by Richard Ayre
XXVIII
The years once more moved swiftly by.
2019 ended and 2020 burst upon the planet like a vengeful god. Once again, just as I had witnessed in 1919, a tiny, invisible germ showed humanity just how insignificant it was. That year was bad, very bad, and many a family lost loved ones but, as everything does, it eventually ended.
By sixth of August 2022, things were moving quickly for me. I was a sick man. The chemotherapy had extended my prognosis but it was never going to save me. I didn’t think I had long left and in fact, just a few months before, I had told them I no longer wanted to continue with it. It was too awful. I was sick of the vomit and the pain. Best just to leave it now.
I ruminated constantly on my life. I’d had so much longer than most people get. One hundred and twenty-six years old was, I believed, a world record for longevity and, now that it was coming to an end, I was stupidly beginning to fear its completion.
Not that anyone knew about it of course. Apart from Pearl.
She would live a normal life because of the bargain between me and the strange power that had once lived within me. She would have the same chance as everyone else does to love and laugh and cry. She would have the same chance to live and die. I secretly believed it would be quite a while before she did die, but she would at least grow old normally. She would have children and they would pass on her wonderful genes to the next generation. The infection was now gone. It no longer existed in anyone.
It certainly did not exist in me. The diagnosis of the same leukaemia that Pearl had was given to me a year after she awoke and terrified the nurse in the room with her. They said that, with the right treatment, I could expect to live a good five to ten years but, as I’d now stopped the chemotherapy, I didn’t know how long was left for me. At least my hair was starting to grow back, which was something. This had been the secret bargain between that power and me. It was a one-off transference, and it had happened because I had wanted Pearl to live. Not to just rid myself of eternal life, but because she needed to survive.
And because I loved her. Totally and unconditionally. The infection had known this and it had been easy for us both. We had both wanted the same thing.
I was stretching my legs in the local park when my phone rang. I dug it out of my jeans pocket.
‘Hi, Pearl, how you doing?’
‘Hiya,’ came the answer. ‘Where are you? I’m at the shop but you’re not here.’
‘That’s because I’m here.’
‘Lol,’ she said, dryly. ‘I’ve got a birthday present for you.’
‘What is it?’
‘Well if you were here, you’d know,’ she answered. ‘So you coming back, or what?’
‘Nope. It’s far too nice a day to be cooped up, cooking in a shop window. I’m taking the day off.’
‘Nice,’ she muttered. ‘Is it still on for tonight, then?’
‘Yes. Bring your mum and Presh over for seven. I’m cooking vegetarian.’
‘Why, for God’s sake?’
‘Some of us have to look after ourselves now, you know. No more of that smoking malarkey or drinking too much. It’s the gym twice a week for me.’
There was a pause as Pearl silently contemplated this useless jollity.
‘You’ve been saying that since you joined and you still haven’t been.’ There was a sadness in her voice, and I cursed myself for putting it there.
I forced myself to laugh.
‘Seven. Be there or be square.’
‘You are such a dork,’ she said, and closed the call. I continued my walk through the park. The grass was littered with people out enjoying the sun, and children ran and played. I sat on a park bench and watched a dog sniffing around the nearby fountain.
Although I was now free, I wondered if I would miss the world when it was finished with me. Valin had lived for over eighty years after he had passed it along, and doubtless it had been the same for the others before him. I probably wouldn’t see another summer. Now that it had been taken away from me, I believed I wanted to see more of the world and what it held. I would miss it.
I regretted immensely what I had done with my life. I had lived for over a hundred years and had allowed myself to see nothing but the worst of it. I ruminated on how it may have been if I had seen more, done more. Been more.
Perhaps I could have helped humanity. Perhaps I could have used my special condition to aid them. Maybe I could have learned to be a doctor, a scientist. I might have worked towards them, us, having a better future. I perhaps could have led them to something brighter than their broken past.
There was so much more I could have done, could have experienced. In reality, life is a never-ending wonder but, instead of grasping it, I had turned my face away from it and had started to hate it.
I wished I’d had more time.
But then I cursed myself for my greediness. I had been given so many more years than most people could dream of, and all of them in the bloom of health. I had selfishly tried to kill myself once rather than continue with my existence. And now, when the end I had craved for so long was upon me, I wanted more. But in reality I wanted it not for me, but to see what would happen. How Pearl’s life would turn out, how Precious would develop.
My phone rang again. I took it out and my heart sank when I saw the number.
‘Doctor Fenwick,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
‘Afternoon, Mr Deakin. I’m fine. I’m wondering if you have time to come into the surgery within the next few days? I have something to discuss with you.’
‘I suppose I can,’ I answered, evasively. I didn’t like the doctors. ‘What’s it about?’
They must have found out something else. Maybe today was the day I discovered when I would die. The cold fingers of dread brushed me and I shivered. I still clung to life. It was very strange.
‘Well, I don’t want to go into it too much over the phone,’ said Fenwick, ‘but we’ve had word of a new treatment for cases like yours. Carville University, over in America, have been conducting tests on a new treatment for leukaemia and we’re wanting to start the same testing over here. They’ve had some quite amazing results over there. As I’ve said, I’d rather talk to you face-to-face, and I don’t want to get any hopes up, but I think it would be really good if we could talk soon.’
I frowned.
‘The Carville University? In Washington?’
‘Oh, you’ve heard of it? Yes. The doctors there are at the forefront of treatments against all sorts of cancer. The Herbert Pfumpf Memorial Research Centre has been working on things like this for years. Ever since the fifties I think. Have you already looked at their data? It’s really interesting.’
I stared at my phone for a second, then laughed, shaking my head.
Fate. No such thing as fate. Never had been, never would be.
‘No, but I will do,’ I said. ‘I can come in whenever it’s best for you.’
We made an appointment for the next day. I tried not to get my hopes up too much, it was getting rather late in the day for that. But it was hard.
I left the park and walked the busy streets of London slowly, going back to the shop.
I sat with a cup of tea in the shop window and opened the birthday present Pearl had left for me. It was a new watch. I grinned, ruefully, fastening it around my wrist.
Tonight Precious and I were celebrating our birthdays, with my surrogate family, and tomorrow I would visit Doctor Fenwick and listen to what he had to say. Perhaps it would come to something, perhaps it wouldn’t. Afterwards, I would sit at the table in my little shop and make wooden toys.
From its place on the shelf, the old black-and-white photograph of Madeleine smiled at me.
I smiled back.
*
Late September, 1959. The night was getting dark outside our cottage.
I lit the fire and put a record on. It was Glenn Miller, Moonlight Serenade. I turned as Madeleine came in with two glasses and a bottle of red. She wore a simple s
kirt and blouse, and her golden hair with its streaks of grey was loose over her shoulders. She glowed in the light from the fire. She smiled at me and I took the glasses and bottle from her, then took her hand. We danced slowly to that mournful, beautiful tune.
I breathed in the scent of her and closed my eyes. My happiness was complete, as it always was when she was near me. When she was with me.
We sat when the music ended and I poured us both a glass of wine. For a long time we just stared at the fire, my arm around her shoulders and her head on my chest.
Eventually, Madeleine turned towards me.
‘Bill?’
‘Yes?’
‘We’ll always be like this, won’t we?’
I put down my glass.
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t we be?’
She didn’t say anything for a long time, but I knew what she was thinking. She was getting older and I was staying the same. We both knew what the future held and it was something neither of us wanted.
She eventually sighed.
‘Your life will be so different from mine, my sweet,’ she started. I shook my head and put my fingers to her lips. I didn’t want to talk about this, but she gently removed them and kissed them. She kept my hand in her own.
‘Please. I need to say this to you, just once, and then never talk of it again. Your life will be different, and I want you to think about that. I want to give you some advice and I want you to listen to me. I want you to think about what you have, not what you may lose. You’ll never be able to really live properly unless you come to terms with what life is. You think you are cursed but, in reality, you have been given a gift. Don’t hate life. Don’t miss out on happiness in the future because you think that happiness will be snatched away at any minute. That would be a monumental sin.’
‘Maddy, please, I don’t want to think about any of that.’
I leaned forward and picked up my glass, frowning. I didn’t want this conversation. But Madeleine was not to be denied. She gently pulled me back towards her.
‘Most lives are short for a reason, Bill. We all have to give way for others, to give them a turn on the wheel, if only for a while. Life is too precious to believe it will always be there.’ She smiled at my frowning face. ‘I know you deny this, but it’s true. You know it’s true. I won’t always be here for you, my love, and I worry for your future. I worry about you. Life has been different for you. Life has been more constant for you than should have been allowed, and will continue to be long after I’m gone. Life will hold you longer than it should. Longer than anyone should endure.’
Madeleine smiled at the look on my face. She leaned over and kissed my cheek, which had become damp. She wiped my silent tears away.
‘What you have to remember, Bill, is that life is a currency. A currency of time that has no worth, and yet is priceless. Without it we do not learn, we do not grow. Without time, how does the new born baby learn how to hold, how to grasp, how to stand, how to walk? Without time how does the tree grow, the seasons change, the years pass?
‘You will see much on your travels, Bill. You will experience the highest and the lowest that life can bring. You will see terror and obsession and vice and bloodshed. And you will see love and laughter and warmth. It’s the Yin and the Yang. The up and the down.’
Madeleine sighed and wiped her own eyes, sipping her wine.
‘I believe you are the way you are for a reason, Bill. And I believe one day you will understand why you have been made like this. One day, perhaps a long time from now, you will realise that there is a purpose to your strange life. That you’re not cursed. Instead, you are blessed.’
She took my face in her hands and she continued to smile at me, and her smile warmed my soul.
‘One day, this will all make sense,’ she said. ‘And you will do what you know is right. And it will be wonderful. It’s your fate.’
Madeleine looked deep into my eyes, and something inside me, something that had so many times in the past heaved with anger and hatred seemed to relax and settle, as if it agreed with her words. As if some sort of deal had been struck. She continued to stare at me until she suddenly nodded. She seemed satisfied that her words had been heeded. Then she sighed, contentedly and once more laid her head on my chest.
I held her tight, thinking about what she had said, and I knew she was right. Madeleine was always right. But the knowledge of this caused more tears to trickle slowly down my cheeks and into her hair.
I kissed the tears away and stared into the fire once more, that power inside me feeling warm and replete. After a while, Madeleine stood and selected another record: I’ll Be Seeing You, by Billie Holiday. It was one of her favourites. She held out her hand to me and I smiled and took it. I held her close as, together, we danced again.
Forever.
The End
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Acknowledgements
I would like to say a huge thank you to my beta readers, whose comments and feedback were invaluable in helping us to turn this story into the finished product you have in your hands. So thank you to: Andreas Rauch, Fi Phillips, Joyce and David Oxley, Chris Tetreault-Blay, Keith Lemmon, Phillip, Cynthia Jenson, Alison Belding, and Roger Owen.
A special mention for Pete and Simon at Burning Chair. Thank you for your belief in my work.
Richard Ayre
May 2020
About the Author
Richard Ayre was born in Northumberland, too many years ago now to remember. He has had a variety of jobs including roofer, milkman and factory worker. Tiring of this, Richard studied for a degree with the Open University and now teaches History for a living.
At an impressionable age he fell in love with new wave Heavy Metal and rock music and at about the same time read his first James Herbert novel. The combination of these two magnificent things led him to write his first novel, Minstrel’s Bargain, a tale of music and horror. He now lives in Newcastle upon Tyne where he continues to write whenever he can. When not writing, or putting children on detention, he can be found pottering around the Northumberland landscape on his motorcycle, Tanya.
You can contact Richard via FaceBook, Twitter, or through his website: https://richardayre1.wixsite.com/richard-ayre-author
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Other Books by Burning Chair Publishing
Going Dark (Tom Novak Book 1), by Neil Lancaster
Going Rogue (Tom Novak Book 2), by Neil Lancaster
Haven Wakes, by Fi Phillips
Beyond, by Georgia Springate
Burning: An Anthology of Thriller Shorts, edited by Simon Finnie and Peter Oxley
The Infernal Aether Series, by Peter Oxley
The Infernal Aether
A Christmas Aether
The Demon Inside
Beyond the Aether
The Old Lady of the Skies: 1: Plague
The Wedding Speech Manual: The Complete Guide to Preparing, Writing and Performing Your Wedding Speech, by Peter Oxley
www.burningchairpublishing.com