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Inevitable Blind Man Chapter 016
Chapter 16: SAM (PART 1)The first thing of which he was aware was a smell of disinfectant and the echoing voices of young women far away, chatting and laughing. His head seemed heavy on the pillow, his thoughts dull and sluggish . With an effort he opened his eyes. He could see a fire-extinguisher and some kind of transparent plastic tubing looped over a bracket on the wall. The effort of focusing was enormous so he gave up and allowed himself to drift back into a dreamless sleep.The second time he woke there were two nurses leaning over him, one in a grey uniform, the other a dark blue. Dark Blue addressed him in a kindly tone. “Hello Mr. Chenkov. You’re in hospital and there’s nothing to worry about. You’ve had an accident but you’re going to be fine. Can you hear me all right?”He found it easier to nod than to speak. He seemed totally devoid of energy. “Oh good,” Dark Blue replied in the kind of voice people use for children, “We’re pleased to have you back. Just get some sleep,
Inevitable Blind Man Chapter 017
Chapter 17: SAM (PART 2) The following day was a Saturday so Anna didn’t have to go to work. They spent the time quietly together, cooking, cooperating on a few domestic tasks, and took a relaxing shower together which led to a passionate session in bed.In the evening, at Ivor’s request, they sat down together at the computer to see what else could be discovered about Ivor 1’s earlier life, beyond the little that he had told Anna.Although Anna seemed reluctant to delve, and urged Ivan to concentrate more on their future together and less on the past, she was a lot more skilled than Ivor at using the search tools to unearth buried fragments of information. His research notes swelled. His father Yaraslav had been a colourful character in the chess world, though his career had been short-lived. World champion for less than a year, defeated by the American whose title he had won, then the defection and the marriage, and a year later a comeback match against the same man in which Yarasl
Inevitable Blind Man Chapter 018
Chapter 18: LIFE'S WORK "I can only give you ten minutes, darling," she warned the serious-looking young man, pointing to the chair beside her own. She watched with obvious interest as he sat down and produced some items from his scuffed leather holdall. "You're younger than I expected. Are you their arts columnist?"He smiled sheepishly. "No, Dame Laura. I'm just a reporter. We don't have columnists. We all have to turn our hand to whatever we're asked to do." He switched on his hand-held recorder as he spoke."Oh, less of the 'Dame' please. It makes me feel ancient and venerable. 'Laura' will be quite sufficient." She flashed one of her most charming smiles but found it hard to gauge his reaction. His expression retained its slightly unnerving intensity."Laura. Thank you. Laura it is then.""You seem a bit nervous, dear. I hope you aren't scared of me. I don't bite, you know! Have you been a reporter for very long?" As she spoke she produced a wad of cotton wool and dipped it into
Inevitable Blind Man Chapter 019
Chapter 19: THE SUMMER OF DUSTWith a pang of envy I leave my wife still sleeping and shower and dress silently, skipping breakfast so that I can arrive early to work as planned. The list of new students should be in today. There’s going to be a lot of administration before I can give any thought to my opening lecture.I log in to the University e-mail system. Yes, the list is there. But before I click on it I notice another e-mail from someone with the first name Balgeet. Seeing the name gives me a little jolt – like a shot of electricity going through my body. Ridiculous, I tell myself, after all these years. It’s probably a very common name in the Punjab. My finger hovers above the left-hand button on the mouse but does not descend. I lift my eyes and see the dust motes drifting in the shaft of light from beneath the window blind. The empty office fades from my vision. I am lost in a reverie, back in that tatty two-bedroom flat in Southall almost forty years ago…My place of study,
Inevitable Blind Man Chapter 020
Chapter 20: CAMBRIDGEI notice that I can feel my heart beating unusually fast. Partly, I know, it's anticipation of her arrival. Plain old schoolboy excitement. But partly also it's the anxiety that this might be the year that she doesn't come.Outside the thin nylon walls of my tent I can hear a buzz of light-hearted conversations mixed with a few distant singing voices, and musicians tuning up their instruments. Not the professionals who will be playing on the Festival stages of course, their campsite is elsewhere, but hundreds of amateurs carrying on a tradition that was already ancient when King David was learning to play his harp. There will be barbecues tonight, and throughout the four days of the Festival, and endless informal jamming sessions, and lovers will fall asleep to the same melodies that buskers played to the queues outside Shakespeare's Globe.I recognise the chords of When Johnny Comes Marching Home and something that might be The Banks of the Ohio. An American inf
Inevitable Blind Man Chapter 021
Chapter 21: CELIA'S SHRINEI'm glad you like the bungalow. I would like it to go to a happy young couple like you. We were always very happy here. Well, as happy as anybody ever is... you know what I mean. Why don't you sit down and I'll make the two of you a cup of tea?This was out in the country when we first moved here you know. Fields and sheep and cows. You couldn't call it the country now, could you? Times change. The city grows. We still have the field at the back, of course. Well, we always called it a field. Just a bit of rough meadow, really. We never did very much with it. The idea was that we would have a pony when our boy got a bit bigger. We would build a stable at one end. We never did, of course.No, it wasn't that. More that... our boy never did get big.I don't mind talking about it. It's a very long time ago now. Emily and I married quite late in life. When Emily had Charlie she was forty-one years old. We were one of the unlucky ones. The one in twelve. Charlie wa
Inevitable Blind Man Chapter 022
Chapter 22: COLLATERAL DAMAGEHe had no idea where the rest of the squad was now. Mickey Levitt had obviously bought it, he had felt the blood splatter his own face when the side of Mickey's head had exploded. At least it had been quick for him. The sergeant had shouted something but his voice had been lost in the explosion of a shell behind them. By the light of the same shell he had seen them veer off to the right, maybe towards a bunker that he hadn't spotted himself. If there was a bunker he hadn't been able to find it.Moving blindly forward he trod on something soft and yielding. It was a human arm inside the sleeve of a uniform. It might still be connected to its owner's body, there was so little light it was difficult to tell, and in any case it made no real difference. He paused and looked furtively from side to side into the darkness, every inch of him trembling as he tried feverishly to come up with a sensible course of action.Two enormous flashes lit up the horizon ahead
Inevitable Blind Man Chapter 023
Chapter 23: THE BATTLEFIELD PHILOSOPHERIt wouldn't be entirely true to say that I had arrived at this airport by chance. There were many routes that I could have chosen to get home to London from the Far East, stop-overs at Bucharest or Abbu Dhabi, Vienna or Cairo, but I had chosen this obscure little Central European capital because as soon as I had seen its name I had remembered my old friend of University days, Oliver McClure. Oliver had been my favourite teacher, a charming and eccentric Irish ex-priest, not a great deal older than his students, who lectured to the trainee teachers on the esoteric subject of "Philosophy of Education". I had never forgotten his answer to a young girl's question in the very first lecture that he had given to my group: it was an answer that had seized my attention and led me into an obsession with philosophy which came to rule my life. "Will studying philosophy make it any easier for us in the classroom?" she had asked. "Only if I fail," Oliver had
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