Liam's Story

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  ‘Brought what back?’

  ‘Oh, you know – that awful trip she did with you, the storm and everything.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous – that must be all of ten years ago.’

  ‘So? People don’t forget things like that.’ Her voice dropped, and she glanced up at him over her coffee-cup. ‘Ruth still cares about you.’

  For a moment he held his sister’s gaze. ‘I’m impressed. If I recall, she had a lovely way of showing it.’

  Pamela glanced away, chewed her lip for a moment. ‘I don’t think it’s working out with Dave...’

  ‘Tough.’

  ‘God, you’re so bloody hard, Stephen – doesn’t anything touch you? She was your wife, for heaven’s sake – doesn’t that mean anything?’

  ‘Was my wife, Pam. Isn’t any more. Hasn’t been for six years. And even when she was my wife, it didn’t seem to mean a lot. She met somebody else, somebody she preferred to me — and if it ain’t working out, sis, well pardon me for saying so, but that’s her problem. Not yours, and certainly not mine.’

  He drained his coffee and stood up. ‘I’m going to tell you something now, something I should have said a hell of a long time ago. I don’t know why I didn’t, except for the fact that you’re my sister, and I didn’t want to cause a breach between us.

  ‘But I’m sick to death of hearing about Ruth – I’m not interested any more. She was neurotic, and she made a big bloody mess of my life – and it doesn’t sound as though she’s changed very much. It’s time she grew up – and it’s time you stopped sympathizing with her. Next time she comes here, crying her eyes out, kick her backside for her and tell her to sort her own bloody problems.’

  Had he slapped her, his sister could not have looked more stunned.

  Stephen turned by the door. ‘You know, I used to think it was my fault – that I made her unhappy. I’ve laboured under that delusion for years – and you, Pam, managed to keep the guilt alive. Well, you’ve just wiped it out. I’m glad it’s not working out with Dave — that makes me feel one hell of a lot better. Maybe it wasn’t all my fault after all.’

  He drove too fast back to York, and when he slammed the door of the flat behind him, Stephen found he was sweating. He lit a cigarette and poured a drink and then he realized that he had better call Joan before his sister managed to upset her too.

  She was pleasantly surprised to hear from him, and if something in his voice alerted her to trouble, she made no comment. She did, however, invite him round for something to eat.

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes, why not? I think there’s enough for two, and I’ve baked today...’

  It was a much more comfortable reunion. With Joan Elliott, Stephen could be himself, and he managed to relieve some of his frustrations by telling her about Pam and the fact that he had finally said what he thought on the subject of his ex-wife.

  ‘Well, that’s Pamela for you – she could never leave a thing alone, even when she was little. She would never be told, somehow, at least not until you’d got really cross with her.’ Joan sighed over the vagaries of human nature. ‘Still, there’s one blessing, love – it’s made you realize about Ruth. I never much cared for her, myself — too much the clinging vine, particularly for you.’

  He was surprised at that. ‘You never said.’

  She laughed. ‘You weren’t after my opinion in those days!’

  ‘And I wouldn’t have believed you,’ he admitted. ‘But you know, Pam scared the life out of me when she said things weren’t going too well for Ruth, and that she still cared for me – God! The last thing I want is to get involved again with her.’

  Joan gave him a sidelong look. ‘I shouldn’t worry about that. It’ll have been the high drama of what happened – especially with it being all over the news – and then Pam making mountains out of molehills as usual. Anyway,’ she said briskly, ‘You’ve got bigger fish to fry, unless I’m very much mistaken.’

  ‘Have I?’ He was puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Zoe.’

  Avoiding his aunt’s penetrating gaze, Stephen made no comment.

  ‘I’m not going to ask for details, love, but if there’s something wrong between you and her, I suggest you try and get things sorted out. She thinks a lot about you, and she’s a good girl – too good to lose for the sake of a petty argument.’

  ‘We didn’t have an argument.’

  ‘Well, then – it might have been better if you had.’

  That raised a dry smile. Before he left, she said something else that made him think on the way home. It was to the effect that bottling things up never did anyone much good; if he could face up to what happened in the Gulf, and talk about it, then he would recover more quickly from its effects.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  She nodded. ‘You’re not yourself, just now.’

  ‘Mmm. Well, you might be right, at that...’

  When he got home, Stephen poured himself a large whisky and spent a long time just looking at the telephone. Part of him was desperate for the sound of Zoe’s voice, but the rest of him was very reluctant to be exposed to more pain. And he was tired. Perhaps he would call her tomorrow.

  He switched on the television for the late news, but there was something on about the Gulf, so he switched it off again and went to bed. Unlike the previous evening, he fell asleep straight away, but about two he woke again, shaking and sweating, having had a horrifying dream about the Damaris. There was an explosion, and there was fire, spreading rapidly throughout the accommodation. The anchor was unsecured, the ship drifting closer and closer to another tanker full of petroleum spirit...

  It was so real, so vivid, every time he closed his eyes the images came back. In the end he forced himself out of bed and went to make a pot of tea. Two cups and several cigarettes later, he had managed to come to terms with his fear and to clear his mind of it. How odd, he thought, that he had never been particularly afraid of drowning, yet the thought of being burned alive terrified him. He had once been on a fire-fighting course and never forgotten it…

  The worst thing he had ever had to do was send the Mate and Lecky down into the engine-room, seeing all too clearly what they would have to face.

  And poor old Jim...

  Stephen had written to his next-of-kin, a brother in Wallasey with whom he stayed when on leave. It had been a terrible task, made only slightly easier by the fact that Mac had also offered to write. But however well-phrased those letters, nothing could alleviate the shocking manner of his death, its pointlessness, and the terrible irony that Jim had volunteered for the job. The company would pay a considerable sum in compensation – that much at least had been established during that visit to the office – but what was money in exchange for a life?

  The more he thought about it, the more convinced Stephen became that he was lucky to be alive. They all were. If things had gone wrong — if that fire had taken hold in the accommodation, it would have swept through in no time...

  Enough. Don’t think about it, Stephen told himself: go back to bed.

  Passing the half-open door of the spare room, Stephen’s eye caught sight of the old trunk full of books. Zoe’s recent commission came to mind, the one she had been strangely reluctant to talk about. Out of curiosity he thought he would take a look at that old edition of the Rubaiyat.

  She had enthused about it months ago, but at the time his mind had been concerned with other things. Now its beauty struck him more forcefully, and he could see why she was so taken with it. He had intended to give her the book as a sort of farewell present, a good intention forgotten in the unexpected haste of his departure for Teesport.

  Well, he could still give it to her. She was, he decided, as entitled to own it as anyone else in the family. More so, because of her ability to appreciate its value as a work of art.

  Glancing through, he found the illustrations more intriguing than he had realized. As he studied them, he began to read the verses alongside; and then
other verses seemed to leap out at him.

  Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

  Before we too into the Dust descend;

  Dust into Dust, and under dust to lie,

  Sans wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and – sans End!

  There was a Door to which I found no Key:

  There was a Veil past which I could not see:

  Some little Talk awhile of Me and Thee

  There seemed – and then no more of Thee and Me.

  One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste,

  One Moment of the Well of Life to taste --

  The Stars are setting and the Caravan

  Starts for the Dawn of Nothing – Oh, make haste!

  The images were dazzling, the message unmistakable; that last verse particularly sent chills down his spine. He stared at it for some time before gently setting the book down. His eyes were drawn to the smaller trunk, empty now of its letters, with just the treasured items in the tray at the top...

  He lifted out the little shoes, opening an old envelope containing locks of hair in tissue paper. There was a small leather box containing two gold rings, and another with a diamond and sapphire brooch. Stephen held it up, seeing lights winking through the dust, wondering what its story was, knowing he must give it to Joan. He put it back, bemused for a moment, knowing these things were not what he was looking for; and yet he could not have said what it was.

  With the trunk empty, he turned to its base, carefully feeling along the corners, wondering whether it contained a false bottom. The soft leather lining was torn in a couple of places, bulging a little where it was loose. Running his fingers down the sides, he felt the ridge of something hard. Very gently, trying to raise it without tearing that fragile lining, he finally extracted a slim cigarette case. The silver was tarnished, and it had been closed so long the catch was stiff, but even before he opened it, Stephen knew that this was what he was looking for.

  Running the edge of a thumbnail down the join, he managed to ease it open, and out fell a couple of photographs and a square of folded paper. Engraved within the case were Liam’s initials and the date of his twenty-second birthday. Remembering an entry in the diary, Stephen guessed that this had been the ‘Birthday present from G.’

  There was no mistaking her, Stephen thought as he retrieved the photographs: Georgina Duncannon, smooth fair hair swept back from classic features. She really was very lovely, he thought, feeling a strong pull of sympathy as he glanced from one to the other, recognizing the possessive pride in Liam’s eyes.

  It was a little while before he noticed the worn piece of paper, but as he opened it, Stephen was aware that his heart was beating faster. More than any of the others, this letter both touched and awed him. It was a direct communication from Georgina to Liam: probably the only one still in existence. And her neat italic script reminded him, sharply, of Zoe’s.

  ‘My Dearest,

  ‘How I miss you! From here, Barton-on-Sea seems a whole world away, despite your wonderful, loving, precious letters. How good you are, writing to me every day, keeping up my flagging spirit, giving me such an amusing picture of your fellow-convalescents in that little seaside hotel! I do so wish that I had time just now to send you more than these few lines.

  ‘I refuse to make excuses about the ward and work – but my darling, you know how and why it is, none better. Remember always that I love you, that my spirit loves you even when my hands and mind are occupied, and that I think of you in my quiet times, and especially during the lonely nights.

  ‘Soon, my dearest, soon. We will be together, come what may, and then these lonely weeks will be forgotten.

  ‘My love, my heart,

  ‘G.’

  The words became a blur. Overwhelmed for a moment, Stephen bowed his head, heart and eyes aching at the sadness and the waste.

  The note shivered in his fingers, sending a tingling shock right through him; the air was suddenly charged with urgency, and he looked up, startled, half-expecting to see Liam standing there before him, arms raised in supplication, the way he had seen him in so many dreams.

  For perhaps a minute he could do nothing; and then, as the urgency faded, he slowly nodded in understanding and acceptance. ‘All right,’ he said softly, ‘I’m not entirely stupid, I know what you’re trying to say. I’d just about worked it out for myself, anyway.’

  He refolded that fragile paper, placing it with the photographs inside the cigarette case where they belonged. While he dressed and pushed a change of clothes into an overnight bag, he laid it on the bed, hardly taking his eyes from it. When he was ready to leave, he slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt, picked up a warm sweater and went down to the garage.

  Thirty-four

  He stopped once on the motorway for petrol, and was approaching the outskirts of London as the sun came up. It had been a fine, dry night with little traffic, and he could not recall when he had enjoyed a drive so much. The Jaguar performed on the open road as it was meant to do, he saw two police cars before they saw him, slowed to an acceptable speed, then returned to a steady ninety-five as soon as they were gone. And everything, but everything, was crystal clear in his mind.

  The only doubt at all was whether Zoe would still be there. As he drove through London, wending a tortuous route through already thickening traffic, he prayed that either from anger or misery she had not abandoned the flat in favour of her mother’s cottage in Sussex, or worse, gone to friends elsewhere.

  The anxiety grew stronger with every passing mile, and he cursed the indecision that had prevented him from calling her last night. Then he began to worry about where he might leave the car, but as he came down Queen’s Gate from the Park, he saw one of the residents pulling away from the kerb, and pulled neatly in before the space could be taken by anyone else. No doubt he would be in trouble with somebody for leaving it there, but in that moment it was the least of his worries. Climbing out of the car, he stretched and flexed his long legs, took a long look at Zoe’s window, and on a deep breath crossed the road. On the steps, just for a moment he was daunted; then he thought of Liam and pressed the bell.

  It rang in Zoe’s flat as a sort of crackling buzz, and that buzzing continued, on and off, for more than a minute before she became aware that the noise was real and not part of a dream. In a sleeveless nightshirt that skimmed her knees, she staggered to the intercom in the lobby, wondering why the postman always rang her bell when he needed to leave a parcel.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Zoe? It’s me, Stephen.’

  Stephen? What time was it? What was he doing here?

  ‘Zoe? Look, I’m sorry I was such an idiot the other day... won’t you let me in so we can talk?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Push the door.’ She pressed the button, gave him a second or two to enter, then shook her head as though to clear it. Panic set in.

  She flew to the bathroom, grabbed a toothbrush, scrubbing furiously at her teeth while she surveyed the mess in the mirror. Yesterday’s mascara smudged beneath her eyes, her hair looking like an untrimmed hedge...

  Her face was washed, hairbrush dragging at the last of the tangles as he knocked at her door. Startled grey eyes set in a somewhat shiny face stared back at her from the mirror. The well-scrubbed look with a vengeance, she thought, but it would have to do.

  The cool, nonchalant image that she had cherished, on and off, for the last forty-eight hours, would have been satisfying had she been able to carry it off; but Zoe’s heart was beating a wild tattoo, and besides, she was too thankful to pretend. As soon as she saw him, tall and tanned and slightly crumpled from the journey, all the heartbreak disappeared. She wanted to hate him, but the only thing in her heart was love.

  His eyes, so brightly blue, were softened by a discernible amount of shame and a lot of love. ‘Forgive me?’ he murmured.

  Zoe was too overcome to speak. She wanted to say she was sorry, too, but all she could do was nod and let him in. The door swung to of its own accord.

/>   Between sighs and kisses and little sobs of laughter, she managed to say that she had tried to telephone him yesterday, several times; and between her eyes and mouth and throat he managed to tell her where he had been.

  ‘But then I woke about two, and I couldn’t sleep for thinking of you, and...’ He found her mouth again. ‘I knew I had to see you, couldn’t tell you how much I love you over the telephone... I tried twice before, and each time…’

  For a second, Zoe was still. With a quizzical smile she looked up at him. ‘What did you say?’

  He was very serious. ‘I love you, Zoe. Will you marry me?’

  Bubbles of happiness seemed to explode; her smile broadened into a grin, and seemed to go on forever. Laughing, she said: ‘Stephen Elliott, you are incredible. After all you’ve put me through, and you turn up, at seven in the morning, when I’m not even awake, and ask me to marry you. I ought to turn you down and throw you out!’

  ‘Please don’t.’

  She shook her head. ‘I love you.’ For a long moment she looked at him, the desire to kiss him battling with an urge to return some of the pain she had suffered, particularly in the last two days. The kiss won, by a narrow margin. It was fierce and hard and very passionate.

  ‘Enough to marry me?’

  ‘Oh, more than enough,’ she whispered, as the anger evaporated. ‘It’s been more than enough for a long, long time.’

  She looked up, at his eyes and his mouth, and was caught for a second by an uncanny resemblance to Liam. Remembering his touch, she felt it again; and at her sudden shiver Stephen hesitated, as though he sensed something too. His eyes searched her face, then, very tenderly, he traced the outline of her mouth. ‘I’ve loved you,’ he said softly, ‘almost from the moment I first saw you. I just wish that I could have believed it...’

  Little shocks ran through her.