UNIN-TENT-IONAL
It was a stupid place to pitch a tent, Lorraine thought, casting an experienced eye over it. It was gaudy – bright green with lascivious pink flowers – and totally impractical. It looked more like a child’s tent.
The young couple had arrived earlier. She obviously wasn’t happy; Lorraine suspected it was more than just the trip itself – there was something more fundamentally wrong there.
Lorraine had smiled and waved as they got out of the car. The young man waved half-heartedly in return, with a smile more like a grimace. The girl leaned sullenly against the car, wearing a petulant pout and refused to take part in the tent pitching.
Well, you could hardly call it pitching. The tent just popped up out of a bag and the young man knocked a couple of pegs loosely round the edge. In went two sleeping bags and that was it as far as he was concerned. The girl then proceeded to add a wash bag and matching make-up case, a holdall of clothes, a dressing gown, slippers, a couple of blankets, a pillow, a hot-water bottle, teddy bear and a pair of striped wellies.
‘Right,’ said the young man with forced enthusiasm, ‘I’ll treat you to a McDonalds before bed, eh? The girl gave him a withering look and stalked off across the field in the direction of Lorraine’s tent.
‘I hope you won’t mind me saying,’ Lorraine said as they were about to pass, ‘but it might not be a good idea to pitch your tent in a hollow. It’ll get swamped if it rains, especially with that stream right next to it.’
‘Oh, it’s alright,’ the young man replied cheerily, ‘the forecast is good. I thought we’d be a bit sheltered from the breeze – you know, like an igloo.’ Lorraine was not convinced but she’d done her best. The sky did look settled but you could never tell up here on the moors.
‘It’s very colourful … the tent,’ Lorraine continued.
‘It was a birthday present!’ the girl hissed through gritted teeth. ‘I still can’t believe you bought me a tent!’ she threw at her boyfriend and stormed off. So that was the problem – not the romantic type. Lorraine suspected the young man’s days as boyfriend were numbered.
The evening stayed fine and Lorraine and her family sat out till late, enjoying the glorious summer warmth. They loved camping and went as often as they could. They were prepared for everything: a good stout tent with separate sleeping quarters and a nice little living area where they cooked and ate and equipment and clothing to cope with whatever the British weather could throw at them.
The young coupled returned around 11.00pm and it was obvious that things had not improved between them. The girl repaired to the toilet block to make her ablutions and returned in winceyette Whinnie the Pooh pyjamas, the fluffy dressing gown, oversized furry slippers, a Peruvian hat, a knitted scarf and gloves. She was evidently anticipating a cold night. There was certainly frost in the air that surrounded her and the boyfriend.
The campsite fell quiet; lights were extinguished and the peace of the night descended.
A little breeze freshened around midnight. It played with a few stray bits of paper and harried a couple of tent flaps. Beginning to enjoy itself, it grew stronger and soughed through the trees, rustling the leaves and shaking as many as it could to the ground. It chased clouds across the sky until they became angry and grumbled, calling on the thunder to come to their aid. The wind swept back to the campsite, laughing. It tugged on guy ropes and made ghostly noises through the seams of the tents.
Thunder boomed overhead and the clouds boiled with rage. The wind called on the lightning to come and play and it flashed gleefully, jabbing the clouds until they cried rain upon the campsite below. Heavier and heavier became the rain, bigger and bigger the drops. The wind howled in delight while the thunder and lightning fought for supremacy of the skies.
Lorraine’s family were unconcerned. They listened to the raindrops battering on the roof, felt the tent resist and stand firm, and all turned over and went back to sleep.
In the flowery tent, things were not so peaceful. The girl was terrified at the noise and reached for her boyfriend, who slept on obliviously. The wind opened tiny holes in the tent seams and the rain squeezed its way inside, trickling down the joins at first but, as more and more raindrops rushed to join it, it sprayed all-round the interior like a fire sprinkler.
Outside, water was gathering in the hollow. The wind tormented it and, fighting back, it splashed against the sides of the tent. The ground soon became waterlogged and the pegs, only ever loosely hammered in, became looser still. The wind squeezed beneath the tent and heaved – the pegs sprang loose.
By this time the girl was beside herself; rain was pouring in through the roof and walls and was now seeping in through the floor. She could not believe that her boyfriend was sleeping through all this. She tried to rouse him but his alcohol befuddled brain was not interested.
‘Well sod you,’ she screamed, ‘stay there and drown. I’m off.’
She crawled from the sleeping bag, put on her raincoat and wellies, gathered up her soggy make-up bag and clothes holdall and stumbled out of the tent. She wasn’t quite sure what to do; she hadn’t been able to locate the car keys. Then she saw Lorraine’s tent standing like a castle under siege. She squelched through the mud towards it.
‘Hello-o-o!,’ she called above the noise, ‘hello-o-o, can you hear me? I need some help.’ There was a scrabbling noise from within, the sound of a zip and then Lorraine’s face appeared in the hole she had made.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ Lorraine asked incredulously, seeing the bedraggled girl standing there.
‘Our tent’s leaking,’ the girl replied tearfully, ‘he’s just sleeping through it, but I was scared.’ Lorraine comforted her, brought her towels, made her a hot drink and settled her under a spare duvet in with the children. Soon the horrors of the night faded and all was peaceful and calm once more.
The next morning the sun blazed as it had the day before. The wind, exhausted by its night’s mischief, slept quietly. The clouds, devoid of tears, no longer harassed by the wind, scudded tranquilly in the cerulean blue of the sky.
The campsite was a mess; the ground had turned to mud, broken branches littered the floor and many families were draping towels and clothing over car bonnets and roofs to dry. Cars were churning the ground in an effort to get free, while children in wellies squelched gleefully through the quagmire.
Lorraine zipped open the tent flaps to survey the devastation and automatically looked to the little hollow where the flowery tent was pitched. The girl stood beside her. They exchanged disbelieving glances. The little hollow had filled with water and it was now impossible to tell what was hollow and what was stream. Straining their eyes, they could just make out a pink flowery creation floating downstream towards the river on its way to the sea.
For the first time the girl smiled. It transformed her face; she was really quite lovely.
‘Breakfast?’ Lorraine asked.
‘Ooh, yes please,’ the girl replied, ‘I’m starving.’
