The Lucky Unborn

By Kenneth S. Most

The Lucky Unborn is a definite page-turner with plenty of sex, crime, drugs, revenge, betrayal and other ingredients of our corrupt age. It is the story of an average man who has disappeared, leaving behind a manuscript that documents the gradual disintegration of his life. The settings (wartime London, subtropical Miami, Bogota) are descriptively and atmospherically drawn. High points of the narrative are a monologue by his paramour, and a lecture he delivers on the personality and motivation of Shakespeare's
Othello. Essentially a modern morality tale, the issues raised are discussed honestly and non-judgmentally in a direct narrative unembellished by literary artifice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 7, 2005
• ISBN: 9781465333544

Kenneth S. Most

Kenneth S. Most is a retired college professor living in Florida. He has worked in a dozen countries on four continents and considers himself a citizen of the world. He has published many books and articles on economic and financial subjects and one other novel, Peter Woods Abroad (Xlibris, 2005.)

Book preview

1     

Miami, Florida

The sun shines on Miami, Florida and its neighbors, all

day and every day. To the east sparkle the waters of the Atlantic, and four miles out to sea they turn blue where the Gulf Stream teems with every variety of fish. On the west the city abuts the Everglades, a very slow-moving expanse of water that plays host to all kinds of subtropical wildlife, and a tribe of Miccusokee Indians struggling to keep alive their traditional rites and crafts. The south leads to a chain of islands, the Florida Keys, connected by a causeway as far as Key West, keeping the Caribbean out of the Gulf of Mexico. And to the north lie a succession of sandy beaches, fronted by an almost continuous line of high-rise apartment houses where once stood seaside villas.

Those who have had their homes in Miami since before World War II say that it was a paradise then, and that the quality of life has declined as its population has grown. At first it was a few thousand veterans who had seen service here, and returned to start families in Mackle houses. Then came a wave of retiring New Yorkers and others from harsh northern climes, who preferred air-conditioned apartments in Miami Beach to centrally-heated apartments back north. In the early 1960s hundreds of thousands of Cubans fleeing the known future of communism arrived, changing the ethnic balance for ever, and, by taking menial jobs away from the black population, sowing the seeds of racial conflict. To begin with they purchased or rented houses and apartments just southwest of the city, in an area now known as Little Havana, which surrounds Southwest Eighth Street, now called Calle Ocho.

Ethnic struggles in Quebec produced another flow of refugees, including many French Canadians, who settled in North Miami Beach. Poverty, fear, or simply a desire for a better life brought immigrants from Central and Latin America; by 1975 there were over one hundred thousand South Americans living in the Greater Miiami area. Tens of thousands of non-Spanish-speaking refugees trom Haiti, Jamaica, and other Caribbean countries swelled the tide of incoming humanity. The end of the Vietnamese War brought a quota of Indochinese. Professionals and managers from India and Taiwan; traders from Singapore and Japan; entrepreneurs from Panama and Puerto Rico; Arabs heavy with petrodollars; Israelis weary of Middle East wars.

And, of course, plenty of Europeans. As soon as currency regulations permitted it, wandering Englishmen (and women) began to settle in Miami, to join the small community of GI. brides already here. They included property developers who, foreseeing the end of the London building boom, decided they could do their thing in the sunshine. Bankers and insurance men followed. Enormously wealthy Germans, suspicious of the Russian bear, moved some or all their fortunes to South Florida. Frenchmen, out of simple prudence nurtured on a century of bitter experience, bought houses and apartments and began to vacation on Key Biscayne. Even the cautious Swiss could be found here.

It is obvious that the character of Miami had to change radically. From a fairly quiet Southern redneck town decorated with a few Yankee aristocrats, it became a large, cosmopolitan metropolis. No longer dependent economically on the snowbirds, those winter residents from the north who returned home each year in time to see the spring flowers bloom, it became a center of year-round tourism, of trade and manufacturing, of banking and insurance. The Port of Miami developed into the world’s largest cruise ship port, and Miami International airport became one of the busiest in the United States. Real estate construction and its ancillary trades boomed.

In 1975 the bottom fell out of the real estate market, and people feared an economic collapse that would destroy the prosperity of Southeast Florida. Thousands of newly constructed houses and apartments stood empty, and their builders abandoned them to the banks and savings and loans. But a wonderful thing happened just as a depression appeared imminent The Soviet drive to destabilize Central America and the Caribbean, ably abetted by Castro’s Cuba, and aided also, let it be said, by the region’s bone-headed ruling classes, released a horde of wealthy Latins to Miami. These arrived with large sums of money, often carried in attache cases, designed to help them establish beachheads for their families. The unsold houses and apartments evaporated, and the cycle of boom and bust started all over again. Not only Miami, but all the municipalities that surrounded it, took on the characteristics of South American societies.

I foresaw none of this when in 1965 we decided to emigrate from England to the United States, and selected Miami as our destination. I thought only of the sun and the seashore and the opportunity to improve our standard of living. As it happened, it was 1970 before we got here, and, when we did, the old-timers were already complaining about the deteriorating quality of life. Somehow I interpreted that to mean that there was no basketball franchise, too few places for eating out of doors, and too many Spanish-speaking residents. Only later did I understand what they were saying, that Miami had lost its youthful innocence, and become increasingly implicated in the grim details of the second half of the twentieth century.

2     

Frances Rediscovered

My own loss of innocence started simply enough. I was

looking for an electrical appliance repairer in the Yellow Pages, and a name caught my eye: Ted Y. Sebastian, Inc., Electrical Engineering. The combination of middle initial and profession could hardly be a coincidence. But in Miami? I checked the White Pages, and found a listing at an address in South Miami. I dialled. A familiar voice answered the phone.

Is that Frances? I asked, almost choking with excitement.

Yes. A moment of silence. Who is that?

A voice from the past. Recognize it?

A pause.

Is that you, Alan?

Who the hell was Alan? A twinge of jealousy.

No, it’s not. Don’t you even remember my voice?

There was a longer silence, then a suppressed laugh.

"It’s Geoff. It can’t be. Is it really you, Geoff? Oh, my

God!"

I produced my own little laugh, really a sigh of relief that I was not altogether forgotten.

I can’t believe that you are living in Miami. How long have you been here? How are you?

How did you get hold of my number?

1 told her about the accidental discovery in the Yellow Pages.

Oh, my God! 1 don’t believe it’s true! She sounded younger than I had feared she might. What are you doing? Are you living here too?

Yes, since five years ago. I teach at the University.

We only came last year. Ted finally got fed up with all his business problems in England, and sold up. We bought a business so that we could get immigration papers, you know, and then he opened another under his own name. You teach at the University? Since when are you a college professor?

It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when we meet. I have to see you again.

Another gamble. Another pause.

I don’t know. Everything’s different now. I have a son, David. He’s twenty, lives with us. He’s at home now. It’s been such a long time.

1 have a daughter, you know. She’s twenty-one, and not married either. Did you know that I got married in fiftytwo?

Yes, 1 got it from Elspeth, who met your sister. How odd that we never saw each other in England after the war, and now you’ve found me here.

1 must see you, 1 said. Have lunch with me tomorrow.

You don’t want to see me. I’m an old lady now.

Of course I want to see you. What about Pumpernik’s on U.S. 1?

Not much chance of bumping into anyone I knew there.

What time?

How about twelve-thirty? Another long pause.

All right. I’ll be there.

"1 can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it. Until tomorrow, Frances.

Goodbye, Geoff.

When 1 replaced the handset 1 noticed that my legs were trembling, like in the old days.

3     

First Meeting in London

Frances and I met in 1945, in the last months of World

War II. She was standing at the Golders Green bus station on a bitterly cold night; it must have been about nine o’clock. 1 had just recently moved to London and rented a tiny room—it would have been a bed-sitter if it had been a bit bigger—near Hampstead Heath. The blackout was frustrated by a full moon that night, and she was extraordinarily beautiful, her face framed by the fur collar of her coat, her blond hair haloing her features. 1 summoned up all my courage to accost her. I remember asking which bus would take me to the Hampstead tube station, and she told me the number. I remember asking her how long she had been waiting. We commiserated with each other about the poor wartime bus service. I told her that I was a newcomer to London. She offered to see that I found my way home. Half an hour later we were walking arm-in-arm along Church Row, sharing our likes and dislikes.

After she had pointed out the turning which led to my street, 1 asked if 1 could see her again.

1 don’t know that you should. I’m a married woman.

That was a shock; she was wearing fur gloves, but still, 1 was very unobservant. She looked so girlish.

Is your husband at home? 1 asked.

No, he’s overseas with the army. He’s a captain.

Then perhaps I could provide you with some company. Do you like to walk?

Yes. I love walking.

Tomorrow’s Sunday. Meet me at the comer of Frognal, after lunch, at two. We can walk: across the Heath.

All right. Good night. And she was gone.

I danced the two hundred yards to Mrs. Miller’s, and into bed.

So euphoric was my state of mind that it was only when I arrived at the rendezvous the following afternoon, at five minutes before two, that I realized I did not know her name, or she mine. I had spent the morning in an adolescent haze of longing and anticipation, into which no hint of reality had been permitted to enter. Now, finally, my mind admitted the possibility that she might not be there, and as I stamped my feet agitatedly to frustrate the cold, I wondered what I could do in that case. Walk the length of Frognal, knocking at every door, and asking if a young lady lived there who was a cross between Artemis and Venus? Could I stand guard at that particular comer of Hampstead until she appeared, for she must pass by on her way to the bus or tube, later that day or tomorrow? This was to be the first of many such vigils, all of which seemed so much longer than they really were, and aroused in me such overpowering feelings of fear, lust, or guilt, that I can sense them in my stomach now, thirty years after.

She arrived barely ten minutes late from an unexpected direction, and took me by surprise. A weak winter sun squeezed its water color rays through iron gray clouds, lighting the London sky with familiar pastel shades. To my great joy, she was as lovely by day, as my recollection of her the previous night. Only perhaps five feet two inches tall, her figure was slender even under the bulk of a winter coat. A mass of golden hair, loosely waved, framed her hazel eyes and clearcut features. Later, much later, I came to realize that her head was a little too large for her slender neck, and her legs a mite too short for her well-developed body; such details escaped me then. Hatless, in fur-collared coat and fur-lined boots, her appearance was at the same time familiar and exotic.She felt warm and soft as I took her arm and walked her up the High Street, past the tube station and towards the Heath.

We began to fill in the missing details.

You mean I didn’t tell you my name? I’m Frances Sebastian. My husband is called Ted. We’ve been married two years. I used to live with my mother in Manchester, but my in-laws asked me to come to London to be near them. I have a ground-floor flat in Church Row. My parents-in-law live in Golders Green, and I was going home after having dinner with them last night.

‘‘I’m Geoff Strager. I work for an antique dealer in Mayfair. Where do you work?"

I’m a secretary at Smith’s Instruments. I don’t really have to work, my husband’s employers pay his full salary while he’s in the army, and with that and the allotment from his pay I have more than enough to live on. I’ve even bought furniture. I bank my wages, it’ll come in handy after the war.

Do you like London?

Oh, yes, even with all the wartime inconvenience. I don’t think we’ll go back to Manchester. Are you from here?

No, my family live in Leicester. I only got out of the army last month. A rifle fell on my head and I got concussion. They decided I was more of a handicap than a help, so I got an honorable discharge. I was in hospital, but I’m all right now.

I did not tell her that I wanted to be a writer, that I had written a quantity of poems and started a novel, or that a story of mine was being considered for publication by The Penguin New Writing. She was more interested in the Heath than in me.

I should have brought some bread to feed the sparrows. What’s that tree, is it an elm? I wonder who lives in the big house over there. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the whole Heath for your garden? Not much privacy, though.

I manoeuvred her away from the path and behind a tree that hid us from the other strollers. She was much smaller than I had realized; her head only came up to my shoulder, and she almost nestled into my armpit. She responded eagerly to my kiss. Her lips were soft and full, and tasted of cherries. I opened her coat and fondled her firm, small breasts. Her eyes were closed, and the intensity of her response further aroused my passion. We stood there, kissing and caressing, for almost half an hour. Gradually, the veil of sensuality lifted, and I became aware again of time and of our surroundings. My room was only a few hundred yards away, but I lacked courage.

Would you like to go for tea in the High Street?

Yes, I’d love some tea.

Frances performed the necessary repairs to her makeup, and I adjusted my underwear. Walking back to the High Street we discovered other interests in common; she liked to go to concerts, to visit museums and art galleries, to buy books. She also liked tennis and bicycle rides in the country; we promised to do both when the weather got warmer. I found out that she was an only child, and that her parents were divorced; they had separated when she was twelve. Her husband’s sister Elspeth was her best friend. They were the same age, twenty.

I must have learned much more as we talked over tea and scones in the High Street tea rooms, but it would be untrue if I claimed to remember the entire conversation. What I do recall clearly across the years is the feeling of being young and inexperienced, and in love with someone else’s wife; of wanting and not daring. It was several days before we went to bed together, and for me it was the first time.

4     

Miami Motel

I arrived at Pumpernik’s, that February day in 1975, at

exactly two