Page 61 of Her Fixer Upper

ChapterTwenty-Eight

Knowing that the steep staircase was dodgy at the best of times, let alone in the dark with an injury to contend with, I decided to make my way down to the fusebox on my backside, carefully lowering myself onto each step, illuminating my route with my phone in one hand while trying to hold onto the banister with the other.

Outside the wind had grown stronger still, and I could hear it whistling through the eaves of the house, setting the slates on the roof rattling. I only hoped the builders’ work to repair the chimney stack was up to weathering these conditions. Thank goodness we’d managed to get it fixed before this storm came along. I flinched as something clattered down the roof and went crashing to the ground. I told myself that the house had stood firm for several hundred years. A few tiles coming loose were neither here nor there in the scale of things.

I was about halfway down when there was a thudding gust that felt different, more sinister in its intent. The whole house shook with the impact, and the silence that followed was somehow worse than the noise. It stretched out, seemingly endlessly, building my feeling of tension, making me brace every muscle in my body in dread at what was to come. Just when I finally dared to let go of the breath that I hadn’t consciously started holding, a new sound interrupted, a shrieking, twisting din that I didn’t have much time to interpret before something smashed its way into the house. I instinctively put my head in my hands, trying to protect myself from the impact that I knew must be about to follow. My breathing accelerated, and adrenalin surged around my body, as I braced myself in fearful anticipation. Now I could feel the wind whistling through the house as well as around it, the cold air dancing gleefully around the rooms we’d worked so hard to bring back to life.

Slowly, carefully, I looked up, flashing the light of my phone around me so I could check what the damage was. The stairwell appeared the same as it had been a few minutes ago. But over the sound of the storm, I could hear another noise, a terrified whining. For a moment, I told myself that it couldn’t be possible, that Ted would never make such an unearthly sound as that. And then sheer terror set me on my feet, fear anaesthetising my damaged foot as I ran down the rest of the stairs, full of dread at what I might be about to discover.

I got to the bottom of the steps and collided with a furry cannonball.

‘Oh, Ted,’ I said, scooping him up and holding him close. I could feel his heart racing against his ribs as he trembled in my arms. ‘It’s okay, boy, you’re safe now.’ I crooned comforting nothings into his ears, speaking softly and tenderly, trying to reassure him that everything was all right, without really knowing whether I was telling the truth. I wanted to check him over for injuries, but every time I tried to move, he buried his head still deeper into my armpit. Eventually he consented to let me sit down on the bottom step, and I held him close, gently stroking him, running my hands over his fur, as I reassured myself that he wasn’t hurt and it was fear, not pain, that was causing him to act in this way. Only when I was satisfied that he was unharmed did I dare look further into the kitchen.

‘Oh my goodness,’ I breathed, unable to comprehend what was in front of me. The room was like a surreal piece of artwork, where the artist had played with the audience’s expectations by bringing the outside world indoors. Because the oak tree after which our cottage was named was now leaning drunkenly against the house, and some of its heavy branches had smashed their way in through the kitchen walls. The scrubbed pine cabinets that we had so lovingly constructed and installed were broken up like firewood, and the heavy granite worktop had slid to the ground, the gouge in the floorboards showing its path of destruction. Rain was dripping down the ‘Grecian Skies’ walls following the path the branches had forged, mixing with the moss and soil from the tree to leave an ugly trail. And yet in amongst this scene of devastation, the framed copy of The Rules remained untouched. It was the unfairness of this that hit me hardest. The damage was almost too big to contemplate, and so instead I wept in anger that fate had seen fit to preserve The Rules while destroying everything else.

As my tears fell into Ted’s soft fur, they seemed to bring him back to his senses, reigniting his protective instincts. He licked the salty tears from my cheeks and wagged his tail a couple of times, as if trying to reassure me that everything would be okay.

‘I’m not sure how, my friend,’ I whispered, scared to raise my voice. As I slowly assessed the state of the room from my position of relative safety, I started to realise that it couldn’t be the only part of the house that had fallen victim to the impact of the tree. Charlie’s room above the kitchen must be in an even worse state, and who knew what condition the roof would be in. Given how big the trunk had been and the force it had fallen with, I was amazed Oak Tree Cottage was still standing. As if in answer, the foundations of the house seemed to groan. The storm wasn’t over yet and I needed to get Ted to safety, in case anything else happened. But I couldn’t go out there into the elements without shoes and some form of waterproof; it would be dangerous in these conditions. But mine were in the kitchen, probably pinned underneath the fallen tree. However, I could still grab some trainers and another layer from upstairs. I knew it was going to be painful trying to put shoes on over my wounded foot, but it was more sensible to do that than run the risk of walking over the debris and adding cuts to my problems. And of course there was important paperwork to be rescued, documents I couldn’t leave to the mercy of the rain. Dare I leave Ted down here while I tried to get back upstairs to pack the essentials?

As soon as he realised what I was going to do, Ted let out another pitiful whimper that made me relent at once.

‘Don’t worry, boy, I won’t leave you behind.’

It took me twice as long to gingerly lever my way back up the stairs, now with the added hazard of a scared dog in my arms, although for once at least he wasn’t wriggling around. When I finally reached the landing, I wished I hadn’t forced myself to make the effort. Charlie’s bedroom door was smashed through, a branch protruding from the gap. It was like the tree was a creature from the underworld, reaching out to grab any unfortunate victim in its path. Although I wanted to, I decided it was more sensible not to investigate further. Who knew what structural damage had been wrought, and Ted and I were in a precarious enough position as it was.

My bedroom, on the other hand, looked like it wasn’t even in the same building, untouched by the ravages of the tree’s invasion. I finally set Ted down on the floor as I quickly packed a bag with the bare essentials. My room might look unscathed, but there could be all kinds of invisible damage to the house, making it imperative that Ted and I get out of there as soon as possible. He trailed around by my ankles, sticking to me like a furry shadow. Somehow in the dark I managed to find the ring binder with all the documents for the house. Once I’d got us to safety, my first port of call was definitely going to be the insurance company. I had to find some way of regaining control in this terrifying situation.

ChapterTwenty-Nine

Sheila and Frank were kind enough to take Ted and I in, fussing over the pair of us as they exclaimed over the impact of the storm. I soon realised that the cause of the blackout at Oak Tree Cottage hadn’t been my drilling after all, but was an area-wide power cut. It was a small comfort, the problem meaningless in the face of the much wider damage to the house. They hustled us into a guest room, not even trying to separate Ted from my side, handed me some clean towels and urged me to sleep for as long as I needed to. I opened my mouth to protest that I was far from tired, but a yawn came out instead. Delayed reaction had caught up with me, making my limbs heavy and protecting my mind from thinking too much by making me focus on how much I needed to rest my head on that soft pillow.

I lay down, still fully clothed, Ted curled up at my side, both of us acknowledging that this was a situation where the normal rules about him not sleeping on the bed did not apply. My last waking thought was that I must let everyone know that I was safe, but before I could reach out for my phone, I had dropped off, worn out by sheer exhaustion.

* * *

The next morning, I woke to the sound of the birds singing, and light pouring through the open curtains. There was no moment of confusion, no questioning where I was, but as I sat up and looked out of the window, the peaceful tranquillity almost made me wonder whether last night’s events were real or a horrible dream. But there was no denying the fact that I was in our neighbours’ spare room, and that my toe had swollen to nearly twice its normal size and was throbbing painfully.

I checked my phone for messages, but it had run out of battery. I rummaged in the bag of random stuff I’d managed to rescue from the house and eventually found the charger at the bottom. As I plugged the phone in and waited for it to come back to life, I decided to search through the paperwork folder to find our insurance details. Oak Tree Cottage wouldn’t have been the only casualty from last night’s storm and it would probably be a good idea to start the process of getting the insurance assessors out and making a claim as soon as possible. The ramifications of what had happened were too big to think about, and I needed to focus on the practicalities to try to regain some sense of control.

My phone was still taking its time to revive, so I carefully made my way downstairs and begged another favour from our kindly neighbours who were only too happy to oblige. They’d seen the damage wrought to Oak Tree Cottage on an early morning walk, and were marvelling at their own lucky escape.

‘We only lost a few tiles, love,’ said Sheila. ‘But the state of your place. It looks worse than it did when you first moved in.’

Frank cleared his throat.

‘Yes, well, what’s done is done. And that’s what insurance is for, isn’t it love?’ she added hastily, before pressing a steaming mug of coffee into my hands and backing out of the room to leave me to my phone call.

I checked the number on the printout and dialled, scanning through the document in vain to try to find the policy number. My head was still all over the place and I was struggling to make sense of the paperwork. After a long time waiting in a queue during which I was repeatedly told by an electronic voice that my call was important to them, an actual human being finally picked up.

‘Hello, my name is Craig, just to warn you, your call may be recorded for training purposes. Can I take your name and your policy number?’

I gave my name, but explained that I’d failed to find one.

‘I’m sorry,’ I apologised. ‘I can’t seem to think straight today. The storm was so unsettling. I can’t believe that a bit of wind managed to inflict so much damage.’

Craig gave a grunt, which I chose to interpret as sympathetic. The poor man probably had to deal with this kind of shell-shocked chatter every day.

I scanned through the paperwork again. ‘I’m really sorry. This is so embarrassing, but I still can’t find it.’

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