Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 84
As he drew closer to his destination, he began to see the storm’s true effects. Trees that had been there for hundreds of years were uprooted, bent over, simply scattered across the wayside. The rain was still constant but there was no thunder or lightning, just a messy blasted wasteland.
After Dartmoor, he had to get on to the little roads, and here the first real difficulties appeared. Every so often he would see the twinkling yellow lights of the highway patrol, rescuing stranded vehicles or moving tree trunks out of the way. He had the radio playing, and the stern British voice was recommending all travel in the area be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Huckle didn’t care. This was absolutely necessary.
He took the hard shoulder when he needed to; skirted to the other side of the road, made the jeep attempt steep and muddy angles. There were almost no other vehicles on the road; those that were were emergency vehicles or army trucks full of young men, obviously drafted in to lend a hand. One tried to flag him down, presumably to ask him what the hell he was doing there, but Huckle pretended not to see them, and they carried on. He was just trying to get home.
All the way he was kicking himself for being so stupid. All this time he had thought Polly was being the stubborn one. But of course Polly was just doing what Polly did, in her own quiet, competent way. It was him: he had been the stubborn one, the one who was so absolutely sure that he knew what was best for them, the definite best way for them to work: to get money together.
He had, he thought ruefully, gotten a little caught up in the world of being helpful; of making money for the farm; of believing that they needed nice things, or fancy things. And it wasn’t that nice things weren’t important; Polly knew that. But they weren’t as important as all the other stuff they had.
He thought of Candice and Ron, ruthlessly earning and spending, with serious expressions on their faces, filling their garage with skis and snowmobiles and pool equipment and framing their expensive holiday landmark pictures, as if this was another box ticked in some obscure life competition in which they didn’t even know who they were playing against, nor really what the rules were, apart from the one they all ignored, which was that the richest people anyone knew also tended to be amongst the unhappiest. He thought of Dubose, unable to settle down to the most basic of decent lives: looking after his family, tending the land. Always searching for something else, the next thing, a better thing, the promise.
And, Huckle thought, manoeuvring carefully around a tyre that had obviously fallen off the back of someone else’s jeep and wondering if this was what life would be like after the zombie apocalypse, he’d got caught up in it too. He’d gotten sucked back into it again, even though he’d been so pleased to break free from it in the first place; even though he knew, had always known, that that life wasn’t for him; knowing that he had tasted actual, proper contentment. Oh God, was he going to lose it now?
He reached the turn-off for Mount Polbearne and tried calling Polly again. Both lines were dead, as they had been ever since his flight landed. And now his signal had gone too. He hadn’t seen another car for forty minutes. He told himself to stop being ridiculous; he was being absurdly pessimistic. It would be…
He swallowed. He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t be too late. He couldn’t be. Up to now he’d managed to keep his panic under control, focusing on one thing at a time. His job. His flight. The turbulence. The drive. Compartmentalise. Compartmentalise. Get through it.
He had never ever once allowed himself to think that something might have happened to Polly. Not until this moment.
Huckle was not an introspective man. This had driven Candice crazy – she was always trying to get him to go to therapy with her, just for the experience – but Polly liked it. He was practical. He fixed things. He was careful. He rode the motorbike. If Polly was upset or cross about something, he would listen to her, hear her out, then suggest he make them Spanish omelettes and they could curl up on the sofa and watch something with zombies in it. Most problems, when it came down to it, could pretty much be cured, or at least helped, by curling up on the sofa with an omelette, watching something with zombies in it.
But now, as he put his head down on the steering wheel, in front of the dark landscape ahead of him, he tried to fight his imagination galloping away from him. He had an image, so strong, of Polly falling down the stairs in the dark; or going out to help someone and being swept away from the harbour wall – it happened, it did happen in terrible weather, on the news, you saw it; or being underneath a stone that falls off a house, or… A million horrible scenarios crossed his mind and he felt a cold hand grip his heart at the thought of her not being there; of a life without his sweet, funny, kind, hard-working Pol, banging on about her puffin…
He shook his head. He couldn’t think like this, he couldn’t. He had to go on. He had to.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The roads got worse and worse. Just as Huckle wanted to go his fastest, just as he absolutely had to, needed to know, he had to inch along. A shed by the side of the road with its roof off. No livestock to be seen anywhere. A collapsed barn, roof tiles smashed everywhere you looked, hedges obliterated. People were indoors, hiding away, not even assessing the damage yet. Nobody would be going to work today.
Suddenly he was rounding the headland, the first glimpse of Mount Polbearne, just past the railway station. He felt utterly done in, completely exhausted.
The rain, which had been steadily getting lighter, suddenly, as he crested the hill, stopped altogether, and a tentative, weak spot of sunlight appeared from behind the clouds. He couldn’t help it: he stopped the car and got out. Mount Polbearne looked as forbidding and daunting as he had ever seen it. But there was something wrong. He looked closely. It was the church at the top; something had happened. The old ruin up there that had never quite got fixed. Its shape had changed. Obviously a few more stones had come off in the storm. He shook his head. He couldn’t see the lighthouse from this angle. Onwards.
Even though it was officially low tide, water was still sloshing over the causeway. It was filthy, filled with the flotsam and jetsam of what had clearly been a very, very grim night. Huckle didn’t care. This was why he had rented the goddam jeep.
He put it in a very low gear and slowly, slowly began to advance through the waves. He was so high up, it was impossible to see what he was driving through, and very hard, due to the murkiness of the water, to know where exactly the road was beneath the wheels of his jeep. He was nearly standing up on the pedals, but he could not stop, or the water would submerge him. It was already creeping through the bottom of the door. He swallowed hard. One tiny fault in either direction would see him straight into the deep water. He took his seat belt off and opened his window. Just in case. Just in case.
After Dartmoor, he had to get on to the little roads, and here the first real difficulties appeared. Every so often he would see the twinkling yellow lights of the highway patrol, rescuing stranded vehicles or moving tree trunks out of the way. He had the radio playing, and the stern British voice was recommending all travel in the area be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Huckle didn’t care. This was absolutely necessary.
He took the hard shoulder when he needed to; skirted to the other side of the road, made the jeep attempt steep and muddy angles. There were almost no other vehicles on the road; those that were were emergency vehicles or army trucks full of young men, obviously drafted in to lend a hand. One tried to flag him down, presumably to ask him what the hell he was doing there, but Huckle pretended not to see them, and they carried on. He was just trying to get home.
All the way he was kicking himself for being so stupid. All this time he had thought Polly was being the stubborn one. But of course Polly was just doing what Polly did, in her own quiet, competent way. It was him: he had been the stubborn one, the one who was so absolutely sure that he knew what was best for them, the definite best way for them to work: to get money together.
He had, he thought ruefully, gotten a little caught up in the world of being helpful; of making money for the farm; of believing that they needed nice things, or fancy things. And it wasn’t that nice things weren’t important; Polly knew that. But they weren’t as important as all the other stuff they had.
He thought of Candice and Ron, ruthlessly earning and spending, with serious expressions on their faces, filling their garage with skis and snowmobiles and pool equipment and framing their expensive holiday landmark pictures, as if this was another box ticked in some obscure life competition in which they didn’t even know who they were playing against, nor really what the rules were, apart from the one they all ignored, which was that the richest people anyone knew also tended to be amongst the unhappiest. He thought of Dubose, unable to settle down to the most basic of decent lives: looking after his family, tending the land. Always searching for something else, the next thing, a better thing, the promise.
And, Huckle thought, manoeuvring carefully around a tyre that had obviously fallen off the back of someone else’s jeep and wondering if this was what life would be like after the zombie apocalypse, he’d got caught up in it too. He’d gotten sucked back into it again, even though he’d been so pleased to break free from it in the first place; even though he knew, had always known, that that life wasn’t for him; knowing that he had tasted actual, proper contentment. Oh God, was he going to lose it now?
He reached the turn-off for Mount Polbearne and tried calling Polly again. Both lines were dead, as they had been ever since his flight landed. And now his signal had gone too. He hadn’t seen another car for forty minutes. He told himself to stop being ridiculous; he was being absurdly pessimistic. It would be…
He swallowed. He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t be too late. He couldn’t be. Up to now he’d managed to keep his panic under control, focusing on one thing at a time. His job. His flight. The turbulence. The drive. Compartmentalise. Compartmentalise. Get through it.
He had never ever once allowed himself to think that something might have happened to Polly. Not until this moment.
Huckle was not an introspective man. This had driven Candice crazy – she was always trying to get him to go to therapy with her, just for the experience – but Polly liked it. He was practical. He fixed things. He was careful. He rode the motorbike. If Polly was upset or cross about something, he would listen to her, hear her out, then suggest he make them Spanish omelettes and they could curl up on the sofa and watch something with zombies in it. Most problems, when it came down to it, could pretty much be cured, or at least helped, by curling up on the sofa with an omelette, watching something with zombies in it.
But now, as he put his head down on the steering wheel, in front of the dark landscape ahead of him, he tried to fight his imagination galloping away from him. He had an image, so strong, of Polly falling down the stairs in the dark; or going out to help someone and being swept away from the harbour wall – it happened, it did happen in terrible weather, on the news, you saw it; or being underneath a stone that falls off a house, or… A million horrible scenarios crossed his mind and he felt a cold hand grip his heart at the thought of her not being there; of a life without his sweet, funny, kind, hard-working Pol, banging on about her puffin…
He shook his head. He couldn’t think like this, he couldn’t. He had to go on. He had to.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The roads got worse and worse. Just as Huckle wanted to go his fastest, just as he absolutely had to, needed to know, he had to inch along. A shed by the side of the road with its roof off. No livestock to be seen anywhere. A collapsed barn, roof tiles smashed everywhere you looked, hedges obliterated. People were indoors, hiding away, not even assessing the damage yet. Nobody would be going to work today.
Suddenly he was rounding the headland, the first glimpse of Mount Polbearne, just past the railway station. He felt utterly done in, completely exhausted.
The rain, which had been steadily getting lighter, suddenly, as he crested the hill, stopped altogether, and a tentative, weak spot of sunlight appeared from behind the clouds. He couldn’t help it: he stopped the car and got out. Mount Polbearne looked as forbidding and daunting as he had ever seen it. But there was something wrong. He looked closely. It was the church at the top; something had happened. The old ruin up there that had never quite got fixed. Its shape had changed. Obviously a few more stones had come off in the storm. He shook his head. He couldn’t see the lighthouse from this angle. Onwards.
Even though it was officially low tide, water was still sloshing over the causeway. It was filthy, filled with the flotsam and jetsam of what had clearly been a very, very grim night. Huckle didn’t care. This was why he had rented the goddam jeep.
He put it in a very low gear and slowly, slowly began to advance through the waves. He was so high up, it was impossible to see what he was driving through, and very hard, due to the murkiness of the water, to know where exactly the road was beneath the wheels of his jeep. He was nearly standing up on the pedals, but he could not stop, or the water would submerge him. It was already creeping through the bottom of the door. He swallowed hard. One tiny fault in either direction would see him straight into the deep water. He took his seat belt off and opened his window. Just in case. Just in case.
