The Man Who Sang For The King

THE OPENING SCENE

1st April 1923 Melbourne Australia

Frank A Dennie entered the editorial office. He had an appointment to see me, at the time a lowly journalist on the local newspaper. He must have turned heads when he’d walked down the street, not only because of the warmth of that day, but as I recollect, he was wearing a dapper three-piece suit in a muted brown check the likes of which I’d never seen before, complete with contrasting gaiters that covered his brightly polished shoes. When Frank was shown to my corner desk, I rose to greet him with my out stretched arm. Instinctively with one hand he removed from his head his crumpled felt hat while simultaneously with the other firmly gripping my hand.

The Royal Southern Singers were a black jazz assemble that had newly arrived to tour Australia. Tonight, was their first concert as an assemble at the Tivoli Theatre downtown and I was interviewing one of the quartet. Looking at this now seated man, he didn’t look particular black to me. Sure, there was something but if anyone had asked me, I’d have said that this man was more Chinese than negro. His skin for a start was white, as white as mine, and also his hair was practically straight, perhaps with a slight wave. He’d heard these people could now straighten their hair. If it had been it was good. But the thing that really stood out to the seasoned reporter was Frank’s eyes, they looked almost oriental. That’s one type of race now quite common in these parts, there was no mistaking the eyes.

“So, you’re a negro band?” I asked.
Dennie instantly smiled broadly “Yes we are.”
“You don’t look black, if I may say so?”
“My father was born with lighter skin as was I, but his parents and my mother I can assure you were definitely black.”

I looked down slightly in embarrassment pretending to read my scant notes, quickly changing the subject, “Your band has just started a tour of the Australia Tivoli circuit?”
“Yes, our ship docked in February.”
“Oh, a while back then, what have you been doing in these last few months?”
“As it was some time before we were officially booked anywhere as a group, I’ve been keeping myself busy, just last month I played at a benefit concert for old soldiers that had served in France at the Front.”

“How admirable, did you serve yourself?” said the reporter sceptically.
“Sure did, I served with the ‘Old Eighth’, the 370th American Infantry during the war.”
“So, you were on the Front line yourself?”
“Sometimes, but mainly we entertained recuperating troops.”
“Playing jazz?”
“Yes, that’s right. I guess the jazz we played was probably the first that many had heard.”

“Do you think Australia is ready now for jazz? Is that why it took you so long before getting bookings?”
“I think Australia is ready, you closely follow the European trends. Anyway, we didn’t come here on spec, we were booked already on the Tivoli circuit before we set sail from England to perform around your beautiful country, but of course as we had no way of knowing exactly when we would arrive, we played safe and didn’t book ourselves anything too early. Tonight, is our first performance here.”

“Well I’m sure all our readers will wish you every success.” Consulting my notes to refresh my memory. “One thing I must ask you about, is when the band sang for Britain’s King George V.”
“Oh yes, the band was ‘commanded’ to sing before His Majesty. Robert Wilson, Joseph Covington, Crescent Rosemond and I were just the Southern Singers then, when we were honoured to perform before him at Buckingham Palace, afterwards he personally granted us the use of the title Royal, so that’s how we became the Royal Southern Singers.”
“Oh, I see, which Royalty were there?”
“King George and most of his royal family, but the most unusual thing was the number of children who had been invited to hear us from palaces for miles around.”
“What did you sing?”
“Mainly a melange of negro melodies.”
“Oh, what does that sound like?”
“Well they were mostly old-time negro songs.”
Referring to my notes again.
“I’m told something unusual happened at the end of the show?”
“I don’t know how unusual it was, but the King spoke right out loud directly to me saying he’d expected to hear ‘Hitchy Koo,’ which he’d apparently had never heard.”
“You played that song for His Majesty?”
“That was the thing, we couldn’t. The band didn’t know it.”
“So, what happened?”
“It was complete luck, a young man who had been sitting in the audience stepped forward and offered to play the song on the piano for the King …”

The Boarding School

PROLOGUE

There was an almighty thud that hit the windscreen turning the white wintery light for a second into temporary darkness before completely shattering the glass into a thousand irregular sharp pieces that filled the front well of the car.

The car had lurched suddenly to a stop as it had hit the scaffolding lorry that had been quite a few paces in front. Not that there had been any real speed involved, but the icy road had made braking in time to avoid impact quite impossible.

Metal tubes had broken free at the moment of impact, breaking through the car’s windscreen seconds after. Both vehicles were now completely stationary. In what seemed seconds two men jumped from the lorry similarly dressed in thick gnarled sweaters under leather jerkins and walked back to inspect the damage. Soon they were peering through the gaping hole that their poles had just created, hurriedly with all their strength pulling back the steel tubes that had short back.

“Call an ambulance Joe, this woman is in a bad way.”

Walking back along the frozen road, the almost lunar landscape all around him revealed only what seemed to be endless agricultural fields until he suddenly saw in the distance a larger building set well back from the road by a broad drive.

Picking up his feet to run, he soon was panting badly; he thought to himself that he must stop smoking so much. Soon he neared the driveway marked on either side by stone pillars supporting wrought iron gates propped back. He paused briefly to try and read a weather damaged faded sign before giving up and dashing up the pebbled drive. When he reached the top, the trees suddenly revealed a smoky looking late Victorian façade immediately in front of him. He approached the black panelled front door, not seeing any sign of a bell push, he started hammering on the metal knocker, before in blind panic resorting to pummelling the black panelling for good measure.

In seconds the door opened to reveal a startled middle-aged man wearing a shabby tartan dressing gown and pyjamas trousers poking out the bottom.

“Can I use your telephone Guvnor … there’s been a pileup … a bad one in the snow?”

 

CHAPTER ONE

As a young child my mother had decided that the best place for an impressionable boy was to start his proper education at a boarding school. Not because I was at all bad, but because my mother who had been divorced some years earlier thought that raising a male infant without any form of male influence at home was not going to make me grow up as much of a man.

So just before my seventh birthday I was packed off to school. Not to far for my mother to visit me but quite far enough away for me not to walk home. I had never been anywhere for very long without my family, so the prospect of going to school filled me with certain dread of what I may find there.

I remember our car then, a gleaming grey shooting brake with a timber framed structure enclosing the rear that you rarely see now, but quite big enough for my regulation boarder’s trunk to snugly fit inside; just, with the rear seat folded down.

For one of the first times since the outing to the recommended clothing shop, I was fully dressed on the doorstep in my new school uniform. Navy peaked cap on my head over a matching navy blue blazer both brightly trimmed in gold material at the edges and adorned prominently with the embroidered school’s crest.

The strangest part of my new uniform however was my brown corduroy shorts that almost touched my knee, and just below these the below the knee height grey woollen socks over polished brown leather sandals that did up with a T shaped strap and buckle at each side.

When my grandmother came out and saw me, I could clearly see a tear in the corner of her eye. We were close us two, as my mother was the only bread winner working long hours during the day and leaving me often for the most part in grannie’s capable trusty care.

A kindly gent, a neighbour from next door with a military style white handlebar moustache was trying to keep his battered Fedora straw hat on his head while helping my mother manhandle my truck into our boot. When he finally closed the lid, he raised his hat up briefly in salute before quickly retreating back into his own front door.

James Patterson Short Story Writing Competition Entry 2017 “BEYOND!”

The water ran down the window in rivulets. Outside the weather had turned. It was late autumn and apart from the days drawing in, many days were grey and sunless.

He was looking out of the window, looking straight ahead. Unpredictably something moved his head, or an arm, his body or leg. Charlie had to rely on others to move. By himself he was helpless, paralysed. Others often twitched him; I suppose to make certain every joint moved, and at other times he was left motionless. This was his life.

Suddenly he saw something, a person beyond the fence. He had paused for some reason while walking past. The man appeared at first to glance back, but then immediately looked down as if he had lost something. He bent down. Maybe he was going to tie his shoelace but no, he appeared to be patting something that he couldn’t see. Maybe a small child, he could only guess.

The man suddenly moved on and for an instant he had a clear view. It was a small dog that briefly sniffed the railings of the wrought iron gate before disappearing out of view again, hidden by another clump of turf.

Instantly he felt sorry for the poor animal, out in the rain, he certainly wouldn’t like it himself. But he supposed the dog was used to such inclement weather, this was probably just normal to him, a part of his daily life.

He hadn’t seen the man before. Must be new to the village. Over the years Charlie had met most people, often at village fetes or sometimes in the church hall. The children were always the kindest to him. He loved to bring joy to their little faces and hear their shrieks of laughter. These were his best times, he was an entertainer at heart, he lived for these moments, this was everything for him.

Suddenly he was faced into the room behind, he could no longer see outside or see the man walking his dog. He wouldn’t forget them though. Their image was now burnt into his mind. The interior of the room that he could now see dimly was dark and traditional, intricate hand-woven tapestries hung on the wall and large oriental kilims covered most of the floor, except for broad polished dark floorboards poking out at the room’s edge, completing the look was carefully positioned heavy antique furniture.

His eyes were not yet accustomed to the darkness and it took several seconds to fully acclimatise to his new surroundings. Then he suddenly started to animate, he had an unexpected visitor. Charlie could now see a small girl in front of him on the sofa wearing a pink dress. His arms started to move, his body quivered, this was what he lived for …

 

George had not lived in the village long. He had moved down from London shortly after Ruth had died. He couldn’t bear their old house any more. Too many memories of their life together, he just had to get away. A clean break was what was needed, and the country beckoned. This was now his new life.

He had settled in a quintessential English village with a collection of pretty houses and cottages of several ages and styles built over hundreds of years. Idyllic really.

Of course Rusty his dog loved the country. He loved his new walks, the fresh air, he was always eager to accompany his master, to explore and mark his territory. It was only the village shop he didn’t really like going to. There he was always tied up securely outside, attached to a heavy metal post by the entrance. Rusty always hated this. Forbidden to enter the shop. When outside he was always being tantalised, because the smell of food inside would constantly waft through the open door; propped open in the warmer days and despite there being no smells when the door was closed, forced to crouch patiently on the cold ground outside. No, this was not his favourite place at all. What Rusty really loved was walking freely in the countryside, where he discovered he was constantly being confronted by oodles of new exciting smells.

George as now was his morning habit, was about to take his dog for his usual walk along the country lanes surrounding his cottage. Rusty was predictably already very excited, bursting with eagerness to go outside, clawing relentlessly at his owner’s trousered leg as he tried to attach around the dog’s neck his well seasoned collar. Finally ready, the pair were soon bouncing down the garden path. The inclement weather didn’t seem to matter to either. They had now walked the same route many times before. So many times in fact, they could have walked it almost blindfolded. Today for a change George decided that he was going to try a different route, passing houses in the village where they didn’t normally go. After a while when they were passing an old rundown Georgian house something caught his eye. He suddenly saw a strange luminous figure peering out at them from a window of the house as they were passing it.

He couldn’t see too clearly, but it looked like a boy or a short man was starring out at them. This person seemed almost motionless, close to the window inside the house and behind almost transparent net curtains not completely drawn across. George couldn’t make out really any distinguishing features, but even from this distance he felt the person’s intense stare, which seemed to follow them as they slowly crossed the house’s ample frontage. The lawn and flowerbeds between them looked unkempt, and the house clearly was in need of some redecoration. As he arrived at the open grid gate, the persistent drizzle paused briefly giving him a brief and better view of the figure in the window observing them. A cold chill inexplicably ran down his back. The features of the little man that he could see suddenly unnerved him. Immediately crouching down towards the ground, he dragged the dog’s collar forward a little; soon the pair had moved off down the road and out of sight of the intimidating stare. This brief encounter for some reason remained in his mind unnerving him all day and in subsequent weeks he avoided taking the same route again…

 

Months later, in the middle of a glorious summer, George and his dog walked along the main road into the heart of the village. It was now a hot sunny day, the air felt thick, sweet and warm, and the grass all around them had a dry parched appearance having lost most of its green lustre. He firmly clutched a small flyer in one hand and his dog’s lead in the other. Rusty was constantly dragging him ahead, excited so he thought to be going somewhere new. This was their first complete summer in the village and they had no idea of what to expect, particularly as the village was today unusually lively.

In the centre of the village was a large green space surrounded by various houses on three sides. The road ran along the fourth perimeter closing the rectangle. At the weekend in the summer months, cricket was normally gently played often by players dressed in grass stained whites, but today the space was filled with colourful marquees and trestle table stalls, there was an ever present hum of activity and people’s chatter.

The pair wandered around almost aimlessly, looking at the produce on offer, even trying their hand at many of the novelty stalls; trying to win one of the many prizes going. Many stalls offered traditional games like throwing round wooden rings over pegs set in the ground, and with both hands firmly behind your back dunking for bobbing toffee covered apples floating in a large wooden tub of water.

Then they went into one of the marquees. Inside it smelt strongly of the enclosed grass floor. In front of them were many young children looking eagerly upwards at a little black-framed stage. They were watching a show and every few seconds shrieking with laughter.

No soon had they started watching the show, then they became distracted by a gloved white hand waiving vigorously at them from the stage, as if greeting the new arrivals as they entered like old friends.

Rusty quite unusually for him started to growl when he caught sight of what was happening on stage.

George could not believe what he was seeing. There in front of him high up on the stage was the little man that he had been so fearful of and had kept his distance from all this time, but this person had not been really alive at all, he now realised. The strings attached to his arms, legs and head gave it away. He was looking at a puppet!

Above the stage was a hand painted sign “Charlie and Friends.”

James Patterson Short Story Writing Competition Entry 2017 “A note on the ground.”

The wind howled making the window rattle in its frame, Jennifer looked out at the rain sodden ground. It was not raining now.

Suddenly her eye caught a white paper something flying in the air, looked like a letter but it was difficult to tell. It landed on her patio the wind occasionally moving it in little swirls.

After watching it a few minutes from her window, curiosity suddenly got the better of her. It was probably nothing; a shopping list or something like that but she had to just know.

Opening her back door half ajar. The wind hit her body, going straight through her lacy cardigan; touching her skin below causing her to tightly wrap her arms around herself as she walked towards the note on the ground.

Jennifer found herself needing to skip across the paving slabs to just catch up with the slip of paper.

Finally she put a hand around it and brought it close to her chest before turning around and retreating back to the warm inside.

Pushing her hair away from her eyes, she peered at the blue ink on the letter writing paper. The handwriting was terrible, many larger spider loops and some words that looked like wiggly lines. Then she looked at the printed embossed address at the top.

The address was her next-door neighbour, not too surprising really, obviously it had blown over from there.

Her first reaction was simply to return the note. She hardly knew the man that now lived there but she had heard, when he moved in from chatty neighbour Christine, that he was a doctor and also he’d recently been made a widower.

Pulling her grey tweed coat off its peg in the hall, half-putting it on before suddenly thinking that maybe she should first check if this letter was of any real consequence at all or not.

Her eyes skimmed the handwriting. Suddenly she felt she needed to sit down even though this was awkward with her coat now half around her. She sat smartly down on a nearby chair.

She couldn’t really believe what she was now reading, maybe this note had been meant for her all along. His first few words referred to a neighbour living next door. There was no name but there was no reason on earth he would actually know a name anyway. The letter simply said he had seen her coming and going for some time next door and as he put it ‘liked what he saw.’ Would she consider having dinner with him one evening?

Jennifer was stunned, a man; her neighbour in fact was asking her out. She racked her brains to visualise what he looked like, she just about remembered seeing a tall slender even distinguished looking grey haired man pass along his front path. She didn’t recall him ever really looking at her, girls naturally usually have a sense for these things.

Her first reaction was ‘no way,’ what would happen if the encounter went wrong resulting in an uncomfortable standoff between them. Then she thought, did it really matter much, they had never spoken to each other before.

§

In the near darkness, near midnight later that week, a woman struggles to bury a body on rough ground in a shallow grave. She was still dressed in the same pretty cocktail dress and high heels, which was making it difficult to walk on the uneven ground and also dig. Her friend similarly dressed stood back still feeling dizzy; holding her head as she watched proceedings intently.

They had arranged to meet in a local restaurant that John the next-door neighbour knew. When her friend Christine had found out she said she would come along to make sure everything was all right. This was enough to reassure Jennifer to accept this blind-date invitation. Christine had surprisingly offered to drive her to the restaurant and even stay for dinner herself should he not show up, but when she saw John waiting for Jennifer at the table he had booked, she left immediately and went back to sit in her car. She was going to drive straight home, but as she was about to turn the ignition key something inside made her stop and stay in the darkness watching.

After forty minutes she observed two familiar people leaving the restaurant, it looked though for some reason that the man was supporting Jennifer as she walked to his car outside. When they both arrived, Christine was alarmed when she saw the man clumsily put the woman on her back flat across his rear seat before getting into the front himself and immediately driving away.

Christine started her car and followed from a safe distance as they left. After a few miles John’s car turned off the road and into a dense wood through a wide track with tall trees on each side. Parking her car at the end of the road Christine followed on foot, arriving just in time to see John climb out of his driver’s seat, walk around and open the rear passenger’s door wide, before leaning in and running a hand up one of the still unconscious body’s legs.

Instinctively she knew she had to stop him. From somewhere she finds a cut off short branch on the ground in the clearing, grabbing this she silently approaches the car, going behind the prone man now with his lowered trousers around his legs.

THUD, she strikes him decisively on the back of his head. The man immediately slumps down right on top of Jennifer with a slight groan. Opening the opposite side rear door next to her head, Christine pulls her friend straight out of the car and onto her feet. The cooler night air makes Jennifer start to regain consciousness; she suddenly asks what’s happening.

§

Later in the early morning, both women sat in Jennifer’s sitting room clutching steamy mugs of tea in their hands. Jennifer was now feeling more like her old self, but her memories of much of the previous evening were decidedly sketchy. Asking her companion, what had happened to her, Christine explained that she had been drugged and was lucky to be rescued in time.

“How did you know to wait and watch us?” she asked immediately.

Looking down at her still mud splattered feet, “He’s done this sort of thing before.”

“You are not the first woman he’s asked out in a similar way. A year ago it also happened to me, but I was never really sure what happened. When I woke up, fully dressed in my bed I was suspicious of course, but I could never be certain.”

“When you told me you had a date with the same man, this was my chance to observe him at close quarters, and for you I’m glad I did.”

“Now we have a problem, I’ve killed a man and got rid of the evidence, under the law you are as guilty as me.”

Forbidden love

(A vignette into the initial chapter)

CHAPTER ONE

They sat opposite each other across the kitchen table, which had been so familiar to the young woman as she had grown up in this ramshackle house. She was constantly flicking her long brunette hair while she listened quietly to what her silver haired mother was saying in a low impassionate voice. She thought subconsciously of the years she had sat in the same place, first as a toddler in a battered high chair, then as a nervous school girl in her worsted grey blazer with a tartan skirt which she knew when safely on the school bus she would roll up at the waist to show more of her snowy white spindly legs. All her friends did it. It was a rite of passage.

Her mother paused; she had not got to the point yet. This mother daughter chat was not working very well. Then she dropped the hint of the bombshell she was to deliver later. She had known Paul’s father years ago. What a coincidence thought Lynda, suddenly now paying more attention. Then what she heard she wished she had not. They had been girlfriend and boyfriend before she had met her father. The room rotated in blurred vision now. Lynda felt herself gripping the table for support as the words “I was pregnant” were uttered by the ashen faced mother. She had a brother somewhere, Lynda thought, in those days adopted for sure. Her mother continued but what she was saying was incoherent. Lynda asked, “What do you mean”. Finally the mother tired spat it out. The secret of her life. The secret she thought she would never need to tell, but for some reason God was punishing her for her past. A transgression that was never meant to happen but it did.

“I never told your father.” “Told him what?” said Lynda. “You were not his child.” Suddenly the penny dropped. “That is why you cannot marry Paul, he’s your half brother.”

Deep regrets

(The opening paragraphs of the first chapter)

Leticia closed her eyes, cupping them with her hands to hide the tears now welling up inside her. The telegram she had just read had been her deepest nightmare, in reality she had always known that this moment could happen at any time and was even a distinct possibility, but like most young people she just put it out of her head. This after all was a country at war, death and horrid injury was all around her.

In seconds the reality sunk in, it had now happen to her. She was instinctively fearful, believing that the man she loved more than anything would almost certainly never be the same man again. Rising from her chair with the now crumbled paper still in her damp hand she walked cautiously down the drab and chipped painted corridor towards the line of telephone booths.

Entering one and lifting its black Bakelite receiver she waited a full five seconds before the station operation came online and spoke crisply, “Number please caller?” Leticia held back her nearly overpowering emotions and asked for an outside line and to be connected to the burns ward at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead. The operator didn’t need to ask for the number.

After she had spoked to the ward sister, Alex seemed to be even more badly injured than she had feared. He had been her first serious love, they planned to marry when the war was finally over, now he had been shot down and the news was not good. They had met on the first day of both being posted to Catterick’s 41 Squadron on the North Eastern coast. He was an RAF Spitfire P/O and she a WAAF. For her it had pretty much been love at first sight; tall dashing and blond. Just looking at him made her feel weak at the knees. Normal reticence was as for many couples soon put aside, everyone was acutely aware that this could be their very last moments. It was not long before they became a couple in every way. Catterick was where Leticia received the awful news.

Barely had a moment passed after putting the receiver down, before her body became strangely weak, engulfed in a mixture of panic and fear. Her mouth became dry and bitter, and she felt completely dizzy and unable to walk, needing to prop herself up in the cubical for several minutes until the sensation passed. She could not help it, selfish thoughts kept passing through her mind. She contemplate the immediate consequences of what she now knew. The thought of devoting the rest of her life to be with what remained of the man she had loved so much and now would likely never be the same.

She was still too young, she kept thinking, to deliberately bury herself and forgo all their collective dreams. They had planned to return to his native New Zealand homeland together after the war and take off his elderly parent’s hands their family’s now run down sheep ranch, working it together as he had promised and talked endlessly about and been the subject of their collective dreams………..

 

 

SYNOPSIS

(Please be warned this summary reveals much of the novel’s plot)

A woman joins the WAAF on the outbreak of WW2 as soon as she is old enough to enlist and quickly rises through the ranks to run the catering in the officer’s mess hall for the fighter pilots stationed on an airfield. She became romantically involved with a young airman whose aircraft was later shot down in the final days of the war and was horribly burnt when his aircraft caught fire and he later died. She found herself unable to visit him because of his appalling injuries, something she could never forgive herself for. The pilot was a New Zealander and they had talked about marrying after the war and returning there to run his family’s sheep farm. To make up for how she had behaved towards him the woman decided to devote the rest of her life to caring for others. Subsequently after the war had finished and she was discharged, she then wanted to become a doctor, but she was denied the possibility of being trained because her family felt unable to afford to spend their limited savings on a girl’s education, who they considered would more than likely soon get married and be primarily supported by her husband. The woman therefore settled for second best and became a nurse. Characteristically quickly rising through the ranks to become a hospital matron.

Driven out

(The opening paragraphs of the first chapter)

Gazing quite bored, as the time passed, at the black dials with their small white painted fluorescent markings set deeply into the sun marked black vinyl dashboard. The windows of the parked car were gradually steaming up with condensation due to our combined breathing, Ian’s mobile telephone suddenly rang loudly making us both jump for a split second.

We had been waiting nervously in the car nearly an hour now for our solicitor’s call to say that we had finally completed on the purchase. We are buying our first home together. Not that we have not been living together before now.

I’m Samantha and I have been living ‘in sin’ as they say with Ian in his old shared rented flat for some time now. Like most young people we had to wait and save hard until we had the deposit together on this our first place together. This took us well over a year after we had finally got married, and this step was only really possible because of financial help from both of our parents.

Ian started the engine and the car moved off from where we had been parked. We drove straight down the road before turned the corner into the next adjacent road that we came to. We then negotiated a cul-de-sac where our new home was situated. Ian’s colleague from work Max, driving a rented white box van, was already parked up next to the curb outside the new house waiting for our arrival with the all important keys, so that we could gain entry.

Suddenly seeing the van parked, Ian came to an almost abrupt stop in the middle of the road, level with the driver’s door of the van and immediately signalled through the window to the check-shirted driver announcing our arrival. Max reciprocated with a broad grin and quickly climbed out of the van to talk to us on the pavement.

“Do you have the keys mate?” said Max eyeing me moving towards him.

I had just got out of the passenger seat to join the two men already conversing.

“Yes, there here,” said Ian waving a bunch of keys displaying the estate agents distinctive logo fob under Max’s nose.

Soon the two men where making multiple crocodile journeys back and forth to the house carrying large reused cardboard boxes containing our meagre possessions. I carried the most delicate things, table lamps for example with there bases wrapped in protective bubble wrap and their shades still on, barely covered and somewhat exposed, one in each hand.

After a few hours we were all done, except for the unpacking to come that finally took us several weeks to really finish. We thanked Max, and Ian pressed some folded notes into his hand for his help before the box-van departed the close and was soon out of sight around the corner of the road.

 

SOME MONTHS LATER

We woke up abruptly to tremendous banging through the wall and the sound of constant scrapping behind our bed. Looking at the nearby alarm clock it was barely seven o’clock in the morning. What was going on?

Our alarm clock still hadn’t even rang, we had been sound asleep until we heard the sound next door, but now we were both fully awake.

It suddenly dawned on us what the sound was. Our next-door neighbour, that we hardly even knew was already drilling on the other side of our bedroom wall. We hadn’t ever really seen the couple living next door since we’d moved in. Not to talk to anyway, just an occasional friendly wave from us across the garden fences, not that we had ever saw a reciprocal gesture back. Now we were beginning to realise why.

 

 

SYNOPSIS

(Please be warned this summary reveals much of the novel’s plot)

A young couple buy their first home together; a semi detached house outside a small town. Within weeks of moving in and redecorating, the next door neighbours start redecorating themselves; constantly banging and scrapping on the walls at all times of the day and night. This activity does not go on just for a few weeks but for many months continually. Their house becomes excessively dusty inside and cracks appear on many wall because of all next door’s drilling and sanding. The young couple are finally in complete despair and decide to confront the their next-door neighbours to stop and allow them some peace and quiet. On the doorstep they are surprisingly welcomed in and then persuaded to participate into having their house’s exterior painted at the same time as their neighbour was planning to do theirs. Soon the house was clad in scaffolding poles and boards with plastic sheeting screening every view from all the window for months at an end while the man next door painted both houses by himself. The young couple had had enough by now and and decided to sell up and move, but every prospective buyer that came to see the house was put off the property by the building works going on. The estate agent advises them to reduce the price substantially for a quick sale. Much to their surprise it is suddenly then sold very quickly and it was only when they were moving their processions out did they realise that the wife’s mother of the couple next door was buying their old house and they had been purposely driven out of their home so that the mother-in-law could buy it cheaply.

Envy destroys the soul

(The opening paragraphs of the first chapter)

London, England 2006

Helen could not sleep; she started to think about Rupert. For years she had liked him, but there had never been any reciprocation. This was not surprising, Rupert was her boss although only a few years older than her. Unmarried, seemingly unattached, never seemed to date much or have any close friends either male or female. His only outings seemed to be with clients in the local pubs and restaurants. It was not that Rupert didn’t want close friends but he never made the time because basically he was wedded to his work, his business that he had grown from basically nothing to now supporting a dozen people. Helen had joined the company five years ago straight from University knowing next to nothing at all about the business. She had been however a fast learner and as more senior people left, usually poached, for employment elsewhere, she had risen the ranks to become now Rupert’s manager. Not that she was really in charge of the company as Rupert brought in most of the work himself and as a rule always keep client contacts close to his chest. Therefore her role was really to help Rupert in anyway she could. Helen decided that Rupert needed a holiday.

A few days later Helen broached the subject. Rupert raised his eyebrows and made some comment that they were trying to get rid of him.

“No nothing like that,” remonstrated Helen, “we are just thinking of you.”

Rupert looked up from his desk and the mountain of paperwork he had been working through. “Yes you are right, I need a break away.”

Helen was relieved that Rupert had seen that she was only trying to help. Rupert mentioned several places relatively close near London, but Helen knew his usual ploy of only going away near enough to the office so that he could return if necessary.

“How about Cornwall?” suggested Helen.

“I don’t really know anywhere there,” said Rupert.

“I can suggest St Mawes on the south coast near Falmouth, I know a beautiful hotel there.”

There was a long pause while Rupert thought. In the back of his mind was a dilemma, he didn’t want to stay in a hotel on holiday alone and now he had essentially lost contact with nearly all of his friends. For years he had had a one-track mind, work, work, work essentially. An aunt had left Rupert in her will quite a bit of money, this had enable him to set up this business, but it had won him few friends with many in his family who begrudged being excluded from the will. Many in the family no longer talked to him as if it was his fault. This is why he could not fail in business, he worked tirelessly every day quite often late at night and over the weekend to satisfy the often unreasonable demands of many of his clients.

Rupert opened his leather bound address book. The entries were made in pencil so that they could be changed easily. He dialled a few numbers, left messages on their answerphone machines, and in a few cases spoke to people surprised to hear from him. They were surprised to hear from Rupert because he had disappeared off the radar for all intents and purposes years ago. Most friends knew that he was running a technology business in the West End but apart from that they had not stayed in touch. Rupert was however now inviting them for a long weekend away with him in Cornwall; his treat, his way of saying sorry for not keeping in touch over the years. Within a few hours Rupert had four old friends committed to coming away with him over the Easter bank holiday. Two couples and an old school friend who he had stopped seeing a while ago because he had never got on well with his former girlfriend. It was all planned.

 

Early in the morning

A loud thud was heard as the car skidded off the narrow road through bleached wooden lattice farm fencing a few miles away from the waterside St Just’s church situated in a semi-tropical garden on the Roseland Peninsula. The car’s rapid loss of control in the unlit darkness of the narrow road was due to a fresh and substantial deposit of agricultural mud, which had caused the road on the sharp bend to become uncontrollably slippery. The young man driving the car was almost immediately knocked unconscious when the car came to an abrupt halt against a spindly tree on the edge of the grazing meadow. Lights went on in the neighbouring farmhouse a few hundred yards away and soon the farmer and his family in tow appeared in their nightclothes to see if they could assist. An ambulance was called for from Truro; being night time the King Harry Ferry was not operating making it impossible for an ambulance from the geographically nearer Falmouth hospital to negotiate the Fal River. The Truro ambulance had a longer eight mile journey but with little traffic in the early hours of the morning it arrived fairly quickly. The paramedics assessed the situation quickly and stretchered the patient strapped onto a spinal board into their waiting ambulance for the return journey to Truro hospital…

 

Later that same day

Helen rested her head in her hands; she was not sure what to do now. She had just received a telephone call from the Truro police and the news was not good, in fact quite devastating. She half blamed herself for persuading Rupert to go, but then on the other hand the police had mentioned to her that they suspected him of speeding along the narrow country roads to try to make up time.

Typical of him she thought to finish everything on his desk before setting off and then speeding to make up the time. The police had said Rupert was completely unconscious and that the doctors had told them it was still unclear whether he would regain consciousness again and if he did what state he may be left in.

Helen decided to say nothing to anyone yet. Business would go on, clients were booked in for several weeks to come. Things should be fine.

The Architect

(Sample first chapter)

CHAPTER ONE

Near Midnight, London 1983

The architect was lying in bed. He had already been asleep for some while after a particularly long and tiring day. He woke because he could now hear voices directly below his bedroom window. Loud, annoying, arguing voices, a man’s and a woman’s distinctive voices. They didn’t just pass by as he hoped; they were now just standing below and outside his house. He at first tried curling his pillow around his ears in an attempt to deafen the sound, it helped a little, but he could still hear these inconsiderate people. Suddenly he had enough, he leapt out of bed in the near darkness only punctuated by a nearby street lamp and then threw up the sash window that faced the street, “PLEASE WILL YOU BE QUIET,” he shouted out loudly.

There was suddenly complete silence, like he had turned off a switch. His eyes being still quite sleepy made it hard to focus properly to see if they had gone away. He crawled back into bed, pleased at his success. He had only slumbered a few minutes when he could hear the man again. Not so loud this time, but still just below his bedroom window. Then the woman started replying. From somewhere in his sleepy subconscious he thought he could recognise this second voice, the possibility; woke him up with a sudden start. He had really had enough by now. Pulling on his nearby tracksuit in the relative darkness, he bounded down the stairs and flung the front door wide open.

The architect was about to shout something to rid himself of these people disturbing his sleep, but almost instantly he recognised a person’s voice he knew. He immediately became quite stiff, defensive and strangely speechless, his mouth fell open but nothing came out of it.

He just looked in disbelief. It finally was the woman that spoke first, “It’s you John … I didn’t know you lived here.”

Anger then welled up inside the architect, “Thanks to you Ruth, I now do. Go away, leave me alone.” He closed the front door quickly; he really didn’t want to say any more to this person. He felt ill with the shock; his legs no longer seemed to hold him. He gradually slumped down behind the closed panelled door until he was actually kneeling behind it. After a minute or two he slowly stood up; an eye instinctively found and then looked through the small spyglass inserted in the front door. The people outside were not close; all he could really see was the distinctive shadows of two people in the distance. After seemingly a few minutes they moved away down the street towards the main road.

The next morning, there was a knock on the architect’s front door. John Peck lives towards the end of a predominantly Georgian road with properties on both sides in north London. At this part of the cul de sac there were also located a few shop premises. His house frontage ran close to the narrow pavement with a high walled garden to one side, which filled the gap in the building line, shielding what was over the other side of the wall from any passing prying eyes.

He was having his breakfast in the kitchen still dressed in his tee shirt and pyjama bottoms. When he heard the front door ring, he put down his toast and walked through the hall expecting it to be the postman with a parcel, but when he opened the front door he saw instead standing there what seemed to him a very young policeman. He thought immediately to himself the old adage; apparently one sign of getting older is that policemen start to look a lot younger.

The policeman seemed very efficient when he started talking, he said he was asking all the houses in the street whether they had seen or heard anything strange happening late last night. The policeman explained that they were asking all the local residents because a person had been found nearby.

Not imagining in a million years the policeman would be interested in what had happened to him last night, or even would be remotely concerned about his disturbed sleep, the architect didn’t mention the incident at all. He thought instead about telling someone in some authority about the seemingly constant plague of noisy diners using the nearby restaurant, but then he thought better of the idea, this policeman was not the right person to complain to at all.

Perhaps detecting from the conversation that the man was not telling him everything he knew, the policeman said he was not to concern himself unduly, but if he should remember anything later then he can always contact him at the police station. He handed over a business card before walking off down the road to knock on the door of the next house.

As he closed the door, thoughts came flooding back which left him feeling churned up inside again. He still felt strangely nervous when he remembered about the unexpected encounter he had had in the street; that had unfortunately brought back painful memories which had until now almost been forgotten.

The architect had a problem where he lived; the road outside day and night was now constantly blighted by having a popular restaurant along it. When he had been forced to downsize a few years ago, the parking situation had not been too bad. But then it all changed for the worse when they hired a chef that made a name for himself. He had many good write-ups and now the road in recent years seemed constantly under siege from many generally inconsiderate clientele who as often than not cause a nuisance trying to find somewhere to park. Annoyingly most of the surrounding properties with their well-kept gardens in the residential streets leading off this road seem relatively untouched by this parking problem despite being entirely similar late Georgian houses. The properties along his particular road always had been amongst the cheapest in the immediate area, that really was one of the main reasons he was able to afford it.

These days he just worked from home, gone was the time when he had an impressive office and employed people. The dispute with Ruth who he’d accidentally met on the street last night had changed all that. He had lost a lot of money fighting it and also his reputation. He had to downsize completely, fortunately he still had a few good loyal contacts in the building industry and they now ensured he was never really short of work, but that woman had changed everything for him and in many ways he had all been his fault.

Later that day, he popped out to buy the evening newspaper, as was his normal habit he would always read it from cover to cover. Hidden in a small paragraph towards the middle, amongst the more minor news stories, his eyes only really noticed it because they mentioned his road. There was an article concerning what the policeman had talked to him about this morning; an individual had been found nearby. He was surprised that it was already being mentioned in the press. It just really said; a person had been found by the roadside, no other details. Later that day, there was also a short and more shocking story on the local television news. It gave no specific details except the revelation that a woman had been found dead in suspicious circumstances quite near to where he lived.

John Peck was now very much a loner, this had happened since he had moved into the road. He didn’t want anyone to know about his past misfortune and judge him accordingly because of it. Therefore he kept himself to himself and said as little as possible. When he met a neighbour there was always a polite greeting but he never talked about himself, not even what he did. He just listened, over time he knew pretty much everything there was to know about his neighbours as a result. People in the road as a consequence invented a romanticised lifestyle for him, which he never confirmed or denied. He lived the part of the eccentric bachelor mainly because of the unusual colourful clothes he normally wore, the modern furniture people could see through his windows and even the bright colour of his front door.

He started to prepare his supper. On checking his larder he realised that he was totally out of onions, a vital ingredient for the dish he was making. Annoyed he would now have to face the gossipy woman in the corner shop again. A few minutes later whilst patiently queuing in the shop behind another customer before being served himself, he could not help but overhear the two women’s conversation in front. They were talking about the body that had been discovered nearby. He listened intently in case they knew any more than had been on the television news.

What he learnt was that the dead woman had apparently been a customer that night in the restaurant next door. The restaurant manager had told her in the utmost confidence when he had popped in earlier to buy cigarettes that the police had called him some hours before and intended to interview all his staff that had been in the restaurant that evening as soon as they arrived for work.