Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

The boy runs headlong across the beach. There is the sound of music on the air, The Beatles are singing a song about a walrus and an egg-man, and it drifts from the promenade above, turned tinny by the transistor radio.

The gulls are also demanding attention, wheeling overhead as wind currents determine their path across the flat grey sky.

Then there is the ocean, it sucks and slurps on the pebbles and shale, a drawn out hiss marking its advance and retreat.

All of these things are secondary to the boy’s sobs. They are the sounds of grief, the sound of loss. His heart is a stone in his chest, his throat raw with the screams of despair at the recent, awful news that has been brought to their door by a coastguard whose face was ashen with shock.

His father is dead. The man he looked up to, the man who kept him safe, made him laugh with terrible jokes, now gone claimed by the sea. The breeze hits his face, his eyes are already blurred with tears but now they are stinging with sea-salt, and he rubs at them with the heel of his palms.

He runs until his legs become weak and rubbery, the muscles slacken and give out, his knees ploughing into the shale, hands splaying and he is now on all fours, gasping for breath. He sees something on the ocean, a brief, brilliant flash, a perfect circle as though the sun has fallen into the writhing water.

Then it is gone and the tide washes into him, almost knocking him sideways. The shock of the icy water revives him. As he stands, he places his palms on the ground to push off and his right hand finds something in the shale, a piece of driftwood that he drags with him to his feet.

Written in the black wood are words. He stares at the words, trying to make sense of them.

All would eventually become clear to him, but it would not be until many years later, and by then it will be far too late.

***

To the locals, Alvechurch antiques faire was a familiar event. On the last Sunday of each month, the man in the Paisley waistcoat would come along to the village hall and set up his stall, thermos flask of coffee and a plastic blue sandwich box by his feet.

The man sat at his table, unaware that at that very moment, over 300 miles away, a boy was mourning the loss of his father to the ocean. This in itself was not remarkable; no one can know all things, after all. And had he known, he would have wept for the boy, for he had also lost his father when he was young. He never spoke about it, never drew attention to it, because some losses are greater than others, and some simply cannot be replaced.

He did, however, know his merchandise perfectly. It was spread out and individually priced with small, neatly handwritten labels. All about him the busy sounds of traders setting up their stalls, the joyful and polite banter echoed around the hall. There were over thirty tables in the hall, laden with trinkets and jewellery, coins and medals, pieces of furniture and gold and silverware of all shapes and sizes.

Those who attended were as diverse as the items on show. Young and old, professional and amateur, all here for one end, to court the past, to own a piece of history.

And the spoils of the past were indeed laid out on his table. Rows of military service memorabilia, from many conflicts, across centuries; medals and buttons, cap badges, regimental seals, and insignia, belt buckles, and service binoculars. The man surveyed them all as he adjusted his tiny glasses on his big nose, friendly eyes, watery with age, tufts of white hair escaping from beneath his red beret.

The man reached down for his flask, a polite cough stalled his hand and he looked up. Standing in front of his table was a large man who carried with him an air of authority, his broad shoulders squared off beneath a navy blue blazer, his paunch beneath his white shirt hanging over his belt.

“Good day, sir,” the man in the blazer said in a firm yet jaunty voice. “My name is Clive.”

“Good day,” said the man in the Paisley waistcoat. “ I’m Stephen. How may I help you?”

“I would very much like to purchase this item,” Clive said.

He reached down and tapped the object on the table. It was a gold disc, constructed of three circles, like plates stacked on top of each other, the largest at the bottom.

“I see,” said Stephen, vaguely.

“It is for sale, isn’t it?” Clive said.

“Everything is for sale here,” Stephen said with a beaming smile.

“There is no price tag,” Clive said. “I feared the worse.”

Stephen looked down at the disc and frowned. “Well, I guess I must have forgotten to price it up. Perhaps it is only right that you make me an offer.”

Now it was Clive who appeared surprised. “Are you sure?”

“The customer is always right, as they say. And there is a feeling coming upon me that this item means for you to take it home.”

“Very well,” Clive said and made an offer on the spot.

After a few moments, Stephen stood and offered his hand. “It’s a deal. Shall I wrap it for you?”

Clive watched the Stephen shroud the disc in tissue paper and then add a layer of bubble wrap. He then stooped to retrieve a cardboard box into which he placed the wrappings, finally sealing the lid with parcel tape.

He gave Clive the box and in return received a wad of notes. The two men bid each other good day and Stephen watched Clive disappear into the throng of visitors, the box tucked under his arm.

Stephen counted out the money and shook his head. Not because the amount was short, not because it was more money than he’d made in the past two months put together.

No, he shook his head, because, for a reason that was beyond him, he had no recollection of ever owning the object he had just sold.