Lost and Found

Chapter 1

1 - Friday 12th October 2007

Sol Tanner.   

Amelia Parkin gasped and backed out of the room for a moment needing to breathe. She hadn’t seen him in more than nine years, and if this reaction was anything to go by, it could just as well have been yesterday. Taking several steadying breaths, her hand on her chest in an attempt to still her pounding heart, she leaned against the wall of the hallway and closed her eyes. Fighting the rush of emotions she tried to focus, she was at a party, she had to control herself. She was being ridiculous.

                  “You ok?”   Opening her eyes slowly she saw Li her best friend in the world stood beside her, concern on every ounce of her face.

                  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”   Amelia felt like she had. But she couldn’t draw attention to herself, she just needed to get out, to lick her wounds and regroup. “I told you I felt a bit under the weather earlier.”  

Li looked at her knowingly, “that was a ruse not to come here, I know that! Now that we’re here,” She gestured around the room, “we have floor to ceiling rich talent, a free bar, and the best canapés outside of the Ritz. Can’t you shake it off?”  

There was a pleading look to Li’s face, this night was important to her, and Amelia knew she was here as moral support. It was a book launch party of Li’s potential publisher Helena, and if the aforementioned publisher approved of Li’s life works, a manuscript, then this would potentially be a life changing event. Amelia hadn’t really wanted to come, and she’d been filled with a sense of ease since they’d entered the large Chelsea town house.

                  “I can’t do this alone Amelia, please?”  

Amelia shook her head, clearing the fog, “of course I’ll stay, you’re the best mate a girl could ask for! This is the least I can do for all you do for me!”

Taking her hand, Amelia led Li into the lounge. The room was filled with people talking, drinking and socialising, there was a large bar in the bay window, and through the dining room, the French doors opened on to a small neat garden which was also filled with people.

                  “There must be a hundred people here,” Amelia hissed, “who’s the one we’re schmoozing?”  

Li smiled, her dainty face crinkling into a smile, “you’ll know when you see her, she’s staggeringly beautiful! Let’s head to the kitchen, maybe there’s some food there, I haven’t eaten I’ve been so nervous!”  

Amelia chuckled, “come on then!” Putting an arm around her shoulder she led her friend towards the only possible location of a kitchen.  

She’d met Li in University, Amelia had studied economics and accounting, Li English and journalism. Despite their differences, academic, physical, family...they’d immediately got on. Their first encounter had been at what her housemates had referred to as a ‘Geek convention’, a debate on the viability of technology used in the Star Wars trilogy. Both girls had loved the films, but admitted that their interest was enhanced by the rather handsome young Harrison Ford, it had taken three meets with Li before Amelia actually admitted that Mark Hamill was the one that really floated her boat. When Li answered, “gosh I thought for a minute you were going to suggest an Ewok!” the friendship was forged.  

Li had come to Britain from China via Amnesty International when her parents had been killed in Tiananmen Square. She’d been eight. Old enough to remember the things she heard and saw, yet too young to begin to understand. Orphaned and a product of political discord, the charity dragged her free of the aftermath as soon as they could. A couple of doctors had adopted her, and she’d had a nice life living in the City, but the horrors of those times in the late eighties were still raw in her mind. During their final year at Oxford, Li had, over several bottles of wine, shared with Amelia tales of unfathomable atrocities, things that no child should ever have to see or even hear about.   It had been Amelia’s suggestion that she put her story into writing and over the last three years Amelia had been the sounding board for the story that had now developed in to a fictional interpretation of her early years. This courting of Helena was the ticket to both a cathartic release from the past, and also the break into a career in writing that she craved. Seeing her story in print.