A Crack in the Glass (Telling Tales Book 1)

by Charles Owen

  If she had a weakness, it was of the mind, not the body. She was driven by an almost demonic energy. The key to this mystery lay at the end of these dark streets. Why else should she feel herself drawn there with such speed, such certainty, like an iron filing rushing towards a magnet?

  There was a light wind and in between sheets of fog, she caught a glimpse of the jagged silhouette of a bombed church outlined against the moon. She was close to the river now and here the fog clung to the arches of a bridge and draped itself about the buildings. In places there was a strong smell of burning where charred beams had been piled on top of the rubble that had been pushed to the side of the road.

  A house rose up in front of her. This must be the place. A short flight of steps led to the door. Hanging from it was a notice. Bending down, she could just discern the words, ‘The Fallen Angel. Members Only. Top Floor.’

  The door opened to her touch. This did not surprise her. It was as inevitable as the sliver of light which beckoned to her from above. It was as inevitable as the sound of laughter that filtered down to her. The lower floors were in darkness but as she climbed she became conscious of a press of people around her.

  ‘Let the lady through,’ someone shouted. Another took her hand. He had dark, curly hair and a wide smile. ‘I’m Mike. Mike Maguire.’

  ‘Why are you out here?’ she asked over her shoulder.

  ‘We came out for a breath of air. Too many people inside.’

  ‘Is Johnny there? Johnny Colgrave?’

  ‘He should be. He came with us. Are you Johnny’s girl?’ He called up to Bill Lakin. ‘Bill! It’s Johnny’s girl! Get her a drink before she passes out.’

  Lucy had the feeling of friendly hands helping her up the last flight towards the brilliant circle of light at the top.

  Suddenly she felt faint and unsteady on her feet. A hand took her arm.

  ‘Is that Chalky?’ she whispered. ‘Chalky White?’

  ‘Why!’ he exclaimed. ‘Have we met?’

  ‘In a way.’

  ‘I’m admitting nothing,’ he laughed. ‘Not if you are Johnny’s girl.’

  ‘How do I find him?’ She rested her head against the glass in the door but it was like stepping up to the moon. She could see nothing for the brightness.

  ‘Just tap on the door and give it a push,’ said Chalky.

  And that is what Lucy did.

  ***

  At the police station, Ron Lister was asked a lot of questions before he was allowed to go. ‘She must have fallen fifty feet,’ he said to anyone who would listen. ‘I cannot remember when I was so upset. I waited outside the house. Anyone could see that the place had been bombed. I thought Mrs Tremlett would be out within a minute. Then I went inside and shone my torch around. The house was a shell. There was no roof. The staircase was still there but most of the floors had gone. Anyone who went up there must have been off their rocker. The last flight was no better than a diving board.

  ‘And what is more…’ he just stopped himself from saying worse, ‘I don’t expect to see a penny for this night’s work.’

  THE ROMAN ROAD

  It was a wild night, the wind ripping the last leaves from the trees and chasing a tumult of clouds across the merest sliver of a moon. A new moon seen through glass. Bad luck for some. He wouldn’t have called himself a superstitious man, but on a night like this, disquiet found a darker, richer soil for its roots.

  He shivered, taking a hand off the wheel to pull his jacket more tightly about him. The heater was old and defective. Switch it on and all you got was a puff of tepid air and a rattle from the fan. And the rattle wore on his nerves.

  The lorry was being driven fast, too fast, but he was tired. He wanted to get home to Betty and see the boys before they were in bed. ‘They are growing up so fast, Jim. They need you home more. I know we need the money, love, but they need a father. One day you will turn around and find it's all over. They have grown up and you've missed it.’

  He ground his teeth, cursing the narrow road, the bare, whippy branches swinging at him, lashing the sides of the tarpaulin, the tortuous bends which pulled at the muscles in his shoulders, the sudden dips and hollows which waited for him like an ambush for soldiers separated from the column.

  They were cruel, these long trips, but driving was the only trade he knew and he was too old to learn another. Fortunate to have a job at all the way things were going. How long had it been this time? Too long. Much too long. He yawned. He could tell you where he had been, reel off the names of the towns from the road signs like memorising a sequence of cards. That was a trick you used to see performed in the working men's clubs when he was a lad. Now all that the entertainer needed to do to raise a cheer was to drop his trousers.

  Other people talked of travel. To him it was just distance. So many miles to be subdued, overcome, wrested from hill and valley and plain. Sometimes those miles came easy, unwinding their long grey ribbons, smooth as silk, yielding without a struggle. Sometimes they fought you every yard of the way, shook the bones in your body and the teeth in your head. Sometimes, when the sun came out after a shower of rain and the surfaces were like glass and you were on the home run, they wanted to dance with you. Take your partners for the last waltz.

  Something caught his eye and he glanced in the wing mirror. The tarpaulin was bellying where a rope had worked loose. He swore softly. The road was bounded by tall beech trees whose shallow roots clutched at high banks on either side. The wind was still rising, the branches threshing in the half gale. He didn't want to stop. He was so close now. Just a mile or two to the old Roman road and there the country opened out and the road ran almost straight for ten miles. He would fix it then. He would be home within half an hour. Home ... home ... home...

  The windscreen was misting up. He leaned forward and cleared a porthole in the cold pane. In the headlights the trunks of the trees seemed to rush at him as he went into the bends, as if a zoom lens had brought them into sharp focus.

  Coming out of a corner he saw the lights of an approaching vehicle. Big, high-sided, cresting the switchback, running down the dip. He could see water lying in the hollow. He felt the brakes gently, trying to get a feel for the slippery surface, easing his foot back off the pedal as he sensed a slight loss of traction, concentrating on his steering. He was going to meet it all wrong. They would cross at the bottom of the slope. The bastard! Why didn't he pull over! He was right in the middle of the road! As he swung his wheel, the lorry swept past him in a flurry of noise and spray, drenching his windscreen, blinding him. Hell! He swiped at a lever to start the wipers going. For a split second he was steering by instinct. There was a heavy bump as if an inside wheel had caught the edge of a drain at the side of the road. The lorry lurched, corrected itself and regained the crown of the road as his windscreen cleared.

  He slowed right down, bawling at himself for driving like a bloody learner, for turning a difficult situation into a dangerous one. The adrenalin pricked at his skin like heat rash. Slowly he felt the tension ebb from him, his grip on the wheel slacken, relieving his cramped fingers. He shrugged at his shirt, trying to lift it where it was clammy with sweat and sticking to his back. The trees were thinning. He was off the hill and onto the Levels. The Roman road stretched ahead of him, its poplars like twin files of soldiers. He pulled in and secured the tarpaulin. He drove gently now, paying out the extra minutes as cheerfully as if he was ransoming his life, as if it was the price of bringing him back safe and sound to those who loved him.

  2

  ‘Why didn't you bring your car, James? We could have had a girl each.’ Ben glanced up at the passenger mirror watching for James to drop his jaw and his mouth to droop, a sign that he considered the question too banal to warrant a serious reply.

  ‘Safety in numbers,’ James replied.

  They all laughed.

  ‘Chicken,’ said Louise.

  ‘I think it's lovely,’ Claire put in quickly. ‘Us all being together like this. And all kno
wing each other. I've been to christenings where the godparents met for the first time in the church porch. Not very cosy.’ After a moment of reflection, she added, ‘I suppose it's because we are all friends of Nicola.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said James cuttingly.

  ‘God, you are odious sometimes!’ Louise said. ‘Why didn't you stay at home?’

  ‘If Nicola had been married,’ Ben said, ‘I expect the proud father would have produced a couple of godparents.’

  ‘Some girl he had been bonking witless for years and a mucker from university he gets legless with every Saturday night,’ said James sourly. ‘We're probably better off as we are.’

  Louise turned to make huge eyes at Claire behind her. ‘What a flatterer the man is.’

  The car picked up speed as they left the village and turned onto the main road. ‘It's a bit odd having a christening miles from where the mother lives,’ said Ben.

  James sniffed. ‘I don't think it's at all odd under the circumstances.’

  ‘I'm surprised you are allowed to have a christening at all so long after the happy event,’ said Claire.

  ‘The unhappy event,’ James corrected her.

  ‘You would think that the vicar would set some sort of time limit,’ Claire went on a little breathlessly.

  ‘I don't think it would be very Christian,’ said James, ‘to treat new babies like Beaujolais Nouveau. You can't just pour them down the drain after six months.’

  ‘You would be surprised–’ Ben began.

  ‘Oh, Ben!’ Claire protested. ‘Don't be horrible. You men are spoiling everything. The little boy is sweet and Nicola is as proud as a peacock.’

  ‘Peahen,’ James quibbled. He was determined not to enter into the spirit of the occasion. He grudged any Saturday afternoon not spent browsing for bargains in some second-hand bookshop.

  ‘Alright, a peahen,’ Claire conceded sullenly.

  Louise said, ‘Do stop arguing. Gino is heavenly. Everything will turn out fine. You'll see.’

  Ben swerved to avoid a fallen branch in the road. A blackbird skittered from a holly tree already bright with berries. ‘You girls have seen Gino. Who does he take after?’

  ‘He's a beautiful colour – not like us pasty-faced Brits. Glossy black hair and golden-brown skin – like a permanent suntan.’ Claire ran a hand through her carroty hair. ‘I'd swap my freckles for Gino's complexion any day.’

  ‘The northern Italians are quite fair,’ said Ben. He was driving slowly now, looking for a turning that would take them out of the gloom of the woods into the fitful sunshine.

  ‘Not terribly relevant since Nicola's lover lives in Naples,’ said James with a lawyer's relish for punishing a loose comment.

  ‘Nicola's lover – you make it sound so coarse somehow,’ said Louise.

  ‘Well, wasn't it? He got her pregnant, scarpered back to Italy and hasn't been heard of since.’

  ‘That isn't quite fair, James,’ said Ben reprovingly. ‘I'm sure they write to each other–’

  ‘Nicola keeps his photograph next to her bed,’ Claire broke in. ‘She's obviously still crazy about him.’

  ‘Got the hots for Sergio have you, Claire?’ James taunted.

  ‘No, I haven't!’ Claire protested, her cheeks flaming.

  ‘I think Nicola was very brave to have the child,’ said Ben, who could be trusted to dispense conversational aspirins whenever the temperature started rising.

  James ignored the prescription. ‘What you really mean is that Nicola was off her head to want the baby and her parents should never have allowed her to have it.’

  ‘You can't blame the parents,’ said Claire. ‘They didn't know until it was too late. Nicola told nobody. She kept it a secret until after her finals.’

  ‘Nicola's crime was falling in love,’ Louise said quietly. ‘I don't mean the sort of tepid arrangement between couples who have done everything else except have a wedding. With Nicola and Sergio it was the real thing.’

  ‘Tell us about “the real thing”, Louise.’ James caught Ben's eye and winked.

  Louise fidgeted in her seat. ‘You're just winding me up.’

  ‘No, I'm not. I really want to know.’ James sensed Louise's eyes on him and his face tightened in an effort to erase the mocking lines from his thin, sharp features.

  ‘It's like two acrobats performing a once-in-a-lifetime act ... something that they cannot practise … leaving the safety of the trapeze … launching themselves into space … knowing there can be no second chance … daring the fates to come between them and bring them low.’ She tossed her long dark hair, irritated with herself. ‘It sounds so trite when you try to put it into words.’

  ‘There are other ways.’ James squeezed his hand between the car seats to rest it on her knee.

  Louise smacked the hand lightly and swung her legs clear.

  ‘Don't grope, James!’ said Claire excitedly, moving her body a little closer to the danger zone. ‘Go on, Louise.’

  ‘You've made me shy,’ Louise told her. ‘Anyway, there isn’t any more.’

  James put on his most solemn expression. ‘Go on. I promise not to tease.’

  ‘Very few people have the courage to fall in love,’ said Louise severely. ‘Most of them just fake it – with the best of motives, of course. It makes their parents and their friends happy.’

  This was too much for Claire. She was bouncing up and down in her seat. ‘How could you say such a thing, Louise! I know people who fall in love all the time. Helen, my flatmate–’

  ‘I can't see Helen as an acrobat,’ said James. ‘She hasn’t the figure for it. I see her with baggy trousers and a bright-red nose throwing pails of whitewash all over the place.’

  ‘Oh, James, how mean you are!’ Claire subsided into reproachful silence.

  Louise pressed her hand sympathetically. ‘I don't see James launching himself into space. Not exactly a skydiver, are you, James?’

  ‘I resent the suggestion that I'm some sort of emotional dwarf.’

  Louise burst out laughing. ‘You are too critical, James, too fastidious. If the Venus de Milo herself knocked on your bedroom door, you would stand her under a bright light and walk round and round her until you had found a chip in the marble and then send her back to her room.’

  ‘Isn’t she missing her arms?’ said James.

  ‘Oh, James! You’re quite impossible!’ Louise protested.

  ‘I don't really see why James should have to defend himself.’ Ben wound down the window and squinted at the sky. ‘After all, he didn't get Nicola into this mess.’

  ‘Here we go.’ Louise nudged Claire with her elbow. ‘The boys are closing ranks. We girls have a lot to learn about solidarity.’

  ‘And about listening a little more and talking a little less.’ Ben raised his eyes to the mirror, amused to see the girls turn to each other, rounding their eyes like children reprimanded in class.

  ‘It's all very well Nicola and Sergio doing their circus act,’ he persisted, ‘but it has come unstuck and the people with their feet on the ground have to pick up the pieces. Nicola's parents must be worried sick. They aren't remotely well off.’

  ‘I'm sure Sergio would help if he could,’ said Claire. ‘He's got his degree.’

  ‘A poor second in Civil Engineering,’ James countered.

  ‘Nicola says he's got a job with a construction company,’ said Claire loyally, ‘and the firm has just won a big motorway contract.’

  James sniffed. ‘They live like gypsies moving from site to site and job to job. Sergio is probably dossing down in a caravan with six others. What sort of a life is that?’

  ‘If two people love each other–’

  ‘Oh, Louise!’ Ben groaned, showing the first signs of irritation. ‘Sergio has been back in Italy for over a year. He's not yet twenty-two and he's the youngest of five. His parents have a flat in the suburbs of Naples. They have very little money. It may be ten years before he is in a position to support a wife and child.
However much he may want to help Nicola, he can't do it.’

  ‘You make her sound so feeble,’ said Louise. ‘Women are much more independent these days. We could have a woman as prime minister this time next year.’

  ‘I can’t see Nicola as PM,’ said Ben facetiously.

  ‘Well, you must admit that she has put no pressure on Sergio or his family,’ persisted Louise. ‘She's been absolutely marvellous considering–’

  ‘Considering there's nothing Sergio or his parents can do,’ interposed James, his tone taking on an edge, ‘I would say that Nicola was facing facts for the first time. Her parents have had to face them from day one.’

  ‘It must be wonderful to be so sure of everything,’ said Louise hotly. ‘You sound just like my father.’

  ‘I can live with that. I have a lot of respect for your father.’

  ‘Face the facts!’ Louise mimicked James's clipped manner of speaking. ‘It's our parents' way of saying, “I didn't get away with it and you aren’t going to either.”’

  ‘I don't think you are being honest, Louise,’ James objected. ‘If Nicola was your daughter–’

  ‘Now then, gang, we're nearly there, let's not quarrel.’ Ben looked up at the scudding clouds. ‘You girls will have to hold on to your hats.’

  Louise had found the road map in a side pocket. She flicked over the pages sightlessly, tears pricking at her eyes.

  ‘Do you think Mr Channing will be there?’ asked Claire, throwing a makeshift bridge across the awkward silence.

  ‘I can't help noticing the way everyone calls him Mister Channing,’ Ben remarked. ‘It's never Edward Channing, let alone Edward.’

  Claire squirmed. Her nose wrinkled with a fine distaste. ‘He's so old and musty. Helen and I saw him at the library last Saturday. Ma was in bed with a beastly cold and she asked me to return a book for her. We had been shopping together – trying on hats and having complete hysterics–’

  ‘Is there a point to this story? If so–’

  ‘Oh, do shut up, James,’ cried Louise, ‘and let Claire finish.’

  James sighed and stretched his legs resignedly while Claire went on. ‘There was a queue at the counter in the library. Some old bat was bickering away at the assistant which set us off again. Mr Channing must have heard us because he came out of his office and–’