“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
I remember Angela quoting that to me when we were doing a tutorial for the Journalism part of my degree. It was only one part of many for me, whereas, for her, it was to become her bread and butter.
She had taken up the role of a reporter on the campus newspaper, and she was inclined to write sharp pieces that would later point to how she would approach the job at the local newspaper, a job assured there for her based on her department head’s glowing recommendation.
Her vendetta against Emily had begun from day one at university and only grew more acrimonious each year. Emily had hardly helped her situation by joining her equally entitled friends and behaving badly.
She knew my secret feelings about Emily and had often mocked me for it, especially after we didn’t find mutual ground. It was probably the one relationship on campus I regretted.
It seemed inevitable that I was about to get entangled with her again, after trying so hard to keep out of her sight. I had scored a piece, the smartest kid in college, but it was hard to tell if it was a character assassination or just a bio that might land me a useful job.
I didn’t bother calling up and asking her.
Xavier had just spent the last half hour roasting me for going to the ball and then demanding to know when and where I had fallen for the meanest girl on campus.
“I hardly think fallen is the word I’d use. I like her, surely that’s obvious because she’s a reasonably likeable girl.” It was difficult to find the words that dodged the bullet that was coming straight at me.
Xavier was a friend, but this would stretch it. She was, categorically, the enemy.
“Perhaps,” I added, “with my new special status, I can put in a good word for you. I know she knows Amy, and I know you like her, and that’s no different to my situation.”
He shrugged. Like me, I don’t think he would ever confess his undying love to a girl who would have no hesitation in humiliating him. “Don’t. I prefer the wistful looking for a great distance and using my imagination. What was she like to dance with? I heard it was a Viennese waltz.”
“It wasn’t anything special. You did the Arthur Murray lessons like I did. And you would have fitted in. The people were just people, Xavier.”
We both looked up at the same time to see Angela chugging her way across the cafeteria towards us.
“That’s my cue to leave. You think I’m pissed; just wait till she gets here.”
And he was gone in the blink of an eye. He hated Angela more than I did. I thought of running, but what was the point. She would just chase me down until I surrendered. Better now than never.
She sat down, no tasking if it was alright, and pulled out her recorder and notebook. She was nothing if not thorough.
“I’m assuming you’ve come here for an interview, though I’m not quite sure why.”
She shook her head, the trademark scowl getting a little deeper. “I hope you’re not going to try and act dumb.”
“Who said it was an act. I believe you told me, once, that I was the dumbest boy on the planet. You’re being an authority on the subject, I accepted my lot.”
The scowl deepened. “You’re going to be a pain in the ass, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “You reap what you sow, Angela.”
She switched off the recorder and softened her expression. “Off the record, for the time being. What were you thinking, going to that ball?”
“It was a perfect opportunity to put my Waltzing skills to the test. You don’t get that kind of dancing opportunity every day.”
“With Emily, though?”
“She’s just a girl, Angela.”
“One I might add you are so obviously enamoured with.”
“How could one not be, at the moment. I have had a crush on her for quite some time, yes, but up close and personal, it was not something I was going to pursue on or off the floor. Not the time or the place.”
“How did you get an invite?”
“How did you?”
She shook her head. “Try answering some of the questions, or I’ll just have to imagine what the right answer is.”
“OK. Let me ask you a question. Were you appraised of my brain out a week or so ago in this very cafeteria where I chewed out both the girl herself and that idiot boyfriend of hers?”
“It was mentioned. People were surprised, but not shocked. You and she have a very rocky sub-history.”
“Exactly. Her father wanted to meet someone who doesn’t try sucking up to her because of who she is. He invited me for that reason only. You can ask him if you like.”
“I have. You impressed him, and that is very difficult to do. Are you thinking of working for him? He seems to think you would make an excellent fit given your academic history.”
“You mean, marry the boss’s daughter? That’s so 1950s cliché Angela. If anything were to happen between us, and that’s very unlikely, I wouldn’t want to work for him, and things go south. No, not considering it. I have offers from New York, Washington, and Philadelphia. Or I might just stay here and compete with you for a job on the paper.”
Another shake of the head. “You’re very good at ducking and weaving. Perhaps you should consider becoming a politician.”
“I couldn’t, I’m too honest.”
She snorted. “You haven’t told me the truth yet, William. She likes you, that was plain to see when you were together. Her official line is no comment to any of the questions I asked her, and your obfuscating, which smacks of collusion. I’m going to keep my eye on the two of you because there’s a story here.”
“You’re talking about a fairy tale, Angela, and they are just that, tales. You know I like her, and I have for a long time, unrequited love I believe it’s called. I had an argument with her, and it amused her father to invite me to an event that normally I’d never get an invite to because of who I am, and I’m sure all the toffs had a lot of laughs over it at my expense. Emily was there, we danced the waltz, it was fun, and I surprised her in that a slum boy could actually wear a tuxedo and look good, and actually dance in time to the music. That’s the story.
“As for the job, you know as well as I do, Rothstein invited the top 10 college students to an orientation day where they get to see how the company works, and then get a job offer. I’m in the top ten so that’s a no-brainer, even for you. There are no special attachments to it. Knowing or not knowing Emily is not a precursor to getting an offer.
“And as for an ongoing relationship, do you see us together, here, now? No. I am as distant from her horizon now as I was yesterday and all the t=yesterdays before that. I am not going to treat her differently now I’ve been to a ball and danced with her, she is still the same pain in the ass girl she always was, only at the end of this year I will be put out of my misery, and she will move on to the next shiny toy in the toy box.”
“So, you’re not expecting anything to happen?”
“Me? No. They’re the Rothstein’s. Rothstein’s do not mix with people like me. People like me are put on this earth for their amusement. We all are.”
She shrugged. “You make it so black and white, but I don’t think it is. This isn’t over, William.” She picked up the recorder and the notepad and put both into her backpack. “Next time.”
“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
I remember Angela quoting that to me when we were doing a tutorial for the Journalism part of my degree. It was only one part of many for me, whereas, for her, it was to become her bread and butter.
She had taken up the role of a reporter on the campus newspaper, and she was inclined to write sharp pieces that would later point to how she would approach the job at the local newspaper, a job assured there for her based on her department head’s glowing recommendation.
Her vendetta against Emily had begun from day one at university and only grew more acrimonious each year. Emily had hardly helped her situation by joining her equally entitled friends and behaving badly.
She knew my secret feelings about Emily and had often mocked me for it, especially after we didn’t find mutual ground. It was probably the one relationship on campus I regretted.
It seemed inevitable that I was about to get entangled with her again, after trying so hard to keep out of her sight. I had scored a piece, the smartest kid in college, but it was hard to tell if it was a character assassination or just a bio that might land me a useful job.
I didn’t bother calling up and asking her.
Xavier had just spent the last half hour roasting me for going to the ball and then demanding to know when and where I had fallen for the meanest girl on campus.
“I hardly think fallen is the word I’d use. I like her, surely that’s obvious because she’s a reasonably likeable girl.” It was difficult to find the words that dodged the bullet that was coming straight at me.
Xavier was a friend, but this would stretch it. She was, categorically, the enemy.
“Perhaps,” I added, “with my new special status, I can put in a good word for you. I know she knows Amy, and I know you like her, and that’s no different to my situation.”
He shrugged. Like me, I don’t think he would ever confess his undying love to a girl who would have no hesitation in humiliating him. “Don’t. I prefer the wistful looking for a great distance and using my imagination. What was she like to dance with? I heard it was a Viennese waltz.”
“It wasn’t anything special. You did the Arthur Murray lessons like I did. And you would have fitted in. The people were just people, Xavier.”
We both looked up at the same time to see Angela chugging her way across the cafeteria towards us.
“That’s my cue to leave. You think I’m pissed; just wait till she gets here.”
And he was gone in the blink of an eye. He hated Angela more than I did. I thought of running, but what was the point. She would just chase me down until I surrendered. Better now than never.
She sat down, no tasking if it was alright, and pulled out her recorder and notebook. She was nothing if not thorough.
“I’m assuming you’ve come here for an interview, though I’m not quite sure why.”
She shook her head, the trademark scowl getting a little deeper. “I hope you’re not going to try and act dumb.”
“Who said it was an act. I believe you told me, once, that I was the dumbest boy on the planet. You’re being an authority on the subject, I accepted my lot.”
The scowl deepened. “You’re going to be a pain in the ass, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “You reap what you sow, Angela.”
She switched off the recorder and softened her expression. “Off the record, for the time being. What were you thinking, going to that ball?”
“It was a perfect opportunity to put my Waltzing skills to the test. You don’t get that kind of dancing opportunity every day.”
“With Emily, though?”
“She’s just a girl, Angela.”
“One I might add you are so obviously enamoured with.”
“How could one not be, at the moment. I have had a crush on her for quite some time, yes, but up close and personal, it was not something I was going to pursue on or off the floor. Not the time or the place.”
“How did you get an invite?”
“How did you?”
She shook her head. “Try answering some of the questions, or I’ll just have to imagine what the right answer is.”
“OK. Let me ask you a question. Were you appraised of my brain out a week or so ago in this very cafeteria where I chewed out both the girl herself and that idiot boyfriend of hers?”
“It was mentioned. People were surprised, but not shocked. You and she have a very rocky sub-history.”
“Exactly. Her father wanted to meet someone who doesn’t try sucking up to her because of who she is. He invited me for that reason only. You can ask him if you like.”
“I have. You impressed him, and that is very difficult to do. Are you thinking of working for him? He seems to think you would make an excellent fit given your academic history.”
“You mean, marry the boss’s daughter? That’s so 1950s cliché Angela. If anything were to happen between us, and that’s very unlikely, I wouldn’t want to work for him, and things go south. No, not considering it. I have offers from New York, Washington, and Philadelphia. Or I might just stay here and compete with you for a job on the paper.”
Another shake of the head. “You’re very good at ducking and weaving. Perhaps you should consider becoming a politician.”
“I couldn’t, I’m too honest.”
She snorted. “You haven’t told me the truth yet, William. She likes you, that was plain to see when you were together. Her official line is no comment to any of the questions I asked her, and your obfuscating, which smacks of collusion. I’m going to keep my eye on the two of you because there’s a story here.”
“You’re talking about a fairy tale, Angela, and they are just that, tales. You know I like her, and I have for a long time, unrequited love I believe it’s called. I had an argument with her, and it amused her father to invite me to an event that normally I’d never get an invite to because of who I am, and I’m sure all the toffs had a lot of laughs over it at my expense. Emily was there, we danced the waltz, it was fun, and I surprised her in that a slum boy could actually wear a tuxedo and look good, and actually dance in time to the music. That’s the story.
“As for the job, you know as well as I do, Rothstein invited the top 10 college students to an orientation day where they get to see how the company works, and then get a job offer. I’m in the top ten so that’s a no-brainer, even for you. There are no special attachments to it. Knowing or not knowing Emily is not a precursor to getting an offer.
“And as for an ongoing relationship, do you see us together, here, now? No. I am as distant from her horizon now as I was yesterday and all the t=yesterdays before that. I am not going to treat her differently now I’ve been to a ball and danced with her, she is still the same pain in the ass girl she always was, only at the end of this year I will be put out of my misery, and she will move on to the next shiny toy in the toy box.”
“So, you’re not expecting anything to happen?”
“Me? No. They’re the Rothstein’s. Rothstein’s do not mix with people like me. People like me are put on this earth for their amusement. We all are.”
She shrugged. “You make it so black and white, but I don’t think it is. This isn’t over, William.” She picked up the recorder and the notepad and put both into her backpack. “Next time.”
I could not remember even the dreams started, it seemed it had been almost forever, but lately, they had taken on a new intensity.
They always started the same, I was standing at the bottom of a hill looking across a lawn, bordered by rose bushes, looking towards a very large manor house, three stories tall, with wings.
It was larger than anything I’d ever seen before, a house that was fit for a king or queen, or perhaps a lord.
For someone who lived in a village, son of the flour miller, and among the lower classes, it was a place I could never expect to see inside, nor walk about the grounds, only to look upon and wonder.
At first, the dreams had me looking at the house, whether in awe or dread, I could not say. I didn’t venture forth, just stood there.
In some dreams it was a bright sunny day, others overcast and cold, then others again, in pouring rain. Always the same place, and likely the same time.
Then, after a while, the dreams changed slightly. I was looking at the manor house at night. The windows had lights, and shadowy forms moved back and forth in those windows. Once a carriage arrived, but I couldn’t see who it was in it. At night the house looked more majestic, but also it had an air of foreboding.
But underlying every vision I had, I felt there was something familiar about it; that I had been inside, that I knew who the people were who lived there, and that for no particular reason, something awful had happened there.
After the first few dreams, I made a concerted effort to try and locate the place, venturing as far from my village as I could in a day, and could not find it. It was not within the limits of my world.
When older, and was able to learn about manor houses, and the Lords and Gentry that lived in them, I ventured further afield but always with the same result. It was as if it existed only in my imagination.
Then, when my mother died suddenly, the dreams stopped and it all faded from my memory.
It was then I learned from my father, that he was not my father. He told me that my mother had been a lady in waiting for a wealthy family in one of the counties near the Scottish border when her family lived and that he was sending me to live with them. There was more to that story, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. He packed my few possessions and put me on the coach.
That trip took many days, and when I finally reached the village where my mother’s sister lived, her eldest son Jacob came to get me and take me to my new home. It didn’t take long to realize in a small house with six other children, I was just adding to my aunt’s problems.
That first night, banished to an outhouse with two of the other boys, the dreams came back, only different.
I was still looking at the manor house, but it was from a rotunda in the middle of a newly planted rose garden, only a short distance from the house. I was sitting, waiting. At first, I was just waiting, and no one came. I had no idea how old I was or what I looked like, but it seemed I was dressed in child’s clothes. Was it an early memory of mine?
That didn’t explain why I was sitting in the rotunda. I could not be a child belonging to the manor house, so I had to wonder if I was the child of a servant. Several days after arriving, I overheard an argument between my Aunt and her husband, who was angry about me being sent to live with them, his point, there were too many of them to support as it was. He then said that if my mother hadn’t been so stupid to take their little bastard as her own and they looked after their own problems, this wouldn’t be his.
I had no idea what that meant. My mother had been my mother, not someone else. She had always been my mother for as long as I could remember. But it did make sense why my father, who was not my father, had sent me away. But they never mentioned it again.
This lasted for a week, and then a new element was introduced.
A young woman. She was not a servant, but smartly dressed, and appeared to belong to the family who lived in the house. She was accompanied by a woman I assumed to be her mother or a guardian. They arrived in a carriage, and I wondered if it was the same carriage I’d seen previously in another dream. I was close enough to I could see her face, and she was very beautiful but looked very sad. It was the same each night, reaching to point of her arrival, and no more.
Being old enough to work, I was sent to work in the fields surrounding a manor house some distance from the village. There were about a dozen boys of my age in the group, supervised by one of the manor houses stewards. It was hard and physical work, much more than helping my father in the mill.
It took several weeks before we reached a field that was close to the manor house, in fact, just over a hill, and on a break I climbed the hill to have a look.
It was the manor house in my dream. A different aspect, but the exact house, the lawns, the roses, and the Rotunda.
How could it be possible I knew this place?
One afternoon the steward picked me to deliver a message to the manor house housekeeper, telling me I had to go to the back of the house and avoid being seen. There was an arch, and passageway that led to a quadrangle where I would find her.
Up close the manor house was huge. I remained in the gardens skirting the rose gardens to the rear of the house where there were stables and outhouses. I found the arch, and then a passageway, wide enough for a wagon to make deliveries. For some odd reason, I knew exactly where to go.
It led to a quadrangle inside the manor, at least I think that was what it was called but I was not sure how I knew. Once there you could see inside. At one end a door was open, but no one was about. As soon as I stepped into the open, a vision came to me.
It was at night, but the quadrangle was lit by many torches. A carriage and four black horses were waiting, and then I came out with a woman, my mother. There were two other ladies, one old and the other the housekeeper, Mrs Giles. The old lady referred to her as that. After the old lady spoke to my mother, we got in the carriage, and then I looked out to see the woman in white, looking out the window, looking very forlorn. I could never forget that look of utter despair on her face.
The quadrangle was different now, in daylight. An empty wagon was sitting not far from the door having no doubt just been unloaded with the weeks’ supplies from the surrounding farms.
I could hear voices, so I put my head in the door and said, “Is there anyone here?”
I waited until a lady came up the passage and saw me. It was Mrs Giles. How did I know that?
“Are you the housekeeper?”
“I am.” She came out the door into the square. And stopped suddenly, looking at me curiously. “Why are you here?”
“The steward sent me with a message.” I took the piece of paper out of my pocket and held it out.
She took it but didn’t read it. “Where are you from?”
“The village. I live with the Halls.” I realised after I said it she probably had no idea who they were.
“Her sister was Josephine, your aunt?”
I remembered my father called her Jo, rather than Josephine. “Jo, yes. She was my mother. She died a while back and I was sent here.”
“My. That’s a story, isn’t it? Well, off with you. Message delivered.”
A shake of the head and she went back inside.
That day the dreams stopped. Perhaps now that they all made sense, there was no need for me to see them again.
There was no doubt the manor house was a place I had been to before, my mother had come from these parts and might have worked there at one time before she came down to marry my father, which meant now I was old enough to understand, my father was not my real father. The only part I didn’t understand was what the lady in white represented.
I continued to work in the fields for another month, when I came home, as I always did, at sundown. It had been a long, hot day.
When I turned onto the lane that led to our house, I saw there was a carriage parked out front. It looked familiar with the livery of the two men sitting up front, and the four black horses. It looked a lot different in daylight.
The men paid no heed to me as I looked at the horses, patted one, and then went on to the house.
Inside, the housekeeper, Mrs Giles, was there with another lady, not in white, but pale blue. She looked a lot happier than I’d seen her before in my dreams, but it was the woman in white.
She gasped when she saw me.
My aunt looked from her to me, then to Mrs Giles. “This was not supposed to happen. My sister up and died, and her no-good-for-nothing husband sent the boy here.”
The woman in white spoke, “That is irrelevant now. He is here, and he will come to live with his family.”
“Who might they be Miss,” I asked. This conversation was a little hard to follow or understand.
My aunt looked at the housekeeper, “If I may explain to the boy. It might be better coming from me.”
The housekeeper nodded.
“My sister, Jo, whom you knew only to be your mother, was, but she was not your real mother. A few years after you were born it was necessary to take you away and be raised. It was never intended that you were to return here, but you have. Your real mother is that lady in blue, the Lady Westmoreland, now the owner of the manor. Since the circumstances that required your departure no longer exist, you are free to return. If you want to. I know it’s a lot to understand Leonard, but in my opinion, you would be better off going to live in the manor.”
I looked at the lady in blue. “I know you, but I don’t know how or why. I have seen you in my dreams.”
“I’m sorry for what happened to you. You were sent away without anyone telling me where or who or with who. That you have come back to me is a miracle, an answer to many prayers.” She held out her hand and I went over to her and took it in mine. I looked up into her eyes and knew instantly that she was my real mother.
I turned to look at my aunt. “I will go with them if you don’t mind. I can always come back and see you.” Another glance at my mother, “Can’t I?”
“Yes, you can.”
The housekeeper said, “WE will complete the arrangements we agreed to earlier. Does the boy have any possessions?”
“None that would be of use to him.”
“Then you should keep them. We should be on our way.”
Once in the carriage, on the way to the manor, my mother said, “Your name isn’t Leonard, by the way.”
“I know,” said. “It’s James. And your name is Harriet Montague, is it not?”
“How do you know that?”
“My other mother, Jo, told me one day but said never to tell anyone else. Ever. Unless Harriet came for me. She knew you would, one day. Either that or I would find you. Now, it no longer matters.”
I could not remember even the dreams started, it seemed it had been almost forever, but lately, they had taken on a new intensity.
They always started the same, I was standing at the bottom of a hill looking across a lawn, bordered by rose bushes, looking towards a very large manor house, three stories tall, with wings.
It was larger than anything I’d ever seen before, a house that was fit for a king or queen, or perhaps a lord.
For someone who lived in a village, son of the flour miller, and among the lower classes, it was a place I could never expect to see inside, nor walk about the grounds, only to look upon and wonder.
At first, the dreams had me looking at the house, whether in awe or dread, I could not say. I didn’t venture forth, just stood there.
In some dreams it was a bright sunny day, others overcast and cold, then others again, in pouring rain. Always the same place, and likely the same time.
Then, after a while, the dreams changed slightly. I was looking at the manor house at night. The windows had lights, and shadowy forms moved back and forth in those windows. Once a carriage arrived, but I couldn’t see who it was in it. At night the house looked more majestic, but also it had an air of foreboding.
But underlying every vision I had, I felt there was something familiar about it; that I had been inside, that I knew who the people were who lived there, and that for no particular reason, something awful had happened there.
After the first few dreams, I made a concerted effort to try and locate the place, venturing as far from my village as I could in a day, and could not find it. It was not within the limits of my world.
When older, and was able to learn about manor houses, and the Lords and Gentry that lived in them, I ventured further afield but always with the same result. It was as if it existed only in my imagination.
Then, when my mother died suddenly, the dreams stopped and it all faded from my memory.
It was then I learned from my father, that he was not my father. He told me that my mother had been a lady in waiting for a wealthy family in one of the counties near the Scottish border when her family lived and that he was sending me to live with them. There was more to that story, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. He packed my few possessions and put me on the coach.
That trip took many days, and when I finally reached the village where my mother’s sister lived, her eldest son Jacob came to get me and take me to my new home. It didn’t take long to realize in a small house with six other children, I was just adding to my aunt’s problems.
That first night, banished to an outhouse with two of the other boys, the dreams came back, only different.
I was still looking at the manor house, but it was from a rotunda in the middle of a newly planted rose garden, only a short distance from the house. I was sitting, waiting. At first, I was just waiting, and no one came. I had no idea how old I was or what I looked like, but it seemed I was dressed in child’s clothes. Was it an early memory of mine?
That didn’t explain why I was sitting in the rotunda. I could not be a child belonging to the manor house, so I had to wonder if I was the child of a servant. Several days after arriving, I overheard an argument between my Aunt and her husband, who was angry about me being sent to live with them, his point, there were too many of them to support as it was. He then said that if my mother hadn’t been so stupid to take their little bastard as her own and they looked after their own problems, this wouldn’t be his.
I had no idea what that meant. My mother had been my mother, not someone else. She had always been my mother for as long as I could remember. But it did make sense why my father, who was not my father, had sent me away. But they never mentioned it again.
This lasted for a week, and then a new element was introduced.
A young woman. She was not a servant, but smartly dressed, and appeared to belong to the family who lived in the house. She was accompanied by a woman I assumed to be her mother or a guardian. They arrived in a carriage, and I wondered if it was the same carriage I’d seen previously in another dream. I was close enough to I could see her face, and she was very beautiful but looked very sad. It was the same each night, reaching to point of her arrival, and no more.
Being old enough to work, I was sent to work in the fields surrounding a manor house some distance from the village. There were about a dozen boys of my age in the group, supervised by one of the manor houses stewards. It was hard and physical work, much more than helping my father in the mill.
It took several weeks before we reached a field that was close to the manor house, in fact, just over a hill, and on a break I climbed the hill to have a look.
It was the manor house in my dream. A different aspect, but the exact house, the lawns, the roses, and the Rotunda.
How could it be possible I knew this place?
One afternoon the steward picked me to deliver a message to the manor house housekeeper, telling me I had to go to the back of the house and avoid being seen. There was an arch, and passageway that led to a quadrangle where I would find her.
Up close the manor house was huge. I remained in the gardens skirting the rose gardens to the rear of the house where there were stables and outhouses. I found the arch, and then a passageway, wide enough for a wagon to make deliveries. For some odd reason, I knew exactly where to go.
It led to a quadrangle inside the manor, at least I think that was what it was called but I was not sure how I knew. Once there you could see inside. At one end a door was open, but no one was about. As soon as I stepped into the open, a vision came to me.
It was at night, but the quadrangle was lit by many torches. A carriage and four black horses were waiting, and then I came out with a woman, my mother. There were two other ladies, one old and the other the housekeeper, Mrs Giles. The old lady referred to her as that. After the old lady spoke to my mother, we got in the carriage, and then I looked out to see the woman in white, looking out the window, looking very forlorn. I could never forget that look of utter despair on her face.
The quadrangle was different now, in daylight. An empty wagon was sitting not far from the door having no doubt just been unloaded with the weeks’ supplies from the surrounding farms.
I could hear voices, so I put my head in the door and said, “Is there anyone here?”
I waited until a lady came up the passage and saw me. It was Mrs Giles. How did I know that?
“Are you the housekeeper?”
“I am.” She came out the door into the square. And stopped suddenly, looking at me curiously. “Why are you here?”
“The steward sent me with a message.” I took the piece of paper out of my pocket and held it out.
She took it but didn’t read it. “Where are you from?”
“The village. I live with the Halls.” I realised after I said it she probably had no idea who they were.
“Her sister was Josephine, your aunt?”
I remembered my father called her Jo, rather than Josephine. “Jo, yes. She was my mother. She died a while back and I was sent here.”
“My. That’s a story, isn’t it? Well, off with you. Message delivered.”
A shake of the head and she went back inside.
That day the dreams stopped. Perhaps now that they all made sense, there was no need for me to see them again.
There was no doubt the manor house was a place I had been to before, my mother had come from these parts and might have worked there at one time before she came down to marry my father, which meant now I was old enough to understand, my father was not my real father. The only part I didn’t understand was what the lady in white represented.
I continued to work in the fields for another month, when I came home, as I always did, at sundown. It had been a long, hot day.
When I turned onto the lane that led to our house, I saw there was a carriage parked out front. It looked familiar with the livery of the two men sitting up front, and the four black horses. It looked a lot different in daylight.
The men paid no heed to me as I looked at the horses, patted one, and then went on to the house.
Inside, the housekeeper, Mrs Giles, was there with another lady, not in white, but pale blue. She looked a lot happier than I’d seen her before in my dreams, but it was the woman in white.
She gasped when she saw me.
My aunt looked from her to me, then to Mrs Giles. “This was not supposed to happen. My sister up and died, and her no-good-for-nothing husband sent the boy here.”
The woman in white spoke, “That is irrelevant now. He is here, and he will come to live with his family.”
“Who might they be Miss,” I asked. This conversation was a little hard to follow or understand.
My aunt looked at the housekeeper, “If I may explain to the boy. It might be better coming from me.”
The housekeeper nodded.
“My sister, Jo, whom you knew only to be your mother, was, but she was not your real mother. A few years after you were born it was necessary to take you away and be raised. It was never intended that you were to return here, but you have. Your real mother is that lady in blue, the Lady Westmoreland, now the owner of the manor. Since the circumstances that required your departure no longer exist, you are free to return. If you want to. I know it’s a lot to understand Leonard, but in my opinion, you would be better off going to live in the manor.”
I looked at the lady in blue. “I know you, but I don’t know how or why. I have seen you in my dreams.”
“I’m sorry for what happened to you. You were sent away without anyone telling me where or who or with who. That you have come back to me is a miracle, an answer to many prayers.” She held out her hand and I went over to her and took it in mine. I looked up into her eyes and knew instantly that she was my real mother.
I turned to look at my aunt. “I will go with them if you don’t mind. I can always come back and see you.” Another glance at my mother, “Can’t I?”
“Yes, you can.”
The housekeeper said, “WE will complete the arrangements we agreed to earlier. Does the boy have any possessions?”
“None that would be of use to him.”
“Then you should keep them. We should be on our way.”
Once in the carriage, on the way to the manor, my mother said, “Your name isn’t Leonard, by the way.”
“I know,” said. “It’s James. And your name is Harriet Montague, is it not?”
“How do you know that?”
“My other mother, Jo, told me one day but said never to tell anyone else. Ever. Unless Harriet came for me. She knew you would, one day. Either that or I would find you. Now, it no longer matters.”
I stood on the front portico and looked down at the array of cars parked, waiting to take guests home. A lot had already left, and both Darcy and I were among the stragglers. I had let her say goodnight to her new friend.
“So, the car hasn’t turned into a pumpkin yet.” She came up behind me, perhaps hoping her sudden arrival would scare me.
It might have if I had not had thoughts about the last dance with Emily.
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
“I saw you with the lass on the dance floor. You should take up the competition ballroom dancing. You two would kill it.”
“Or it would kill us, probably by one of the other contestants. It’s worse than rugby.”
“It was nice to see you enjoy yourself.”
“That wasn’t enjoyment, Darcy, it’s bloody hard work. I don’t know where this is going, but she’s going to be impossible, incorrigible, irritating, and in… well, I need a dictionary to find the word.”
“The joys of being a woman, Roger. We’re here for the specific reason to make your life impossible, to be incorrigible, and irritating beyond words. I’d be disappointed if she wasn’t”.
If and when I got the time to reflect on what just happened, it was going to be somewhere between living in a fairy tale and being caught up in a nightmare. My father had once told me, love, was one of those things that happened when you least expected it, usually with a woman that is way out of your league and is full of highs and lows, mostly lows,
But, he added, when there were highs, they could take you into the stratosphere.
I was still coming down. The morning was going to be like the night after a very alcoholic party. A morning that was going to be in about five hours.
The car stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and the chauffeur got out to open the doors.
“Our ride,” Darcy said. “And no, when I get home, I will not be singing, I could have danced all night.”
I looked at the bedside clock and it said it was 3:22 am. I couldn’t sleep.
It might have been the endless twirls of the Viennese Waltz, or I might be still dizzy from being so close to Emily. It might also have been that stolen kiss in the alcove on one side of the ballroom. The image of her in that ballgown was burned into my brain.
Why on earth did I go?
How could she possibly like me, let alone love me. I still had a feeling all of what happened was another of her dastardly plans to cause me grief.
And then, in the very next moment, I felt the exact opposite about her.
God, I was happier when I simply hated her.
My cell phone vibrated with an incoming call. ‘Private Number’. The torment begins.
“Who is it?”
“You know who it is.”
Emily.
“I can’t sleep,” she said. “I’m lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.”
“It was the waltz. I can’t sleep either.”
“What are we going to do. I feel like I’m on a runaway train.”
“Haven’t you been in love before?”
I suspect she had, many times, but who knows what love is, until the actual ton of bricks falls on you?
“Not like this. I don’t even know what this is, other than I feel sick, great, dizzy, sad, happy, sometimes all at once.”
“Don’t worry, when reality sets in you’ll hate me again, and everything will be back to normal.” Did I want that? What did I want? She had described almost exactly how I felt, and it bothered me that someone could do that to me.
It was better when I loved her and she didn’t know how I felt. That way I could suffer in silence, generally mope, and lament my station in life.
“Things can’t go back to the way they were.”
“I’m not going to treat you any differently, Emily.”
“I don’t expect you to. I realize now all the simpering suck-ups were only after one thing.”
“How do you know I’m not the same as all the rest?”
Xavier had made it quite clear when we first started University, one of the principal aims of all young men was to sleep with as many girls as possible. It was, he said, a rite of passage. Along with the parties, drunkenness, and acts of stupidity.
I tried to avoid all of them, except for two girls who for some inexplicable reason, seemed interested in me.
But, my university studies were over, and we were all about to graduate, some in better shape than others. I had concentrated on studies and achieving and had the opportunity to choose a job rather than be offered one.
“You know why you’re not.”
Perhaps not asking her to take me up to her room to show me her doll collection, yes, she really had one, with other ideas in mind had moved me up in her estimation. In fact, I had not tried to kiss her, either, and that solen moment was something that just happened, which made it all the more poignant.
It was how my mother said love would happen, suddenly, out of left field, and I would be totally unprepared for it.
“OK, so I’m a little slower than others. I think, tomorrow, we’ll just avoid each other, and see what the wagging tongues have to say.”
“There was a reporter at the ball. She saw us together. And she doesn’t like me, or my family. I’m sure you’ll get ambushed. It’s the price of having anything to do with us. We’re not going to say anything. You just be your usual grumpy incommunicative self.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
A flash of memory, an article I read several weeks back, decrying the vanity, selfishness, and stupidity of the city’s wealthy offspring who brought no value to the city, and who set a bad example to others. Emily had been at the top of the list, a character assassination, one that postulated her worth given her wasted time at university, and easy ride into her father’s business, starting at the executive level, when there were others, out of work, and far more qualified.
It was a bandwagon my father had jumped on, too. It was a surprise he allowed me to sup with the devil. Perhaps he had wanted me to see how the other half lived, and that it would make me contemptuous of them. It made me wonder what the Ball had been in aid of, other than just to bring together the rich to indulge in their privileged position.
“I forgot to ask, what was the Ball for?”
“Some charity things. All the people donated a few thousand towards a special children’s wing at the hospital, or something like that. Every year someone comes up with a good cause, and everyone contributes.”
More likely to ease their consciences after taking advantage of their workers, and charging extortion for products and services. My father explained it all once, and I couldn’t believe they were that cynical.
“A good cause.”
“Some don’t think so. Anyway, I’m tired now. I’ll try not to run into you. Night.”
Dealing with the reporters, and Angela Simpkin no less. I knew her, we spent a few days together, and it didn’t work out. She didn’t hate me, but now I was associated with Emily, and that could suddenly change.
I sighed. Going to the Ball was going to change my life forever.
I stood on the front portico and looked down at the array of cars parked, waiting to take guests home. A lot had already left, and both Darcy and I were among the stragglers. I had let her say goodnight to her new friend.
“So, the car hasn’t turned into a pumpkin yet.” She came up behind me, perhaps hoping her sudden arrival would scare me.
It might have if I had not had thoughts about the last dance with Emily.
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
“I saw you with the lass on the dance floor. You should take up the competition ballroom dancing. You two would kill it.”
“Or it would kill us, probably by one of the other contestants. It’s worse than rugby.”
“It was nice to see you enjoy yourself.”
“That wasn’t enjoyment, Darcy, it’s bloody hard work. I don’t know where this is going, but she’s going to be impossible, incorrigible, irritating, and in… well, I need a dictionary to find the word.”
“The joys of being a woman, Roger. We’re here for the specific reason to make your life impossible, to be incorrigible, and irritating beyond words. I’d be disappointed if she wasn’t”.
If and when I got the time to reflect on what just happened, it was going to be somewhere between living in a fairy tale and being caught up in a nightmare. My father had once told me, love, was one of those things that happened when you least expected it, usually with a woman that is way out of your league and is full of highs and lows, mostly lows,
But, he added, when there were highs, they could take you into the stratosphere.
I was still coming down. The morning was going to be like the night after a very alcoholic party. A morning that was going to be in about five hours.
The car stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and the chauffeur got out to open the doors.
“Our ride,” Darcy said. “And no, when I get home, I will not be singing, I could have danced all night.”
I looked at the bedside clock and it said it was 3:22 am. I couldn’t sleep.
It might have been the endless twirls of the Viennese Waltz, or I might be still dizzy from being so close to Emily. It might also have been that stolen kiss in the alcove on one side of the ballroom. The image of her in that ballgown was burned into my brain.
Why on earth did I go?
How could she possibly like me, let alone love me. I still had a feeling all of what happened was another of her dastardly plans to cause me grief.
And then, in the very next moment, I felt the exact opposite about her.
God, I was happier when I simply hated her.
My cell phone vibrated with an incoming call. ‘Private Number’. The torment begins.
“Who is it?”
“You know who it is.”
Emily.
“I can’t sleep,” she said. “I’m lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.”
“It was the waltz. I can’t sleep either.”
“What are we going to do. I feel like I’m on a runaway train.”
“Haven’t you been in love before?”
I suspect she had, many times, but who knows what love is, until the actual ton of bricks falls on you?
“Not like this. I don’t even know what this is, other than I feel sick, great, dizzy, sad, happy, sometimes all at once.”
“Don’t worry, when reality sets in you’ll hate me again, and everything will be back to normal.” Did I want that? What did I want? She had described almost exactly how I felt, and it bothered me that someone could do that to me.
It was better when I loved her and she didn’t know how I felt. That way I could suffer in silence, generally mope, and lament my station in life.
“Things can’t go back to the way they were.”
“I’m not going to treat you any differently, Emily.”
“I don’t expect you to. I realize now all the simpering suck-ups were only after one thing.”
“How do you know I’m not the same as all the rest?”
Xavier had made it quite clear when we first started University, one of the principal aims of all young men was to sleep with as many girls as possible. It was, he said, a rite of passage. Along with the parties, drunkenness, and acts of stupidity.
I tried to avoid all of them, except for two girls who for some inexplicable reason, seemed interested in me.
But, my university studies were over, and we were all about to graduate, some in better shape than others. I had concentrated on studies and achieving and had the opportunity to choose a job rather than be offered one.
“You know why you’re not.”
Perhaps not asking her to take me up to her room to show me her doll collection, yes, she really had one, with other ideas in mind had moved me up in her estimation. In fact, I had not tried to kiss her, either, and that solen moment was something that just happened, which made it all the more poignant.
It was how my mother said love would happen, suddenly, out of left field, and I would be totally unprepared for it.
“OK, so I’m a little slower than others. I think, tomorrow, we’ll just avoid each other, and see what the wagging tongues have to say.”
“There was a reporter at the ball. She saw us together. And she doesn’t like me, or my family. I’m sure you’ll get ambushed. It’s the price of having anything to do with us. We’re not going to say anything. You just be your usual grumpy incommunicative self.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
A flash of memory, an article I read several weeks back, decrying the vanity, selfishness, and stupidity of the city’s wealthy offspring who brought no value to the city, and who set a bad example to others. Emily had been at the top of the list, a character assassination, one that postulated her worth given her wasted time at university, and easy ride into her father’s business, starting at the executive level, when there were others, out of work, and far more qualified.
It was a bandwagon my father had jumped on, too. It was a surprise he allowed me to sup with the devil. Perhaps he had wanted me to see how the other half lived, and that it would make me contemptuous of them. It made me wonder what the Ball had been in aid of, other than just to bring together the rich to indulge in their privileged position.
“I forgot to ask, what was the Ball for?”
“Some charity things. All the people donated a few thousand towards a special children’s wing at the hospital, or something like that. Every year someone comes up with a good cause, and everyone contributes.”
More likely to ease their consciences after taking advantage of their workers, and charging extortion for products and services. My father explained it all once, and I couldn’t believe they were that cynical.
“A good cause.”
“Some don’t think so. Anyway, I’m tired now. I’ll try not to run into you. Night.”
Dealing with the reporters, and Angela Simpkin no less. I knew her, we spent a few days together, and it didn’t work out. She didn’t hate me, but now I was associated with Emily, and that could suddenly change.
I sighed. Going to the Ball was going to change my life forever.
For the last week before retirement, it was almost unmemorable.
I think I preferred it that way because the company was nothing like when I started, forty-five years ago. People said I should have been General Manager by now, but the truth was, I liked my ‘behind the scenes’ role better than taking on the responsibility of management.
Now, my role was obsolete. We no longer ran our own packing, dispatch and delivery service, each component of the department was slowly stripped away and outsourced, to the point now where we threw stuff into boxes and a couple of ruffians and a dilapidated truck came at the end of the day to take it all away.
Online. That was the catchword. There was no one over 21 in the company, except for me and the receptionist, who was also slated for retirement a week after me.
She, too, was obsolete. As an online store, there was no need to have a human interface, so I had no idea what she did with her day. I was meaning to ask, and that opportunity might just come sooner than I thought.
She just wandered into the tea room.
When she saw me sitting at the same table I had for the last forty-five years, she smiled. There was a spot for the dispatch teams, a spot for clerical, and once upon a time, the boys and girls had to sit at separate tables. Now, well, times have changed. Once, we all had uniforms, and everyone looked like they belonged. Now, it was difficult to tell the boys from the girls, and dress sense and decorum had long since disappeared. I wore mine, and Elsie wore hers, the last acts of defiance before we moved on.
She made her tea, the same as she had for many years, resisted the temptation of a doughnut, and then wandered over. She nodded to an empty chair opposite me, “May I?”
I nodded. She had more manners than all the others put together.
“Looking forward to retirement,” she asked.
“No. I have a big empty house that I’d rather not live in, and no one to share it with.” Mary, the woman I’d married, a company girl, and I had the privilege of living with had lasted forty-four of those years before succumbing to cancer, a year shy of beginning what we were calling our second life together. We had such plans, but plans were always destined to go awry.
“A shame,” she said. “Harry decided he didn’t want to wait to have a good time. Took off with a younger woman. A week later, he was dead. Bad heart, I’ll let you make of that what you will. Probably dodged a bullet, though.”
Pragmatic? Certainly practical.
“Do you have anything planned?” I asked.
“I’m going around the world in 80 days. Steam trains, steamships, hot air balloons, camels, elephants, and maybe even the proverbial slow boat to China. I saw a TV show, and even though you can probably do it in a day, even two, I like the idea of the longer the better. You?”
“We were going to Paris, Rome, Capri, but I can’t see the point of it now.”
“Well, there’s room for one more on our tour. You should come. It’s going to be wildly unpredictable, and at least there would be one familiar face. Give it some thought.”
I was giving it thought on the way back to my office, so much thought I bumped into Rodney, the boy who was about to take over my space.
I’d been asked to train him, but he told me quite emphatically there was nothing he could learn from an old fossil like me. Quite blunt and quite obnoxious. He was no different from the rest of them. Old people were simply the object of their scorn. It was not only me; Elsie also got her share of derision too. We were the dinosaurs.
I apologised, but that didn’t seem to placate him.
“Thank God you will be gone soon enough.”
“Yes, I will, and I’ll have plenty of time on my hands.”
He looked at me oddly. “You’re barking mad, you old geezer.” He gave me a sneer, then walked off.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I said to his retreating back.
Rodney was typical of that younger generation that took everything for granted. His life was wrapped up in his cell phone, like many others, and once when he thought he lost it, he almost went to pieces.
Not that I had anything to do with what happened, but it did give me ideas.
I made it back to the loading dock just in time for the boss’s special delivery, a half dozen paintings worth nearly twenty million dollars, paintings that were going to be hung in his new house if it ever got finished. He had been forced to take delivery of them early and decided to use the walk-in safe the previous owners of the building, a bank, had installed.
Not that it had been used in a long time, other than a place where the younger employees went to ‘play’. They thought no one saw them, but it was obvious what they were doing. Not that it was any of my business, it was more or less the same some forty years before, only a little more dignified.
It was a fascinating anachronism from a bygone age, and reputed to never been cracked, although several had tried. Now, though, it would be a doddle for a master safecracker. If they knew what was in there, which no one but the boss, and several staff members, namely me and Rodney, did.
But I did warn the boss that he should have made better arrangements, but he was tight with his money, which seemed at odds with the way his wife spent it. The safe, like me, was also obsolete, and I hoped he understood it was no substitute for having them stored in a proper facility.
About a half hour before I was due to leave, I saw Rodney with two men in the alley behind the loading dock. There was a white anonymous van parked not far from them, and it must be one of the suppliers dropping off a late delivery.
There were several cartons sitting on the edge of the dock.
The two men had baseball caps pulled down to obscure their faces, to avoid being clearly seen by the CCTV camera facing up the alley. Of course, it was only my suspicious mind that thought they were deliberately trying to avoid being identified.
Rodney saw me approaching the end of the dock and finished his business with them and they turned and headed towards their van.
“Late delivery,” I asked, as he came up the steps beside the dock.
“None of your business, Richards. Isn’t it time for you to go home?”
“Another half hour. Paperwork to be done.”
“I can finish up for the day. You can go, I’ll cover for you.”
Very generous, but he’d never done it before, why start now? If there wasn’t twenty million dollars worth of paintings in the safe, I might have taken up the offer. I just muttered a ‘thankyou’; and went back to the office.
A few minutes after that, I called a friend who worked for the police and told him what I’d seen. It might be nothing, it might be something. I just thought someone should know, just in case we were robbed.
At office closing time, I got a phone call from Elsie, a rather strange call, asking me to come to the front reception area. It was no longer used because we never got visitors, and if there were customer issues, they had to complain ‘online’. She was insistent, so I went.
I could see Elsie at her desk, and five others, three girls and two boys, all dressed to leave for the day. Had the time clock failed again?”
When I reached the desk, I saw what the problem was. Three men in balaclavas holding guns pointed at the group. They were understandably frightened.
The nearest gunman looked at me. “You Richards?”
That was Rodney’s surname. My suspicious mind first identified two of the masked men as possibly the two Rodney had been talking to in the alley, and if they were looking for him, was he going to open the safe? Or simply help them?
“He’s out back, quite possibly gone for the day.”
A look passed between two of the men.
“You’ll do then.”
“For what?”
“Move,” he motioned for all of us to go back the way I had just come, towards the rear. “And make it snappy. We haven’t got all day.”
No one moved.
He aimed his gun at the roof and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun was deafening, and part of the roof fell down.
“I won’t ask again.”
Elsie went first, the five others next, and then me, but not with several prods from one of the gunmen. I was hoping it wasn’t a hair trigger, or I’d get accidentally shot.
When we got to the safe door, he stopped us, put the others to one side with one of the gunmen watching them, and said to me, “I want you to open the safe.”
“It needs a key.”
“It’s in the top drawer over there. Get and it no funny stuff.”
Rodney, or someone, had told them everything they needed to know. It was the only reason he could know about the paintings. Rodney was conspicuous by his absence, though, and has asked me to go early, could not have envisaged I’d still be there to help them.
Had he planned it this way to absolve himself of blame?
“If I refuse.”
“That would be dumb. We’ll start shooting the hostages. Make no mistake, we will kill them if we have to,” he turned the gun on one of them, then just a fraction wider and pulled the trigger. Two girls screamed.
“OK, OK. I get it.” I did as I was told.
The door was very heavy and needed two people to move it. When the lock was open, I turned the wheel to disengage the bolts then stood back so two of the three could pull the door open. From there it took only five minutes to take the paintings.
When the operation was over, the leader motioned towards the inside of the safe. “Everyone inside.”
“Not a good idea,” I said. “Shut the door and lock it, there’s no oxygen. We won’t last longer than two hours.”
“Then pray someone comes to find you. In, or die prematurely out here.”
No one wanted to die so we all went into the safe. As he closed the door, one of his friends yelled out to wait, then a few seconds after that Rodney was pushed in, and the door closed The lock then made that clunking sound when it was engaged and that was it. Six juniors and two seniors in a dark space. The girls were close to hysteria. The boys were not far behind them.
Then a torch light, from one of the cell phones lit up a small space. We were all gathered just inside the door, but there was a lot of room inside, about the size of the kitchen. There were boxes sitting against the wall, too heavy to clear out when I had cleaned and swept the inside in preparation for the paintings.
Janine, one of the girls, said, “Is it true we’re going to run out of air?”
“Eventually. I suggest none of you goes into hysterics, it will use up the air far quicker than if we just sit still and wait.”
Elsie had already found a box to sit on, and I sat next to her. She didn’t have a cell phone, so I gave her mine after I put the torchlight on. She seemed oddly unfazed by the turn of events.
“We could use the phone and call the police, or someone to come and get us out.” James, I think. He was new. He had his cell phone in his hand. “Hell, no. No signal. What the…”
“The walls are two feet thick, with metal padding, and the door is eight inches thick steel, I’m not surprised there’s no signal,” I said.
“You’ve been here forever; you should be able to get us out of here.” Janine was probably the brightest of the six.
“That would be normally the case if we used the safe, but we don’t and haven’t, and this is the first time I’ve seen inside it for a long time. Not unlike some of you.”
They all put on their innocent faces. I didn’t really care.
Rodney had been trying to get a signal on his cell phone, walking around the inside, constantly checking for a signal. He would not get one.
“Did you read the induction manual like I asked you, Rodney,“ I asked him as he sidled past me?
“What induction manual?”
“The one that I said had instructions on how to get out of the safe if you got accidentally locked in. It apparently happened a lot to the previous owners.”
“You didn’t say anything about a safe.”
No, I probably didn’t, but dropping Rodney into the collective dismay would take their minds off their predicament.
“Anyone got a signal,” He yelled out.
No one had.
Half an hour passed, and it was interesting to watch people who had no practical experience in problem-solving. Nor did they understand, as a group, they had a better chance of survival, than individually.
The girls cried for a few minutes, the shock of their situation, and what might happen finally dawning on them. They were certainly critical of the boys who didn’t know what to do, other than twirl the locking wheel one way then the other, a waste of time unless the key had been used. Two and three of them tried to push the door, though I was not sure what they were hoping to achieve.
By the end of that half hour, they were all sitting, conserving oxygen, and silently analysing how they were unlucky enough to get into this mess.
I looked at Elsie. She had the right idea, she was asleep, or pretending to be. It was a good idea if we ran out of air. It wasn’t going to be pretty when it happened. I remembered one of two times we had sneaked in here ourselves, all those years ago.
Then, suddenly Janine asked, “How did the thieves know there were paintings here?”
Time was one of those enemies, you were able to think, over and over, on a single topic.
Rodney said, “Someone told them. It could be any one of us. I doubt the boss would tell anyone.”
I was not so sure. He was having liquidity problems and the insurance on those paintings would solve a lot of those problems.
We went through all the ‘it wasn’t me’s’, until it got to Rodney who was quite emphatic it wasn’t him.”
“So, those men out in the alley before, Rodney, the two who looked exactly like two of the thieves, you didn’t tell them everything they needed to know?”
“I can see what you’re doing. Took the opportunity to top up your retirement plan, and now we’re all going to die because of your greed.”
It sounded plausible, and it got the desired result, the others were not looking at him as the guilty one.
I shrugged. “Well, we’ll soon find out.”
An hour and a half after being locked in, the air was getting depleted, and breathing was getting more difficult.
I was floating on the edge of consciousness, and Elsie had dozed off which would help her rather than hinder her.
The others were in various stages of panic, but to their credit, there were no histrionics.
Other ten minutes, I heard the key in the lock, and the bolt being moved. A minute after that the door opened accompanied by a whistling sound as the air was sucked out, and more breathable air replaced it.
Everyone was too weak to move.
My friend, the policeman, came in and surveyed the bodies, all now in various stages of recovery. Rodney was getting up off the floor when he took him by the arm. “I have a few questions,” he said, then escorted him outside.
Elsie woke and looked at me, then the open door. “What happened?”
“A rescue.”
“Good. Didn’t want to end my days in this room.”
When we exited the safe, the boss was there. He apologised to each of the five, Elsie, them me. He said the thieves had been caught, and identified Rodney as the informant, and they were all under arrest.
The paintings were on their way to a more secure location.
He pulled me aside, and asked, “What made you call the police? No one else noticed anything.”
“It’s an old fossil thing. We notice things because our noses are not buried in technology. We don’t trust everybody, and certainly, anyone new hanging around a fortune in paintings. I guess I’ll never change.”
“Don’t. And thanks. I’ve made arrangements for a supplement to your final payment in appreciation.”
“Thank you, sir”
It turned out to be enough to join Elsie on what I discovered was called the ‘obsolete tour’.
For the last week before retirement, it was almost unmemorable.
I think I preferred it that way because the company was nothing like when I started, forty-five years ago. People said I should have been General Manager by now, but the truth was, I liked my ‘behind the scenes’ role better than taking on the responsibility of management.
Now, my role was obsolete. We no longer ran our own packing, dispatch and delivery service, each component of the department was slowly stripped away and outsourced, to the point now where we threw stuff into boxes and a couple of ruffians and a dilapidated truck came at the end of the day to take it all away.
Online. That was the catchword. There was no one over 21 in the company, except for me and the receptionist, who was also slated for retirement a week after me.
She, too, was obsolete. As an online store, there was no need to have a human interface, so I had no idea what she did with her day. I was meaning to ask, and that opportunity might just come sooner than I thought.
She just wandered into the tea room.
When she saw me sitting at the same table I had for the last forty-five years, she smiled. There was a spot for the dispatch teams, a spot for clerical, and once upon a time, the boys and girls had to sit at separate tables. Now, well, times have changed. Once, we all had uniforms, and everyone looked like they belonged. Now, it was difficult to tell the boys from the girls, and dress sense and decorum had long since disappeared. I wore mine, and Elsie wore hers, the last acts of defiance before we moved on.
She made her tea, the same as she had for many years, resisted the temptation of a doughnut, and then wandered over. She nodded to an empty chair opposite me, “May I?”
I nodded. She had more manners than all the others put together.
“Looking forward to retirement,” she asked.
“No. I have a big empty house that I’d rather not live in, and no one to share it with.” Mary, the woman I’d married, a company girl, and I had the privilege of living with had lasted forty-four of those years before succumbing to cancer, a year shy of beginning what we were calling our second life together. We had such plans, but plans were always destined to go awry.
“A shame,” she said. “Harry decided he didn’t want to wait to have a good time. Took off with a younger woman. A week later, he was dead. Bad heart, I’ll let you make of that what you will. Probably dodged a bullet, though.”
Pragmatic? Certainly practical.
“Do you have anything planned?” I asked.
“I’m going around the world in 80 days. Steam trains, steamships, hot air balloons, camels, elephants, and maybe even the proverbial slow boat to China. I saw a TV show, and even though you can probably do it in a day, even two, I like the idea of the longer the better. You?”
“We were going to Paris, Rome, Capri, but I can’t see the point of it now.”
“Well, there’s room for one more on our tour. You should come. It’s going to be wildly unpredictable, and at least there would be one familiar face. Give it some thought.”
I was giving it thought on the way back to my office, so much thought I bumped into Rodney, the boy who was about to take over my space.
I’d been asked to train him, but he told me quite emphatically there was nothing he could learn from an old fossil like me. Quite blunt and quite obnoxious. He was no different from the rest of them. Old people were simply the object of their scorn. It was not only me; Elsie also got her share of derision too. We were the dinosaurs.
I apologised, but that didn’t seem to placate him.
“Thank God you will be gone soon enough.”
“Yes, I will, and I’ll have plenty of time on my hands.”
He looked at me oddly. “You’re barking mad, you old geezer.” He gave me a sneer, then walked off.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I said to his retreating back.
Rodney was typical of that younger generation that took everything for granted. His life was wrapped up in his cell phone, like many others, and once when he thought he lost it, he almost went to pieces.
Not that I had anything to do with what happened, but it did give me ideas.
I made it back to the loading dock just in time for the boss’s special delivery, a half dozen paintings worth nearly twenty million dollars, paintings that were going to be hung in his new house if it ever got finished. He had been forced to take delivery of them early and decided to use the walk-in safe the previous owners of the building, a bank, had installed.
Not that it had been used in a long time, other than a place where the younger employees went to ‘play’. They thought no one saw them, but it was obvious what they were doing. Not that it was any of my business, it was more or less the same some forty years before, only a little more dignified.
It was a fascinating anachronism from a bygone age, and reputed to never been cracked, although several had tried. Now, though, it would be a doddle for a master safecracker. If they knew what was in there, which no one but the boss, and several staff members, namely me and Rodney, did.
But I did warn the boss that he should have made better arrangements, but he was tight with his money, which seemed at odds with the way his wife spent it. The safe, like me, was also obsolete, and I hoped he understood it was no substitute for having them stored in a proper facility.
About a half hour before I was due to leave, I saw Rodney with two men in the alley behind the loading dock. There was a white anonymous van parked not far from them, and it must be one of the suppliers dropping off a late delivery.
There were several cartons sitting on the edge of the dock.
The two men had baseball caps pulled down to obscure their faces, to avoid being clearly seen by the CCTV camera facing up the alley. Of course, it was only my suspicious mind that thought they were deliberately trying to avoid being identified.
Rodney saw me approaching the end of the dock and finished his business with them and they turned and headed towards their van.
“Late delivery,” I asked, as he came up the steps beside the dock.
“None of your business, Richards. Isn’t it time for you to go home?”
“Another half hour. Paperwork to be done.”
“I can finish up for the day. You can go, I’ll cover for you.”
Very generous, but he’d never done it before, why start now? If there wasn’t twenty million dollars worth of paintings in the safe, I might have taken up the offer. I just muttered a ‘thankyou’; and went back to the office.
A few minutes after that, I called a friend who worked for the police and told him what I’d seen. It might be nothing, it might be something. I just thought someone should know, just in case we were robbed.
At office closing time, I got a phone call from Elsie, a rather strange call, asking me to come to the front reception area. It was no longer used because we never got visitors, and if there were customer issues, they had to complain ‘online’. She was insistent, so I went.
I could see Elsie at her desk, and five others, three girls and two boys, all dressed to leave for the day. Had the time clock failed again?”
When I reached the desk, I saw what the problem was. Three men in balaclavas holding guns pointed at the group. They were understandably frightened.
The nearest gunman looked at me. “You Richards?”
That was Rodney’s surname. My suspicious mind first identified two of the masked men as possibly the two Rodney had been talking to in the alley, and if they were looking for him, was he going to open the safe? Or simply help them?
“He’s out back, quite possibly gone for the day.”
A look passed between two of the men.
“You’ll do then.”
“For what?”
“Move,” he motioned for all of us to go back the way I had just come, towards the rear. “And make it snappy. We haven’t got all day.”
No one moved.
He aimed his gun at the roof and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun was deafening, and part of the roof fell down.
“I won’t ask again.”
Elsie went first, the five others next, and then me, but not with several prods from one of the gunmen. I was hoping it wasn’t a hair trigger, or I’d get accidentally shot.
When we got to the safe door, he stopped us, put the others to one side with one of the gunmen watching them, and said to me, “I want you to open the safe.”
“It needs a key.”
“It’s in the top drawer over there. Get and it no funny stuff.”
Rodney, or someone, had told them everything they needed to know. It was the only reason he could know about the paintings. Rodney was conspicuous by his absence, though, and has asked me to go early, could not have envisaged I’d still be there to help them.
Had he planned it this way to absolve himself of blame?
“If I refuse.”
“That would be dumb. We’ll start shooting the hostages. Make no mistake, we will kill them if we have to,” he turned the gun on one of them, then just a fraction wider and pulled the trigger. Two girls screamed.
“OK, OK. I get it.” I did as I was told.
The door was very heavy and needed two people to move it. When the lock was open, I turned the wheel to disengage the bolts then stood back so two of the three could pull the door open. From there it took only five minutes to take the paintings.
When the operation was over, the leader motioned towards the inside of the safe. “Everyone inside.”
“Not a good idea,” I said. “Shut the door and lock it, there’s no oxygen. We won’t last longer than two hours.”
“Then pray someone comes to find you. In, or die prematurely out here.”
No one wanted to die so we all went into the safe. As he closed the door, one of his friends yelled out to wait, then a few seconds after that Rodney was pushed in, and the door closed The lock then made that clunking sound when it was engaged and that was it. Six juniors and two seniors in a dark space. The girls were close to hysteria. The boys were not far behind them.
Then a torch light, from one of the cell phones lit up a small space. We were all gathered just inside the door, but there was a lot of room inside, about the size of the kitchen. There were boxes sitting against the wall, too heavy to clear out when I had cleaned and swept the inside in preparation for the paintings.
Janine, one of the girls, said, “Is it true we’re going to run out of air?”
“Eventually. I suggest none of you goes into hysterics, it will use up the air far quicker than if we just sit still and wait.”
Elsie had already found a box to sit on, and I sat next to her. She didn’t have a cell phone, so I gave her mine after I put the torchlight on. She seemed oddly unfazed by the turn of events.
“We could use the phone and call the police, or someone to come and get us out.” James, I think. He was new. He had his cell phone in his hand. “Hell, no. No signal. What the…”
“The walls are two feet thick, with metal padding, and the door is eight inches thick steel, I’m not surprised there’s no signal,” I said.
“You’ve been here forever; you should be able to get us out of here.” Janine was probably the brightest of the six.
“That would be normally the case if we used the safe, but we don’t and haven’t, and this is the first time I’ve seen inside it for a long time. Not unlike some of you.”
They all put on their innocent faces. I didn’t really care.
Rodney had been trying to get a signal on his cell phone, walking around the inside, constantly checking for a signal. He would not get one.
“Did you read the induction manual like I asked you, Rodney,“ I asked him as he sidled past me?
“What induction manual?”
“The one that I said had instructions on how to get out of the safe if you got accidentally locked in. It apparently happened a lot to the previous owners.”
“You didn’t say anything about a safe.”
No, I probably didn’t, but dropping Rodney into the collective dismay would take their minds off their predicament.
“Anyone got a signal,” He yelled out.
No one had.
Half an hour passed, and it was interesting to watch people who had no practical experience in problem-solving. Nor did they understand, as a group, they had a better chance of survival, than individually.
The girls cried for a few minutes, the shock of their situation, and what might happen finally dawning on them. They were certainly critical of the boys who didn’t know what to do, other than twirl the locking wheel one way then the other, a waste of time unless the key had been used. Two and three of them tried to push the door, though I was not sure what they were hoping to achieve.
By the end of that half hour, they were all sitting, conserving oxygen, and silently analysing how they were unlucky enough to get into this mess.
I looked at Elsie. She had the right idea, she was asleep, or pretending to be. It was a good idea if we ran out of air. It wasn’t going to be pretty when it happened. I remembered one of two times we had sneaked in here ourselves, all those years ago.
Then, suddenly Janine asked, “How did the thieves know there were paintings here?”
Time was one of those enemies, you were able to think, over and over, on a single topic.
Rodney said, “Someone told them. It could be any one of us. I doubt the boss would tell anyone.”
I was not so sure. He was having liquidity problems and the insurance on those paintings would solve a lot of those problems.
We went through all the ‘it wasn’t me’s’, until it got to Rodney who was quite emphatic it wasn’t him.”
“So, those men out in the alley before, Rodney, the two who looked exactly like two of the thieves, you didn’t tell them everything they needed to know?”
“I can see what you’re doing. Took the opportunity to top up your retirement plan, and now we’re all going to die because of your greed.”
It sounded plausible, and it got the desired result, the others were not looking at him as the guilty one.
I shrugged. “Well, we’ll soon find out.”
An hour and a half after being locked in, the air was getting depleted, and breathing was getting more difficult.
I was floating on the edge of consciousness, and Elsie had dozed off which would help her rather than hinder her.
The others were in various stages of panic, but to their credit, there were no histrionics.
Other ten minutes, I heard the key in the lock, and the bolt being moved. A minute after that the door opened accompanied by a whistling sound as the air was sucked out, and more breathable air replaced it.
Everyone was too weak to move.
My friend, the policeman, came in and surveyed the bodies, all now in various stages of recovery. Rodney was getting up off the floor when he took him by the arm. “I have a few questions,” he said, then escorted him outside.
Elsie woke and looked at me, then the open door. “What happened?”
“A rescue.”
“Good. Didn’t want to end my days in this room.”
When we exited the safe, the boss was there. He apologised to each of the five, Elsie, them me. He said the thieves had been caught, and identified Rodney as the informant, and they were all under arrest.
The paintings were on their way to a more secure location.
He pulled me aside, and asked, “What made you call the police? No one else noticed anything.”
“It’s an old fossil thing. We notice things because our noses are not buried in technology. We don’t trust everybody, and certainly, anyone new hanging around a fortune in paintings. I guess I’ll never change.”
“Don’t. And thanks. I’ve made arrangements for a supplement to your final payment in appreciation.”
“Thank you, sir”
It turned out to be enough to join Elsie on what I discovered was called the ‘obsolete tour’.
I don’t know, at first, what it was that brought back a raft of memories that had been long forgotten, I had woken up in an ambulance on its way to a hospital, and by the way, in which it was moving at breakneck speed, siren wailing, it had on be for a very good reason.
“He’s awake,” a nearby voice yelled near me, and then a face hovered before my eyes, “How do you feel.”
It was an odd question because I felt fine. “OK. I guess. What happened?”
For a minute or so, he checked my vitals and asked, “Do you know who you are?” I gave him my name, which matched my ID, and then my address, which was also correct. He asked me where I was, and got it right too. “You can slow down; I’ll tell them it’s not urgent.”
He made a phone call to the hospital, then turned back to me.
“You had a fall, hit your head on the concrete sidewalk, and started having a fit. When we arrived, you were unconscious, and the signs indicated you had gone into a coma. It was a situation that could have gone anyway, which is why we were trying to get you to the hospital as soon as possible. You need to get an MRI as soon as possible.”
“But I feel fine.”
“That may well be the case, but what happened to you can have ramifications later. You have suffered a heavy knock to your head.”
It was not as if I could feel anything, so I reached up to feel for any indication of the accident and touched a bandage, covering what felt like a big lump. I could not feel any pain when I touched it. “Should I feel something?”
“You should, yes. We have not administered any pain medication, so it should be very sore. It’s a fairly large gash. You say there is no pain?”
“No.”
Not right then, but about five minutes later, I started having blurred vision. The paramedic went back to checking my vitals, and as he was taking blood pressure I started shaking, and moments after that, I passed out.
When I woke up, I was home, in my room, overlooking the stables, and beyond that the hills. Montana. How did I get there?
Everything was exactly as I remembered it, the rodeo curtains, the breeze coming through the open window, the aroma of newly mown grass after the rain wafting in, accompanied by the rustle of the curtains. Summer, my favourite part of the year.
And yet, I could not be here, because after my parents died, the farm was sold to pay of the mountain of debt they’d accumulated, and sadly the reason why they were no longer alive.
I slipped off the covers and went over to the window. Exactly as it was when I returned after graduating from university, just before my father and I was going to make repairs to the roof. I remember that exact time in my life. I had just broken up with the girl I had planned to spend the rest of my life with, and, heartbroken, I’d come home to be miserable.
There was a pounding on the door. “Get up now, lazy bones, there are chores to be done.” Suzie, my older sister, never took crap from me, had no aspirations of getting a university degree, ‘What use would it be in running a farm?’, was always at me since I was six, and had more than once thrown cold water over me, in the morning.
“I’m up,” I yelled back, a reflex action. This must all be in my imagination. The last time I’d seen Suzie, it was when I took her to the airport, off to find peace and tranquillity in Tuscany, and was still there with a friend.
But it was my room, and those were my clothes in the dresser, and … Oh. My. God!
My imagination was in overdrive. I looked exactly like my 23-year-old self. That reflection in the mirror was startling. I touched my face, and it seemed real.
Another bang on the door made me jump. The door opened and Suzie put her head in. “Good, you’re up. You just saved yourself a lot of grief.”
She looked so young, so happy, a far cry from the woman she was now, broken by a man we all thought the world of, but turned out to be a monster. I’d often wished I could go back and change things as we all did.
I crossed the room and gave her a huge hug. It felt real.
“What was that for?” She was taken aback by an action that, back then, I would not have contemplated. Our relationship, then, had been rocky at best.
“You know I love you to pieces, sis, and I don’t think I’ve taken the time or made the effort to tell you.”
“I know that. You don’t have to say anything.”
“Too many things are left unsaid.”
“You’re going batty, I can see that now. That fall off the roof of the barn has affected you, though I have to say this version of you is an improvement. Oh, and by the way, I asked Samantha to come over today, so be nice. She’s had a hard time of it while you’re away and you were good friends once.”
Samantha. The girl I dated all through middle school, the one I was supposed to end up with, everyone had said so, except she had other ideas and chose the local football hero instead. It was around about the time I came back that he was killed in a car accident, though rumours had it, it was not an accident. It would be interesting to see her again. The last time I saw her, it was when she ditched me rather unceremoniously.
“You know me, friends with everyone.”
“She dumped you, and you hate her. I get it, but there’s enough water under that bridge. Later.”
I just remembered that fall off the roof, too, showing off, and paying for it. I didn’t break anything, but I had landed rather hard, and shaken a few things up. The bump on the head hadn’t helped either. I shrugged and pulled out work clothes. It was going to be an interesting day.
At the breakfast table, Mom in her usual manner had everything out and just finished up the last of the cooking. I missed her breakfasts, in fact, I missed that first thing in the morning with family, the food, and, well, just the moments I realised much later I’d taken for granted.
Dad was there, his usual gruff, and jovial, self, complaining about everything that was going wrong, from the tractor to the crops in the south paddock, the lack of rain, and having to pump water from the dam.
When I left for college, we needed help and that’s how Walter Fisk came into our lives, particularly into Suzie’s. He called in one day, in his battered Ford truck asking if there was any employment available in the area, and because I was not there, Dad hired him. He was, at first, a hard worker, and then, once he had charmed Suzie, changed. The first time I met him I took an instant dislike to him, and he knew it. It was why he then spent the time I was away to break the relationship I had with my sister.
I was sitting at the table when he came in. I hadn’t realised he was welcome at the breakfast table, and it marked a turning point in his acceptance, almost into the family. I’d forgotten quite a lot about his time at the farm. It was only several years later when the damage was done, that we learned who he really was, a thoroughly bad man by the name of Walter Reinhart who had murdered his wife and disappeared, only to turn up on our doorstep. It wasn’t until he nearly murdered Suzie that we realised his true nature.
“Morning all.” His eyes stopped at me, and his expression changed for just a second. “David.”
“Walter.” It was a pity all of this was running in my imagination, or I’d go into town and see the sheriff and tell him about Fisk. Just seeing him brought all the old memories back, and it made me angry, so much so that I lost my appetite, and couldn’t sit at the same table with him.
I went past him as he sat down, and muttered, “Don’t get too comfortable, Reinhart.”
He grabbed my arm, stopping me from leaving, the expression on his face now one of fear. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“I think you have me confused with someone else.”
“If you say so. Now, I would like my arm back, Walter.”
Suzie had noticed that something was happening between us, and said, “I hope you two are not going to be tiresome, again. I thought we got past all that nonsense.”
“There’s nothing going on here, is there Walter?”
He let go of my arm. “No, nothing.”
In my imaginary world, I had just scored a small victory.
I went outside into the fresh morning air, something else that I missed greatly after leaving home. The mornings were never the same in the city, with no open spaces to speak of and everyone living on top of each other.
And in a city with millions of people, it was ironic that I never felt more alone than I did back home.
Perhaps my mind had had enough of being where I was and had decided to put me back to a time when I had a chance to make a difference in my life. This moment in time was when I made several regrettable decisions, each of which eventually set me on a path to where I was now.
It was not what I had envisaged my life would turn out like, then or now.
Perhaps I was taking stock, going over the choices and seeing what life might have been like.
I walked slowly towards the barn. I could see materials and tools scattered around in my father’s usual haphazard manner, mine too for that matter. We were in the middle of patching the roof, a job long overdue, and it must be just after I fell off the roof. Luckily, I’d landed on a haystack next to it, but though it softened the fall it still hurt.
I could feel the aches and pains from it still.
Inside the barn, I knew what I was looking for. Grandfather’s Indian motorcycle was the only thing he left in his will to me. I loved that bike and used to go out on it whenever I could. I also remembered that Walter stole it when he finally left, and I never saw it again.
I had to do something about that.
I pulled the tarpaulin cover off it and checked it had fuel, then wheeled it out. A minute later I was off, deciding to go into town. I was still undecided about telling the sheriff about Walter.
About five miles up the road I saw Samantha and her truck on the side of the road, hood up. She heard the bike and turned to see who it was, then waved.
I stopped.
I hadn’t seen her for a long time, much less the in those years following my return. I remember when I came back I was bitter and said some regrettable things. I had a chance to change that.
“David.”
“Samantha.” I switched off the bike and it was suddenly eerily quiet.
“You know I get worried when you ride that thing. I never think it’s safe.”
“One ride and you hated it, Sam. You should embrace the freedom.” It had been a constant basis for conflict between us, neither willing to back down. I realised then that I was still annoyed, and it showed in my tone. Had I learned nothing?
“I’m sorry. I should have listened to your concerns, and I was a little selfish when I didn’t.”
She looked at me as if to say, ‘Who the hell are you, and what have you done with David?’
“You were right though. I should. Perhaps you might consider giving me another opportunity. I know I haven’t been as understanding as I could have been.”
I shrugged. We were both making an effort. “It was what it was. We were young, first love is like that, I guess. What’s up?”
“It just stopped. And you know me, I’m hopeless at everything.”
I got off the bike and had a look. I was not much of a mechanic, but living on a farm you got a rudimentary knowledge of everything, so basic problems I could solve. This one was a loose cable that had come away. I put it back and then asked her to start the car, which it did.
“Are you coming back to the farm,” she asked.
“Yeah, just getting some air before I get back to work. Falling off the roof sort of changes your perspective, especially when you consider what the consequences could have been. It just feels like the world is closing in on me lately.”
She got out of the truck, came over and have me a hug. At that moment a whole raft of memories returned. I kissed her and she kissed me back, and suddenly it felt like we had never been apart.
“I never stopped loving you Sam.” It seemed the right time and the right thing to say.
“I know. I always knew you were the one, but I was young and stupid. I learned my lesson, and it won’t happen again. If you still want me.”
I smiled. Was it that easy to fix?
“I do, very much.” I kissed her again. “Let’s start again. Hello. My name is David Westbrook. What’s yours?”
She smiled back. “Samantha Bailey.”
“Well, Samantha, I like you a lot. Would you be interested in going on a date?”
“Just tell me where and when.”
“Do you like motorbikes?”
“I do now.”
“Good. I’ll see you back at the farm and when my father had finished flogging me to death, I’ll take you to a place I know that has the best burgers in the county.”
After another hug, a tear, perhaps two, she left. I watched until she disappeared out of sight.
…
It was going to be a good day.
I went to the sheriff’s office; Mike was a good friend of my father’s as he was to all the residents of our little town.
I told him about Walter Fisk and his other name, and that I suspected he was a murderer sought by the Sacramento police. Mike had an assistant who was clever enough to access police records from all over the country and found the information on Walter, and the wanted poster photograph was almost an exact copy of the man we had working for us.
He asked me how I knew, and I said a friend of mine was working on an assignment for his forensic science degree and had pulled up a number of cases by wanted posters and seen Walters among them. That and the fact I always thought he was not who he said he was.
Job done; I went home.
Back on the roof, I was careful. Working with my father again was special and I savoured the time together. I hadn’t really wanted to get stuck on the farm, seeing what it had done to him, and his father before him. Farming was a rough business given everything that could go wrong, and I didn’t want that responsibility.
But maybe with Suzie, who had always said she would never leave, between us, we could make it work. Especially if we adopted an idea I had read about back in the city. Time would tell.
Suzie, and Samantha, a farm girl herself, came back from the northern paddocks where we had cattle; and she had been taking feed for them because the grass was getting a little thin after a prolonged dry period.
Then they brought lunch to us, sitting at the table where we’d often have a BBQ Saturday night and inviting the neighbours over. Sam sat next to me and it didn’t go unnoticed. Suzie was pleased but didn’t state the obvious.
I thought that was the moment to tell them my plan for the future. I also knew that from this point on things were only going to get worse, my father getting ill, the drought, Walter, and my departure all compounding onto the terrible end to everything I knew and cared about.
“I have an idea which as some of you know can be a bad thing, but thus might be another string in the bow for the farm. I read a while back that one of the schools back east was considering introducing a farm stay for their students, say for a week or fortnight to get a feel for what happened, other than believing all food came from a supermarket.
“I thought about a dozen bunkhouses down by the river with a mess hall, classrooms, and stables would make that a reality. You know how many schools there are, and we have everything right here. Just think about it. It could become a very good income stream.”
Suzie looked surprised. “You thought of that all by yourself?”
“I am capable of thinking, you know.”
“It’s a good idea. Dad, what do you think?”
“It will cost money we don’t have.” The man was ever practical, quite often the devil’s advocate.
“Then what if I get a journalist to come down and go through the plan, show him everything, and get him to sell it for you. At least it will gauge reaction, and if it’s positive…”
“One of your cronies?” Suzie asked.
“He’s a good journalist and he owes me a favour. I’ll call him later.”
Dad shrugged. To him, it was about the money. Not the idea, which was sound and would work, if there was a market. Secretly I think he was pleased with me, trying to find ways to keep the farm.
The day ended on a date and perhaps for the first time in a long time, I felt content. I had, in my imagination, corrected everything that had gone wrong in my life, and just before I fell asleep, I wished that it could go on forever.
…
I felt a hand roughly shaking me by the shoulder, and a voice in the background saying rather loudly, “David, David, wake up, wake up.”
I put my hand out to grasp the hand that was shaking me while trying to open my eyes and wake from, well, I had no idea what it was.
It felt like I was drowning.
Then, eyes open I was staring directly at Samantha’s face. Only she was 30 years older than the last time I saw her.
“Sam?’
“David. Oh God, I thought I’d lost you. She leaned down and kissed me then hugged me which was difficult.
I was in a hospital bed with cables and tubes everywhere.
“What…”
“You’ve been in a coma. You hit your head on the sidewalk and one minute you were fine, the next, we didn’t know if you were going to live or die.”
My other hand was being held and I looked over to see Suzie equally as concerned.
“Suzie? Why are you here? You live in Tuscany?”
She looked blankly at me as if I was mad. “Where did that come from? I came up from the farm the moment Sam told me what happened. Some second honeymoon you two are having.”
“What? This is all wrong. None of this is real.”
I was back in another nightmare where I was being tormented by the same two protagonists as in the last. But why were they here and what was this second honeymoon business.
Samantha looked concerned, perhaps a little scared. I was too because it seemed I was not back in the ambulance on my to the hospital for other reasons. And that life didn’t have either Suzie or Samantha in it.
Suzie came into view. “You should not be overly worried if none of this is familiar to you. We were told by the doctor that you might have difficulty remembering anything, but that wouldn’t last forever. So, a quick recap may or may not help. You’ve been married to Sam for thirty years, and you have three children, not here of course, I’m now running the farm, that was a great idea of yours and it’s all we do these days, Mom and Dad retired to Florida like they always intended, and you and Sam work with me.”
“Walter?”
“He was arrested and charged with murder. God, that was a bullet dodged. That was your diligence too, David, and I cannot thank you enough.”
“How long have I been out of it then?”
“About a month. We’ve been rather frantic I can tell you.”
A coma? It had seemed very real to me.
The problem was my life had been nothing like this one, but coincidentally it was the one I had always wanted and had dreamed of often. It wasn’t possible I could have gone back in time, so what really happened?
Suddenly around me, alarms were going off and there was a sudden movement of people coming into the room. One minute I was conscious, the next I found myself in a white room, sitting at a table with a bearded man.
St Peter at the pearly gates? Was I dying?
“David, David, David.” His tone had just the right amount of disapproval and, what was it, disappointment. “You are given a second chance and you’re not grasping it with both hands.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s been your problem all your life, looking for meaning in something that just is. Are you going to stop procrastinating, and just go back and live your life, the life you have been given? You do not want to miss out on being a grandfather, do you? To go back, a simple yes or no will suffice.”
I didn’t want to think what a no might do, so it had to be a yes. I had no idea what was happening to me, but it was the life I always wanted, to be with Samantha, and have my sister back to her old self again. Whether or not I had intervened, and made it so, was moot. I had hit my head, and basically, everything in it was scrambled anyway.
“Yes.”
“Good. Now don’t come back, not until it’s your time.”
…
There was relief written all over the faces in that room, of the doctors, the nurses, a dozen other spectators, and the two who mattered the most to me. Samantha was holding my hand and I squeezed it, and moments later, opened my eyes. Perhaps I was still dazzled by the white room, but I could have easily confused her with an angel.
“You’re back.”
“Did I go somewhere?” Did she know what had been happening to me?
“I think it might have been that place just before you leave this mortal earth. You weren’t dead, but I think it was touch and go. I’m glad you came back. Our life together is not over yet, and there are so many experiences we have to look forward to.”
“Like being grandparents?”
“How do you know that? I only just got a text message not five minutes ago.”
“I have connections. Don’t worry. I’m back now, and I’m not going anywhere. I think what happened to me was the universe telling me not to be an ass. I’m sure I did something wrong.”
“Well, you’re right about being an ass, but we all have our quirks. We’re together now, as it should be.”
I don’t know, at first, what it was that brought back a raft of memories that had been long forgotten, I had woken up in an ambulance on its way to a hospital, and by the way, in which it was moving at breakneck speed, siren wailing, it had on be for a very good reason.
“He’s awake,” a nearby voice yelled near me, and then a face hovered before my eyes, “How do you feel.”
It was an odd question because I felt fine. “OK. I guess. What happened?”
For a minute or so, he checked my vitals and asked, “Do you know who you are?” I gave him my name, which matched my ID, and then my address, which was also correct. He asked me where I was, and got it right too. “You can slow down; I’ll tell them it’s not urgent.”
He made a phone call to the hospital, then turned back to me.
“You had a fall, hit your head on the concrete sidewalk, and started having a fit. When we arrived, you were unconscious, and the signs indicated you had gone into a coma. It was a situation that could have gone anyway, which is why we were trying to get you to the hospital as soon as possible. You need to get an MRI as soon as possible.”
“But I feel fine.”
“That may well be the case, but what happened to you can have ramifications later. You have suffered a heavy knock to your head.”
It was not as if I could feel anything, so I reached up to feel for any indication of the accident and touched a bandage, covering what felt like a big lump. I could not feel any pain when I touched it. “Should I feel something?”
“You should, yes. We have not administered any pain medication, so it should be very sore. It’s a fairly large gash. You say there is no pain?”
“No.”
Not right then, but about five minutes later, I started having blurred vision. The paramedic went back to checking my vitals, and as he was taking blood pressure I started shaking, and moments after that, I passed out.
When I woke up, I was home, in my room, overlooking the stables, and beyond that the hills. Montana. How did I get there?
Everything was exactly as I remembered it, the rodeo curtains, the breeze coming through the open window, the aroma of newly mown grass after the rain wafting in, accompanied by the rustle of the curtains. Summer, my favourite part of the year.
And yet, I could not be here, because after my parents died, the farm was sold to pay of the mountain of debt they’d accumulated, and sadly the reason why they were no longer alive.
I slipped off the covers and went over to the window. Exactly as it was when I returned after graduating from university, just before my father and I was going to make repairs to the roof. I remember that exact time in my life. I had just broken up with the girl I had planned to spend the rest of my life with, and, heartbroken, I’d come home to be miserable.
There was a pounding on the door. “Get up now, lazy bones, there are chores to be done.” Suzie, my older sister, never took crap from me, had no aspirations of getting a university degree, ‘What use would it be in running a farm?’, was always at me since I was six, and had more than once thrown cold water over me, in the morning.
“I’m up,” I yelled back, a reflex action. This must all be in my imagination. The last time I’d seen Suzie, it was when I took her to the airport, off to find peace and tranquillity in Tuscany, and was still there with a friend.
But it was my room, and those were my clothes in the dresser, and … Oh. My. God!
My imagination was in overdrive. I looked exactly like my 23-year-old self. That reflection in the mirror was startling. I touched my face, and it seemed real.
Another bang on the door made me jump. The door opened and Suzie put her head in. “Good, you’re up. You just saved yourself a lot of grief.”
She looked so young, so happy, a far cry from the woman she was now, broken by a man we all thought the world of, but turned out to be a monster. I’d often wished I could go back and change things as we all did.
I crossed the room and gave her a huge hug. It felt real.
“What was that for?” She was taken aback by an action that, back then, I would not have contemplated. Our relationship, then, had been rocky at best.
“You know I love you to pieces, sis, and I don’t think I’ve taken the time or made the effort to tell you.”
“I know that. You don’t have to say anything.”
“Too many things are left unsaid.”
“You’re going batty, I can see that now. That fall off the roof of the barn has affected you, though I have to say this version of you is an improvement. Oh, and by the way, I asked Samantha to come over today, so be nice. She’s had a hard time of it while you’re away and you were good friends once.”
Samantha. The girl I dated all through middle school, the one I was supposed to end up with, everyone had said so, except she had other ideas and chose the local football hero instead. It was around about the time I came back that he was killed in a car accident, though rumours had it, it was not an accident. It would be interesting to see her again. The last time I saw her, it was when she ditched me rather unceremoniously.
“You know me, friends with everyone.”
“She dumped you, and you hate her. I get it, but there’s enough water under that bridge. Later.”
I just remembered that fall off the roof, too, showing off, and paying for it. I didn’t break anything, but I had landed rather hard, and shaken a few things up. The bump on the head hadn’t helped either. I shrugged and pulled out work clothes. It was going to be an interesting day.
At the breakfast table, Mom in her usual manner had everything out and just finished up the last of the cooking. I missed her breakfasts, in fact, I missed that first thing in the morning with family, the food, and, well, just the moments I realised much later I’d taken for granted.
Dad was there, his usual gruff, and jovial, self, complaining about everything that was going wrong, from the tractor to the crops in the south paddock, the lack of rain, and having to pump water from the dam.
When I left for college, we needed help and that’s how Walter Fisk came into our lives, particularly into Suzie’s. He called in one day, in his battered Ford truck asking if there was any employment available in the area, and because I was not there, Dad hired him. He was, at first, a hard worker, and then, once he had charmed Suzie, changed. The first time I met him I took an instant dislike to him, and he knew it. It was why he then spent the time I was away to break the relationship I had with my sister.
I was sitting at the table when he came in. I hadn’t realised he was welcome at the breakfast table, and it marked a turning point in his acceptance, almost into the family. I’d forgotten quite a lot about his time at the farm. It was only several years later when the damage was done, that we learned who he really was, a thoroughly bad man by the name of Walter Reinhart who had murdered his wife and disappeared, only to turn up on our doorstep. It wasn’t until he nearly murdered Suzie that we realised his true nature.
“Morning all.” His eyes stopped at me, and his expression changed for just a second. “David.”
“Walter.” It was a pity all of this was running in my imagination, or I’d go into town and see the sheriff and tell him about Fisk. Just seeing him brought all the old memories back, and it made me angry, so much so that I lost my appetite, and couldn’t sit at the same table with him.
I went past him as he sat down, and muttered, “Don’t get too comfortable, Reinhart.”
He grabbed my arm, stopping me from leaving, the expression on his face now one of fear. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“I think you have me confused with someone else.”
“If you say so. Now, I would like my arm back, Walter.”
Suzie had noticed that something was happening between us, and said, “I hope you two are not going to be tiresome, again. I thought we got past all that nonsense.”
“There’s nothing going on here, is there Walter?”
He let go of my arm. “No, nothing.”
In my imaginary world, I had just scored a small victory.
I went outside into the fresh morning air, something else that I missed greatly after leaving home. The mornings were never the same in the city, with no open spaces to speak of and everyone living on top of each other.
And in a city with millions of people, it was ironic that I never felt more alone than I did back home.
Perhaps my mind had had enough of being where I was and had decided to put me back to a time when I had a chance to make a difference in my life. This moment in time was when I made several regrettable decisions, each of which eventually set me on a path to where I was now.
It was not what I had envisaged my life would turn out like, then or now.
Perhaps I was taking stock, going over the choices and seeing what life might have been like.
I walked slowly towards the barn. I could see materials and tools scattered around in my father’s usual haphazard manner, mine too for that matter. We were in the middle of patching the roof, a job long overdue, and it must be just after I fell off the roof. Luckily, I’d landed on a haystack next to it, but though it softened the fall it still hurt.
I could feel the aches and pains from it still.
Inside the barn, I knew what I was looking for. Grandfather’s Indian motorcycle was the only thing he left in his will to me. I loved that bike and used to go out on it whenever I could. I also remembered that Walter stole it when he finally left, and I never saw it again.
I had to do something about that.
I pulled the tarpaulin cover off it and checked it had fuel, then wheeled it out. A minute later I was off, deciding to go into town. I was still undecided about telling the sheriff about Walter.
About five miles up the road I saw Samantha and her truck on the side of the road, hood up. She heard the bike and turned to see who it was, then waved.
I stopped.
I hadn’t seen her for a long time, much less the in those years following my return. I remember when I came back I was bitter and said some regrettable things. I had a chance to change that.
“David.”
“Samantha.” I switched off the bike and it was suddenly eerily quiet.
“You know I get worried when you ride that thing. I never think it’s safe.”
“One ride and you hated it, Sam. You should embrace the freedom.” It had been a constant basis for conflict between us, neither willing to back down. I realised then that I was still annoyed, and it showed in my tone. Had I learned nothing?
“I’m sorry. I should have listened to your concerns, and I was a little selfish when I didn’t.”
She looked at me as if to say, ‘Who the hell are you, and what have you done with David?’
“You were right though. I should. Perhaps you might consider giving me another opportunity. I know I haven’t been as understanding as I could have been.”
I shrugged. We were both making an effort. “It was what it was. We were young, first love is like that, I guess. What’s up?”
“It just stopped. And you know me, I’m hopeless at everything.”
I got off the bike and had a look. I was not much of a mechanic, but living on a farm you got a rudimentary knowledge of everything, so basic problems I could solve. This one was a loose cable that had come away. I put it back and then asked her to start the car, which it did.
“Are you coming back to the farm,” she asked.
“Yeah, just getting some air before I get back to work. Falling off the roof sort of changes your perspective, especially when you consider what the consequences could have been. It just feels like the world is closing in on me lately.”
She got out of the truck, came over and have me a hug. At that moment a whole raft of memories returned. I kissed her and she kissed me back, and suddenly it felt like we had never been apart.
“I never stopped loving you Sam.” It seemed the right time and the right thing to say.
“I know. I always knew you were the one, but I was young and stupid. I learned my lesson, and it won’t happen again. If you still want me.”
I smiled. Was it that easy to fix?
“I do, very much.” I kissed her again. “Let’s start again. Hello. My name is David Westbrook. What’s yours?”
She smiled back. “Samantha Bailey.”
“Well, Samantha, I like you a lot. Would you be interested in going on a date?”
“Just tell me where and when.”
“Do you like motorbikes?”
“I do now.”
“Good. I’ll see you back at the farm and when my father had finished flogging me to death, I’ll take you to a place I know that has the best burgers in the county.”
After another hug, a tear, perhaps two, she left. I watched until she disappeared out of sight.
…
It was going to be a good day.
I went to the sheriff’s office; Mike was a good friend of my father’s as he was to all the residents of our little town.
I told him about Walter Fisk and his other name, and that I suspected he was a murderer sought by the Sacramento police. Mike had an assistant who was clever enough to access police records from all over the country and found the information on Walter, and the wanted poster photograph was almost an exact copy of the man we had working for us.
He asked me how I knew, and I said a friend of mine was working on an assignment for his forensic science degree and had pulled up a number of cases by wanted posters and seen Walters among them. That and the fact I always thought he was not who he said he was.
Job done; I went home.
Back on the roof, I was careful. Working with my father again was special and I savoured the time together. I hadn’t really wanted to get stuck on the farm, seeing what it had done to him, and his father before him. Farming was a rough business given everything that could go wrong, and I didn’t want that responsibility.
But maybe with Suzie, who had always said she would never leave, between us, we could make it work. Especially if we adopted an idea I had read about back in the city. Time would tell.
Suzie, and Samantha, a farm girl herself, came back from the northern paddocks where we had cattle; and she had been taking feed for them because the grass was getting a little thin after a prolonged dry period.
Then they brought lunch to us, sitting at the table where we’d often have a BBQ Saturday night and inviting the neighbours over. Sam sat next to me and it didn’t go unnoticed. Suzie was pleased but didn’t state the obvious.
I thought that was the moment to tell them my plan for the future. I also knew that from this point on things were only going to get worse, my father getting ill, the drought, Walter, and my departure all compounding onto the terrible end to everything I knew and cared about.
“I have an idea which as some of you know can be a bad thing, but thus might be another string in the bow for the farm. I read a while back that one of the schools back east was considering introducing a farm stay for their students, say for a week or fortnight to get a feel for what happened, other than believing all food came from a supermarket.
“I thought about a dozen bunkhouses down by the river with a mess hall, classrooms, and stables would make that a reality. You know how many schools there are, and we have everything right here. Just think about it. It could become a very good income stream.”
Suzie looked surprised. “You thought of that all by yourself?”
“I am capable of thinking, you know.”
“It’s a good idea. Dad, what do you think?”
“It will cost money we don’t have.” The man was ever practical, quite often the devil’s advocate.
“Then what if I get a journalist to come down and go through the plan, show him everything, and get him to sell it for you. At least it will gauge reaction, and if it’s positive…”
“One of your cronies?” Suzie asked.
“He’s a good journalist and he owes me a favour. I’ll call him later.”
Dad shrugged. To him, it was about the money. Not the idea, which was sound and would work, if there was a market. Secretly I think he was pleased with me, trying to find ways to keep the farm.
The day ended on a date and perhaps for the first time in a long time, I felt content. I had, in my imagination, corrected everything that had gone wrong in my life, and just before I fell asleep, I wished that it could go on forever.
…
I felt a hand roughly shaking me by the shoulder, and a voice in the background saying rather loudly, “David, David, wake up, wake up.”
I put my hand out to grasp the hand that was shaking me while trying to open my eyes and wake from, well, I had no idea what it was.
It felt like I was drowning.
Then, eyes open I was staring directly at Samantha’s face. Only she was 30 years older than the last time I saw her.
“Sam?’
“David. Oh God, I thought I’d lost you. She leaned down and kissed me then hugged me which was difficult.
I was in a hospital bed with cables and tubes everywhere.
“What…”
“You’ve been in a coma. You hit your head on the sidewalk and one minute you were fine, the next, we didn’t know if you were going to live or die.”
My other hand was being held and I looked over to see Suzie equally as concerned.
“Suzie? Why are you here? You live in Tuscany?”
She looked blankly at me as if I was mad. “Where did that come from? I came up from the farm the moment Sam told me what happened. Some second honeymoon you two are having.”
“What? This is all wrong. None of this is real.”
I was back in another nightmare where I was being tormented by the same two protagonists as in the last. But why were they here and what was this second honeymoon business.
Samantha looked concerned, perhaps a little scared. I was too because it seemed I was not back in the ambulance on my to the hospital for other reasons. And that life didn’t have either Suzie or Samantha in it.
Suzie came into view. “You should not be overly worried if none of this is familiar to you. We were told by the doctor that you might have difficulty remembering anything, but that wouldn’t last forever. So, a quick recap may or may not help. You’ve been married to Sam for thirty years, and you have three children, not here of course, I’m now running the farm, that was a great idea of yours and it’s all we do these days, Mom and Dad retired to Florida like they always intended, and you and Sam work with me.”
“Walter?”
“He was arrested and charged with murder. God, that was a bullet dodged. That was your diligence too, David, and I cannot thank you enough.”
“How long have I been out of it then?”
“About a month. We’ve been rather frantic I can tell you.”
A coma? It had seemed very real to me.
The problem was my life had been nothing like this one, but coincidentally it was the one I had always wanted and had dreamed of often. It wasn’t possible I could have gone back in time, so what really happened?
Suddenly around me, alarms were going off and there was a sudden movement of people coming into the room. One minute I was conscious, the next I found myself in a white room, sitting at a table with a bearded man.
St Peter at the pearly gates? Was I dying?
“David, David, David.” His tone had just the right amount of disapproval and, what was it, disappointment. “You are given a second chance and you’re not grasping it with both hands.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s been your problem all your life, looking for meaning in something that just is. Are you going to stop procrastinating, and just go back and live your life, the life you have been given? You do not want to miss out on being a grandfather, do you? To go back, a simple yes or no will suffice.”
I didn’t want to think what a no might do, so it had to be a yes. I had no idea what was happening to me, but it was the life I always wanted, to be with Samantha, and have my sister back to her old self again. Whether or not I had intervened, and made it so, was moot. I had hit my head, and basically, everything in it was scrambled anyway.
“Yes.”
“Good. Now don’t come back, not until it’s your time.”
…
There was relief written all over the faces in that room, of the doctors, the nurses, a dozen other spectators, and the two who mattered the most to me. Samantha was holding my hand and I squeezed it, and moments later, opened my eyes. Perhaps I was still dazzled by the white room, but I could have easily confused her with an angel.
“You’re back.”
“Did I go somewhere?” Did she know what had been happening to me?
“I think it might have been that place just before you leave this mortal earth. You weren’t dead, but I think it was touch and go. I’m glad you came back. Our life together is not over yet, and there are so many experiences we have to look forward to.”
“Like being grandparents?”
“How do you know that? I only just got a text message not five minutes ago.”
“I have connections. Don’t worry. I’m back now, and I’m not going anywhere. I think what happened to me was the universe telling me not to be an ass. I’m sure I did something wrong.”
“Well, you’re right about being an ass, but we all have our quirks. We’re together now, as it should be.”
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 