Either way, did I care?
“You have caused us such a problem,” she sighed. “It’s not your fault of course, lambkin. I mean–look at you, of course, entirely understandable, such a shame! Now, when it’s all over you will be wanting post-traumatic stress counselling, although I understand how difficult these things will be to come by. You look… fifty, maybe? Which means you must have been born in the twenties–ghastly, so many Freudians in the twenties, so much wanting to sleep with your mother. There’s this wonderful little chap in Finchley though, very good, very understanding, no rubbish about cigars. Failing that, I always find local priests are handy, as long as you go to them in the form of a confessional. Scares the buggery out of them sometimes too! Now absolutely don’t, don’t.” She stabbed the table with her index finger, the little joint at the end bending backwards with the force of her determination. “Don’t tell yourself that just because you’ve been around a bit you’re not in a terrible state. You are absolutely in a terrible state, Harry dear, and the silent, noble number won’t get you anywhere.”
Now I couldn’t look away from her. Was this face–this old made-up face beneath its bouncing mass of sprayed hair–salvation? Was this woman with her great dangling purple sleeves and chiffon cardigan, with her clattering pendants and expanding belly, a creature of the mysterious Cronus Club? I found it hard enough to think, let alone apply higher reason to the problem.
“There’s no joining fee,” she explained as if reading my thoughts, “but you are rather expected to chip in for the next generation, good form and all that. Only one rule set in stone–you can do whatever you like so long as you don’t bugger it up for the next lot. So no nuking New York, please, or shooting Roosevelt, even if for experimental purposes. We just can’t handle the hassle. I’m going to assume you’re interested,” she added to my silence, “in which case I really feel we should have another meeting.”
She leaned across the table. I thought she was giving me a business card, but when her hand lifted there was instead a small penknife folded into a wooden handle. Her eyes glinted and her voice was low. “How would… 2 p.m., Trafalgar Square, July 1st 1940 work for you?”
I looked from the knife, to her and back again. She understood and stood up, still smiling. “I personally favour the thigh,” she explained. “A bath helps, but one must make do, mustn’t one? Tra-la, Dr August, so long and all that!”
So saying, she sauntered merrily away.
I cut open my femoral artery that very same night, and bled out in under four minutes. Regrettably, there wasn’t an easily available bath to use at the time, but after the first sixty seconds I didn’t really notice the pain and rather savoured the mess.
Chapter 21
Death holds no fear for us.
It is rebirth where the terror lies. Rebirth, and the lingering fear that no matter how much our bodies are renewed, our minds cannot be saved.
I was in my third life when I realised my illegitimacy, standing above the coffin of Harriet August, staring into the face of my father–my biological father–on the other side of the soil.