Mrs Fitzroy

by Rachael Wright

  Mrs. Fitzroy

  Copyright © 2017 Rachael Wright

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781980391715

  No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.

  This is a work of fiction.

  Cover Photography from Shutterstock.com

  Mrs. Fitzroy

  Captain Savva Book One

  * * *

  BY Rachael Wright

  CONTENTS

  I – 1

  II – 18

  III – 37

  IV – 44

  V – 49

  VI – 63

  VII – 72

  VIII – 99

  IX – 109

  X – 120

  XI – 132

  XII – 153

  XIII – 162

  XIV – 175

  XV – 191

  XVI – 203

  XVII – 216

  XVIII – 237

  Captain Savva: A Solitary Reaper – 255

  For Melissa and Rachel

  I

  JULY 2016

  Απ' αγκάθι βγαίνει ρόδο κι από ρόδο βγαίνει αγκάθι.

  From a thorn a rose emerges and from a rose a thorn.

  John Fitzroy was an attractive man. A man trusted because of his good looks. It was always startling. Goodness lived in those eyes like a refuge with quiet lapping waves.

  His face was smooth. Devoid of those pits and red spots, some adults carry as souvenirs of their youth. Broad shouldered with a thin waist and narrow hips. His hair was a dark, shimmering brown as though he'd taken a shower in gold flakes. It glistened as he walked. And his white teeth were straight, as if they’d been measured out with a ruler.

  He moved across the world like it was his, as though he'd walked every inch as a child, holding onto his father's hand, stepping on shaking legs, from country to country and jumping over the puddles of the sea. He cultivated this sense of ownership early on, and people responded to it without realizing. They didn't ask questions. They liked a handsome, confident man. He got jobs, loans, gifts, and women. They owed him. You don’t have to ask for what is already yours.

  He didn't have dreams. He had plans. He didn't have hopes. He had ideas. He was on top of the world, always ten steps ahead ... always with another plan to set in action.

  But John Fitzroy woke one summer morning and didn't know where he was. He saw dark outlines of drapes and an oversized armchair and a glint of light that peeked through the top of the window. What was it about this day? The way ahead blurred like a blizzard of night. Blackness curled around him and the road disappeared

  Never had he felt this. Never had he been out of control. But ... was he? He was competent. He could twist his mind around an issue and it would iron out under the force of his will.

  "We'll see you next time," a valet said as he opened the door of a taxi for him.

  The boy had a kind, dark face with thick, black eyebrows and expressionless eyes. John gave him a respectful nod, and swallowed hard, past the dry sandpaper in his throat. The valet frowned as he stumbled into the back seat, his hands shaking.

  The cab crawled out from the hotel entrance and made for Heathrow Airport. The cabbie was a delightful man but short on conversation. He stared at the road with a baleful basset hound look: content at the slow crawl of traffic. John leaned back into the seat, which smelled of an exquisite perfume and mint bubble gum. The scent so foreign, so unexpected, he closed his eyes and savored the surprise of it.

  The fight through Heathrow's security was like a scene from a film where a schmuck stands in the center and the world moves in madness around him. The VIP lounge was much the same. Everyone going nowhere fast. John sat in a plush leather armchair and stared out the window as a waiter dropped a cup of tea in front of him. He curled his fingers around the thin arm of china, blew over the steaming liquid, and wished for silence. He closed his eyes and let his head rest against the top of the chair, and pictured lying on his back, floating on an endless river, water lapping at his ears, never to wake.

  But in the midst of his daydream a waiter touched his arm to tell him his flight would board in five minutes. John said nothing but grunted and threw back the last gulp of tea. He reached down, his back cracking, to pick up his pristine leather briefcase and headed to the frosted doors. The waiter who'd served him mumbled "rude" under his breath as John walked away, but he didn't turn. There wasn't time to care what a scrappy waiter thought of his manners.

  On the plane, with more legroom in business class than those poor sods in economy, John once more leaned back and set himself on the river with the warm sun; a weightless body, effortless in the calm water. An older woman with short-cropped white hair sat next to him. She clicked her seatbelt together and produced a circle of muslin. She attached it to a wooden embroidery hoop, pulled out ten different shades of blue floss and set to work. John stared at her flying fingers. Every five minutes he looked back at her handiwork, eager to see the next installment.

  In her lap she created the ocean, a bright setting (or rising) sun, a high brown cliff with greenery spilling over it, and the sea, a thousand little French knots: white, cream, blue, turquoise, cerulean, sapphire, lapis, navy, teal, Aegean, peacock, and cobalt. How did she do it, because it looked as though the sea undulated under her fingertips, as if the white knots were salt sprays flung out by the crashing waves and the Aegean knots, the point at which the ocean floor drops away from you and falls into an abyss.

  John took a surreptitious look at her, as he squeezed by on his way to the loo, to see her inspiration: to judge its accuracy for himself. But there was nothing. She didn't have a picture or a photograph. It was in her mind, John said, as he looked into the minuscule bathroom mirror, which had a crack like a butterfly in the upper left-hand corner. Was she Greek? Had she stared at that cliff her entire life? Was it burned in her memory as fields of flowers and marble monuments were burned in the minds of others?

  He walked down the small aisle and shuffled by her, murmuring apologies, and she looked up with an artist's smile: of the polite 'leave me alone' variety. A smile, which left no question as to its underlying meaning. She tolerated the interruption but did not welcome it. As the plane began its decent over Athens, she moved the hoop, and embroidered a few words at the top, in Greek. An offer to buy the piece flew to his lips, but he choked it back.

  The flight attendants let off first class and everyone stood to retrieve their bags; jostling and posturing with much grunting. The woman tucked her embroidery in her leather purse, flipped the white top over it, and rose, her hands clasped demurely in front of her. John craned his head to keep her in sight as the other passengers headed toward customs, but she was lost in the ocean of a crowd.

  Two hours later, John arrived in Mitilini, and swayed in the heat. Outside the minuscule white airport stood a black sedan from the hotel. Across the street the Aegean stretched across the horizon like a blue carpet. A little boy ran over and rang a bell at a small white chapel with a red-shingled roof. It pealed across the quiet parking lot as three plastic grocery bags tumbled in the wind in front of him. Four strikes, a long pause, and then the little boy, his white s
hirt riding up over his bronzed stomach, tugged the rope three more times before his harassed mother clawed at his arm and tugged him back to their white Toyota sedan.

  John stood, clutching the door handle awkwardly, unsure why he'd paused, when the chauffeur cleared his throat. He slid into the back seat, staring at the white chapel as a strange weight settled on his chest. The tick-tick-tick of the turn signal reverberated through the car and he swiveled around to stare back at the shivering bell. The scene disappeared into the distance, and all he saw were the crumbling buildings on the right and the endless sea on the left.

  The car pulled into the driveway of his pink monolithic home. John sighed and ran his hand through his hair; stiff from the tepid air of planes. She stood there. Where she always stood, a sentinel to his comings and goings, forever watching, waiting. He brushed past her in a fury, grabbed a long drink from the kitchen, snatched an envelope from his desk, flew back out the door, and caught his keys from their hook. She was silent as he tore across the gravel to the garage, slipped into the black and red leather seat of the Morgan, and gingerly backed out the car. He watched her in the rear-view mirror as he eased out of the driveway and onto the road. She hadn't moved. It made him perversely happy to discombobulate her.

  Halfway to work, he realized, with a massive sigh, that he'd left the hotel's tax documents at home. He used another house's drive to whip around, flew back down the road, one hand stoking the sensuous body of the car, and basked in the hot, dry air as it glided over and under his hand.

  Suddenly, a shiver like skin exposed to a sudden burst of frozen air, convulsed through his body. John's eyes jerked from the road, and he gripped the wheel and waited for it to happen. For whatever it was that his subconscious reacted to. A gnawing feeling, a step out of place, or a misunderstood word filled his mind. He clenched his teeth, frowned, flexed his toes, and studied the road.

  The corners came too fast.

  He braked, pumping the pedal angrily.

  What the hell?

  The force of one too-fast corner slammed him into the door and the Morgan's passenger side wheels lifted off the ground.

  He stared ahead and pictured what was out of sight. There was no way he'd make the next corner intact. It was too sharp. He viciously slammed on the brakes, but the speedometer only crept higher and higher. The road flew by in a torrent of white marks.

  He couldn't jump out. His mind painfully blank, he tried to crank the wheel, to turn the car into the mountain.

  Too late. He had lost all control.

  He tugged at the emergency brake, his fingers slippery with sweat.

  With an almighty crash, the ocean appeared in the windshield. Was he flying over it? Had he stolen James Bond's car? The rocks rose to meet him. The surf pounded them into shards of sand.

  "Wait ..." he said, before the car smashed to a halt.

  The water lapped against his ears. His body weightless and effortless. Nothing else. But water caught him and tugged, and he blinked and searched for the sun. He stared at the steering wheel, submerged in the sea, a rectangle and then a circle again in the tide. His arms floated lifeless on the surface of the sea. A queer warm, sticky liquid poured down his head and dripped into his eyes.

  The car. The cliff. The embroidered sea. The calm river. The stoic wife.

  With a groan he looked to see a massive wave forming fifty feet away. Water lapped at his shoulders. Should he shout for help? Should he? Would anyone hear it?

  'I don't want to die.'

  "I … no …” he managed before a white curtain drifted down and the wave consumed the car and then crawled back like some retreating beast.

  Ten Years Earlier–May 2006

  Davonna peered out of the window of the second story flat, at the corner of Arneway and Medway Street. London hummed like a great slumbering beast, the snores seeping in through the cracks and the thin weak joints of windows. Umbrella clutching hordes scurried on the faded grey pavement towards the Home Office. She stood, imagining them existing for the sole moment they passed before her eyes.

  Davonna pushed back limp brown strands of hair, which had fallen across her pale face, and sighed. Her slim body curved into the window moulding and her pale, sea-green eyes darted from the sky to the street to the people with a startling quickness. Her thick fingers, with their flat nails and rough beds, caressed an intricate silver heart pendant at her throat.

  She moved her right foot and fell against the window, and a dull thud echoed like a canon blast around the flat. With a jerk, she whipped around, her pained eyes darting again. The flat was empty; all emptiness about her. She looked at the band on her finger, the simple gold band put there two months ago. There wasn't a flat in Geneva anymore. She no longer strolled through the Palais des Nations. Davonna Wolfe had become Davonna Fitzroy.

  She sighed and stared at the dreary London flat, with its bare floors and white walls, and listened to the silence. It had happened so suddenly. Could it be two months ago she was living in Switzerland? Marriage hadn't been a part of her plan. John was kind enough, but the move to Greece, it was so sudden and it would tear her away from everything familiar. But perhaps … perhaps, it wouldn't be bad. Perhaps they'd find the blissful happiness her sister Miriam and her husband Seamus had found together. Perhaps they'd have children and settle, and life would be perfect.

  "You ready?"

  "Yes," Davonna said, and curled her fingers through the leather strap of her black purse.

  John raised his eyebrows dubiously, nodded, and walked back out of the flat. She turned one last time, closed her eyes, and breathed. The air rippled under her nose, full of smells and emotion, it swirled around Davonna's lank hair and across the tops of her beige heels. Was it the spilled pot of chamomile tea by the breakfast nook, the whiffs of change, or the London smog?

  Somewhere below a taxi horn blared. Davonna took the stairs two at a time, tripped on the last one, smashing her funny bone against the wall. John didn't stir as she swung herself into the taxi, clutching her right elbow. His hand curled around their passports, knuckles an opaque white. She inched forward to take her passport from John's hand, but a niggle in the back of her mind stopped her. Instead she squeezed his arm and smiled. He patted her hand absently as he dug out his phone and waded through emails.

  They stopped at Heathrow Airport and John swiped his credit card before he fled the car. He declined to leave a tip. Davonna grimaced at the cabbie as he heaved their luggage out of the car. His heavily scuffed shoes scratched the steaming pavement and his jacket was worn down, exposing the white batting like an open wound. In the front, Davonna noticed a picture of a large, laughing family attached to the visor. As he unloaded their bags, his back curved with strain. Davonna pulled a twenty-pound note from her pocket and shoved it in his hand as John flagged an airport employee to bring a trolley.

  The cabbie tipped his hat to her and muttered a "thank you ma'am" before he jumped behind the wheel and left. She watched him pull away. Perhaps he'd get the shoes repaired, go buy his wife a bouquet of red roses, or he'd pay off a debt to his best friend. Or, perhaps he'd just go to his favorite chip shop and have a pint or two with his fish.

  "Let's go," John said. He stood beside a loaded trolley and waved imperiously.

  Davonna smiled weakly and followed in his wake.

  An hour later they were beyond security, divested of their luggage. They sipped a mediocre cup of tea at the café next to their gate. John pulled out a copy of The Guardian and disappeared behind it. An unflattering picture of Tony Blair stared out beside the title "Revealed: Blair attack on human rights law."

  They sat, as the whole world turned around them, for the better part of an hour, before a calm polished voice on the intercom announced that the flight to Athens was boarding first class. John dropped his paper, tipped back his teacup with a grimace, and beckoned for Davonna to follow.

  The flight was as uneventful as it could have possibly been. John and Davonna settled themselves into b
usiness and listened as economy filled behind them. Silence grew between them. John didn't notice she was there, and Davonna wished she were in economy with the college students and young families and tourists instead of the pretentious professionals who never took their eyes off their newspapers, trade journals, or computers, who surrounded her. Six long hours later, they left Lesvos' quaint answer of an airport.

  The air crackled, and the wind blew bursts as though it was brittle and the heat sapped it of any energy. John walked resolutely toward the front of the airport where a young man in a hotel uniform stood beside a gleaming black sedan; as out of place as a skyscraper in the Scottish highlands.

  Everything was faded and worn from the sun; even the white paint on the airport had lost its luster. Davonna shaded her eyes, and peered across the rippling parking lot to where the Aegean Sea overtook the horizon and stretched out like a languid swimmer.

  "He'll take the luggage," John said, snapping his fingers.

  Davonna blinked and pulled her gaze from the shimmering sea. The boot of the car popped open, and she let John take the handle of the trolley.

  "I'll drop you off at the house first, I want to work at the hotel for a few hours and make sure the car arrived."

  "You don't want to walk through it with me?" She batted her eyes at him and smiled.

  He grimaced. "I'm off to the hotel. Get settled; I've seen the house. The garden needs work. After you get the house settled that's the next project."

  "Sure."

  They drove on in silence. John pulled out his phone and emailed colleagues. Davonna stared out the tinted window and watched as the island slid past. Even the faded rubble of abandoned buildings was bright, colorful; so much warmer than England. Instead of greens and grey, the island was a riot of orange and yellow and the bright cerulean blue of the ocean. The sky was an endless mirror, unmarred by a single cloud. As the car wound around a hill, the houses became more grand, with wide sweeping porticos and twisted columns and massive palm trees which shaded marble façades, and gardens which overflowed with towering white sculptures.