Brushing a military moustache with his index finger the Secretary had so far said nothing, his clean face remained impassive, only a faint flush came to the morning’s aftershave. This could prove a risky conversation. He glanced round the tables.
Goldberg felt his heart pulsing, a slight pain in his chest, the coffee too strong? “You may well wish to use our services in that direction, re-fuelling if you like to put it that way.” The Defense Secretary inclined his head, his eyes staring down a long aquiline nose at nothing in particular. Sir Joshua attempted a laugh, “Naturally if we can help you, perhaps your influence in another area could help us and you know, old chap, my organization is only too willing to help; we supply under brown wraps as well,” The Secretary mustered a quizzical grin.
They sipped coffee. The Secretary’s face lost its grin, Goldberg was getting to the salient, “Let me be honest, any progress on that other issue of energy production is being hampered by a lack of adequate facility in disposing of some of our more unwanted products and make no mistake this could be of international interest as others have the same problem too.”
Although the Defense Secretary easily followed Goldberg’s theme, the words international interest puzzled him for a moment. “International?” he raised an eyebrow.
“Absolutly”, Sir Joshua lent over the table, “there could well be a worldwide demand for the facility we at Nuen envisage, could pay your bosses handsomely. It would be quite a warren, given the right situation. It goes without saying that our helping you out with your private requirements would tie in quite nicely with the planned expansion of the generating units which are presently still behind closed doors.”
Far from being oblivious to Goldberg’s hinted proposal, the Private Secretary, who gave the impression of only a vague grasp of this torrent of innuendo, was thinking well ahead. Nuen’s paramount position in the nuclear industry was well known to him. To have Nuen quietly supplying weapons grade plutonium to the Ministry of Defense whilst busying themselves sinking their money and UK’s present and future nuclear waste into a storage facility would be the kind of deal of great appeal to the Treasury. Shipping in other nations’ waste would truly whet their appetite. Mustn’t let Goldberg cool off, he smiled graciously, “I quite understand your position, most interesting,” and rounding off, he nodded, “food for thought.”
Sir Joshua’s chest tighten, practiced at deciphering the bureaucratic code, he smelt progress, “We have several locations in mind for this facility and would appreciate it if you chaps could arrange a fly-by for us, rather than us pushing in somewhere to the glare of flashlights.”
The Defense Secretary stood abruptly, just a shade flustered, this interview must be terminated before Goldberg became too specific. He’d already decided that under the guise of a small military training exercise Goldberg or his minion should be shown to wherever it might be necessary for a survey. One snag, deaths in Afghanistan and current helicopter availability.
Ignoring Nuen’s Chairman, he walked out onto the street. Cursing under his breath Goldberg paid for the coffees, took the change and followed. Chinatown bustled round the pair, intimate and smelling of food, though daylight was not its medium. The cheapness of the venue had pleased neither party but then the Secretary reflected, one must make sacrifices in furthering the National interests. He must bear in mind that nursing Goldberg and Nuen, to a large extent the result of a certain other Company Directors’ influence, had the approval of Downing Street.
Looking over Sir Joshua’s head, the mandarin spoke in an undertone, “Our transport is busy elsewhere as we speak but within several months I can arrange a helicop…” he cut short. Confound it, stiffly he corrected himself, “I shall arrange suitable transport. Expect a private communication in due course and by the way, your thoughts will be relayed to the highest quarters.”
Anxious to bolster hopes of future business but in no ways wishing to compromise himself he lowered his eyes to give Goldberg final a penetrating stare, “Rest assured, Sir Joshua, the UK’s nuclear programme remains under active consideration, of course in the Nation’s interests certain planning procedures must be reviewed.” Goldberg moved to shake the Secretary’s hand, too late, afraid he might have said too much, with a curt nod the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Defense strode away.
Hidden by the crowd he smiled sourly, “Goldberg’s risen to the fly, um… he might be useful.” Shoulders back, military bearing; equally at home, be it casting flies on a salmon river, potting grouse on a Scottish moor or networking a Royal Garden Party, he epitomised the vested power behind politics, happy as always to watch his puppets dancing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Entanglement
Eilidh was in London, that much I knew, no more, no less. Alone on the jetty I fretted for her. The crying of the seals which drew me to the bay had faded away to a profound stillness, the long, long hiss of gently spreading foam upon the sand, the only sound. It was a night for sharing. The vast firmament shone without a trace of cloud, no man made illumination to dim unbounded space, to detract from the purity of a light which enveloped land and ocean in a milk-white glow; a time to be together in the solitude of a place untouched; a haven where the past was a wraith which grieved for the spectre of tomorrow; a night to watch the turning heavens in their timeless configurations and journey to the limit of entwining thought.
Something drew me away from watching the play of light and shade across the bay. Dark forms at the turn of my head had a movement which caught the corner of my eye. Without reason, for several moments, a considerable unease affected me, almost a dread. An impending force seemed poised above the island. I stared into empty space. Its wavering silence seemed the echo of a long past celestial happening, some momentous cataclysm in the annals of the rocks. Its sinister threat vanished as quickly as it had taken hold. Instantly I dismissed the impression as no more than the auto-suggestive impact of dramatic lighting effects and the mournful wailing of the seals.
Although the keening of the seal-folk had died away, there lingered still the phantoms of my imagination, the souls without rest who’d lamented their drowning through the voices of the seal women; the spectral dead who roamed the beach by the fullness of a moon which infused the bay with a radiance of palest turquoise. And upon that eerie glow the Hilda glided, far out, stealthy as a dream, silently as a chimera might float into the mind on seas of fantasy.
Had I succumbed to the strangeness of the night, glimpsed of the tangled wavelengths of other worlds amidst the unending undulations of time? Out of an impenetrable distance, beyond the edge of our puny dot of existence, the arc of outer space grew in luminosity as it soared towards the circled brilliance of a haloed moon. From the vaulted heavens to the floating orb at my feet creation turned on an axis of light.
Familiar shapes were walls of black outline, silver reflection and shadows the animation of rock and shore; together the carved land of a bygone era, the creatures of the tide, the journeying photons which gave their energy to light the sea; I stood in a hallowed amphitheatre and in the secrecy of the night came their holistic enjoining. It seemed as if all the elemental forms were gathered below night’s curving dome, weeping with the pathos of the crying of the seals.
Slowly that bizarre impression faded and I thought again of Eilidh in London. And in so doing, to my horror, tube train doors were closing. Over a swaying crowd I saw her golden head. Aware of immediate danger I fought my way desperately towards her.
I struggled to rid the night of its stupid fantasies as the Hilda glided imperceptibly towards the jetty. The strength of the light cast her shadow upon opal waters. She sailed closer. I caught the faint creaking of her timber as a small pocket of the breeze filled her canvas. She was no illusion. Her crew were hidden by the spread of her sail. How many I wondered?
Eachan for sure and doubtless a police officer, maybe two of them; I smiled ruefully, yes, there’d be two of them, make certain I left the island quietly, hopefully w
ithout being handcuffed. Had they seen me standing on the jetty? Hiding on Sandray wouldn’t be difficult, it again crossed my mind, but then I’d be a fugitive and if suspected of murder, it might only confirm my guilt in the eyes of the law enforcement. I did not relish a heavyweight interrogation. No boy, stand and tell the truth.
Such was the transient beauty of the night, the impending police questioning or arrest seemed of no consequence on the great scale of happenings. An appreciation of the minutiae of any individual on the scale of the universe I’d been gazing upon emptied me of anxiety. Short of planetary disintegration through escalating climate change or playing with massive nuclear devices, nothing that mankind might do to disfigure or destroy the face of this earth could impact on the inexorable march towards this planet’s cosmic fate. What would be, would be. Eilidh was with me in thought, the island was part of me; both would travel in my mind and beyond.
I waited; tiny puffs of warm air brushed my cheeks. The Hilda moved with the tide. Three boat lengths off the jetty, the merest breath and the helmsman brought his boat slowly round.
In her turning the moonlight shone on golden hair.
Transfixed, I neither spoke nor moved. The Hilda drew gracefully alongside the jetty. A coil of rope landed at my feet. Mechanically I secured it to a mooring ring and looked down on Eilidh. She looked up, laughing eyes, outshining the night. Neither of us spoke. In the meeting of our eyes was all that was needed, binding us, bringing us together. I reached down, caught her stretching hands and she was in my arms, crying sobs of happiness. Crushing her to me, “Eilidh,” was all I managed to say. Astonished at her coming to me, the hardiness of her sailing alone; a night which had filled me with longing and imagination, now found me shaking with inexpressible joy. My longing dissolved into elation, I held the woman I craved.
I stroked her lustrous hair, holding flowing strands to the light; moonlight ran through my fingers. I buried my face in silky thickness of golden hair and breathed her fragrance. The soft growl of loving came to my throat. Caressing her shapely head, soothing and caring, gradually the sobbing eased as though a great stress were passing. Her face stayed hidden against me. Her body trembled. Gently I lifted her chin and bent my head; lips and tears were mingled.
We kissed the unbroken kiss that knows no time, nor bounds of thought- knows just the bliss of touching, the touch which sweeps two people into the harmony of being in each other’s arms. Under the heavens, in the unbroken peace of an island, two people were in love.
I struggled to comprehend how it could be she was here, by the bay, in my arms, that we were holding each other. How, it mattered not, I was overwhelmed by happiness, this woman had come to me. Out of the hideous trauma of these past days, staring death in the face, the woman that I’d called to, of whom I’d thought of beyond all else in those desperate hours, had come to me.
Only the steadfast moon and the gently making tide counted time, for to us, it held no meaning. The world could turn until its complexity became the simplicity of beauty in a realm where only the waves of entanglement exist. I looked over Eilidh’s head to the silver water and the stark outlines of the headland of death and knew that when minds were one, there would be no parting.
With an unexpected laugh Eilidh sprang out of my arms and ran helter-skelter to the edge of the tide. A shade bewildered, I watched. In moments her clothes were a discarded pile on the sand. White as the moonlight she skipped into the sea, splashing and calling. “Come on Hector, it’s warm.”
In moments her head shone golden on the moon pale water. Down the shore I ran in wild excitement, peeling off garments on the beach, leaping in strides through the shallow water, flinging up showers of glistening droplets. One mighty dive, I swam out to her. Under a silver moon in the glowing ripples of a phosphorescent sea, our bodies clung together.
Our every move created a trail of gleaming specks, minute forms of ocean life they clung to our limbs, glowing for a second, shedding their tiny store of photons. I turned Eilidh’s lithe body and held her on my chest as I floated. Our heads were together. Moonbeams surrounded us. We swam in a circle of light. I whispered, “Eilidh, just the three of us.” “Yes, three of us” and she gave a little laugh.
The rustle of our swimming alone broke the silence. Suddenly crashing sounds carried over the bay. Startled for a moment we trod water. Amidst much grunting and splashing the seals plunged off their roosting ledges. Churning waters shone out of the shadows. In moments curious heads bobbed around us. Big dark eyes gazed, unblinking. Eye level contact, before, with a snort, each black dome slid out of sight. We followed their every twist and turn by the trails of a million sparkling golden dots. Lowly life? Only human hubris believes in the pyramid of life.
“Race you to the house.” Eilidh set off with a flurry of strokes. Laughing, I caught her foot. We were in the shallows, hugging and kissing. Breaking free, grabbing her bundle of clothes, she was off, running through the dunes until bare feet were in the softness of meadow grass. She turned at the house, panting and laughing at the same time and held out her arms to me.
Without a word, lifting her off her feet I carried her round to the gable. Still holding her I turned the tap of my makeshift shower. Cold fresh water straight off the hill, her squeaks carried to the Hill of the Shroud. In a minute I was back, soap and towel. We washed off salt water. Exhilaration, every artery pounded as the warmth grew. I dried Eilidh with tenderness, she was beauteous woman. I hugged her again with the towel about us.
It was then I realised how few words had been spoken. There was no need, the ecstasy of enfolding arms, the glory of the night, what need of speech? Taking her hand I led her into the house. There was no light inside, only the sinking moon through a window pane. Two bodies together and in the shaft of white light, one brown, one a ghostly white.
I began to say, “goodnight,”… tent and sleeping bag waited. I crossed to the door. Reading my thoughts Eilidh quietly took my hand. Putting her arms around my neck she whispered, “My Hector.”
We lay in the bed I’d at looked at each day. And the woman I’d wanted to be with, to be mine in its purest meaning since our eyes first met on a tube train, in a teeming city, was beside me now, giving herself to me, warm and loving.
The moon laid her tip on the edge of the Atlantic, the last of her light a silver path across the bay; it shone at our window in the old House of the Haven. Slowly it faded, a reflection of all things past.
Tenderly my kiss closed her eyes and together in that passion which knows no tomorrow, we reached into the endless galaxies, entangled, body and mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“A serious matter.”
They’d known each other since prep school days and indeed in later years for a couple of terms at Eton, in fact, young Tim Winthrop-Bagley, now Sir Timothy Winthrop-Bagley, to much leg pulling, had fagged for Jeffrey Norton-Winters. Both received adequate instruction in the handholds that allowed them to climb the slippery pole, or more correctly, ascend the backstairs of political power. Naturally a knighthood for Winthrop-Bagley, or ‘Windy Bags’ as he was called by his familiars, reflected his rise to the post of Senior Permanent Secretary to Her Majesty’s Treasury, whereas his erstwhile ‘senior boy’, the ‘Shivering Jeff’ Winters, had to make do with the cloth cap position of Permanent Secretary to the Department of Trade and Energy.
Each week they lunched together at their favourite French restaurant, just off Mayfair, discreet and it must be said, thanks to its exotic menu, rather exclusive, not that the bill concerned either gentlemen, the tab went to the taxpayer. After all, important policy issues concerning their respective roles in the running of the country could be discussed, minus the ear or note taking of assistant secretaries, in short the justification of a working lunch with the benefit of a frank exchange of views. At best, when joined casually as it were by the captains of finance and industry, they kept their fingers on the pulse of the Nation.
Norton-Winters swilled round the drop
of Reserve red, tasted it, nodded a grudging approval to the waiter, allowed him to pour and waved him away, “Saw you’d made it down to the old Nail and Garter last night Bagley. Must say ‘Bags’ old sport you looked a bit miffed about something,”
“By God ‘Shivers’ old chap you couldn’t be more right, had one hell of a day with that numbskull of a Chancellor, talking about flogging orf the family silver. Has to be, I’m afraid,” Sir Winthrop tried his wine, “let any tuppenny banker orf the leash, nose for a bonus, better than my best Pointer when he’s onto a Woodcock, as for these expense happy politicians buying votes with their soft cushion economy, then blaming the Yanky-doodles,” a flush tinged his heavy jowls,
“I tell you Jeff, they couldn’t have blarsted a bigger hole in the vaults if I’d supplied them with a charge of TNT. No Jeff, it’s over to Mr.Taxpayer to fill the crater, raise the standard rate, that’s what it’ll be. Selling the silver, won’t make a blind bit of difference, even flogging the Channel Tunnel. Mind you,” he paused, an idea occurred, “umm, remember old ‘Floppy Prick’ Hankey, he’s done rather well for himself considering the rumpus over that takeover job. Not a bad shot for the chap who won Wanker of the Year Award, I say what.” They laughed together. Norton-Winters steered away from the topic.
“By the way, ‘Bags’ before ‘Goldilocks’ turns up, he’s always late, you might have heard, courtesy of this damn fool Freedom of Information Act and that’s something which should be tightened up, it’ll be the undoing of our democratic system,” Sir Winthrop nodded emphatically, “Absolutly, couldn’t agree more, worse than any leak, far harder to control, no saying how deep this exposure of Westminster expenses could go. A leak, you can turn it orf at source, simple, bring the press hounds to heel, they know what’s good for them.”
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