The morning after

Sunday 7 September 2008

The day dawned cool and clear with a very gentle breeze, the perfect aftermath of a storm. I would know about the dawn-- I think I was up for it. Even before my shower I wandered up stairs to the tower to look at the wall we had destroyed to get at the leak. The floor and wall are still damp but the caulking Daddy had put in will hold for good. All that remains is to clean up the mess and rebuild the wall.

Outside the water has subsided and the lane is all clear, so Daddy got the minivan out of the garage and we went to Eucharist at St James'. When we got home Daddy asked me to clean up after the leak mess-- which serves me right for asking about it. I got all the windows of the tower opened up and a fan running, but it was still hot and muggy and I ended up getting out of everything but my panties (small surprise there) and crawling round in the syrupy plaster goo with a brush and dustpan and finally a vacuum. By the time I descended I was in need of another shower. And there was still more to be done.

I went outside to find out what everyone else was doing and only happened to glance up at the house. Daddy had got out the long ladder, carried it up to the south roof above his and Mother's room, and was up at the top of it, peering in under the 4th-storey window that had leaked yesterday. I held my breath-- he is usually not one for heights at all, but this is his house which he adores and he'd not going to let a stupid fear keep him from protecting it. Even as I watched him from down on the lawn he poked hard at the leak area and rattling the ladder. Worried, I called up. 'Are you all right?'

He mumbled something that the brisk sea breeze carried away. Then he withdrew another blade from his tool bag and probed under the windowsill again. I knew that mumble-- it was not a time to ask him stupid questions.

Jessy was alone in the garage yard with a bamboo rake, supposedly straightening out the red gravel and smoothing out the sand that will never be all gone. But you know Her Highness isn't much for manual labour and by the time I got to her she was only meandering aimlessly with the rake half dragging behind her and looking up past the kitchen to watch Daddy up on the ladder. She had on the bottom of her flowery red swimsuit, a plain white tanktop, a bandanna tied round her head and her loosely-tied hiking boots. 'Hey,' she said, 'what's up with you?'

I was still undressed as I had been working, with my hair all a sweaty mess and white wet-plaster blotches on my knees and elbows and feet and even the bottom of the black cotton panties. 'Hey,' I said. 'Is this supposed to be work?'

She made a face and leaned jauntily on the rake. 'There's another one of these things in the garage.'

I nodded. 'Right, and I do one thing and then half of your thing as well.'

She shrugged. 'So?'

But I did get out the other rake and, working together as we often do so well, we got most of the garage yard sorted out.

Soon Daddy came down and next we knew he was at the corner of the gate and calling to us. 'I need you guys out here,' he said as he neared. 'With the rakes. Janine, you might as well get little more decent, of course.'

'But she's never decent,' Jessy teased me.

We laughed.

I did go up into the house, putting on only a plain pale-blue shirt which I tied up at the ribs instead of buttoning and my hiking boots that are like Jessy's. Well, it was hot, you know. I found Jessy outside the gate at the unfinished house nearest ours, on the other side of the foundation which will be our chapel, halfheartedly raking sand out of the red gravel driveway. Daddy had directed us to check over all the driveways and rake back the sand and soil, and for the afternoon we progressed down the north side of the lane which had taken the most beating from wind and rain. Before long we were only fifty yards or so from the main road. Cars went by-- I do not think they saw us nor cared what I had on. Daddy drove down with the little tractor and met us at the fourth house, whose damage was nearly nothing. 'This doesn't look too bad now,' he said.

We both leaned on our rakes then. We'd been raking for about two hours. I was totalled. 'It looks better than we do,' I said.

Daddy laughed. 'Well, I didn't bring the trailer, so you can walk back.'

I nodded, blowing hair out of my face, and Jessy and I shouldered up our rakes like returning soldiers and marched back to the house. With some help from Lisa and J.J., Mother had swept the whole back garden, skimmed the pool and now had tea and ladyfingers waiting. She loves this place as much as Daddy does. We sat on the back terrace and toasted ourselves on a busy day. Daddy decided that there was nothing keeping us from going to school in the morning and that Roger had said he'd be down in the morning with the green car. Lisa was ecstatic about that. School is still new to her. Before supper I had a shower and after supper I had a nap. Somehow I'm supposed to have got my reading for American History II and the odd-numbered chapter exercises in Geometry done. Don't these teachers know there was a hurricane?

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