“There!” the Doctor shouted.
Both firemen turned and their eyes chased the line of his finger.
One of the table tops had collapsed in two, half of it disintegrating to black ash, the other half resting where it had fallen, diagonally across the floor, forming a shelter against the wall.
“Sir! Stay out!” Johnson shouted back as the doctor staggered across the wreckage.
He was ignored.
“Move it!” the doctor said, his face red and trembling. “Move the table!”
Johnson looked to Tesla for support, but the more senior fireman gave his head a dismissive shake.
“You think someone could be behind there?” Johnson said.
“Sure they could,” the doctor answered. “If their life’s on the line. Now will one of you help me lift this?”
Then the doctor let out a groan and fell to his knees. “Oh, no,” he said. “Oh, Jesus Christ in heaven.”
“What is it?” Johnson said.
The doctor’s shaking hands held the item up to them. It was as charred as everything else in there – only its buckle suddenly shimmering in the flashlights as the doctor wiped the dust off it – but it was instantly recognisable.
It was a handbag.
“Is that your daughter’s?” Tesla said.
The doctor gulped and said, “To be truthful, I wouldn’t know.” He stood up and held the handbag to his chest, wiping off more dust. “But who else would be in here with a handbag at this hour?”
He stared at the chunk of table-top for a moment, then all three men grabbed it and pulled it over and away from the wall.
The floor underneath had been protected from the falling debris by the table. There was nothing but a light dusting.
“I’m sorry,” Johnson said, then corrected himself: “I mean, I’m glad her body’s not here. I’m just sorry we haven’t found—”
“Hey guys!” a voice shouted from the doorway.
All three men looked across.
“That you, Tesla?” the same voice shouted out. “Something here you need to take a look at.”
“What is it?” Tesla shouted back.
“Eddie found her.”
“Her?” the doctor said. He stumbled towards the doorway, sliding and almost falling as he went. “Show me! Show me!”
The fireman at the door looked to Tesla.
“Show him,” Tesla said.
The two men raced across the road. The doctor had to wait for the fireman to catch up, then was led to a clearing, a sparse area next to the hedge that bordered a small park between road and shore. They both slowed as they approached a paramedic, who was kneeling down, throwing a shadow in front of herself.
The doctor cried out as he saw the lifeless figure sprawled out in the shadow, then dropped to the ground and touched his daughter’s blackened face. As he drew his fingers down her cheeks they left three thick flesh-coloured lines. He threaded the same fingers through her hair, matted and melted into clumps by the force of the heat.
He put an arm underneath her shoulders and lifted her up, cradling her as tenderly as if she were newborn.
Still, her body was limp.
“Sir,” the paramedic said. “You have to let me check her out.”
The doctor looked across and, through sniffles, said, “Is… is she…?”
The paramedic took in a breath of the tainted air that hung over them like an unwanted friend. “I’ve only just found her,” she said.
“But she must be alive!” the doctor said. “She must have gotten out somehow.” He thrust a finger back to the shop. “If she walked out of there she must be all right.”
“But we…” The paramedic softened her tone. “But we don’t know she did walk out.”
Just then a car turned in the cordoned off area and splashed light on them.
And the doctor saw something.
Maggie – or her body – had been laid out with her head resting on something: a makeshift pillow. He only caught a glimpse of it but he saw it clearly enough.
It was a rolled-up coat – a dark woollen overcoat.
The doctor stood up and his eyes hopped around the park, squinting in the darkness.
Half a mile away, on a passenger ferry chugging its way across Lake Michigan, a man sat on a shore side seat, staring back to the land, to the city lights that faded to a smoky grey at that one location. He was expressionless, emotionless.
“Where are you headed, young man?”
He turned to see the lady who had just sat down next to him.
“Wherever,” he said with a shrug.
She paused as she passed him a puppy-dog frown. “For all you know I might well be going there myself,” she said eventually.
He smiled. He was sad but she was comical. The two cancelled each other out and gave him a little hope in a world short on mercy.
“Say, aren’t you cold?” she said.
He shook his head.
“It can turn mighty chilly on the lake this time of night,” she continued. “You should have brought a coat.”
In the moonlight he noticed a tang of ginger hair and the jowls of deepening old age. She was chatty and she showed a little concern to a stranger. That meant she was a good person. In another life she could have been his mother.
For a moment he though she was going to stretch her arms out and hug him.
Instead, she smiled, a warm glint in her eye. “Young man, we’ll be sitting next to each other for some time; we might as well get to know each other. My name’s Marie. I’m from Oregon originally. I’ve moved up here to live with my daughter, Louisa, and her family. My… my husband died recently.”
“Oh,” the man said. “I’m sorry about that.”
“You and me both. He was such a nice, caring man; never a bad thought, let alone a bad deed.” She lifted her eyes to the sky and held them there for moment. “Still. A new life beckons. And Louise makes up for it – it’s what children are for.”
“Yes. I guess they help.”
“You’re British, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“I can tell. I spent a summer there when I was at college. Do you have a name?”
“A name?” He turned his head back towards the distant shore, to the spot that had been alive with fire and billowing smoke just half an hour earlier when he’d boarded.
“You can call me… Jonathan.”
“You don’t seem too sure who you are?”
“Jonathan,” he said, forcing a nod. “My name’s Jonathan.”
54
By the time the boat was out of sight of Chicago, and the man who now called himself Jonathan was in another, better world, Maggie lay motionless in a hospital bed. Her father had only been out of the room for the most basic of human necessities.
He listened to the machines beep and click and bleep and flicker, and – in spite of his medical training – felt utterly useless. This was what they used to call “too close to think” syndrome at medical school, where you were too emotionally involved.
And he knew if there was no improvement – if there were no signs of life – that those machines would be switched off within days and those beeps and clicks would stop. He knew it all right, but didn’t discuss it with the staff.
Throughout the night and into the next morning he talked to her, of how his heart had missed a beat when she’d been born, and had done so again many times during her childhood, from when she’d fallen off the swing and landed awkwardly on her back to the time she hadn’t got off the train when he’d been waiting and worrying, not knowing she’d had a heavy night partying and had fallen asleep. He told her about the skip she’d put in his step when he was a younger man, about that mischievous lop-sided grin she had as a child but seemed to lose once she got into her teens, about the times he’d rush home from work just to play ball with her, about the vacations to Europe and… and…
He jolted awake and rubbed his neck. His mind must have drifted off and into sleep
.
The first thing he thought to do was check Maggie.
No change.
The next thing he did was check the time.
It was six o’clock in the morning and he had no idea how long he’d been asleep.
Then he started talking all over again about his Maggie.
He got to the part about the lop-sided grin and stopped as he heard a moan.
From Maggie or one of those machines?
He listened but heard nothing.
He opened his mouth to continue but then heard it again.
He stood over her and stroked her forehead.
It was then her eyes started to twitch.
And his started to water.
Then her eyelids slowly raised themselves and she started to mumble, at first like a child trying to learn her first words, then making more sense.
And as his tears rolled onto the sheets, she continued to recover.
Half an hour later, after the doctor had seen her, checked her, and given her a cautious but positive prognosis, she recovered full – if very subdued – consciousness.
She was cheerful, underwent more tests and checks throughout the morning, and was told she would have to stay in for observation for another couple of days.
Towards noon, Maggie looked up to her father. His eyes told the story of his sleepless night.
“Hey, Dad,” Maggie said, still drawling her speech. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”
“Because I don’t want to leave you again.”
She lifted a hand up to hold his. “Dad, don’t say that. You need some rest.”
She gave his hand a squeeze.
He squeezed back and gave a nod. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“Of course.”
“You won’t get lonely without me?”
“Look.” She gave a hint of a lop-side smile. “Just go and get some sleep.”
He kissed her and said, “Okay.” Then he stood up and lifted his coat from the hanger. “I’ll be back later this afternoon, though. Is there anything I can bring you?”
“Hell, no. The staff here are fine. They can get me most things.”
“Good.”
Maggie shifted in her bed to look over. “Actually…”
“What?”
“There is something you can get me.”
“Name it, my baby.”
“Is there a general store nearby?”
“Sure. You want a magazine or something?”
“No,” Maggie said. “Bring me a pad of paper and some pens – I think I can feel that novel coming on.”
“Whatever you want, sweetheart. That’s what I’m here for.”
When her father had gone, Maggie lay back, dropped off to sleep, and started to dream.
# # #
*
About the Author
Ray Kingfisher is an independent author who writes fiction in a variety of genres. To find out more about him please see www.raykingfisher.com, where you can read about the stories behind his stories and also find out how to get free and discounted books.
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Further Reading:
Thank you for trying out something from an independent author.
If you enjoyed this story please consider leaving a review on Amazon, and also look out for these other full length titles by Ray Kingfisher now available for Kindle:
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Tales of Loss and Guilt
A varied collection of 16 short stories, ranging from taut thriller to emotional drama to comic farce.
Most have been shortlisted for prizes, many have won. All have been reworked for Tales of Loss and Guilt.
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Matchbox Memories
The Alzheimer’s comedy (yes, really).
A gentle but, at times, quite dark comedy drama of family secrets:
Ian Greefe always had issues with his parents - the main one being that they aren’t.
Settled for many years at the other end of the country, out of the blue he gets a call to arms; he has to care for his mother, who now has Alzheimer’s, while his father is in hospital.
Over the course of a week ‘back home’, secrets gradually come out that make him reassess his views on family life, and come to terms with his own shortcomings as a son and father.
*
The Sugar Men
A story of Holocaust echoes.
Susannah Morgan has been settled in sleepy North Carolina for almost sixty-five years, but is still haunted by memories of her escape from the holocaust as a child.
For most of her life the flashbacks have been a lonely obsession - one she has managed to hide from her children.
But as her life draws to a close her memories start asking questions, and the only way she can find answers is to return to the scene of the unspeakable crime.
Against the wishes of her children she flies back to Germany to find her truth. What she discovers there explains so much about who she is, who her children are, and how the wretched legacy of the holocaust is wide and deep and persistent.
The Sugar Men is the novel based on the short story: The Lucky One.
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Rosa’s Gold
A story of Holocaust echoes.
Nicole Sutton is a young girl with problems. A tragic car accident has taken away her brother, and ripped her parents' marriage apart. She moves to a new house, a new town, and a life she never wanted.
In the dusty cellar of the house she stumbles upon a well-worn notebook – the scribbled war memoirs of Mac, an old soldier. His story soon draws her in – to the tragedy and madness of a life left behind in Auschwitz.
Mac's words speak of living history and real life. They ultimately inspire Nicole to think beyond her troubles, and realize that you can find a little sunshine every day if you look hard enough.
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Easy Money
A modern Comic Farce set near London.
Warwick Pollini is just an ordinary, everyday guy. So when he stumbles upon half a million pounds in used notes he’s sure his life is about to change.
He isn’t wrong.
Full of caustic satire, Easy Money is an irreverent take on the obsessions of modern-day society, served up on a bed of unfathomable mystery and garnished with a side-salad of grotesque caricatures.
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Finally, feel free to email the author with any feedback, good or bad, or just for a chat, at: [email protected]
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
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