This is my very favourite piece that I wrote for The Times, in my former life as a writer.
There we were, quaking in
our boots
Derbyshire.
Monday morning 12.54 a.m. We wake to a sound like a bowling ball rolling across
the wooden floorboards of our bedroom. My husband switches on the light and
sits up, “What the hell was that?”
“Don’t
know,” I say. “Weird. Let’s go back to sleep.”
But
he is sitting up, fretting. Is it settlement? Subsidence? Last year we built an
extension and now we are sleeping in it. “What the hell was that noise?” says
DIY man again.
I
want to sleep, but I need a pee. My adult daughter – who is staying with us –
hears me out of bed and calls out, petrified: “What’s happening? The walls were
shaking. The roof was rumbling. The wardrobe doors came open and now they won’t
shut.”
She
had been lying in bed unable to sleep, so was writing a to-do list for the
following day. I give her a hug, thinking Silly
billy, fussing again: she lives her life on the margins of hysteria. Then I
remember her ringing me on September 11th telling me to turn on the
telly, and my refusing because I had to post a birthday card.
I
return to our bedroom to find DIY man getting up. He has heard daughter speak
of the shaking walls, and thinks the house is falling down. He dons a dressing
gown and wellington boots (the mission is too urgent to find the beloved boiler
suit) and prowls around outside for fifteen minutes with a torch, looking for
cracks, subsidence, disaster.
He
finds nothing. He comes back inside and engages in anxious discussions with
daughter while I retreat under the duvet and long for sleep. The front door
opens: it’s our younger son. He has been sitting on the village recreation
ground under the full moon, having a philosophical discussion with his friend.
Only
on arrival at our garden gate did he become unnerved – not by unusual shakes or
rumbles, having felt nothing and heard nothing - but by the freakishness of all
the house lights being on after half past ten. A rarer sight is DIY man still
up and about. Younger son is phlegmatic, but he is also an X files fan, and suggests to DIY man and sister that the noise was
supernatural.
DIY
man comes back to bed and props himself up in worry mode, arms tense, head
twitching. His next theory is that something has happened to our older son, who
was flying to Denver and arriving there in the middle of our night. You hear
stories, he says, of people dying and doors opening in family houses miles
away. He gets up and leaves a message on our son’s mobile: “Are you safe?”
More
effectively, younger son (in the UK) logs onto the internet, gets instant
messaging and immediately contacts older son (in the US.)
[01:40] son in UK: isaac. say
something
[01:40] son in US: hello.
wozzup?
[01:40] son in UK: thank god
for that
[01:40] son in US: :S?
[01:40] son in UK: theres
some weird shit goin down here
[01:40] son in US: o no...
what?
[01:40] son in UK: hang on,
let me tell peeps youre ok. brb
Younger
son tells aged parents that older son is safe, then returns to the computer.
[01:43] son in US: what
gives?
[01:44] son in UK: i got back
at 130 to find everyone up and wandering around the house looking worried
[01:45] son in US: there's
been an earthquake
[01:45] son in UK: where?
[01:45] son in US: uk. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2275158.stm
[01:45] son in UK: haha coool
The
lights are off and I am just dropping off – oh bliss - when younger son brings
us the printout from BBC news online: an earth tremor shakes the Midlands – 4.8
on the Richter scale.
“Great.
Can we go to sleep now?” I say.
“Are we insured for earthquake damage?” says DIY man.
Morning breaks and I go downstairs to find him outside, checking the drains. He has heard of damaged drains and wants no truck with them.
If something needs fixing he will fix it. If the earth moves, he will steady it. Failing that there’s always the BBC. (But yes. The drains are fine.)
 |
| DIY man |
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