Sophie: a Death and a Life

By David Parkins

To an already long list of unpleasant and tragic events, that in recent months have been visited upon a small West Wales community, is now added yet another.
To Susanne, a local school teacher, there seems to be just too many bad things happening and she is convinced they are part of something bigger, and that much worse is still to come.
The latest event is a suicide - that of a still-beautiful forty-five year old woman with striking red hair. Her name is Sophie, and she has a heart-breaking backstory.
We follow Sophie through a twenty year period, coincident with her long-term relationship with Vincent, four years her senior, to discover how a seemingly very happy partnership could end in such tragedy.
Although essentially a modern love story, the darker undertones that run through it will have consequences beyond Sophie’s life.
This is the third book in a continuing West Wales Odyssey series, and although ‘Sophie’ is a stand-alone story, the darker elements within it – and those of the first two books, ‘Splitting Rainbows’ and ‘Broken Crockery’ will lead on into Book Four in the series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Parkins
• Release date: Sep 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370960972

David Parkins

Your Author is a sixty-something Englishman, who lives in West Wales. I pride himself on being ‘out of time’ but very much ‘in the right place’. I am also very pleased to be one of the few people left in Britain without a mobile phone! My publicity agent has posted a not so recent picture of the myself. He has advised that anything more current would be too horrific to publish. Splitting Rainbows, book one in the 'A West Wales Odyssey' series, was my first novel but by no means my first literary effort! These started a long, long time ago – writing poems and long letters to young women, where I did, in fact, achieve a surprising degree of success! Are all women poets? Probably not – but some definitely are! The second book in the series, Broken Crockery, which revolves around the dinner party from hell, and the consequences that flow from it, followed very quickly, as parts of it were written concurrently with Splitting Rainbows. I have now added book three in the series, Sophie - A Death and A Life. A love story with some hate, abuse and police brutality thrown in for good measure! Sophie is certainly the nicest character I have so far created - and my favourite! Currently, I am working on the final book in this series, The Soul Farmer. This will pull together all of the darker undercurrents that have been running through the first three books. A friend who has read draft sections of it has said that it parachutes 'Twin Peaks' into West Wales. As an absolute devotee of all things 'Twin Peaks' and the genius that is David Lynch, I do take that as a compliment! Publication date for The Soul Farmer should be late in 2017, though down here in West Wales we don’t do deadlines! In the meantime, I've added two new short stories - First up is The Spotter. This is a little story of childhood and trains, and it will surely have resonance for those of you of a certain age and inclination! Then there is Sara and Daddy! This one is a dark little story indeed, but with romance, and some humour thrown in, just to lighten things. A salutory yarn - this one perhaps involves some inclinations that you might not want to have personally! And you thought trainspotting was something to be ashamed of? Tut tut. My time here is divided between running a business, dreaming, writing, dreaming, listening to music, dreaming and dog walking – the latter giving me plenty of time to think despairing thoughts about the current state of the planet. I do cheer up on occasion though, mainly when listening to Leonard Cohen! Oh, and jazz.

Book preview

Sophie

- a Death and a Life

A West Wales Odyssey – Book Three

by David Parkins

Copyright © 2017 by David Parkins

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit your favourite ebook retailer to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Published by David Parkins

Cover and Inside Images are from Shutterstock, under license.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters depicted in this book are also fictional and any resemblance to real people, either living or deceased, is entirely coincidental.

WARNING -

This book contains very strong language, reference to sexual abuse and depictions of police brutality.

The characters on the receiving end of this are fictional but regrettably, the crimes committed were not.

Contents

Author’s Note

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Author’s Note

We all, by default, live unremarkable lives.

We live in times when many people are simply famous for being famous, or get MBEs or OBEs for being the hairdresser or stylist to some pumped up politician or ‘plumb in the mouth’ Royal, for being Lord Twatty of Twatsville - or for being some ageing rock star who accepts a ‘gong’ after making his millions singing of the time being right for violent revolution, or about fighting in the streets.

So - they are often so deeply buried in bullshit that yes, it really is all too easy sometimes to forget the truth of those few words - we all, by default, live unremarkable lives. It is even true of ‘Twittering’ presidents!

In the vastness of space there are events taking place that make all of our efforts seem totally insignificant and irrelevant. The fossil record speaks to us of the cataclysmic events that have overtaken our own planet on at least five previous occasions and are almost certainly about to again. Each brought with them mass extinction events – times of great dying. This time though it will most likely be ourselves that cause it.

The ancient rocks beneath us tell of massive forces at work and of whole dynasties of creatures. Some of them survived enormous seismic upheavals and climatic changes to proposer, only for their descendants to then to die out naturally, or at the hands of our own species, such as the wondrous giant ground sloth Megatherium – and as so many of the remaining Megafauna may well be about to, on this overcrowded planet.

And make no mistake about it, the sixth mass extinction event is either fully underway, or is about to begin, with our own species estimated to be accelerating the normal rate of extinctions among our fellow travellers on Earth by a factor of one hundred, to one thousand times.

These past mass extinction events surely warn us too that we ourselves will not be immune. Just as those who fall in love witness the power of an unseen hand that sweeps them over without warning, our own species will surely be subjected to these same forces and will, in a futile gesture, run before the droughts and intense heat waves, and, who knows, the boiling oceans - and your own descendants will be among them Mr. Trump!

So instead, we tell of love in order to be significant. It is simply all that we can do in the face of such apocalyptic warnings. We focus on the finer detail and the rich tapestry of individual human interaction. It is where our hope lies.

This is not the ‘love’ of two Hollywood stars, married today and divorced next month, just to keep them trending on Twitter. It is not a self-seeking or manufactured love in order to feed the appetites of sad individuals, who live their lives through the reflected ‘glory’ of these so called famous people - people who are nothing more than legends in their own egos.

No - this love is the one the rest of the world does not know about. It has no pretence and no artifice. It is raw and experienced by any two people who strive to make each other’s lives better for no reward, so that they can each bear the daily struggle to survive and bring something shining and good into the other’s existence - existences that no one else gives a damn about.

Sophie is not one person. Although she is essentially fictional, there are parts of her in many people I myself have known. Sometimes such people can die young, but in any event, all are too easily forgotten.

So, are any lives remarkable? Oh yes, indeed they are. But it is because many, like Sophie, do struggle inside their ‘unremarkable’ and fractured lives to be good and true and generous, that they can be just that – truly remarkable. Let us celebrate one such fictional life, and as you read on, maybe you can think of one such real life - a life that you know about, and can celebrate as well. Who knows? It might even be your own!

David Parkins

West Wales

May, 2017

Prologue

April 2017

And in the early hours of an April Sunday a school teacher named Susanne lay awake in her bed - the worries and concerns that she had been feeling over recent months, still very much with her.

The First Nation component of the blood that flowed through her veins was telling her to stay vigilant. It was telling her that all this might not be over. All this had consisted of murder, disharmony among neighbours and friends, followed by maiming, violence and destruction, and by deceit and betrayal.

So, whilst the [mostly] decent people of this small West Wales community slept in their beds, Susanne kept her vigil. The soft rain that was falling outside would fall on ‘just and unjust alike’ and her instincts told her that some of the latter were still close at hand.

She heard a distant siren. She hoped it was going away to the east on the main road, but instead it was getting louder. Shit, she thought, hadn’t she heard just too many of these over recent months? You expected it in London. Out here though, this sound could have implications that could all too easily become personal. To update John Donne’s famous meditation - therefore, send not to know for whom the siren sounds, for it could sound for thee!

In this instance, the siren was for a still beautiful and still young woman with bright red hair, lying on the floor of a mobile home in her dressing gown. Perhaps forty-five was not young in one sense, but it was too young to die, and especially at one’s own hand.

Unknown to the ambulance crew, she was already beyond help. The large amount of sleeping tablets she had swallowed in conjunction with the vodka, had done their job only too well. The return journey of the ambulance would be taken at a much more leisurely pace, with the need for sirens having passed.

____________________________

Susanne awoke from a troubled sleep at just before seven. After showering, dressing and a strong black coffee, she knew that she must take an early morning walk. She headed down the road from the cottage and turned westwards into a little used lane. This was not a direction she would normally have taken, and if she had been asked why she had chosen it, she would not have been able to fully explain. If pressed she might have said that she was subconsciously looking for the location that the ambulance had been heading for in the early hours of that morning.

Something deep within her knew that this was not going to be some leisurely stroll. It had a purpose. Ahead there came a faint sound on the wind. It was too distant yet to define clearly but she knew that this was the source - the place she was headed for. The very reason she had come. She knew that she was needed there.

As she progressed along the lane she came ever closer to the sound, which she could now hear clearly as a crying so intense that she felt she had never heard anything so harrowing, so empty, and so bereft and mournful in her forty-seven years. She had to pass the source of this distress in order to access the field from which it was emanating.

She entered the field and turned back on herself, to see a figure huddled on the ground in front of a large mobile home. She followed the track along the inside bank of the field. The figure belonged to a man of around her own age, as she knew it would. She approached him and stood opposite his crumpled form. She said nothing - lost in his pain and anguish.

After a minute or two had passed, though it seemed longer, he looked up. Susanne reached down, put her arms under his shoulders and helped him to his knees. She knelt down before him and enfolded him in her arms. Then, holding his head against her chest and stroking his wet muddy hair, she hummed an ancient lullaby - a song that may never have been heard before on this side of the Western Ocean. She felt part Madonna and part Earth Mother to this cold, wet and miserable man. She knew it was what he needed more than anything at this moment.

The weather had begun to turn quite quickly as was often the way in this area. What had started out as a brighter morning had now darkened again considerably, with menacing grey/black clouds. Susanne registered the first drops of rain, even as she heard a distant roll of thunder. This was a place where you needed no weather forecasters. You could ‘see’ and ‘feel’ the weather.

Still stroking his hair, she said, my name is Susanne.

Vincent, he said, still sobbing. She thought he might never stop.

It’s going to be alright, she said.

No, it won’t. It will never be alright again, he moaned.

She stood up and helped him to his feet.

Together they went into the mobile home. Vincent needed a shower. He had obviously spent most of the night in that field. Probably since the ambulance had left. He was caked with mud. Susanne undressed him and guided him into the shower. She placed his clothes into the washing machine and started it on its cycle.

She followed her deepest instincts, because she knew the need he would have at this time for something deeply elemental. She led him from the shower and put him into bed. She removed her boots and her coat and top, followed by her bra. Stripped to the waist, she sat on the bed beside him and cradled his head to her breasts.

As the first flash of lightning cut through the grey morning light, Susanne sang that old lullaby again and repeated softly spoken reassurances to him. He sang something himself. Something she thought she had heard him singing as she had first approached him outside. She heard the words clearly, but to her they made no sense.

To Vincent though, the words made more sense than anything in the world possibly could at this moment. They meant more even than the welcome comfort he was finding in this kind and generous woman, whom he had known would come to him, and who was now holding his head to her breasts. They were words that could mean nothing to Susanne but everything to him, and to the beautiful dead being that had lived here with him until only a few hours ago. They were a few words from one of their favourite rock songs – I’ve got two sets of headphones and I miss you like hell.

Whatcha doin, whatcha doin, child?

Lee Dorsey, singing ‘Holy Cow’

Chapter One

1997

I took her to a supermarket - Vincent had always liked that song. He had liked it from the moment he first heard it on the radio in May 1995. It conjured up a kind of down-market romantic image that he might just be able to experience for himself. Something he, as a ‘common person’, felt able to aspire to. He had to wait for nearly two years, but it happened – at 01.18 on Thursday 13th March 1997 at the local 24 hour Tesco.

He was just picking up a tub of humous, when a hand reached up to the row of tubs just on the right. You want to try this one, a female voice said. Caramelised onion, it’s really nice.

OK, thanks, I will, said Vincent, turning to look at the face he would spend most of the next twenty years with.

Nice bread, stone ground flour, you know. And some butter - not margarine mind! Can’t be bettered, she added.

Thanks again err…

Sophie, she said, and held out her hand. He shook it.

Oh sorry, Vincent. So, you must be a fellow insomniac too? He said.

Possibly, but then I could have just developed a middle of the night craving for some caramelised onion humous.

Yep – I suppose there is always that possibility. But I reckon you are an insomniac, but one who also has a night time craving for onion humous.

Caramelised! She said.

Because of this unplanned encounter, they finished their shopping together and went to the checkout, chatting about the items they had purchased as they went. Most of the staff seemed to be stacking shelves in readiness for the next day’s onslaught of food buying, but Vincent managed to attract the attention of one cashier who came over to the only checkout that was open. As the cashier, named Joy according to her badge, checked out his few items she noticed a video he had purchased from the bargain basket.

‘Seven’, I’ve seen that, said Joy, it’s a good film.

Oh, OK thanks! Said Vincent. After he had paid for his items he waited whilst Sophie paid for her things.

Thanks, said Sophie.

Yeah, thanks Joy, it’s been a joy to spend my money with you, added Vincent.

Joy smiled and Sophie giggled.

As they approached the exit Vincent said, poor Joy, did you notice?

Her cap, do you mean?

Yes, said Vincent, it was a Chemo Cap. The poor lady is having treatment for cancer - must only be in her early forties. You’ve got to grab life with both hands Sophie.

Guess so, she said. Will you go home to sleep, or will you watch your video?

I have a thirty-five-minute drive to home.

Only I know a cinema that is still open, she said.

You do? In this little old one horse town? He asked.

Yes, remarkable, isn’t it?

Tell me more, said Vincent.

Well it’s really no more than a TV and a video player in a room off Market Street but it’s still open if you are interested. I believe they might be showing ‘Seven’ tonight!

Are you coming to watch it too? He said.

Guess so, Sophie replied, as I’ve got the key!

Sophie got into Vincent’s ancient 4x4. This has seen better days, she said.

It has! Never let me down though and it’s gone round the clock twice - almost to the Moon. I haven’t actually been to the moon in it though.

No? You do surprise me. I had you down as a bit of an astronaut, said Sophie, with another giggle.

Vincent parked up outside an Indian restaurant. I’ve been there, he said. It’s about the best one in the area.

Yes, not bad, she agreed.

Vincent locked his vehicle and followed Sophie back up the hill a little way, to a flaking green door on the right, just after they had turned into Hill Street. She unlocked the door and it opened onto a staircase that led up to a one bedroomed flat over an empty shop. This was the ‘dead’ end of town.

It could have so easily been a horrible dingy place, but he could see that Sophie had made some effort to ‘lift’ it and to individualise the living room/kitchen area. From the proportions of the flat, he surmised that the bathroom was just back from the top of the stairs and the bedroom was obviously at the rear of the building.

Cold? She asked, and put on an electric fire. I’ll get some coffee. Make yourself at home. She came around from the kitchen area a short while later, with two pieces of brown bread on a plate and handed it to him. Bread with caramelised onion humous, she said.

Ah thanks, great, said Vincent, I get to try it sooner than I thought. Pre-empting her next question, he said, black with one sugar on the coffee please.

Sophie returned with the coffees a couple of minutes later and Vincent took the video cassette from the case and passed it to her. She switched on, put the cassette into the player and hit the ‘play’ button. She sat on the far end of the sofa, with one cushion’s space between them.

You have a