Brixton Beach

Brixton Beach
Roma Tearne

Opening dramatically with the horrors of the 2005 London bombings, this is the profoundly moving story of a country on the brink of civil war and a child's struggle to come to terms with loss.London. On a bright July morning a series of bombs bring the capital to a halt. Simon Swann, a medic from one of the large teaching hospitals, is searching frantically amongst the chaos and the rubble. All around police sirens and ambulances are screaming but Simon does not hear. He is out of breath because he has been running, and he is distraught. But who is he looking for?To find out we have first to go back thirty years to a small island in the Indian Ocean where a little girl named Alice Fonseka is learning to ride a bicycle on the beach. The island is Sri Lanka, with its community on the brink of civil war. Alice's life is about to change forever. Soon she will have to leave for England, abandoning her beloved grandfather, and accompanied by her mother Sita, a woman broken by a series of terrible events.In London, Alice grows into womanhood. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she has a son. Slowly she fulfils her grandfather's prophecy and becomes an artist. Eventually she finds true love. But London in the twenty first century is a mass of migration and suspicion. The war on terror has begun and everyone, even Simon Swann, middle class, rational, medic that he is, will be caught up in this war in the most unexpected and terrible way.

Brixton Beach

ROMA TEARNE

In memory of N M C whose story,

discarded for forty years, is told at last.

And for Barrie,

Oliver, Alistair and Mollie.

All of life is a foreign country

JACK KEROUAC,

letter (24 June 1949)

Table of Contents

Epigraph

Part 1 - Bel Canto

Part 2 - Paradiso

Chapter 1 (#ulink_98b0ad4b-fd37-5c2a-b7e8-724b95aff094)

Chapter 2 (#ulink_1ec0d395-2bfa-540a-9cf6-ffac8a79aa86)

Chapter 3 (#ulink_3ae9af3f-9470-5db9-a3d6-d7a28dfbfedf)

Chapter 4 (#ulink_e559d542-233a-5894-bfd1-ed9d56c10be9)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Part 3 - Inferno

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Part 4 - Purgatorio

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Part 5 - Bel Canto

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements

Also by Roma Tearne

Copyright

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Bel Canto (#uf6a6cd52-47c7-5f61-b8e7-5bba877b9a78)

THERE ARE POLICE EVERYWHERE. From a distance it is the first thing he sees. Even before he hears the noise of sirens, the screams. Even before the BBC team appears. Acid-green jackets move grimly about, directing the traffic, securing blue-and-white tape, herding people away. That’s what he sees. A red, double-decker bus stands parked at an odd angle, black smoke pouring out of its windows. There is glass everywhere. His feet crunch on it and he notices shards glinting dangerously in the light. His first thought is, Someone might cut themselves; his second is, There must have been a fire.

‘Move along, please, clear the path,’ the policeman shouts, roughly.

He pushes several people back with the palms of his hands. Then he speaks into his radio. There is a smell of sweat and rubber. And explosives.

‘We need another ambulance over at checkpoint four,’ the policeman says. ‘Quickly. They’re bringing more out. Have all the hospitals been alerted?’

‘We need the reinforcements, now!’

‘Yes. They’re on their way.’

‘What happened?’ Simon asks, urgently. ‘Was it a fire?’

His voice is hoarse; his throat has tightened up. There is an even tighter constriction across his chest. He has been running. All the way over Lambeth Bridge, along Horseferry Road, up Park Lane towards Edgware Road. He wanted to go in the opposite direction, towards the Oval and the house named Brixton Beach. For a moment he had wavered, wanting to call at the house, knock on its blue-fronted door, but then he had carried on running. There are no taxis to be had. The traffic is gridlocked. It will be gridlocked for hours. He should be at work, he should be at his post, standing by waiting for the admissions, triaging the flood of casualties, but he has fled, unthinkingly. Never in the whole of his professional career has he behaved in this irresponsible way. Panic chokes his voice; fear grips his limbs as he scans the faces in front of him.

‘Clear the path, please.’

The noise of yet another ambulance siren deafens him. He isn’t used to hearing the sirens from the outside. He is used to the calm of the operating theatre, the controlled energy of work. Scalpels placed where they are always placed, nurses ready to second-guess his moves. He is not used to chaos.