Centurion, Part I: Gabriel

Acknowledgements

This story was conceived on the M25 — a dismal road that encircles London. Its traffic jams are notorious, hellish, but out of that pain came the idea for Centurion. It just goes to show every cloud… and all that. Written for my sons, it was my very first book. I’m pleased to finally share it with you.

As ever, when producing a book, there are people that help make it happen. Firstly Nicholas and my mum, for reading it when frankly it barely made sense. Then my lovely editor, Katie Ritcheske. She takes my words and makes them better. Her patience and helpfulness know no bounds, and I am grateful every day to Goodreads for helping me find her.

The cover is thanks to the work of Earl Chessher — he took my thoughts and turned them into something beautiful. I hope you like it as much as I do.

My final thanks must go to you, dear reader, for taking a chance on reading a book by an unknown indie author. There are many of us out there who labour for the love of it. Thank you for taking the time to read us. If you enjoyed my story, you can help in your own way by leaving a review and spreading the word. It means everything.

Finally, I’d love to keep in touch. You can contact me on any of the following where I’ll keep you posted about Centurion Part II — Alexander.

Twitter: @shawhopeful

Facebook: O.C. Shaw Books

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

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

Epilogue — 9 months later

Chapter 1

North London — December 1982

Gabe sat alone on the kerb opposite the bus stop, a grey hospital blanket thrown around his shoulders. He watched the flickering blue lights of the ambulances and police cars as they cast an intermittent shadow over the faces of the people huddled around his mother’s prone form. He’d been sitting there for more than half an hour trying to make some sort of sense out of what had just happened. Trying to forget the sound of her scream.

An animated crowd had gathered behind the police cordon that now blocked the road, curious to discover the cause of all the uncommon drama in their street. It was strange, he reflected, how people stopped and watched when they saw police cars or ambulances in the street — as though it were a T.V. programme they were watching, rather than someone’s life unravelling — kind of sick when you thought about it. He knew there was no chance of them leaving any time soon, just in case they missed something. Still, they wouldn’t need to be there for much longer; he knew she was already dead.

The accident had happened out of nowhere. They’d been waiting at their usual bus stop, on what had been a typical cold, damp December evening. He remembered feeling grateful that at least the rain had stopped for a short while, as they’d huddled together in their coats, enjoying a comfortable silence. He’d always been unusual among his peers; he still welcomed his mother’s company — or had, he corrected himself. He often met her after he finished college for the day so they could travel home together on the bus. Today had been no different — ordinary.

The car had appeared round the corner like any other, not even particularly fast at first, but instead of continuing on, up the road, it had turned in their direction and accelerated. He’d thought the man was intending to park in the bus stop and remembered feeling irritated that the bus wouldn’t be able to pull in properly. He had reflected how selfish people could be, parking wherever they liked with no thought of the inconvenience for everyone else. But the car hadn’t slowed at all as it approached. The driver had headed straight at them, accelerating all the while. Worse, it had seemed to Gabe that the driver had looked him in the eye. It had felt in that split second as if he was actually trying to hit them.

Gabe remembered feeling momentary disbelief as he’d finally realised what was happening, just before his mother had shoved him hard and he’d stumbled out of the path of the car, only catching his elbow on the passing wing mirror before tumbling to the ground. Even as the gritty surface of the pavement had risen up to lick against his cheek, he remembered trying to twist to look behind him. He’d watched, almost in slow motion, as his mum had caught the full impact of the car and was left wedged between the bonnet and the metal frame of the bus stop; one look at her had told him this was bad.

There was no way he was ever going to be able to forget the sound of her breathing in the aftermath. The gasping breaths interspersed with muffled groans, as she’d tried to mask her pain from him.

He’d attempted to do the right things: He’d shouted for help until the owner of the newsagent and someone from the betting shop next door came out, and then made sure they’d called for an ambulance. The men had managed to turn off the car’s engine and roll it backwards while he’d looked on, feeling useless. Most of the rest of the time all he’d seemed able to do was stand there holding his hands over his mouth, horrified; he figured he must have been in some sort of shock.

As he watched they’d carefully laid her down and covered her with a jacket. Then they’d all waited, useless to do any more, for the ambulance to arrive too late. The others had tried to reassure her that she was going to be okay, but it was lies, and they’d all known it. She’d looked past the others and their false promises, straight at Gabe, and he’d known when he met her gaze that she was entirely aware of the extent of her injuries — and what they meant.

Each minute they’d waited for the distant wail of approaching help had felt more like an hour as her condition deteriorated. Her breathing had become shallower and more laboured until she’d eventually beckoned him closer and taken hold of his hand. She’d struggled to use the last of her breath to speak to him; Remember I love you, Gabriel. I have always loved you. Find Daniel… tell him they’ve found you.

Who’s Daniel? he’d asked her, confused.

She’d only looked at him, unable to say more, before she’d squeezed his hand lightly one last time, and then, as he watched, her eyes had glazed over and her breathing had stilled. In that moment he knew she’d stopped seeing him. More than that, he’d felt her go, in a physical way that was hard to describe. It was as if he’d felt a part of her leave and was now left with just the shell of the person she had been before.

Are you okay? A voice disturbed him. It was one of the men from the ambulances.

Yeah, fine, Gabe mumbled back.

What’s your name? the paramedic asked, crouching down beside him.

Gabriel Smith.

And is that your mother? The man gestured towards the group at the bus stop.

Yes, he answered, hating the pity he saw on the man’s face.

Can you confirm her name for us, please?

Elizabeth Smith.

And how old are you, Gabriel?

Seventeen.

Okay. He paused, writing something on his notepad. The man over there said you hurt your arm, he said, indicating the newsagent standing with his back to them, looking down at the paramedics still working on his mum. Can I take a look? He waited for Gabe to nod before gently taking hold of the elbow and feeling along its length. Let me know where you feel any pain, he asked, but Gabe’s gasp was indication enough. Are you hurt anywhere else? He peered closely at the graze on Gabe’s cheek. Gabe just shook his head. The man sat back on his heels. Okay, well, I think we need to take you in and get an x-ray on that, he said as he nodded towards the elbow he was still holding gently. Give me a moment.

He stood up and walked over to the rear of one of the ambulances to collect a bag. Once back at Gabe’s side, he gave him an ice pack and secured the arm in a sling. Hold the ice pack against the elbow, and we’ll take you in as soon as we can. Let’s get you into the ambulance, he said as he helped Gabe to his feet, wrapping the blanket back around his shoulders when it slipped.

Gabe looked back over towards his mum and immediately saw that a blanket had finally been pulled over her face. Another paramedic, accompanied by a police officer this time, approached them.

Mr Smith? the second paramedic asked.

Yes.

Do you want to sit back down? he asked, indicating the kerb behind him.

Gabe looked down at the kerb and then back at the paramedic. No, just say what you have to. He couldn’t see the point of prolonging the pain any longer than necessary; there was nothing they could tell him he didn’t already know.

The paramedic took a deep breath. I regret to inform you, son, that despite doing everything we could, we were unable to help your mother. The injuries she sustained were just too severe. She’s gone.

Gabe nodded once to show he’d understood. This wasn’t news; she’d died before the paramedics had even reached the scene of the accident. All they’d done was say so out loud.

They all looked at him expectantly, and Gabe wondered what it was they were waiting for him to do. Clearly, his reactions were not what they expected. Perhaps he was meant to be sobbing now? But he’d never been one to cry. His mum had always encouraged him to keep strong, maintain a clear head, stay under control. She’d told him it was important to save emotions for when you were in a position to deal with them privately. That most certainly wasn’t now. What about him? he asked, nodding towards the car that had hit her. Why did he do it? What happened?

We think the gentleman may have had a heart attack, the second paramedic answered. He was already dead when we arrived.

But he was looking right at me when he hit us, Gabe challenged. He didn’t look like he was having a heart attack. He just came round that corner and accelerated until he hit my mum. He was looking at me. His eyes were open. Gabe started to feel his emotions stirring. He only missed me because Mum pushed me out of the way.

Okay, sir, we’ll look into it, the police officer interrupted, trying to calm the situation. We’ll be conducting a full investigation, including a post-mortem, so your observations will, of course, be taken into account. Can you give me the name and contact details for your father, so we can let him know the situation and make sure he meets you at the hospital?

I don’t have a father. I mean… I don’t know who my father is, Gabe answered, cringing. He didn’t live with us. It was just the two of us. Gabe felt defensive as he saw the police officer share a look with the ambulance man and raise an eyebrow. He, and his mum, had suffered the stigma of being a single-parent family all his life.

Is there someone else we can contact?

No, no one. I told you, it was just us. It always had been — just the two of them.

They’d moved frequently throughout his childhood. His mum had always claimed that she got bored easily, so when she saw jobs advertised, particularly in places they’d never visited before, she felt inclined to go for it. She’d called it spontaneity and said more people should have a bit more of it, although Gabe had often felt that maybe she had a bit too much. She’d always insisted life was for living, and while there were times when he’d been sorry to say goodbye to a school, or a friend he particularly liked, mostly he’d been fine with all the moving about.

When he was younger, he’d gotten a kick out of the attention that came with being the new kid, but as he got older that particular element had worn a bit thinner. The main problem he’d encountered was bullying from other boys in his year. His mum had said it was because he was good-looking (but then mums always say that sort of crap, don’t they?), but it certainly hadn’t been helped by his name. They called him gay or angel — kids were remarkably unoriginal when it came to name-calling. His mum had always insisted he was special, so he deserved a special name, but he’d often wished he could have been just a little more normal. A name like Steve would have helped. As time had passed, and he’d continued to move schools almost every year, the kids had become more established in their friendship groups, and he’d become more of an outsider — a loner. So, when his mum suggested it was time to move on, when she’d gotten that urge, he’d never been all that bothered.

Things had improved marginally a year and a half ago when he’d started sixth form college; the kids were a bit more mature and the no-hopers, who’d tended to be the ones taking their boredom and school-related frustration out on him, had pretty much all dropped out. He’d been feeling relatively settled for probably the first time in his life, and so had his mum — she’d let them stay put for over a year, a new record. Now this had happened.

Right, let’s get you in to the hospital and have that arm looked at; then we can talk about your options, the paramedic said as he steered Gabe towards the back of one of the waiting ambulances and helped him up the steps before settling him down on a bench inside and strapping him in.

Gabe looked out the door, over at the stretcher that now held his mother’s covered body. There was a second beside it; he presumed it must be the driver of the car. He watched as they wheeled the stretchers towards the back of the other waiting ambulance and loaded them in. Once the ambulance door was closed, and he couldn’t see her any longer, he just sat there, watching and waiting for his own ambulance driver to close the door and move off. The crowd had started to thin. Just a few people remained, still staring at the scene. Apparently the reality of death was a bit much for at least some of the gawkers.

One person in the small crowd caught his eye — he was standing apart from the others and not looking over towards the ambulance carrying the bodies. Instead he was staring directly back at Gabe. The unblinking stare reminded him of the car driver’s expression. He held the man’s gaze for longer than felt comfortable, finding himself almost unable to look away. The silent exchange ended only when the ambulance man climbed in beside him and slammed the door, announcing that they were off. Gabe shivered. Suddenly he felt very alone and, for reasons he didn’t quite understand, afraid.

Chapter 2

Gabe sat on the edge of the bed with his arm in both a cast and a sling. His elbow was broken. They’d drained the fluid and set the arm, which had taken at least some of the pain away, but now he was cursed with limited use for the next six weeks. Thank God it was his left arm and not his right.

He’d already been in the hospital for three days, stuck in the kids’ ward. The curse of being seventeen. He didn’t know what would have been worse, being stuck with a load of kids and treated like one himself on the children’s ward, or being on the adult ward with all the old folk who’d fallen and broken bones. The only other people he had seen during his forays to x-ray and the fracture clinic had all been ancient and incontinent. At least it smelt better where he was.

The last three days had involved a series of doctors and nurses either prodding his arm or trying to prod his mind. They’d all asked variations on the same questions: How are you? Do you want to talk about what happened? Tell me how you feel about what happened to your mum. What the hell did they expect him to say? He was sick of it.

Plus the police had been back to ask for details about the accident itself. They hadn’t believed him when he’d told them that the driver of the car had been conscious when he’d hit them. It had turned out that the man had a history of heart disease and probably shouldn’t have been driving in the first place. The theory remained (supported by the post-mortem) that he’d suffered a heart attack, lost consciousness, lost control of the car and ploughed into the pair of them, killing his mother. There were no other witnesses, and the man’s family were devastated by what had happened. It was ‘just’ a horrific accident. Case closed.

Finally, the social workers had been in. They’d been trying to work out who was going to care for him now that he was officially an orphan. They had eventually figured out that his mother had made a will naming her brother, Daniel Smith — first he’d ever heard of him — as his legal guardian in the event of her death.

It hadn’t passed him by that his new legal guardian had the same name as the person his mother had named in her dying breath and told him to find. Turned out he wasn’t going to be that hard to find after all; others had already done all the work. Unfortunately, ‘Uncle’ Daniel had not felt inclined to drop everything and rush to the bedside of his newly orphaned nephew; apparently, he had business to see to first and wouldn’t be able to come for at least another week. It wasn’t exactly the reunion with his long-lost uncle that Gabe might have hoped for.

The consequence of this delay was that Mrs Scott, their downstairs neighbour, was going to be caring for him in the intervening week — until his uncle finally bothered to turn up. Fortunately for him, she was an approved foster carer. He had watched her provide respite for a litany of broken children at her home during the time they had lived above her. Now, to his absolute horror, he was her latest charge.

To her credit, she had arrived at the hospital the day after the accident, having heard about his mother on the local news. She’d been genuinely and visibly upset to hear what had happened, and for the first time, on seeing her freely flowing feelings, Gabe had finally appreciated the volume of emotion he was undoubtedly suppressing. It was the only time so far he had felt close to letting go. Only through steely determination had he managed to hold his own feelings back.

His main fear was that if he let go he wouldn’t be able to stop, that he’d lose control. He was afraid the grief would overwhelm him completely. It was easier not to deal with it. Not yet, anyway. The downside of his control was that he knew everyone around him thought he just didn’t care. Even Mrs Scott, who knew exactly how close he had been to his mother, seemed taken aback at his apparently cold demeanour. Despite that, she’d not hesitated to offer to care for him in his own home until his uncle arrived. She was a decent person.

Because she was a widow — her husband had died of lung cancer two years previously — life insurance covered her living costs and left her free to do what she wanted with her days. She had chosen to do voluntary work in the local charity shop when she wasn’t looking after kids who needed temporary homes. Gabe had once heard her telling his mother that they’d never been able to have children of their own, so being a foster carer had gone some way towards helping ease the loneliness. He just hoped she wasn’t going to treat him like the son she’d never had; he didn’t want or need another mother. He was practically an adult and could take care of himself. He cursed his luck for the millionth time that, if this had to happen to him at all, it couldn’t have waited another six months until he was eighteen.

Gabe sighed and got up. Mrs Scott was still talking to his doctor about exactly how he was meant to elevate his arm each night to prevent fluid building back up and needing to have the elbow drained again, as well as what pain reliever he could take if he needed it. He felt an overwhelming desire for space, knowing for sure that the next few days and weeks were going to be emotionally draining.

As he walked out the room, he told the doctor and Mrs Scott that he was going for a piss, watching them both frown at his choice of words. He walked down the corridor, fully aware they’d be wondering why he hadn’t used the small en suite adjacent to his room. The uncompromisingly bright cheeriness of the Disney characters painted on the walls of the corridor, interspersed with Christmas decorations, were a stark contrast to his mood. He really needed to get away from all the forced happiness. He got that sometimes kids needed to see stuff like that to stop them being scared while they were in hospital, but it really wasn’t doing anything for him.

A T.V. was flickering in the sitting room at the end of the corridor, but it was otherwise dark. He felt drawn to the light. When he walked in, he thought the room was empty. Only once he’d slumped into one of the armchairs did he realise there was a girl sitting in the corner beside a pathetic excuse for a Christmas tree. The T.V. distracted him for a moment. A news report was playing, something about an earthquake in Yemen that was believed to have killed thousands. The pictures were awful. Houses collapsed to rubble, people crying, dishevelled and injured, calling for lost loved ones. The reporter was talking about how their lives had been turned on their heads in the space of a minute. He knew exactly how they felt.

The girl shifted in her chair, and he looked at her properly for the first time. She was about his age, petite, with a really pretty face dominated by beautiful big blue eyes that somehow made her look older than she was.

Alright? he asked. It was possibly one of the stupidest things he’d ever said, as she was quite clearly not ‘alright’. The drip coming out of her arm and the complete absence of hair were a dead giveaway. Most of all he could feel her sickness in a physical way. It was hard to describe. Like an absence of the usual healthy glow he felt from people.

She smiled at him, although it didn’t quite make it to her eyes, and then shrugged. I've been better, to be honest. Sorry you hurt your arm, she said, nodding towards his sling.

Yeah, thanks. I’m leaving today. You getting out anytime soon?

Another couple of days and then home, I hope. Apparently I’m improving, although I feel like crap right now. I think your mum is looking for you. She waved her hand towards Mrs Scott, who was wandering up and down the corridor, peering into rooms.

She’s not my mum. My mum just died. He realised he sounded a bit abrupt. She’s just looking after me for a bit, he added.

I’m sorry, she said, and he could see she meant it. A lot of people had expressed how sorry they were, but very few really felt anything when they said it. They were just going through the motions and saying what they thought was expected of them. It made a change for someone to actually connect with him when they said the words.

Thanks, he said, and he meant it too. What’s your name? he asked, suddenly needing to know.

Emma.

Get well, Emma. See you around, maybe?

She smiled, and this time it actually made it to her eyes. Her whole face lit up, and she looked beautiful despite her obvious ailments. He felt a thrill of pleasure and grinned back, and for a couple of seconds they just looked at each other.

Then he glanced back over to the corridor, and the anxious figure of Mrs Scott, and his face fell again. He got up, lifted his one good hand slightly in the semblance of a farewell wave and went out to find her.

Ah, there you are! she exclaimed anxiously as she spotted him coming out of the dark T.V. room. Are you okay? We’ve got the all-clear to go home. I’ve got all your pills and I know how to ensure you elevate your arm properly, so we should be fine. We need to come back in a few weeks to have your cast off, or at least your uncle will need to bring you, but otherwise we should be able to manage okay, I think. He could tell she was trying to act normal, but it was a forlorn hope. It seemed her way of coping was just to keep talking to avoid any empty silences.

He turned the corners of his mouth up in a manner that he hoped gave the appearance of a smile. It was clearly enough, because Mrs Scott smiled broadly back at him and set off up the corridor as she chatted all the while about what she had bought for his dinner. He looked back towards the dark room one final time hoping he might see Emma again. If she was still there, he couldn’t see her, and he felt disappointed.

When he finally turned back, Mrs Scott was holding the door at the end of the corridor, waiting for him with that slightly anxious, expectant look. He sighed and walked towards her, wondering whether anything was ever going to feel normal again.

Chapter 3

Each morning since coming home, when he first woke up, he forgot the horror of what had happened, just for a second. Then he would feel his cast restricting his arm, and it would all come crashing back again.

Arriving back at the flat that first time was really hard. Seeing all of his mum’s stuff, exactly where it had been when they’d left the house that last morning, had been like a physical blow to his stomach; he’d struggled to