For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
I woke to the sound of a cracking sound behind me, and, when I rolled over, I found myself staring up the barrel of a gun.
The number one rule broken, don’t fall asleep in enemy territory.
But something else bothered me in those few seconds as I struggle to wake up and comprehend what was happening. Where was Jack? If he’d been here this would not have happened.
But still bleary-eyed from just waking up and in that initial confused state of not knowing where and when, all I could see was a uniformed shape holding the gun standing over me, and feel, in those few seconds that I was not going to survive this.
I braced myself for a bullet, wondering if death was going to be instantaneous. I had hoped I might die in a less inglorious manner.
“Sam? Is that you?”
It was a rather dumb question to be asking an enemy soldier because my mind hadn’t adjusted to the fact the soldier was not in a German uniform, nor in work clothes, but quite possibly the uniform of a soldier from the castle, and if it was, why be asking the question and not just shooting me?
Then, finally, my eyes focussed and I could see clearly who it was, and breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever it was, knew me but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. But in the next second, I saw the gun retract and the man behind it come closer and crouch down beside me.
He was not a soldier from the castle, but a soldier in the familiar British uniform. From somewhere else entirely. An Army Captain if I was not mistaken, which, for another second, I also thought was odd.
And then recognition of a face I hadn’t seen in years.
“Blinky?”
OK, so it was a strange nickname, but it was apt, William O’Reilly blinked a lot, hence the nickname. And Will had been on the same training course as I had three years before, only he had ended up in administration. Bad eyesight.
“It is you, Sam.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
I dragged myself up from the ground to sit up. I did a quick scan around me, but Jack was nowhere to be found. It was not like him to desert me when trouble arrived.
“Apparently rescuing your sorry ass. Now that I’m here, I can see why the Colonel said you needed help.” He held out his hand and pulled me up.
“Forster? You work for him?”
“No, but he asked for someone who knew you by sight, and I was the only one available. Besides, I was getting sick of sitting behind a desk while the rest of you were out in the field doing heroic shit.”
I brushed the undergrowth off my uniform and straightened my clothes. It didn’t make me feel any more comfortable.
“I don’t think falling asleep is very heroic. When did the orders come through?”
“Yesterday. A message was sent and received, a rendezvous at an old church. I came with three others, including a very serious sergeant major who had absolutely no sense of humor. I saw this farm; thought I’d check it out.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get your head shot off.”
“By the man-mountain. Nearly, yes, until I told him who I was. Said you were up here. Waiting for something?”
“Then enemy. We were hoping they turn up so we could deal with them.”
“That would be the traitors up at the castle, or the turncoat resistance members working with them? Carlo, he told me his name, he reckons it’s not happening. Said once I found you to come down and we’ll catch up with the others at this church.”
I picked up the weapon and then we headed towards Carlo’s position.
I could see the Colonel’s reasoning. Send someone I knew who couldn’t be working for the other side. It worried me that the message from Thompson hadn’t been received, because if it had, Martina would have got someone to tell us.
H is for — Help is on the way. Only it isn’t; it’s a betrayal of trust
…
It comes down to who you trust.
Me, I didn’t trust anyone, and it served me well. Over the years, the very people you thought you could trust were mostly the people you couldn’t.
A brother who screwed me over with our inheritance.
A wife who cleaned out the bank accounts and left with my best friend.
Naturally, my best friend.
A business partner who spent all the working capital on business trips and women, sending the company broke and the blame for it on me.
It left me with nothing and more or less a hermit, living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, reliant on np one else but myself.
But, like every idyllic haven and so-called peace of mind, it was never going to last.
I bought my little slice of heaven, about a hundred or so acres of forest, and built a log cabin in the middle of it. The conservationists would be proud of me. There was nothing detrimental to the environment in it.
It kept me busy, hunting, fishing, and surviving.
It’s why when someone turned up at my doorstep, they were either lost or found one of the tracks I’d made and followed, again because they were lost.
Or, it was someone looking for me, and there were a few. People people who didn’t realise it was not me who screwed them over but others I worked with. I’d been lucky so far, but that luck was always going to eventually run out.
My last visitors had been several hikers looking for the caves, about thirty miles to the west. I pointed them in the right direction and sent them on their way the next morning.
It’d been a month or two since then, and with the advent of summer, I was expecting more.
Or so the forest ranger had said last time he came. Apparently, the caves, thirty miles away, were supposed to have gold nuggets in the walls.
No sooner had he left, a pair of hikers, a man and a woman ,come out of the woods via the eastern trail. I was cutting wood when they appeared.
I waited until they’d crossed the clearing before letting them know I was there, just out of their sight.
My voice startled them, so I came out of the hollow, axe in hand, trying not to look threatening.
“We heard someone was hiding in the woods. That would be you?”
He had that smart Alec look about him, the sort who knew everything but knew nothing. A city boy dressed up to look like a country boy.
The girl looked like she would be more at home on a catwalk, with designer everything.
These two were no more hikers than the man in the moon was, if there was one.
“Not hiding, just keeping away from people. I don’t get along with people. What are you doing here?”
He stopped a short distance from me and put his pack down. It looked heavy. The girl did likewise and sat on hers. She said, to no one in particular, “I’ve done enough walking for today.”
I could see she was tired and angry. I had heard raised voices earlier and wondered if it was them.
The man, or boy, looked at me. “We’re heading towards the caves. I guess we still have a ways to go.”
I pointed with my hand, “Thirty miles that away.”
The girl groaned.
“Any chance we can stay for the night?”
“If you don’t mind the floor.”
“We have sleeping bags and food.”
I shrugged. “If you want. There’re no showers, but there is a river about half a mile away.”
“Fair enough.” He sat too, and I could see they both had equipment that was new, including the boots.
“Phones don’t work out here,” the girl said, holding up her cell phone and moving it around.
“No. Just satellite phones. It’s one of the reasons I’m off-grid. No longer attached to a phone or anything, really. I’ll finish cutting the wood, and I’ll be back.”
They didn’t look like they were going anywhere for a while.
When I came back with a bundle of wood, I let them into the cabin and showed them where they could stay.
At one end was my room; the rest of the cabin was given over to kichen, lounge and fireplace where I had the fire. It was down to embers waiting for my return with wood for tonight.
They put out their sleeping blankets and took off their boots, which may have been a mistake because I thought I saw blood on their socks while I stoked the fire into life. The girl made strange faces as she removed her boots.
There was a pot over the flames and they said they could use it to make their dinner.
While it was heating, I said, “I take it you don’t hike much.”
“It’s a recent thing,” the girl said. “Fresh air and countryside. A bit different to walking in the park.”
“Are you here just for the fresh air?”
The girl looked at the boy, and I could see a slight shake of the head.
He spoke, “Just taking a hike as far as the caves to check them out. You know them?”
“Never been there. The last people passing through were headed there, too. I don’t think they made it.”
Last I heard from the ranger, they’d rescued two people from the forest, one of whom had fallen down the side of the mountain and had been badly injured.
“I’m guessing the trail is difficult?”
“To an inexperienced hiker, yes, but you guys look like you’ve done this before.”
“A little. But what we lack in experience, we make up for with enthusiasm.” He looked at the girl. “Don’t we?”
Her look at him, then me, said anything but.
“Then you should be fine.”
I was up and about before they woke, making sure there was hot water for coffee.
They could also cook something if they wanted to, but after the evening effort, I got the impression they were yet to shake off the trappings of a fast food diet.
When I came back from the river with water, they were up and about, hardly enthusiastic, the toll of the previous day’s trek plain to see in their pained expressions.
“Good morning,” I greeted them cheerfully, hoping it would improve their demeanour.
Both muttered a greeting on return. The girl added, “Which way is the river?”
I pointed in the direction where the trail began at the tree line. “Ten minutes that way. The water is cold but refreshing. Stick to the pool. You’ll see it.”
“Thanks.”
I noticed that she started off by herself.
The man gathered his bathroom bag and started to follow her, then stopped.
“How long will it take to reach the caves?”
“Two days if you keep an even pace and head in the right direction, north west. I’m assuming you have a map?”
“Yes. I have a GPS that should help. But, we were wondering, have you been to the caves at all?”
Odd question to ask. “No. It’s a long way just to see some bat droppings. You’re not the first people to pass through and ask me the same question.”
“We were hoping you would guide us. I’m wise enough to know that we are too inexperienced to do it on our own. You can see how we ended up when we arrived.”
“Then you should go home. It’s not for the faint hearted.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t. I made a bet, and it’s not one I can afford to lose. I can pay you, if that will change your mind. Think about it.”
Just what I didn’t need. I came to this place to get away from people and responsibility. I shouldn’t really care what happened to fools, and this fellow was a prize fool.
I didn’t need money, but if he was willing to pay, I’d put a high price on it. After I let him stew for a few hours.
I had been taught to take people at face value, but there would always be people who would slip past the usual scrutiny.
People were good at pretending to be something else and telling you in the most sincere of tones everything you want to hear.
My record on judging people was not the best.
Still, as my mother always said, the majority of people will be fine, there’s only a few scumbags that ruin it for everyone else.
My two visitors and upcoming intrepid adventurers were too good to be true. And we all knew the saying, if it’s too good to be true, it generally is.
Call me cynical.
Years of being taken advantage of had forced me off the grid, and I had hoped that I’d got far enough away that only the forest ranger could find me.
It was good to learn that both rangers who worked this part of the forest were the same as me, escaping from a wretched life borne out of trusting all the wrong people.
Dave was the closest, and while down by the river and far enough away from my visitors, I called him. I had a satellite phone, not for general use, but to call the ranger station if there was a fire or other calamity. This was the second time I’d called.
“Ethan.”
“Dave.”
“How is it out there in Shangrila?”
“Almost perfect. I had two hikers turn up yesterday telling me they were heading towards the caves.”
“Gold miners?”
“They don’t look as if they have ever hiked anywhere in their lives. Everything they have is just off the shelf, minus the price tag.”
When I first arrived at the ranger station, there was a long discussion about setting up a camp and staying. Of course, it was not allowed unless I worked as a fire spotter. There was no pay and a good chance of being burned to death, but it offered the solitude I was looking for.
They said people had to report to the ranger station before venturing into the unknown, and if anyone was coming my way, they would tell me.
“They did not report to the office. We have only one registered group out there but in a different quadrant.”
“Is it possible they didn’t know about the regulations?”
“If they’re proper hikers, no. Have they told you why they’re out there?”
“Not in as many words. Is there something out here that I don’t know about?
“Only that some guy found a fifty-ounce nugget in one of the caves. Since then, it’s been proved that he had stolen it from a private collection, but news of that has been suppressed because of who it was stolen from. But to stop people from going there, a bulletin was released telling everyone the nugget didn’t come from the caves. We don’t want a mini gold rush sending thousands of people into impenetrable parts of the forest, getting lost, injured, or worse. Perhaps they didn’t get the memo.”
“Or they’re up to something else.”
“You going with them?”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“I can offer you a small guide’s fee, a couple of hundred dollars a day, because it will cost tens of thousands to get them out when, not if they get lost.”
“OK. You should be able to track us. If anything else is in play, I’ll call you.”
“No problems.”
I felt better knowing the forestry rangers were monitoring us. Just in case.
When I got back to the cabin, they were sitting outside, all packed up and ready to go. I thought it was a little strange that the girl looked more like a fashion model with perfect makeup; the last thing she needed in the forest.
There was also an air of tension between the two, the sort that was often said it was so think you could cut in with a knife. An argument?
The boy sounded happier than he looked. “Have you considered the offer?”
“How much are you willing to pay?”
“A round thousand, five hundred each way.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the notes.” New, and crisp. “Half now, the rest when we get back.”
I came over and took the money. “I’ll be five minutes. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Of course. And thank you.”
I looked at the girl and had a sudden flash of memory. I’d seen her before, somewhere, but where? It certainly wasn’t in hiking gear, and she certainly wasn’t as miserable as she looked then.
I shook my head. It would come back, only by then it would be the wrong time and definitely the wrong place.
The first mile was the hardest. Not necessarily in terms of terrain; it was nearly flat country before we started up the first mountain, the first of five or six.
Firstly, they had to get over the previous day, and after seeing their feet, the initial struggle just getting the boots back on would have been interesting.
Secondly, it was the time of the year for the first snow of the season, so it was cold. Very cold. Fortunately, they had dressed for the weather.
Thirdly, the animals were active, and both of them were easily startled. I wasn’t expecting to see any bears, but there might be one of two skulking. Generally, they left people alone.
We stopped twice in clearings for a break, and at first, I told them that at the rate we were going, it might take three or four days to get there.
Note: they were not in a hurry.
I tried to engage them in small talk, but I got the impression there was little to talk about. The girl wanted to, but a glance from the boy stopped her.
Note: They did not want me to know who they were. My guess is that the first names were not their real names.
By the time we had traversed the first mountain and had reached a tributary that ran into the main river, some distance away, we stopped for lunch.
They had wisely brought energy bars and drinks. I suspected the girl was a gym freak because she seemed more at home with the physical exercise. The boy wasn’t and was sweating profusely, the sort who avoided exercise and fitness. His definition of exercise would be running for the train to avoid being later than late.
I led, the girl followed, and the boy was the rearguard. More than once, I saw him looking around.
Note: Was he expecting someone, or did he believe someone was following us?
With the rustling sounds in the undergrowth, it wasn’t hard to be worried about what could suddenly appear. I had seen the odd wild pig and several bears over the last year.
By the time we made it over three of the five hills or mountains, we were making a good pace, and by the time light was fading, we had traversed about sixteen miles.
This was going to take two full days, perhaps a little longer. Darkness fell quickly, and rest beckoned. Out in the forest, the notion of sleep was a luxury. Although I didn’t tell them, I rarely slept when on a trek it was never that safe.
Something else I may have failed to mention is that sound travels on the cold night air. They had moved to a position at the bottom of a rocky escarpment, where they thought they were far enough away not to be heard.
“Tell me again why I let you talk me into this ridiculous odyssey?” The petulance and contempt were plain to hear in her tone.
“You wanted a life of luxury. It wasn’t my fault that your parents cut you off. I can’t see why they don’t like me, other than I’m not one of their self-entitled fools they were throwing at you.”
There was no mistaking the contempt in his tone either. It still didn’t identify who she was other than she was from a wealthy background. It explained the attitude and the equipment.
“You told me that money wasn’t an issue.”
“It isn’t. Once we find a chunk of gold, everything will be fine.”
” I hope you’re not expecting to find it just lying around waiting for you to simply pick it up. The guy who told you about it would have taken everything he could see.”
“He couldn’t carry it all.”
“So he chose you above everybody else he could tell where this El Derado is? If it was me, I wouldn’t tell a soul. Or I would tell people to go somewhere entirely different.”
She had made some very valid points, and if I had been the original discoverer, I would not tell anyone where the gold was. Not unless I was selling bogus treasure maps. And the caves were not exactly unknown. Intrepid hikers who wanted a challenge set it as the hardest trek that could be had in the area.
If there was gold in the caves, it would have long been discovered before this.
“Well, he didn’t. Just accept that I know what I’m doing.”
That next statement should have been, ‘You’ve been scammed’, but instead, she didn’t say another word. My only thought was that anything was possible, but I remembered the rangers saying that the geological structures were not conducive to finding any sort of mineral.
In the beginning, we tend to write ourselves into the stories we write, and also, the various other characters are a collection of traits of people we have known in the past and present.
The trick is with those other people not to make them too much like their real-life counterparts, or you may spend the rest of your life in litigation.
I know there are parts of me in my characters because people I know who have read my stories tell me how much they are like me. The problem with that is I didn’t realise I was doing it.
But, to emphasise, the story is not about you.
Unless it is an autobiography.
I have thought about it, writing the story of my life, but it’s so boring, the best use of my book would be to read it just before going to bed.
What is probably more interesting would be the story of my family, traced back to the mid-1700s, and they are a very interesting bunch. To me, it seems that people who lived a hundred years ago had far more interesting lives than we do these days.
Like all the hotels we’re staying in, it has an impressive foyer. You walk in and you think on appearances it’s going to be 5 stars, and not the 3 and a half rating on trip advisor.
Pity then that it all goes downhill from there.
We have a corner room and no bathroom.
Have you ever stayed in a hotel that has rooms with no bathroom? Yes, it’s a first for us too. Still, this is China and I suspect if you complain there’s always a worse room to put you in.
For us, it’s just going to be an amusing situation we’d bear and give it a one-star rating on TripAdvisor for the hotel.
And just a word of warning, if you decide to book the hotel directly make sure you don’t get a corner room.
At least everything else was reasonably ok. Ok, not so much, the safe doesn’t work.
This doesn’t augur well for the rest of the tour in this particular place.
Before we leave, some photos of our room, and the lack of a bathroom.
Separate doors for shower and toilet, and on the other side of the passage, the washbasin
Feng Shui seems to have been forgotten when planning this room.
The next morning we discover that other rooms do have bathrooms but they’re small. Some have neither tissues or toilet paper, another has a faulty power socket and cannot recharge the phone, and I’m sure there are other problems.
All in all, it seemed very odd to have the toilet and shower on one side, and the wash basin on the other side of the passage.
All the while we are talking about the nuts and bolts of the story, words are being put on paper more or less at the rate of 1,666 a day.
Of course, chapters don’t magically write themselves into 1,666 words; I wish they did.
That means after 10 days, we should be a third of the way through the story, and we almost are.
I am having fun imagining what it would be like to live in a draughty and cold castle, not for the first time, I have been here before, and what it’s like for the prince who tried so hard to escape the inevitability of his life.
Perhaps a few banquets with dancing might make him see differently.
Maybe waiting for his mother to return to sanity after she couldn’t cope after losing her husband.
Or perhaps discover things about his mother that he would prefer not to know.
Perhaps discovering how far his older brother was going to throw his country under the bus because he didn’t care, might motivate him to institute a few changes.
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!
After another exhausting walk, by now the heat was beginning to take its toll on everyone, we arrived at the pagoda forest.
A little history first:
The pagoda forest is located west of the Shaolin Temple and the foot of a hill. As the largest pagoda forest in China, it covers approximately 20,000 square meters and has about 230 pagodas build from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
Each pagoda is the tomb of an eminent monk from the Shaolin Temple. Graceful and exquisite, they belong to different eras and constructed in different styles. The first pagoda was thought to be built in 791.
It is now a world heritage site.
No, it’s not a forest with trees it’s a collection of over 200 pagodas, each a tribute to a head monk at the temple and it goes back a long time. The tribute can have one, three, five, or a maximum of seven layers. The ashes of the individual are buried under the base of the pagoda.
The size, height, and story of the pagoda indicate its accomplishments, prestige, merits, and virtues. Each pagoda was carved with the exact date of construction and brief inscriptions and has its own style with various shapes such as a polygonal, cylindrical, vase, conical and monolithic.
This is one of the more recently constructed pagodas
There are pagodas for eminent foreign monks also in the forest.
From there we get a ride back on the back of a large electric wagon
to the front entrance courtyard where drinks and ice creams can be bought, and a visit to the all-important happy place.
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, are questions I should easily be able to answer. These are 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 the 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 underwater.
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 incredibly quiet. No noise except for the hissing of air through an air-conditioning vent. Or 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 unpleasant experience?
I heard what sounded like a door opening, and noticeably quiet footsteps slowly came 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 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 came out of a medically induced coma. There is nothing to be afraid of.”
She had a very soothing voice.
Her fingers stroked 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.
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 severely 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. 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 accidents, 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, or 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 will remember tomorrow. Or the next day.
Sleep was a blessed relief.
The next day I didn’t wake up feeling nauseous. I think 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?
Now I knew Winifred the nurse was preparing me for something unbelievably 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 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.
Scenes were playing in my mind, nothing I recognised, and nothing lasting longer than a glimpse. Me. Others, people I didn’t know. Or 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 early and woke 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 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 at 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 when nothing happened.
Then the pads are gently lifted 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. 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 most handsome 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. She was the distraction, taking my mind off 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 who 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 were, 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.”
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 reticent in using it. “As I said,” she said noticing me looking at the mirror, “what you see now will not be the result. The doctor said it was going to heal with little scarring. You have been extremely 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 in 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 in last year’s model. Well, time will tell.”
In the beginning, we tend to write ourselves into the stories we write, and also, the various other characters are a collection of traits of people we have known in the past and present.
The trick is with those other people not to make them too much like their real-life counterparts, or you may spend the rest of your life in litigation.
I know there are parts of me in my characters because people I know who have read my stories tell me how much they are like me. The problem with that is I didn’t realise I was doing it.
But, to emphasise, the story is not about you.
Unless it is an autobiography.
I have thought about it, writing the story of my life, but it’s so boring, the best use of my book would be to read it just before going to bed.
What is probably more interesting would be the story of my family, traced back to the mid-1700s, and they are a very interesting bunch. To me, it seems that people who lived a hundred years ago had far more interesting lives than we do these days.
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 