Touching the Wire

by Rebecca Bryn

  She folded herself back into her own small group, all the family she had now. She clenched her jaw: Jennie had spent a day contacting the Blundells in the local phone book to tell them Walt was missing presumed dead. None would admit to knowing him. One even said he’d been dead for years and slammed down the phone. Maybe he had been better off without them.

  She strained to see through the spray as if, by constantly watching, somehow, miraculously, Walt would appear. Her mind replayed their last conversation. Something about him hadn’t been right. What had he actually said, other than that he loved her more than life? I want you to remember that. Why had he jumped into the water on such a foolhardy rescue attempt? She could understand why Eric had jumped in: he’d been the worse for drink by all accounts but Walt hadn’t. Ted, still in hospital under observation, said Walt had refused a second tot of rum.

  An angry tear tracked across her cheek, lashed by the wind. She was proud of Walt for saving Ted’s life, but why couldn’t the stupid old fool have saved his own, too? It was almost as if he’d had a death wish.

  Was that it? Could the current media frenzy about the man whom she was sure caused Walt’s nightmares explain something she’d never now understand? If only she’d persuaded him to talk about his pain, perhaps he would still be with her. Perhaps he wouldn’t have died alone in a cold, merciless sea. She’d let him down. He wouldn’t have suffered, they said. The cold would have numbed his senses before the waves took him, but it was no comfort. He’d needed her and, for the first time since they married, she hadn’t been there to hold him, comfort him, cherish him.

  She stared over Charlotte’s head, north and south across the shifting sand, past Edie and her family, not wanting to see. They said the bodies would probably be washed up somewhere on this stretch of coast, depending on the winds and tides, but so far they’d found no sign of either Eric or Walt. Three days… there was no way either of them could have survived that long. Charlotte’s shivering brought her back to the reason they were here. They needed to say goodbye.

  She squeezed Charlotte’s shoulder. ‘Shall we throw the flowers?’

  Charlotte nodded wordlessly and took a step towards the water’s edge. Lucy followed, and she and Jennie walked behind them. The tide was going out, leaving streaks of yellowed foam on the wet sand. A wave broke, sending a ripple of water towards their feet.

  She put a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. ‘Now, sweethearts.’ Lucy and Charlotte threw the bouquets and the sea took their offerings. Walt hadn’t believed in her God. They’d talked about his view of world order and she thought she understood. Tykhe, he’d explained, had given him too great a gift. She should say something. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’ His Gods danced before her: Thanatos - death, Hypnos - sleep. Okeanus, God of the Sea, accepted their offerings, and the white-gowned daughters of Night, tossed them and carried them out to sea, bobbing on the waves, further and further until they were gone from sight. Nemesis judged his debt paid. ‘Goodbye, love.’ Her whisper was all but lost. ‘Sleep without dreams.’

  ***

  The rattle of the letterbox shook Jane from her reverie: she’d been back on the beach, watching the posies of flowers bob out to sea. Life, she’d discovered to her distress, went on. She pushed herself from her chair. How many cups of cold coffee had she tipped down the sink untasted? She put the cup on the dining table and went to collect the newspaper. It was… had been Walt who’d read the paper. It was four months since Walt had… been lost. She couldn’t even say died, because no bodies had been found. She couldn’t bury him or allow herself to grieve. She picked up the paper: cancelling it felt as if she were giving up.

  She drudged into the living room and sank into her chair. She hadn’t slept well since the night before he’d gone fishing. She should have stopped him going. She unfolded the paper onto her lap, scanned the headlines and froze.

  This, she was almost sure, was the name Walt had cried out in his sleep. She read the front-page article like a starving man offered maggot-ridden meat. For millions of men and women of her generation, his name alone would fill their hearts with hatred and revulsion. He had been tracked down at last, and he was dead.

  Her fingers clenched, ripping the newsprint. He had survived Walt by such a short time. God forgive him, but she was sure Walt had planned to take his own life, and this man was responsible. Walt had endured the torment of his nightmares and memories for forty years, but he wasn’t the first survivor who hadn’t been able to live with what had happened to them. Why couldn’t he have hung on a few more months? Would it have made a difference?

  Photographs showed evil wearing a smart uniform and looking like any ordinary man. On May the thirty-first West German police had raided the home of one of his friends in Günsburg, and found letters from him and other ex-patriots living in Brazil. Brazilian authorities had been notified and within a week they’d identified the families that had harboured him. Through them, only days ago, they’d found his grave, though the name on it was false, and they’d exhumed the body for forensic identification. He’d drowned after a heart attack while swimming in the sea… six years ago…

  Six years when Walt had been racked by nightmares. Even in death his family and friends had protected this monster: they’d protected him for forty years. How could they, knowing what he’d done? Only God could heal the wounds and mete out judgement now. She sank into Walt’s chair and covered her face with her hands, rocking backwards and forwards as emptiness consumed her. She’d take this pain with her to the grave. Why couldn’t she have helped Walt more?

  A noise upstairs made her wipe away her tears and tie on the apron Lucy had given her for her birthday. Kettle… and set the table.

  Breakfast over, Jennie left for an early shift at work. She chivvied the twins to get ready for school and stood on the doorstep to wave them off. A police car stopped outside the house next door.

  ‘Mrs Blundell?’ The policeman held out his warrant card. ‘PC John Cox… this is WPC Jill Murray.’

  ‘What’s happened? It isn’t Jennie?’

  ‘It’s about William… your husband.’

  Her heart somersaulted. ‘Walt. I call him Walt.’

  ‘Can we come in?’

  ‘You must excuse the mess.’ She plumped cushions and tidied plates. ‘Do sit down. I haven’t had time to clear the table yet. The twins…’

  ‘It’s quite all right, Mrs Blundell. Please, don’t worry.’ WPC Murray indicated a dining chair. ‘Perhaps you’d like to sit down.’

  PC Cox’s face said it all. Her heart fell like a potato through a wet paper bag. ‘Walt?’

  ‘Mrs Blundell, I’m sorry… A body has been found. We’re checking dental records and medical records, and a post-mortem will be carried out, but we wanted you to know. Can Jill make you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes… thank you.’ She rested her forearms on the dining table for support, clinging to a last hope. ‘Dental records won’t help much. He and Eric both wore full sets of dentures.’

  WPC Murray clattered around in the kitchen. PC Cox was saying something.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Did your husband have any fractures, physical abnormalities, anything that might not be on his medical records? Anything that might help identify him?’

  ‘No, not that I know of. He did have a small tattoo.’ She pointed to the place on her own body. ‘Here. Just a small circle. He had burn marks too, on his forearms, but they were faint.’ Not much use in identifying a body that had been in the water for four months.

  PC Cox wrote in his notebook. His expression suggested he didn’t think it would help much, either. ‘We have items of clothing. I wonder if you can identify them.’

  The policeman removed tattered scraps from a bag and laid them on the table. Her head thumped. WPC Murray placed strong, steaming tea in front of her. It was in Walt’s favourite mug.

  PC Cox pushed a scrap of material towards her. ‘This was found on the same stretch of beach.’


  She took a sip of tea, not wanting to look. She could almost feel Walt’s hands closing over hers. She put the mug on the table and picked up the tatter of tweed. It still had a piece of the black lining attached, and a button… she’d sewn that button on herself. It had come from a jacket long-since consigned to the rag-and-bone man who used to call with his horse and cart to collect scrap and old clothing; it hadn’t quite matched the others.

  She caressed the fabric between her thumb and forefinger. She’d thought she couldn’t feel worse pain. ‘It’s from Walt’s overcoat. I made him promise to wear it.’

  ‘And this?’ WPC Murray indicated part of a blue and white striped cotton shirt, badly stained and frayed. ‘It was on the body.’

  ‘I’m not sure… It… it looks like one of Walt’s shirts but it’s a common pattern. I can’t remember what he wore the day… the day he went fishing. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s quite all right, Mrs Blundell. You’ve been a great help. Eric’s wife… She’s not sure any of this is her husband’s.’

  PC Cox put the scraps back in the bag. ‘Perhaps when you feel up to it you could check Mr Blundell’s shirts and let us know if the one like this is missing. I’m sorry we can’t tell you more at the moment. We’ll be in touch soon… if it is your husband… about releasing the body for burial.’

  It was Walt, she knew it was. She was going to have to accept it now. Walt was never coming home. The tears she’d held back fell unheeded down her cheeks.

  ‘Can we call someone… a neighbour?’

  ‘No, thank you. I need to be alone.’

  WPC Murray squeezed her arm comfortingly. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Blundell. Don’t get up. We’ll see ourselves out.’

  She roused herself, eventually. If she had a funeral to arrange, things needed organising. Not for the first time she wondered about Walt’s family. He’d had maternal family in Liverpool, though she didn’t know his mother’s maiden name. Just because he wouldn’t talk about his relations didn’t mean that someone, somewhere, wasn’t thinking about him. Even if they refused to acknowledge him, they should be told he was dead... if he was dead. Of course he was dead. She forced herself to say the words out loud. ‘Walt is dead.’

  There, she’d said it. She couldn’t make herself check his shirts, not yet: it would only confirm what she already knew. She concentrated on the job in hand. Ted had offered help if she needed it. Perhaps if she could find Walt’s birth certificate Ted could find out if he had any relatives who would admit to knowing him. He felt he owed Walt a debt. It might help him to do something for her and, even if the body wasn’t Walt’s, it would be good to find someone else who’d known him, someone who could explain the family feud. She hadn’t been able to help him in life, but maybe she could heal the rift in death. They were Jennie and the twins’ relations, after all.

  She dialled Ted’s number. ‘Ted, it’s Jane. I wonder if you could spare some time. I’d like to contact Walt’s family and I don’t know where to begin. Jennie tried, but couldn’t get anywhere.’

  ‘Anything, Jane. Shall I pop round now?’

  ‘Thanks, Ted. I’ll have the kettle on.’

  Ted arrived with a bag of cream cakes. ‘I thought these would go with a coffee.’ He held out the paper bag like a peace offering.

  ‘Thanks.’ She forced a smile. ‘Come in.’

  She made coffee and put the cakes on a plate, and then showed Ted Walt’s birth certificate. He’d been born in Wellingborough in 1913, the son of William Harold Blundell, shoemaker, and Elizabeth Mary Blundell, formerly James.

  Ted fingered the certificate. ‘Walt was obviously named for his father. You’ve tried the local phone book, I suppose?’

  ‘Jennie rang all the Blundells when he first went missing. They either weren’t related or didn’t want to know. He may have married sisters though, and there’s his mother’s side of the family. She came from Liverpool, originally.’

  ‘We can put a notice in the Liverpool papers, stating his mother’s name. Other than that…’ He turned his palms outwards in a gesture of unknowing. ‘I’ll go to the County Records Office and look through the births, marriages and deaths. It could take a few days.’

  ‘They’ve found a body, Ted. I don’t know if it is Walt yet. There still might not be a funeral, I just thought...’

  Ted avoided meeting her eyes. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. It was an accident, you falling overboard. Walt was a foolish old man who should have known better and Eric was drunk… Accidents happen… He’d had…’ She’d been about to say a good life. That was the stock answer wasn’t it? He’d had a good innings. She couldn’t even comfort herself or Ted with that thought. He’d had a long life but he’d suffered. Since she’d known him, Walt had suffered.

  ***

  Jane passed Ted a cup of tea. He didn’t seem in any hurry to divulge his findings at the Records Office. ‘I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. Did you not find any relatives?’

  ‘I found his parents’ marriage date, and checked all the Blundell births between then and Elizabeth Mary’s death giving birth to her seventh child, Emily Maud.’

  ‘Elizabeth was Walt’s mother.’

  He took another sip. ‘She died when Walt was five.’

  ‘He never said. Poor Walt.’

  Ted put his cup in its saucer. ‘Then I checked the electoral rolls. I found two brothers and two sisters, all older than Walt, living in the family home with their widowed father, but no mention of Walt. I couldn’t find any record of his father having remarried.’

  ‘Walt and his family had a falling out.’

  ‘I knew from the birth records that Walt had another, younger brother, Sidney, who also wasn’t on the electoral roll, so I checked the death register. He died aged seven.’

  ‘How much grief did poor Walt have to suffer?’

  ‘Not as much as you might think.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There was another entry, a week after Sidney’s. William Walter Blundell, died aged nine.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Jane. I’m sure I haven’t made a mistake. I went over and over it. I even had the woman in the Records Office double-check the entries.

  ‘But…’

  ‘If William Walter Blundell died in 1922, aged nine, who the hell was William Walter Blundell?’

  ‘But… Walt was Walt…’ The family he hadn’t let her contact… They weren’t his? If Walt wasn’t Walt… ‘But… I don’t understand. You knew him, Ted, before I did. Weren’t you at school together?’

  ‘No. I met him when he got an allotment near me and Eric...’

  ‘So, who was I married to?’

  ‘I don’t know, Jane. I’m sorry, but I don’t know.’

  ‘If… Why did he lie to me, Ted? Why didn’t he trust me? Why…’ He’d called out more than one name in his sleep. She buried her face in a handkerchief. ‘Do you think he had another family, somewhere? Was that why…’

  Ted put his arm round her shoulder. ‘Walt adored you, and Jennie and the twins. Whatever his reason, I’m sure that wasn’t it.’

  Jennie and the twins… She sniffed back tears. Her decision was obvious. ‘Jennie mustn’t find out. Walt’s gone. Let her and the twins grieve for the man they loved, the man they thought he was.’

  Ted nodded. ‘You’ll gain nothing by telling them. I still can’t believe it. I’m gob-smacked.’

  ‘I loved him for forty years, Ted, and I don’t know who he was. I feel…’

  ‘Betrayed?’

  ‘It’s like losing him all over again.’

  ‘Look, you need time to come to terms with this. I’ll call back later if you want and make sure you’re okay.’

  ‘Thanks, Ted. I can’t think at the moment. Thank you.’ The door clicked shut behind him; she cleared away the cups and plates and took them into the kitchen. Walt had been a kind, loving man… and he’d lied to her. She crashed the c
rockery into the sink, not caring if it broke. How could he do this to her? Why hadn’t he trusted her? She would have done anything for him, anything.

  The best thing she could do for her family now was let them bury him. She left the dishes and stamped upstairs. Walt’s shirts still lay crisply ironed and folded in his drawer. She rifled through them, and drew one out the same colour and material as the piece PC Cox had brought. She put the shirt into a carrier bag and went downstairs to wait for the bus into town.

  ***

  Jane closed the front door behind her, thankful the ordeal at the police station was over. She went upstairs, put the shirt back with the others and opened Walt’s personal drawer. She’d found his birth certificate in an envelope in the front of it, but it hadn’t felt right, prying.

  Now, she needed to understand why he’d lied: she needed to lay her anger to rest. She removed socks, a couple of ties, a pile of neatly-folded hankies and a roll of belts. She lifted out a box of memories: a tie pin the twins had saved their pocket money for, the cufflinks she’d bought him when they were married, and the fountain pen Jennie had given him one long-ago Christmas... or was it a birthday? No, it was a souvenir of their trip to Coventry cathedral.

  No letters from another woman, no cards, nothing with a name or address to show a double life. Why had he changed his name? Was he a wanted man? She shook her head. Walt was honest… and that made his deception all the worse. A small, thin book lay in the bottom of the drawer. She opened it and a piece of paper fell out.

  Dear Jane,

  Her heart thudded; her hands shook.

  Please believe me when I tell you that I love you more than life. Everything I have done since I fell in love with you has been to protect you and our family. I hid something, years ago, evidence of crimes. I can name names. I have lived with the fear of discovery and, that if I admitted these documents existed, the knowledge that the backlash would harm you.