What Happens In Cornwall...

by T A Williams

  ‘Sam, there’s something you need to know about me.’ She screwed her head upwards and squinted at him. She could clearly feel the tension in his body, and his heartbeat increased. She did her best to put him at his ease.

  ‘You’re not secretly married, are you?’

  ‘Only to a cat called Clio.’ She felt his lips on the top of her head and thought about reaching up and kissing him back. But she resisted the temptation, wishing to give him the chance to say his piece. He hesitated once more and then tried again. ‘No, it’s not that. It’s something else. It’s like this, Sam.’ He paused, searching for the right words. ‘You need to know this; you’ve maybe already worked it out for yourself, but, you see, I’m damaged goods.’

  She did look up now, but his eyes were trained on the distant horizon. His voice dropped to little more than a whisper as he told her his tale.

  ‘I only just finished my PhD last winter. I already told you that, didn’t I? Anyway, before coming back to university, I was in the army. I joined up from school and they sponsored me through my first degree. Altogether, I was in the army for fifteen years.’ He paused for breath. She said nothing, conscious that he was bracing himself to tell her more. He was still holding her hand in his. She rested her other hand on his thigh and gave him a little squeeze of support through his jeans. His leg muscles were taut as bowstrings. She reflected that this news, while unexpected, of course explained why he had come to his postgraduate studies so late in life. The fact that he had been in the armed forces came as a surprise to her all the same. Somehow, his academic manner seemed at odds with a military career.

  He paused to catch his breath and then, as if reading her thoughts, he carried on. ‘It seems funny now, after three, almost four years at university, buried in medieval history. It’s as if I’m talking about somebody else. And, in a sense, maybe I am. I was a different man then.’ His voice strengthened and his grip on her hand tightened. ‘Anyway, I was a good soldier. I got on well with the men under my command and I got on well with my superiors. Most of the time. They told me I had a brilliant career ahead of me. Maybe I would have done.’ He sounded lost in his thoughts.

  ‘So, why did you leave?’ She kept her voice low.

  ‘Something happened.’ He drew another deep breath. ‘It was halfway through my third tour of duty in Afghanistan. We were in Helmand Province. You’ve probably heard the name on the news.’ He stopped again, marshalling his thoughts. ‘My company got caught up in a fire fight with a group of insurgents. They had us pinned down and we were taking casualties, so I called in an air strike.’

  ‘And it went wrong?’ She had to wait for the answer. When it came, she couldn’t miss the anger in his voice.

  ‘No, it came in on time and on target. An AH 64, that’s an Apache attack helicopter. Two rockets and a load of cannon fire. When the dust cleared we went up to check things out. The insurgents were all dead. Four of them.’ She heard him swallow hard. ‘It was then that we discovered that they’d been firing at us out of the local primary school. We found the remains of seven little bodies spread all around them, torn to pieces by the attack. My attack.’ This time his voice caught, but, stubbornly, he found the strength to carry on. ‘It was carnage.’ His fist clenched tightly and she gave a little squeal of pain. Immediately the spell was broken, and he was contrite.

  ‘Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry.’ In reply she laid her wounded hand against his cheek. Her hand stayed there, her fingers gently stroking his face while he finished his story.

  ‘And then, as we left the village, I stepped on an IED, a land mine.’ His voice was deliberately expressionless, but she gasped all the same. He raised his free hand and pointed down at his left leg. ‘They’d booby-trapped the place and I walked straight into it. That’s why I’ve got this lump of tin where my left foot used to be.’ He lifted the leg and let his ankle fall back against the rock. The metallic sound was unmistakable.

  ‘But don’t get me wrong.’ He caught her eye. ‘The foot’s not so bad. In so many ways, I’m a lucky man. I can walk pretty well. They say I might even be able to give windsurfing another go some time soon.’ His eyes flicked out to the sails around the bay. ‘I’ve got a good job. And I’m alive. Sam, I’m alive.’ By now, his voice was little more than whisper. ‘The bad stuff’s all in my head. I lost friends, good friends over there. And I know so many guys who sustained far worse injuries than I did. I meet up with them all over the country. Some are in wheelchairs, some struggling just to breathe and some, a bit like me, just fighting their own demons. Me, all I got was four months in hospital and a state of the art prosthetic.’ He returned his eyes to her face. She read grief, pain and resignation in those light blue eyes. ‘The medics told me I was very lucky just to lose the bottom half of my leg. There have been times, many times, when I’ve found myself wishing the damn mine had done the job properly. The truth is, it wasn’t what the IED did to my leg. That’s just the visible bit and it’s been fixed. The invisible damage has been the worst. I close my eyes at night and all I see is bodies; those poor little kids in the school, and my friends I saw blown to bits before my eyes. I’m afraid it’s been a pretty hard mental slog for the past few years.’ She felt him shudder and gripped him tighter.

  ‘Oh, James.’ She didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m no longer the carefree young man who ran marathons, windsurfed and won medals. I’m no longer Major Courtney of the Rifles. I’m just James Courtney now, the handicapped ex-serviceman.’ He reached up and gently grasped her hand on his cheek. ‘So, you see, like I say, damaged goods, that’s what I am.’ His voice was low, devoid of emotion, but also devoid of hope.

  Sam turned towards him and reached up with both hands. She caught his face in her fingers and pulled it towards her. She pressed herself against his lips and kissed him harder than she had ever kissed anybody in her life. She kissed him as if she were giving life to him, breathing hope into him until, at last, she felt him stir. She removed her lips from his and carried on kissing his whole face. All the time she was squeezing him, rubbing herself against him and doing all she could to tell him, without saying a word, that she was here for him. Finally she released her hold on him and stared at him, her eyes less than an inch or two from his.

  ‘Major James Courtney, I want to be with you. I don’t care how broken you say you are, we’ll get you sorted and we’ll make it work. We’ll make it work because you’re a good man and a clever man and a very, very sexy, handsome man. Look at me James. Look at me and see the truth of what I’m saying in my face. I know I want to be with you.’

  His eyes focused on hers and she sensed the depth of his pain. She felt it, but she was sure she would be able to help rid him of it. She felt his chest swell as he took a deep breath.

  ‘And I want to be with you, Sam, more than you can possibly imagine.’ He sounded surprised. ‘I’ve known it ever since that first glimpse of you out in the university grounds.’ Sam actually sat upright at that.

  ‘You what? Then how did you manage to be so downright rude the next few times I saw you?’

  He rubbed his hand across his face and shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry, Sam. That IED didn’t just blow away a bit of my leg, it blew the top off a whole host of things I’d been bottling up for years. And what came pouring out was anger; anger at the things I’d seen and the things I’d done. And I couldn’t talk about it to anybody, apart from maybe Viv, my sister. About the only people I’ve been able to open up to have been others like myself.’ He looked up. ‘The boys you saw me with the other night in the Wobbly Wheel. We’re a bit of a self-help organisation, spread around all over the country.’ Sam nodded, as realisation dawned.

  James shook his head apologetically. ‘I’m afraid I’ve tended to hide underneath a rather aggressive exterior for the past four years. And sometimes, the cork has blown out of the bottle.’

  Sam caught him by the shoulders and smiled at him. ‘The word on the street is that you told
your supervisor he was an idiot. That definitely qualifies as prickly.’ He managed a weak smile in return.

  ‘The dean of the college in fact. And I told him he was an old fart. I rather thought they would chuck me out for that, but somehow all I got was a reprimand, and the suggestion that it would be a good idea if I were to move to a different university, pronto. For what it’s worth, I also got a card when I left, signed by my colleagues, congratulating me on telling the old fool what I thought of him. Anyway, that’s how I ended up down here, and I don’t regret it for a minute.’ He reached forward and let his lips rest against hers for a few seconds, his eyes closed, his expression rapturous. Then, reluctantly, he sat back and continued. ‘So, I’m very sorry about giving you the wrong impression. In fact, I’ve been totally obsessed by you since that first day. I told Ann all about it last night. It’s never happened to me before.’ He shook his head in disbelief before raising his eyes to hers. ‘But what about the whole, “no more men” thing? I thought you were happy not being in a relationship. Isn’t that what you said? After you told me that the other day, I had pretty much given up hope.’

  She ran both her hands down from his face and across his chest. She stretched them around him so that she could hug him tightly, her face crushed against his body, his arms cradling her. She hung onto him like that for a good few minutes before she felt able to reply.

  ‘You should never give up hope. And that applies to me too. It’s taken me thirty years, but I think it’s finally happened. There really are some good guys left and you, James Courtney, are a very, very good guy.’

  Chapter 37

  Giancarlo got into the car on Saturday morning with considerable relief. He had been dreading bumping into Becky before leaving. His acrimonious bust-up with her had soured what should have been a few final lazy sunny days before he headed back to Rome once more. Worse still, he knew she had gone down to the pub the previous evening to have it out with Lorna. As a result, he now had no doubt he was ostracised by both girls.

  He drove through the maze of ridiculously narrow lanes to Plymouth to see the sights. He took the chain ferry across the River Tamar and then drove round to the historic Hoe. He had lunch in a restaurant in the old Barbican area and it was a good day, but by the end of it he was ready for female company once more. With Becky and Lorna out of the frame, that just left the banker’s wife. He seemed to remember that she had told him her husband wouldn’t be coming down to Cornwall that weekend.

  He drove from Plymouth to Polwenton late on Saturday afternoon and parked in his usual bus stop. He sat in the car and pulled out his phone. Particularly in view of the unpleasantness of the last few days, he decided to be prudent. He had had enough of confrontation to last him a good while. He scrolled down until he found her number and he sent a simple text. Are you looking for company this evening?

  A minute later, he got the reply. Just come out of the shower. Come aboard. XXX.

  She was waiting for him inside the boat, the curtains to the main bedroom drawn. She was wearing a tiny bikini and nothing else. He stopped at the door and feasted his eyes on her. If he had been feeling picky, he might have made a few invidious comparisons between her more mature body and that of either of the girls back at Tregossick. But, what she lacked in skin tone and elasticity, she more than made up for in enthusiasm for sex in general, and him in particular. He smiled happily and stepped aboard. Before long, they were once more creating ripples in the still waters of the marina.

  They interrupted their antics at six o’clock for a glass of champagne. While he opened the bottle, she dug a couple of chocolate éclairs out of the fridge and they ate them in bed. He took a single glass of wine and watched benevolently as she drank most of the rest. They then returned to what they had been doing until, at about seven-thirty, a funny thing happened.

  It was still very warm and the windows were open. The financier’s wife was cooling off beside him, resting and recuperating, but he felt thirsty. He was reaching for a mouthful of water from the bottle on the bedside table when he felt a gentle thud as another boat nudged against them. Curious, he leant over and peered out of the window. It was a long, powerful-looking speedboat, with two men on board. With a throaty burble from its engine, it slipped in alongside their bigger vessel. One man, a short slim man wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap, leapt out with mooring ropes and tied them to the pontoon. As he returned to the boat, the engine was shut off. In the sudden silence, Giancarlo heard the two men talking. And he was particularly surprised to hear them talking in Italian.

  ‘All secure?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll be fine here for the night. We’d do well to get to bed early. I want us to be at the island before dawn. I need to be onshore and in hiding before it gets light.’ Giancarlo couldn’t see much of their faces, but he had heard enough.

  He ducked his head down below the window, his heart pounding. There was no doubt about it. These two were up to no good and, as far as he knew, Rock Island was the only island in the area. He immediately thought back to his ordeal on the cliff top earlier in the month. Could it be that one of these guys was the man in the black wetsuit? Of course, there was no reason really why this Italian should be the same man. There were hundreds of paparazzi all over the world who would give their eye teeth for a chance to photograph Ann Cartwright. A sudden thought occurred to him. What if they weren’t paparazzi? He remembered Beppe’s fear that the man in black might have had more sinister intentions. What to do?

  He lay back on the bed and considered his options. Should he even bother doing anything? After all, he and Beppe had been ordered to stay well clear. If he had still been with Becky, he could have told her, but now? Thought of Becky made him realise that if these men were up to no good, it was possible she might get involved, hurt even. Deep down, he had grown quite fond of her and, although she had ended the relationship so abruptly, he had to concede that this maybe wasn’t entirely her fault. And, anyway, apart from anything else, professional pride was at stake. If he and Beppe had been unable to get the shots, why should he help the opposition?

  He quickly made up his mind. He had to tell somebody, but who? One thing was for sure. He couldn’t call from here on the boat. If he could hear them, presumably they could hear him. He had to get away, now. The people on the island had to know. He felt the banker’s wife slide her hand up his thigh, but he was most definitely not in the mood for sex any more. He gently disengaged her and whispered in her ear. ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’

  He dressed quickly and silently. Then he leant down and kissed her on the cheek. Her eyes opened.

  ‘Give me a call, darling. See you again, some time next week?’ She smiled up at him and then rolled over back to sleep.

  Mercifully, there was no sign of anybody as he climbed down from the boat. Cautiously, he made his way back along the pontoon to the shore. His car was still where he had left it. He jumped in and drove out of town. Once he was out in the country, he stopped in a layby. Who to contact? He didn’t have a phone number for Rock Island so his only choice was Becky. He pulled out his phone and dialled her number. It rang and rang, but she didn’t answer. He wasn’t surprised; presumably she wasn’t taking his calls. He would have to seek her out.

  He looked at his watch and saw that it was gone eight o’clock. First stop would have to be the Smugglers Arms and there was every chance he would meet not only Becky, but Lorna there. He instinctively dropped his hands onto his genitals protectively. He would have to be very careful. Cursing under his breath, he threw the phone onto the passenger seat and started the engine.

  Chapter 38

  ‘Well, look what the cat’s dragged in!’

  Ryan was the first to spot Giancarlo. Sam and Becky looked up. The evening had been going very well up till that moment. Becky was sitting very close beside Ryan, sounding happy once more. Opposite her, Sam and James were similarly close together and Sam couldn’t remember feeling so happy for years. They had just finished a selectio
n of tapas between them and were debating whether or not to have pudding.

  ‘Becky, Samantha, please.’

  Becky jumped to her feet, looking as if she were going to gouge his eyes out, while Ryan stood protectively beside her. Giancarlo held out his hands in supplication. ‘Becky, listen, this isn’t about you and me. It’s much more serious.’ He spotted interest in at least some of the eyes around the table and rushed on. ‘I’ve just heard two men talking about going to Rock Island.’ Now he had the attention of all of them. Even Becky sat back down again.

  ‘What sort of men?’ Giancarlo noted the hostility in Ryan’s voice. He also noted, for the first time, that Ryan was a good bit taller and more muscular than he was. He hastened to relate what he had overheard. As he told them about the Italians at the marina, they all looked at each other. This was serious.

  ‘We’ve got to let them know about this as soon as possible.’ Sam had her phone in her hand. ‘Tomorrow before dawn, you said?’ Giancarlo nodded. He stood there awkwardly, wondering whether he should just turn tail and run or wait to see what transpired. He decided to wait, although a cautious glance towards the bar told him Lorna was working that night. So far she didn’t appear to have noticed him, but it was only a matter of time. Surreptitiously he moved his hands round to his front, adopting a protective pose, just in case.

  ‘Hello, Freddie? It’s Samantha.’ She glanced across the table at Giancarlo and opted for caution. ‘Is it possible to speak to you know who, please?’ Sam looked to her left as she waited to be put through. Her eyes ran up across James’s chest to his face and she found herself fighting the impulse to leap into his arms and kiss him until her breath ran out. Her thoughts were interrupted as Ann answered.

  ‘Hi, Sam, how’re things? I was just going to call you.’

  ‘I’m fine, but something’s come up.’ She set about relating what Giancarlo had overheard. Ann listened attentively, before replying.