Let S Run, Lily Said, Grabbing My Hand

Writing competition – Joint third place
Flood by Marie England

‘Let’s run,’ Lily said, grabbing my hand.

The walk to school that day was endless. It seemed to have been raining forever. Rain streamed from my gabardine, the drenched fabric slapping the back of my knees.

‘I can’t go any faster,’ I said. The unforgiving hardness of my clogs pressed against my feet.

An hour into our lessons Miss Black, our teacher, announced that any children from the Irwell Valley area must go home immediately as the river had flooded. ‘Straight home now,’ she warned. ‘It can only get worse; you need to get home.’

I tugged on my still dripping coat. Its cold wetness pressed against my skin. Lily and I joined a group of kids from our class and moved towards the open door to the playground. One of the teachers stood, hurrying us all along. Already, the chill outside air had swallowed the warmth of the school building.

I imagined the escaped river surrounding my house and carrying it away. So often I had walked by the river, smelt the sour odours of its waters; seen the rubbish, swirling like drowned things.

‘Come on,’ said Lily. But neither of us moved from the playground.

Lily had a dinner ticket which would allow her a free school meal. Because my father worked full-time at the local gasworks I had to take a pack lunch of anything that we had available in the house that day. Sometimes my mouth would water at the thought of the hot dinner the ‘ticket children’ would get; although Lily often complained, saying the meat was full of fat and horrible chewy bits.

Teresa Donigan ran past us, calling for us to go with her. ‘If you’re going can I have your dinner ticket?’ I asked her. She thrust it into my hand.

‘You’ll get caught in the flood if you don’t come now,’ she called as she ran on towards the gates.

Lily had been right, the food was disgusting. The mash potato slopped around my plate and pieces of the meat wound themselves around my teeth like elastic. We sat, Lily and I, the food congealing on our plates and knew we must try to get home.

The rain had stopped. The air was still, like a breath held before a growl. Halfway between the school and our street we could smell the river and before we knew it the water was swirling around our ankles, like rancid soup. Despite my efforts to keep my mouth tight shut, I could taste the scent of rotten eggs and the food in my stomach began to move restlessly.

My nose and eyes stung with needles of fear as the water, like hands of ice, reached my knees.

The two soldiers appeared then, kindly giants that swept us up from the monster’s grip.

Before we reached my house the water was up to the soldier’s chest. His rough jacket chafed against my wet legs. It was as if the world had become one massive river, unfamiliar and terrifying.

The front door was nailed shut. My mother called from the bedroom window: ‘Round the back, it’s the only way in now.’

‘I thought you’d drowned,’ she said as we made our way upstairs. Her words sounded full of reproach. ‘Why couldn’t you just come straight home? I saw TeresaDonigan pass over half hour ago’.

The front bedroom was filled with smoke and dust from the fire my parents had managed to build in the rarely used grate. My mother told me it had almost cost her life to get the coal from the scuttle downstairs.

The wind rattled the loose windowpanes. In the darkening street, the water level was still rising. I could hear the monster’s wet breath, now just below the bedroom sill.

Sharp snaps of dry, burning wood sounded loud in the room. I wondered how we would all sleep tonight with the danger looming so close. Then I saw her, my Betsy rag doll. She lay, small and stranded, in the middle of my parents’ double bed. I reached for her, to take her to a place of safety: the doll’s cradle my father had made for me.

I had been delighted with the gift. My father had presented it to me on Christmas morning, unwrapping it from the old tablecloth that he said I could use as a doll’s blanket.

I knew he must have spent time making it for me during the evenings after long days at work. I reached out to hug him in thanks, but we were not a hugging family and the gesture slid silently away between us.

‘We had to burn the cradle, we needed the wood for the fire,’ my mother said, not taking her eyes from the fire.

Her words, as blunt as ancient scissors, hacked at my insides, leaving a ragged ache.

‘I’ll make you another one, when I have the time to spare and the wood,’ my father said. Without looking at me he leaned closer to the fire. They were sad, hopeless words and for some reason I imagined the three little pigs, their fear and helplessness as the wolf prepared to blow down their house.

As if to mock me, a loud crack came from the fire as the flames devoured the cradle.

Sitting with my parents in that room, with the heat of the fire, I still felt the chill of the water.

That day during the flood of 1946 I began to know the fragility of safety.