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7

Parnell half welcomed the coming war. He experienced the mood of 1914 when events had cut the snare of oppressive personal entanglements. The darkness of war was corrupt relief - death beckoned unwitting youth and he selfishly accepted its terrible import. His son was too young for service and his daughters not yet in puberty. He took comfort in the belief that this time Germany couldn't outlast one sharp battle with France. Behind her Maginot Line she was invincible. Flanders would never be repeated. A cheerful Rhinelander who bantered with him during the Rhine wine-fest of 1937 crossed his mind: 'since Hitler we are no longer an ordinary people.'
He had seen merit in Hitler's leadership but that was before the black Messiah bared his soul. It hardly said anything useful about Parnell to describe him as a man hardened by trench life but craving a protective womb. Surviving the Somme had encouraged a return to Christian belief but surviving a recent brush with the Gestapo revealed the pits of hell opening under mankind. And was he truly in a state of grace after years of putting his own conscience to sleep?
Could he trust this land of lost content set in the docile acres of Kent? Earlier, a bull, beyond a line of corn ricks had bellowed like a pagan horn announcing Arcady. Parnell engaged gears and swung the car towards ornate iron gates opening onto a broad gravel drive. A house loomed importantly. As he negotiated entry he was obliged to brake and acknowledge the graciously inclined head of a slim, blond-haired girl. She made her greeting as she cantered across the path on a silky palomino pony. Parnell cursed softly. Rory felt a shock of gladness. She could not be explained - her coming and going was unreal. He settled for an apparition.
Here in a builder's wasteland, made more depressing by parental unhappiness, a golden girl rides from nowhere on a silvery beast to greet him then melts into liquid light. But she was real enough. One day she would return and drag Rory's chequered destiny with her.

In this fractured moment Parnell recalled how he had deliberately turned his back on Burr when signing the contract. The scratch of pen on parchment paper whispered threats. When stillness pronounced the business done he cleared his mind of his wife's hate and mused as Burr preened himself at the office window. Leafing through documents he felt fanned by winds of freedom; it was his own Magna Carta. He bent back to the contract and re-crossed the 't' of his Christian name - a talisman to seal his luck 'let hell undo this deed'. His latest domestic upheaval would be his last. A grave awaited him close to his new home in a cemetery newly consecrated. He had twenty two years to live.

8

The car stood under the gable-end of a theatrical house. Romantic nonsense crowded the boy's mind - if the girl wasn't mystery enough, here was the house.
Parnell was totally absorbed.
"Finished, paid for, and I've the key to the door. Burr's a rogue in fancy-dress but Venn has certainly delivered the goods."
Rory couldn't tear his eyes from the direction taken by the girl. His father was unaware of the boy's agitated state.

The world was going up in smoke and Burr fretted to be done with the project. His instincts had told him to grab the bird in the hand. He hadn't forgotten youthful panic when he'd dug into a pocket for a shilling and found his fingers exploring a gaping hole. With this client he couldn't win. Parnell caught him corruptly changing specifications and wasted no trick in turning matters to his
advantage.

This is a page from Milk and Honey by Gerald Moore, available for purchase from Lazarus Press.

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