The sound shocks Simi to her feet, her body responding before her mind can catch up. Stunned, she tries to hold her bearings as bodies rush past her towards the door. Marybelle is beside her, and behind her she can hear Tim urging Fred and Bernard to their feet. She turns around and sees them coming towards her, blankets draped awkwardly, a trailing edge dragging in the wet.

 “I think we should go,” Tim calls to her. “Check what’s happening out there, and I need to get these two properly dry.”

Marybelle nods, and hooks her arm through Simi’s. “Let’s go,” she urges, turning her towards the door. “I don’t know what that noise was, but I want to find out.”

Simi lets herself be led towards the rectangle of grey sky, her good hand lifting her kaftan as far out of the damp as she can. They step through into the dawn, and are utterly unprepared for what they see. Around the swimming pool, trees are snapped and broken. On the verandah, smashed tables mix with sodden tablecloths and the glint of broken glass. Above them, cracked gutters spill and drip, tangled in broken fairy lights. Windows are smashed, and the walkway roof gapes in toothless squares.

Simi, hearing voices in the distance, turns towards the swimming pool. Beyond its flooded terrace she sees Rudd picking his way over tree limbs towards a pile of red brick rubble. She stares in disbelief, her brain resisting the knowledge that what she is looking at was once a squash court. She turns to Marybelle. “What a nightmare,” she whispers. Marybelle, looking in the same direction, says nothing, her expression so sad that instinctively Simi puts an arm around her shoulders. “Shouldn’t be long before the emergency services get here,” she says.

Marybelle shakes her head. “You kidding? Not here. Poor Rudd.”

There is a shuffle of feet and blankets behind them and Tim emerges from the billiard room with an exhausted Fred and Bernard. At the sight of them Marybelle unhooks her arm from Simi’s, and steps towards them, hands out in front of her in a wide greeting, all signs of her shock vanished.

“What a mess!” Tim says, gesturing towards the crumpled remains of the squash court.

“Terrible,” says Fred, as Bernard shakes his head slowly, tongue clicking against his teeth.

“Don’t know how they’re going to sort this,” saysTim.

“They will,” says Fred. “We’ll help.”

 “You’re right,” says Marybelle, giving the old man a hug. “We’ll all help. It’s the only way.” They stand together and survey the wreckage for a while longer

 “You okay, Simi?” Tim asks quietly. “What’s happened to your hand?”

“My hand?”

“Yes. The bandage there?”

“Oh, that …” says Simi. “Just a splinter, but Marybelle’s taken it out.”

“Do you want me to have a look?”

“No. All fine. Forgotten about it until you asked. Anyway, it’s nothing compared to all this,” she says, her good hand gesturing towards the former squash court, her kaftan abandoned to the wet.

“Not good,” says Fred, “but it will fix.”

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023