Background
Charles and Helen have their trip to the Hindu Kush put on hold while they travel to England to support Bisto in his hour of need. While there, they take a short and disastrous trip to Moonrakers.
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Closing paragraphs of Chapter 69
I spent most of the rest of the night gazing at the ceiling, letting the impact of the last few hours sink in. I had lost everything, the memorabilia and accoutrements of a lifetime. Strangely, I felt an overwhelming sensation of release. I no longer had any ties to the past. It was as if I had been reborn, a phoenix rising from the ashes.
After a while, I was aware of Helen by my side. She had drawn up a chair and was watching over me like a guardian angel. Our eyes met, searching hidden depths in one another. No word was spoken, but at that moment I realised that, in losing everything, I had gained something immeasurably better than I deserved; a second chance at life.
Chapter 70
The following morning, while we were waiting for the doctor to do his rounds, I had a visitor, none other than John, the proprietor of The Fallen Angel. He edged into the ward, scanning the occupant of each bed until his eyes lit on me with evident relief.
"I don't much like these places, Mr Brandon, and that's the truth. But it warms me heart to see you sitting up in bed looking like your old self. Indeed, it does."
"So good of you to call in, John. Can't say how much I appreciate it." I pointed at a chair in the corner. "Pull up a pew. Come and sit down."
"Can't stay long, but me and Bess just wanted you to have this." He thrust a small brown paper parcel into my hand, tied up prettily with red ribbon and a bow. "It's not much," he said as I unwrapped it, "but maybe it'll remind you of the old place. It belonged to my grandfather," he added.
I stared down at the family heirloom in disbelief. Wiltshire Rhymes and Tales in the Wiltshire Dialect by Edward Slow 1894. "Look," he said, "signed by the author and all. You'll find the Moonrakers legend there, somewhere towards the back, told almost as good as old Gabriel told it you that night when you was last here. Remember?"
I remembered all right. If it hadn't been for John coming to my rescue, Gabriel would have had me cornered all night.
"I can't accept this, John. It's too much."
"Nonsense, squire. Least we can do under the circumstances. Oh, and before I forget, the lads are having a whip round Saturday night to help put you back on your feet." He shifted uncomfortably before getting up to shake my hand. "'Fraid I must be on my way. Have to open up for the lunchtime trade. Can't keep my customers waiting, can I?"
"What a nice man," Helen said, as she slipped onto the chair that had just been vacated.
"Sorry, love. I should have introduced you."
"No, I wouldn't have wanted to intrude. He looked uncomfortable enough as it was." She picked up the book, flipping it open at random. "HAYMEAKIN ZONG, When Mid-zummer is draain nigh. An grass in mead, an vield is high... Goodness! It's written in a foreign language."
"Not really. But it does take a bit of getting used to, I must admit."
Right on cue, Nancy Wilkins appeared, wreathed in smiles, her accent resonating with rhotic richness, long-drawn-out vowels, and a silken buzz of 'z's and 'v's.
"An' howz Mizter Brandon veelin this morning?" She pulled up a chair and plonked herself down next to Helen. "You muz be the young lady Jed wuz tellin' uz about. 'E wuz the one as zaved your car, Mizter B. Lucky you left the keys in th'ignition."
She scarcely paused for breath before launching into her plans for the day. "I've told that young doctor vella, we'll be lookin' after you, zoon as he sez you can go. The spare room's made up an' we won't take no vor an answer. You tell him, missy - doctor's orders."
*****
And so it was. By midday we were seated in the parlour of Widdershins Farm. Old Jack Wilkins exuded gap-toothed charm as he handed Helen a glass of Nancy's finest elderflower wine. There was a wooden board on the table, with a hunk of Wiltshire Blue and Bath Oliver biscuits. I looked at it longingly but knew that my throat wouldn't be up to such luxuries for a while.
"Will ye be 'aving zum elderflower, Charles? Or p'raps you'll join me in a drop of scrumpy?"
I wasn't sure which was the lesser of the two evils. Whichever I chose was going to render me comatose for the remainder of the day. I knew Jack's scrumpy of old. Redolent of wrinkled apples, it was a cloudy brew with a kick like a Jersey bull and enough body to suggest a drowned rat or two at the bottom of the barrel. However, I knew he'd be offended if I didn't join him.
"Just half a pint, then."
"Nonsense, man. There's no such thing." Just as I feared, he returned with two pewter tankards full to the brim. "This'll do more to anaesthetise your throat than anything them wretched doctors'll give you." How right he was. By the time I'd drained the contents, I felt ready to do battle with Bath Olivers and Wiltshire Blue. After the second pint, I could have taken on a Jersey bull, roar for blood-curdling roar.
Eventually, Jack excused himself. He had jobs to do around the farm before bringing the cows in for milking. Nancy told us to make ourselves at home. She needed to relieve Liz in the farm shop so she could have her lunch break.
Helen and I took the hint and decided we'd go out for a walk. Unsure of who was supporting whom, we made our way down Primrose Lane, blissfully unaware of sombre clouds gathering in the west. As much as I dreaded the task, I had to see what was left of Moonrakers.
An old grey mare looked up with mild interest as we passed, then continued grazing. Wood pigeons cooed. Everywhere around us, there was an air of somnolence edged with the heavy stillness that precedes a storm.
When we turned into the lane leading to Moonrakers, we were startled by a harsh alarm call and rushing of wings as a cock pheasant took flight, exploding from the trees, a flash of red wattle surging ahead of its verdigris neck and copper plumage. A colony of rooks rose out of the gaunt limbs of an elm tree, cawing and circling like harbingers of doom, then settling back again, the danger passed.
A cold wind sprang up as we approached the cottage, now a haphazard skeleton of blackened beams, a harsh outline of chimney stacks, an oozing morass of charred thatch, and gaping wounds where windows once had been. There was nothing left to clothe the ugliness of contorted timbers. Small wisps of smoke still swirled from the smouldering remains, giving the illusion of a beaten monster subsiding in the final throes of death.
Confronting the ravaged remains brought home the enormity of my loss. I turned to Helen and we clung together, suspended in disbelief, till the first raindrops mingled with the tears I was fighting to hold back. Helen took my hand and dragged me with her to the shelter of the trees at the entrance to Druids Wood. As we turned the corner, we discovered, half-hidden at the edge of the bridle track, the sleek green shape of my beloved MGB. Whoever the mysterious Jed might be, I could at that moment have kissed him, an action that would doubtless have earned me a black eye.
Author Notes
List of characters
Charles Brandon - the narrator, a well-known travel writer.
Group Captain Bamforth (alias Sir David Brockenhurst) - an intelligence officer with MI6 and Air Attache in Paris
Helen Culverson - Also a travel writer, whose relationship with Charles is complicated by her relationship with Jeanne Durand.
Kayla Culverson - her older sister, who disappeared somewhere in Bangkok and has surfaced again in Paris.
Madame Jeanne Durand - a French magazine editor and undercover agent with the French Drug Squad.
Madame Madeleine Bisset - Helen's landlady in Paris
Mr Bukhari - a Pakistani businessman (now deceased)
Ian 'Bisto' Kidman - an ex-RAF friend of Charles's.
Monsieur Bellini - a denizen of the French Underworld.
Andre (aka Scaramouche) - an actor in Montmartre and friend of Kayla's
Dr. Laurent - a veterinary surgeon in Versailles.
Father Pierre Lacroix - vicar of the Versailles Notre Dame church.
Madame Lefauvre - an old woman living in Versailles - the town gossip.
Alain Gaudin - brother of Francoise, a gardener at Monet's house in Giverney
Francoise Gaudin - Alain's an intellectually disabled sister.
Estelle Gaudin [deceased] - mother of Francoise and Alain, a prostitute
Mademoiselle Suzanne Gaudin [deceased] - Alain's grandmother, to whom the mysterious letter of 1903 was addressed.
Jack and Nancy Wilkins - a Wiltshire dairy farmer and his wife.
Colonel Neville Arnoux [deceased] - of whom we may hear more later.
Gaston Arnoux - Owner of an art gallery in Paris, recently assassinated by Charles Asserted to be leader of an ISIS network
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