Read Wings of the Morning Online
Authors: Julian Beale
Wings of the Morning
OF THE
MORNING
Julian Beale
for the love of Africa
Royalties from the sale of this book are donated to registered charities which support Africans in need.
Copyright © Julian Beale 2012
Julian Beale has asserted his right
under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 to be identified
as the author of this work.
Cover image: Shutterstock
Umbria Press
London SW15 5DP
www.umbriapress.co.uk
Printed and bound by
Ashford Colour Press, Gosport
Paperback ISBN 978-0-9573641-0-3
E book ISBN 978-0-9573641-6-5
MAJOR CHARACTERS
THE OXFORD FIVE
OTHER KEY PEOPLE
If I take the wings of the morning,
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me.
PSALM
139
CONTENTS
DAVID HEAVEN & MARTIN KIRCHOFF — 1985
DAVID HEAVEN & AISCHA GOMES — September 1999
FERGUS CARRADINE — New Year’s Day 2000
PENTE BROKE SMITH — December 2000
OLIVER AVELING — 2021
Most people call me ‘Olty’. I turn thirty today, the first of January 2021. I enjoy my birthday on New Year’s Day. It wasn’t so great when I was a
child, but since reaching my teenage years, I’ve had a lot of fun with extra celebration after the partying on New Year’s Eve. This year’s a bit special of course: thirty is a
major number and a dozen of us have planned a big bash for tonight. But I want to make a start on this project first. It’s going to be a challenge.
I’m a diplomat by profession. I’m white, single, straight, solvent. I work with a great bunch of people and I’m lucky with my friends. I travel a lot, but I love coming home to
this apartment with its brilliant view over the ocean. I have company from time to time, but there’s no one really serious in my life.
I was born in England, but I’ve lived here since I finished school twelve years ago. ‘Here’ is Century City, Capital of Millennium, a country occupying a landmass on the West
Coast of Africa as old as time itself, although our nation was born only twenty-one years ago today.
Millennium’s struggle into existence is the kernel of my story, but there’s a more personal element to it as well. Our country’s founding president was David Heaven who’s
been long gone from life and much longer from that post. I was twenty-two when he died and I knew him a bit because he had been close to our family since I was a boy and he features in my earliest
memories. He was gruff but kind, and to give him his due, he was a pretty good communicator with all age groups. Plus of course, David Heaven was for a while the
man
of Millennium and was
therefore a significant figure. Until his death, I thought of him as an important family friend and after he had gone, I simply thought about him less and less. I certainly had no idea that he was
my biological grandfather, the father of my mother. So this news hit me like a thunderbolt.
A little over a year ago, I was spending a lot of working time in New York and I had a visit from a Frenchman called Guy Labarre. He’s not a relative but our families have been intertwined
over many years. Guy is a human rights lawyer and we did have a bit of business to do together, but that was not the reason to bring him calling. He bought me lunch and took the opportunity to hand
over a letter written to me by David Heaven. It doesn’t say much, just a simple message addressed to me in his handwriting which I recognised on the envelope.