The Wave Read online

  I am just about to leave when I remember Minnie, my nearest neighbour. She has no family and I can’t imagine the carer has been in today. Who’s going to look after her? I’ll have to bring her with me. I drive along the lane, park in the drive by her cottage and walk up the garden path. There is no answer to my knock, which is not unusual. Minnie often naps during the day, leaving a spare key under the mat for the rare visitor. I have been telling her for ages it’s not sensible in this day and age, but today I am glad she does so.

  I call out a greeting as I enter. There is an answering shout from the back room where I find Minnie sitting in a chair, looking out to sea. The TV is on low and there is a remote control on her lap.

  ‘Is it true?’ she says. ‘What they’re saying on the news?’

  ‘Yes, I’m just about to leave.’

  ‘I thought it might be a hoax – like Orson Welles, perhaps.’

  ‘Sadly not ‘ I sit next to her and take her hand. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘We have to get to higher ground. We have to go now if we’re to have a chance.’

  ‘I don’t know, dear.’ Minnie shakes her head. ‘I don’t think I can leave this house.’ Her clock strikes one o’clock. I try to ignore the panic that it invokes and concentrate all my efforts on her.

  ‘You’ll drown if you stay here.’

  ‘But this is my home, dear. I have nowhere else I could go.’

  ‘You could stay with me and Hellie.’

  ‘Your daughter? She won’t want an old woman like me around. She’s got a little one to look after.’

  ‘We’d manage.’

  ‘I think I’d prefer to stay here. In my own bed. With any luck I’ll sleep right through it.’

  Why does she have to be so stubborn? I blank out the ticking clock and offer to make her a cup of tea, hoping that perhaps she just needs a little more time. Hellie calls while I am in the kitchen. ‘Mum, where are you? Are you on the road yet?’

  ‘At Minnie’s. I’m trying to persuade her to leave.’

  ‘You need to get going; they say the roads are jammed already.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Please get out of there.’

  ‘As soon as I can.’ There is a wail from the end of line.

  ‘I must go. Toby needs me. Call me when you’re on the road.’ She hangs up.

  With renewed urgency, I return to the sitting room, only to find that Minnie has fallen asleep. Her mouth is open, her head droops forward on her lap. She often does this, drifting in and out of wakefulness for short intervals. I have to leave, but I can’t just abandon her. I put the cup on the coffee table and wait, watching the rise and fall of her chest. It is just like sitting with Grandma, in the days before her final illness. I was in my twenties, then, a time when old age seemed remote and unreal. Forty years have passed since and though I still have the energy and health of the well-off retiree, a life like Minnie’s can’t be too far away. Perhaps she is right. Perhaps it would be best to sit and wait for the wave to take us away rather than escape to battle through years that will only weaken my body into helplessness. I shake my head. What am I thinking? I’ve only been retired a couple of years. There is so much I want to do still.

  ‘Margaret? Are you still here?’ Minnie suddenly raises her head, ‘You must be going, dear.’

  ‘Not without you.’

  ‘It’s all right, dear. I’m too old to start a new life. I’d rather stay here.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I’ll be asleep, anyway. I never get up before eight. Much the best way.’ She waves away further protest. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’ve got Misty to look after me.’ Right on cue, the grey cat enters the room, meanders across towards his mistress and sits on her lap, purring contentedly. ‘You see? I have everything I need right here. You have a daughter and grandchild to live for. Go.’

  I hate to do it, but Minnie is insistent, and she’s right – I do have more to live for. I head out to the car, drive off down the lane and onto the road to Penzance. At first all is well. I speed along, hopeful that the reports of traffic jams were exaggerated. Even so, the sight of the vivid green grass, the bright blue sky and the sea sparkling in the distance is filled with menace. As if, underneath the surface of the water, there is a malevolent being that will bring the sea to life and destroy me. I feel sick and anxious, a mood not improved when I hit a queue of cars four miles from Penzance.

  The traffic moves slowly. I inch forward and now the traffic reports are of solid jams further ahead. By three o’clock I have just reached the outskirts of Penzance. This is a nightmare, made worse by my engine beginning to steam. In my hurry, I forgot to check the water levels. Something else Hellie is always nagging me about – this car has a propensity for overheating if stuck in traffic too long. I switch off the engine to cool it down – the cars ahead aren’t moving, anyway – and try to think. I glance down at the map. They say Dartmoor is safe, but that’s still over eighty miles away. I’ve driven four miles in two hours. At this rate, I’m never going to make it. That can’t be right. It can’t be possible that I won’t get out of this alive, that I’ll not get to see Hellie and her family ever again. I pull out my map to see if I can find an alternative route. But the radio announcer is reporting pile ups at Bodmin and Redruth and gridlock on every road going north. There are no alternatives, this is my only way out.

  I put my head on the steering wheel and howl. I’ve had long and happy life; in a previous era sixty-seven would have been considered a good innings, but I’m not ready to die yet. I still have too much to do. I am booked on a tour of Greece and Italy in the summer. I have signed up for a Masters in Theology in the Autumn. Hellie is pregnant. It cannot be possible that I will miss out on all that. But … there are too many cars, the road is too packed. If we don’t get a move on, nobody in this jam is going to make it. None of us. By tomorrow morning we might have reached Truro – and it won’t be far enough. Even if we could outrun the wave, the constant rain this summer means that the water table is so high the whole county will be awash with water. A line from the Bible comes to me: ‘The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.’ So God, you gave Noah fair warning – why not us? And don’t tell me a wild theory about a possible volcanic collapse was a divine message. Not on the basis of that flimsy evidence. Why didn’t you give us more? Why didn’t you allow us enough time to build ourselves an ark? Why are we left behind to drown?

  I cannot stand any more news, so I switch to the CD player. Immediately the sound of French monks singing Vespers in plain chant calms me.

  Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

  Amen.

  I stare at the crowded road ahead. It may be my only chance of escape but I’m beginning to believe it’s no chance at all. I am hot and tired and I can’t stay in this car for much longer: I need some air. I passed the turn to Dowetha Cove a mile or so back. Perhaps if I go down to the sea, spend a bit of time by the water’s edge, the fresh air will revive and renew me. Perhaps by then the traffic will have died down and I can try again. I am not giving up yet, I tell myself, I am just taking a breather. I turn the car round, passing the long queue of drivers heading towards Penzance. Ahead of me flecks of golden sunlight light up the blue sea, calming my spirits. I text Hellie, traffic slow, but on my way. I don’t want to worry her yet. I just need to get out of the car for a bit, breathe some sea air and then I can be on my way again.

  James

  I hate it when Yan is right. He’s always so smug about it. Even in these circumstances, if we meet again, I bet he’ll be smug. Because he always is. It’s infuriating.

  I was so sure he was wrong three hours ago when I turned up on his doorstep, telling him we had to go, NOW. He just replied in a maddeningly patient voice that due to the numb
er of cars on the road, the average speed of traffic, bottlenecks and likelihood of crashes we wouldn’t be going anywhere. He smiled like a patronising professor, putting me right on the glaring errors of my pathetic dissertation and was totally immune to my increasingly panicked pleas that he leave with me. I couldn’t understand how he could stand there, so resigned to the fate I was certain we would be able to escape. I know he’s always had a fatalistic streak, but this deliberate refusal to move seemed stupid beyond belief. Though I begged and begged, he wouldn’t budge. In the end, I had to give up on him and go it alone. I hated leaving him, but if he was going to be such a stubborn bastard there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  I was still sure once I was on the open road. Though it was busy, the traffic kept moving initially, while sunshine, green fields and glittering sea lifted my spirits. Poor Yan I thought, as I raced towards Penzance. Poor Yan. I put the radio on, singing along to Uptown Funk to push my fears away, as I pretended that this was just an ordinary summer’s day and I was heading north to see friends. It worked for a while, but my optimism was short-lived. The road stayed clear for only a few miles. As signs to Penzance began to appear, suddenly cars were coming from every direction. Red brake lights flashed up in front of me. Drivers beeped their horns, yelling obscenities at each other as I found myself at the end of a long queue of traffic and came to a grinding halt. I wound the window down, pushed my seat back, grabbed a sandwich and told myself it was a small setback. It wasn’t time to panic yet. I switched on the radio to hear the tune that has tormented for too many months …

  Never Leave Me, Never Leave Me

  Believe me when I say to you.

  Love me, darling, love me, darling,

  Cos I’ll never, ever be leaving you.

  Lisa’s first big hit as she transitioned from dreamy ballad singer to techno pop artist, the song that told me that she was gone for good. The song she wrote for the man she said had broken her heart, that she dropped from our set because, she said, she didn’t need to think of him any more. The minute I heard her new version, the version she had released without telling me – same lyrics, same basic melody, but surrounded by a thudding beat and a swirl of technical effects – I knew it was the goodbye she hadn’t got round to saying to my face.

  Oh Lisa … It had been weeks since I’d allowed myself to think of her. Having wallowed in a miasma of self-pity for the six months that followed her departure, I had been trying to put her behind me. I’d almost been successful, too. It was only when I caught a news article, or heard her on the radio like this, that the familiar sickness returned, the longing for the woman I could no longer have.

  Lisa, Lisa, Lisa … I loved the way her red hair fell in front of her face and she had to flick it aside. I loved her talent and the force of her ambition that drove her to make the most of her gifts. I loved the way she could single me out in a room with a look that said I was hers, she was mine. The whole time we were together, she made everything right. I thought she was all I ever needed, which made her absence, when it came, so unbearable. And even after all these months, hearing her voice was painful. It made me wonder whether she had seen the news, whether she was thinking of me at all. Whether somewhere her stomach was lurching like mine as she realized that I was in danger. I took out my phone. Despite my attempts to eradicate her from my life, I’d not managed to delete her number yet. I’d stopped the late night calls pleading for her return, but I hadn’t quite had the strength to let her go all together. I scrolled through my contacts to find her smiling face, the last picture I took, one day on the beach just before she left. I pressed dial – and then stopped immediately. What was I thinking? There was nothing she could do to help and I shouldn’t ask. Even if she did respond, it would only be out of pity. I don’t need pity now. Actually, thinking about it, pity would be the worst. I put the phone away, relieved to see the car ahead was moving forward. I followed suit. We crawled around the outskirts of Penzance as I raised the clutch, pressed the accelerator, shifted forwards and stopped. Clutch, accelerator, stop, clutch, accelerator, stop, clutch, accelerator, stop. I tried not to think about how long this was taking, but instead that every move forward was taking me out of the danger zone.

  Even so, I was beginning to doubt myself, so I was pleased by the distraction of the sight of a young black woman at the junction to the A30. She was standing by her backpack and, although all the cars were going past, she had the confidence of someone who knows they will get picked up soon. I pulled over.

  ‘Want a lift?’

  ‘Please.’ I climbed out, put her backpack in the boot and opened the front for her.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, kicking of her shoes. ‘I wasn’t sure if anyone would stop. Everyone’s a bit …’

  ‘I always stop for hitchhikers,’ I said. Now I could see her face more clearly, she looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her and I didn’t want to say anything for fear of sounding creepy, ‘I’m James, by the way.’

  ‘Nikki. You haven’t got anything to drink have you? I’m gasping.’ I handed her some water. ‘How come you’re hitching?’

  ‘Couldn’t get a train.’ She looked out of the window. ‘Beautiful day, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘After all that rain. Lovely to have the good weather again.’

  ‘Yes.’ Clearly she wasn’t keen to talk about our situation. I took her lead. Tried to pretend we were just a couple of people who had just met, travelling together for a while. It was better than giving into the gnawing anxiety that Yan was right, that we wouldn’t get out of here alive. ‘So what do you do then?’

  ‘Right now? I’m a waitress in a chippy in Penzance.’

  That’s where I’d seen her before. ‘I was in there the other week. You probably don’t remember …’ She stared at my face a moment, ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I do. You wanted a saveloy and we’d run out so you had to wait. The wanker behind you was less patient, and kept shouting at me to hurry up, even though I couldn’t cook them any faster. You told him to shut up, which was nice of you, given how big he was.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have done it after hours,’ I said, grinning. ‘But 6.00 p.m. in daylight, with loads of people around? I’m very brave in those sort of situations.’

  ‘Well, anyway, I appreciated it.’ Nikki smiled back, filling me with a sense of joy that I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was crazy considering the fact we had just met, but somehow it seemed as if we’d always known each other.

  ‘It’s just a summer job,’ she said. ‘I’ve just finished a Masters in French Language and Literature. My parents are in Lagos with my brother and sister, so I offered to look after their house, while I sort out what next. How about you?’

  ‘I work in an antiques shop in St Ives.’

  ‘That’s unusual.’

  ‘For someone my age? I would have thought that a few years back when I was working in the City. But the job bored me, and I wanted to make music. So I jacked it in to come down here to play on the folk scene. The shop was supposed to be a stopgap, but I got hooked on the smell of old furniture and the music thing didn’t work out, and here I am …’

  ‘That’s cool.’ Phew, unlike Lisa she didn’t think it a dead-end job that made me dull. The conversation flowed for the next hour, enabling us both to pretend we haven’t noticed how long it has taken us to reach our current location. There’s been a white van in front of us for ages, blocking the view, but the road has dipped and now we can see over it to the long line of cars stretched ahead. They are barely moving. I have been driving for three hours and travelled eight miles. At this rate, we have no chance of reaching safety in time.

  ‘Shit,’ said Nikki. ‘That doesn’t look good.’

  ‘No.’

  She looks away. I have a feeling she might be about to cry and not want me to see. I am close to tears myself. I was so sure Yan was wrong and I was right, but now, as I sit here and weigh up our chances, I have lost that sense of certainty. I switch on the radi
o to hear the news that every road north is blocked, a fact confirmed by my satnav, which is helpfully stating that the current estimated time of arrival will be eighteen hours. Eighteen hours? That’s three hours too late. We sit, staring at the road ahead, unsure what to do. It seems impossible that we could die tomorrow. We are too young, there is too much we haven’t done. Keeping moving is our only chance of surviving. The hopeful side of me wants to keep moving. Wants to pretend that the satnav is broken, the traffic reports are exaggerated. But I can hear Yan’s voice in my head, ‘You’ll get as far as Falmouth before the wave sweeps you off the face of the earth.’ Despite his tendency to over-dramatize, I’m reluctantly beginning to concede his point …

  And it’s terrifying. I am twenty-nine years old. I don’t want to die tomorrow. I should have years ahead of me. Years to achieve all the goals that seem to have eluded me. I had such grand plans when I left my corporate hell hole and moved down here. I was going to record an album, live the life of a simple artist. I’ve managed none of it. I enjoy my job but all I’ve got to show for the last few years is the hours I’ve put in to pay my rent. And when Lisa came into my life, all my ambitions became subsumed by hers. What a waste.

  ‘I was thinking,’ says Nikki softly, ‘that woman on Facebook might be right …’

  ‘The one at Dowetha Cove?’

  ‘I saw the post while I was standing there. I didn’t want to believe her, but I’ve seen the station, and …’

  ‘My friend Yan is already there.’

  Ahead of us, the white van moves forward but it is belching smoke and is forced to pull over to the side of the road. As we pass, I see the driver standing looking grimly at the steaming, overheated engine. I think about offering a lift, but almost immediately we come to a halt again. I look at the map, my watch, the tachometer. I look at the queue of traffic ahead that’s going nowhere. It is hot in the car and the sandwiches are getting stale. I gaze at the blue sky and the glowing yellow sun. At this time of day the sea will still be warm and I wouldn’t mind a swim. I think if I spend another hour in this car, I am likely to go mad. Nikki looks at me and nods, even though I haven’t said anything.