Today my stop on the Birds of the Nile Virtual Book Tour is an excerpt from this part political thriller, part love story novel
BIRDS OF THE NILE BY N.E. DAVID
Literary Fiction
Date Published: 27 September 2013
British ex-diplomat MICHAEL BLAKE has been blinded and is confined to his flat in Cairo. Every few days a visitor comes to read to him. It’s a year since he took early retirement and booked a long–awaited birding trip on the Nile.
Half way through the voyage he meets LEE YONG and finds himself falling for her. But she’s falling for REDA, their tour guide. He isn’t all he seems either and when the Egyptian revolution kicks off, BLAKE finds himself embroiled in a tangled web of love and intrigue. When REDA is captured and thrown into jail, BLAKE will be forced to decide – to help LEE YONG and join the revolution or stand aside and risk losing everything.
Set against the background of the events of January 2011, BIRDS OF THE NILE is a powerful story of loss and self discovery as three disparate characters, each with their own agenda, seek to come to terms with change. Part political thriller, part love story, BIRDS OF THE NILE reminds us of the complex nature of global cultural interaction and how, as individuals, we try to deal with it
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CHAPTER ONE
There were times when he thought he could see the light - or at least sense it - a
faint blur amidst the general darkness. He knew it was there, for each morning when he
shuffled across the bare boards of his room and threw open the shutters to let in the
day, he remembered how it would come flooding in, great long shafts of it slicing into
the space between the window and his bed, the covers turned back, the sheet still warm
from whatever rest he had managed the night before. Then he would feel it too, the heat
of it on his hands and feet, and for a minute or two he would bathe his face in it, slanting
his chin upwards toward the sun which even at that early hour still had the capacity to
burn. It would strike him how pleasurable this was, and rather than go to the bathroom
for his morning ablutions and take the risk of boiling a kettle and pouring scalding water
into a sink, he would remain by the window and wash himself in a brightness he knew
but could not see. And so, in this way, another day would slowly but surely begin.
On this particular morning he had woken with a jolt. The dream which had
continually afflicted his sleep had returned and was plaguing him once more. He had
thought himself free of it, but it was back and with it the suspicion that it would never
truly leave him.
And yet it always began so well. He would find himself running in the midst of a
large crowd, almost like a herd of buffalo charging across an open plain. He was filled
with a feeling of joy and light-headedness and he imagined he was carrying something
in his hand (was it a flag?) which he seemed to hold aloft as if in triumph. Then he
would become aware of the noise, the raised voices of the tumult surrounding him, the
shouts and cries of the crowd and the deep rumble of stones landing on corrugated
sheeting. And somewhere at the back of his throat he could taste what he thought was
the bitterness of gunsmoke.
Then the dreaded moment would arrive, preceded as if it were a herald’s trumpet
by the loud whinnying of a horse. The massive beast and its rider would suddenly
appear out of the confusion and rear up before him in fear. He would find himself staring
at its hooves and a moment would pass in which he could hear nothing save a strange
rattle as though a tin can were being kicked down the street. Then it would fall silent
again for a second before everything erupted in a deafening roar and the searing pain
would begin.
Here he would jerk himself awake and sit bolt upright in the bed, his upper body
drenched in sweat and his breath coming in short, sharp gasps like those of a panting
dog. He would stay there, his arms pushed back against the sheets behind him until he
had finally calmed himself and told himself that it was only a dream. But after a while,
when he felt ready, as if in the hope that all life since had been part of his imagination
too, he would gradually prise his eyelids apart to test the reality.
Yet still there would be nothing.
Eventually, he would swing his legs over the edge of the bed and instead of
trying to fall back to sleep and risk a repeat of the same painful journey, he would make
his way across to the window where he would open the shutters once more.
CHAPTER THIRTY – FOUR
It had begun almost immediately after what he called ‘the accident’. As the battle
raged around him he had lain for a while, semi-conscious, and his first recollection
was of being moved onto a stretcher, the stabbing pain in his shoulder jerking him
rudely awake. Later, as he forced himself to focus on it in an effort to bring back the
moment, he recalled the dry dusty smell of canvas and, at his side, the cool touch of
polished wood.
They must have taken him back to the camp because rather than load him
straight into an ambulance, he was physically carried some distance. He remembered
that well enough, the bouncing ride performed at the trot, his unhinged shoulder flapping
from side to side in agony. When they mercifully came to a halt, he was raised up
and taken to a chair where he imagined himself seated as if in a barber’s shop.
Someone was talking behind him, then a woman approached (he could tell by her
scent) and she began to apply first aid. As his head was being bandaged, just as he’d
seen done before, he reached out for her arm and felt her sleeve between his fingers.
And yes, it was a leather jacket she was wearing.
“Are you the same ...?” he asked.
Although as soon as she replied, Am I the same what? her voice told him that it
was not the girl he’d met earlier.
And all the time he kept telling himself I will get through this. Don’t panic and it’ll
be alright.
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N.E.David is the pen name of York author Nick David. Nick tried his hand at writing at the age of 21 but like so many things in life, it did not work out first time round. Following the death of his father in 2005, he took it up again and has been successful in having a series of short novellas published both in print and online.
Nick maintains he has no personal or political message to convey but that his objective is merely to entertain the reader and he hopes this is reflected in his writing. Besides being a regular contributor to Literary Festivals and open mics in the North East Region, Nick is also a founder member of York Authors and co-presenter of Book Talk on BBC Radio York.
His debut novel, Birds of the Nile, is published by Roundfire.
Twitter: @NEDavidAuthor
