Taken at the Flood Read online

  TAKEN AT THE FLOOD

  By

  K.J.RABANE

  Copyrigh t© 2012 K.J.Rabane

  All rights reserved.

  Dedication.

  To my good friends at Tiny Writers.

  Acknowle dgements

  Thanks to everyone who listened to me, at Cardiff Writers’ Circle, at Tiny Writers, and to Steve at the Kymin.

  .

  This book is a work of fiction and therefore any resemblance to persons living or dead is merely coincidental.

  Dramatic lyrics by Robert Browning.

  Evelyn Hope

  Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!

  Sit and watch by her side an hour.

  That is her book-shelf, this her bed;

  She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,

  Beginning to die too, in the glass;

  Little has yet been changed, I think:

  The shutters are shut, no light may pass

  Save two long rays thro’ the hinge’s chink.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  She opens the package addressed to her and removes the journal. There is no doubt it’s from the Englishman, or that he posted the money through her letterbox earlier.

  Pushing stray strands of pale blonde hair behind her ears, she climbs the stairs to her room, takes the journal outside to the balcony, and places it on the rusty iron table. The autumn sun stokes her skin, as she smells the approach of winter in the crisp morning air spilling into the walled Tuscan town from the surrounding fields.

  It’s rare that she has time to herself and not attending to the needs of others. The last few months have been a nightmare. Her letters have remained unanswered. She has to know why and what has happened, waiting and wondering is driving her crazy.

  Picking up the journal, she opens it to the first page, somehow knowing that it will hold the answer to the question, which has troubled her to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps it will give her peace. It can’t be worse than living each day wondering. She takes a deep breath and begins to read.

  Chapter 1

  We were in Venice, Evelyn and I, eating pasta at a restaurant near the Rialto Bridge. We were in love. It was a perfect day. Sunlight dappled the water of the Grand Canal and my wife smiled contentedly. We got drunk on Chianti and toasted the rest of our life together, with the confidence of youth, certain that it would be a long one.

  “Stay here, wait for me, there’s something I need to do. I won’t be long – promise.”

  She leaned across the table, her short curly hair brushing my cheek. I smelled her perfume as her lips touched mine then watched her hips swaying enticingly as she walked up the steps to the bridge.

  Refilling my glass, I drank the wine whilst relaxing in the warmth of the mid-day sun, the sights and sounds of the Venetian landscape, an intoxicating mixture, as I waited for Evelyn to return. Below me gondoliers drifted past, their painted poles slicing through the silvered surface of the canal like knives through butter. I closed my eyes and sighed with contentment, as a tenor voice caught my attention. Squinting into the sun, I saw a colourfully decorated gondola slip into view as it passed under the bridge. Its shiny hull was painted black with red and gold flowers at intervals.

  Sitting in the prow were a young couple. The young man looked about my own age, the girl younger, twenty-ish, her head covered by a cream sun hat. As they passed below my seat, the girl removed her hat and I saw a glorious cascade of pale blonde hair fall to her shoulders. I opened my eyes wider, alert now. She was laughing at her companion and looked up at the restaurant at the same moment as I leaned forward from my seat. Our eyes met for the briefest of moments but it was enough to alter the course of my life.

  “Close your eyes, my darling.” Evelyn’s hands caught mine and I felt a small box thrust into my palm. “Now you can open them.”

  She waited expectantly.

  “What’s this?” I asked. “What have you been up to now?”

  She couldn’t contain her excitement. “Open it, hurry up!”

  I unwrapped the shiny gold paper to reveal a small black jeweller’s box. Inside lay a gold signet ring with my initials engraved on the front in high relief and inscribed in tiny letters inside the band were the words, Thank you E.

  I drew her on to my lap and kissed her.

  “Whatever for?” I asked.

  “For loving me,” she answered and kissed my mouth.

  Chapter 2

  My parents, who had supported me throughout my difficult teenage years filled with madcap ideas and inventions, did not live to see my computer business succeed. They were travelling to New York to spend Christmas with my brother and his wife. I dropped them off at Heathrow Airport at four o’clock on the 21st of December and that was the last time I saw them. I remember embracing them both, handing over the Christmas gifts that Evelyn had packed for my brother’s family, and telling them that we would ring them all on Christmas morning. As I walked away, I heard the announcement

  “Would passengers booked on Pan Am flight 103 from Frankfurt to New York please make their way to the departure lounge.”

  My mother turned and waved. When she reached the gate, I blew her a kiss.

  There was sleet in the air. I drew my coat around me and bent to open the car door. The wind was blowing hard against my face as I struggled to turn the key in the lock. Then I drove to my office. I had the radio tuned to the Classic F.M. station and Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto kept me company above the howling of the wind. I’d told Evelyn earlier not to expect me much before nine, as the project I was working on was nearing completion and I needed to make up the missing hours, which would be lost whilst driving my parents to Heathrow.

  I remember arriving back at my office at six thirty. The security guard was sitting at his desk in the foyer; he raised his eyes from his newspaper as I opened the glass doors from the street. He had the radio on and I could hear a Country and Western station playing a Willie Nelson song.

  “I’ll be in my office for a while, Walter,” I said.

  “Your parents get off all right, did they, sir?” He looked up. “I can feel the temperature dropping. I expect it will be bitter in New York. No doubt they’ll be in for a white Christmas.”

  I agreed then pressed the lift button. My office was pleasantly warm after the chill of the evening air. I hung up my overcoat and, as I passed the computer console, pressed the ‘on’ button on the monitor, made a cup of hot chocolate from the machine and settled down to work on a problem, which I knew, with a little persistence, I could solve.

&nb
sp; The internal telephone on my desk rang. I glanced at my watch. It was five past nine and the solution was within my grasp. I picked up the receiver at the same time as I switched off my computer. It was Walter. He sounded agitated.

  “I’ve been listening to the nine o’clock news on my radio,” he began.

  “Yes?” I prompted, hearing the hesitation in his voice and his rapid intake of breath.

  “There’s been a plane crash somewhere in Scotland. The plane took off from Heathrow this evening, bound for New York.”

  The room spun for a moment.

  “Mr Hope, Mr Hope, you OK?”

  “Oh, God, no. I’m sorry, Walter, my external phone is ringing.”

  It was Evelyn.” Darling have you heard the news?” She started to cry.

  She’d been close to my parents and I needed to comfort her, needed to be doing something positive to stop myself from thinking. “I’m on my way,” I said, trying to block the news from my mind in order to function rationally but I don’t remember much of the drive home, except that the radio kept repeating details of a crash over the town of Lockerbie.

  However, I do remember thinking that I’d never heard of the place. How was I to know that the events of 21st December 1988 would soon rob the inhabitants of that Scottish town of their former anonymity during the years that were to follow? The bombing, of a passenger plane, resulting in massive casualties both from within the aircraft and on the ground, was to become headlines all around the world as terrorism raised its ugly head.

  Driving home, all I could think about was how the disaster was going to affect my own life and that of my family. Evelyn was waiting for me and we comforted each other during the grim weeks ahead, until time blurred the edges of our memory.

  Ironically, soon after the crash, my business started to make money. Softcell Computer Operating Systems was my baby. I always believed that one-day it would make my fortune. Nevertheless, it started slowly as I gradually beat off my competitors one by one, whilst refining my programmes until they were unique. The legacy my parents left me provided the funds I needed at that crucial time, until I had built up enough business to risk a takeover of Macropower, my biggest rival. I made my first million, and the rest is history. My only sorrow was that my parents didn’t live to see it.

  Throughout those early years Evelyn supported me without complaint. She bore with stoicism my constant absences when I’d been promoting my products, never once complaining, accepting the decision not to start a family until I’d made a success of my career. When success came, it was bigger than either of us had anticipated. Softcell shares rocketed on the open market and before we’d come down to earth, a reporter from the business section of one of the country’s leading broadsheets was interviewing me. Television current affairs programmes followed, as I became known as one of Britain’s finest young entrepreneurs.

  Our holiday in Venice was a fond memory of a time before media madness entered our lives and, if I was to think of it at all, I always saw myself sitting alone near the Rialto Bridge looking into a stranger’s eyes.

  Chapter 3

  Evelyn’s voice penetrated a particularly sensual dream, one morning, with the words, “Darling, you awake?”

  Her naked body moulded into my back as she bent over and nuzzled my ear.

  “Mm” I grunted dragging myself awake from a dream, the details of which escaped like a rapidly dissolving mist.

  “What would you say, if I said, I think it’s time to start a family?”

  “Now?” I asked turning over to face her.

  “Mmm, now would do nicely,” she replied sliding her leg over mine.

  Evelyn’s first false alarm happened three months later. “We’ve done it! You’re going to be a father,” she announced patting her stomach.

  I booked Giorgio’s to celebrate. It was the Greek restaurant where we’d first met, she working as a waitress, during her gap year before she started a college course, and me with my parents celebrating my twenty-first birthday and the birth of Softcell.

  The restaurant was fully booked but Giorgio said that he could always find a place for his favourite people. This type of response was nothing new. It was like that all the time now, success seeming to open up all sorts of doors both metaphorically and physically.

  The table turned out to be the best the restaurant had to offer. It stood on a raised wooden floor overlooking the street. I remember ordering a bottle of Dom Perignon and we drank to our health and that of our unborn child, Evelyn taking care to drink only one small glass, half of which she left untouched. I smiled at her sensitivity; she was starting to take care of our baby even before it was born.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “Nothing much. I suppose I just can’t hide my happiness,” I replied as she reached across the table and stroked my hand.

  Afterwards, I wasn’t sure whether it was the effects of the champagne, or whether it was my imagination. Evelyn was talking about how wonderful our lives were going to be when I noticed a car stopping in traffic in the street outside the window. The traffic lights were red and, as the car waited for the lights to change, I saw her again. The hair, the unusual eyes; she was watching us. She saw me looking at her and stared back, without a hint of recognition.

  “Darling, what is it?”

  “What?”

  “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” She glanced over her shoulder to see what had attracted my attention but the street outside was empty, the lights having changed and the traffic moved on.

  Three days later I spent the day comforting Evelyn when it appeared that there was not going to be a baby after all. I tried to spend as much time as I could with her; owning one of Britain’s largest computer software businesses had its advantages. The business was progressing satisfactorily without me and I could afford to spend some time with my wife.

  We decided to look for somewhere to live in the country but not too far away from London. I suppose, if I could turn back the hands of time, that was the moment I should have chosen it to stop, for then the horror had not yet begun.

  Chapter 4

  Looking back through the years, I try to remember the exact moment she came into my life. Not the fleeting glimpses of her face in a crowd, I’d experienced ever since Venice, but actual contact, awareness, conversation. Ironically it was Evelyn who brought her to me.

  We lived in the city. Our house was small but in a fashionable area. It was not the sort of place we’d envisaged sharing with a young family. Evelyn’s false pregnancy made us think seriously about moving and we spent most days in estate agents offices discussing the merits of one property over another. Our prerequisite was somewhere where our child could run and play in safety and breathe air unpolluted by the fumes of city traffic. We needed space.

  During the following weeks we looked at several possible properties in the country, most of which were expensive, rambling affairs with elaborate security systems and not another house in sight. Then one afternoon in mid April we saw it; the house on River Road.

  We arranged to meet the estate agent at two o’clock. He’d given me directions and said he’d be waiting for us with the key, as the house was unoccupied. It was a beautiful spring afternoon, the trees were in bud and sunshine dappled the surface of the river as we drove along River Road. It was uninspiringly named River House and I knew Evelyn would want to think up a new name if we bought it. However, as things turned out the house was never re-named. Even now, I doubt whether Mrs Bates will change its name, and River House it will always remain.

  Matt Hawkins, of Hawkins and Butler Estate Agents, was waiting for us as promised, the smoke from his hastily extinguished cigarette hanging in blue clouds above his head. Waving us through the gates, he followed us up the pebbled driveway to the house, our tyres crunching on the gravel as we drew to a halt outside a pair of oak doors studded in wrought ironwork.

  “Mr and Mrs Hope, lovely afternoon, just right for viewing a property at its best, I a
lways think.”

  He was a wiry young man with thinning hair who seemed unable to keep still. He bounded up the stone steps to the front door and inserted the key in the lock, standing back for us to pass through into the hallway. It was a modestly sized property, if you compared it with the ones we’d viewed recently, but we fell in love with it immediately. I have always felt that houses emit a kind of aura; you can tell whether the previous occupants have been happy or sad there. Emotions and traumas linger in the walls and hang like cobwebs clinging to the past whilst waiting to absorb the present. No such atmosphere lingered in River House.

  The hallway led into a large reception room of elegant proportions, which I guessed my wife would enjoy furnishing. The view through two large French doors was of the garden, at the bottom of which lay the river, its surface shimmering and calm in the still afternoon. A set of double glass doors led to a conservatory with a high ceiling, strung with an intricate arrangement of louvered blinds. To the right of the hallway lay the dining room, study, large kitchen, utility room and back porch. On the upper floor were five bedrooms. The main bedroom overlooked the back of the house with French doors opening on to a balcony. Evelyn gasped, “Oh darling look at the view. Isn’t it splendid!”

  The river shone like polished pewter in the sunshine, its surface unruffled and still. At the bottom of the garden lay a small jetty and a path twisting through woodland, which was bursting with buds. I drew fresh country air into my lungs and squeezed Evelyn’s hand, and feeling her return the pressure, knew that we had found our house.

  River House stood in two and a half acres of ground on the banks of a tributary of the Thames. The garden comprised a neatly trimmed lawn, bordered by flowerbeds beginning to bud, running down to the river, to the right of which was a shrubbery. A solid stonewall enclosed the property. On the opposite side of the lawn stood a large wooded area and I noticed, around the curve of the river, just discernible through the trees were the roofs of two houses. In summer, I doubted whether they would be visible, the view possibly obscured by thick foliage but it was comforting to know our longed-for child would be within a short drive of neighbours, who might have children of their own. Ready-made playmates leapt into my mind as insubstantial as the child I was sure we would make. After assessing the potential of the house and gardens, we walked back hand in hand, up the lawn to the French doors where Matt Hawkins stood clipboard in hand.