Soul

His voice, deceptively friendly, was in complete contrast to his query; a technique he had observed in his benefactress when she intended to disorient her enemies. Recognising the mimicry, Lady Morgan threw back her head and laughed. The boy was quick and could really play the game, she acknowledged, realising that it was this very trait that had attracted her to him in the first place. Now she desired him more than ever.

‘Would I be that gauche? But I should warn you, there are some men who are like light white wine; delicious as you drink, but, alas, soon evaporate from the palate. Then there are those rare individuals who resemble a regal claret: complex, full-bodied, perhaps difficult at first but completely seductive in a way that can haunt one an entire lifetime. Be careful, my friend.’

She caressed his cheek lightly, then opened the carriage door. The day and its trivialities rushed in, a welcome reprieve for Hamish, who now only wished to be somewhere else.

‘I believe there is a time in one’s life when one becomes profoundly aware of one’s own mortality, and it is at this juncture that one may enter a state of such moral dissolution that one is capable of doing anything or becoming anyone merely for the experience of sensation. In my case, the premature death of my mother ignited a desire for experience—to toy with death, to lose myself in pure sensation. And, my friend, I did. It was simply good fortune that I retained enough wit to record my experiences for posterity. My adventures became my study and then my profession. However, at the age of forty-five, a great sadness paralysed me, the most extraordinary sense of futility pervading every action. I decided I needed an heir, someone who would carry my lineage through future generations. I had tired of short-term pleasures, of affairs, of masculine encounters…’

Here the Colonel faltered, causing Hamish to glance up from the oars.

They had hired a boat to row on the Serpentine—an innocent pastime for two friends on a breezy Saturday afternoon. There was little one could do, out there in the open, surrounded by grassed parkland that had begun to crackle with the approaching season. It had been the Colonel’s intention to talk about very un-innocent things in an innocuous landscape, the landscape of his adolescence.

‘It was at that point that I decided to get married,’ he went on. ‘Lavinia’s youth attracted me. I suppose I expected a rejuvenation of my own spirit, an infection of enthusiasm.’

‘And did you?’

Hamish, watching a man on the bank tossing bread to a swan, held back his own nervousness. Such restraint, he thought; if only he knew how restrained I am.

‘Initially, there was an excitement. She reminded me why I had sought meaning in human behaviour and cultures. But perhaps it is a futile exercise to categorise, to impose a logic upon the primal instincts of Man.’

‘Phrenology is a genuine science, James. It is researched, substantiated, as is anthropology.’

‘Or are they coloured by Man’s insidious need to define everything and everyone? We are changelings, my sweet friend; evolving entities, not fixed by Nature.’

The Colonel paused again, the shadow of a weeping willow crossing his face as they floated past the bank. Hamish thought he spied a pensiveness that softened the determined jaw. Then, quietly, the action hidden within the confines of the rowboat, the Colonel reached across and took the younger man’s hand between his own.

‘I have tried to be responsible,’ he said.

The landscape seemed to exhale before they spoke; the weight of their words brushing against lips, the incrimination of implicit desire thickening the air. Hamish squeezed the Colonel’s hand, the slightest of movements.

‘You cannot be what you are not.’

‘Ahh, but who am I?’ The Colonel’s whispered reply was a question that required no answer.

42

Los Angeles, 2002

THE DINER WAS POPULAR with the Sunday crowd—fashionable young couples who lived at the foot of the Hollywood hills. Dating from the 1930s, the restaurant was decorated with signed photographs of the various celebrities who had eaten there. The waitresses, wearing aprons trimmed with white frills, hovered around the glass-topped tables edged with silver chrome. Charlie Parker played out of an old-fashioned coin-operated record booth in the corner, the robotic arm swinging over the vinyl to land in the shining black groove and releasing a voice from over forty years before. Some tables had strollers parked next to them, the bewildered babies marooned in them gazing wide-eyed at other children perched on their parents’ laps, many screaming for attention. Filled with the scent of frying bacon undercut by the aroma of maple syrup, the whole restaurant was alive with conversation and laughter.

Julia sat alone in a corner booth reading her research notes; she’d gone to the diner after her customary trek through Griffith Park. It was a place she used to frequent with Klaus and one she’d only just plucked up enough courage to return to, determined to reclaim some of her territory. A boy of about three, dressed in denim overalls and oversized sneakers, wandered up to the table; his eyes wide with solemnness, he offered Julia a sugar container. This could have been my son, she thought, blinking back sudden tears.

The boy watched her with a fascinated perplexity, wondering at the shifting expression on this strange woman’s face. Before Julia had a chance to take the sugar container, the child was swept off his feet and carried away by his disapproving mother.

‘Julia?’

Recognising the voice, she looked up. Carla stood in front of her table, looking almost as shocked as Julia.

‘I was just sitting over there…’

Julia froze, too anxious to look behind her in case Klaus was at the same table.

‘…with my father,’ Carla explained, sensing her apprehension. I was on my way to the restroom when I saw you.’

‘What do you want, Carla?’

Carla, shifting nervously, put out her hand. It hung in the air, unspeakably small against the immensity of the gesture.

‘I heard about the miscarriage. Julia, I am so sorry.’