The Story That Had No Beginning E-Book

Daniel Kemp

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Alicia Collinson poses a surprising question to her dinner guests:

"Do you think lying is endemic in society today?"

They all have different answers based on their experiences, but what was the purpose of Alicia's question?

She was separated from her twin brother, Tom, when they were eight. Tom graduated into a life of violence, while Alice found a life of fortune and wealth in her partner, Mary.

But when Mary unexpectedly passes away, a new person enters Alice's life - someone who seems to know every detail about her.

Soon, her past and present lives collide with life-changing consequences.

Leseprobe

The Story That Had No Beginning

Daniel Kemp

Copyright (C) 2018 Daniel Kemp

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 by Next Chapter

Published 2019 by Next Chapter

Cover art by Cover Mint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Other Work By This Author

The Desolate Garden

Percy Crow

What Happened In Vienna, Jack?

Once I Was A Soldier

Why?

Novella:

A Shudder From Heaven

Children's Tales:

Teddy And Tilly's Travel series

The Man Who Makes The Clouds

The Mermaid Who Makes The Seas

The Mother And Son Who Make The Fun

For a lie to add piquancy to a story, the story would be factual. Fantasy needs no lie to stimulate or excite. But if the factual story is contrived or fallacious then it's the fantasy that is the truth.

Part One

This story has no single definitive point in time when it could be said to have started here. It cannot be said that when Alice and I were taken into two separate foster homes at the age of eight our lives would cross the paths of the three others in this room but we would never meet again. Life is capricious enough without wild assumptions having a say in the making or the delusion of providence holding the deciding ace in any predetermination.

If I were to list the catalogue of misdemeanours I committed as a juvenile, or the petty crimes I was involved in as a young man, then add the violence of my later years, none would fully explain what led my twin sister to ask the opening question of her three invited guests this night, nor would one find any connecting items of merit in the achievements of the participants in the conversation. All of those antecedents help to paint the background to this tale, but the finer strokes of the artist, those intricacies of details from shade to light, are yet to be found in the shadowy past of us five. Yes, we are five; four to dinner and I make the fifth guest. I was christened Tom Collins and occasionally I live in this house. My relationship to these four is crucial; for now I'm dead.

My sister differed from her night's companions in many ways but, not it must be said, in the financial standing that a passer-by might use to measure another's success. She was not born in the same social bracket that the others come from. No birth endowments had been bestowed on her. She deserved her membership to this club by right. She had earned her place. Now, however, she had reason to regret working her way up the same social ladder as those sitting around the yellow linen covered table, adorned with sparkling silver cutlery, empty white china plates and cut glass. Her style complemented the symmetry of her surroundings dressed in a pale, blue chiffon low-cut dress bought especially for the occasion from a designer boutique she favoured in Chelsea Green, just behind the King's Road. Her vocation of photography had paid well, allowing the cultured surroundings that she had always longed-for, far away from the sins of my own shabby life.

* * *

“Do you think lying is endemic in society today? I ask because earlier I was in Harrods when I overheard a woman telling her son of about six or seven years of age that all the oranges came from Spain where apparently her family had a home, surrounded by orange trees. At first, I presumed she was trying to instil a sense of importance in the boy's mind for that home in Spain, but then I thought no, a lie is a lie. I confronted the woman and she confirmed my first impression. She was indeed commending Spain to the boy's mind and nothing more. She was very upset when I said that it was a lie she had told her son. She couldn't see it as being important. What do you think, Giles? You deal in lies almost every day of your life.”

Sir Giles Milton was one of only a handful of QCs, Queen Counsels, to be appointed before completing the usual fifteen years of practice as a barrister. Scotland had been his birthplace, but you would never know that by his accent. He was the fashionable face of an advocate: six foot four inches tall, black-haired, olive-skinned, narrow hazel coloured eyes with a handsome charismatic face that had adorned the covers of four top-flight magazines for his defence of a multimillionaire accused of murdering his equally rich new wife whilst honeymooning in the Seychelles two years and some months prior to tonight's meal. Giles was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where the Christ Church manner of assumed effortless superiority is born. He believed that the world should primarily be regulated for the benefit of those who were at Christ Church. He waded in popularity as would a hippo. Low flying blandishments and strangulation by his own honeyed words were the only dangers he faced. At the age of forty-one he considered he had conquered the material side of his world. Tangible wealth was not his God, but prestige and veneration were.

“You're not correct in the terminology you used, Alicia. It is not lies that I present in court. If everyone who appeared at the bar dealt only in honesty, then there would be no need of me or any well-remunerated barrister. There are mitigations to truth, or, as some people see it, a different story to tell. I am just the simple vessel through which those account flows. The example you give is innocent enough and I'm sure not meant to deceive the young boy into believing that all the oranges grown came from Spain. If that was the intention then ultimately it would fail as the boy would either view displays from elsewhere or become aware of imports from countries other than Spain as he grew. Although, technically you are correct inasmuch as it was a lie, it is a lie of no consequence. It was not said to permanently hoodwink the child, but simply as an extravagant stretch of the truth in order to magnify the significance of the family's home in a foreign land and thereby cross invisible boundaries that may exist in the child's mind. It could also be a challenge for the boy. One where he exercises his imagination and extends his education.”

“Is that what a jury does when listening to your trial summery, Giles; use their imagination on your verbosity?”

That question was asked by Susan Rawlinson, formerly Barrett, editor of a national broadsheet newspaper and at thirty-eight years of age seemingly assured of a bright, rewarding future. Susan was an untamed beautiful, blonde haired, self-assured woman, capable, intelligent and determined, having succeeded in the majority of her ambitions. Her God was not wealth either. Hers was one of further recognition within the pitiless world of journalism and the literary acceptance of her soon to be published second novel on which my sister's photograph of her enriched the front cover.

“Isn't it quintessential imagination that spurs you on, Susan? A little leaning to one way or the other when it comes to reporting the news to stimulate the average reader who has no real interest if it's not about immigration or sex?” Giles retorted.

“Bloody hard to find anything sexy in the rag that Susan's in charge of. All anti-Tory bullshit if you ask me.”

And there we have our third and final guest: Rupert Barrett, called The Bear after the comic strip character much loved by his late mother. Chiselled, square jaw with a feral, craggy face. A winter man; bleak on the eye and raw to the senses. Once a revered English rugby union star and now the owner of 'Bear Cave,' nightclubs, places catering for a wide variety of night-time tastes, predominately in the north-west of England. A sturdily built man with brown hair and hazel eyed and the same lack of personality as any one of the many men he employed on the doors of his five nightclubs. His goals in life had all been fulfilled; adulation, fame and wealth, but those without personalities have few wishes beyond the materialistic and Rupert was no different in that regard. Susan and Rupert had been seeing each other, occasionally living together, over a shorter period than a year. It was a turbulent relationship no more so than when Rupert criticised Susan's left-wing ideals.

“When was the last time you read anything other than a comic book or bothered to watch anything other than the sports news, you big thick bear?” The question was asked with a smile on Susan's face but a dagger hidden in her voice ready to stab him if the answer was not to her liking.

“What's the point? All news reporting is as I said, biased in one direction or the other.” She indulged him, but Alice did not.

“Do you not believe anything that's reported in newspapers or on the news, Rupert?”

“I stopped believing newspapers when I met Susan, Alicia. She's too beautiful to be bothered by the truth. As for the news channels, I think they're sponsored by their individual political lapdogs with the idea of making ordinary people feel guilty if they're not giving to one or another charity to save the world. Do any of them report good news? No, not a single one! But good things do happen. There're not reported because people might start thinking, hey ho, this life ain't so bad after all. Let's start living it up a bit without the guilt of the whole of Africa sitting on our shoulders. Let's go clubbing and dance the night away thereby putting more money in my tills.” His laugh split the room with a ratatatat, like a machine gun opening up in the stillness and silence of a high vaulted church. Giles smiled smugly, sharing Rupert's knowledge of how beautiful Susan was. Susan smiled stoically, well versed in Rupert's views on charity and governments, whilst Alice forged onwards.

“So you agree with me about lies being the currency of today's world, Rupert?”

“Yes, I do. With news reporting it's because the journalists either want to be, or are told to be, newsmakers. I know I'm seldom told the whole truth by the managers in my clubs. That's why I employ a couple of real heavies to make sure the pilfering doesn't exceed what I budget for.”

“Are you saying you threaten these managers of yours, Rupert?” Giles asked, feigning surprise with widened eyes.

“If you know a better way to stop someone else's hands in what's mine then I'd listen, but surely, Giles, isn't what I do the same as the punitive justice system you represent; hold a rod of iron over would-be wrongdoers? That's if they're caught of course.”

“Do you punish those managers who do steal from you, Rupert?” Alice asked naively, but it was Susan who answered.

“Where are you going with this, Alicia? Of course he punishes them. What business owner wouldn't? Would you want him, and all those involved in commerce, to include wording in the employment contract to reflect the degree of penalty imposed in proportion to any theft? Steal a bottle of water and your contract is torn up. You are flogged for the theft of a sandwich and if you dare to pocket an apple without paying then kiss your life away as the executioner sings God Save the Queen, swinging the axe.” Her sonorous voice resonated around the room.

Giles beckoned the man dressed in white livery who stood by the window overlooking the Thames, to serve more of the opened champagne that rested beside the other bottles on the antique serving cabinet. Skilfully he glided along both sides of the oblong dining table refilling the crystal glasses then returned to his position and effortlessly uncorked another Dom Pérignon, placing it back in its bucket of ice. Impassively he gazed across the river, noticing the floodlights now ablaze in Battersea Park lighting the football pitches, oblivious to the conversation in the room having 'waited' at several dinner parties held in the more intimate surroundings of a home instead of the restaurant where he, his wife and the chef once plied their trade. He did not know it was near those lights that I had died. That night, the night of my death, there was no reason for the lights to be on. However, if speculation is a game you enjoy, then the question of whether or not the lights being switched on making a difference, is, I expect, one you would like to be answered. As it was only I and one other hiding in the moon cast shadows I feel qualified to end your speculation. My answer would be an emphatic no, as I believe I was destined to die in the way it happened.

* * *

“I imagine it's already there to some degree - thou shall not steal from thy employer - or words to that effect,” Alice replied as her glass was replenished. “After all, domination is the only philosophy that's lasted since the beginning of time. But that's not my point. I wondered about the lack of honesty that is undeterred by any amount of threats, be they administered in Rupert's way or by the threat of prosecution in a court of law. Where once was intuitive integrity there now seems none and I think all three of your professions embrace and perpetuate it.” She sipped her champagne and waited for their response. Now it is you, the reader who must wait. Longer than my twin and for a different reason. Nonetheless, wait you must as I reminisce of what's gone by and tell more of my sister, Alice.

Here in my own special purgatory, where I expect my sins are being counted and then used to determine my eternity, I am at a loss to know why this power to see Alice's past has been granted, nor why I can read the minds of those around her who have influenced the paramount phases in her life. It would appear that my vocabulary has grown beyond all recognition to those I used to be associated with who, if listening, would never know it is me who speaks. I suspect the dinner is where my knowledge will end, along with my newfound eloquence, as it's the past and not the future I am cursed with. I have no idea how this night will unfold for the four who participate at the dinner party. All I can do is recount the story as it is shown to me without any interpretation, but bear this in mind as you continue to read. As I have been granted this ability to see the mistakes made in lives other than my own, are similar people such as I reading your thoughts and your hidden secrets as you indulge yourself with me? If so, then the skeletons in your past are being interrogated as I hold your attention.

Part Two

My sister and I were born within an hour of each other at number 5 Alice Street, Bermondsey, London; at the Bricklayers' Arms end of Tower Bridge Road.

Collins was our surname, but my sister was not baptised Alicia. No, that name would not have existed in our parents' unimaginative survival. She was named Alice after the street, and I was originally named Tom as our mother, Rose, had a very bad period of pregnancy. Tom and Dick being London slang for sick!

Charlie, our father, was at the time of our birth a railway worker. Plying his trade in the sidings of both nearby London Bridge and the goods yard at the Brick, both within a quarter of a mile of our three-bedroomed terraced house backing onto the jam factory. He was, as I understand, an engineer of sorts, but what kind I was never told. Unfortunately he was not around long enough to bridge that gap in my education, nor was I interested enough to ask. I should now be at that stage where more information would be something that I hunger for, just in case we bump into one another and I can say, “Hi, Dad! How did you make so and so in your day?” Bluntly, I must tell you that I didn't give a toss then, and I don't now.

He died when we had lived barely eight years of life leaving me with few recollections of him other than of a tall but seemingly always stooped man, solidly built with a wheezing cough, who whenever I saw him was sitting in the same chair against the same window in the local pub. He never seemed to look away from that window and never gave either of us a smile to lighten the days we spent suffocating in the putrid air from which there seemed no escape. If I did see him at home, I cannot recall when. There are other small snippets that I can summon up; one being his death, but that I will tell of as this story unfolds. The same year as losing one parent we lost the other. Our mother died from a combination of lung cancer and misery, and again I must confess my ineptitude in not knowing what caused her the most pain. I had not helped the situation but only now, in this state of retrospection, is it possible for me to recognise this element of self-absorption that had obviously started early and never changed. If you are beginning to believe that you'd be wise to have a handkerchief close to at hand to wipe away the tears this story could evoke, then I must disappoint you, as any sympathy for my demise would be wasted along with your sorrow for the way I lived my life. When I did draw breath I felt no emotion of warm-heartedness towards anyone. In this, as in many things, Alice and I were mismatched. She had an altruistic side that I would never have understood had we stayed close.

Approaching nine years on from our separation I was an imposing figure, one of six foot three inches tall, wide at the shoulder and narrow at the waist. I weighed over fifteen stone without an ounce of excess flesh. My big hardened hands were used to being bruised and bleeding from contests of a pugilist nature in its rawest state of bare knuckle fighting and my face carried many marks to authenticate that participation. I had a scar above and below my left eye that had been caused by a ring worn by a travelling boy when he was nearer twenty than I was to fourteen. That ring now counted amongst the three that I wore, all won in fights against older opponents. My nose had been flattened several times and was beyond salvation. It was the feature that most epitomised me yet not the one I prized the most; that was the photograph of a hooded me with a sawn-off shotgun in my hand robbing the post office in Newington Butts that was plastered on police bulletin boards across London, despite the publicity I was never arrested. It was one year after that robbery that I became aware, and in need of, a safe deposit box. It was after I had opened one in the City of London, not far from Liverpool Street Station, that I saw Alice for the first time since being parted.

I had seen an advertisement of a company who specialised in such amenities and made my way there. I entered London Wall House and took the lift to the basement then followed the arrows to The Metropolitan Safe Deposit Company Ltd. On pressing a button, beside a formidable steel door fabricated to resemble a wooden one, a light appeared in the blacked out window alongside it followed by the silhouetted outline of a face and a monosyllabic voice, distorted by a microphone, asked the forthright question.

“Yes?”

“I want to open a box,” equally succinctly I replied. The voice spoke again.

“Push the door hard,” it stated as a buzzer sounded and a flash from a camera behind the glass suggested I had been photographed.

A short unlit corridor lead to an anteroom room sparsely furnished with two matching soft, floral upholstered chairs with a low square table in-between on which sat a vase of fresh assorted flowers, next to a neat pile of out-date magazines. There were two black painted doors set in the opposite wall, one of which had a small reinforced, square glass window. Above the doors were two cameras. Framed landscape prints were on three of the walls, and a list of terms and conditions on the other. The carpet was workaday and unimaginative as was the overall colour, a shade of beige that the overhead hidden uplighters turned white where they shone. It was a sterile waiting room where the almost silent air-conditioning was the only noise. A few minutes passed before the windowed door opened and I was joined by a middle-aged man elegantly attired in a blue suit with a white shirt and yellow tie. I was slumped in one of the chairs.

“Good morning, young man, you would like to open an account with us, I understand?”

“A box actually!” I stated emphatically without moving.

“Yes, it is the same thing, only we refer to it as an account because there is an annual fee payable and various forms to fill out. I must say you look a little young for the services that we provide, but the world marches to a faster pace than I am accustomed to nowadays. Would you mind if I were to ask your age?”

“Yes, I would. I haven't come all this way to give you a list of my life's yearly achievements, nor to answer your next original question about why I'm not in school. As I say, I only want a box. Here, take a look. I'm old enough to pay rent.” I handed him my fake rent book.

“We have a minimum age requirement, that's the only reason I ask,” he replied apologetically as he looked at the document.

“What age might that be then?” I asked.

“Eighteen,” he said, raising his eyebrows in an inquisitive manner.

“That's lucky! I was eighteen three days ago on Monday.” I responded contemptuously.

I followed him through to another room, this time with all four walls lined by various sized locked drawers or cabinets that served as 'boxes'. There was a private, windowless 'room' in the middle of the floor, with a table and a single chair.

“Here we are, Mr Jennings, this is your box, number 2155. Don't forget the number please. Here is your keycard. Your photograph is embedded in it and you will be asked to swipe it through an electronic reader each time you visit. The reader is beside our front door. We don't have keys. As you can see the card has nothing on it to indicate where it's from or what purpose it serves; nevertheless, it does represent a security risk if it's lost. Keep it safe. There is an appreciable charge if you lose it.”

I used the 'room' to empty my money, carried in a plastic shopping bag, into my allocated 'tray' then slid it back in the wall. It locked closed automatically. I caught the lift back to the ground floor level, and the street outside. I had filled in the forms with the false name of Terry Jennings and the address of an old man living in the block of flats on the Aylesbury Estate, at the Elephant and Castle. It was there, with his forced agreement, that I was going to make my permanent residence, which I did later that day, but not before I saw my sister.

* * *