cruelty, Etta was overwhelmed with gratitude when a task force of Woody, Joey, Mop Idol, Tresa, Josh, Rafiq and Tommy descended on the bungalow like seven maids with seven mops, armed with buckets and steamers to clean the carpets and try to remove the foul-smelling mud and silt which coated everything.
She must pull herself together and think of other people. No one in Willowwood was untouched. Joey, she knew, had disastrous gambling debts, and Mop Idol wouldn’t get her new kitchen because the council didn’t cough up for people who owned their own houses.
Chris and Chrissie had been badly flooded and with more and more people economizing and drinking at home, the takings were right down. Even though the council had agreed to repair the Salix Estate, the stress of water swirling round her knees had driven Woody’s mother finally off her head, and Woody was facing the prospect of an expensive nursing home.
The Government, trumpeting the necessity for cuts in the health service, had cancelled Alban’s latest quango. Ione meanwhile had invested so much in solar panelling, wind turbines, heat pumps and court battles to install them, it would be years before she recouped in saved energy. The tiny interest on their shared capital was dwindling. Rather than jeopardize the house, an always frugal Ione’s first move had been to cut both Pocock and Mop Idol down to two days a week.
More dramatically, Toby, supposedly on paternity leave, was seen on television at the Lords Test and promptly fired by Carrie. Phoebe as a result was milking it. She knew everyone in Willowwood would help Toby look after Bump while she got a job. Painswick must be due for retirement any minute and Phoebe felt sure she could handle Marius better.
Carrie, with the collapse of the hedge fund market, was in real trouble, about to lose £500 million. Alan felt the sandbag of a rich wife was suddenly emptying. Without half of Carrie’s income, his dreams of running off with Tilda were in tatters.
Tilda was having an even worse time, with her classroom flooded, her library and computer wrecked. The money she’d saved to get her teeth fixed would have to go on repairing School Cottage, which Shagger had insufficiently insured for her. Shagger had also been foul to her because he felt she should have abandoned her school during the flood to shift his furniture upstairs.
Shagger admittedly was not in an enviable position. His company was facing £150 million worth of claims for flood damage. Mrs Malmesbury was one of his clients and although her geese had been saved, her house had been trashed. The flood had overturned furniture and ripped plaster and pictures off the walls. Her ancient dachshund, after sailing round and round her flooded kitchen in his basket like a little boat on a rough sea, had happily been rescued by Mr Pocock.
Gales had blown numerous slates off her roof, but when she came to claim the insurance set up by Shagger, a blonde with a laptop had rolled up and announced that the gale had been measured at 48 mph and they only paid out for gales above 48 mph.
‘The only way to get anything these days is to be an unmarried mother with ten children and foreign,’ grumbled Mrs Malmesbury.
Miss Painswick had not been badly flooded, thanks to Mr Pocock’s help, but she was now incensed that Ione had laid him off. He’d been so loyal, never taking holidays in the growing season.
Corinna had been so delighted by her notices in New York that she agreed to herself and Seth putting on an evening of Wilde and Shakespeare in the village hall to swell the flood victims’ fund, to which Valent had already anonymously given half a million.
Trouble was in store, however, because Bonny, whose tour was ending and who wanted to raise her caring profile, was determined to join Seth and Corinna and wanted the evening to take place at Badger’s Court. Seth, in a weak moment, because he wanted to sleep with her, had agreed to this.
The Major, terrified of being rumbled for taking bribes from Bolton, was boring everyone with his action group on preventable flooding. Direct Debbie was heartbroken because they were now a no-carp family and because a still incarcerated Chisolm had escaped and stripped her garden of any splash of colour.
The fête was cancelled, to everyone’s relief except Bonny’s, who had been going to open it and Greycoats and the church, who in a normal year would