Remembrance

By Chris Vobe

“What is grief, really? It’s just a love that refuses to die…”

Election fever has gripped the village of Little Bassington and the race for the Town Hall has intensified – with the fate of the Water Tower at stake.

But as ghosts of the past and shadows of the future loom large, victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price. When journalist Adam Chapman embarks upon a deal with the devil, librarian Victoria Kendall discovers that some choices are destined to be inescapable.

Meanwhile, the boundaries of love – both unconditional and unrequited – are put to the test. Feelings long buried are rising to the surface. Painful heartaches and disquieting realities look set to endure. A decades-old secret, long forgotten and left to gather dust, is discovered at Orchard House.

For one resident, the aftermath of their brightest morning is about to become their darkest night…

The second in Chris Vobe's five-volume epic, 'The Water Tower' is a raw and uncompromising tale of love, loyalty and allegiance, and offers a candid exploration of the way we deal with loss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Mar 22, 2023

Book preview

Remembrance

REMEMBRANCE

The Water Tower

Book 2

CHRIS VOBE

Contents

September

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Extract from the Bassington Post #10

Extract from the Bassington Post #11

October

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Polling Day

Chapter 19

The Transcript

Chapter 20

Extract from the Bassington Post #12

Extract from the Bassington Post #13

November

Chapter 21

December

Chapter 22

Love

Chapter 23

Interlude #2

December

Chapter 24

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2023 Chris Vobe

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2023 by Next Chapter

Published 2023 by Next Chapter

Cover art by Lordan June Pinote

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.

Second Dedication

For Elton and Bernie –

from the end of the world to your town!

Volume (II) of The Water Tower commences in September 2016, immediately following the events described in Volume (I) and should not be read in isolation.

(2)

What did you say to them?

September

(CONTINUED)

He’s my husband…

Chapter 15

"Two are better than one,

because they have a good reward for their toil.

For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow.

But woe to him who is alone when he falls

and has not another to lift him up!"

(Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, English Standard Version)

The room was spinning around him. His vision was hazy. There was nothing except the ring, spiralling to a standstill on the coffee table. She was talking, but all he could hear were abstract words; disconnected, detached half-sentences that reminded him of that night in the club with Jake and Melanie; when Judith had called and her voice, like a protracted shadow, had drowned out everything beyond small snatches of conversation. It was happening again.

—not what you think — calm down — please — promise you — can explain—

Victoria was in front of him now, her hands on his chest, a piteously imploring expression grafted onto her usually sublime features as she tried to compel him to react, to respond; to do or say something. But he couldn’t move. He didn’t dare speak. It was as if he were rooted to the spot, his gaze fixed squarely on the ring – her wedding ring – as it came to rest on the table.

Listen to me!

She practically screamed the words, tears coalescing at the edges of her vision, blurring her line of sight and threatening to obscure him completely.

He noticed her hair as she edged backwards to block his view of the ring; for the first time, it looked out of place, something less than immaculate, ruffled first by the wind outside and then the force of her every motion as she’d shaken her head, dragged her fists anxiously through it, tangling it in strands of fear and apprehension.

The hum in his ears, which he now realised was the heavy throb of his own heartbeat, dissipated. Gradually, the room stopped spinning. His vision settled. He was pulled from his grey miasma and back to her. The piercing cry of her plea shook away the fog that had threatened to consume his surroundings entirely.

I have to go… he said, hoarsely and made for the door.

She blocked his escape, tugging at the sleeve of his coat. You can’t go. We need to talk, she implored. He tried to shake himself loose, tried to grasp the handle, but she pulled at him, refusing to relax her grip; as if she could somehow wrench him back from the edge of the abyss upon which they both stood by sheer force of will.

I have to… I need to go…

"Please – Adam – listen to me. Please! Just, just – listen to me, you bastard!"

He stopped instantly. His arm dropped limply to his side. She released his sleeve. He turned to her, and saw a face filled with…

What was that? Fear?

I’m – I’m sorry – I’m… she stammered. I didn’t mean that…

I know you didn’t, he breathed, finally. He reached out to put his hands on her shoulders and watched the last flicker of fear ebb away. I know you didn’t…

All he could do until he regained his breath was look at her. Suddenly, there was nothing else in the world that mattered. Just the sound of her voice, the cadence of her footsteps, and the deep pools of her coffee eyes. Exactly as it had been on the day they’d first met. He imagined himself sitting in the armchair across the room, the two of them alone together, wishing that the world could begin and end within the sanctuary of those four walls. He thought of them on the couch, skin against leather, surrendering themselves to one another, feeling the press of her lips against his neck as his hands skated over her bare flesh.

Please, she whispered, suppressing her tears now as she gained a handle on the words she needed. Sit down. I promise I’ll tell you everything.

He nodded. He felt numb inside. All he could see in his mind’s eye was the ring – her wedding ring – taunting him as it spun on the glass, its single diamond catching the light with every turn.

It was an endless spin, one that felt like it would never stop.

I wasn’t lying when I told you what I ran from, she said. More than anything else, it was the thought of staying.

They sat facing each other; Victoria on the couch and Adam in the armchair. He’d removed his coat and draped it over the back, his only concession to normality. She had tucked her legs underneath her, the same way she’d done on the night of their first kiss. She lowered her voice as she spoke; it was more than a whisper, but less than her usual confident tenor. She’d made them both a hot drink; Adam’s lay untouched on the side table beside the chair. Victoria nursed hers between her hands, her fingertips stroking the rim of the mug as she gazed into the steaming liquid. She was doing her best not to cry, but the ragged breaths that intermittently tore through her words betrayed her. Mostly, she kept her head down, lifting it from time to time in the hope of finding the reassurance she longed for. Adam kept his face impassive, saying very little, preserving his peace as she talked.

"I was 26 when I met him. We got married three years later. God, we’re all so cocky at that age, aren’t we? Well, everyone except you, I mean. We think the whole world’s been waiting for us. Holding off on opening all its doors until we’re ready. We think we’re untouchable. We can’t imagine what could possibly go wrong, any of us. Until it does.

"I was looking for a door to run through. My dad – oh, my dad was my hero, but he died when I was teenager. Mum and I — well, let’s just say we didn’t exactly see eye to eye. I wanted to be someone else. I was hankering to get swept away on that wave everyone seems to ride in their 20s, you know – before life gets serious.

His parents paid for the wedding. They booked this big hotel in the country, out in the middle of nowhere. The photos made it look like something from a dream, but actually, it was a nightmare for everyone to get to. We said the words, made all the promises, but even then I’d started to doubt myself. Oh, it’s nothing new, she added quickly, catching the surprise on his face, I’ve always done it. Running for election. Saying my vows in front of a room full of people on what’s supposed to be the happiest day of my life. Even ordering a takeaway. I can’t help it. I think some of us are pre-conditioned to doubt everything.

Adam watched as a veil fell across her eyes. She stared into the corner, no longer seeing the sitting room of a house on White Chapel Lane, but the grounds of a country hotel, twenty years in the past. Her voice changed, as if she was suddenly very far away from him. Adam remained steeped in silence, wondering what she was contemplating in the mirror of her mind.

There were swans on the lake outside, she told him. "It was the height of summer, there was a blazing heat all day. His mother pushed herself to the front of the photos. I’ve never seen anyone looking so proud. Then she turned to me. And it was like the scales fell from her eyes. I think that was the moment she knew. That I was never going to be the daughter-in-law she’d wanted."

Victoria snapped out of her reminiscence, casting aside the memory of disillusionments long ago consigned to history. She looked down at her mug, her hands wrapped around its body, her fingers fed through the handle. The warmth that bled through the ceramic seemed to spur her on, fuelling her somehow.

"The first few years were… fine. Ordinary, I suppose you’d call them. I mean, they weren’t perfect, but nothing ever is, really, is it? Some days were better than others, and the ones that weren’t — well, we just put up with things, don’t we? I don’t know why any of us do that. Why do we just — put up with things? We do it all the time – at home, in work, down the pub. Why don’t any of us ever learn to say that we deserve better?"

I think, Adam answered slowly, "there are things we can put up with… because it’s worth it."

Raising the mug to her lips, Victoria took a sip. Adam was conscious that his lay cooling an arm’s length away. He hadn’t touched a drop but, for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to so much as pick it up.

He never loved me, she said unemotionally, as if he hadn’t spoken. "Not really. I think, deep down, I always knew that. It wasn’t just the doubt talking. As far as he was concerned, I was just… there. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been somebody else. I was just… filling a space for him.

"That’s how I first got into orchids. I suppose, in a funny sort of way, I must have thought that if I couldn’t save my marriage, then I’d have to find something else I could bring back to life. A friend of mine – she bought one for a housewarming party she’d been invited to. I was fascinated by it. So I bought one of my own. The orchids were something I could work on in my spare time. They gave me something to nurture. Remember I told you that I entered a few in competitions and horticultural shows? Not because I thought I’d win, but – because it helped. At first, anyway. I did a lot of cooking too. Mostly for the neighbours. I’d work my way through recipe books, building up my own little repertoire.

"Eventually, the loneliness got harder and harder to ignore. Andrew would spend every night at the pub getting smashed. He wouldn’t even bother to tell me he was going some days. I’d get home from work, find the house empty and just wait for him to fall through the door come midnight. It started to become a routine. And those nights got colder, Adam. Lonelier. It took me years to come to my senses and realise that I was the spare part – though a pretty convenient one when all was said and done. It was useful for him to have a wife. Someone to fill his plate in the early hours, or sober him up at lunchtime when he’d finally dragged himself out of bed. She scoffed. He could roll through the door with a gut full of beer, knowing there was someone to roll on top of whenever he felt like it."

Adam bristled in his seat. She saw a groundswell of discomfort manifest, watched it glide across his features, though he did his best to conceal it.

Oh don’t worry – we hardly ever slept together. Most of the time, I’d snatch a few hours on the couch after work while I waited for him to come home. Then I’d stay there after he’d gone to bed. It was easier that way. The odd fumble in the dark when he was tanked up and needed to blow off some steam wasn’t what you’d call marital bliss.

She’d tried to make light of it, to add some measure of flippancy to her words in the hope it might ease his disquiet, but she could tell she hadn’t succeeded. She forced herself to swallow and then, inhaling a deep breath that was tinged by the last vapours of steam rising from her mug, she laid bare the truth. Her truth.

"The gambling started not long after. He’d bet on the horses, then the football. He’d even bet on who was going to win some tacky late-night quiz show if he was pissed enough. They’d all go together, him and his mates from the White Hart. The others knew he had a soft spot for it, so they’d wind him up, egg him on. Build up the thrill that gamblers get when they think they’re on for the win.

"He bet thousands. Money that we didn’t have. And he always lost because – well, gamblers always do, don’t they? As soon as my wages went into the account every month, they were gone again. But he carried on. He fell deeper and deeper into the mouth of that addiction, convinced that if he just placed one more bet then things would turn around and he’d be on the home straight. I never figured out if that was him talking, or the beer. And I never knew whether he actually wanted to save himself or whether secretly he’d’ve been happy to self-destruct. Although I’d like to believe that maybe – for the sake of 26-year-old me if no one else – he’d have climbed out of the hole if he could have.

"In the end, I told him that we needed to ask his parents for help – that otherwise we’d drown – but he was never going to agree to that. Going cap in hand to his mother and father would have been too much like accepting failure. And, in Andrew’s eyes, it was only ever other people who failed."

She hesitated, looking Adam over before committing to what came next. I got pregnant. She laughed lightly as Adam’s face shifted from closed impassiveness to a look of startled disbelief. By the time he realised his expression had contorted, it was too late to hide it.

Don’t worry, she said, "it was as much of a shock to me. He came home drunk one night, same as always. Just by chance, I was upstairs when he staggered in. It was the first time in… months, maybe longer, that we’d…" She trailed off, inhaling deeply.

"I’ve never forgotten the look he gave me when I told him I was expecting. He took it all in, told me what a surprise it was, but he didn’t smile. Not once. There was nothing there except disappointment. He’d always wanted children – we’d even talked about it in the early days, before every waking hour became an exercise in going through the motions. I thought the news might sober him up. Hell, I thought it might even somehow be the making of us. But that look he gave me… it wasn’t that he didn’t want a baby – he didn’t want a baby with me. It ties you to someone, doesn’t it? Having a child together. No matter how much you might want to edge them out of your life – as soon as that baby’s born, you can’t. And you never will. They’re always there. Part of you. Part of that person you brought into the world together.

"He hated the idea of it. I think it brought home to him how false everything was. How badly he wanted to break away from something that had stopped having any meaning a long time ago."

What happened? Adam asked her.

She shrugged, as if resigned to the inevitability of what had followed. I miscarried. There were no warning signs; there was nothing to say that anything was wrong. It just… happened. In the toilets at work. Then it was over, just like that. Like a flame snuffed out. I didn’t tell anyone; I just went back to doing what I’d been doing because – what else could I do? I thought that baby was my only hope, Adam. My way of salvaging something from the wreckage. But I lost her. I lost her, and I never even knew her.

She drank from her mug again, more deeply this time. He wondered if the long, intense inhalation was a way of disguising her tears. Adam thought she was wrestling with the weight of all of her memories; as twenty years’ worth of life bore down on her, suddenly and unexpectedly. He’d felt his heart sink earlier; now, his stomach was knotting tightly. Part of him wanted to get up from the chair, cross the room and place his arm around her, as if that simple act would serve to console them both. He resisted the urge, retreating patiently into himself as she gathered her composure and met his eyes.

"I waited for Andrew to come home that night. I knew where I could find him – where I could always find him if I wanted to – but I stayed put. On my own, in the dark, my mind going round and round in circles. He was three sheets to the wind when he got back, I could tell. I should have waited – I should have done – but the moment he saw me, he could see how pale and shaken I was. I’d let it all out as soon as I’d stepped through the door.

We were in the kitchen when it happened. I think it was the moment he heard the word miscarriage that something changed. I’d said lost at first, but that sounds stupid, doesn’t it? Like I’d misplaced something or – or put my keys down and forgotten where I’d left them. As if what was missing would turn up again if we looked hard enough. Why do we do that, hey? Why don’t we tell each other what we really mean? Why don’t we just come out and say someone’s died and nothing we do will ever bring them back?

She swallowed hard.

"He just got angrier and angrier. He kept telling me it was my fault – that I’d been too busy going out to work, paying off our debts, rushing back and forth like a whirlwind in heels, that it was my fault that our baby had died.

"I knew it was the drink talking. His eyes were like glass – he was plastered, for God’s sake – but he just kept on and on. And all I could hear in my head were the words your fault. Two words, playing over and over again.

He pushed me. Only once. He’d never done that before. Oh, I’m not making excuses for him, I just mean that no matter how disappointed he’d become with his life, he’d never raised a hand to me. Not once. He’d drown those feelings in a beer glass instead. Only that night, the glass was empty. So he pushed me. I fell backwards, onto the stove. I’d been heating something up for him to have when he came back, same as always…

Victoria… Adam breathed.

She let the tears come easily now, light and tender on her skin, each one conducting a slow roll down her cheeks, before another followed in its wake. "It’s not like I’ve never burnt myself cooking before. But that night – it was as if something was burning inside us both. I had to have a skin graft. Only a small one, you can’t really tell to look at it now, can you? If I hadn’t told you, you’d never have known. But that was my marriage in a nutshell. It wasn’t enough for me to lose the only baby I’ve ever carried; he had to push me onto a fucking burning stove as well."

She sipped her drink feebly. Adam wondered how cold his own must have gotten.

"I’ve never seen someone so disgusted with themselves. He was crying like a two year old, telling me how sorry he was, that he’d never meant to hurt me. That the beer and the betting, it would all stop. That he’d change. He’d do more. I think, for a little while there, he might have even believed it.

"I came home from hospital to the same empty house. He drank less, I’ll give him that. But he never stopped – not completely. I don’t suppose he ever will. He was trying to reign himself in, at least; to get on top of the debt. Every time temptation reared its head, I think some part of his brain kicked in and brought back the memory of that night – the fear that he might do something like that again. There’s a difference between not loving someone and wanting to hurt them. I think he knew that. He went to see someone – not for long, but long enough to get some control of himself. He fed his mates a line, something to fend them off whenever they tried to bait him.

"But he still didn’t come home. In fact, he’d use any excuse he could to stay away. He started working for an accountants. I didn’t find out until much later that it was only a part-time thing. He used to stay late – far longer than they paid him for. When they finally pushed him out the door, he’d go to the park or the shopping centre and just – sit somewhere. He’d find a bench or tuck himself away in coffee shop. Sometimes, he’d just walk around for hours, aimlessly. Just a broken man with nothing to show for those years of marriage, who’d let his wife – no, not even that – who’d let himself down. Meanwhile, that house just got colder, and lonelier, and more empty. By then, it was emptier than it had ever been.

"That’s what I remember the most about those days. The empty space. Like there was this big, yawning crater where our marriage was supposed to be. The marriage that 26-year-old me had pinned all her hopes and dreams on. 26-year-old me who’d met this man at the bus stop one morning when his car had broken down. Who’d thought he was charming and said she’d have a drink with him. 26-year-old me who’d rushed headlong into the first good thing she could find, all naïve and innocent, expecting everything to just work out. And where did that get me? An empty house and an empty life. A marriage made up of two people who, when you stripped the detritus away, never really had anything in common. Two people who just happened to live together, under the same roof, for all those years. Years spent living in a world that felt more like an empty shell.

"We never slept in the same room again. I knew it was over, and so did he, we just didn’t dare have the conversation. He’d already driven us to the brink with the gambling, so there was practically nothing left by then. Anything else had been gobbled up paying off what we owed. I used to imagine him, sitting in a park somewhere, thinking about how he’d failed, and I actually felt sorry for him. Imagine that – me! Feeling sorry for him. Even now, after all these years, I still doubt myself. Still wonder if there was something I could have done to put it right. I can hear him, you know – his voice inside my head, telling me that it was all my fault. Not the baby, but everything. Everything that went stale and sour.

Do you know what I wanted? she asked Adam. More than anything?

He shook his head, not sure how to answer her.

The same thing I’d wanted when I was 26 years old. It never changed – not once. It’s why I went for a drink with him in the first place. I just wanted someone to love me. I didn’t need a big hotel in the country, or an expensive wedding paid from some banker’s bonus. I just wanted someone who’d put their arms around me and push all the doubts away. Someone who’d say it and mean it. Because that’s what we all want in the end, isn’t it? Someone who says it and means it.

It wasn’t your fault, Adam told her, his voice hushed and low. The afternoon light was creeping through the windows; thin slivers of sun that were masked by fragments of deepening cloud. "None of it. I know it can’t be undone, I know the past never goes away, but you have to believe that. You have to believe that it wasn’t your fault."

The tears fell quickly now; a quiet release in the eye of the storm she’d fashioned around herself. I never got over that night, Adam, she sobbed. "Every day since, I’ve felt it. In my back. Where he burned me. Where I smashed into that stove. I close my eyes and I can still hear my hip cracking against the side. There’s nothing there, I know that, but I still feel it. I feel it every day. In my joints. When I twist or turn or bend. It’s like a shadow on my skin. Like something stitched into my nerves. I put my hand there, and it hurts. I stretch my back, and it hurts."

It’s… Adam started.

"I know what it is. It’s a phantom – an echo. I’m not stupid. I’ve tried to make it go away – God, I’ve tried so hard to find something to numb the pain…" She reached out to where she had left her coat, draped casually over the arm of the couch, and dug into the pocket. She pulled out the same blister pack that he’d seen her rescue from the pavement where she’d dropped it. She threw it onto the carpet at Adam’s feet. He reached down to pick it up, turning the thin strip of plastic between his fingers, uncertainly.

I take those, she told him, in response to his quizzical look. "Too often. Far more than I should. They make things – they make things easier."

Adam cast his mind back to that night in the Library. He’d watched Victoria crossing the room to the water cooler. He’d thought nothing of seeing her swallow something that she’d kept clasped in the palm of her hand. His brain had filed away the image, categorising it as irrelevant. Now, he saw the urgency in her eyes as she talked about her private pain, registered the look of longing she was directing towards the painkillers and understood how hard it must have been for her; to sit in that meeting room, so composed and collected, inwardly yearning for something that would dull the aching memory she had never been able to shake.

How often—? he started to ask.

Every day. It’s not— She stopped, reconsidering what she’d been about to say, continuing only after a beat had passed. "As soon as I take them, I’m fine. I can face the day. But the thought of not having them – the thought of the ache, the soreness if I don’t…"

You’re reliant on them, he told her. It wasn’t a question.

Yes, she answered. I just need something—

Something to take the pain away, he finished, gently.

His mind was whirling again, his thoughts like propellers in his skull as he tried to process what she’d told him. Painkillers, he told himself. She’s addicted to painkillers.

"When I met