Death is a Visitor: William Blake series, #4

By Alan Norris

Death is an unwelcome caller even at 
 the very worst of times......

Sometimes, it seems that even for the very briefest shower of happiness, we are required to pay in torrents with grief, sadness and tears.

William’s weekend begins with hope and with his spirits soaring to the stars. But the Three Fates had other plans for the thread of his life, and things changed quickly.

He was dragged from the quiet solitude of Brittany, back into the wild world, where tyranny, violence and cruelty ruled supreme.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Norris
• Release date: Oct 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536518009

Alan Norris

Alan was born in Poole, Dorset, England on October 1st 1948. As a child, he lived in Canada for a few years in what was then a tiny settlement village called Malton in Ontario. He went to his first school in the village, a one-room school that was quite basic but typical of the time in those outlying areas of the Canadian countryside. Later in life he travelled to Western Australia where he worked as a design draughtsman and played drums in his spare time with a very active band called “Unicorn”. Eventually, Alan returned to England, where he found a winter season of high unemployment and a frosty cold that he’d forgotten about. After a couple of dead-end jobs he joined the Royal Navy and quickly worked his way up to become an engine room Chief Petty Officer. His first ship was involved in the brief skirmish of the mid 1970s that they called the “Cod War”. He should have seen the trend, because ten years later he was involved in the Falklands Conflict while serving on the frigate, HMS Argonaut. They were hit by two enormous bombs within minutes of the first day of action. One landed in the boiler room and the other became lodged in an ammunition magazine. Luckily neither of these devices exploded, but unfortunately two of our gunners were killed. One of them was just twenty-one years old that day. Alan’s writing began some years later when, as part of a team producing Technical Handbooks, he began to experiment with fiction and wrote a bag-full of short stories. The experiments continued until 2010 when he set out to use his new-found skills in a second career. Alan now lives with his wife Stella in a quiet part of central Brittany, surrounded by books, forests, fields and their precious dogs, Elsa, Jester and Monty. He still plays drums occasionally too.

Book preview

Death is a Visitor

"Death is an unwelcome caller even at

the very worst of times."

The fourth book in the William Blake Series

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An Action Adventure Story by Alan F. Norris

Copyright © A. F. Norris (2016). All rights reserved.

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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is fictionalised or coincidental.

For Stella, who sadly

cannot manage to read too much anymore.

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And a very big Thank You to all

my friends who’ve

helped me write this story!

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

1

William was sitting in an uncomfortable, lumpy hospital chair watching Marie, his wife who was soundly sleeping. The bullet wound to the back of her head had healed wonderfully after the miracles that the surgeons had performed, during the long hours in the operating theatre.

But healing the injury hadn’t brought his Marie back to him, not yet. She spoke hesitantly, which was an improvement he supposed, because at first she hadn’t spoken at all, but now she was becoming frustrated by her physical inabilities and frequently had bouts of terrible temper. Her doctor had told him that in all probability, she didn’t know what she was doing and it was the result of some kind of scrambling of the connections in her brain. But her most serious problem was her coordination between her hand and eye. The doc was confident that, with regular therapy and the cocktail of drugs that she was being fed, she’d make it back to being the person she was.

~ ~ ~

As clearly as though it had happened yesterday, I remembered Gerard telling me that he was going to give me the most unimaginably awful living nightmare in revenge for taking Marie from him. He couldn’t have known just how right he’d be. I feel so damned helpless, there’s nothing I can do to help her and, to make it worse, in some of her waking moments she made me feel as though it were all my fault.

Trouble is, I felt guilty as hell already and thought that she could be right!

‘If only I’d stayed at home that day.’ I said quietly to her pale, sleeping face.

I hadn’t heard the nurse come quietly into the room and her voice surprised me.

‘There’ll be lots of ifs monsieur Blake. You must try not to dwell on them.’ she said.

‘Oh...I know. But....’

‘Yes monsieur. There’ll be many buts as well. We must all try to stay positive if we’re going to do our best to help Marie.’ she said.

She looked tired and wasn’t smiling, she checked Marie’s pulse rate and temperature and began to write on a chart. She was absorbed in her routine of care and ignored me.

I felt like a useless hindrance, as though I was in the way. I knew that I needed to go home, try to sort myself out, feed our dog, take him for a walk, the exercise would do us both a power of good. I needed to get some sleep too, without any alcohol assistance, and clean myself up. Then there was the laundry and all the usual basic things at home that I’d been putting off, even my precious writing was lying scattered about the study desk gathering dust. I stood up and stepped out of the way as Marie’s nurse continued with her checks.

She’s right I thought, I need to be positive, get myself together. I was doing nobody any good staying here all day, least of all Marie. She may have noticed how I’ve run down I thought. I caught sight of my reflection in the window, I looked like a tramp. Hair all over the place and I needed a shave, the five o’clock shadow had deepened and was well on its way to a scruffy looking beard. Yes I thought, if she sees me like this, it’ll make her think it’s her fault and then she’ll feel as bad and as helpless as I do right now.

‘You’re right nurse. We...er...No, I need to be positive.’ I said. ‘I’m going home and I’m going to try to sort myself out.’

‘Good to hear it.’ she said, a hint of a smile twitched at her mouth.

‘Yes...er, someone will call me if there’s any change?’ I asked, already feeling my new resolve beginning to slip.

‘Yes, yes...of course we will. Now go. Take a shower and get some sleep.’ she said. ‘And...have a shave monsieur. You’ll feel tons better.’

I pulled on my jacket, winter was looming and there was a cold North wind combing through our bit of the Breton countryside. Leaves on the trees had begun to fall and in the cold, dry air, they crunched satisfyingly underfoot. Scuffling through the crispy leaves was something that Marie and I had enjoyed on our walks and had given me the inspiration to write several of my short poems. I turned back to the nurse as I opened the room door.

‘Christmas coming up soon nurse, do you think there’s any chance I’ll be able to take Marie home? Even for just a few days?’ I asked.

‘Oh...that’s weeks away yet. You’ll have to ask the doc, but I think maybe it’s possible. If you had the right sort of help to call in of course.’ she said in an absent sort of way.

‘That’s encouraging, thanks.’ I said. ‘Right I’m off, be back later tonight to say goodnight.’

‘I thought you said you were going to sort yourself out.’ she said, hands on hips.

‘Ah...’

‘A good night’s sleep will do you more good. And you know as well as I do, that your wife will probably be asleep now until morning.’ she said. ‘Now be a good boy. Go home, take a rest...have a good meal. I’ll speak to Marie’s doctor about Christmas and maybe there’ll be some good news for you in the morning.’

She was right of course, it had been nearly a month now that I’d been almost resident in Marie’s room. Her recovery was miraculous, everybody said so, but to me it had seemed slow. Perhaps I was expecting, or hoping for too much. But maybe I was just impatient.

The doctors and surgeons were pleased, they said that an injury of her sort could have, so very easily, gone one of two ways...and the other was fatal. The doc that I spoke to most often, thought that Marie’s steady progress was the best way and he said that he expected her to make a substantial leap forward soon. It could, he said, be almost as dramatic as turning on a switch. I just hoped it was going to be the right switch. I missed her more, much more, than I could ever have imagined and wanted her back. I crossed to Marie’s bedside and gently kissed her lips at the corner of her mouth. She made a dreamy moaning sound and mumbled something.

‘Sleep well, my darling. I’ll see you in the morning...Goodbye.’ I told her, hating that last word.

Maybe I should use the French expression au revoir I thought, or better still, à bientot...see you soon. Must remember for next time, it didn’t sound so permanent...so horribly final.

It felt strangely disorientating to be leaving the hospital in daylight, darkness came early in November of course, but usually I’d have been leaving the Hospital quite late, and I was surprised to see that it was just mid-afternoon as I came through the main doors. The cloudless sky was the same shade of blue as the, once fashionable, ice-blue jeans that I’d had as a young teenager and the sun, although bright, was low in the sky and doing very little to warm things up.

I shivered in the biting wind as I crossed the car park, running the gauntlet of the handful of pathetic smokers who’d clustered around the entrance. I’d probably inhaled more tobacco smoke since they’d banned the use of tobacco in public places than I had before. Back when I’d been a serviceman, I’d been a smoker, but can’t stand the sharp smell now, and the thought of kissing a smoker...well, just standing near one while they are talking is bad enough. None so pure as the converted I suppose. But I could smell the smoke lingering around my face as I hurried by, that’s another reason to get rid of the straggly beard I decided.

Could be a frost tonight I thought, the first of the season. I pulled my jacket tighter around me, pulled open the car door and slid behind the wheel. The heater in the tired old car was not too wonderful anymore, it took an age to warm up and it seemed to have just two settings these days too, nothing or full. It happily ignored the control setting for anything in between and I was either shivering or baking. Maybe I should retire the old thing, Marie’s car, a smart Mercedes convertible, was in the driveway. I’d thought about it before, but felt so upset to sit in the driver’s seat without her that I’d decided against it. Maybe the time had come to be more practical I thought, and this will be part of the new rational, positive me. The other reason for using the oldie was that I always used to bring Blue, our dog with me, he would wait patiently for me outside, watching the toing-and-froing of people and snoozing on the back seat. My mind had been so crowded with my thoughts of Marie at the time, and of course it still is, but eventually it had dawned on me that this wasn’t really awfully kind. Although he didn’t mind his trips out in the car, he always hopped in with enthusiasm in the mornings and he’d seemed quite happy to wait, but at home of course, he had plenty of space to move about and I always left the radio on for company, even though I knew it wasn’t necessary and a bit silly. And days like today, he wouldn’t be cold.

2

William’s drive home was uneventful. He’d made the trip so often that it had become almost completely automatic, there were whole stretches of road that he couldn’t remember despite trying to focus his attention. Some of this was caused by worry of course, but mostly it was because he was tired and his health was beginning to seriously decline. But part of his new resolve was to look after himself better and he hoped that problems of illness and disease would fade back to their corner. This in mind, William stopped at the local supermarket for fresh bread, cheese, a selection of veg and a couple of good looking fish fillets for supper. He’d have one with a handful of chips and Blue would have the other with his biscuits, be good for the dog’s glossy black coat he thought.

~ ~ ~

Blue’s welcome was his normal, a cross between boisterous and a barely controlled excitement and as usual, he nearly bowled me over as he rushed outside. It seemed to me that he was looking for Marie because, whenever I came home, he always raced out to the car to give it an inspection before bounding back in.

‘You, my old friend, are going for a good walk this afternoon.’ I told him. ‘I’ll just have a quick shave and shower, a bite of bread and cheese and we’ll be off.’

Blue’s golden, teddy-bear eyes gazed at me as I packed away the groceries. I’m sure he can understand what I say to him. We’d been really lucky to find him at the dog’s home, it was just a shame that Marie had only had such a short time to get to know him before she was hurt, but she always asks after him and I’d taken her in some photos for her wall.

I didn’t really need a lead for the big dog, we were going to head out across some fields towards the woodland on the other side, but I took one anyway and wrapped it around my waist. There was still a cold wind, but the sky was clear and held the promise of being dry and coldly crisp for an hour or two, just what I needed. I pulled a heavy, quilted jacket out of a closet and wound a scarf around my neck.

‘First time these have been out this year.’ I told the patiently waiting German Shepherd.

I picked up my mobile and slipped it into a pocket and we were off, Blue rushed ahead toward the orchard, how did he know which way I’d intended going I wondered. Then the phone rang. My heart missed several beats as I scrambled with the key to get back in. But by the time I got there it had stopped ringing and the answering gadget had kicked in, I didn’t recognise the number in the call screen so I left it to the voice-mail, but the caller had rung off.

‘Cold caller. Bloody nuisance.’ I told Blue, who’d come back to see where I’d got to. ‘Nearly gave me a bloody heart attack.’

But there was no need to get too wound up I thought, it wouldn’t have been the hospital, they had my mobile number, so they could get me anytime, anywhere. I closed the front door and we were off once again, the phone started ringing as I shut the door.

‘Sod it!’ I said, and decided to leave it to the message recorder. ‘Come on Blue boy...let’s get some air.’

We walked through the grove of apple trees, well I did, Blue cantered around all over the place nose to the ground and tail wagging. Most of the fruit had fallen, I’d done nothing with it this year, the apples were cider apples and no good for eating or cooking. Last year I remembered, a local farmer had taken them and given me a share of his heady brew in return. It seemed impossible that that was just twelve months ago, but there’d be no cider this year.

We rambled along, Blue found all sorts of tasty sniffs and I struggled with the temptation to pull out my mobile and call the Hospital. We’d been a bit late starting out I suppose and as we crossed the fields, the afternoon slipped away and a bright, golden dusk tumbled upon us bringing with it a cold dew to wet the grass. We didn’t manage to reach the woodland, it seemed to hover temptingly in the distance, farther away than I remembered. The purple shadows beneath the trees grew deeper by the moment and I decided it was time to retrace our steps. Blue-boy was quite unconcerned at our about-turn and bounded around enjoying his freedom, nose to the ground, almost as if he were compelled to collect all the little scented secrets that we passed. I could see the cottage quite clearly, I suppose we were never truly out of sight of the empty, staring windows and now