Soul

‘Sure, but why do you assume I would have one in this case?’

‘C’mon, Goldilocks, genetic detection of antisocial or violent behaviour, plus a myriad of other factors all aimed at creating an über soldier—who wouldn’t?’

‘And I thought you asked me out for a drink because you were concerned about my emotional fragility.’

‘Whatever it is, I think you’ve cracked it.’ He downed his cocktail, deliberately ignoring her last remark. ‘There’s an excitement about you. Either that or you’re getting laid.’

Julia smiled mischievously.

‘Oh my God, there is someone! Oh, thank Christ, I was afraid you were going to become one of those embittered divorcees whose vagina’s mummify. Seriously though, I am so happy for you.’

He fiddled with his watch a moment, his eyes glinting wickedly.

‘So I guess it’s cool about Klaus and Carla?’

Julia looked at him, confused.

‘She’s pregnant. Talk about moving on. The guy is ruthless…’ His voice trailed off as he watched her face blanch. ‘You did know, right?’

Trying not to react, Julia grasped the edges of her barstool as the room appeared to tip on its side. She imagined the fish in the aquarium struggling upstream as the water tumbled out onto the floor.

‘How pregnant is she?’ The hysteria in her voice betrayed her.

‘Oh shit, you didn’t know. Julia, I am so sorry.’

‘How far?’

‘Six months. I thought you knew—everyone else does.’

Six months. She must have been pregnant when he left her, at least three months.

‘She stole my child,’ Julia whispered, too faintly for Andrew to hear.

Slamming the front door behind her, Julia went straight to the bedroom. After opening the cupboard door she hauled out a box that had been tucked away at the back. Sitting it on the bedroom floor, she stared down at the cardboard lid, then ripped open the tape that sealed it. The baby clothes were still in their wrappers, pristinely folded under clear plastic. She pulled one package open. The cotton smelt fresh and was impossibly soft against her skin. She unfolded the jumpsuit and spread its arms and legs out on the carpet. It lay like an abandoned starfish, the sight of the empty hood lancing her heart in a sudden intake of breath. Julia reached for a second outfit and then another and another, until the floor was covered with baby clothes, arm touching sleeve, blind foot touching toe. She sat at the very edge of this carpet of loss, then suddenly swept the clothes up in her arms.

They had used the incinerator—a wire basket full of ashes and charred wood, which was tucked behind Klaus’s work shed—to burn the dead leaves from the garden. It had been Julia’s task to keep the lawn raked while Klaus worked the flowerbeds. She stood over it now, the flames of the fire she’d made from twigs and newspaper crackling under her hands. Slowly she fed the baby clothes to the blaze, the blue cotton smouldering for a second before bursting into red as embers ate through the soft cloth.

This is a funeral pyre, she thought to herself. I am burning my future.

64

Mayfair, 1861

LAVINIA HAD SHUT HERSELF IN the bathroom to escape the constant vigilance of the household. She sat on a cane chair beside the huge enamel bathtub. She was thinner; her birdlike wrists poked beyond the lace cuffs of her blouse. It was hard to keep her fingers steady as she opened the lid of the whispering box. Fearful her voice might be heard beyond the locked door, she spoke even more quietly than usual.

It is now September and weeks since I tried to escape. The little joy I have is in my child, my reading, and the thought that Aloysius might have finally escaped to America. Lethargy now possesses me, my silent friend: I move my mouth and limbs but melancholia has made me a sleepwalker. James now insists that I take two doses of laudanum daily, in the morning and at night, and, although it eases my grief, the drug has made me clay. He has also confiscated the money I had made from pawning my jewellery and claimed back both the necklace and the earrings himself; an embarrassment he is fond of reminding me of daily. But there is a far worse restriction: James has employed his aunt Madeleine Huntington as my custodian. This obsequious relative is in perpetual debt to my husband, who has provided her with a meagre stipend all these years. She is with me constantly and watches me like a hawk. She even insists on sleeping in my room at night. What can they be afraid of? That I shall sprout wings?

To add to my humiliation, James, to stifle any rumour of my unhappiness, has taken to public displays of affection, caressing me at the dining table, proclaiming both my wit and my physical attributes. Yet he turns away from me in the privacy of our own chambers. If he will not love me, and will not let me go, what hope have I?

At the sound of the doorknob being rattled, Lavinia shut the box and hid it behind the water closet.

‘It was gracious of you to accept my invitation, Lavinia. I am glad we have resumed our friendship.’ Lady Morgan stood in the centre of her elaborately furnished and now crowded parlour. ‘These luncheons are a wonderfully informal means by which one is able to maintain one’s female acquaintances. I see you are accompanied by the Colonel’s ever vigilant aunt?’

Madeleine Huntington, an unprepossessing woman in her late fifties, her mouth irredeemably twisted by a hypochondria that resembled self-pity, sat perched several feet away. Lady Morgan, taking Lavinia’s silence as answer, tapped her fan discreetly in Madeleine’s direction.

‘Oh, she is legendary,’ she murmured in an undertone. ‘Lady Curton even hired her to guard her eldest daughter after she was found in flagrante delicto with a young swain. Dreadful creature, a veritable parasite who thrives on the misfortunes of others. May the good Lord save us from such a fate.’

Then she spoke up. ‘Miss Huntington was a virtuoso on the harp when she was younger. Is that not so, Madeleine?’