Soul

Strangely relieved, Aloysius walked to the door. ‘Even if you do find her, she will never be yours,’ he said before turning to leave. It was the first time he hadn’t bowed to his employer.

Lavinia’s bedroom was a jumble of upturned drawers and opened cupboards, her clothes and papers scattered across the carpet and bed. The Colonel looked around wildly; he’d searched everywhere without finding a single clue. The only calling cards he’d found belonged to associates he had imposed upon her. It appeared his wife had established no intimates of her own.

Thinking on where he would hide something himself, he again ran his eye over the room. The photographic portrait of their family sat on top of a commode, the drawers of which were pulled open, undergarments spilling out. He lifted the framed picture and opened the back, then removed the thin layer of card that kept the photograph in place. A slip of paper fell out. To his absolute amazement, the address scribbled upon it was that of Polly Kirkshore.

As Lavinia and Bartholomew picked their way through the filth and refuse, the boy shooed away the hordes of child beggars that descended like locusts. Many were crippled, but it was the small girls who were missing jawbones and fingers that horrified Lavinia the most.

‘Surely they weren’t all born that way?’ she asked.

Bartholomew laughed. ‘Born like that? You are green. They’re phos girls, from the Victorian Match factory. The phosphorus has begun to eat their bones like, some of them are lucky to ’ave any fingers left at all. Nothing they can do like that, can’t even whore.’

He led her through a back alley. Lines of washing hung above them stretching from window to window; the ever-present stream of sewage ran down the centre of the tiny lane, while a group of stray dogs barked at a tethered pig outside the canvas shack that served as an entrance to a hovel.

As Lavinia hurried to keep up with the boy, the money she had received from the pawnbroker, now secured inside her blouse, bounced against her skin. The pawnbroker had given her twenty guineas for the earrings and one of her diamond necklaces. Lavinia calculated the money would be enough to buy three passages and board for a month in France; after that they would have to find work. A great excitement had begun to bubble up in her chest, usurping her fears. For the first time, she was in control of her own fortune.

They turned the corner and arrived suddenly in Burton Street. A coach stood in front of her mother’s house. Lavinia recognised the Huntington crest and saw Mrs Beetle waiting beside it. At that moment the Colonel emerged from the brothel carrying Aidan, who was kicking and screaming. Meredith Murphy stood in the doorway, arms crossed, her face as dark as a thundercloud. Breaking into a run, Lavinia shouted her son’s name.

Handing the child to Mrs Beetle, the Colonel swung around to meet his wife.

‘You can’t take him!’ Lavinia tried to reach Aidan, but Mrs Beetle quickly lifted the child into the coach as the Colonel grabbed Lavinia to pull her away.

‘I can and I will, and you will come with us!’

Struggling, she tried to break his hold. ‘I will not!’

‘Is this what you want? To stay here in this hovel with your degenerate mother?’ he hissed. ‘Dr Jefferies warned me of this.’

‘I am my own person!’

‘Understand this, wife, if you do not step into this carriage I shall have you in the Bedlam asylum before sunset, and I promise you will never see your son again.’

63

Los Angeles, 2002

‘HE’S GOING TO WIN, IT’S JUST too seductive, too damn Hollywood—people love that shit. Celebrity is America’s aristocracy—it’s been said before, but it’s so surreal to actually see it happening before your eyes, the way people are sucked in.’

Andrew lifted his Cosmopolitan and mournfully contemplated the pink-tinged liquid. They were sitting at a bar on La Brea. It was 6 p.m., the cocktail hour, and the two geneticists were engaged in a political debate.

‘It’s not that simplistic. He embodies masculine leadership, an I-ain’t-gonna-take-this-shit attitude,’ Julia said. ‘Love him or hate him, the current senator doesn’t embody that in any shape or form. It’s a reaction to the World Trade Center nightmare—everyone’s scared.’

Julia checked her watch. She’d left the lab an hour ago and was waiting for Gabriel to call in with some results.

‘So goodbye gay rights, goodbye abortion rights, goodbye stem cell research, hello twenty-first-century puritanism. Oh boy, I need another drink.’

As Andrew, flirting with the barman, ordered another round, Julia watched the aquarium that doubled as a wall. A large silver carp, its tiny fins rippling like over-powered propellers, gaped directly at her, its lugubrious expression bearing an uncanny resemblance to her colleague’s.

‘So, how is the research going?’ Andrew asked in a deceptively casual manner.

‘Okay,’ Julia answered carefully, knowing full well that if she shared any of her discoveries he would incorporate them into his own research the next morning. Competition between scientists was ruthless, particularly in an area where new findings meant celebrity, publication and funding that was crucial to survival. All Julia’s staff signed confidentiality forms.

‘They’re an imaginative mob at Defense,’ Andrew went on. ‘I mean, they’re prepared to throw money at the wackiest research but only on condition they get to do whatever they like with it at the end. Intriguing.

’

There was a pause while Andrew waited for Julia to volunteer more information. Instead, she studied the carp, which was still gazing at her, and wondered about a Darwinian aspect to competition—did it really push people towards flashes of insight or would cooperation be a more successful strategy? As if in answer, a smaller fish swam past and bit the unsuspecting carp on the tail.

‘I mean, don’t you ever have ethical qualms?’ Andrew persisted.