Read Online The Road Between Us by Nigel Farndale - Free Book Online
Authors: Nigel Farndale
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out. Mercifully, this one is already dead. Geysers of water rise turbulently in the air as shells fall nearby.Everyone in the rowing boat is drenched as the water showers back down.
There are seventeen rescued soldiers now on The Painted Lady , shivering on the deck and in the cabin. Some of them must have fallen back in as they were scrambling on board: they are barely able to move because of the weight of their saturated uniforms.
While Eric tends to the wounded, Charles hands out blankets. Remembering his bottle of Irish he goes around giving each of them a tot. Their faces, staring out from under their helmets, look gaunt. Their skin is black from the oil and smoke, emphasizing the whiteness of their eyes. There are no smiles of relief, only blank expressions of resignation and exhaustion. Some strip off their wet clothes and wring them out.
A nautical mile out, the noise of battle subsides and they become more aware of the chug-chug of the motor. They look back to Bray-Dunes and see another destroyer has been hit amidships and is listing. As he considers this spectacle, Eric says to Charles: ‘Would you mind telling me what the bloody hell you thought you were doing back there?’
‘Attempting a rescue,’ Charles says, unable to disguise the defeat in his voice. He watches a parachute descending in the distance like a strange blossom. In another quarter of the sky he sees white figures of eight scratched like skate marks on ice, evidence of a recent dogfight. Then he hears a wailing siren and, in a moment of choking horror, turns to see a black, hump-winged Stuka coming towards them in a series of jinking dives.
PART TWO
I
London. Summer. Present day. Two and a half months after Edward’s release
EDWARD IS CLIMBING UP THE WALL OF THE CAVE, FINDING footholds, breaking his nails on the rocks as he clings and inches higher and higher. He is near the entrance now. He can almost taste the daylight …
He opens his eyes and tries to establish where he is. The inner man has woken with a jolt. He stretches, testing the walls, nudging himself to consciousness. There is something touching his head, but what? The enveloping darkness makes it difficult to determine. He brushes it with the back of his hand. Apart from a slightly raised pattern, it has a flat surface. Wallpaper. It is the ceiling.
His eyes have adjusted to the gloom now and, when he looks down, he can see he is standing on a bedroom chest, the drawers of which have been pulled out to make a tier of steps. He has been sleep-climbing again. It is the third or fourth night he has awoken to find himself here.
He touches his brow and finds it mantled with sweat. The T-shirt he has slept in is damp, too. As lightly as he can, he lowers himself down. The digital clock on the bedside table reads 3.23. He turns on the light and, though it is only a forty-watt bulb, has to shield his eyes. He looks around. There are tones of grey in the bedroom,but they do not run to the spectrum of colour. He is still inhabiting the shadow world between black and white.
Now he feels a floating sensation in his groin and belly, as if he is in a lift that has come to an abrupt stop. The room seems to be spinning slowly. Sitting on the bed, he tries to focus on a stationary object, a bowl on the dressing table. Why has he never noticed it before? A hand snakes out towards it. The bowl contains hairpins, a disposable contact lens in a blister pack, euro coins, earrings, an AA battery, mascara, tweezers, an Oyster card, a ski pass, a packet of Rennies, three rings.
The traces of Frejya.
He examines them with jittery fingers, as if each contains a part of her. And then his heart dilates. Curled up at the bottom of the bowl he sees a photograph: a scarf, a towel, some socks and a bra on top of the duvet, fashioned into the letters ‘LYA’. It is the ‘Love You Always’ sign he made for her on the day he left for Afghanistan. She must have photographed it. LYA. The last words she
There are seventeen rescued soldiers now on The Painted Lady , shivering on the deck and in the cabin. Some of them must have fallen back in as they were scrambling on board: they are barely able to move because of the weight of their saturated uniforms.
While Eric tends to the wounded, Charles hands out blankets. Remembering his bottle of Irish he goes around giving each of them a tot. Their faces, staring out from under their helmets, look gaunt. Their skin is black from the oil and smoke, emphasizing the whiteness of their eyes. There are no smiles of relief, only blank expressions of resignation and exhaustion. Some strip off their wet clothes and wring them out.
A nautical mile out, the noise of battle subsides and they become more aware of the chug-chug of the motor. They look back to Bray-Dunes and see another destroyer has been hit amidships and is listing. As he considers this spectacle, Eric says to Charles: ‘Would you mind telling me what the bloody hell you thought you were doing back there?’
‘Attempting a rescue,’ Charles says, unable to disguise the defeat in his voice. He watches a parachute descending in the distance like a strange blossom. In another quarter of the sky he sees white figures of eight scratched like skate marks on ice, evidence of a recent dogfight. Then he hears a wailing siren and, in a moment of choking horror, turns to see a black, hump-winged Stuka coming towards them in a series of jinking dives.
PART TWO
I
London. Summer. Present day. Two and a half months after Edward’s release
EDWARD IS CLIMBING UP THE WALL OF THE CAVE, FINDING footholds, breaking his nails on the rocks as he clings and inches higher and higher. He is near the entrance now. He can almost taste the daylight …
He opens his eyes and tries to establish where he is. The inner man has woken with a jolt. He stretches, testing the walls, nudging himself to consciousness. There is something touching his head, but what? The enveloping darkness makes it difficult to determine. He brushes it with the back of his hand. Apart from a slightly raised pattern, it has a flat surface. Wallpaper. It is the ceiling.
His eyes have adjusted to the gloom now and, when he looks down, he can see he is standing on a bedroom chest, the drawers of which have been pulled out to make a tier of steps. He has been sleep-climbing again. It is the third or fourth night he has awoken to find himself here.
He touches his brow and finds it mantled with sweat. The T-shirt he has slept in is damp, too. As lightly as he can, he lowers himself down. The digital clock on the bedside table reads 3.23. He turns on the light and, though it is only a forty-watt bulb, has to shield his eyes. He looks around. There are tones of grey in the bedroom,but they do not run to the spectrum of colour. He is still inhabiting the shadow world between black and white.
Now he feels a floating sensation in his groin and belly, as if he is in a lift that has come to an abrupt stop. The room seems to be spinning slowly. Sitting on the bed, he tries to focus on a stationary object, a bowl on the dressing table. Why has he never noticed it before? A hand snakes out towards it. The bowl contains hairpins, a disposable contact lens in a blister pack, euro coins, earrings, an AA battery, mascara, tweezers, an Oyster card, a ski pass, a packet of Rennies, three rings.
The traces of Frejya.
He examines them with jittery fingers, as if each contains a part of her. And then his heart dilates. Curled up at the bottom of the bowl he sees a photograph: a scarf, a towel, some socks and a bra on top of the duvet, fashioned into the letters ‘LYA’. It is the ‘Love You Always’ sign he made for her on the day he left for Afghanistan. She must have photographed it. LYA. The last words she
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