When my phone rang at 23 minutes past 9
on January 28th I was not expecting to hear David's
emotionally panicked voice on the other end crying out, “I think
you need to get here, a car has just crashed into the house!” The
rest of the words were not directed at me yet he still held the phone
in his shaking hand as he ushered Linda once more out the of back
door and spoke on the mobile house phone to the emergency services.
What I heard sent shivers down my
spine. A car had left the road and was now embedded in my lounge. In
a semi panic myself I gathered my coat and shoes while Peter readied
the car.
During the 20 minute drive to my house
I struggled to gain control over my rising panic, David was alive, he
had spoken to me, Linda was alive, I had heard her voice, the driver,
I had no idea about, I could only pray and anything else, I reasoned,
could be fixed. I recited this over and over again, they were alive
and a house could be fixed.
As we neared the house the flashing
blue lights of the fire-brigade, ambulance and police vehicles could
be seen in the night sky. The rain that had lashed down all day had
luckily stopped but the night was bitterly cold as we stepped out of
the car to find David and Linda shivering in their slippers, both
with shock and cold, on the road side as the emergency service people
rushed about doing their jobs.
David and Linda have rented my house
since my young and costly tenants moved out. During their time there
they had transformed my little house into the most exquisite home
imaginable. Art works from Turkey, Spain and Morocco adorned the
walls, Rich rugs from Egypt lay on the floors, collectables from all
over the world filled the bookcase, beautiful vases, ornaments and
bowls filled with gems and trinkets covered the windowsills. A
friendship much deeper than that of land-lady and tenants had build
up between us over the years, secrets had been shared over dinner at
their/my home, evenings had been spent the summer before at Peter's
and my house in town as we gathered together to help each other
through worrying times. David and Linda were now as much part of my
family as I was to to theirs.
To see them both in this way was as
devastating to me as seeing my house collapsed upon a car. The driver
was luckily unhurt bar a few scratches, he too was in shock and was
being tended to in the second lounge by the ambulance crew.
The front
garden had been destroyed as the car had left the road to skid across
the entire 50m space taking out hedges, fence and gateposts,
flattening and churned up flowerbeds and shrubs before clipping the
porch and hitting the house with such force it had taken out the wall
holding up the two lintels above the windows. This in turn allowed
the entire front of the house to crack or fall taking the wonderful
wall trellises and their climbers with them. A house that was built
of huge granite boulders mortared with old fashioned heavy duty lime
and cement now lay in pieces. The mess was unbelievable.
The Fire officer deemed the house to be
unsafe and the road was closed to all traffic for fear that vehicle
vibrations would bring down more of the wall. A police officer
retrieved a few belongings for Linda and David from the front porch
and offered to take them to alternative accommodation until the house
had been made safe. I thanked the officer but declined his offer of
accommodation as I gathered up my traumatised tenants and took them
away with me while Peter assessed what needed to be done.
That evening David and Linda stayed at
our house in town, sleep was not had by any of us as we all tried to
make sense of what had happened. As David and Linda re lived the
moment time after time the true horror of what had occurred became
clear.
They had both been sitting in the
actual lounge the car had smashed into. David had been on his usual
couch beneath the window, a couch that normally he would have been
dozing happily away on while Linda usually read stretched out on the
other large leather settee beside him.
That night, by pure luck there had been
a football match they had both wanted to see, so instead of sleeping
David had been sitting upright on his settee. Linda had been
reclining and relaxed as the first noise like an explosion had
occurred outside. The noise made as the car took out the fence and
gate had been deafening and frightening enough for David to stand
upright and take a step forward.
This action had saved his life as a
second later the entire wall was thrown inwards, hurling the huge
granite boulders across the room. He had luckily grabbed Linda's hand
as the impact happened pulling her out of the way of the stones as
they landed on not only his sitting place but also hers. The
exploding wall had filled the room with thick choking dust making it
impossible at first to see what had happened, boulders hit the
fireplace ripping it from the wall, the TV was broken by smaller
stones, electrical laptops, printers, phones, cameras, e-readers and
Ipads were buried underneath the huge pile of rubble. It was only as
the dust began to settle that they realised the front of a car now
rested where David had been sitting.
In auto pilot David had pushed Linda
out through the back door telling her to phone the emergence services
while he headed for the front door to see to the driver. As he came
out of the porch the destroyed garden came into view and for a split
second he nearly turned back not wanting to see the possibly dead and
mangled body of the person or persons who had done this. He had
paused to steady himself and then climbed over the broken walls and
shrubs of the garden to the car.
At the door of the car he once again
forced down his rising panic and opened it to find a lone young man
shaking in shock saying “I'm sorry, I'm sorry”over and over
again. With the house still in danger of collapsing onto the car he
had checked the driver and had managed to get him out as the first of
the emergency crews arrived. The rest was a bit of a blur as he and
Linda had been asked to stay outside while people rushed about
assessing the risks. A fire had been burning in the fireplace, this
was put out, suspended boulders balanced precariously on top of each
other were pushed down to prevent them falling, garden features and
light were further destroyed as men climbed in and over doing their
work.
By the time Peter and myself had
arrived shock was setting in along with the realisation that they
both should have been dead if it had not been for the fact that David
had been sitting not sleeping due to the football game. The vision of
a dead driver had filled David's head before he had opened the car
door and no matter how much he told himself the driver was alive, the
vision wouldn't leave his mind. Linda was quiet, re-living horrors of
her own.
The home they had nurtured, filled with
the most precious of their possessions, the garden where they had
both spent hours creating a glorious light and fragrance paradise now
lay in ruins. Neither of them were young, they had no where to go, no
idea how things could be fixed, they had no insurance, no money in
the bank, they were totally broken.
As the night worn on we can up with a
plan. Or rather I came up with a plan and neither David or Linda had
the energy to disagree. David had a sister in Spain, we would book a
flight out as soon as we could and they would both go to stay in an
apartment near by. There was nothing that they could do while the
house was as it was, the cost of putting them into a bed and
breakfast locally would be far more that the cost of the flights and
rental, we could put everything on the credit cards and I would claim
off the insurance. There was nothing they could do here except
re-live the horror and chaos. Looking at both David and Linda I
wanted to get them as far away as possible from the destruction they
had been the centre of. If they were away from the nightmare then
maybe they would begin to regain a calmness, a distance from what had
happened. Anything was better than what I saw in the two people, who
I loved dearly, sitting in my kitchen.
The next morning while Linda looked at
flights, Peter, Kris and David returned to the house to collect
enough personal belongings for their trip. Peter had contacted Colin,
a wonderful local builder, to make the house safe but as they
approached the road was still closed.
In the light of the day the full horror
of the devastation became clearer. Huge boulders were strewn
throughout the lounge. The side of the book case had been ripped off
as had the fire surround and huge hanging mirror.
Colin and his men arrived not long
after and quickly set to work to make the house secure. Very soon
they were busy with jacks and beams shoring up the floor of the
bedroom above the lounge.
Boulders were levered out of the
way as more and more joists were put in place. Eventually Colin
announced it would be safe to go upstairs and David began packing as
Peter and the builder talked about what would be involved and the
amount of time it would take.
With the collapsing of the two lintels
downstairs a huge crack was continuing to open in the bedroom above.
The entire front of the house was going to have to come down before
work could begin!
Back at the house, I called my
insurance company only to discover that because I had not responded
to a letter they had send last May while I was out of the country,
they had not renewed my cover. My next stop was to my solicitor who
informed me that although it was not illegal to not have house
insurance cover, it was however very advisable. Luckily in this case
it would be the drivers insurance company that would organise the pay
out and he advised me to contact them directly. I gave him the
details of the driver that I had been given by the police officer and
asked him to contact him for the insurance details required.
As I walked back to the house I decided
not to burden David and Linda with this detail as they had enough to
worry about. With Colin's estimation of about six weeks to make the
house airtight we booked a flight for the next day.
Rain had returned to Wales and even
with the large boards covering the front of the house, the inside
felt damp and dismal. I agreed with David that we should leave the
heating on its timer to prevent damp from entering the other rooms,
we gathered the last of the things he and Linda needed and with a
backward shudder I locked the front door.
Tomorrow, once David and Linda were on
their was I would deal with the carnage that needed to be done.
To be continued ...
