JACK OF DIAMONDS

A serial novel

Photo by Nadiia Ganzhyi on Unsplash

CHAPTER 26

LONDON CALLING…

Reggie sat on the train, holding the violin case on his lap as though his life depended on it; considering where he was bringing it, he thought, it could very well be true. Dressed in the only suit he owned, he hardly felt like the gentleman he was supposed to look like. Wearing a dark brown pinstripe, a colour which Claire said did nothing for him, he pulled his tie loose and looked out of the window at the slowly disappearing countryside as he loosened three buttons of his waistcoat. He watched as the lush, green rolling hills of Devon gave way to the stark industrial reality of what would soon be London. That was the moment he realized he hadn’t missed it since leaving it behind. He shifted uneasily in his seat, his hip feeling sore because of the time he’d spent sitting in the one position.

It had been more than five years since he’d last been to London — has it really been that long? he wondered — and was just now realizing that he’d left London to get away from the dirt and squalor of what life had to offer him before the War. He imagined it would be the same dirt and squalor for a great many people still living there. It was only now, he realized, that he needed the peace and quiet of the countryside. He needed the tranquility. And while he knew the man he was before the War would’ve never thought it possible to leave that life behind, now he wondered how he could’ve lived like this in the first place.

It’s the colour, he told himself, shifting in his seat again. Devon’s all green and open fields, while London, well, London’s London, isn’t it? Dirty, rank and squalid.

He knew there was plenty to see and do in a place like London, and he felt certain Claire would’ve loved the idea of coming along, but that part of London had never interested him. He wasn’t a man who enjoyed art, or architecture; he wasn’t one for feeding the ducks and walking in the park. That was Artie’s world, he’d told her; a man like himself was never meant to be a part of that world. While people would do what they could to enjoy the natural beauty of the city’s parks and walkways, he was more concerned with trying to escape the noise and confusion of a burgeoning traffic problem that seemed to crop up with the new century.

Reggie would only see London as a place to get away from.

That’s the way life was, or is, in the city, he told himself. While before the War…well, it always comes down to that, doesn’t it, for all of us.

His had been a life of violence and crime, and it took the War for him to realize that life was more precious than that; there was more to life than London’s streets, he told himself, stepping out of the train at Paddington. The cold hit him and he felt it in his hip as it sifted through his pants, reminding him of what the cold could be like. He was woefully unprepared, he realized.

Gloves would’ve been nice, he thought, or maybe a heavier coat.