Outside

Chapter Forty Two

Tom and I sat in the kitchen while he told me Connor’s story. It broke my heart to hear it. I cast my mind back all those years ago, to when Connor had been taken by the soldiers from my parents’ house. I remembered the heartbreaking terror of it all. The not knowing. And now, after all this time, I was finally going to find out what had happened to him.

The soldiers had put him into one of the convoy vehicles along with several other prisoners. They were taken to Portsmouth. Once there, Connor had been briefly interrogated, thrown into jail and left to stew for almost six months, without charge.

During a spitefully cold February, they released him with no explanation. His camper van had disappeared, he had no money and he had no means of contacting anybody for help.

Weak and disorientated, his first thought was to get home to Ripon to see his parents and build some long-overdue bridges. But Ripon was miles away and he didn’t know how he would get there, other than walk. Another option was to try to make his way up to Gloucestershire, back to me.

After four months of struggling on foot in freezing conditions through newly hostile territories, he reached Uley in rags, starving and barely alive. It may have been June when he arrived, but summer was slow to arrive that year.

By the time Connor reached his destination, Eddie Donovan had been hard at work and the Uley Perimeter had been sealed off from the outside world. Guards patrolled constantly and a large impenetrable set of iron gates kept the undesirables out. Connor was understandably wary of approaching the guards and lacked the energy for any sort of confrontation in his present state. The possibility of being arrested again was one he couldn’t face.

He decided to pay a visit to Abigail Robbins’ mansion, set a couple of miles outside the Perimeter fence. He didn’t particularly relish the thought of seeing her, as he was pretty sure she was partially responsible for what happened to him. But he was out of other options. Anyway, maybe she could shed some light on why Uley and its inhabitants were now behind bars.

Abigail herself opened the door and Connor hardly recognised her. She was plastered in make-up, wearing next-to-nothing and she shook uncontrollably.

‘Connor? What are you doing here? You were arrested. You look awful, skinnier than ever.’

‘They let me go. What happened to you?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘How can I get into Uley?’

She laughed, a dry, hollow sound. ‘You won’t get in there. No one can. It’s only for the privileged few. They‘ve barricaded themselves in and left the rest of us to rot.’

‘Where’s Eleanor?’

‘You mean you haven’t heard?’ She smiled a mean smile. ‘She married Johnny Culpepper. She didn’t hang around after you left. Legged it down to sunny Bournemouth. Now she’s lording it up with her rich husband.’ She paused to gauge his reaction and was disappointed to see none. ‘Poor baby. Did you think she’d wait for you?’

Connor felt sick. He didn’t know whether to believe her or not.

‘Now I, on the other hand, am much better suited to you,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a new profession – I’m a tart, a hooker, a prostitute, whatever you want to call it. I can do you a really good deal, Connor.’ She put a hand up to his cheek and stroked it wistfully.

‘Where are your parents, Abi?’ he asked, holding her wrist and pushing her hand away.

‘Shot. They are quite dead. I live here now while my darling friend Eleanor gets to live a wonderful new life with her wonderful family. If it wasn’t for me, she’d never even have met Johnny Culpepper. Now tell me, is that fair?’

‘No,’ said Connor as he backed away from her pathetic figure. She was crying now, slumped in the doorway. Another girl came to try and help her up. The girl shouted at him.

‘What’ve you done to her?’ Then she yelled, ‘Earl! There’s a tramp at the door. I think he’s done something to Abi.’

Connor ran.

He spent the next six years drifting from town to town and from job to job. He didn’t have the energy to return to Ripon. After Uley, he was too afraid of what he might find there. He put all thoughts of people he once knew, out of his tired mind and concentrated on surviving.

One day, he had the good fortune to be kicked in the leg by a beautiful black horse with a white star on its nose. He lay in the dirt on the compound floor, willing the horse to finish him off, but instead he looked up to see the concerned face of a grey-haired man.

‘You alright, son? I think Cleo got you good and proper. Let’s ‘ave a look at that leg. Mmmm, nasty. We’ll get you to the doc.’

‘I can’t afford…’

‘Tut, I’ll sort you out. If it wasn’t for this temperamental mare, you wouldn’t be bleeding all over the ground would you.’

Connor gratefully let the kind man place him on the horse and lead him across the compound to the surgery. He was seen within the hour and accepted the offer of temporary lodgings with the man, by way of compensation.

Corby Chambers and his wife Irene were a kindly couple in their mid-sixties. As a qualified electrician, Corby was desperately busy. Luck and natural progression led to Connor becoming his apprentice.

And so, over the next four years, he settled contentedly in the newly walled compound of Bath, where he worked as an electrician’s mate, soon becoming proficient enough to branch out on his own. He eventually left the Bath Compound with many fond memories and having made several good friends, but it was now time to move on.

After only a matter of years, Connor ended up in Dorset. More specifically, in the Charminster Compound, where he successfully applied for the position of electrician. The job came with a very nice apartment and some very interesting gossip on the lives of the rich Perimeter inhabitants.

No coincidence then, that Connor found himself in this part of the country. He had no illusions that he and I would ever regain any of our past connection, but was perversely curious as to why I’d been so quick to abandon hope he would return to me and why I’d gone back to my ex-boyfriend again. He felt angry and betrayed by me and he needed to exorcise the demons of the past.

Prior to arriving in Dorset, he decided to change his name to something that would give him more anonymity. He didn’t want me to hear his name and feel uncomfortable that he was there or, even worse, feel sorry for him. Being a highly-sought-after tradesman, it was likely his name would become well-known, in whatever area he settled in and he wanted to observe me from afar, at his own pace without fear of discovery. Maybe he’d contact me in the future, but he wanted it to be on his own terms, in his own time.

He experimented with a few different names, before settling on Ron. He didn’t particularly like the name, but it was the end of his first name, spelled backwards, so he felt a certain affinity with it. He chose his new surname after his two saviours – Corby and Irene Chambers who had felt like family to him. And so he became Ron Chambers.

He heard many people talk about the wealthy Culpeppers, Johnny Culpepper in particular. But after hearing all the talk, he only knew me now as a beautiful, rich lady with two pretty daughters. Then, almost fourteen years after they had last seen each other, he ran into my brother, Tom.

Tom was at the compound visiting his new girlfriend, a gardener who did a lot of work at our Perimeter. She and Tom had been a sort-of item for the past few months. It was a tricky business, trying to have a relationship with someone who didn’t live within the same walls, but I think that was part of its charm – the difficulties and the dangers.

‘Connor?’ Tom exclaimed, as he made his way to his girlfriend’s bedsit. ‘It is you, isn’t it? We thought you were dead, man.’ He clasped Connor’s arms.

‘Tom? What are you doing here?’

‘I live in Bournemouth now, near my sister. God, Ellie’s gonna freak.’

‘I heard she got married.’

‘It’s a long story, mate. Do you live here? Is there somewhere we can go and chat?’