EPILOGUE
What my dear, sweet mother did not, could not, know was that it was just another beginning.
My parents never dreamed I understood things they did not, that I could predict events far beyond their comprehension. They didn’t realise that my mind, caged in the frail body of a child, was formed way beyond its years, was able to generate thoughts beyond the minds of others. I tried to warn them not to seek advice but they didn’t listen, couldn’t hear me. To them my piping voice was just a noise, a fact of childhood.
We left the green fields of Somerset behind us, just as planned - but not their legacy. We could never rid ourselves of that, you see; it is within me, a part of me. And though I pass my genetic make-up on to my - well, let me call them brothers, for want of a better word - I am the only custodian of my special attribute, the one that haunts me.
On Islay my father began to safeguard us, to obliterate the past, just the way my mother had always done. Painstakingly he plotted his revenge, let retribution against Flaxton take root. He infiltrated their stronghold bit by bit. A whisper here, a comment there. The cancer spread, the figures showed the profits dip, then slump away to nothing.
It was too late for my father to undo the damage Flaxton had already done. The force unleashed could no longer be contained. It lives within our universe, biding its time.
For us that time came all too soon. I remember it so well, the way I remember everything - every tiny detail, right from the moment of my conception. It was six months after Frank’s death that my parents took me for a check-up. That’s when it all came back to haunt us, that’s where it all began again. The doctors insisted that they had to do it, reproached my parents for leaving it so long. They cajoled my father, murmured admonishments in soft caring voices to my dear sweet mother.
It didn’t hurt. I healed up fast. They weren’t to know what they had done. That was the time they opened up my leg, you see. That was the day they took the plastic splinter out.