Entanglement

coincidental.

Chapter One

The nightmare used to come at least once every month... stark, agonising, terrifying! In the deepness of sleep, I screamed out some kind of mumbo-jumbo which stopped sharply at the moment of terror. I opened my eyes to awaken in pitch-black darkness saturated with perspiration. My body felt like a wet rag... as thought every ounce of energy inside me had been sapped. Worse still, my brain felt tormented and abused which affected my morale and enthusiasm and all the decisions I made. Murder, mystery and intrigue lay at the root of the world; ordinary people like myself were mere pawns in the game to be moved around at will. Now, once again, I was sitting up in bed bathed in sweat. The nightmare had returned! Closing my eyes tiredly, I let my mind drift all the way back to the beginning.

***

I had driven out of Hollywood on a fine morning, taking off in the direction of Nevada. On this particular day I felt that I could touch the sky, seduce nature, and reflect the colours of the rainbow. I had awakened to the real world of sense and sensitivity but my ego drove my mind to greater heights. After clearing Los Angeles, the car sped swiftly through miles of parched desert until I spied a large rock in the distance and made towards it. I stopped the car beside it and rested there in the heat of the sun thrashing out reason and fancy. Reason told me to forget the whim and go back to work; fancy suggested that if I didn’t leave now I would never go at all. As a film writer, I was responsible for hundreds of characters in film scripts over the years. With my skill, they carried out daring deeds, adventurous exploits, devious plots, fugitive escapes, political activities, community-inspired pursuits, and popular romantic interludes. On this occasion, however, it was a decision affecting my personal life in the real world. To someone who thrived on nostalgia, and acted on impulse, it was unacceptable to stifle along-life desire. I was a free spirit. I had to be free to go where I wanted. But there was always a barrier... a hurdle... in the way. This time it was twofold. Firstly, there was Ellie... beautiful Ellie! Twenty-three years my junior and nearly eight months pregnant.

‘What do you mean you’re going to England?’ she demanded. ‘I’m almost eight months pregnant. How can you even think of it? Is that all I mean to you? Someone to share your bed! Someone to have your child while you’re out of the country!’

‘It’s just for a few days. Ellie,’ I explained weakly. ‘Just a few days. I was raised there during World War Two. You know that.’

‘But I’m almost eight months pregnant! It could happen at any time!’

‘You’re over-reacting, honey,’ I told her. ‘If I don’t go now, I never will. I mean, once the kid’s born... ‘

‘Kid!’ she riposted sharply. ‘Kid!’ Her hackles rose.

In that moment I realised that all reasonable discussion had ended. When Ellie got mad, all logic flew out of the window.

‘I’m not buying it!’ she shouted. ‘You’ll get hung up over there for weeks... maybe months! You may not even come back!

The golden rule was never to argue with Ellie when she was in such a mood, so I walked out of the house to avoid further conflict. Maybe she was right. She was having a baby. I ought to stay... at least until after the baby was born. However everyone has their own needs and mine was to go back to my roots while I still had the chance.

The second factor in the way was the contract I had signed with Cross-Atlantic Films to write a provocative film script. Harry Badella was the most miserable, heartless, meanest film director in the business. He leaned heavily on everyone. It was in his nature to place everyone under severe pressure to get the best out of them If I told him I was going to England on a vacation, he would go crazy.

‘Mike,’ he had told me as I put my signature to the contract, He always called me Mike even though it wasn’t my name. ‘This movie’s gonna be one of the greats like Casablanca. You wait an’ see!’ He said the same about all his movies but success always eluded him.

‘Sure... sure!’ I responded casually, humouring the man.

‘So get me that script by yesterday. You got it! I knew his next words by heart ‘I wanna low-budget, low-cost feature, worked in tight short-time schedules. And, I repeat, get me the script by yesterday.’

That was always the problem, I had become a robot script writer for second-rate films. There was no time for excitement or fun any more. After so many years had passed by without notice, I had to get to Cornwall before I was too old to care.

Unlike anyone else in Hollywood at the time, I had experienced war in its raw state. I was five years old when German bombers invaded by night and I still recalled the moment when the bombs fell all around me in London. My mother had carried me to a public shelter that night and when we returned the whole street had been flattened by the Luftwaffe. Fires blazed everywhere. Some people were dead; others were screaming for help trapped under tons of bricks, mortar and other rubble. It was no place for a child. The authorities realised this and sent all the children to remote parts of England for the duration of the war. I ended up in the far south-west... in Cornwall... and I vowed to return some day to visit my foster parents and their son Patrick.

Cornwall was beautiful! I reflected the rugged coasts, the wonderful beaches, and the huge rocks with rising precipices which towered like great grey giants as well as the relentless rushing waves ebbing and flowing constantly with the tide along an enormous range of coast. There were the quaint winding lanes and extensive lush green pastures and the honest farming and mining folk with simple ambitions and no pretensions who devoted their lives to an elementary way of life in the towns and villages. It was far removed from the plastic world of charades in the film-making business of Tinseltown in California.

I remained on the rock until the sun reached it’s zenith. The glow hung across the sky for a long time and I perspired in the heat with a strange feeling in my heart. What had happened to those people who had taken such great care of me during the war? They had been so generous to have accommodated someone else’s child., accepting me warmly into their home in a period of national crisis. Deep inside, I felt ashamed. It had taken me forty-five years to spur myself into action. Nostalgia had surfaced on many occasions, but something had always prevented me from making the journey. In my mind’s eye, I could see the tiny old cottage at Ponjeravah built of solid granite blocks, capped by a well-worn slate roof. A Cornish wall surrounded the property on three sides; the fourth was bounded by a fresh water stream well-stocked with fish. Life was extremely basis. There was no mains water or electricity. An old water pump, halfway down the lane, served the cluster of four houses and an infants’ school. At night, the only light available was from a paraffin lamp which filled the tiny parlour with a strange pungent smell. Appliances were non-existent with the exception of an old radio, served by two accumulator batteries filled with acid which had to be taken to the local hardware shop each week to be recharged. My foster father, Tom Laity, grew his own vegetables, kept his own chickens, caught rabbits in the fields with ferrets, and fished the stream for trout and eels. The family was pretty much self-sufficient. Ration books were used sparingly. We never used coupons for clothing or furniture. As poor farming folk it was necessary to make do and mend. Best of all times was the summer. In those days, the weather could be trusted... glorious June, warm July, hot August and an Indian Summer in late September... I revelled in it!

What a contrast to the capital! As a child, I had been only aware of the concrete jungle near to the London Docks. The atmosphere there was polluted with dust and there were regular ‘pea-soupers’... thick fogs which filled the air with smoke and smut from coal-fire ash issued from the plethora of chimneys. The East End of London was always hustling and bustling with traders and merchants who employed people to work long hours in the filthy swear-shops which proliferated in the slums. By contrast, being evacuated to Cornwall pitch-forked me into an entirely different environment. To my delight, there were farms, fields, streams and rivers, lots of countryside, fresh air as well as cattle and sheep. It was a world of open space, rural life, and peace. Eventually, when the war ended, I was thrust back into the dusty dirty realm of the docks area... back to the ‘pea-soupers’.

By now, forty-five years later, a lot of water had passed under the bridge. My foster parents were unlikely to be alive as they were about forty-five years old when I came under their care. They son, Patrick, who was a year younger than myself. I wondered how he had fared after all this time.

***

Back in the United States, I was heralded by a mysterious trumpet which sounded its clarion call in my middle ear. It was an alarm which I never failed to trust because it was always so accurate. Within seconds, the telephone in my apartment in South Burbank would ring and Harry Badella would be cursing at the other end of the line when he failed to get an answer. I considered it was best to leave it that way. I had to fly to England and kill two birds with one stone. The first priority would be to visit the graves of my parents in a London cemetery. I hadn’t been to see them for a very long time. If I took an flight to Heathrow and hired a car at the airport I could drive to the cemetery and then make for Cornwall. There would be a swift reunion with Patrick, dinner with him at a high-class restaurant, followed by a return drive to London and a flight back. What could be simpler? The whole affair would take no more than three days. In one fell swoop, the whole issue relating to my youth could be put to rest once and for all. Surely Harry Badella couldn’t’ begrudge me that! I knew the answer to that question without having to think about it... but I left for the airport anyway!

To start with, everything seemed to go according to plan. I arrived at Heathrow, hired a car, and drove to the cemetery. The weather was awful for the time of year, devoting itself particularly to the sombre occasion. Unlike Los Angeles, a thick cloud spread like a grey blanket across the sky while the rain drizzled annoying sweeping eastwards on a strong breeze. An ornate coffin was wheeled out into the churchyard on a well-worn wooden trolley, followed by a group of smartly-dressed mourners wearing solemn expressions. I stood to one side as they gathered around an open grave waiting patiently until the ceremony ended. After they had gone I faced the twin tombstones of my parents. Shame overwhelmed me. I had been working in the United States when the message came through that my father was seriously ill. The strict film script schedules at the time forced me to delay my departure. On his death-bed, my father had asked for me, holding on to the slim thread of life, but I arrived too late. Regarding me as his son who could do no wrong, he would have readily forgiven me for failing him... and so would God... but I could never forgive myself!

After uttering a few prayers over the graves of my mother and father, I left the cemetery and started the long journey to Cornwall. It took over five hours to reach my destination and excitement boiled inside me unabated. I was finally back... back to the place where I spent my younger days! I registered at the reception desk of the Falmouth Hotel with adrenalin pumping through my body, and left my suitcase on the bed in the hotel room. Outside, I gazed at the broad expanse of calm sea and breathed in the fresh air deeply. It was a golden moment moving back in time by forty-five years. The game plan was to get to Ponjeravah just a few miles away. I wanted to put it into action as quickly as possible, blaming Harry Badella for the swift motivation. I could reach the cottage within twenty minutes and spend the evening with Patrick We could go to the local inn, crack open a bottle of wine and have a meal, exchanging the stories of our lives. After that, I would return to the hotel, ring Ellie, and then contact the studio. Patrick and I would continue our reunion tomorrow and on the next day I would return to Heathrow and catch a flight to LAX... Los Angeles airport. It was all so simple! But jet-lag overcame me and I took a short nap, followed by a shower, and then dressed for dinner at the hotel. After that, I had a few drinks at the bar and decided to make it an early night The game plan would have to wait until next morning.

Chapter Two

Ponjeravah, a cluster of houses near Constantine, was only fifteen minutes drive from Falmouth. There was a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach as I approached it. Who knows... Patrick might not even remember be after all this time. So much time had passed and we had never corresponded. Perhaps he had moved somewhere out of Cornwall or even emigrated to Australia or Canada. If so, nothing would be lost and I could shelve all my fancies, allowing my dreams of the past to feed on memory alone. I considered that I could cope with that. As I arrived, I parked the car on a narrow road beside the school and looked around. It was exactly as I remembered it... the little lane rising up a slight incline, the old cottages built in the last century, the school with a giant rock in its forecourt. They were all there. As I walked up the lane, still strewn with loose small stones that I had often kicked when I was a young boy, I noticed that the water pump, with its very long handle, had been removed, and there were telegraph poles with wires stretched like puppet strings across the open sky. I moved faster as excitement welled-up inside me. Patrick was only a hundred yards away. After forty-five years, he was just a short distance ahead. However I was to be greatly disappointed. As I reached the place where the small cottage had been, a large new house reared up like a fearsome monster from the bowels of the earth. The little cottage had been demolished to make way for the modern building. The old chicken house and the stable had gone too. All that remained was the fast-flowing stream. I stood by the gate and stared at the sight in confusion, astonished that some pagan house-builder had chosen to erect a large house on this spot when all around lay wide open fields. Timorously, I knocked on the door which was opened by a pale young woman with flaxen hair who seemed surprised at the appearance of a stranger.

‘Excuse me,’ I began in forlorn hope. ‘I’m looking for Mr. & Mrs. Laity and their son Patrick.’

She shook her head slowly and sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry,’ she replied. ‘We moved here only a year ago.’

‘Did the Laity’s live here? Did you buy it from them?’

She shrugged her shoulders aimlessly. ‘From what I understand, this house has been bought an sold several times over the past twenty years.’

‘Maybe one of the neighbours can help,’ I suggested, ‘Mrs. Tremayne lives in the house just over there.’

She shook her head again. ‘Mrs. Tremayne died six months ago. A young couple from London bought her house.’

Mrs. Tremayne... I remembered that buxom lady very well. Three times each week she ushered me into her front room to sit on a stool so that she could teach me to play the piano. It was a labour I care not to recall for my small fingers had difficulty spanning the keys while, to my mind, I practised scales with regular monotony.

‘What about Mrs. Peters in the house next to the school?’

‘She’s ninety-one years old. She’s in hospital... in intensive care. She has a daughter but I don’t know where she lives. The school’s been closed for twenty years apparently. It’s been transferred to the Methodist chapel up the hill in Constantine.

I left the house feeling terribly disappointed. Clearly Patrick had left here some considerable time ago. I drove up the steep hill to Constantine and parked outside the grocery shop. I remembered that a large sign advertising cigarettes used to hang outside depicting a bearded sailor and the words ‘Players Please!’ There was one occasion when Mrs. Laity had sent me all the way up the hill from Ponjeravah to buy a bag of self-raising flour so that she could bake some rock cakes. How I hated them with their crystal-hard currants embedded in them like black diamonds. I reached the shop but couldn’t remember the reason for my mission. The shopkeeper sat me on the counter and ran through most of his stock but I walked all the way back empty-handed because I’d forgotten what I had come to buy.

‘Patrick Laity,’ repeated the shopkeeper slowly. ‘Yes, I remember him. I moved down here from London It was about thirty-five years ago. I had chronic bronchitis and the doctor advised me to move to the country. Cornwall seemed to be the ideal place. I can’t recall the actual details but they buried him in the local church cemetery.’

‘Buried him!’ I echoed in a state of shock.

‘There was a motor accident. It was a long time ago.’

‘What about his parents?’

‘I couldn’t tell you. He wasn’t in Constantine proper. He lived in Ponjeravah down the hill.’

A customer entered the shop so I muttered my appreciation and left to sit in the car for a while. Poor Patrick! Killed in a motor car accident! What a waste! In hindsight, it might have been better had I made enquiries before I left California. There was a photograph of him tucked away in the wallet in my pocket. I wondered what he looked like as a man. Most probably he was short like his mother, although Tom Laity was tall and thin.

The cemetery was a little further up the hill. In the past I had gone to church every Sunday morning, clutching a penny in my hand to put into the collection plate. The cemetery was well-stocked with evidence of deaths of the villagers in recent years. I came to a small headstone inscribed: PATRICK LAITY, AGED 24. I was surprised that no dates of his birth and death were on the stone nor were there any other words normally written in an epitaph. The shopkeeper had been correct... there was nothing more I could do. However, having an inquisitive mind, I drove to the Coroner’s Office in Truro to satisfy myself. The report of his death was most enlightening. It stated that Patrick was returning home walking down the hill from Constantine when a car driven by a person unknown struck him down. The injuries were extensive. He had been knocked over the edge of the precipice into the valley below and lay hidden in the undergrowth for nearly two months before being discovered. When the body was found, it was in a state of decomposition and mutilation. In fact it was unrecognisable! The multiple fractures indicated a severe blow possibly caused by the impact with the motor vehicle but no accident had been reported and the Coroner had delivered an Open Verdict. Despite that, the police had never found the culprit who ran him down and even after all the years that had passed, the case was still open.

In any other situation, I would have cut my losses, returned to the Falmouth Hotel to settle my account, and departed for Los Angeles. I felt cheated and extremely annoyed. Fate played some very strange tricks on people! There had been the two of us as children. I had prospered as a relatively successful writer in America, enjoying a full life and indulging in triviality. Patrick, on the other hand, was mass of fractured tangled bones laying in a wooden box six feet under the earth. The sadness that rose within me was overwhelming. My feelings eventually gave way to gloom because I felt as though a close member of my family had been lost to me and I spent much of the day feeling sorry for both Patrick and myself.

It was nearly eight o’clock that evening when I entered the Queen’s Arms near to the top of Constantine. The country air had brought back my appetite and I sat down to order a meal. A buxom attractive middle-aged waitress, with long brown hair, smiled at me pleasantly as she took the order.

‘Have you lived in Constantine long?’ I asked her.

‘Yes, my lovely,’ she replied. ‘All my life. I were born here. Should have left for London to make my fortune but there was my invalid mother and that changed things. I looked after her for the best part of twenty years.’

‘Do you remember a man called Patrick Laity?’ I waited expecting to hear the same response as that of the shopkeeper.

She paused for a moment and looked me straight in they eyes. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘It’s a personal thing,’ I told her.

‘E be buried up there in the church cemetery,’ she went on.

‘I know that,’ I added. ‘Can you tell me anything more?’

‘What does ‘e want to know more than that?’ she countered with a degree of suspicion.

I sighed before deciding to give her a full explanation. ‘I was an evacuee here during the war. Mr. & Mrs. Laity were my foster parents. Patrick was my friend and foster brother. We lived in a cottage in Ponjeravah.’

‘Foster brother!’ she echoed bursting into laughter. ‘There be no such thing!’

I shrugged aside her amusement. ‘I came to Cornwall hoping to see him again but now I learn he’s dead. It’s quite a shock.’

‘Well e’ left it late, didn’t ‘e?’ she returned casually. ‘Why be the interest now?’

‘Believe me,’ I went on earnestly, ‘I’ve been trying to find time to get here for years. There’s a world outside Cornwall that’s full of time schedules. I live in the United States... ‘ I tailed off wondering why I was relating my life story to a complete stranger. I wanted to receive information not offer it!

‘What does ‘e want to eat?’ she asked as though the conversation had never taken place. ‘There be some lovely rainbow trout. It were caught today.’

I gave her my order and she disappeared into the kitchen. The quest to discover information from the local people seemed to be a fruitless task. Although they relied on tourism, there were many Cornish people show strongly resented strangers, especially of someone asking questions of one of