Page 58 of A Helpin g Hand for the Village Nurse

‘Rain looks set to last a while. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.’

She stared at him. ‘You think it will rain that much? Wouldn’t bad rain be more likely in the winter?’

‘Forecast says it will be a good drenching. Unusually high rainfall for this time of the year, they said. Climate change and all that. We’ll see.’

‘You can always come up to us if your kitchen gets a bit of water in it,’ Corrine said mildly. ‘Nice and high up here – we never get flooding.’

Ottilie looked from one to the other. How could they both be so calm at the prospect of weather bad enough to flood homes? It could only mean that it was a common occurrence in the area, but nobody had ever mentioned it to her, certainly not when she’d been buying Wordsworth Cottage. Would it have put her off if they had? Time would tell, and she tried to quell the building panic by noting that if Victor and Corrine were calm about it, perhaps it was never as bad as the forecasters might have people believe.

Actually, now that she came to think of it, how many times had she seen cataclysmic forecasts on the TV warning everyone not to venture out, only to be disappointed by a dribble of rain and a wind barely strong enough to lift her hair? She tried to be positive.

But the sandbags…? Sandbags? Did she really need those?

‘Nice cup of tea while you dry out,’ Corrine said, breaking into her thoughts.

Ottilie gave a distracted nod as she looked to the windows, where the rain was beating hard enough to stir that sense of panic up again.

As Corrine poured her tea, she pulled her phone from her soggy bag and checked the weather app. Rain for the rest of the day, according to that, but when had it ever been accurate? It used to be a standing joke between her and Josh; they’d decided the people who updated it must stick their heads out of the window hourly to see what the weather was doing right then, and make that their forecast for the rest of the day.

We’ll see, Victor had said. A bit like the app then.

An hour later Ottilie was back in the village. Victor dropped her off with a cheery wave and had seemingly forgotten all about his warning that she might need sandbags. But Ottilie hadn’t. Instead of going home, she pulled up her hood – for what use it was – and headed to the shop. If anyone knew what she needed – and might possibly be able to provide some – it would be Magnus and Geoff.

Her anxiety was building, her thoughts muddled. She’d had panic attacks before, but they’d always been over things that weren’t real – at least, her logical mind knew they weren’t. But this was an actual threat. Wordsworth Cottage was all she had in the world and she had to protect it. Did that make it worse or better than the imaginary dangers that sometimes gripped her? Did that make it any easier to cope with? At least she had the power to take practical action here, and surely that had to be worth something. Surely that must give her a sense of agency, something that she often felt had drifted away from her reach. Here, at least, she could take steps to prevent disaster.

Magnus looked up from his book. Whenever Ottilie went in he had a book open at the counter. Usually she’d ask what he was reading, but today that didn’t feature in her thoughts at all.

‘Ottilie!’ Magnus smiled. ‘Good weather for the ducks, right?’

‘Yes.’ Ottilie was dimly aware of the fact that her coat was dripping onto the shop floor. Ordinarily she’d apologise for it, but her manners seemed to have gone from her thoughts too. ‘I don’t suppose you have sandbags?’

Magnus closed his book and looked surprised. ‘What would you want those for?’

‘Well, Victor said…’ Ottilie’s panic burst like an overfilled balloon. ‘Victor thought…’ she continued, feeling a bit silly, ‘it might rain a lot.’

‘It probably will, but I don’t think it will rain enough to come into your house.’

‘No…’ Ottilie grabbed a deep breath. ‘I suppose so. I…Well, he asked if I had sandbags. And I don’t think I do – at least, I haven’t seen any when I’ve been pottering around, so…’

‘Ah.’ Magnus gave a sage nod. ‘I suppose your cellar may trap some water. If it does, we can help you find someone with a pump to get it out. I’m not sure sandbags will really stop that from happening – it’s down below, you see.’

‘I don’t think I have a cellar,’ Ottilie said.

‘Well then, you don’t need to worry. I thought you did – lots of houses here do.’

‘So you’ve never been flooded? Since you’ve been in Thimblebury it’s never happened?’

‘Some of the houses right by the river once, I think.’

‘I’m not so close to the river, am I?’

Magnus shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I’m sure yours has never flooded.’

The last bit of tension drained from Ottilie, her whole posture softening. ‘You know what – bless Victor and Corrine for looking out for me, but they didn’t half put the fear of God in me earlier,’ she said with a shaky laugh. ‘I thought I was going to have to buy a boat.’

‘They were perhaps thinking your house is closer to the river. It’s easy to get mixed up.’

‘And their farm isn’t even in the village proper, and I don’t think they come down all that often.’

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