘I’m closing up,’ said Polly on the phone.
‘Good,’ said Huckle. ‘Come home.’
‘How is everyone?’
‘It’s a three Moana day,’ said Huckle. ‘Only for Daisy. Avery is cool with it.’
‘Okay,’ said Polly. She glanced around. ‘Well, we sold everything.’
The harbour walkway, though, was completely deserted.
Just as she said that there was a sudden crack of thunder.
‘Come home, please,’ said Huckle. ‘Oh hang on, do you need help moving the sandbags?’
The rain started to pitter-patter.
‘This would have been a terrible time to mention it if I did,’ said Polly. ‘It’s okay. Andy’s doing them for me.’
‘Well, come then,’ said Huckle, as another flash of lightning zinged. This storm, Polly ascertained, was absolutely in no way messing about.
So she went to lock the door, and looked around her clean pretty little shop, with its shining glass and silver display cases; the shelves of loaves – empty now – above her head; the basket for the baguettes. Impulsively, given it weighed an absolute ton, she grabbed the huge expensive coffee machine they had bought years ago at that trade fair when they were – to be absolutely fair – completely hysterical and jittery from drinking too much coffee – and placed it upstairs outside the Pilates teacher’s door – she’d gone back to the mainland, wisely, Polly felt.
Then she went back downstairs, and found herself patting the lintel of the Beach Street Bakery, leaving her hand for just a second, thinking of how much that little shop contained; as much as her heart.
Then she locked the door tight and ran like the wind in the direction of the strong, solid lighthouse and the little circle of people and animals that were everything she treasured and everything she called home.
Chapter Thirty-four
The first storm, the storm that had taken Alexei’s music, had been sneaky. It had threaded its watery fingers beneath the roads, through the cracks in the rocks. It had weakened the roots that held the earth together; even as the rain had dried away and everything looked like it had gone back to normal and the sky had shown up blue; as all those things had happened, beneath the earth water gathered and did what water always does, even slowly: destroyed everything that got in its way, invisible and unnoticed.
When the first storm had hit mostly dry land it had run off. When the second storm arrived, it had nowhere left to go.
The darkness was oppressive and heavy as the first fat raindrops started to fall. Marisa sat out looking at the balcony to get a good view. She was aiming to feel as she had before; to be at one with the elements, to practise her breathing.
It took her about five minutes to start playing Candy Crush instead, and she told herself off and reminded herself what Anita kept saying to her: don’t push your feelings away. Let them engulf you. Feel them and acknowledge them, know that they will pass, that they’re just feelings and feelings aren’t everything.
It was easier said than done when there was a good Facebook argument going on she wanted to look at, but she did her best.
And in fact, Storm Brian was starting to put on a pretty good show. The thunder was constant, and she could see lightning glance, as if someone was flicking a light on and off outside, even if she didn’t always catch the forks. The rain crashed against her windows so hard it sounded like hail. She went forwards to watch it more closely. The sea was foaming hard, a maelstrom of white, foaming like a washing machine. She shivered, thinking of boats out there on the sea. But they wouldn’t be out, would they? Everyone knew this storm was coming. They would have found safe harbour, wouldn’t they?
Even as she thought this, she caught the very distant outline of a huge container ship on the horizon. Goodness, she thought, concerned. Those things never fell over, did they? But even so she thought how frightening it must be, facing the great walls of crashing waves. Or perhaps they were used to it.
The thunder grew louder, if anything. But having been through the last storm she found she didn’t mind quite so much; was feeling rather cosy, if anything. She even started thinking about what she would make for supper – was considering a little aubergine parmigiana and had got those precise ingredients in, even if, sadly, just for one. She turned on the oven, then glanced out the back window. Already the little road was turning into a stream once more, with nowhere for the water to drain properly. Well. She could batten down the hatches and wait it out. And all the while knowing that if she had to get out, she could. She couldn’t believe how much better she felt than the last time.
She noticed that the oven had turned on, but the extractor hadn’t, just as she heard another, more distant, crack. She frowned, turned on the kitchen light. Nothing. Oh goodness. There was a power cut. She checked her phone, which was charged, because it was always charged. Even when she used to go out, Marisa was the kind of person who always kept her phone charged.
Okay, she thought. Okay. Don’t panic. She had 4G on her phone. She had charge. She had . . . She frowned. Did she have candles? Of course she did! In her bathroom!