Read Online A Sacred Storm by Dominic C. James - Free Book Online

“I’m sorry, but my parents aren’t home at the moment. You’ll have to come back later.”
    â€œBut I’ve come to see you.”
    â€œI can’t let strangers in. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. You’d better go before I start to shout.”
    The old man smiled. “There’s no need for that, is there? My name’s Alan.” He held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you. Now we’re not strangers.”
    Jennings couldn’t remember exactly what happened next, but before he knew it they were sitting on the swinging sofa in the back garden, chatting away merrily without a care. Alan told him tales of the war, and how he had been a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, soaring and swooping and shooting down enemy planes. He told him of his life afterwards as a doctor in a big city hospital. And he told him of his wife and the times they had shared together. Jennings had sat rapt throughout, carried away by the old man’s unrestrained enthusiasm and unique gift for storytelling. He was disappointed when he eventually heard his parents coming through the front door shouting his name.
    â€œYou’d better go and see them,” Alan had said.
    â€œI’ll bring them out to meet you,” said Jennings.
    Alan’s eyes shone brighter than the stars. “Fill your life, Thomas,” he said.
    Jennings felt a warmth spread through him and beamed.
    He raced in to find his parents, and after a lot of babbling and tugging, he coerced them outside to meet his new friend. But when they arrived at the sofa there was no-one there. Jennings looked around flummoxed. His mother and father smiled knowingly at each other and went back inside…
    â€¦â€œSo, they thought you were imagining this guy?” said Stratton, as he and Jennings strolled down to the stream.
    â€œYes, they did. But that’s not the end of it. I described him to them and told them all his stories, and then my dad suddenly became angry. He raced upstairs and came down two minutes later with a photograph of the old man. I got excited and said it was the same guy. My father began shouting, telling me not to lie, and that making up stories was no game.”
    â€œWhat did you do?” asked Stratton.
    â€œI argued my case until I was blue in the face of course. It went on for days until he bullied me into submission, and I guess after that I just accepted that I’d been playing games and made the whole thing up. After all, Alan Jennings – my grandfather – had been dead for over ten years.”
    â€œDid your father not wonder how you knew so much about your grandfather?”
    â€œHe said I must have been listening to stories at family gatherings and fabricated the whole thing from that. It sounded feasible so I believed him. If you’re told something enough as a child it becomes your reality. I must have blanked the whole episode from my mind.”
    â€œBut you remember it now?”
    â€œI remembered it when I was hanging there in the jungle waiting to die. It all came back to me, particularly my grandfather’s eyes. They seemed to contain a whole world of their own. It gave me comfort somehow. But it also made me think – I haven’t filled my life at all, I’ve just been ambling along in an empty daze…When I think of all he’d done by the time he was my age...”
    They reached the stream, stripped down to their shorts, and waded in to wash. Stratton began by clipping his beard with a pair of small scissors from his recovered rucksack, and then set to work with a razor blade, savouring every stroke of delightful depilation. Satisfied that he hadn’t missed a patch, he dunked his head into the water to remove the excess foam, and then jerked back with an invigorated exhalation.
    Jennings was almost dry when Stratton finally emerged from the stream. He patted himself down one last time and put his clothes back on,