Comments welcome. This is not the full Chapter 1, just the first part of it. I'll post some more when I write some more. (this isn't in Historical Fiction cos then it doesn't appear on the front page, and I want some exposure)
Chapter 1
Robert hurried along the snow-covered, cobbled street. The cold air made him shiver. He pulled his muffler scarf tighter about his neck. At this time in the evening, the town was mostly empty: a few others traversed the wintered ground, and the continuous heavy snowfall that clouded the dark air, but they were rare, and for the most part he travelled alone. But he had no need for company right now.
Robert was eager to get back to his lodging and before a fire that would warm his frostbitten skin. The weather just mimicked to the coldness of his emotions, the deadness of his soul. The emptiness. It had been five months since the accident and he still hadn’t forgiven himself.
A sudden wind sharpened the edge of the storm, and it threw a blizzard into Robert’s face. He turned his face to the side to take away the worst, and stumbled onwards. His coat caught the air like a sail and he found it hard to make fast progress. Like a ship caught dead in the water. Robert didn’t smile at the analogy that formed in his mind. He had found that his life had been inextricably linked with the ways of the seas since his childhood, when his father has been a Captain in the Royal Navy.
The future seemed a bleak place to walk into, just like the rest of the street that was masked in darkness and swirling snow particles. There was no favourable wind, nor the superstitious luck every sailor wished for. It was either the storm or the just as terrifying calm, where there was no one there for him. There’s nobody here for me now.
Barely an hour had passed since he had stood in the graveyard, below the leafless trees, among the small congregation of mourners, and watched Kate’s body buried solemnly in the earth prepared for her.
He hadn’t wept. He just watched her lifeless corpse, wishing the blood still flowed. Imagining that her eyes still moved in that sparkling way, hoping her hand would be imbued once more with that soft touch and it would find his, like it did all those wonderful times. They were almost lost in his memory now; they seemed like from a different world. A different person.
The vicar, who had known her, said Catherine was a beautiful creation that would be missed by all. It was impossible, thought Robert, to describe what she was in words. Only those who had seen her smile even when everything fell apart could possibly comprehend how special she truly was. He still hadn’t wept then. It didn’t seem real. Robert felt like a man out of place, at the wrong funeral perhaps, like all the proceedings were a horrible fantasy that he was being forced to watch. Maybe the truth just hadn’t hit home. What was it his father used to say? Some fools don’t know what they’ve lost until they need to use it.
He shivered again, wrapping his arms around his body in a futile attempt to warm them. It had been five months since she had died and he still expected her to be there when he got home, looking at him with those eyes that never ceased. He needed her now. There was emptiness inside him that nothing could fill, a gap that could not be bridged, and a sea that could not be crossed.
The sea. Stubborn and unchanging. Always a constant enemy to every man that had sailed its treacherous waves and passed its incessant challenges. But this time he could not blame the sea. This time he could only blame himself: he wanted her to come even when she refused. He had pushed too hard and she had fallen.
The wind increased, and his muffler unravelled itself and flew from his neck, leaving it unprotected. Robert grasped at thin air while trying to stop it flying it off, but it was pointless. The garment disappeared into the night. Another casualty. His expression turned glummer as his body felt colder, and he began to shiver continuously.
His mind turned once more to the funeral. He hadn’t even wept, when, after she was buried and the earth filled, the Vicar read a passage from the Bible and almost every other person there broke down in tears. Only when everybody had left, and the Vicar whispered his condolences to Robert, and left him alone, with just the gravestone and the deserted cemetery for company did tears fall down his own cheeks. Only when there were no one to watch, no one to judge, would he show just how broken his spirit was.
Just like they taught a King’s officer to act. Even when the bullets were flying, and the cannons firing, and the smoke rising, you were taught to act like nothing was wrong. Even when a man was cut brutally apart in front of you, blood and guts and all spilt half over you and half over the deck, you must show nonchalance. His love had been cut brutally apart from him, and his tears had wetted the grass.
He turned left when he reached the end of the street, across from the baker’s, and made his way down toward the seafront where his lodging was aft of the harbour. The wind had stayed a little, lulled, and he quickened his pace to take advantage.
The invasive but familiar smell of salty sea air, always present in Truro, increased. He could hear the splashes of the waves despite not being able to see them this late at night. But though he couldn’t see the vast body of water that stretched far to the very edge of the horizon, he knew it would be there, just like it always had been. And probably always would be. A fear gripped at the base of his throat and he had to physically swallow to calm himself. The worst enemy is the one you can’t see, not the one that shows you everything. The message his father had beaten into him from as young as he can remember. And the invisible enemy had taken the love of his life from him barely five months ago, on a night similar to this one, albeit it warmer, where the darkness meant the sea and the sky were blended.
And she had fallen overboard.
He had screamed and shouted until his voice was hoarse, but there were no replies. He had thrown himself into the water and swam until his skin was blue and his muscles torn. He had wept until his eyes hurt too much. But she had gone.
In the morning they had found her body, bloodied and shredded amongst the rocks, floating on the tide.
Robert took one last look in the direction of the sea, and turned toward his lodging, a small house wedged between others that were of similar appearance. He knew his landlady, Mrs.Donovan, would be there, to offer a hot drink or something comforting.
But Kate wouldn’t be. And that was why he finally wept again, as he stood on the doorstep with the snow catching in his ruffled hair. Alone.
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