Inseparable Bond (29 page)

People hurried
along, shielding their faces from the rain and spray, being in the
wrong place at the wrong time, seeking shelter from the sudden
downpour.

The
meteorologists had forecast severe winds of hurricane proportions,
but John was unprepared. As the winds violently increased, they
watched the high tide lash over the sand dunes, spectacularly
cascade into the small boating lake at the front of the house.

As the gale
gained strength, news bulletins were being reported on the
television: Trains had ceased to run; aircraft in Manchester were
grounded. Telephone and power lines were down throughout Yorkshire
and Lancashire. The news reporter advised people to stay at home
and not to drive unless absolutely necessary. The M55 out of town
had been closed due to blown over lorries; the major roads were a
nightmare, the esplanade and promenade impassable.

The few hardy
souls who were out in the storm hurried along as fast as their feet
could allow, eager to be back in the warmth.

The sat in the
window watching the winds worsen, the sky now almost pitch black
through it was still only the middle of the afternoon. Obstacles
were now being thrown down the esplanade in the path of the
occasional car. John walked through to the dining room, looking
through the window at the sodden garden.

The branches
of the trees touched the lawn as if in search of shelter. The door
on the garden shed had come loose and now hung on one hinge.

The seagulls,
which had recently been swooping down, had retreated for
shelter.

A piece of
Molly Grimshaw’s guttering landed on his waterlogged lawn, the flat
roof of her garden shed had become embedded between the two trees
in John’s garden.

The wrath of
god continued into the late evening, leaving a trail of destruction
in its path.

John woke
early the next morning; opening his curtains he looked down at his
debris littered lawn. The trees were bare and motionless. A row of
black birds appeared to look in a state of shock as they perched on
the fence, which had withstood the gale.

Jennifer was
cooking breakfast as he walked through to the garden.

‘Good morning,
breakfast won’t be long,’ she said, as he passed.

He stood on
the paved patio looking around. It was deathly quiet. The lull
after the storm. He picked up the branches and remnants of
neighbouring slates and guttering, nervously, looking up at the
house for evidence of damage. To his relief, the house remained
intact. It had weathered the storm; the only damage was the door of
the garden shed, precariously hanging on one hinge.

‘Any damage to
the house?’ Jennifer asked him as she plated his breakfast.

‘Not that I
can see, Molly’s house took the brunt of it,’ he replied, buttering
his toast.

‘It was a good
purchase, dear, if the house can withstand such a severe storm,’
she said.

John finished
his breakfast and went down to repair the door on the shed.

The sun broke
through the dispersing clouds. Sweat started to run down his back
and chest. Even as he unbuttoned his large overcoat however, he
realised the warmth was not self-generated. The sun was
unseasonably hot, forming a light covering of steam over the sodden
lawn.

Jennifer
walked onto the patio with a pile of washing hanging over the straw
basket. She wiped a cloth along the washing line, looking over at
John as he removed his coat.

‘It’s like a
summer’s day,’ she said, as she pegged the washing on the line,
holding a peg between her teeth as she spoke. ‘You would not
believe it could be so hot after the terrible day yesterday. I’ll
just go next door to see Molly; she’ll be very upset about her
gutters.’ she said.

He spent most
of the day clearing the garden, washing the windows on the house
and sweeping the mountain of sand accumulated on the front door
step.

He took the
car to the car wash in the hope of removing the particles of sand
which had become embedded in the grooves of the windows. He waited
in line behind the queue of drivers sitting impatiently in their
dirty cars, in need of the same.

He drove back
along the promenade, the setting sun warming the interior of the
clean and sand free silver car. He parked briefly by the shelter. A
lorry driver was sitting in his cab skimming through a girly
magazine, in the hope of attracting the young guy from the shelter
into his cab for some light hand relief.

The young guy
was so good looking. Tall, broad shouldered, with a mop of black
hair that kept falling across his face.

An elderly
couple with a small dog approached. He quickly lowered his magazine
out of sight until they had passed. The young guy showed little
interest at the invitation.

Two men sat in
a Range Rover looking at the young guy, sitting with his arms
outstretched and his athletic legs apart. He stared at the sky,
enjoying the voyeurism he was purposely creating, occasionally
stroking his crotch to further excite his audience.

John started
the ignition and drove off, leaving them to their games.

It was past
three when he got back home. Jennifer wasn’t in. She had gone to
bible class at the chapel. A note was pinned to the back of the
kitchen door asking him to collect her at 4.30. He took advantage
of the last hour of daylight by clearing the remainder of the
debris from the garden, piling the broken branches in a heap in
readiness for a bonfire.

He left the
house at 4.15, giving him plenty of time to collect her. He parked
outside the iron gates of the chapel. It had been three months
since he last went anywhere near the vicarage or the chapel.

Sylvia
normally collects Jennifer, but this week she was visiting her
sister in Colchester. Jennifer must have caught the bus for the ten
minute journey as John had been delayed at the car wash.

The churchyard
was surrounded by a shoulder high stone wall festooned with ivy,
the grass well tended and the gravestones weathered by centuries of
rain and salt spray from the Irish Sea. There was a notice board at
the entrance detailing times of services and a phone number on
which the vicar could be reached, twenty-four hours a day. John
smiled to himself when he noticed it was a mobile number; he found
it amusing that a vicar would use modern technology to keep in
touch with his flock.

He sat in the
car looking up at the impressive building, occasionally glancing
over at the vicarage. The sound of laughter turned his attention to
the huge doors of the church. Jennifer and a group of bible bashers
were walking down the uneven slate path towards the gates. They
were correcting their hats, buttoning their coats and clutching
their bibles under their arms like a treasured possession.

Jennifer
approached the car, giving a slight wave. ‘You got my note then?’
she asked.

‘Yes, sorry I
was late back, the car wash was very busy,’ he replied.

‘I didn’t want
to walk back, the weather is so unpredictable and I would hate to
be caught in weather like yesterday,’ she said, as she climbed
in.

As John
started the ignition, a portly built woman came over to the car,
tapping on the car window as he pulled away. John lowered the
window; she bent down and peered through.

‘Jennifer, I
just caught you, your bible, you left it on the table,’ she
said.

‘Oh, thank
you, Elizabeth,’ Jennifer replied, reaching over John for the book.
‘This is my brother, John,’ Jennifer said. ‘You haven’t met him
before.’

‘Well, we
haven’t been introduced, but I remember passing him on the street
as he was coming out of the poor vicar’s house, terrible business,
isn’t it, John?’ she said, shaking her head with an expression of
disbelief.

‘Well,
goodbye, Jennifer, see you next week, nice meeting you at last,
John,’ she said, as she straightened her back and walked off in
front. Jennifer fumbled with her bible on the short drive home, she
didn’t speak.

She entered
the kitchen and filled the kettle and got the milk out of the
refrigerator.

‘You didn’t
say you had been to the vicarage dear, why would you go there?’
Jennifer asked, facing him with a stern expression.

‘I haven’t
been to the vicarage, she must have been mistaken,’ he said,
reaching in the cupboard for the teacups.

‘But Elizabeth
seemed sure,’ Jennifer replied.

‘Well, like I
said, she must have been mistaken, it was dark,’ he snapped
back.

‘But Elizabeth
didn’t say it was dark, and you said you hadn’t been to the
vicarage,’ Jennifer said with a puzzled expression on her face.

John sat the
kitchen table fiddling with his watch. He was strangely nervous.
Only the humming of the refrigerator and the loud tick from the old
wall clock broke the silence. Jennifer pottered around the kitchen
preparing the evening supper, gradually convincing herself that
John had been the victim of mistaken identity.

John looked
up, turned his head over his shoulder to Jennifer and said, ‘I now
remember when she must have seen me, it would have been the night I
went to the Great Euston Hotel for a drink, do you remember
Jennifer?’ he asked her.

‘No dear, I
don’t, ‘she replied sharply.

‘I’d been in
the garden that day, you brushed the back of my jacket as I left,
we were living in the other house then,’ he said, desperately.

‘Well, I do
remember that, but it was a long time ago and it still doesn’t
explain why you were coming out of the vicarage,’ she replied.

‘I decided to
walk home down the high street that night, past the vicarage,’ he
relied.

Jennifer
paused and sat in the chair facing him. ‘That explains it then,’
she said, with a tight-lipped smile.

John continued
nervously fiddling with his watch as she sat studying him, her face
cupped in her hands, elbows on the table looking directly into his
eyes.

The crumpets
flung themselves out of the machine with a loud clatter which broke
the silence. She quickly got up to rescue them before they slid
onto the floor.

The buttered
crumpets, pot of tea and the biscuit tin were placed on the table.
John filled the teapot and placed it alongside. Jennifer returned
to her chair and poured the tea. She shook her head as a smile came
to her face, looking relieved at John’s explanation.

John drank
some of his tea; it felt like it had turned to acid in his
stomach.

They ate their
afternoon tea in silence. Jennifer slowly turning the pages of the
Parish magazine she had put between the pages of her bible on the
drive back from church.

‘I’ll need to
get some petrol after my tea, do you want to come with me?’ he
asked Jennifer.

‘No, thank
you, dear, I’ve got more ironing to do,’ she replied.

John grabbed
his bright yellow hooded raincoat from behind the kitchen door, the
car keys from the top of the washing machine and went out to the
car.

He drove along
the esplanade, dodging the debris which had been washed up from the
sea during the recent storm. His attention was drawn to a group of
people bobbing up and down in the high surf. He parked the car and
watched the group of surfers in their shiny black rubber wetsuits,
thinking how crazy they were, waiting for big waves in the rough
Irish Sea, undeterred by the bad weather.

He reclined
his seat slightly and smoked a cigarette, looking up and down the
beach at other hardy souls racing towards the waters edge,
surfboards under their arms.

He sat
silently, trying to remember passing Elizabeth on the street after
he left the vicarage. He had only recalled the street being
deserted as he fled, but his concerns were with Jennifer, although
she had seemed convinced and satisfied with his misleading accounts
of the evening.

There were
grey clouds overhead and it was beginning to rain. He drove the car
to the garage and put £20 worth of petrol in the tank.

The winter
nights were drawing in. It was getting dark as he drove back long
Blackpool promenade, staring out through the windscreen at the
orange, blue and green floodlights which shone up the hotels, their
vacancy signs flashing in desperation in the hope of attracting a
customer after an unprofitable summer season.

He slowly
ambled his way through the traffic, the headlights of approaching
cars that shone suddenly and then disappearing like fireflies.

It was after
six when he arrived back. The good smell of food greeted him as he
walked through the front door. Jennifer had made a chicken and
vegetable stew followed by an apple pie and custard. They shared a
bottle of white wine which they took to their high back chairs in
the bay window overlooking the esplanade.

They looked
out onto the deserted road. The rain had stopped and the bright
moon illuminated the puddles of rainwater which had gathered by the
roadside. The sky was clear and every star in the sky seemed to
gather over the horizon, but he felt cold. Jennifer had always
disliked central heating and avoided switching it on, even on the
coldest of nights.

She had lit a
fire in the lounge. Jennifer got up and took a log out of the
basket on the hearth. She carefully placed it on the fire. It was
wet, it sizzled in the red hot timbers, filling the air with the
sweet smell of burning wood, flooding back nostalgic memories of
the family home, now in a total ruin and awaiting demolition.

She went
through to the kitchen to clear the table and wash the dishes from
supper.

He sat
watching a group of youngsters walking around the small boating
lake, their heads covered by the hoods of their jackets, reflected
by the amber glow of the esplanade street lights.

The weather
forecast for the next few days had promised typical late autumn
weather; wind rain, and chilly nights.