Soul

The click of Madeleine’s needle against the rim of the sewing frame intermingled with the tick of the clock and the rattling rain dashing against the windowpane. The scarlet thread ran from a bag at Aunt Madeleine’s feet up through her skeletal hands, relentlessly twisting backwards and forwards. Lavinia was gripped by a desperate realisation: my life will never change; this is how the years will seep away, incrementally.

James was to perform the shamanistic ritual in a week’s time and she was to administer the sacramental brew. Why had he given her that power? Surely he must know how much I have begun to loathe him, she thought; is it possible that secretly he wishes for his own death? Has he unconsciously chosen me as his deliverer?

Completing the sketch, Lavinia lifted the root bark to her nose. The scent was of burnt wood and something else, something she’d smelled before but couldn’t quite place.

She glanced over at the photograph of James in the Amazon. He was half-naked, his body painted with ceremonial mud, his masked face turned to the light that slanted through the jungle foliage—a changeling, half-man, half-god, a creature trying to live another man’s myth. If there remained a union between them, it was here, incarnate in the ideals of James’s younger self. I loved him, Lavinia told herself, despite his paradoxical character and his rejection, but now all that is left is smouldering resentment.

She replaced the root bark, then recognised the other elusive scent: ground tobacco.

The creature lay on the kitchen table, its shell a slimy leathery helmet, its flippers flailing wildly against the slippery wood, its neck extended as it snapped madly at all who approached it.

‘I should never have undone the twine,’ the cook wailed, backing into a corner armed with a rolling pin. ‘It’s a vicious beast. Do you see them gnashers on it?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mrs Jobling—turtles do not have teeth. They have beaks, like birds.’

‘Do they now? Next, you’ll be telling me they have feathers too! In which case, the bloomin’ thing might just take off and fly out the window!’

‘No need to get uppity, Mrs Jobling. But I suggest you kill it sooner rather than later. The soup takes a good four hours and we have to carve the flesh off well before then.’

‘I know my job, Mrs Beetle,’ the cook retorted. She tentatively crept forward with the rolling pin raised. The turtle backed away, made a clucking sound with its beak, and lunged, nipping at the cook, narrowly missing her apron strings.

‘For the life of me I can’t do it! You take charge.’ And she pushed the intended murder weapon into the housekeeper’s hands.

Mrs Beetle, pulling herself up to her full height of five foot two, circled the reptile like an experienced hunter.

‘Right then, you little devil.’ She slammed down the rolling pin.

As it descended, the animal scurried sideways and the rolling pin hit the table, denting it. The turtle tottered on the edge, then fell, its four flappers paddling wildly in midair. It landed on its back on the kitchen flags.

‘What is all the commotion?’ Lavinia entered, having heard the crash from the front hallway.

‘Sorry, ma’am, but we’re trying to kill the turtle for the soup.’

The creature flipped itself upright and scuttled towards Mrs Beetle’s ankles. Screeching, she leapt onto a chair.

‘Oh, for goodness sake! I’ll show you how it’s done!’ Lavinia grabbed a meat cleaver from the bench and turned to the animal. Immediately, the turtle retracted its head, arms and legs, becoming an impenetrable dome of chequered shell.

Cleaver held high, Lavinia crept towards it, then stood as still as a statue, waiting. Slowly, the turtle emerged, neck swaying as it peered from side to side with myopic curiosity. With chilling dexterity, Lavinia brought the cleaver down onto its neck. But the blade caught the edge of the thick shell, only partially severing the head. The creature’s eyes turned up in aggrieved surprise.

A great anger roared up in Lavinia and she slammed the blade down over and over, as if she were obliterating all the obstacles in her life.

Horrified, the cook stayed her arm. ‘Ma’am, the animal’s dead now.’

Lavinia watched the convulsing reptile—sounds in the kitchen rushing back into her pounding head as she lowered the blade.

65

THE HUNTINGTONS SAT IN THE open-topped phaeton, the Colonel resplendent in top hat and frock coat, his young wife in pale yellow satin with Aidan held securely on her lap. As they drove along the pebbled lane in Hyde Park, two men cantered up to the coach.

‘Huntington! Extraordinarily good game the other evening.’ The older man, in his early sixties and corpulent, sat high in his saddle, his riding jacket, jodhpurs and boots immaculate. ‘’Tis a pity you had to fall so heavily.’

‘It was a pleasure to lose to you,’ the Colonel replied, tipping his hat. ‘May I present my wife. Mrs Lavinia Huntington; the Marquis of Westminster.’

‘An honour, sir.’ Lavinia dipped her head.

The Marquis assessed her charms with a blatant gaze that travelled from her waist across her bosom to the top of her feathered bonnet.

‘A wife, eh? Must have been out of town when you were presented.’ He turned to the Colonel. ‘My compliments, Huntington, you’ve done well for an old rake. By the way, I’ve spoken to my man about that apartment. Should be ready in a day or two.’