A Line in the Sand (68 page)

co

had been taken.

The body

es had gone.

Davi

d Rankin had left before him, loaded their kit into the car

Paget an

and

y.

driven awa

ham had stayed as little time as possible.

Geoff Mark

n had dismantled the poles and the screens hanging between

The workme

them; the crane would be there in the morning to lift out the hut, and

the technical people to disconnect the electronics. The workmen had ed out the sandbags and had helped to manhandle the mattresses

carri

back to the beds upstairs.

Only Blake, the last of his friends, remained, but would leave at

dawn.

The dusk fell. He had opened every heavy curtain in the house and the

out over the green. He had torn out all of the net

lights blazed

laced their

curtains, peeled the sticky tape from the mirrors and p

ctures back on the walls. He had pushed his easy chair, in the

pi

living room, away from the fire and into the window. He sat in his and the brightness of the lights lit the path, the front gate

chair

454

and

the fence. He saw them come Jerry and Mary first, then Barry and

Emma.

They came out of the darkness beyond the throw of the lights and they laid the flowers against the gate and the fence. The gang from the pub

followed them with more flowers. A few minutes afterwards it was

Mrs.

Fairbrother, Peggy and Paul. The call had come from London. A

drink-slurred voice, against a background of laughter and bottles

th glasses and music, had told him that the danger was

clinking wi

past

and would not return, that he was free to live his life.

The boy, her child, sat at his feet and watched with him as the cluster of flowers grew the vicar brought fresh-picked daffodils. The voice had said that what had never happened was over.

Early in the morning, after Blake had gone, he would ring for a van, and after he had fixed for it to take away their possessions he would make the arrangements for the funeral, and after the funeral he would drive away from the village with her child. He would drive to a place where he and her d~ild could remember her and give her love, a place where they were safe together from guns and friends.

He sat in the chair, his fingers gripping the boy's shoulders, and he stream of shadowy figures come in silence from the

watched t

darkness, pause by the gate, before hurrying back to the safety of homes.

their

Together they listened to the distant sound of waves

breaking relentlessly against the shore and stared out, beyond the floral penance, into the emptiness of the black night.

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