This book has finally reached the Final Editor’s draft, so this month it is going to get the last revision, and a reread for the beta readers.
…
How many of us would ever get caught up in a dangerous situation in a lifetime?
How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we don’t know about?
I had been thinking about it a lot when I discovered my mother’s previous boyfriend, the man who was the love of her life.
Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, a half-brother or sister.
There were many ways of putting a spin on this premise.
Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at works was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other knowing of their half-brother only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.
It was an enormous coincidence.
And we all wondered what the sisters had planned as retribution for the man who had lied to them both.
Of course, it could also be said that they could have spoken to each other long before it came to that, but like a lot of families, small problems become much larger ones when allowed to fester and cause almost unhealable rifts. It had in this case.
Sometimes the backstory can be just as interesting as the story itself.
What happens when your past finally catches up with you?
…
Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.
Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.
This time, however, there is more at stake.
Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.
With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.
But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.
McCallister was old school, a man who would most likely fit in perfectly campaigning on the battlefields of Europe during the Second World War. He’d been like a fish out of water in the army, post-Falklands, and while he retired a hero, he still felt he’d more to give.
He’d applied and was accepted as head of a SWAT team, and, watching him now as he and his men disembarked from the truck in almost military precision, a look passed between Annette, the police liaison officer, and I that said she’d seen it all before. I know I had.
There was a one in four chance his team would be selected for this operation, and she had been hoping it would be one of the other three. While waiting for them to arrive she filled me in on the various teams. His was the least co-operative, and the more likely to make ad-hoc decisions rather than adhere to the plan, or any orders that may come from the officer in charge.
This, she said quite bluntly, was going to end badly.
I still had no idea why Prendergast instructed me to attend the scene of what looked to be a normal domestic operation, but as the nominated expert in the field in these types of situations, it was fairly clear he wasn’t taking any chances. It was always a matter of opinion between us, and generally I lost.
In this case, it was an anonymous report identifying what the authorities believed were explosives in one of the dockside sheds where explosives were not supposed to be.
The only reason why the report was given any credence was the man, while not identifying himself by name, said he’d been an explosive expert once and recognized the boxes. That could mean anything, but the Chief Constable was a cautious man.
With his men settled and preparing their weapons, McCallister came over to the command post, not much more than the SUV my liaison and I arrived in, with weapons, bulletproof vests, and rolls of tape to cordon off the area afterward. We both had coffee, steaming in the cold early morning air. Dawn was slowly approaching and although rain had been forecast it had yet to arrive.
A man by the name of Benson was in charge. He too had groaned when he saw McCallister.
“A fine morning for it.” McCallister was the only enthusiastic one here.
He didn’t say what ‘it’ was, but I thought it might eventually be mayhem.
“Let’s hope the rain stays away. It’s going to be difficult enough without it,” Benson said, rubbing his hands together. We had been waiting for the SWAT team to arrive, and another team to take up their position under the wharf, and who was in the final stages of securing their position.
While we were waiting we drew up the plan. I’d go in first to check on what we were dealing with, and what type of explosives. The SWAT team, in the meantime, were to ensure all the exits to the shed were covered. When I gave the signal, they were to enter and secure the building. We were not expecting anyone inside or out, and no movement had been detected in the last hour since our arrival and deployment.
“What’s the current situation?”
“I’ve got eyes on the building, and a team coming in from the waterside, underneath. Its slow progress, but they’re nearly there. Once they’re in place, we’re sending McKenzie in.”
He looked in my direction.
“With due respect sir, shouldn’t it be one of us?” McCallister glared at me with the contempt that only a decorated military officer could.
“No. I have orders from above, much higher than I care to argue with, so, McCallister, no gung-ho heroics for the moment. Just be ready to move on my command, and make sure you have three teams at the exit points, ready to secure the building.”
McCallister opened his mouth, no doubt to question those orders, but instead closed it again. “Yes sir,” he muttered and turned away heading back to his men.
“You’re not going to have much time before he storms the battlements,” Benson quietly said to me, a hint of exasperation in his tone. “I’m dreading the paperwork.”
It was exactly what my liaison officer said when she saw McCallister arriving.
The water team sent their ‘in position’ signal, and we were ready to go.
In the hour or so we’d been on site nothing had stirred, no arrivals, no departures, and no sign anyone was inside, but that didn’t mean we were alone. Nor did it mean I was going to walk in and see immediately what was going on. If it was a cache of explosives then it was possible the building was booby-trapped in any number of ways, there could be sentries or guards, and they had eyes on us, or it might be a false alarm.
I was hoping for the latter.
I put on the bulletproof vest, thinking it was a poor substitute for full battle armor against an exploding bomb, but we were still treating this as a ‘suspected’ case. I noticed my liaison officer was pulling on her bulletproof vest too.
“You don’t have to go. This is my party, not yours,” I said.
“The Chief Constable told me to stick to you like glue, sir.”
I looked at Benson. “Talk some sense into her please, this is not a kindergarten outing.”
He shrugged. Seeing McCallister had taken all the fight out of him. “Orders are orders. If that’s what the Chief Constable requested …”
Madness. I glared at her, and she gave me a wan smile. “Stay behind me then, and don’t do anything stupid.”
“Believe me, I won’t be.” She pulled out and checked her weapon, chambering the first round. It made a reassuring sound.
Suited up, weapons readied, a last sip of the coffee in a stomach that was already churning from nerves and tension, I looked at the target, one hundred yards distant and thought it was going to be the longest hundred yards I’d ever traversed. At least for this week.
A swirling mist rolled in and caused a slight change in plans.
Because the front of the buildings was constantly illuminated by large overhead arc lamps, my intention had been to approach the building from the rear where there was less light and more cover. Despite the lack of movement, if there were explosives in that building, there’d be ‘enemy’ surveillance somewhere, and, after making that assumption, I believed it was going to be easier and less noticeable to use the darkness as a cover.
It was a result of the consultation, and studying the plans of the warehouse, plans that showed three entrances, the main front hangar type doors, a side entrance for truck entry and exit and a small door in the rear, at the end of an internal passage leading to several offices. I also assumed it was the exit used when smokers needed a break. Our entry would be by the rear door or failing that, the side entrance where a door was built into the larger sliding doors. In both cases, the locks would not present a problem.
The change in the weather made the approach shorter, and given the density of the mist now turning into a fog, we were able to approach by the front, hugging the walls, and moving quickly while there was cover. I could feel the dampness of the mist and shivered more than once.
It was nerves more than the cold.
I could also feel rather than see the presence of Annette behind me, and once felt her breath on my neck when we stopped for a quick reconnaissance.
It was the same for McCallister’s men. I could feel them following us, quickly and quietly, and expected, if I turned around, to see him breathing down my neck too.
It added to the tension.
My plan was still to enter by the back door.
We slipped up the alley between the two sheds to the rear corner and stopped. I heard a noise coming from the rear of the building, and the light tap on the shoulder told me Annette had heard it too. I put my hand up to signal her to wait, and as a swirl of mist rolled in, I slipped around the corner heading towards where I’d last seen the glow of a cigarette.
The mist cleared, and we saw each other at the same time. He was a bearded man in battle fatigues, not the average dockside security guard.
He was quick, but my slight element of surprise was his undoing, and he was down and unconscious in less than a few seconds with barely a sound beyond the body hitting the ground. Zip ties secured his hands and legs, and tape his mouth. Annette joined me a minute after securing him.
A glance at the body then me, “I can see why they, whoever they are, sent you.”
She’d asked who I worked for, and I didn’t answer. It was best she didn’t know.
“Stay behind me,” I said, more urgency in my tone. If there was one, there’d be another.
Luck was with us so far. A man outside smoking meant no booby traps on the back door, and quite possibly there’d be none inside. But it indicated there were more men inside, and if so, it appeared they were very well trained. If that were the case, they would be formidable opponents.
The fear factor increased exponentially.
I slowly opened the door and looked in. A pale light shone from within the warehouse itself, one that was not bright enough to be detected from outside. None of the offices had lights on, so it was possible they were vacant. I realized then they had blacked out the windows. Why hadn’t someone checked this?
Once inside, the door closed behind us, progress was slow and careful. She remained directly behind me, gun ready to shoot anything that moved. I had a momentary thought for McCallister and his men, securing the perimeter.
At the end of the corridor, the extent of the warehouse stretched before us. The pale lighting made it seem like a vast empty cavern, except for a long trestle table along one side, and, behind it, stacks of wooden crates, some opened. It looked like a production line.
To get to the table from where we were was a ten-yard walk in the open. There was no cover. If we stuck to the walls, there was equally no cover and a longer walk.
We needed a distraction.
As if on cue, the two main entrances disintegrated into flying shrapnel accompanied by a deafening explosion that momentarily disoriented both Annette and I. Through the smoke and dust kicked up I saw three men appear from behind the wooden crates, each with what looked like machine guns, spraying bullets in the direction of the incoming SWAT members.
They never had a chance, cut down before they made ten steps into the building.
By the time I’d recovered, my head heavy, eyes watering and ears still ringing, I took several steps towards them, managing to take down two of the gunmen but not the third.
I heard a voice, Annette’s I think, yell out, “Oh, God, he’s got a trigger,” just before another explosion, though all I remember in that split second was a bright flash, the intense heat, something very heavy smashing into my chest knocking the wind out of me, and then the sensation of flying, just before I hit the wall.
I spent four weeks in an induced coma, three months being stitched back together and another six learning to do all those basic actions everyone took for granted. It was twelve months almost to the day when I was released from the hospital, physically, except for a few alterations required after being hit by shrapnel, looking the same as I always had.
But mentally? The document I’d signed on release said it all, ‘not fit for active duty; discharged’.
It was in the name of David Cheney. For all intents and purposes, Alistair McKenzie was killed in that warehouse, and for the first time ever, an agent left the Department, the first to retire alive.
I was not sure I liked the idea of making history.
Some things happen randomly. Some things are unexplainable. Some things happen for a reason.
What happened to us didn’t happen for a reason, nor was it random or unexplainable.
Well, not at first.
…
I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I came home from school and there were seven police cars in the street.
I was not sure what I thought from the top of the street, but it wasn’t that the police were in our house.
They were.
I had to plead my case that I actually lived in what they were calling a crime scene. No one would tell me what happened until a woman about the same age as my mother came out to see what the shouting was about.
I was trying to tell people who wouldn’t listen that it was my house.
I’ll never forget the way she looked down on me like I was dirt beneath her feet. A person who would want to reach me would have come down to my level. She did not.
“Who are you making all this noise?”
“I live here. This is my house. My father and mother and my sister live here. Is my mother here?”
“Wait here.”
She went back inside and came back with my mother. My mother’s face was expressionless, and I only saw that look once before in my life, when she was told her brother had died.
I remembered that day too, and what she said. ‘Do not trust these English people, they lie, they twist your words. They say they do not hold grudges, but they never forget. Never.’
I had no idea what she meant at the time, but seeing the woman and the fact a man was standing close to her as if she were a criminal, was enough.
“Your father is dead.” It was a simple and succinct statement. She would say no more until the police left.
The only question in my mind then was who that woman was because she certainly wasn’t the police. Not the normal police that is.
They said my father committed suicide. I didn’t get to see the crime scene but was taken to a friends place where my sister was, and we were not allowed to return home for a few days.
My mother had been questioned for three days by both the police and other people, people she thought were security agents, though she had no idea why my father would interest them.
Except, of course, he was German.
We were never asked any questions and allowed back after the house had been cleaned and restored to normalcy. A day later, when looking for the first time ever, since we were never allowed in his study, I found a small smudge of blood.
It didn’t seem significant.
My mother, our mother, outwardly was the same as she had been, except now, without her husband, she seemed different, not so frightened. I could see the fear in her eyes every time he came home. In her eyes and my sisters. I didn’t know why and didn’t ask.
Not then.
A week passed, and I came home to the same scenario. Five police cars, flashing lights, and they were at my house.
Again.
I didn’t have to go through the same identification. The policeman at the door knew who I was.
He asked me to wait, and a few minutes later, the same woman came out.
“This is getting to be a regular event,” I said.
“It won’t happen again. Come inside.”
From the front door, I could see the tail of destruction. Someone had searched the place and looked everywhere.
And I mean everywhere, down to ripping the plaster off the walks and ripping up floorboards.
“Who would do something like this,” I asked.
“Exactly the question we would ask. It seems someone thought your father had something worth stealing. It’s equally obvious by the damage they didn’t find it.”
“That’s because he didn’t have anything.”
She gave me that grown-up, I don’t believe you looked and then took me to my mother. Equally resolute and angry as the time before.
“You might want to consider moving. These people might come back. They did not find what they were looking for. I suggest you think long and hard about what it might be these people want.”
“I do not know anything about my husband’s business. I did not want to know, and he didn’t tell me. I never went into his office. None of us did. We are not being chased out of my home. My husband did nothing wrong, I have done nothing wrong, and we are not moving anywhere.”
We were forced to stay with a friend while the house was put back together, and life returned to a semblance of normalcy. An elaborate alarm system provided security so we could sleep at night, but odd noises kept me awake for a long time after.
But they did not come back. Whoever they were. At times, I used to think there was a similar car sitting down the street watching us.
In time, it all passed. In sccprdabc3 with my father’s wishes, I studied engineering and eventually graduated. My sister eventually married the boy she started dating at university and then moved to France for his work, leaving my mother and me alone.
My mother found a job, something she had not been allowed to do while my father was alive and kept mostly to herself. We kept the house, and my father’s study exactly as it had been before he died, and life went on.
Then, instead of taking up an appointment at my father’s old engineering company, I changed my mind and decided to do journalism instead. My mother wasn’t pleased but didn’t try to change my mind. She just stopped talking to me.
Then, almost to the day, ten years later, it all started again.
This time, the person who broke in hardly left a trace, and everything had been put back, all except one piece of paper.
Whoever it was, they were interrupted because I thought I heard a mouse from downstairs, and instinctively, I knew it was in the study.
At first, I thought it was my mother. She sometimes went down there to read a book. All of the novels on two of the shelves were written in German.
It was not her, but I did see a shadow, and by the time I reached the back door, that shadow had disappeared. That door had been opened with a key because I had stuffed the lock with a putty substance and fragments if it were on the inside floor under the lock.
Back in the study, I checked the papers in the top drawer, and one was out of place. In the middle, as if it had been hastily replaced.
I looked at it. A letter from his father to his son, very short, reminding him to send the book he had recently mentioned. That was all.
Except…
It could not possibly be from my father’s father he had died many years before the date on the letter. Or could it? A fragment of a conversation I overheard a long time ago when my grandparents had visited, came back, a name, and if I was not mistaken, a very familiar name.
I put it back neatly and went back to bed.
I will check everything else that was in the drawers tomorrow. And I would send a letter to the German Government in charge of Stasi files. If I was not mistaken, my father’s parents had been stranded in East Germany when the wall went up, and that made my father East German too.
And if that were the case, it would explain everything.
…
If you were to ask any child what their first scary memory was, it would more than likely involve a relative. I think I was unlucky. I had two, relatives that is, and both were scary.
It might be that they were from a different country, across the sea, and for a child what was a long, long way away. We were not rich so unless they visited, which as far as I was aware, was once when I was about very young, we never saw them at all.
My only memory of them was that they were tall, dressed in dark clothes, and spoke differently to us, though it surprised me that my mother could speak that way too. Later I learned a different way was a language called German, and my mother decided to teach me it. My father wasn’t pleased, especially when she and I spoke in German, because he never bothered to learn it himself.
It should not have come as a surprise that I was told not to annoy them. Perhaps someone forgot to tell my parents I was a child, and invariably inquisitive, and that we rarely did as we were told. Pity then that first encounter was fleeting and decidedly unmemorable, and being too young to care, erased the almost from my mind. I don’t think I endeared myself to them.
Move forward 20 years, and although there were some references to these strange people that my mother referred to as distant and unforgiving members of an intransigent and disinterested family, we had not seen them again, but my mother had travelled to where they lived several times, always returning very upset and angry.
Until one dark and gloomy morning when a letter arrived, delivered to the door by the postman.
That morning she had been putting away some of my father’s stuff in the study, and, being nearest to the front door, went to see who it was. When I called out to ask her who it was, there was silence, except for the ticking sound of the grandfather clock in the entrance hall. Yes, it was that loud and, at night, sometimes annoying.
I slowly came down the stairs, unconscious trying to avoid the creaking steps, and stopped at the bottom.
“Mother.”
I knew she had been in the study, so I went up the passage and stopped in the doorway. She was sitting in my father’s chair, something that would have been forbidden, for any of us, when he was alive.
She looked as though she had seen a ghost.
“Is everything alright?” I could clearly see that it wasn’t.
In her hand was a piece of paper and what I assumed was the envelope it came in on the floor.
She looked up at me. “Your grandfather is dead. My mother wants us to go to the funeral.”
Was it significant that she called her father my grandfather, and did not refer to her mother as my grandmother? But what was more significant was the look on her face was the same as it had been when she had been attacked.
It wasn’t hard to put two and two together; the breaking had something to do with my grandfather, and she had been dreading this day.
“Where?” It was a question I knew the answer.
“Germany.”
We had in recent times started to have conversations about where she came from and how she arrived in England. We’d got as far as her mother’s grandparents leaving before the second world war to escape the Nazi regime, how she had returned to Germany as a child and met and married a German engineer, my father, a boy from a good German family approved by her father. It felt, she said, as if it had all been arranged in her absence, but he had been attentive, polite and generous in those first years before and after marriage. It was only later he changed.
She said after she married him and they returned to England where he had transferred for his work, that he became a vain and possessive husband who had virtually cut her off from all her friends and relations until his death. My father’s parents had passed away at the time of the pandemic, much to my mother’s relief, and as for her father, it seemed that he and her mother were more supportive of her husband than her daughter.
Since my father’s death she had been a lot more at ease if not wary of people she didn’t know, although she still tended to prefer her own company.
“Perhaps it would be prudent to simply ignore the letter, pretend you didn’t get it.”
“I had to sign for it. They are nothing if not thorough in dealing with matters such as this. It would have been far worse if Gerhardt had been alive.”
“Do you have to go?”
“You know the answer to that question as well as I do. It might have been better if I had returned to Germany after Gerhardt had died, but I refused, and it resulted in being excommunicated. I can’t for the life of me understand why I’m being summoned now. I told them then, when I was leaving, I never wanted to see or speak to them again. When his parents died and we had to return for the funeral, he wanted to stay there, telling me only after we got there that he was going to transfer back to Germany, and we could live near my parents. Gerhardt was always their favourite, and when my parents insisted, I obeyed my husband’s wishes I told them my life was in England and I had no intention of moving back to Germany especially anywhere near them. Gerhard admonished me, taking their side, and I told him in no uncertain terms that if he still wanted to have a wife when he returned to England, he should not speak of the matter again.”
This I was learning for the first time, and it explained the frosty relations on their return, though that had been when I was younger and didn’t understand why grown-ups were always so cranky.
“What would have happened if we had gone back?”
“You would have been taken away from me.”
It was a simple response, but one if I let my imagination run wild could have had any number of connotations. My father had always told me I was going to be an engineer like him and his father before him. It was not a request or a suggestion.
It was not what I wanted, but I was terrified of him.
It was only after he died that I was able to switch to a less intense field of study, a journalist, and one day, to become a best-selling author. It was hardly the occupation of a Schroder would be what he would say in barely restrained anger, his usual mode of addressing me.
“Then we have much to be thankful for. I guess it means we have to go, but this time I’m old enough to look after you.”
“It may not be that simple. My family are not noted for being what one might subjectively call normal.”
“Then let’s be unpredictable.”
I remember a few weeks before my father died, he had dragged me into the study and proceeded to give me a dressing down, not for the first time, but that time I had deliberately pushed him. It was the lecture on what the Schroeders stood for, and that was not flippancy. Then when I back chatted with him, for the first time, he completely lost it.
And wittingly or unwittingly he let slip that family honour went back centuries that generations of his family had served their country proudly in many wars and that if his great-grandfather was alive, I would be shot. German soldiers, given the wealth and standing of his family, were the chances…
At the time I just didn’t want to think about it.
When she didn’t respond, I said “I think it might be time to let you into a secret. I have been seeing a girl who works with me at the newspaper. I didn’t think she liked me but apparently, she does. And surprise, surprise, she speaks German, as well as French, Spanish, and Russian. I’ll ask her if she would like to come with us. They won’t know what hit them.”
For the first time, in the wake of what was the worst news, there was a glimmer of a smile.
“I knew there was something. Perhaps you are right.”
How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.
In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.
I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.
Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.
There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.
Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.
It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.
For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.
It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!
This morning we wake up to rain. Or so we thought. Taking a closer look out the window of our room on the 16th floor, we notice the rain is speckled with snowflakes. As the morning progressed the snow got harder until there were flurries.
Later we discover this is called wet snow by the local Vancouverians, and whilst they winge a lot over the endless rain, to them rain is infinitely better than snow.
To us, by the afternoon, it was almost blizzard conditions, with lots of snow. Then the only thing is that it does not accumulate on most of the ground so there are no drifts to play in.
Because the weather is so dismal we decided not to go into Vancouver to do some sightseeing because the clouds were down to the ground and then the snow set in.
Another interesting fact is that construction workers do not go off the job if it’s raining, or worse when it is snowing. Our room overlooks a new apartment complex under construction and the workers battled on through what seemed like appalling conditions.
At four in the afternoon, the Maple Leafs are playing the Ohio Blue Jackets, in Ohio. It is a game we expect they will win. Sparks is the goalkeeper, not Anderson, they’re playing back to back games and Anderson’s starting tomorrow.
They win, four goals to two.
Just before darkness falls, about four thirty, the snow stops and there is a little rain, which melts the snow.
Time to go up to the executive lounge to get some snacks and coffee, then sleep because the next day we’re taking on the Trans Canada highway from Vancouver to Kamloops.
The forecast is for snow, more snow, and just for a change, more snow.
I remembered a bang. I remembered the car slewing sideways. I remember another bang, and then it was lights out. When I opened my eyes again, I saw the sky. Or I could be underwater. Everything was blurred. I tried to focus but I couldn’t. My eyes were full of water. What happened? Why was I lying down? Where was I? I cast my mind back, trying to remember. It was a blank. What, when, who, why and where, questions I should easily be able to answer. Questions any normal person could answer. I tried to move. Bad, bad mistake. I did not realise the scream I heard was my own. Just before my body shut down.
“My God! What happened?” I could hear, not see. I was moving, lying down, looking up. I was blind. Everything was black. “Car accident, hit a tree, sent the passenger flying through the windscreen. Pity to poor bastard didn’t get the message that seat belts save lives.” Was I that poor bastard? “Report?” A new voice, male, authoritative. “Multiple lacerations, broken collar bone, broken arm in three places, both legs broken below the knees, one badly. We are not sure of internal injuries, but ruptured spleen, cracked ribs and pierced right lung are fairly evident, x-rays will confirm that and anything else.” “What isn’t broken?” “His neck.” “Then I would have to say we are looking at the luckiest man on the planet.” I heard shuffling of pages. “OR1 ready?” “Yes. On standby since we were first advised.” “Good. Let’s see if we can weave some magic.”
Magic. It was the first word that popped into my head when I surfaced from the bottom of the lake. That first breath, after holding it for so long, was sublime, and, in reality, agonising.
Magic, because it seemed like I’d spent a long time under water. Or somewhere. I tried to speak, but couldn’t. The words were just in my head. Was it night or was it day? Was it hot, or was it cold? Where was I? Around me it felt cool. It was very quiet. No noise except for the hissing of air through an air-conditioning vent. Or perhaps that was the sound of pure silence. And with it the revelation that silence was not silent. It was noisy. I didn’t try to move. Instinctively, somehow I knew not to. A previous bad experience? I heard what sounded like a door opening, and very quiet footsteps slowly come into the room. They stopped. I could hear breathing, slightly laboured, a sound I’d heard before. My grandfather. He had smoked all his life, until he was diagnosed with lung cancer. But for years before that he had emphysema. The person in the room was on their way, down the same path. I could smell the smoke. I wanted to tell whoever it was the hazards of smoking. I couldn’t. I heard a metallic clanging sound from the end of the bed. A moment later the clicking of a pen, then writing. “You are in a hospital.” A female voice suddenly said. “You’ve been in a very bad accident. You cannot talk, or move, all you can do, for the moment, is listen to me. I am a nurse. You have been here for 45 days, and just come out of a medically induced coma. There is nothing to be afraid of.” She had a very soothing voice. I felt her fingers stroke the back of my hand. “Everything is fine.” Define fine, I thought. I wanted to ask her what ‘fine’ meant. “Just count backwards from 10.” Why? I didn’t reach seven.
Over the next ten days, that voice became my lifeline to sanity. Every morning I longed to hear it, if only for the few moments she was in the room, those few waking moments when I believed she, and someone else who never spoke, were doing tests. I knew it had to be someone else because I could smell the essence of lavender. My grandmother had worn a similar scent. It rose above the disinfectant. I also believed she was another doctor, not the one who had been there the day I arrived. Not the one who had used some ‘magic’ and kept me alive. It was then, in those moments before she put me under again, that I thought, what if I was paralysed? It would explain a lot. A chill went through me.
The next morning she was back. “My name is Winifred. We don’t know what your name is, not yet. In a few days, you will be better, and you will be able to ask us questions. You were in an accident, and you were very badly injured, but I can assure you there will be no lasting damage.” More tests, and then, when I expected the lights to go out, they didn’t. Not for a few minutes more. Perhaps this was how I would be integrated back into the world. A little bit at a time. The next morning, she came later than usual, and I’d been awake for a few minutes. “You have bandages over your eyes and face. You had bad lacerations to your face, and glass in your eyes. We will know more when the bandages come off in a few days. Your face will take longer to heal. It was necessary to do some plastic surgery.” Lacerations, glass in my eyes, car accident, plastic surgery. By logical deduction, I knew I was the poor bastard thrown through the windscreen. It was a fleeting memory from the day I was admitted. How could that happen? That was the first of many startling revelations. The second was the fact I could not remember the crash. Equally shocking, in that same moment was the fact I could not remember before the crash either, and only vague memories after. But the most shattering of all these revelations was the one where I realised I could not remember my name. I tried to calm down, sensing a rising panic. I was just disoriented, I told myself. After 45 days in an induced coma, it had messed with my mind, and it was only a temporary lapse. Yes, that’s what it was, a temporary lapse. I would remember tomorrow. Or the next day. Sleep was a blessed relief.
The next day I didn’t wake feeling nauseous. Perhaps they’d lowered the pain medication. I’d heard that morphine could have that effect. Then, how could I know that, but not who I am? I knew now Winifred the nurse was preparing me for something very bad. She was upbeat, and soothing, giving me a new piece of information each morning. This morning, “You do not need to be afraid. Everything is going to be fine. The doctor tells me you are going to recover with very little scarring. You will need some physiotherapy to recover from your physical injuries, but that’s in the future. We need to let you mend a little bit more before then.” So, I was not going to be able to leap out of bed, and walk out of the hospital any time soon. I don’t suppose I’d ever leapt out of bed, except as a young boy. I suspect I’d sustained a few broken bones. I guess learning to walk again was the least of my problems. But, there was something else. I picked it up in the timbre of her voice, a hesitation, or reluctance. It sent another chill through me. This time I was left awake for an hour before she returned. This time sleep was restless. There were scenes playing in my mind, nothing I recognised, and nothing lasting longer than a glimpse. Me. Others, people I didn’t know. Or perhaps I knew them and couldn’t remember them. Until they disappeared, slowly like the glowing dot in the centre of the computer screen, before finally fading to black.
The morning the bandages were to come off she came in bright and early and woken me. I had another restless night, the images becoming clearer, but nothing recognisable. “This morning the doctor will be removing the bandages over your eyes. Don’t expect an immediate effect. Your sight may come back quickly or it may come back slowly, but we believe it will come back.” I wanted to believe I was not expecting anything, but I was. It was probably human nature. I did not want to be blind as well as paralysed. I had to have at least one reason to live. I dozed again until I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. I could smell the lavender, the other doctor was back. And I knew the hand on my shoulder was Winifred’s. She told me not to be frightened. I was amazed to realise in that moment, I wasn’t. I heard the scissors cutting the bandages. I felt the bandage being removed, and the pressure coming off my eyes. I could feel the pads covering both eyes. Then a moment where nothing happened. Then the pads being gently lift and removed. Nothing. I blinked my eyes, once, twice. Nothing. “Just hold on a moment,” Winifred said. A few seconds later I could feel a cool towel wiping my face, and then gently wiping my eyes. Perhaps there was ointment, or something else in them. Then a flash. Well, not a flash, but like when a light is turned on and off. A moment later, it was brighter, not the inky blackness of before, but a shade of grey. She wiped my eyes again. I blinked a few more times, and then the light returned, and it was like looking through water, at distorted and blurry objects in the distance. I blinked again, and she wiped my eyes again. Blurry objects took shape. A face looking down on me, an elderly lady with a kindly face, surely Winifred, who was smiling. And on the opposite side of the bed, the doctor, a Chinese woman of indescribable beauty. I nodded. “You can see?” I nodded again. “Clearly?” I nodded. “Very good. We will just draw the curtains now. We don’t want to overdo it. Tomorrow we will be taking off the bandages on your face. Then, it will be the next milestone. Talking.” I couldn’t wait.
When morning came, I found myself afraid. Winifred had mentioned scarring, there were bandages on my face. I knew, but wasn’t quite sure how I knew, I wasn’t the handsomest of men before the accident, so this might be an improvement. I was not sure why I didn’t think it would be the case. They came at mid morning, the nurse, Winifred, and the doctor, the exquisite Chinese. Perhaps she was the distraction, taking my mind of the reality of what I was about to see. Another doctor came into the room, before the bandages were removed, and he was introduced as the plastic surgeon that had ‘repaired’ the ravages of the accident. It had been no easy job, but, with a degree of egotism, he did say he was one of the best in the world. I found it hard to believe, if he was, that he would be at a small country hospital. “Now just remember, what you might see now is not how you will look in a few months time.” Warning enough. The Chinese doctor started removing the bandages. She did it slowly, and made sure it did not hurt. My skin was very tender, and I suspect still bruised, either from the accident or the surgery, I didn’t know. Then it was done. The plastic surgeon gave his work a thorough examination and seemed pleased with his work. “Coming along nicely,” he said to the other doctor. He issued some instructions on how to manage the skin, nodded to me, and I thanked him before he left. I noticed Winifred had a mirror in her hand, and was somewhat reticent in using it. “As I said,” she said noticing me looking at the mirror, “what you see now will not be the final result. The doctor said it was going to heal with very little scarring. You have been very fortunate he was available. Are you ready?” I nodded. She showed me. I tried not to be reviled at the red and purple mess that used to be my face. At a guess I would have to say he had to put it all back together again, but, not knowing what I looked like before, I had no benchmark. All I had was a snippet of memory that told me I was not the tall, dark, and handsome type. And I still could not talk. There was a reason, he had worked on that area too. Just breathing hurt. I think I would save up anything I had to say for another day. I could not even smile. Or frown. Or grimace. “We’ll leave you for a while. Everyone needs a little time to get used to the change. I suspect you are not sure if there has been an improvement on last year’s model. Well, time will tell.” A new face? I could not remember the old one. My memory still hadn’t returned.
This book has finally reached the Final Editor’s draft, so this month it is going to get the last revision, and a reread for the beta readers.
…
I have been writing away from home. We promised to take our granddaughters away for a few days during the school holidays, and so I’ve had to rough it, writing at the kitchen table with the sounds of a Nintendo Switch going off in my ears, when we’re not out trying new food and swimming or playing mini gold.
It’s a bit hard to get in the mood.
But, our main character, Jack, is back home, having got away from Maryanne, and knowing he has a package to get from Rosalie, he invites her out to dinner.
Dinner is pleasant, and a rapport develops into something else when he invites her back to his place.
And, of course, it’s probably too much to expect the romance will go as smoothly as it should, and something will come along to liven it up.
At some point, we will discover another of Rosalie’s hidden talents acquired from an undisclosed past life, not related to the romance aspect. If that sounds a little strange it probably is but I don’t want to give away the plot just yet.
John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, and prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.
Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.
If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favour for him in Rome.
At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.
That ‘favour’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follow.
Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 