Torsade Literary Space Sequence of Events (part seven)
Sequence of Events
Chapter One
A Personal Choice
Stanley left his bed, found the glass of the window dewed over, a loneliness about the bungalow’s situation, with no outdoor view and surprisingly few noises…a bark, a motor, a footfall…
He felt shipwrecked here in his niece’s house. He made himself lie down and doze.
And thought, instead, of error.
He did not angle, cared nothing for the fine points of doing so in a cold season…
Would have assumed any river in Surrey as utile as the next; certainly any of England’s more reasonable than one in Scotland.
But he regarded all souls in their need for speech with the gravest respect. They were kind to take his malaise for an illness that could be cured. And Mr. Parker’s recommendation towards the Spey had proved useful; this winter circumstance only to favor a verdict of misadventure.
What Stanley could recall (“…rotten weather, nearly tipped in when I dropped my fly-book. Had to part ways with my two best minnows…”), he transcribed verbatim, with no certainty of Parker’s meaning.
His writing as he never did would annoy his sister; his giddy confiding, as though a holiday could make the Carpenter blood effervesce. But Dolores was intelligent, she would put two and two together. The tale would gain authority under her retelling.
And the letters would be evidence, Dolores their possessor. This chance to bully a Scotland Yard man would brace her up nicely.
Terribly sad. I believe the fellow had lodged a foot somehow. The current must have been worse than I find it. Novice that I am at this sport, I feel quite at ease, wading in.
He had read it somewhere at some point.
To flesh the story out, then, was not quite to tell a lie. One could not pray to become the beneficiary of coincidence, but rivers did collect their bodies. Stanley could believe in Dolores taking a cursory look, at a waterlogged coat she had never seen, and calling it his.
Well, touch wood. I will be alone on the river for the most of a fortnight.
Before tossing his tackle in the waters and striking off cross-country, he must in the strength of it be seen walking. He must greet the least passerby with a borrowing of his churchwarden’s enthusiasm. He had spared three days for this.
He could wear no disguise boarding the train for Southampton. To meet no one would be luck. Even likelihood; but to meet an acquaintance whilst sporting odd clothes, or a false moustache…
He could only think what Robert would say.
7
A Personal Choice
Sequence of Events (part eight)
(Stephanie Foster, 2017, 2021, 2026)
Welcome! Questions?