Wait a moment. That wasn’t strictly true. There was something I wanted to know. Something I wanted to know badly enough to even drive thoughts of Mr Ambrose from my mind for a few precious moments.
‘Mr Ambrose, Sir?’ My voice was unsteady.
He turned his head towards me without bothering to lift it from my chest. I could fell his chin press into my soft flesh.
‘Yes, Mr Linton?’
I could feel the breath of his words on my face, smell his scent of rough soap and too much money. What had I been about to ask again? And was it really that important…? I could just surrender and…
No!
‘I just wondered, Sir… the centre of the world. What is it? I mean, if we are going to die in any event, you can tell me, right?’
Silence. Silence and darkness. The only other sensation was the feeling of his closeness: omnipresent, omnipotent, omniinconvenient.
Damn him! Why wouldn’t he tell me, even now? What could be so important that he wouldn’t divulge it even at the brink of my, and his own, destruction?
‘Tell me!’
Nothing but silence. I could feel myself yielding, feel my arms snaking around him again, my lips moving closer to his. What did it matter if I betrayed my principles? What would it matter if he pushed me back, laughed at me, mocked me? At least I would get to taste his lips again. Nobody would ever know.
Wrong. You would know. You would regret.
Still, my lips moved ever closer to their destination. I could feel his breath on my tongue now, so close was I.
‘Tell me!’ I whispered, in a last, desperate attempt to distract myself, though at this point I wasn’t sure that even the long-sought mystery of the centre of the world would hold me back. ‘Please. Don’t people who are condemned to death usually get a last wish before they die? Well, I have one.
Kiss me.
No!
‘Tell me. Please. Tell me what the file I’m going to die for is about.’
A shudder went through his still form.
‘You want to know what the file contains?’ Some part of me marvelled how he managed to keep his voice calm and controlled, even at such a moment as this. ‘You want to know what the centre of the world is, Mr Linton? Fine! I’ll tell you…’
Lessons in Power
‘The centre of the world is a canal. A canal in Africa.’
It took a few moments for his words to register. Had he really… had he really just said that? That couldn’t have been the truth! He had to have told me a joke just now, right?
Stupid question. This was Mr Ambrose.
He had been serious. Absolutely serious.
My hands flew up to grasp his collar, and not with the intention of kissing him. I started to shake him like a rattle.
‘What? A canal? I have been risking my life for a bloody irrigation ditch?’
His hands shot up to grasp mine, and ripped them off his collar. There was the sound of tearing cloth.
‘That uniform cost one pound and ten shillings, Mr Linton! And the tailcoat underneath was almost new!’
‘It was ten years old, you blasted miser! Ten years old is not almost new!’
I tried to kick out at him, but he captured my well-aimed knee between his legs. Next I tried to butt heads, but he ducked to the side.