At the Dark Hour
Page 70
– We need to be organised. We need to deal with this as logically as we can in the circumstances. We need –
But he never finished that sentence. A piece of masonry fell down and hit him on the side of the head, crushing him. Adam ran towards him.
– No! No!!
Roly was unconscious. His body was stuck under a large piece of stone. Adam tried to remove it but it was too heavy for him and his strength was beginning to fail.
– Here. Let me help.
Strong arms reached across and, somehow, removed the masonry. Adam looked over his shoulder. It was Peter Preston KC. And then everything went black.
Chapter One Hundred and Seven
(Sunday 11th May 1941)
Julia had watched in horror as the bombs continued to fall on the place where she had asked Adam to meet her. Every new report battered her heart. But there was nothing she could do. When the “all clear” sounded she walked straight down to the Temple. Everywhere was burning and the smell of smoke was overwhelming. She knew, because of her work, that the Houses of Parliament had been severely damaged, that St Clement Danes had been destroyed, that Smithfield and Kingsway had been badly damaged and that more than a thousand people had been killed. But she didn’t know what had happened to Adam. She picked her way through the rubble. She stumbled and fell more than once and her face was black with soot. Her left knee was bleeding and the pain caused her to limp. It was almost six in the morning before she reached the Temple. She entered from Mitre Court. The pungent smell of smoke and burning was almost too much to bear. Making her way towards the Temple Church, she saw with a shock that it had been virtually destroyed. Flames were still rising from it. She fell again. Lamb Building was in ruins. She approached the smouldering wreckage and saw amongst the scorched and broken stone some peacock feathers and fragments of Tiffany lamps. There were also some Penguin paperbacks, by Waugh and Huxley. Scorched.
Eventually she was able to find someone who could tell what had happened. Adam was still alive but in a very poor condition. He had been taken to St Bart’s. And so she set off.
****
Falling was on an open ward. She limped along it, pushing her hair out of her eyes and doing the best to get the ash off her clothing. She wiped the blood from her knees with her coat. It was ruined anyway. The shells embroidered on the pockets had turned black. Two beds away from Adam she saw Roland Blytheway, his head swathed in bandages, and a man she didn’t know with a deep scar on his cheek, holding Blytheway’s hand and weeping. Blytheway’s eyes were open but uncomprehending. Storman was standing on the other side of the bed. He looked infinitely sad.
And then she reached Adam. He was delirious. A nurse was standing by the bed.
– It’s his chest. We don’t know if he will survive.
Julia pulled a chair up to the bed and took his hand.
– Oh, Adam! I’m so very sorry. I treated you abominably. I thought we would both survive all of this.
He grunted and squeezed her hand. She looked over at his bedside table. The crystal obelisk was sitting there, covered in blood.
– We found it in his pocket, Miss. He wouldn’t let us take it away from him – or clean it up.
Storman came over and put his hand on her shoulder.
– Blytheway is going to live. But he has lost his memory.
Adam looked up at Julia and Storman. The light was fading. But she was with him at the end. He could feel the texture of her palm. Its warmth. He squeezed her hand again. And then he lost consciousness.
Epilogue
(Sunday 18th May 1941)
Julia had moved back into Eaton Square. After Adam lost consciousness she had, in a fit of guilt, gone to see her husband. He was still alive and was due to be moved to a private nursing home. No one was able to say how long he would be there or whether he would ever come out. Adam, meanwhile, was recovering. Blytheway was rambling about a black eye someone gave him at the Dorchester as he struggled to regain his memory. Everything in her private room was as it had been. Annie came in with a fresh bowl of flowers.
– It’s so good to have you back, Miss. Shall I put these in the window?
– Thank you, Annie, yes.
Annie placed the pot there and departed. How much had changed in the last six months? She walked over to the window and looked out. And then she looked down at the fresh bowl of flowers. There was a piece of paper sticking out from them. Puzzled and alarmed she pulled it out.
“TRUST ME. I love you.”
So Annie had known all along!
She opened the window and put Pergolesi on the gramophone, the music blaring out at the sky. Then she put the note in her pocket and went down to the garden. Surveying the vegetable patch that used to be their lawn, she took out the note and read it again. Then she took out the golden locket she always wore around her neck, the double locket that contained in the front a lock of Agnes’s hair whilst the second chamber had always been empty. She clicked it open and put Adam’s note into the second chamber. Then she made her way back into her home. And Stabat Mater carried on from the gramophone.
Copyright
Published by Clink Street Publishing 2018
Copyright © 2018
First edition.
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that with which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this novel are fictititious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, apart from Barry and Jean Funge. Because Barry asked to be included and I could not have Barry without Jean.
ISBNs: 978–1–912262–88–5 paperback
978–1–912262–89–2 ebook