The Blurt of Richard Davies

Chapter Twenty Four

Christmas Eve.

A slow, throbbing headache awaits me as I claw my way back to consciousness. That must've been one of Dad's most potent batches of hooch yet! When my eyes are able to blink back into focus I find myself in the trailer's small bedroom. Dad is up already by the sound of it, probably rising at the crack of dawn as he usually does. By the sound and smell it seems he's got breakfast on the go so I quickly pull on my clothes and join him.

We eat a mumbled, bleary-eyed breakfast of eggs and bacon; washed down with some of the proper instant coffee I brought along yesterday. It's far better than the ersatz stuff which is all he can get down here, or worse still the roasted acorn dust. It revives us and before long we're both ready to see the park in daylight.

The fog is lifting and the sun rising above the mist paints the predominantly biege trailers with a peachy glow. "It won't last." says Dad. "There's more fog due to roll in around lunch time." I suspect he's right. The residents always have an eye on the weather; they are constantly updated from all the various internet data sources as well as using their knowledge of the sea and the sky to predict what may be coming. They are usually extremely accurate: With what is at stake they have to be.

We walk over to the northern extent of the levee the Parkers have constructed with the aid of machinery when they could get the fuel; by hand when they couldn't. "We got the Travellers to help while they were here. They came barging in thinking they owned the place, but we told them that if they wanted to stay here they had to become a part of the community and abide by our rules."

"Did they give you any trouble?"

"Only a couple of them. But we soon made them see sense." I can imagine they did. They may be getting on, but people who face down the sea are not to be crossed lightly. "After that they all mucked in. It speeded things up but after a while they decided they wanted to move on. God knows where!"

"D'you think they'll come back?" I ask. I'm surprised there are any Travellers still around. I thought by now they'd all gone permanently back to Éire; it's safer for them there, and they wouldn't get the constant official hassle that nomads do here. Dad shrugs his answer.

Leaving the question hanging we walk along the top of the levee to the southwesternmost point looking out on the Pagham Harbour Nature Reserve. The stunted trees at the entrance appear more windblown and splintered than the last time I was here. The sunken Mulberry Harbour caisson which used to be a landmark is now a silt covered hump.

"It was that last storm. It nearly overtopped us. We had 10cm to spare by my reckoning. I was worried of course, and we had the wind carrying the spray over, but it held!"

"But for how much longer, Dad?"

"Long enough for us to get some more hardcore and clay for our bank. We might even be able to find some more impermeable geotextile. I'm looking into binding it all together with one of those new mango and marine oak hybrids: Apparently they grow a dense root network really quickly. I'm trying to get that coastal engineering group from the University of Southampton to test them here."

"You think they would?"

"Why not? Where better?"

I've heard all this before. Dad is becoming almost delusional in his obsession to save the Park; he's continually thinking of ideas involving scrap shipping containers or even unoccupied park homes packed with builders' rubble buried into earthen banks. He doesn't consider the cost or the practicality of the ideas. But how do you tell him he doesn't have any hope of succeeding against the relentlessly patient waves? No doubt he'll find out the depressing truth in due course.