London, February 18th 2014
Despite the darkness, Katie knew it was morning. She shifted slightly on the yoga mat and realised that the man was behind her, that his arms were around her and he was spooning her. It had been months since Katie had woken up next to a man, but she didn’t feel the awkwardness that she normally did. Even though she still didn’t know the man’s name, she felt incredibly comfortable around him – how could she not after he’d saved her life? Katie slowly extracted herself from his grasp and turned to face him: he was awake and his blue eyes penetrated hers. They held each other’s gaze without speaking. Something had shifted between them and they didn’t need words to acknowledge the deepening of their intimacy. There was something inevitable about it – they’d been looking for comfort and they’d found it in each other.
‘Good morning,’ the man said softly. Katie smiled at him and they lay silently for several moments. He took her hand in his just as he had the night before and then he squeezed it tenderly. Katie didn’t pull away.
‘Would you like some water?’ he asked her. ‘Or some breakfast?’
Katie shook her head. She was keen to see if the bombs had stopped: for four days now they’d plummeted towards London, for four days they’d been trapped in their underground gym. But even a sanctuary could become stifling – Katie was desperate for some fresh air, for some sunlight.
‘Shall we see if we can go outside?’ Katie asked instead.
The man nodded and he led Katie towards the staircase without letting go of her hand. As they climbed the stairs they discovered that the heavy door to the street had been warped – probably by the heat of the fire and the vibrations of the bombs – but after several kicks the man managed to open it and they pushed their way onto the street. For the first time in days the outside world was silent – there were no planes, no bombs and the fires that had spread throughout the city had died down to moderate embers. The air had cleared of the concrete dust that had hung over the city, but the heartbreakingly fragile skeletons of nearby buildings remained.
‘I need to find my son,’ the man said. ‘I’m going to go now while there’s still time – we may have seen the last of the bombs for now, but there’s a chance the planes may come back.’
Katie shielded her eyes from the sun and surveyed the damage to the street. She’d wondered if they could find a car so they could drive to where they needed to go, but the roads were so blocked by debris that it would have been pointless. They’d be faster on foot.
‘I’m coming with you,’ Katie said. ‘Where do you want to look first?’
The man hesitated for a moment. ‘I don’t want you to get hurt – it would be safer for you to stay here—’.
‘Two heads are better than one,’ she interrupted. ‘Let me help you. You saved my life and I can’t let you search by yourself.’
The man nodded. ‘I want to go to his school and start there,’ he said. His voice was gruff, strained, and Katie put her hand on his arm.
‘We’ll find him,’ she said softly. Katie knew that without hope they’d have nothing at all and that they needed to remain strong – they didn’t know what the future held for them. The man forced his face into a neutral expression which Katie recognised as him trying not to cry, and they began to stride towards his son’s primary school. At first they walked at a fast pace, but the sight of the ravaged residential roads was so overwhelming that soon they began to run. If anybody else had survived the bombs they couldn’t be seen.
After only 20 minutes they arrived at the school, and Katie was astonished to see that most of the Victorian building stood triumphantly despite the damage that surrounded it. The man ran from classroom to classroom, from gymnasium to assembly hall as he roared his son’s name…and then he stopped. ‘What was that?’ he said. Both he and Katie stood completely still when they heard the noise again: it was a child’s voice calling out for help.
They sprinted towards where they heard the cries, and they found themselves in the staff room. Fifteen or so children were huddled in a corner, but there was no teacher looking after them – they were alone and incredibly scared.
‘Do you know Dylan McNicholas?’ the man barked at them. The children stared at him wordlessly. They were obviously petrified of the man yelling at them. ‘Where is he?’
Katie put her hand on the man’s arm to silence him and then walked towards the children. There was a smell of stale urine – some of the children had obviously wet themselves while they’d been hidden away – and there were several empty juice cartons littered on the cheap, scratchy carpet.
‘Is anybody hurt?’ she asked in a soft voice. The children shook their heads. ‘My name is Katie – we’re going to take you somewhere safe.’ She glanced at the man. He looked visibly distraught that his son was not in the group, but he nodded in complicity – there was no way that they could leave the children where they were. They had to return to the gym with them in case the planes reappeared in the sky.
‘Dylan was with us,’ a tiny voice piped up, and both Katie and the man focused their attention on a small auburn-haired boy. ‘But he went out yesterday to see if he could get help and he’s not come back. He said he would.’
The man stared at the child. ‘Do you know where he went?’ he managed to say.
‘He said he was going to get his dad.’
The man’s face turned white, but he took Katie’s hands in his and focused all of his attention on her. ‘I’m going to go back to my flat, and I’m going to find Dylan. When I do we’ll come straight back to the gym. In the meantime, can you take the children there? Do you remember the way?’
Katie nodded wordlessly. She didn’t want to be separated from the man, but she knew they had little choice: she had to rescue the children, just like the man had rescued her.
The man held Katie’s gaze, and as his bright blue eyes penetrated hers it was as if he knew what she was thinking. ‘I promise I’ll come back,’ the man said. ‘I promise that I’ll be right by your side again.’
Katie forced herself to swallow her anxiety and instead she smiled at him. The man’s face lit up and he kissed her, softly, on the mouth. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ he said, and then he turned on his heel and left the staff room. Katie wanted to call out, to ask him not to do anything reckless, but she knew that the man would do all it would take to find his son. Instead she watched his retreating back – and wished with all her heart that she’d thought to ask his name.
London, England, June 2075
Harper walked down the narrow, plastic stairs into the gym and immediately felt claustrophobic. The walls of the building were painted white and despite old-fashioned fluorescent spotlights dotted across the ceiling, the gym felt claustrophobic and oppressive. Harper was used to living in a city with plenty of space and lots of natural sunlight, and being in a building with no windows and low ceilings made her feel uncomfortable. But despite her anxiousness, she also knew – with absolute certainty – that this must have been where her grandmother had hidden. Harper had been taught extra-sensory perception by her digital assistant from the age of twelve until sixteen, and she could feel the history of the building: she could sense Katie’s presence.
‘And this is the main gym,’ the tour guide said. Harper felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as she heard his voice, and for the first time since she’d arrived at Atlas she turned to look at the guide properly. He was tall – at least 6’4’ to her 5’9’ – and had broad shoulders, a strong jaw and muscular arms. He smiled as he caught her gaze, and Harper found she was frozen to the spot because of how attractive he was; she was unable to smile back. Instead she pulled her stare away from him and looked at the machines instead. They seemed prehistoric. ‘This equipment may look old-fashioned,’ the guide continued, as if he was able to read her mind, ‘but in 2014 this was cutting-edge technology.’
Harper ran her hands across the treadmills, the rowing machines, the various contraptions with weights attached. The
artifacts were interesting – there was no doubt about that – but Harper wanted to know more about the history of the building in 2014.
‘Was this the room that the people hid in when London was bombed?’ she asked. She caught the man’s eye again and she felt a shiver go through her body. She wondered if she was getting sick – it was rare that anybody did, but it was possible. What other explanation could there be for her clammy hands or her rapidly increasing heart rate?
The tour guide shook his head. ‘That would have been in the room under this one – where the pool and the studios are. Many of the children who hid here have told us that they were made beds from yoga mats in the corner of the dance studio. Come with me, I’ll take you there.’ He led Harper down some more stairs and when Harper opened the door to the studio she knew that she’d found the place that had saved her grandmother’s life. This is where Katie and the man had hidden, along with the children they’d saved.
‘My grandmother Katie wrote some letters about how she took refuge in an underground gym when the bombs went off,’ Harper murmured. ‘She discovered some children hiding in a school fairly close by and brought them here.’
The man nodded excitedly. ‘That correlates with our records. When the children were interviewed as adults, they said a man and a woman who’d been searching for a specific child – the man’s son, Dylan – found them. The man left them at the school to continue the hunt for his son, but the woman brought them back to the gym.’
The guide’s eyes never left hers, and despite herself Harper felt her cheeks begin to blush. He had a way of looking at her that felt intimate, as if he could see right into her soul. To distract herself from the growing tension between them she pulled out Katie’s letters to Blue. ‘These are the letters that my grandmother Katie wrote,’ she said with pride in her voice. ‘She was the woman who saved them, and soon after that she emigrated to Cuba and helped to create New Havana.’
‘It sounds like she had an extraordinary life,’ the tour guide said. ‘We’ve always wondered what happened to her, and now we know.’
Harper smiled. ‘Do you know what happened to the man?’ she asked. ‘Did he find his son and return?’
There was a long pause before the tour guide replied, and in that drawn out moment, Harper knew the answer wouldn’t be a happy one. ‘He found Dylan, but not long afterwards the second wave of bombs began – there were three waves in total, as you probably know. The man and his son were on their way back to the gym when they heard a woman cry out, and the man told his son to go to the gym without him while he tried to help her. Unfortunately the man was unable to save her before it was too late, and they both died in the attack.’
Harper could feel tears in her eyes. Ordinarily she’d be embarrassed at any display of emotion, but somehow, in this dark, close studio, it felt OK to show that she was sad. ‘But what of the boy?’ Harper asked. ‘Did he make it back to the gym? Do you know?’
The tour guide smiled at her and his grin lit up the room. ‘He did,’ he replied. ‘Another survivor found him and somehow, despite all the odds, they found their way here. When the bombing eventually ended and the country settled down, Dylan was adopted by a family in the north of England. He lived a happy life.’
Harper was pleased that the man had managed to rescue his son, but it was tinged with sadness because he’d not been so fortunate himself. Katie may not have ever known the man’s name, but she’d written of him with such fondness that Harper felt sure Katie would never have forgotten him.
‘It’s so sad that the boy’s father died,’ Harper managed to say. ‘My grandmother must have felt wretched when she found out. He was so brave.’
The tour guide watched Harper carefully for a moment. His hands twitched at his side, and Harper was astonished to find that she wanted him to reach out and hold her hand, that she longed for him to touch her. She’d never felt that way before and she was disappointed when he didn’t.
‘He was,’ the guide agreed. ‘And because of his bravery he saved so many lives – the life of your grandmother, of the children in the school, and mine, too.’
Harper didn’t understand. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘How did he save your life? You can’t have been born then, you’re far too young…’ The tour guide gave Harper a slow smile, and Harper felt her heart quicken again, felt a rush of something unfamiliar in her body – she was alive, exhilarated and vital.
‘Because that man was my grandfather, and Dylan – the son who he risked his life to find – was my father,’ he said. His astonishing blue eyes shone, and for the first time in her life, Harper felt the romantic attraction she’d read about in old-fashioned books. It was real, and it was here. She held her hand out towards the man and he took it in hers.
‘My name’s Harper,’ she said, as she introduced herself. As he squeezed her hand tightly in his, she became lost to him. ‘What’s yours?’
New Havana, 2017
My darling Blue, the letter read.
It’s been three years since you rescued me in London, and I still think of you every day. My life in Havana is a happy one: I have a lovely flat on the Malecón, a good job helping emigrants from London settle into Cuba, and I recently met a man. His name is Romario, and I think that our relationship could turn into something serious. I hope it does.
I told Romario about my experiences in London, and I also told him about you. I told him how I crashed that bicycle into you when the bombs began to fall onto the city, and I told him how you forced me to go to Atlas with you. I described how you saved my life, how you saved the life of Dylan and his classmates, and how you died as you tried to rescue the poor woman who’d become trapped under the rubble. Romario thinks that our story is incredibly sad, but he’s also grateful that you did what you did. Without you I wouldn’t be here to tell him my story, or to write this letter to you.
What I haven’t told Romario is my feelings for you. We went through Hell, but it was within that Hell that I fell in love with you – the man whose name I never got to know. You’re the best man I’ve ever met, the most beautiful man I’ve ever met, and there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t mourn you. I wish so much that we’d had the chance to see where our friendship could have taken us – whether we could have been happy in the aftermath of the terror that we experienced.
But you are not here – not in body, although you are always in my mind – and I choose to live and to be happy with Romario. He’s a good man and I think you’d like him. He reminds me of you in so many ways. But I want you to know that I’ll remember you every day. You gave me hope when I had none, and our closeness kept my spirit alive. You are everything to me – yet I think there’s room in my life for Romario, too.
My darling Blue, I miss you with all my heart, and I hope that if Heaven exists that you are there and that you are at peace. I’ll never forget you, your kindness or your bravery. My love always and forever, Katie x
About the Author
Ilana has so far had three novels published by Orion Books: THE MAKING OF MIA (2008), SPOTLIGHT (2010), and ALL THAT GLITTERS (2012). She’s currently finishing her fourth, which will be published in 2015. Ilana is also a consultant and a columnist, and when she’s not being a workaholic, she’s training to become a competitive rifle shooter.
Website: www.ilana.xxx
Twitter: www.twitter.com/ilana
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ilanapiglet
Visit www.sunloungerstories.com to discover more about the authors and their story destinations.
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The Hotel Room
***
Janey Fraser
DESTINATION: World
Room 125. What a coincidence! Only five numbers more than the room I was in last year. Different hotel, of course. Different country, even. But nevertheless on the first floor.
Hotel room numbers are funny, aren’t they?
When you first check in, it usually takes a couple of days to remember it – especially with the lovely warm heat and the excited unfamiliarity of it all. I love that part, don’t you? Exploring the grounds with the palm trees; taking your first dive into the pool; ordering a cocktail at the bar in that flimsy cocktail dress bought just for the ‘hols’. Gosh, I could get used to this!
So maybe it’s not surprising that, by the time you’ve been there a week or a fortnight, your room number becomes second nature; almost like your phone. But the funny thing is that as soon as you go home again, you forget the number, don’t you, because you don’t need it any more.
Well, for some reason, I’m different. I seem to have this uncanny – and totally useless – knack of remembering my room number long after I’ve packed up my holiday stuff and gone back to work. In fact, I can remember all the hotel room numbers I’ve ever been in.
Room 101. This was the first hotel room that Mike and I ever shared (we’d got a special offer through our local travel agent). It wasn’t our first holiday together because we’d gone camping for the previous three years (let’s not even go there!) so I thought I knew Mike quite well, but it was a shock to find how forgetful he suddenly got when we reached Sardinia. If he went out on his own, he could never make his way back to the room without checking the number at reception first.
‘I just can’t remember it,’ he said with that ‘little boy lost’ look. I don’t know about you but I do like a man to be reasonably independent. Just as well that I had the sparkling sea to distract me, along with a striped sunlounger and a good book.
SUNLOUNGER 2: Beach Read Bliss (Sunlounger Stories) Page 27