A bag is left behind...what's inside, meant never to be seen, comes back to haunt them.
Victoria lay Marsh to rest on that drizzle gray day, with the wind whipping at their slickers and burberrys, while umbrellas trembled and where-under huddled a small flock, high on the green knoll atop the steep white cliffs. September 14 1947, Marsh Jurrey was put asunder. While heading out of port sailed a long low tanker, it’s black smoke trailing as it started its trek into the Channel. Which direction would she turn? Heymond wondered to himself. The sea was choppy, and caps danced from peak to peak and as far as the eye could see, which on a day as bitter as today, was not all that far. The salty blast stung their eyes, and caused the congregation to bow in reverence and preservation, hunched, tilting noticeably into the wind. Heymond’s riding goggles protected his sight and as he cleared them with finger wipes he saw the ship turn to the South. They had made some pointed comments about his choice to ride his motorbike from the ceremony to the hill, and in such weather! But Hey’ felt it was a suiting farewell since Marsh was the bike’s mechanic, and a darn good one at that, leaving him in a slight quandary about where to go for service now that the old man had passed.
Marsh had been a Sergeant Major for Montgomery’s troops in North Africa, in charge of the motor pool for the campaign against Rommel. Obvious from the gathering that he had been respected within a close rank of friends and war mates, of which there were a half dozen of so. There were four women, including his wife, daughter, mum, and one who stood apart and seemed unknown to the rest.
Hey’ eyed the woman. She was dressed well…too well for this small town crumbling from the weight of the war, goods scarce, fashion tattered. She was dressed simple, respectful, but also rich. They could all see it, and the questions hung heavy in the air as Marsh received the shovels’ final burden.
“And who would this be?”
“What is she doing here?”
“What business does she have with old Marsh?”
Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen her arrive. She was not in the chapel for the ceremony, he would know. He had been an usher and stood facing the congregation until dismissal, at which time he walked briskly up the aisle and met them all at the door as they exited; assisting ladies with coats, gents with umbrellas, then holding the door open against the blasting winds. He watched as they each slipped into one of four cars, and followed on his motorbike as they slid their way up the muddy hill road to the gravesite.
Hey’ found her to be mysterious.
Someone rudely grabbed his arm and broke his reverie. “Heymond, come to the house. Kate has requested it. She has an errand to be run.” It was Marsh’s stepson Tate. Marsh never cared for Tate, because he knew Tate looked down upon him. His real father, an Earl, was killed in a bomber run. He was an Ace in the Queen’s own, and Tate bore the bloodlines.
“I…I don’t know, I have obligations.” Which was true.
“Don’t disappoint her, Hey’”
Hey’ walked across the lawn to Victoria’s side and took her hand and thanked for the invitation, that it meant a lot, that it had been an honor knowing Marsh, but that he had obligations. She hugged him tight and reminded him that he was one of Marsh’s favorites, ever since they had moved here seventeen years ago. Marsh knew that he liked the lad even though Heymond was a child at the time. An uruly child at that.
“Marsh would want you to get-on-with-it. And I concur.”
“Thank you. I…”
“I know.”
Four miles down the highway, having got a late start, Hey’ gained on the black sedan she had departed in. It had appeared just at the top of the hill, just above the gathering. That’s how she had arrived, from the upper road, over the crest and that’s how she left. Quiet, and quick. Now, closing on the auto as it sped through the rain, into the wind, blinding him with the spray of it’s perilous wake, he zigzagged desperately looking for a trench or hollow in the sedan’s backwash. Finally he found a groove just inside the left rear fender, at the rear of the driver and just outside the rear window. Then in that window she turned to look back at him. Was she smiling? Perhaps, but then she wiped a tear. The moment just fractions within a blurr of whipping rain and swirling drafts. Hey tried to swing wide but his headlight caught the wide board barricade immediately ahead and he swung back in but the sedan did not respond as quickly. The driver’s hard steer barely broke the momentum as the wheels failed to grip, sending the mass in motion, through the barricade flying into the harsh darkness. Hey’ lost control of his bike, shocked by the sight, he plowed into the opposite embankment, sending him skyward until landing in a muddy heap, while the bike careened back across the road again and cut it’s own path up and out into the black gorge.
He had been out for a while, he thought. He came back to consciousness as if from a nights sleep, but wondering why it was raining in his bedroom...then thought maybe shower... Realizing he was elsewhere but with no knowledge of where that might be. A woman called out from the night. Was it an illusion of the wind or…? It came again. Real. He sensed a direction, and turned back behind him. In a flash of lightning he saw the shattered barricade and from beyond them a call came once again. Hey’ tried to rise but his legs buckled then slid away from beneath him. He landed awkward with legs crossed and askew and immediately felt the pain of his fractured pelvis. “Auuuuuuggghhh.” He screamed into the wind, and the wind answered, “Help us!”
At the wreckage, he has crawled across roadway and slid gingerly down wet hillside to get there –the driver is nowhere to be found but his door sprung out, hinges bent and broken, had been tossed out no doubt. And inside the inverted cab, she lay bloody on the interior roof, now it’s floor.
“I can’t die like this. I came to say goodbye. I should not have come. I am too young, please don’t let me die here like this.” Her voice grew more weary the more she spoke but she continued to speak as if to live, making a noise, communicating, coherent, breathing, living…she grasped it, she rabbled, she shuddered, she died. But before she died she uttered her last words and they were, “the satchel…must…”
The satchel whose leather strap was twisted around her arm, and spattered with her blood, probably buffeted her and enabled her to survive the immediate impact, but she bled freely and succumbed.
He tenderly extricated the satchel strap from around her broken arm and slid back out into the rain clutching the bag like a child it’s doll. A light swung past him and illuminated the wreckage and a voice called out. He turned to look and there she was once again peering out in his direction, pressed against the glass but not blinking, and the voice...was not hers. This time the pain and light crescendoed, and he did not fight for consciousness and accepted his blackout.
