Cutting the Cord

by Amanda Bateman

  “I’m gonna need a hand here, mate,” Steve said as he offered a box up for Josef to take. In a dreamlike state, Josef placed the book on top of the box then took the weight of the box from Steve. Like a robot, he followed him out into the street and across to the ute. They loaded up the two boxes and he retrieved the book off the top, they made their way across the street to a bar. Steve sat Josef down at a table and ordered a brandy and two large cold beers. He made Josef knock the brandy back in one go. Josef began to flick through the pages of Janie’s book. He let it stay open on the page outlining a brief profile of the author. He eagerly read through it.

  “The lady in the shop said it’s a bestseller. A massive hit around the globe. It says here that she lives in the cottage she inherited from her aunt by the sea. It says she’s single…” Josef finished.

  “There you go, Joe, she’s still single, could be waiting for ya, buddy.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Now, come on, mate, you don’t know how she feels, Joe! She just might be hoping, wishing you’d get in touch, turn up.”

  “I’d look like a gold-digger Steve. That’s how I’d look. I’ve got nothing to offer Janie now! I’ve got a few dollars in the bank and that’s it, Steve! I’ve no job, no home, no nothing to offer her!”

  “Aye! Now look here, mate, you’ve got a job and a home here, with us, for always, okay? You’re a talented photographer and a damn good farmer, though it pains me to say so. You’ve got a lot to offer to her. Okay? She might be rich and famous with a house by the sea but she ain’t got you, buddy, and you’ve got a lot to offer her, I can tell ya!” Josef just shook his head.

  “It’s not enough for me, Steve. I want to be on equal terms with Janie. I want to be as successful as she is when I ask her to be mine. I can’t do it any other way, mate, I just can’t.”

  “So, what’dya wanna do now?” asked Steve.

  “Go back to Marvel Loch with you and make something of my life.” Josef downed the last of his beer. “Can we leave now, Steve, please?” Steve drained his own beer glass and got up from the table.

  “If you’re sure that’s what you want, buddy, if you’re sure that’s what you want!” Josef got to his feet. He picked up the book and turned to leave the bar.

  “It is, Steve. Right now, that’s all I wanna do, but one day I’m going to go back and get my girl, if it’s the last thing I do!”

  ***

  Across town, Derek Collins was exiting Perth airport with his new wife, Emma. She was a born-and-bred Aussie and knew everything there was to know about Derek. Emma had been just the saviour he’d needed. He’d agreed to move to Australia when the book Janie had written started to send news reporters to their door. The sudden intrusion had awakened the dormant feelings for Elsie he still held inside! The thought of her had begun to arouse him again. There were moments when he wanted to squeeze the very last breath from her body, and others when he wanted to hold her and never let her go. She plagued his dreams and seemed to wander into his wakening thoughts. He’d spoken openly to Emma about it. How his emotions had been stirred and how Elsie still seemed to have a hold over him. “I’ve enough love and strength for the both of us,” she’d replied and suggested the move here. Derek just hoped that she was right, that journeying halfway round the world was enough to keep Elsie at bay, he really did!

  JANIE

  August 1984

  Janie stood on the beachside of her garden gate and admired her home. The cottage and its tiered gardens looked beautiful in the late evening sun. The renovation of the cottage had given it a whole new lease of life. With the help of an architect, Janie had turned the building upside down. Where once there were bedrooms there was now an open-plan living area with all the latest mod cons installed in the slick new kitchen. The bedrooms were now downstairs, and each had the luxury of its own bathroom. The outer walls had been extended and new large windows and patio doors let the light flood in, while making the most of the incredible views along the coast line. Arthur’s old studio had been connected to the main house via a corridor but was now a well-appointed one-bedroomed self-contained annexe. Janie had even given it its own terrace area. Sea View cottage now really did live up to its name.

  Janie pushed open the gate and weaved her way up through the manicured gardens, climbed the outer stairs at the side of the property and took a seat out on the large balcony to watch the sunset. As the sun dipped down below the horizon, Janie thought about her life so far.

  She wouldn’t be twenty-one until the end of the year and look at her… a successful author and home owner with a very healthy bank account. Wasn’t that everyone’s dream? But it hadn’t been her dream, had it?

  She’d dreamt of days spent exploring unfamiliar places, nights under star-filled skies, different cultures, different customs, different people. Of writing a travel journal of all the amazing places she’d seen and of the colourful characters she’d met along the way. She’d dreamt of walking hand in hand with Josef on faraway shores. Of climbing mountains, crossing deserts on a camel and sailing on the wide-open seas. She’d dreamt of new tastes and of new sounds that would flood her senses. Of exotic birds, of getting up close and personal with wild animals and diving along the Great Barrier Reef. It had all been so very close. So very close that she could almost touch it but then, as always, her hopes, her plans had been spirited away by someone else’s hand!

  Elsie had caused most of her dreams, her hopes to fail. She’d taken away a huge chunk of all the family’s freedom with her thoughtless, selfish, vicious actions. At school, she’d been ‘the girl whose mummy had left her’. After Freddy had lost his life at Elsie’s hands, she’d become ‘the murderer’s daughter’. Since the day Elsie had walked out on them all, everything they ever did was preceded by the name Elsie. She wasn’t even known as just ‘Jane Arnold Author’; instead she was referred to constantly as ‘the authors’ daughter of the murderer, Elsie Arnold, Jane Arnold”. But somehow everyone else in her family seemed to have escaped its trappings and been free to live their own lives.

  Anne had flown the nest long ago. She’d married, moved away, run a business, even started a family of her own. She’d returned to her roots now but still lived her life as she chose to. Charlie had thrown caution to the wind and announced he was gay. The family had just opened their arms and welcomed his boyfriend, Greg, into the fold. Megan had bought a smallholding and ended her studies at university to be a vet, instead choosing to pursue artistic pursuits. She’d started making clothing, doing up old furnishings and painting and even taken up pottery. No one had even raised an eyebrow. Janie envied them, she really did. Where she lived, what she’d written, had all been down to Bea. Beautiful, bold, busy Bea. Oh! she would be eternally grateful for it all but that didn’t make it her choice, her dreams, did it?

  And now, here she was, sitting alone on a beautiful summer’s evening with a decision she’d made weighing heavy on her mind. It hadn’t been a rash decision. She’d spent many sleepless nights going over it, again and again. It had all started with a chance meeting with Sofia, Josef’s younger sister…

  Janie had been walking back from her grandfather’s bungalow, after popping in to drop him off a copy of her book, when she’d heard someone calling her name. Janie had carried on walking at first, thinking it was some journalist, out for a story. The book release having been a green flag to the press to open up the whole Elsie saga, again! As the voice called out her name more urgently now, Janie thought she recognised the voice and decided to turn around and see who it was. The young girl was Sofia but not the Sofia Janie remembered! Gone were the height-of-fashion clothes, the perfectly teased hair and face full of make-up. Her hair was simply tied back in a ponytail. She wore jeans and a t-shirt, and her face bore no signs of any cosmetics. Janie had thought how much more beautiful she looked but once face-to-face with Sofia she could see the tell-tale signs of sadness that clouded her eyes. They
’d sat together on a nearby bench. First Sofia had talked about Janie’s book, how her elder brother was disgracing the family by getting divorced. How she was studying to be a nurse at Keele University. Then finally she’d told Janie of Josef’s disappearance! How he’d rung in the middle of the night asking for her parents to send him money and a ticket to get back home. He’d told them where to send it. The very next day they’d wired money to a post office in Bangkok and details of his prepaid flight back to England. As a family, they’d travelled down to London to meet him off the plane, but Josef had never made the flight. He’d never collected the ticket or the money. Her parents had contacted the authorities in Bangkok, every police station, every hospital in all of Thailand but there was no trace of him anywhere. It was if he’d just simply vanished into thin air!

  Janie had walked away in a daze. Josef lost? No, it couldn’t be. He had to be out there somewhere! She’d feel it, sense it somehow if he was dead! She knew she would. She believed he was alive – lost, yes, but still alive – she had to believe it for her own sanity!

  She’d fretted over Josef night and day until the compulsion to act had become too much to bear. She’d walked into the nearest travel agents and paid for flights and accommodation there and then to Bangkok Airport. The tickets were lying on the desk in her new study, along with her passport, visas and Thai bahts, right now. She’d cleared her diary with her publisher for the next month and was due to fly out in two days’ time. Tomorrow she would pack her suitcase and head for London’s Heathrow Airport with a quick stop-off at her father’s house to inform him of her plans and leave details of where she could be reached. For the first time in her life, Janie was about to embark on an adventure of her own making without the help or the influence of her family. She felt scared but exhilarated at the same time.

  Janie woke refreshed the next morning, after the first good night’s sleep she’d had in a long time. She quickly showered then began to pack her suitcase. She’d bought some cool linen trouser suits and long flowing dresses for her trip, along with a guide book to Bangkok and Thailand and a small phrase book. She’d try to master a few words on the flight over. For the first time in her short life, she truly felt free. She turned up the radio as she neatly stowed her clothes and toiletries into her case, singing along to an old Motown tune they were playing. Janie thought she could hear the phone ringing in her office, so she lowered the volume on the radio. The phone’s shrill tones rang out from the room next door. For a second Janie thought of ignoring it but then her conscience got the better of her and she ran to answer it. Lifting the receiver to her ear, Janie began to speak.

  “Hello,” she answered.

  “Janie, Janie is that you?” came Dave Evans, Megan’s fiancé, down the phone. He seemed panicked, distressed even, to Janie.

  “It’s me, Janie, Dave, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s Megan, Janie. Oh! Janie, I’m so scared. When I came down the stairs this morning she was lying on the kitchen floor. She was just lying there in this puddle of blood, Janie. It was all over her nightie, she wasn’t moving, Janie, she wasn’t moving.” Both fear and panic had got the better of Dave now and he just seemed to be rambling on.

  “Dave, Dave,” called Janie down the phone. “Where’s Megan now, Dave? Where is she?”

  “I called 999, Janie, straight away; they seemed to take forever to get here. I sat on the floor by her, Janie. I really believed she was dead, but she was warm, Janie and I could feel a pulse.” He was starting to ramble again.

  “Dave, what happened when the ambulance arrived?”

  “They took her to hospital, Janie, they took me in the ambulance too. She was asking for you, Janie. She just kept drifting in and out of conscientiousness and asking for you, Janie. Say you’ll come, Janie, say you’ll come.”

  “I will, Dave, I will, but I need to know where Megan is, Dave. You need to think, you need to tell me.”

  “She’s in theatre, Janie, they’re operating on her now. Please come, Janie.” Janie felt the fear and panic rising in her own voice now. She fought hard to keep it and the rising feeling of nausea at bay while she tried to coax out of Dave which hospital Megan was at.

  “I’m going to leave as soon as you tell me where I need to go, Dave. Can you do that? Can you tell me where to go?”

  “Aberystwyth Hospital, Janie. She’s in Aberystwyth Hospital, Janie, come quick, Janie, come quick!” the line went dead.

  “Dave! DAVE!” she screamed down the phone. But it was no use: he’d hung up.

  Janie carefully placed the receiver back in its cradle and lifted her flight tickets to Bangkok off the desk. She brushed them against her cheek before kissing them goodbye.

  “I’m sorry, Josef,” she whispered into the air. “You, me! We’ll just have to wait. Megan needs me.” And with that she dropped the tickets into the waste paper bin and exited the room.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to start by saying thank you to my sons, Simon & Jak, for putting up with a mother who insisted on writing them stories & poems while they were growing up. You both were and still are magical.

  To Dee Bruce, who read along as I wrote this book & gave me feedback both good & bad. It helped immensely. To Nan Walker, Sharon Hyland & Suzie Allen for taking the time to read my manuscript. Your thoughts, words, encouragement were priceless. Even the comment about you not realising I was THAT clever! Thanks for your friendship & honesty.

  Kevin, my truly wonderful husband thank you for believing in me and this book. For pushing me to get this finished and providing the means to bring my dream into reality. Let’s hope your dreams come true too.

  Thank you to Hannah, Sophie and Fern at Troubadour. For your guidance and replying to my numerous emails and questions.

  And lastly a big THANK YOU to all those that have purchased CUTTING THE CORD and read it. I only hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it. Work has begun on the next book.

  Lub Amanda.