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First Published in current form 2015
By: WDA PUBLISHING Loughborough UK
Based on the original short-fiction work by © 2012 Suzanne Carroll “The Thunderstorm”
Winner of the 2012 AudioGo Original Fiction Contest
ISBN-
ISBN-
For my Mum,
with love
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
It was one of those days.
The traffic was impossible and the weather miserable, all grey skies and a drizzle that reflected Georgia’s mood. The afternoon’s meeting had gone on way too long; the clients wanted to change the floor plan again, she’d have to re-do all the drawings, completely re-work the kitchen, and the Project Manager had brought the deadline forward a week. But right now Georgia didn’t want to think about all that. All she wanted was to get home, and find a few minutes to have a glass of wine, and put on some music. Mozart, she thought, would be nice.
The endless line of red tail lights gradually broke up and the roads cleared as she finally made her way out of the city, and deep into the suburbs of London. The train would have been so much quicker. Some days, having a designated parking space at the office didn’t seem worth it. But a little while later, Georgia smiled and her body began to relax as she pulled into her driveway and switched off the engine. Leaning back against the headrest, she took a moment, breathing and deep. She let her mind wander, taking her away from meeting rooms and peak hour gridlock, down a different path. Her thoughts led her back to the art exhibition she’d snuck out to see during yesterday’s stolen lunch break and she smiled as she revisited that precious half hour of luminous colour and subtle shadows in the small gallery next to the wine bar. And that took her to thoughts of her old easel, tucked away in the attic, collecting dust. It had been so long since she’d painted anything except her fingernails...
Georgia stared down at her perfectly manicured hands and remembered when they used to wear smudges of oils and inks. Back in the days when her auburn hair was long, and her skirts were short. Now it was the other way round. Though her sapphire eyes still held the fire they had always had.
“Mum!”
Georgia’s thoughts scattered, and she looked up quickly. The front door was open and Sophie stood on the top step with her panic face on, twisting her dark curls with one hand, laptop clutched to her chest with the other. “Mum, help! I need you!”
Georgia sighed and climbed out of the car, bracing herself for whatever new drama had befallen her teenage daughter.
“What’s up, sweetheart?” She kissed Sophie’s forehead before hanging up her coat and dropping her bag onto the hall stand. “Something happen at school?”
“You were alive before the internet, right?”
Georgia bit back a smile. “It wasn’t that long ago, Soph.” Although, Georgia knew that, at forty-three, she probably seemed almost elderly to her seventeen-year-old daughter. “Why? What’s happ…”
“You’re not going to believe what my English teacher, Mr Gormsby, has done,” Sophie interrupted, then paused, taking a deep breath before announcing, “He’s set us an assignment and we’re not allowed to use or refer to the internet or social media, at all. In any capacity. Apparently, according to him, my generation is too dependent on search engines and social networking, can you believe it?”
Actually, Georgia could believe it. Sophie’s head was almost permanently bent over her phone or laptop and it was the same with her brothers, Alec and Max. Though this afternoon it sounded like the fifteen-year-old twins had their video games fired up; the faint sounds of a zombie apocalypse floated down from upstairs. But Georgia kept her traitorous opinion to herself and hid another smile before calling out hello to her sons and asking if they’d had a good day. They called hello back, and yes they had. Then Georgia suggested she and Sophie go to the kitchen for a cup of tea and a chat. Mozart and wine would have to wait.
While Georgia filled the kettle and got out the mugs and teabags, Sophie pulled up a stool and set her laptop and her phone on the counter, glaring at them like they’d offended her somehow. “You know,” Georgia said, “Your father and I survived school and university without the internet. It’s not that hard.”
“Oh! I nearly forgot.” Sophie looked up suddenly and glanced at the phone on the wall. “Dad called a while ago. He’s going to be late tonight, but he’ll pick up a curry for dinner on the way.”
Georgia paused at the fridge, milk carton in her hand, and wondered why her husband had rung the home number, and not her mobile like he usually would. “Did he say why he’ll be late?”
“Something about…I can’t remember. Picking something up?”
“Something apart from the curry?”
“I think so. I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Sophie…” Georgia shook her head as she moved to the counter and splashed a small amount of milk into each cup. “How hard is it to take down a simple message?”
“It’s not my fault he was so vague. If it was important he would have texted.”
Georgia rolled her eyes. That was the way with Sophie; if it wasn’t in a text, it wasn’t worth remembering. Mr Gormsby definitely had a point. “What’s the assignment about?” Georgia asked. Her question was answered with another dramatic sigh.
“Short essay on popular culture in modern fiction.”
“Without using the internet for research? That shouldn’t be too diffi…”
Sophie held her hand up sharply. “Wait, that’s not all. We also have to write a short story about searching for something and it has to be set before 1995, so the characters can’t turn to the internet for help. No Google, no Facebook, no Twitter.”
“Searching without search engines, huh? Actually, that sounds like fun. And you like writing, you’re good at it.”
Sophie groaned and rubbed her hands over her face. “I know but this is…ugh. Jenn’s doing a detective piece. Rex is writing about someone looking for their birth parents and I have no clue what to do.”
Georgia chuckled
as she passed Sophie a steaming cup and stirred some sugar into her own. “And I suppose that’s where I come in?”
Sophie gave her a hopeful smile. “Yes, please,” she said eagerly. “Tell me what it was like before the internet. Did you ever have to search for something? Or someone?”
Someone.
Georgia stopped stirring. Goosebumps prickled her skin as memories began to stir, taking her back over twenty years, to a boy on a beach. She wondered how different things might have been, if they’d had smart phones and Facebook back then.
“Actually, I did try to find someone, once,” she said quietly, staring down at her tea. Even now, her heart fluttered as she remembered. “But my search started with a necklace. And a TV talent show.”
Sophie’s eyes widened, and she leaned forward. “Oh my God, really? Who were you searching for?”
“A boy.” Georgia hesitated a little. “He…he was called TJ.”
“TJ.” Sophie tried out the name. “Who was he? What necklace? What show?”
“It’s a long story. And you’d have to turn your phone off while I tell you.”
Sophie’s face reflected a brief internal struggle, but she did as her mother asked. “Okay, phone’s off, and I’m listening,” she said. “When was this?”
“In 1991. It started on a Sunday night, when I was supposed to be studying...”
Georgia had had enough of Shakespeare and igneous rocks. Yawning, she closed her text books, got up from the desk and flopped heavily onto her bed. The quilt billowed up around her and she pretended it was a cloud as she sank into the softness. She closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift away from assignments and university lectures, along a path she rarely followed these days.
For the first time, in a long time, she allowed herself to think of Tom.
Three days. It had been three blissful summer days, and one perfect, moonlit walk along the beach. Then came the thunderstorm. Then nothing. He was gone.
That had been over a year ago.
Georgia rolled over, and from the bedside drawer she took the rumpled piece of paper, stained by rain and scribbled with lines of his beautiful music. She traced her finger over the notes he’d written, smiling as she remembered his laugh and the way his hand had curled around hers; how his dark, messy hair had been forever falling into his eyes. The touch of his lips.
She wondered if he ever thought of her.
Georgia tried to smooth out some of the creases in the paper. “I should throw this out,” she murmured. It made no sense to keep hanging on to it.
Another thing that didn’t make sense, was the way the thought of him still made her stomach flutter. That after more than a year, he still had a hold of her heart. The boy she’d known for three days when she was seventeen.
“Enough,” she muttered to herself. “It was ages ago. You’re almost nineteen now. Let it go.” But she couldn’t let it go, that was the thing. She could put Tom out of her mind for weeks, even months at a time, but she always came back to him.
Of course, she’d dated other guys. Josh had been sweet and funny, and Marc had been adventurous and introduced her to flaming Sambuca shots, but there’d never been the connection she’d felt with Tom.
That connection had been powerful and instant. At least, that’s how Georgia remembered it, but she did wonder sometimes if she’d blown it all out of proportion. If she’d built it up in her mind like some tragic love story of two soul mates who found each other, only to be cruelly torn apart by fate.
She had been reading a lot of Bronte at the time.
Georgia glanced at the waste paper basket in the corner. Her hand tightened around the paper.
“I really should throw this out…”
“Georgia! Georgia, come and look! Look!”
Georgia quickly slid the sheet of music under her pillow as Emily came running up the hall and pushed open the door. She was breathless and beaming. “I’ve found Pegasus!”
Georgia’s hand went immediately to her throat where the small, pewter pendant used to hang on thin, black cord. Pegasus, the mythical winged horse, had been lost on holidays, two summers ago, a hundred miles away, during that thunderstorm. For just a second, her heart stuttered, and then she shook her head.
“Don’t be silly, Em. Pegasus is gone.” But Emily had already disappeared back down the hall, still calling for Georgia to come.
So Georgia sighed and rolled off her cloud and went reluctantly to the living room where the television blared. Sometimes it was just easier to give in.
This was the downside of moving back home. The flat Georgia had shared near the university campus might have been cold and cramped, but at least there’d been no annoying little sisters, and her flatmates had known how to knock. It was too bad the landlord had put the rent up.
“Look!” Emily declared triumphantly, pointing at the tv screen. Georgia gave her a sceptical glance.
“Really, Em? Star Factory? What has Star Factory got to do with my necklace?”
The popular, long-running talent show had been Georgia’s obsession when she was fourteen and fifteen. She’d watch every Sunday night as aspiring pop stars performed for a panel judges who’d keep some contestants and eliminate others, until another one-hit-wonder was churned out at the end. But by the time she was sixteen, the shine had begun to wear off. Now, at almost nineteen, Star Factory was just background noise for Georgia, and thirteen year old Emily had taken up the obsession.
“I’m going back to my room.” Georgia started to go, but Emily grabbed her arm and tugged.
“You’re not looking!”
Georgia gave the most exaggerated sigh she could, even though she knew the effect would be lost on her sister. Then she turned back to the television.
“Okay. I’m looking.”
A young man sat on a red velvet sofa. He seemed uneasy and shy alongside the show’s over-enthusiastic host, Mandy, who was grinning maniacally at the camera.
“It’s week nine of the competition and I’m here with Star Factory finalist TJ! He’ll sing for us in a minute, but right now we have some fan questions for him!”
The studio audience screamed and Georgia froze as the camera zoomed in on the guy with spiky blond hair and the funky glasses with yellow lenses. Around his neck was a Pegasus pendant. Her Pegasus pendant. She recognised the bent wing, and the tiny extra knot in the cord.
Slowly, Georgia sank onto the floor in front of the screen. “Emily, who is this guy?”
“TJ,” Emily said smugly. “If he wins tonight he’ll go into the final next Sunday against Saxon. The winner gets the recording contract and there’s a surprise this year but no-one knows what it is, yet.”
“Here’s the first question!” Mandy shouted. “TJ, what is your idea of the perfect date?”
The audience screamed again, but Georgia didn’t care about TJ’s perfect date, she wanted to know how he had her pendant. She watched as he touched the little horse, rubbing it absently between his thumb and forefinger.
“Walking on the beach,” he said, shrugging. “Yeah, just walking on the beach. At night. Under the moon.”
Suddenly Pegasus was forgotten.
Georgia knew that voice. It’s deep, soft lilt was burned into her memory, and her heart, and she stared now at TJ’s face. The hair and glasses confused things, but she knew...
His sheet music was hidden under her pillow.
Georgia felt like her heart had skidded to a halt. Like the world had suddenly changed direction without her.
“Georgia? Are you alright, love?” Her mother came in from the kitchen with a cup of tea and the crossword puzzle. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Georgia’s shock left her unguarded. “It’s Tom,” she said, pointing at the television.
“Who’s Tom, darling?”
“Do you mean the boy from the beach?” Emily joined in, giggling. “The one you cried over? It is not him.”
Georgia was about to argue but suddenly thought better of
it. She had no idea what any of this meant, but she didn’t need Emily advertising it at school.
“You’re right,” she said, forcing a smile as she stood up on shaky legs. “I’m tricking. Gotcha!” She tugged playfully on her sister’s ponytail as she dropped onto the sofa next to her mother. But her mind was confusion and chaos as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
The audience of teenage girls was still screaming. Mandy was still grinning. “Okay, okay,” she cried, waving her hands up and down, trying to quieten them. “Looks like you’ve got some takers for that moonlit walk, TJ!” She elbowed him playfully and TJ, or Tom, looked awkward, giving a hesitant smile as he looked away. “Next fan question!” Mandy bellowed.
But Georgia didn’t get to hear what else the fans wanted to know, because Emily started talking again. “Look in there,” she said and thrust something into Georgia’s hands. It was a Star Factory fan magazine from the Sunday supplement. “He’s wearing it in the pictures. I didn’t really notice before.”
Georgia didn’t look at the magazine. She was too busy trying to see around her sister, who was blocking the screen. “Em, can you move, I’m try…”
“Hang on,” Emily interrupted, her eyes suddenly wide. “You lost Pegasus at the beach, so if TJ’s got it...” She was quickly putting two and two together. “Oh! It really is him, isn’t it? You weren’t tricking. Tom is TJ!” She let out a little scream. “You know TJ!”
“Shut up, Em! I already told you I was tricking. They look nothing alike!” Georgia snapped, and her mother shot her a warning look. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Anyway, there are probably hundreds of necklaces like that. Thousands, even.”
“Not with the bent wing,” Emily said, smug again. “That’s how I knew it was yours. The wing is bent from when you caught it in the drawer that time. You cried then, too.”
Georgia ignored her sister. She moved to the arm chair so she could see, and fixed her gaze on the television again as TJ prepared to sing.
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