A Life Eternal

by Richard Ayre

So the next day, instead of going to the airport like we should have done, we got on a train to Newcastle. I tried to relax on the journey but, every time I closed my eyes, I saw Grace’s shocked face staring at me.

  And turning to whisper something in her husband’s ear.

  *

  I took Madeleine to Rothbury, showing her where I was born and brought up. It hadn’t really changed all that much. My sister’s and my parents’ small cottages were gone, replaced by a new estate of nice-looking houses. But the River Coquet, by which I’d sat on that day in the rain in 1918, still flowed by, and the bench was still there. We sat on it for a while as I talked about my early years when myself and other boys from the village would fish or lark about in the water during the summer. We dined in a little café where I stared at the old photographs on the walls, showing childhood friends who were now in their sixties. Later we visited the graves of Mu and her family, decorating their headstones with flowers for the first time in forty years.

  We hired a car from a local garage and toured along the military road beside Hadrian’s Wall, taking picnics to eat along the way. We went up to Bamburgh and wandered along the beach below the imposing castle, perched on its eyrie of rock. Madeleine walked barefoot, smiling happily at the feel of the sand beneath her toes. I smiled back at her and pretended to enjoy it as my mind dredged up dark memories of Dunkirk and Normandy.

  By the end of the week I had started to relax. The visits to the old haunts had done what I hoped they would. They had brought back a bittersweet happiness but, with Madeleine there with me, I began to unwind. We even visited Eyemouth, the small Scottish fishing village I had told Mickey was my home town. We ate fish and chips there and watched the seals glide up and down in the oily water, looking for any loose fish the trawlers may have missed. We returned to Northumberland and walked the quiet streets of Wooler, climbed the Cheviot Hills and took tea in Corbridge.

  Madeleine told me she had never seen me so contented and I smiled at her and kissed her. But I noticed the odd strand of grey in her golden hair and how the lines around her eyes were getting deeper, and an inner despair tore at my heart as I thought of what my future may be like without her.

  Madeleine was an anchor for me. She was what kept me from despairing at the ephemeral workings of man, that most arrogant of animals, and I sometimes believed that, without her, I would become something infinitely dark. Something perhaps very dangerous.

  However, I tried to put these thoughts away. For a man such as myself to think about the future was stupid in the extreme. I had to enjoy every second, by the second. Nothing else mattered. We continued to tour around the vicinity and I delighted in the fact that she seemed to love the countryside of my youth as much as I did.

  But, in the time between London and Northumberland, Grace must have said something to Wheland which sparked an interest.

  Maybe, when he returned to work, he had made some innocent comment to Pfumpf about his wife seeing an old suitor who hadn’t seemed to have changed in twenty years, and Pfumpf, who surely knew about my time with Grace as he’d known everything else about me, must have put a plan into action straight away.

  He was nothing if not efficient.

  *

  He came in the night, accompanied by two hard-faced individuals, probably attached to the American Embassy in some nefarious business. God knows what tales he had spun for them; maybe they were little more than mercenaries whom he had promised money to. I’m sure the CIA, founded ten years or so before, had people with all sorts of backgrounds on their payroll. I don’t suppose it would have been too hard for Pfumpf, a skilled conman if ever there was one, to think up a story and persuade them to come along. He was ever resourceful.

  We had rented a cottage for the week, near Hexham. It was close enough to the town for meals, but far enough away for the privacy we both liked and required. The cottage was at least a mile away from any other dwelling.

  We were due to leave the next morning so had already packed, and our bags lay beside the bed. The night was very dark, with shadows stretching everywhere.

  It was Madeleine who woke me, shaking my arm.

  ‘Bill. There’s someone downstairs!’ she hissed in my ear. It’s strange, she always called me Bill, even though she knew my true name. I think she preferred it.

  I frowned, listening, and heard the muted sound of a door closing softly downstairs.

  ‘Get dressed,’ I whispered, pulling on my own clothes quickly. I went to the bedroom door and listened, hearing the creak of a stair board.

  I searched the dark room frantically, looking for a weapon of some sort, but I couldn’t see a thing. I fumbled my way across to the gas lamp that stood on the bedside drawers, turning it up slightly to see better, and my eyes alighted on the poker from the fireplace. I picked it up, indicating for Madeleine to get behind me. She was just in time.

  I briefly felt her racing heart fluttering against my back as the doorknob turned slowly. In the light from the quietly hissing lamp, I waited for the door to open wide enough and then brought the poker down on the wrist that appeared as hard as I could.

  There was a crack, a yelp, then I grabbed the arm and dragged the man it belonged to into the bedroom. He was a burly-looking figure and, although I’d broken his wrist, his free hand was already scrabbling in his jacket for something. I didn’t hesitate. The poker cracked down again, this time into the man’s skull. He went down between the bed and the wall without another sound, and I bent down to remove the pistol he had been reaching for. But I was too late.

  Another man appeared in the small bedroom and he grabbed Madeleine immediately, yanking her in front of him as a shield. He twisted her arm up her back and I heard her gasp in pain. He pointed the gun he held to her head and smiled, wickedly. I went still.

  ‘Down,’ was all he said. I threw the poker and the pistol to the floor.

  ‘Turn up the light,’ he ordered, which I did.

  He was another big man, with fleshy lips and a face that looked like it had seen its fair share of fights. He reminded me a little of Mickey Donovan. They were clearly of the same ilk. He called down the stairs to someone.

  We waited, his pig-like eyes never leaving mine.

  Pfumpf stepped into the room.

  He hadn’t aged well.

  Although only somewhere in his late fifties, his face was slack, and in the glow of the gas lamp it looked yellow. He’d lost a hell of a lot of weight too, and his remaining hair had turned white. His suit hung from the frame of a skeleton. He grinned his awful, elastic grin at me as he recognised my shock at his appearance.

  ‘I know, I look terrible. The years are taking their toll, Taylor, as well as other things.’

  I just stared at him.

  ‘But you,’ he continued, shaking his head. ‘You look exactly the same. You haven’t aged a day. It’s incredible.’

  ‘What do you want, Pfumpf?’

  He stepped further into the room, his man dragging Madeleine out of the way. Pfumpf spread his arms.

  ‘What I’ve always wanted. For you and I to work together. For the good of democracy.’

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  ‘Pfumpf, whatever the reason for the way I am, it isn’t something that can be transferred. You know that. Your God-awful experiments proved it. You don’t care about democracy. You don’t care about the Soviet Union. You just want to live forever; that’s what it was always about with you.’

  Pfumpf’s eyes narrowed. I heard the man I’d belted starting to wake up behind me, and then Pfumpf glanced at his watch.

  ‘I don’t really care what you think, Taylor, or Deakin, or whatever the hell your name is. I want your secret. I need it. Before it’s too late.’

  I suddenly understood.

  Pfumpf’s haggard appearance made more sense now. He had something, some disease. When Wheland had told him of my presence he must have thought he’d struck pay dirt. I was his last chance to live. Indeed, to live forever.


  ‘So, what are we going to do?’ I asked him, and he flexed his mouth again.

  ‘You will come with me. Miss Besson here will go with these two gentlemen to a secure location. As long as you help me in my work, she will be safe. If not…’ Once more he spread his arms in a form of explanation.

  My mind was whirling.

  I didn’t trust Pfumpf for one second. He could not kill me, but he could kill Madeleine, and I had no doubt he would do just that to keep his little secret safe. I had to get her away from the man holding her, before they took her away from me forever. That thought caused another shot of ice to course through my adrenalin-soaked body. I could not lose Madeleine. I could not envisage any sort of life without her. I took a little step forward.

  ‘You promise you won’t hurt her?’

  If Pfumpf was surprised by my demeanour, he didn’t show it.

  ‘On my honour,’ he said, which of course meant nothing as he didn’t have any.

  I managed another imperceptible step towards them as the man behind me slowly climbed to his feet.

  I was only a couple of feet away from them now. I sighed and dropped my shoulders, seemingly defeated.

  ‘All right,’ I whispered. Pfumpf grinned. The man with the gun relaxed and lowered his weapon slightly and Madeleine, God how I loved that woman, did exactly what I had shown her to do if we ever found ourselves in a situation like that.

  She lifted her booted foot and scraped it rapidly and forcefully down the gunman’s shin, stamping on his foot. He naturally yanked the leg back in pain, becoming instantly unbalanced, and she spun, brought up her other leg, and kneed him in the groin with all her might.

  He buckled, but still managed to bring the gun up to fire. But I was already on him.

  I grabbed his gun in one hand, his lapel in the other, and head-butted him on the bridge of the nose as hard as I could. He went staggering backwards but I kept hold of his collar and hauled him back, punching him in the throat. He made a strangled, keening sort of sound and brought his hands up to his wounded neck and face, then there was a bang behind me and I felt something slam into my back.

  I staggered forwards into Madeleine’s assailant but managed to rip the gun out of his limp hand. I turned and the first man fired again, hitting me in the stomach. I fired twice and he went down, knocking over the gas lamp, blood spreading swiftly.

  Pfumpf stared in horror as his world was suddenly turned upside down. A second ago he had me where he wanted me, now one of his men was dead and the other was injured and weaponless. He stared at the barrel of the gun in my hand.

  I stepped towards him and smacked the pistol into his awful, smug face. He banged into the wall and slowly slid down to the floor, whimpering.

  However, things were not going great for me. I’d been shot twice. We all knew I wouldn’t die, but there was a good chance I’d pass out soon.

  Madeleine ran over to me, ripping my shirt and tying it around me to try and stem the flow of blood, but I pressed the pistol into her hand and told her to cover the man whose nose I’d broken.

  I stumbled over to the dead man and took his weapon. I was becoming light-headed, my vision beginning to swim.

  And it was then that the gas from the lamp ignited.

  God only knows what had happened. The wick must still have been hot enough probably and the leaking fuel had found it. Whatever it was, there was a ‘whumpf’ sound and suddenly the bedroom was full of dancing, orange flames.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ I hissed.

  ‘What about these two?’ she asked.

  ‘Leave them.’

  Madeleine turned her shocked face towards me. ‘Bill, no. We can’t.’

  I was going to ignore her. I was quite happy for those two bastards to burn to death. But of course Madeleine would never have condoned that. On top of this, Pfumpf had woken up and was crawling as fast as he could away from the first gunman’s body, which was now engulfed in flames. He pleaded with me to get him out.

  I shook my head and relented. But it had to be done quickly; I was fading fast. There seemed to be a darkness around my vision and everything was viewed like it was in a tunnel. A wall of crackling fire grew quickly as the bed itself began to burn. The flames soared higher.

  ‘Fine,’ I muttered to Madeleine.

  Between us, we hauled Pfumpf to his feet, pushing him to the bedroom door. I looked around.

  ‘Where’s the other man?’

  He was gone. He had legged it as Madeleine was helping me. No time to think about that now. We had to get out.

  I pushed Pfumpf down the stairs, not bothered if he fell and broke his neck.

  The pain from the bullet wounds was beginning to fade, and I knew what that meant. I would soon lose consciousness. My body demanded blackness to begin its strange healing process.

  We made it to the ground floor and saw the kitchen door was open. We got outside just in time to see the taillights of a car roar off into the night. The gunman had made his escape.

  Madeleine opened the doors of our hire car and I stuffed Pfumpf into the boot, ignoring his muted protestations as I slammed down the lid.

  Madeleine and I turned back to the burning cottage. Flames were now emerging from the windows and licking at the eaves of the roof. The place was finished.

  I tried to say something to Madeleine, but my vision was becoming even more blurred. I forced myself to stay awake.

  ‘You better drive,’ I whispered.

  We got in and left the cottage’s crackling ruin. Behind me, in the boot of the car, I could hear Pfumpf shouting.

  ‘I have cancer, Taylor,’ he shouted. ‘I’m dying. Why? Why is it fair that I die and you continue to live? Why can’t I have what you have?’

  He then broke off into self-absorbed sobbing.

  I ignored his whines. I was concentrating only on staying awake. I had no idea what we were going to do with Pfumpf. He had tried to kidnap us, but we could hardly go to the police. Any sort of background check on me would show up some very strange results.

  But, as it turned out, I needn’t have worried. The gunman who had escaped the fire did our job for us.

  Madeleine had stopped at a crossroads, unsure of which way to go. I was panting now, feeling blood slide sickeningly from my body. I was no help; I could barely talk.

  Madeleine made a decision and was just turning the wheel when headlights appeared from nowhere and a car slammed into us.

  Our small Morris Minor was no match for the gunman’s heavily built Jaguar. It crashed into us doing about fifty miles an hour and we were smashed sideways. The wheels hit the kerb and the Morris banged over onto its side and then its roof. Madeleine and I were thrown wildly around the interior in a welter of screeching metal and ended up lying on the roof of the car in a tangle of arms and legs. It suddenly became very quiet. We were upside down.

  The only sound was the purring of the Jaguar engine, still running. Then the opening of a door and the crunching of footsteps on gravel, coming towards us.

  I could barely keep awake. The car crash hadn’t even raised my heart rate, as my body was already going into shock from being shot. I knew the feeling by now. I was dying.

  I glanced at Madeleine and, to my horror, saw that her eyes were closed and a trickle of blood ran down a cheek from a cut high up on her head somewhere. I couldn’t even begin to think what my life would be like if she was gone, so I ignored the clawing panic that swept through me and turned my attention to the immediate situation.

  I glimpsed, as if far away, two feet stop by the window of the Morris. My hand went to my pocket where the revolver lay, and I managed to pull it out just as the man bent down.

  I was pleased to see his nose was split and swollen: I’d definitely broken it. He had another gun in his hand. Those sorts of people always have two, and he smiled cruelly at my predicament as he began to point the gun at me. He was still smiling when I shot him in the face.

  He didn’t make a sound; I think the bulle
t killed him instantly. He just collapsed to the road, his body illuminated by the one headlight that was still working on the Jag.

  Everything was going wrong. I couldn’t grip the pistol in my hand, and it clattered to the roof of the car. I tried to get to Madeleine; I needed to know she was still alive. I needed to know she would be alright.

  But the black tunnel in my vision finally caved in and I was falling, falling down a deep black well. Madeleine’s face seemed to waver and fade. She disappeared.

  *

  The next thing I knew was waking up in the back seat of a strange car. It was daytime. I tried to move but my stomach and back howled in protest. I felt my body and found that bandages seemingly made out of silk were wrapped around me.

  A sudden panic swept through me as I remembered the crash. Pfumpf. Madeleine!

  Ignoring the pain, I struggled up and looked out of the window. And sighed, thankfully.

  Madeleine was there, crouching by a small stream, washing something in it. She stood and came back to the car, her face breaking into that wonderful smile as she saw me watching. She ran across and opened the door of the car, which I recognised now as the gunman’s Jaguar.

  She kissed me and kissed me, and I held her tight. She began weeping and I just held her. My Madeleine. My life. My love.

  Eventually, I asked her what had happened.

  ‘I woke up and you were unconscious,’ she said. ‘That other man was there. He was dead. Shot.’ She looked at me, but there was no accusation in her voice. She must have known it had been necessary.

  ‘Pfumpf?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s dead. Must have been the crash.’

  ‘What did you do with him?’

  She swallowed and tears of shame glittered in her eyes. ‘I dragged him into the bushes, along with the other one… I didn’t know what else to do. I…’

  I took her in my arms. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ I murmured. Even though I knew it wasn’t. She wasn’t.

  I had wanted to ask Pfumpf how he had known about Valin, how he had found out about my past. But now I couldn’t.