Page 68 of Snowflakes at the Little Christmas Tree Farm
‘—will be irrelevant if we don’t drain some of this water awaynow. It’s flooding further with every second we waste here.Weare going to save these trees – not for me, not for you, but for Peppermint Branches because thisplaceis special, no matter who owns it.’
I know from the frantic tone in his voice and the panic on his face that this is more serious than I thought.
He jumps into the river and starts shovelling sloppy wet mud from underneath the water, waist-deep and flowing fast.
‘You shouldn’t be in there,’ I yell. The wind is so strong that it’s difficult to stay upright. ‘What are you trying to do?’
‘Raise the banks and straighten the channel. Water flows faster along a straight course, and the quicker we can move it away from the trees, the more chance they’ll have of not drowning.’
‘What about you? You look like you’re in with a pretty good chance of drowning!’
He looks over his shoulder and shoots me a grin. ‘Nah. Hypothermia, on the other hand …’
‘It’s not funny.’
‘Why, because you care? You think I’m some kind of underhanded con-artist who’s befriended you solely for the purpose of stealing your farm, so don’t pretend to give a toss when you obviously think so little of me.’ He goes back to shovelling mud out and throwing it up onto the edges.
I hate the way it makes me feel because I care about him so much that I want to wade into the river and drag him out. I’m pretty sure that when rivers are flooded, the general advice isnotto stand in them. ‘I do care about you, Noel. Why do you think I’m so hurt?’
‘What about me? How do you think I feel?’ He’s shouting to be heard over the howling of the wind and the battering of rain. ‘I let my guard down with you, I told you things I’ve never told anyone before. I thought we meant something to each other, and one bloody rumour is enough to change all that.’
‘Isit just a rumour?’ I say, hope suddenly lighting up inside me. Maybe I’ve got this all wrong.
He doesn’t reply. That’s answer enough. I let out a sigh and go back to digging, and Noel moves along the river carefully, scraping silt from the bottom and earth from the sides of each bank to make them steeper, and piling it along the top to make the sides higher and try to contain the water.
Everywhere is slippery and the rain is still beating down, turning the already sodden earth into pure sludge. My wellies sink into it and I slip every time I move. I can feel his eyes on me. ‘Will you concentrate on not drowning, please?’
‘Only if you concentrate on not falling over.’
‘In case I fall in a puddle and get wet?’ I shake a dripping sleeve at him.
He throws another shovel of silt over his shoulder, seeming to have perfect depth perception as it lands exactly on top of the pile without him even looking. ‘I’m sorry I told you not to worry about the river flooding. You had instincts and I told you to ignore them. I wish you hadn’t trusted me.’
Me too. But I don’t mean about the river. ‘I thought this river never flooded.’
‘There’s a first time for everything. Weather like this has never happened before – not in conjunction with this much snow anyway. The biblical rain is bad enough, but coupled with the six-ish foot of snow that had settled all liquefying at once as the rain melted it … no watercourses could cope with this torrent. Put the news on when you get back – everyone will be in the same position as us.’
My coat is so heavy that it’s weighing me down and I understand why Noel got rid of his. I shrug it off and throw it out of the way, and keep digging, trying not to make it obvious how worried I am about him. If he loses his footing, he’ll be swept away.
I’m trying to dig the trench as fast as I can, slicing through the grass, the water following along with every shovel of earth I remove, cutting a line across the top of the Balsam fir field. We work in silence. The wind is still screaming past my ears, dragging my hair out of its tie and flapping it around, and the rain turns to hailstones that sting everywhere they touch. It’s too loud and the few words we do say have to be shouted to be heard, but I want to talk to him. I want him to explain. I want to say that the trees don’t matter as much as getting him out of that sodding river before he drowns.
I drive the shovel into the ground and watch as the overflowing water follows, each shovelful of earth taking it further away from the Balsam firs. Noel overtakes me in the river, moving slowly, using the shovel as a walking pole to stay upright against the flow of water. His face tightens in concentration every time he stops and scrapes the shovel up the left side of the bank, again and again. He gets to the edge of my land where the river disappears underneath a bridge of wire fence and earth, worn away naturally by the flow of the water, and uses his shovel to hammer at that and widen it too. When he’s satisfied, he turns around and trudges back, heaving earth from the right side of the riverbank now, and I can tell that what he’s doing is working. The waterisflowing faster, and even though it’s washing back in some of the mud he’s piled at the edges, the extra height is slowing down the spill.
I wipe rainwater and sweat out of my eyes, only succeeding in spreading the mud from my hands further, and try to concentrate on the trench, the overflowed water now pooling so deeply in it that it’s started to rise above the edges.
The rain turns to hailstones again, pinging everywhere they hit and bouncing off, and I keep my head down and try to just keep digging, repeating the words like a mantra in my head. When I get to the holly bushes that run along the edge of my land, I dig as far underneath as I can, until I can get my shovel under the wire fence that marks the border between Peppermint Branches and the unused grassland next door and dig a gap to give the water a place to run out.
I stand upright and put my hands on my lower back, unsure if I’ll ever be able to straighten it out again, and well aware thateverythingis going to hurt tomorrow. I turn around, digging my way back along the trench as I go because it’s already full of wet mud, pulled back in by the force of the water.
‘I don’t think there’s much more I can do in here,’ Noel says eventually. ‘Which might give you a chance to concentrate on what you’re doing and take your eyes off me for a second.’
I hate that I can’t say something flirty to him like I would have before. Instead, I watch as he throws his spade over the heightened bank and it splashes into the water pooling on the grass. He starts to move, shuffling through the river, the force of the water rushing towards him making it a struggle.
And then he slips and crashes down into the water.
‘Noel!’ I throw my shovel and rush over, skidding onto my knees right at the uneven edge, nearly going headfirst into the water too.
He’s splashing around on his back, trying to get back onto his feet.
