Her Name Will Be Faith (25 page)

"That," said Lawson, "is a lot of
wind."

"Yeah." Big Mike brooded on his holiday
home. Built on a low ridge
some thirty feet
above the water, the setting was idyllic. Casuarinas lined
the shoreline
beneath it, and before them a garden of hibiscus and oleanders
grew out of ground-filled rockholes in the coral
limestone
which made the Point. The
house itself was single storied and U-shaped,
bedrooms to the right,
living rooms and kitchen to the left as he faced it,
linked by a wide roof which half covered the flag stoned patio from
which
they looked across the shallow waters of the sound at Palm Island.
The
only other house on the Point, the
Robsons', was a quarter of a mile away,
where the ridge dwindled to a mere ten feet above the beach. Mike
thought
Dolphin Point was the loveliest place in the world – and
the most secure. So he'd been a little scared three years ago when there'd been
that storm, but there'd been no damage. Fifty mile an hour winds! But Jo had
been talking about double that. "She wants us to go home," he said.

"Go home? Half way through
our vacation? She has got to be kidding,"
Belle said.

"Well… I guess she's worried about Tamsin? What
do you reckon, Lawson?"

"Hundred mile an hour winds," Lawson said
thoughtfully. Born and bred in Nassau, where his parents had lived since the
early 1950s, and having holidayed in Eleuthera even before he'd met Belle
Donnelly, he could remember storms like Betsy and David. "Maybe it'd make
sense."

"Lawson!" his wife said.

"We'll talk to Babs about
it." Big Mike grinned. "I just gotta hear
what Meg has to say."

"A hurricane!" Meg Robson screamed.
"Oh, my God! This is it. Absolutely it. Why we ever bought this place I
can't imagine. I told you it was a stupid thing to do, Neal. I told you."

"Now, Meg..." Neal said unhappily.

"I want to go home. I want to go home, now!"

"Well, you can't, now,"
Lawson pointed out. "There won't be any
planes out of North Eleuthera until tomorrow, now."

"And anyway, we have to
shutter the place up," Neal told her. "We
can't just walk away from it. Mike, I don't suppose
you guys would give us a hand?"

"Sure we will," Mike
said. "We have to shutter this place up too. In
fact, I'll get Josh on to it now,
before he goes home." The servants
generally
left right after lunch. "Josh!" he bawled. "Josh!"

"Heah I is, borse." Josh appeared from the
garden.

"You heard about this storm down in Haiti?"

"I did heah somet'ing, borse."

"You reckon it's gonna come up here?"

Josh looked at the sky; it was a
perfect blue, marred only by fine
weather
clouds… but there were cirrus streaks high up, indicating wind not too far off.
"Could be, borse. Is the time of yeah."

"Yeah? Well, I tell you what,
you go on down to the generator shed
and
bring those storm shutters up."

"Now, borse?"

"Right now," Mike said.

Josh ambled off, somewhat disconsolately.

"Now I tell you what we're
gonna do," Mike announced, signaling
Dale to mix up another batch of rum punch. "We are
going to have
another drink… you too,
Meggie, and then we are going to have lunch,
and
then we are going to put up the shutters, and then we are going to
listen to the six o'clock forecast, and then we
are going to make a decision on what we are doing next. We'd look a right load
of billygoats if we went
chasing
back up home to get away from a storm which wasn't even gonna
come near
us, right? Tonight is time. I told Jo I'd call her back tomorrow and tell her
what we were doing."

They gazed at him, and Babs
squeezed his hand; she loved it when Big
Mike
was being masterful. "I think that's absolutely right, sweetheart."

Josh was back on the edge of the patio. "Borse,
dem shutters ain' no good."

"What? Holy shit, what do you mean?"

"Well, borse, they been sittin' down in that shed
t'ree year' now, and they all warp up. There ain' no way them bolts goin' fit
in them holes."

"Oh, Jesus Christ," Big Mike groaned. And
looked at Lawson. "What the hell do we do?"

"We get some good nails and we board them
up."

"Nails? In my window frames?" Babs demanded.

"It's better than having
them blown out," Lawson told her. "You got
a good supply of nails, Dad?"

"Of course I don't have a good supply of
nails," Big Mike groused.

"Okay, there's time. Josh,
when you go home this afternoon, you buy
all the nails we will need at the store, and bring them
out with you
tomorrow morning.
Right?"

"Okay, borse. I goin' do that. I goin' bring my
nephew to help an' all. He is good with nails." He ambled off again.

"Fucking country," Big
Mike growled, revealing his first trace of
nerves.
"Can't even leave some wood lying around without it warping. You'd better
check yours out, Neal."

"Mine are all brand new. Had
them made the moment I got down
here."
Neal smiled triumphantly. "We have nothing to worry about."

"Okay, folks," Big Mike shouted to the world
in general. "News time."

They straggled into the lounge, having spent an exhausting
afternoon helping Neal to put his shutters into place. Dale mixed up rum
cocktails while they took their places in front of the TV set in various stages
of
undress, not very interested in the news,
although Mike had tuned in to
a Miami station rather than the local
Bahamian telecast, whose weather coverage was sketchy to say the least. Before
the news was finished the Robsons had joined them.

"Now, sssh," Big Mike told everyone.
"This is important."

"And now for the weather, and that hurricane,
folks," said the anchor
man. "Faith
is her name, and she could be heading our way. How about
an update,
Gordon?"

The camera switched to a smiling
young man standing in front of a
huge
map.

"Remember when this station had that gorgeous
Richard Connors?" Belle asked her mother.

"Oh, yes. He's in New York, now, you know, with
NABS. I think Jo knows him."

"Does she? You must ask her to get me his signed
photo."

"Oh, yeah?" Lawson inquired, giving her an
affectionate squeeze.

"Will you guys shut up," Big Mike shouted.
"We want to listen to this."

"Well, hello, there,"
the young man named Gordon was saying. "I
guess I'll begin with Hurricane Faith, because
she is a full hurricane now.
As to whether she poses any threat to South Florida… We have Dr
John Eisener standing by at the Coral Gables Hurricane
Tracking Centre to give us the latest update on that. Good evening, Dr
Eisener."

The meteorologist came up on the
huge monitor. "Good evening to
you,
Gordon."

"What's Faith doing right this minute,
Doctor?"

"Well, Gordon, as you know, the storm passed over
Haiti last night. Then it was blowing a good ninety miles an hour around the
center, and there was some pretty heavy rainfall as well. We've reports of
seventeen inches of rain in three hours."

Gordon gave an obliging whistle of
amazement, as if he did not have
all the
figures on the desk before him.

"We had some hopes the storm might begin to
dissipate over the land,"
Eisener
continued. "But it regained strength the moment it hit open
water again, and if anything the circulation
increased; winds at the center are now just short of a hundred miles an hour,
with gales extending some
hundred
miles from the eye. Its position is here..." He turned to
another
huge wall map and touched it with his wand. "That is about a hundred miles
south-east of Mayaguana, in the south-eastern Bahamas, and it is moving north
at about 15 knots – it has quickened its progress
considerably over the past few hours. Mayaguana is already experiencing
gale force winds and heavy rain, and a hurricane warning has been issued
by
the Bahamian Government to cover as far north as Cat Island." The wand
flickered out again to touch the large island just south of the southernmost
tip of Eleuthera. "We would expect that warning to be extended to include
Eleuthera and even the Abacos by this evening."

Meg Robson moaned, and Big Mike remarked, "Holy
shit!"

"Faith is moving just west of north, you said,
Doctor?" Gordon asked.

Eisener nodded. "That's right."

"Do you expect that track to be maintained?"

"Well, Gordon, as you know, one can never be
certain with tropical storms. There are so many factors involved. But given
what information we have, the absence of any jet stream activity in this
vicinity, the water
temperatures, and so on,
yes, I would expect her to continue on her
present track for at least
twenty-four hours. That would take her just east of Eleuthera and the Abacos
and thence north to Bermuda."

Gordon was giving his viewers a reassuring smile.
"In other words, in your opinion this storm poses no real threat to South
Florida."

"Unless there is a substantial alteration of
course during the next few hours, that is, unless Faith swings sharp westerly
and begins to make for
New Providence, then I
would say there is no real threat to the Miami
area. There'll be some
big seas on the coast, mind..."

"Ideal for surfers," Gordon suggested.

"Oh, indeed. But we'll
continue to monitor it, hour by hour. One of our pilots will be out there first
thing tomorrow morning, checking it
out."

"Thank you, Dr Eisener. I'm sure that's what our
listeners wanted to hear. Now let me ask you one final question. Is this a
dangerous storm?"

Eisener moved away from his map, and the camera
brought him into
close focus. "Gordon,
you know as well as I that any hurricane is
potentially dangerous. Faith
is not a major hurricane; sustained winds of 100
mph put her into what we call Category Two. But that is still a lot
of
wind. The folks in the Bahamas should prepare themselves for very high seas
topped by storm surges of maybe
six
feet, which will mean
considerable flooding in low-lying areas. The
probability of flooding will
be increased by torrential rain, and there
will be considerable lightning activity. Certainly they should take every
precaution, and people in
isolated areas
should prepare to be cut off for a day or two, maybe longer.
Finally,
Gordon, we must always bear in mind that this storm has the
potential to deepen, and become a Category Three.
That would put her
in the same class
as Gloria of a few years back – and I don't have to
remind you
that Gloria was a very dangerous storm indeed."

"Thank you, Dr Eisener."
Gordon beamed at them. "So there you
have
it, folks. A spot of bother for the Bahamas, maybe, but nothing to worry about
here in South Florida. So sleep easy in your beds tonight.
Now for Gordon's forecast for the next
twenty-four hours. It will be partly
cloudy tonight, and..."

Big Mike was on his feet to switch off the set.
"Holy shit! Nothing to worry about here in South Florida," he
mimicked. "We're not
in
South Florida. That asshole wouldn't be so
Goddamned complacent if he were here. Well, that's it, folks. The holiday is
over. Tomorrow morning first thing we are gonna put those shutters up, and then
we are going to catch the first plane out of North Eleuthera travelling
west." He looked around their faces. "Right?"

"Right," Meg agreed.

"Right," Babs and Neal said together.

Lawson looked at Belle, who shrugged. "If we are
all going to fly out of here tomorrow, hadn't someone better go to the airport
and book our seats?" she asked.

"At nearly seven
o'clock?" Lawson asked. "You have to be joking.
There won't be anyone there."

"Surely they don't close the airport before
dark?"

"Of course they do! How the hell else would the
drug planes get in?"

"Lawson, now is no time to be funny," his
wife snapped.

Lawson handed her a full glass and kissed her nose.
"Lover, I'm not
funning, I'm serious.
But if it'll please you I'll try to raise someone on
the CB." He picked up the handset. "Palm
Bay Airport. Palm Bay
Airport, will you come in, please." He waited
a moment, while they all watched him, and Dale mixed some more drinks.
"Any taxi, Palm Bay
area, any taxi, come
in please. This is Dolphin Point calling." Another
wait. "Hell, this is a waste of time."
He switched off the set. "I'll try
again in the morning."