Sabrina & The Secret of The Severn Sea Read online

  It was not the ship’s figurehead. Instead, he put out his hand to the brass knob on the door alongside her and the shiver subsided – withdrew it and it resumed. No other door was the same.

  He chose not to test his childhood fears, however.

  Passed on.

  ‘Am I not the victim of my own worst hopes?’ said Jorge irritably, as he entered the last room along the corridor and rushed to open its shutters.

  There rested on a table beside a four-poster bed an old copy of the Bible. He took a tissue in his hand to examine his find. The name of one of Her Majesty’s prisons was stamped inside the cover. Written next to it were the initials RL.

  Years had passed and its spell in captivity was over but as the sky outside darkened he found himself strangely bound to this book and time.

  Surely this had to be the very Bible for which Frank Cordell had grasped him with his dying hand? More to the point, this could hold the secret to why Rev. Luke Lyons had sunk without trace?

  *

  Back in the corridor, Jorge came again to the door that he had, a moment ago, declined to try.

  Its carved wooden guardian sat stiff and still. Listening.

  He could not be sure how long he delayed. His fanatically devout father had once administered his vicious beatings in the dark beyond. He gave the doorknob a quick turn. Found it locked.

  A secret sigh of relief escaped his lips.

  He might struggle to admit it but his search for Rev. Luke Lyons also meant exorcising a ghost of his own.

  22

  ‘Look who’s here to see you, Gwendolen. It’s Reverend Luke Lyons.’

  ‘I don’t know any damned reverend.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Gwendolen, of course you do,’ said the nurse with her strong Polish accent. ‘He’s your grandson. He’s come all the way from London, especially to visit you.’

  The blonde, willowy nurse came to a halt before a grey-haired woman who was sitting in the dayroom of Severnside House for the care of the elderly.

  Luke did the same.

  The retiree was staring out of two big glass doors that overlooked immaculate lawns within sight of the River Severn. Her almond eyes were unblinking. Her face turned immovably towards the horizon. She appeared to register none of his physical presence.

  ‘Hallo gran. I very much hope you’re well.’

  She was dressed in a ridiculously thick overcoat which inspired in him an unexpected emotion, something that anyone else might have regarded as feebly sentimental. Today she had gone to some considerable trouble to apply bright, red gloss to her lips as if she expected to go somewhere very important.

  ‘Somehow I doubt it.’

  ‘Let me take your coat?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be here is all that matters.’

  ‘But you’ll feel so much more comfortable without it in this hot room.’

  ‘Take your hands off me!’

  ‘Don’t you want any visitors?’

  ‘Today’s the day I go home.’

  ‘Take your time,’ said the nurse in Luke’s ear. ‘Don’t worry if she doesn’t recognise you at first, but under no circumstances should you open the doors to the grounds. She’ll be straight out.’

  ‘Got it.’

  Unidentified himself, Luke was slow to identify.

  Because he doubted what he saw he began to wonder if he could trust himself to talk to this stranger at all. She was horribly altered. Shrunken, shrivelled and bowed, she exuded none of the benevolent authority over which they had once clashed. Her hairy chin was slightly stained with milk from breakfast that morning. Her long, almost white fringe, refused to remain where she had combed it. Sleeplessness had taken as great a toll. She appeared, at eighty-six, the perfect candidate for incarceration in a place that was warm, safe and most of all secure.

  Then, as he stretched out hesitant fingers to her veined and wrinkled hand, on whose finger there still shone a bright gold wedding ring, he did see in her some evidence of the person who had once done her best to save his childish soul.

  But he was in forgiving mood.

  ‘Fuck it, Gwendolen, you look great.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Keep it to yourself.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard? The bridge is down.’

  ‘What bridge?’

  ‘You can’t take the train over the river to the Grammar School any more?’

  ‘No, you’re right, I can’t.’

  ‘Lucky day, then.’

  Gwendolen shot him a sweet smile. It all came back to her very clearly and sharply, as having happened yesterday but to someone else.

  Luke drew his chair quietly into line with hers.

  ‘What a nice place this is. I’m so happy for you.’

  In Gwendolen’s twilight world something ghostlike, even phantasmal, stirred.

  ‘Shit happens,’ she said and gazed again through the locked glass door. ‘It makes you think, doesn’t it? I mean, a train passed over all right not long before those barges struck and there were men due to work on the bridge that very hour. So why not them? Why did your poor father have to suffer along with the boats’ crews? What fateful hand struck them down and spared the others? Can something that big ever be rebuilt? It will take an act of faith from us all.’

  It immediately struck him that, to her eyes, he was her son Rex – they were back in 1960 and his father had just started secondary school across the river.

  ‘I’m Luke, gran. I’ve come home a changed man to live a new life. This is your grandson reborn in the eyes of the Lord.’

  A tear rolled from one of Gwendolen’s eyes.

  ‘I knew a Luke once,’ she said, suddenly reiterating what the nurse had said a moment ago. ‘He was that very thin baby. I had to raise him for years because his mum and dad went to prison. A wild boy he turned out to be. He was born so bad he went to the devil.’

  ‘Not quite, gran. He endeavours to be a good man now.’

  ‘The Devil’s child the devil’s luck.’

  ‘He’s not that wild child any longer.’

  His declaration derived, strange to say, from one of the few sensations of his otherwise dead heart.

  ‘ The Devil never sent a wind out of hell, but he would sail with it .’

  He felt its serpent-like coil uncurl its claws.

  Gwendolen remained stubbornly wild-eyed. Her pupils burned with a strict and powerful vigilance. She always had been so very awfully evangelical. The minder of a feral child – she whose bitter job it had been to keep him safe from sin – was this other and haunted person now.

  Suddenly the ugly old woman beckoned him nearer. She would hiss something urgently in his ear.

  ‘I had to send him away, didn’t I? Had to give him up to a young offenders’ home. By the time he was eleven he was already out of control, you see. They couldn’t do much with him there, either. A rat, he was, reverend, and you know what we do with those.’

  She chuckled.

  Luke shuddered.

  ‘I remember. It was my birthday. Dozens of them set up home under Chapel Cottage. The pest control man went down into the cellar. He placed poisoned blue grain called DieAlone in all the holes and left us a jar of it in case they ever returned. Never did find out why they chose us particularly.’

  ‘Hundreds of them migrate along the riverbank every spring and autumn.’

  ‘You let me live with you for those early years, gran. For that I’m very grateful. You were a mother to me while my parents rotted in jail.’

  ‘Shame, no sunshine, I’d hoped there’d be sunshine today.’

  Luke prepared to get down to business.

  ‘I’m back in Berkeley, gran, in time for Ellie’s wedding.’

  ‘Who’s Ellie?’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten your own granddaughter, have you gran?’

  ‘We’ve no food in the fridge. Oh dear, ever since Sean went away it’s been s
uch a struggle. I can’t explain it, but I’m practically certain something dreadful has happened to him. Aren’t you?’

  He gently squeezed her bony fingers with both hands. Gwendolen now knew who he was but in another time?

  He could endure the awful misunderstanding, if not the continued cruelty of it in her eyes.

  ‘Sean’s dead, gran. He vanished into the river.’

  ‘You not worried?’

  ‘Should I be?’

  ‘I fancy I’ll see, O Lord, such awful sights tonight. My mind will be full of monsters! I’m sure I’ll see him standing all dripping wet before my bed as the clock strikes midnight.’

  ‘Do try to concentrate, gran. I’ve come to talk to you about something very important, not some silly dream.’

  Robbed of her full mind, Gwendolen resisted the bad-tempered nature of his.

  ‘You heard the terrible news?’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘They say… They say…’

  ‘Listen to me gran, you’re safe here. In fact, it’s the only place for you. As a result, you can no longer be expected to manage your own affairs. I’m sorry, but Ellie and I have come to a decision about Chapel House.’

  ‘I want to go out into the garden. I want to lay flowers by the river.’

  ‘I’m not talking about refusing you certain treatments or telling you what to eat or what to wear, I’m talking about your property and finances. Let me handle all your affairs. I can pay your bills, collect your benefits and sell your home. You’ve not yet altogether lost the mental capacity to appoint a Lasting Power of Attorney or LPA.’

  ‘The blackbirds will be nesting in the honeysuckle above the porch by now.’

  ‘Listen to me, gran, if you don’t appoint someone soon and you become unable to decide important things for yourself, then who will pay the bills or make choices about your future care as you become increasingly ill?’

  ‘No, absolutely bloody not. Take me home right now. That is why you’re here, isn’t it?’

  Gwendolen addressed their joint reflection in the triple-glazed door before them. Even a ghost in glass made more sense to her than he did, such were the mysterious depths to which her mind dived now.

  ‘Why not sign Chapel Cottage over to me today, gran? It’ll be mine and Ellie’s one day anyway.’

  ‘Everyone says the swallows are going to arrive late this year. Is that true?’

  ‘I’ve brought some of the papers with me.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure.’

  ‘Fact is, grandpa is long gone. There is no one else but me and Ellie to inherit anything from you.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean the dead won’t come knocking.’

  ‘Why would they do that when they’ve been gone so long?’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve grown cold in the water and want to come home.’

  ‘Problem is, gran, you can no longer distinguish between fact and fiction.’

  ‘That is what I would expect you to say, reverend. It is ‘reverend’, is it?’

  ‘It’s good you understand something,’ he muttered, but had to admit that even the sanest person might struggle to reconcile a teenage delinquent called ‘Lucky’ Luke Lyons with Luke, a man of the cloth, now.

  Gwendolen plucked at her coat to fasten its buttons and then looked round for her hat.

  ‘Not everything people choose to remember can be said to be true. Can it?’

  ‘No, gran, but facts are facts. Sean drowned fifty-six years ago. At least, we must presume he did because his body was never found. Sometimes the absence of proof is so strong we have to consider it a presumption of fact until the contrary is proved.’

  ‘That’s easier.’

  ‘Listen to me, gran, you can limit the decisions I make or place conditions on what I do. An empty house can’t be left to rot indefinitely.’

  She took his pen. Considered the documents.

  ‘But the dead must have somewhere to go.’

  ‘That’s it, just scribble your name here and here.’

  ‘The dead bear witness to us all.’

  ‘Please let me steady your hand.’

  ‘I want my solicitor.’

  ‘You don’t need a solicitor for this.’

  ‘If I sign you’ll have control.’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘You want to get rid of me?’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘You do. Are you even my grandson? Nurse? Who is this man?’

  No sooner had she cried out than the nurse came running.

  ‘What is it, Gwendolen? Whatever’s wrong?’

  ‘This man – he shouldn’t be here. He’s making me sign things I don’t know.’

  ‘Believe me, gran, I’m on your side.’

  ‘He says that, but when the Devil prays he has a booty in his eye. Don’t you think, nurse?’

  The nurse stared hard his way.

  ‘I’m sorry, reverend. Gwendolen finds your presence upsetting.’

  ‘But I only want to put her affairs in order.’

  ‘Sometimes even help can seem like a threat.’

  Luke cared not for the nurse’s scurrilous insinuation while the form that he needed to take to the Office of the Public Guardian flapped uselessly in his hand.

  ‘We’ll settle this later, when we see how she is.’

  Whereupon Gwendolen turned her head his way. Her almond-coloured irises blazed at him. Her face was one mean and sly grin.

  All this he witnessed, then fell back before her utterly gleeful horror, as if at his own malice aforethought.

  She didn’t seem the slightest bit crazed but he felt crazy being there.

  She was staring in utter disbelief at the newly acquired gold pocket watch that he wore on his waistcoat, Luke realised.

  Next moment she let out an ear-splitting scream. It was half hurt child and half ghoulish jinn.

  She could have been a vixen cornered by hounds.

  ‘Nurse! I want Barbara. Where is she? I need to talk to my old friend Barbara Jennings right away. It’s a matter of life and death.’

  Suddenly Gwendolen hurled herself at the locked doors that led to the terrace. She worked their handles hard and pointed. She was, Luke realised, looking upriver to where the massive iron railway bridge had once crossed the canal and estuary. Together, they gazed beyond the daffodils in bloom on the lawn all the way to the water, but hers was the stance of a person forever on the look for an expected, desired or feared occurrence. Clearly she clung to that day in 1960 like a ship to its anchor. Thus she reassured herself with some mental fixedness that something at least remained real.

  ‘Look, he’s coming! He’s coming!’

  The nurse hurried to her side.

  ‘Who is, dear?’

  ‘You’ll see soon enough. The river always gives up its own.’

  23

  ‘Not too short over the ears.’

  Even a vicar with a chequered past was obliged to keep up his godly appearance, thought Luke, as he sat back in the chair of a barber’s shop in Berkeley.

  He took a moment to remove his clerical collar.

  The most reticent of men liked to chat while having his hair cut. Things were looking up, to the point where he was beginning to feel at home again in his very own parish. He had delivered his first sermon on the sins of corporate greed which had been very enthusiastically received by his new congregation of St. Mary’s. It was a fresh start as planned.

  Continue like this and people might begin to give him the benefit of the doubt? He had even arranged to hire a gardener to tend to the vicarage’s overgrown garden and vegetable plots.

  What, then, could possibly go wrong?

  The barber, a rotund but amiable Italian called Tony, shuffled about on the shop’s greasy floor with feet as stiff as wood.

  ‘Diabetes,’ he explained and sipped tea from a cup on a bench littered with scissors and combs. ‘It plays havoc with my toes.’

  Luke looked through the window. Two men were shaking hands
enthusiastically on the pavement, not ten feet from him.

  Neither profile was at first familiar, but the jewellery and tattoos were. The person dressed in a camel coat laughed and a glass bauble on a chain shook in his right ear. That picture of a malign water spirit that coiled under his chin matched his own.

  No face could be that face he saw right now, thought Luke, but memory was not such a terrible liar. Every hair rose on his neck. In short, he was all gooseflesh and pimples. His eyes expanded beyond disbelief until he was a pathetic prisoner trapped beneath his taut, blue dustsheet in his barber’s chair.

  A name resurfaced. It was Mel McAtree. He looked somewhat professorial in his wire spectacles – had to be in his late sixties now?

  The only time they had truly met before was at his father’s funeral, twenty-six years ago.

  Most of Rex Lyons’s former members of the Severn Sea Gang had been there, fresh out of jail, which made Luke think that he would in a while get a view of his companion, too. He saw the latter bend down and pat Sasha affectionately on the head as she sat guarding his bicycle. Next minute she put her front paws on the stranger’s knee to lick his face, which was unusual for her. When Mel tried to do the same she growled and went wild. The other man smiled where his front teeth should have been, after which he stood up and sliced the ends off two six-inch-long, straight-sided cigars. He held one for himself and one for his friend.

  Tony leaned closer.

  ‘Please, reverend, keep still.’

  The electric razor skated noisily up and down the back of Luke’s neck as he tried not to wriggle.

  Instead, he watched the two men turn his way as though to peer in through the window. Was he even the subject of their observation?

  Mel raised his finger and pointed out something to his companion. They could have been aware of his presence or oblivious. Most likely they were discussing what to do next, or even whether they had time for a trim, like him.

  ‘All finished,’ said Tony, handing him a tissue.

  ‘Yes, of course. Thank you.’

  ‘Something wrong, reverend?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ replied Luke and promptly paid him over the odds to escape at the double.