Sudden Life

Sudden Life

Douglas Alder

Copyright © Douglas Alder 2009

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover copyright © by Robin Matto

www.robinmatto.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

Marinesque ebooks

(A digital offshoot of Cinnabar Press)

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter01

Chapter02 The morning of 3rd September 2003

Chapter03

Chapter04

Chapter05

Chapter06 Sudden Life Δ

Chapter07

Chapter08

Chapter09 Sudden Life Θ

Chapter10

Chapter11 Sudden Life Ξ

Chapter12

Chapter13 Sudden Life Π

Chapter14

Chapter15 Sudden Life Ω

Chapter16 Mid May 2004

Chapter17

Chapter18 Sudden Life Λ

Chapter19

Chapter20 28th July 1941

Chapter21

Chapter22 Sudden Life Σ

Chapter23

Chapter24 Mid June 2004

Chapter25 April 1942

Chapter26

Chapter27

Chapter28

Chapter29

Chapter30

Chapter31

Chapter32

Chapter33

Chapter34

Chapter35

EPILOGUE

Chapter 1

There was not a single cloud in the sky; the breeze was warm, but still she said she had no wish to see his wild woods.

‘I can’t say why, just call it instinct.’

This time he would not give up.

‘We must go. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.’

‘So you always say.’

‘Sub-tropical Cornwall, weird rampant plants throbbing with birds, pulsating with insects.’

‘I’ve heard it all before.’

‘But have you ever seen the sky so blue? We must go there, today. Come with me, just this once. If it doesn’t enchant you today we’ll never go again.’

They lay side by side on the grass of the holiday cottage, their temporary squat, another fortuitous find. They had their story ready if confronted, the usual story: they had found a window left open, but nobody had ever confronted them in their squats. They were too charmed and lucky for that. As usual they found tins of food in the kitchen cupboards, this time they also found wine and beer and, best of all, bookcases full of interesting books.

He rolled over on the warm grass and hugged her tight as he whispered into her ear on and on until, finally, she gave in. As usual it was effortless to hitch just where they wanted, only a few miles this time. The obliging driver drove out of his way to take them down the narrow country lane. They opened the gate marked ‘private’ and trespassed off the track down the narrow path into the woods. She didn’t know for sure but guessed he’d taken many lovers therebefore. That was not the reason for her doubts. They’d been faithful to each other for a whole year: the longest ever for each of them. In all that time they had not been apart for more than a few hours. From the start he told her that she was the one: his Muse.

He could understand her trepidation, he’d always sensed the possibility of danger in the wild beauty of the woods. Wasn’t nature always a mixture of beauty and danger? He was sure no threat would be lurking there for him but he knew that something was always there, some mischievous essence, which was appropriate because he was a mischievous person, but always lucky.

As they walked on down the path she sensed something, some ancient power, drawn up through the roots from the earth and rocks to emanate, along with the intoxicating scents, from the burgeoning vegetation that shivered all around her, energised by the warm breezes. The last traces of her early misgivings faded. She had to admit it was indeed a beautiful place, enchanting, full of subtle multi-coloured flowers, species she had never seen before and wished she could name. Soon iridescent dragonflies appeared among some strikingly variegated bushes. Then the biggest grass snake she had ever seen slipped on to the path and ushered them down towards the river pool. The snake slipped silently into the water and disappeared as a kingfisher flashed by, low.

Just as he’d hoped, she’d soon lost all her fear and the timeless magic of the glade took her psyche over. Just as he’d planned they swam together in the crystal clear, gently swirling, river pool and then made love in the woodland glade upon the warm moss.

She too had always been lucky. Together they’d thought themselves blessed – beautiful chosen ones with charmed lives – mischievously making all they could of their charm and their bountiful luck until that day when, suddenly, the woods he’d thought were magical ignored their charm and called in all their lifetime debts of good luck. On that day, the 28th of July 1996, appalling bad luck suddenly struck them down where they lay in love upon the warm moss.

Chapter 2

The morning of 3rd September 2003

A buzzard flew above Pendwarnick Farm and wheeled over the small, neglected meadow near the farmhouse before drifting at the whim of thermals across the overgrown vegetable garden to the old orchard where just one apple tree remained upright amidst the twists of bramble and bracken. Twelve other apple trees, all Venus Pippins, lay flat upon the ground but still sprouted leaves and yielded a few small yellow apples every year.

The buzzard wheeled above the rust pocked corrugated iron roofs of the pole barn then over the old stone barns. For the past seven years of neglect frequent Atlantic rains had driven down relentlessly to soak the mouldy straw beneath slipped slates.

Some areas of the ancient farmhouse roof had been clumsily patched with old sheets of corrugated iron where rafters were too rotten to hold slates. A small sycamore grew from the top of a chimneystack; the other stack was hidden by ivy and abuzz with bees. Mature plants thrived along the sodden leaf-mould that blocked the cast iron guttering.

Adam Yealm lived alone inside the farmhouse where rooms were full of rubbish: old clothes, old newspapers, old tins, old worm eaten furniture and rusted electrical goods that had broken and been left beside their newly rusting replacements. Mice nested amongst the rubbish; insects teemed on the damp flagstone floors beneath the rotting debris. Various shades of mould crept across the peeling wallpaper. In dark places fruiting fungal bodies glistened but old Adam seemed not to notice what was happening to his home.

The larger fields were farmed now by contract labour but the woods down to the stream had scarcely been touched for seven years, not since Adam’s father, Godfrey, died, aged ninety seven. Since then Adam had only trodden one path in the woods, and then occasionally, so that the immediate environs of the farmhouse were left unchecked and soon returned to nature. Buzzards nested nearby in the pines, untroubled.

The circling buzzard spied Adam as he struggled to open his front door. Outside a postman waited, which was most unusual.

The nesting buzzards knew old Adam – still a gentle child at heart – he had never been a threat. He did not fire a gun and never had. This buzzard and generations before her had looked down on Adam and he had looked up at them and marvelled as they wheeled and cried above his head. They did not fear old Adam, but his father, Godfrey, would regularly fire his gun, right up until the day he died. He never fired a gun deliberately at buzzards but all the same, for his last few years of life, vision blurred, sometimes he had little idea just what he had been firing at: dreams, visions, memories? The environs of the ancient farmhouse were best avoided whenever ancient Godfrey stumbled out, gun in hand, thinking only of the past.

The damp swelled wood of the front door finally yielded.

‘Not many visitors now; not since my brother died.’

‘Morning Mr Yealm, recorded delivery to sign for. Just you here?’

‘Just me now. Wonder what this is about?’ He examined the plain, envelope. It held no clues. He signed for the letter and chatted with the young postman about the disappointing summer and the recent storm as he politely saw him all the way to the gate, as if he was an honoured guest. He bid the postman farewell and set off back, letter in hand, towards the house. He was half way across the old concrete yard, by the bales of sodden newspapers and heaps of other sorted rubbish, when he stopped to open the envelope. He’d see better to read outside in full daylight.

He tore the envelope open with his long, grubby fingernails and read the letter through then he screwed up his eyes. He read it through again, open mouthed, and made a sort of cry – almost a groan – then he staggered towards his old Landrover and sank to the ground. The letter fell from his hand and was swept off on a light breeze before a warm updraft lifted it then set it gently down again upon the piles of rubbish, where it rested.

The buzzard circled and cried, but not for the old man, she cried for her mate, for her offspring. She cried to ward off the crows, to ward off ever-present death. She cried for the joy and the fear of the mysterious continuity of life, but for the old man lying on the cold cracked concrete of the yard below, laid there badly long ago by his irascible father, the mysterious continuity was finally over.

Two days short of his seventy-ninth birthday Adam Yealm was dead but at peace. From the moment he died, no spiritual trace of him remained to keep holding the mischief at bay since his nasty old father died. The soothing effect of his gentle soul was gone and the hidden knowledge and most recent mischief, suppressed for seven years in the woods, was freed again to reach out and entice.

Twenty-three hours later the postman returned and discovered Adam’s body. Normally the postman would have left the post in a box by the gate but having struck up conversation the day before with the kind and gentle old man, seeing the condition of the place and Adam’s fragile state, he realised he was probably Adam’s only link with the outside world. He determined that, unless he was rushed or the weather was too atrocious, he would bring all future letters to the front door and knock.

It had rained heavily in the night. Adam Yealm’s body was drenched when the postman discovered it. The heaps of soaking newspapers had already absorbed the sodden letter. Only a circling buzzard, savouring the beatitude, could have witnessed Adam’s natural departure from his natural world in the privacy of Pendwarnick Farm.

Chapter 3

‘I presume you’re Ballard?’

‘Frank Ballard.’

‘Frank? What year did Frank come from: nineteen twenty what?’

‘Named after my father.’

‘Poor bastard. Didn’t think your mother would know your father’s name.’

‘What do you – ’

‘De Rolan, by the way, Denis, detailed to help you settle in. Know all about you Ballard, Frank. My godfather, Piers, targeted you for the Gliebvitz Account. Gliebvitz eh? How can a multi millionaire be a staunch Socialist without being full of hypocritical shit?’

‘Erm – ’

‘Quite, but don’t let Sir Otto Gliebvitz sniff your cynical doubts. Not that you’ll ever meet the old fraud – ’

‘I never said I – ’

‘Typical Glieb whim: to win his contract he set us the impossible task of finding someone with your background and the prospect of a First, someone almost as disadvantaged in early life as old Gliebsnatch was. They’ll charge you out at 2K a week, plus all their own unsaturated fat fees – not that you’ll see much of that with no experience of anything beyond tower block squalour – ’

‘How do you – ?’

‘And thanks to you they’ll get a foot in the old bugger’s door. Maybe take on a few more disadvantaged trainee accountants to keep him sweet then reel in the rest of his accounts one after the other: property, shipping, publishing, microelectronics. Result: millions in fees a year, and just because your Ma was an abandoned, unskilled, single parent failing to make ends meet with nineteen thick as a brick sprogs in a fetid tower block and one future financial genius.’

‘Just my brother and I – ’

‘But boy did you have to bullshit about your childhood and family life and some such bollocks – ’

‘I had to submit an essay about family and background with the job application form. They said be unflinchingly accurate – ’

‘Hah. But you don’t sound to me like someone recently spewed up fully formed from the gaping orifice of a tower block. Spiced it up a bit, eh, laid it on? Don’t blame you, but don’t worry, no one beyond our three thousand employees worldwide will have any rights of access to the blurb on you. Leap-frogged in over my second cousin Clement, among others, even though he lied through his teeth with his application about his years of deprivation and abuse. God, had the tears running down my cheeks when I read his draft, laid it on a bit too thick in my opinion. He’ll have to wait for next year now to get in here: not happy, bad day for banking when nepotism doesn’t hack it anymore. Old man was a big beast here once, knows all the big beasts; worth a damn sight more than a redbrick First. God what a bore this place is, however I do know a few ways to brighten things up. Renting a grim little garret somewhere, I suppose?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Know anyone in London? No? Well I’ll show you a few watering holes after work.’

After work that first day the tall and heavily built de Rolan, with typical flamboyance, introduced taller and considerably thinner Frank to some of his cronies: two brokers, a corporate lawyer, a commodity trader called Jago, and two currency traders. The staple drinks were expensively toxic cocktails. Frank lost count of how many they drank; he wasn’t paying and wasn’t sure who was.

The affluent cronies talked about fast cars and faster women then settled on bragging about sharp practice and dodgy deals at work. When they’d each competed to reveal their potential for corruption and malpractice the talk toned down a little to embrace wristwatches and shoes. Frank just listened, which appeared to be all that was expected of him. As he listened and learned he realised his triumphant escape from the criminal underworld of his mother’s last flat in a blighted tower block – the closest he had to a home when not at University – had merely plunged him into a more rarefied criminal milieu, with the ever-present threat of violence still a possibility.

When they had all become conspicuously drunk and grown even louder, Frank saw de Rolan give Jago a meaningful nod. At that Jago took a few sheets of paper out of his jacket pocket. He tapped his glass with a pen for attention and began to read.

‘I remember standing outside the Crematorium afterwards, looking at the pale smoke rising straight up in to the cold blue sky, thinking, That’s my mother being cooked. But in truth she’d already been cooked right through by tobacco smoke, not much left raw for the cancer to attack in the end, let alone the Crematorium flames. That cancer would be incombustible: an assortment of carcinogens bound by asbestos fibre with a flaming bouquet of benzene. It took just four months to finish off my mother from the time the cancer was first diagnosed, but in truth we’d watched her slowly dying every day for twenty years, worn away by hard work and adversity.’

‘Boring.’ They all roared as they popped open newly provided champagne bottles.

Frank, realising they had got hold of his job application essay, felt intense and violent anger but held himself in check, sure that Jago would have a Black Belt in some particularly vicious Oriental martial art and would long for the excuse to inflict pain in what he could later claim to be self-defence. Jago looked at him and grinned unpleasantly.

‘So what Ballard? My mother died in Crete when I was six and my stepmother died in Barbados when I was ten, drowned, but did I ever snivel about my tragic life to get a job?’

‘But you killed your stepmother Jaggers.’

‘As you well know, Spendle, it was a joke that misfired: drugged her pudding and later she fell asleep off her floating chair and drowned in the pool, all the others were too busy fucking each other to oblivion in the shade to notice her slowly sinking. But important thing is no-one ever suspected me. Doesn’t matter what you do: just never get caught. Isn’t that right Denis? Big cover up at the time, old man was a diplomat. Now, if you’d killed your Ma, Ballard, or fucked her at the very least, like old Cavendish here – ’

‘Step-mother Jaggers, almost my age: world of difference – ’

‘Whatever, but as it is we have nothing in common, Ballard, you simply are common.’

‘Well I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you. All I’ve ever done on that score is kill my brother, his lover, and a passing witness. Never considered killing my mother, or doing anything else to her, no matter how annoying she frequently was.’

‘Your brother, Ballard – ?’

‘Matter of honour, as I’m sure you all understand. I’ve been hearing tonight what sticklers you all are for honour, particularly you, Jago.’

‘You’re so full of shit, you know that Ballard? What with some girly sob story about Mummy to blag your job – Denis, you’re very quiet old man, embarrassed by your protégée? As well you might be: another no-hoper. You wanted our opinion: you’ve failed again and we’ll be on our way, better things to do. Leave you to give him the bad news.’

With that Jago left and the others followed after him. De Rolan slung an arm over Frank’s shoulder.

‘Well, personally I think you held your own rather well with that lot of especially selected shits, Jago Marling-Roberts in particular. Yah, forget what he said, I think you’ve passed the first test.’

‘What did he mean: no-hoper, failed again? What test?’

De Rolan touched the side of his nose.

‘Really liked the bit about the fratricide. Didn’t notice that in your CV. Presumably your brother is still around?’

‘No, he disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Went off months ago, not saying where, hasn’t been seen since, probably doesn’t even know our mother is dead. I couldn’t find him to tell.’

‘So she really is dead?’

‘Oh yes.’ Frank said. He was not going to mention that she died from a drug overdose, not cancer, while living with the last, and most unpleasant, of her many lovers in his filthy tower block flat. She gradually changed from a vividly beautiful hippie single mother – who told her little boys fantastic bedtime stories, full of legends and myths set in mysterious underworlds and timeless natural paradises – to a monochrome wreck after disappointment and disillusion dispelled her dreams of a better life. Finally she became an ulcerated and emaciated bag of bones teetering precariously for months along the rim of death. The preferred story was that his mother’s life had been one of poverty and hard work culminating in rapid onset cancer.

‘Not close to your brother?’

‘Too different.’

‘He never wanted to be in banking?’

‘Not unless it involved pulling a stocking over his head and brandishing a gun.’

‘Really?’

‘No, but he was not into capitalism. Fancied himself as the poetic hedonist.’

‘Fully understand that mindset. Why work if you can hack it off the efforts of others? Mind you, there’s elements of banking in that concept, only raise a sweat if you’re into playing squash, not that I can ever be arsed to myself. But tell me: why the fuck did you want to join the Bank anyway? I mean, you may be bright but you’re a fish out of water here, clearly not your scene. Why put yourself through it?’

‘Shovel other people’s money around and some of it is bound to stick.’

‘You’ll be lucky. They’ll get you shovelling all hours for a pittance then spit you out. Now, for me the Bank is virtually the family business. No need to prove myself here thanks to the old man, promotion pencilled in – next April – with it comes the bonuses, you name it, money aplenty if I can be arsed to last the course. But hopefully the old man will peg out soon and mightily enrich his only son and heir, in which case I’ll jack the Bank in like a shot, banking on it. But you? Face it, you struck lucky getting the job, you’ll have no future here, out first opportunity they get, soon as old Gliebshitz turns his back or pops his clogs; pushing eighty isn’t he? Trust me, they hate the client to interfere with recruitment criteria, punish all concerned soon as they can to show them how wrong they’ve been, matter of principal. Got a plan B?’

‘Plan B is my memory – that’s what got me here – for instance, I could repeat back to you every word your evil little friend Bander said while he was still sober enough to articulate names and dates, or you; remember what you were saying about your old man early on?’

‘Christ knows.’

‘Well I can remember everything: names, dates, all the details you supplied. Might be interesting to correlate the dates and transactions in the company of a Compliance Officer. Don’t they call it insider dealing? As for Jago, any number of laws broken and he’s got clean away with it, so far – ’

De Rolan was no longer smiling. He waited – eyes narrowed, mouth clamped shut, chin slightly projecting – for a hint of what Frank’s next move might be, ready with a suitable counter move, or perhaps, later, a call to the usual burly, intimidating, underworld associate to give punishment or warning, whichever was deemed to be most appropriate.

Frank stared back at him, unblinking. He counted the seconds, counting until he thought he’d left it too long, then he counted a few more before flinging back his head and laughing, mimicking de Rolan’s laugh.

‘So you do have a little mischief in you then?’ De Rolan said, laughing too, but without much mirth. ‘Excellent, had you down as just a boring nerd, which really wouldn’t have done.’

‘Done for what?’

‘Now that would be telling on your first day. Let’s see how you go.’

‘Have I missed something here?’

‘On the contrary, I don’t think you’ll miss anything.’

Chapter 4

Straight after work on the Thursday of his first week at the Bank Frank stopped off on his way back home to browse at a large bookshop. He was not searching for any particular book but he spotted The White Goddess by Robert Graves and was drawn to it because his brother Jamie had the book with him the last time they met up. He said he’d been lent it by a girlfriend, Frank assumed he’d probably stolen it. Jamie had said it was an amazing book, transforming.

Just as Frank reached out for The White Goddess, fingers only inches away, he was aware of someone rapidly approaching. He turned to see a strikingly beautiful woman bearing down on him. She was smiling, with light in her eyes, as if she was overjoyed to see him. Realising she was mistaken she focussed on The White Goddess, gasped, and seized the only copy from the shelf. He turned and looked into her enchanting eyes, and she looked into his. He saw a brief glow, as if she was still not quite sure about her initial loving recognition, but her look rapidly changed to embarrassment and then, possibly, deep disappointment, but her eyes did not leave his, as if she had to keep on looking, to be absolutely sure of something.

He saw the mixture of powerful feelings in her eyes and fancied that desire was one of them. He could not help but feel desire for her, but there was something strangely unsettling as well as vaguely familiar about her, though he was sure he had never seen the woman before. Something more than beauty beguiled him; something beyond her brown eyes, her lush brunette hair, her flawless olive skin, pronounced cheek bones and slightly parted lips. Some past tragedy had given her face an extra mysterious dimension. Whoever she was, whoever he was, for the brief time they looked into each other’s eyes, startled by that strange illusion of mutual recognition, they were one and he knew that every whim, every minor decision, right or wrong, every tragedy or triumph of his past had lead him to exactly the right book at precisely the right moment in the right bookshop for his hand to momentarily meet with hers.

When this intense moment had passed, rather than snub him and rush off triumphantly with her book, she silently offered it to him with her tragic look. They stood there, looking at each other, lost in each other’s eyes until he broke the silence and said: ‘No, no, it is yours.’ She smiled and thanked him. They stood looking at each other awkwardly for a few more seconds before she lowered her eyes and made off rapidly with the book. He watched her gorgeous body sway and swerve past idle browsers to the pay desk. Would she? Yes, she did turn and look back at him, their eyes did meet again and she did smile at him, again. He knew he was not mistaken in believing they had been meant to meet.

She paid for her prize and made for the doors and he realised that instead of being merely transfixed he should have asked her name. He rushed for the doors. He stood out on the pavement, staring hopelessly all around but she was gone. He blamed himself. What a fool he was. After such a propitious meeting his brother, Jamie, would have been in bed with her within the hour.

That first weekend de Rolan insisted Frank went with him to a house party in Wiltshire to ‘network’. They scudded down in his Aston Martin to the former Rectory of an old school friend and were there in time for the buffet lunch in a huge marquee on the lawn.

The driveway was lined with Porsches, Jaguars, Mercedes and Ferraris. This was the first week of Frank’s new life. He could be whomsoever he pleased in this ridiculous new world. He could even pretend to be his lost brother Jamie and then the whole world would be