The Kings of Eternity (34 page)

She saw me looking and smiled, and soon we were chatting about the novel and the novelist’s other books. She had read them all, and possessed, moreover, a keen insight into what they were about. It struck me as an amazing coincidence at the time - a coincidence which, only later, I would come to understand.

Tara was five feet tall and as slim as a reed, with a bone structure as delicate as some flighty tropical bird: slim wrists, long, articulated fingers, high cheek bones like arrowheads, a pointed chin. Her skin was a deep, rich
mocha
, and her eyes a lustrous brown.

She told me she was from the island of Vanuatu - formerly the New Hebrides - in the South Pacific, and I admitted that she was the very first Vanuatunian I had ever had the pleasure of meeting.

We talked for the next couple of hours. She was thirty-five, humorous and intelligent and friendly, and I wondered quite how I might tempt her to meet me again.

In the event, I simply asked if I might take her out for a meal, and to my amazement and delight she accepted.

We dined a few days later at a village pub on the outskirts of Aylesbury. She lived nearby, and told me she was writing a book on the town. I gathered that she was rather well off - she mentioned that her grandfather had bequeathed her an inheritance on the proviso that she leave her island and travel the world.

In 1970 she had found herself in Aylesbury, fallen in love with the town, and decided to stay for a while. She had researched the area’s history over the next few years, and decided to write a book on the subject. I recall hoping, on the taxi ride back to my cottage, that it would be a rather long book, and that she was a slow writer.

We saw each other three times a week for the next couple of months, and I marvelled at how I could find another human being so constantly interesting. She made me think, for the first time in years, about someone other than myself; she gave me a different perspective on everything. This, I realised, was the very thing I had sought, unsuccessfully, from travel, a broadening and enriching of my personal experience. Quite what she received from me in return, I was not so sure.

We took to going on long walks at weekends. I showed her Hopton Wood and Cranley Grange, and told her of my friends Jasper and Charles Carnegie, and Edward Vaughan - or rather ‘Ralph Wellard’, the esteemed painter. She expressed an interest in meeting them one day.

More than anything I wanted our affair to become intimate; I felt that I had met someone to whom I could give myself wholeheartedly. But, at the same time, I was loath to escalate the terms of our relationship for fear of frightening her away.

I recall walking through Hopton Wood one radiant summer’s evening. We came to the clearing and sat against a broad tree trunk, the very one where, forty years before, Vaughan and I had sat while Jasper Carnegie first told us about the blue portal.

“Jonathon, you’re such a strange person. You seem... I don’t know. You’re only forty, and yet you seem much, much older.”

“You mean,” I said, “that I remind you of an old man?”

She laughed, and pushed me playfully. “No, not at all. It’s just that you seem more experienced than most men I’ve met of your age.”

I laughed. “I’ve packed a lot into the years.”

“Tell me about Tangier,” she said. I had mentioned the city in passing, and hinted of having experienced sadness there, but until now had been reluctant to broach the subject of Sam and what had occurred.

Now I told her everything and admitted that, until I had met Tara, I had been unable to consider the possibility of ever becoming close to another woman.

And what made her so different? Was it merely pheromones that attracted me to her; was it a meeting of minds? Why had my fear of commitment been banished by this diminutive South Sea naiad?

That night we returned to my house and, even before I could suggest dinner, she undressed me on the sofa in the lounge, then slipped and wriggled from her own clothes; we made love for what seemed like hours.

She moved in with me three days later, and the next few weeks were the happiest I had ever known.

One day, after walking through Hopton Wood and looking in on Cranley Grange to ensure that all was in order in Charles’ prolonged absence, Tara took the photograph of myself, Vaughan, and Jasper from behind the clock on the mantelshelf. She stared at it for a long time, frowning.

“But why are you all dressed in such old fashioned clothes?” she asked.

I laughed, and made up some story about a 1930s party we had attended a few years ago.

She said, “Daniel, these men are important to you, aren’t they?”

It was strange to hear my relationship with my friends described like that, and odd that it was so obvious to her. She was so perceptive that there was nothing I could keep hidden from her. Or almost nothing.

“I suppose because we’ve been friends for a long time. We understand each other. Often friendship, like love, can’t be so easily analysed. It just happens.”

She tapped a long fingernail against the picture, indicating Jasper. “And where is he now?”

I had a story prepared. “Jasper moved to America a few years ago and now works in a bank over there.”

“And this person, Charles?”

“He lived in India for a time. Last year he moved to Crete. He’s a doctor.”

“And Ralph, Ralph is a painter, whose work I don’t like.”

I had one of ‘Ralph Wellard’s’ abstract expressionist canvases hanging above the fire-place, much to Tara’s irritation. It was one of the few things on which we did not see eye to eye.

“I’d like to meet your friends,” she said.

I kissed her. “The next time Ralph’s in London, we’ll visit him, okay? But please don’t say you hate his paintings.”

“And Charles?”

I laughed, “If you really insist, we’ll take a holiday in Crete this summer.”

She laughed like a child and flung her arms around my neck. “That would be wonderful, Jonathon!”

One morning a few days later, while Tara was in the village on shopping errands, the phone rang. It was Vaughan.

“Edward,” I said in surprise. “Where are you?”

“I flew into London yesterday, on business. Listen, Jonathon, I’ve just had a call from Charles.”

“Good God. And?”

“Jasper communicated with him earlier today.”

I was speechless. At last I managed, “Thank God he’s alive!”

“He was brief, afraid he was being monitored by the Vark. He told Charles that he’d attempt to communicate again in a few days. He said he had urgent news.”

“Did he say what?”

“He didn’t have time. They spoke for barely twenty seconds, according to Charles. Anyway, he wants us to get over to Crete. Can you make it?”

“Of course.”

“There are flights to Iraklion every day. The next leaves tomorrow at three. I’ve booked two tickets. I’ll meet you in the morning at ten outside Waterloo station.”

“I’ll be there.”

Twelve years, I thought. It had been twelve years since Jasper had last communicated with us. What marvels had he experienced in that time? And why had he contacted us now?

I wandered into the garden, where Tara was sitting in the sun. I told her that tomorrow I was flying to Crete to meet Ralph Wellard and Charles.

She sat up. “Perhaps I could join you later, no?”

“I’ll arrange a flight. We’ll make a long holiday of it, tour the island. How does that sound?”

She hugged me. “Can’t wait.”

I phoned London, spoke to a couple of flight operators, and booked a ticket for Tara on a flight leaving Gatwick for Iraklion in two days’ time.

Later, after dinner, we sat in the garden and watched the sun set. I was looking forward to the trip with more than a little anticipation: it was hard to know what most excited me, the prospect of speaking with Jasper again after so long, or introducing Tara to my friends, and then holidaying in the sun.

The following morning I said goodbye to Tara, caught the train to London, and met Vaughan as arranged at ten. He was driving a hired Jaguar - a far cry from the Austin he’d owned in the thirties. Within seconds of greeting him and climbing into the passenger seat, he glanced across at me and, as shrewd as ever, said, “Well, aren’t you going to tell me, Jonathon?”

“What?”

He smiled tolerantly around his pipe. “I don’t know what,” he said. “But you actually look happy for the first time in years.”

So I told him about Tara as he drove, how we met and how things had developed. I told him that she was the most wonderful woman I had ever known.

“So it’s love, is it?”

“Very much so,” I admitted. “You’ll meet her. She’s flying out to join me tomorrow.”

“You haven’t-?” he began, glancing across at me.

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t know how to go about it. But I must admit that it crossed my mind to tell her, break it to her gently, if that were possible. I was actually wondering what you’d think about it.”

He considered for a while. “My advice, Jonathon, would be to give it time. You’ve known her what, a few months? Don’t rush into it. See what happens in time - you’ve got plenty of it, after all.”

I nodded. “You’re right. I’ll see how things turn out.”

“What you’ve got to remember, Jonathon, is that you have only one dose of the serum to give away.” He shook his head. “It’s an intolerable situation. How can one be sure that one’s made the right decision in this matter? We’ll have so much time to regret a wrong choice.”

We took off from Heathrow at two, accompanied by a hundred holiday-makers and their riotous children. It was a brilliant summer’s day, and I recall looking though the window at the fishing boats, made tiny by our altitude and the breadth of the amazingly blue English channel. I looked ahead to Crete, to the communiqué from Jasper, the holiday with Tara, and was content for the first time in what seemed like aeons.

As we flew high above southern Italy, the jagged coastline sharply defined in the azure Mediterranean, I said to Vaughan, “I really didn’t think that we’d ever hear from Jasper again.”

“I must admit that I had my doubts,” he said. “Don’t think me crass, but the fact that Jasper has survived also means that there’s still the chance that some day he might open the shanath to Earth. We might actually be able to visit him among the stars.”

I considered the idea. “You’d like that?”

He smiled. “Perhaps one day. And you?”

“Like you, perhaps one day. But not in the foreseeable future.”

One hour later we landed in the small, dusty airport on the outskirts of the northern port of Iraklion. As I ducked from the plane and descended the steps, squinting against the incendiary dazzle of the Greek sun, the dry heat smote me with the impact of something physical.

We passed through a cursory customs inspection and stepped from the terminal building. Bored taxi drivers lounged against their cabs. At the sight of us, one of them hoisted a sign hand-written on brown cardboard bearing the name: Wellard.

“Nikos?” Vaughan said.

The Cretan smiled, a small, wiry, moustachioed Minotaur of a man. “Mr Wellard, Mr Langham. Welcome to Crete. In one hour you will be eating souvlaki and drinking retsina at Charles’ favourite taverna. Come!”

He opened the rear door of the taxi with a theatrical flourish and we climbed inside.

We raced along the northern coast road and then turned inland, heading south through the hills. Nikos seemed to give scant attention to the sharp bends of the road, but negotiated them expertly while addressing us over his shoulder for much of the journey.

Charles lived in a big, stone-built villa on a hilltop overlooking the village of Mirthios. The taxi wound laboriously up little more than a goat track, deposited us outside the villa, and then reversed all the way back down, Nikos waving like a madman through the open window.

“Gentlemen! Greetings!”

Charles Carnegie leaned over the parapet of a vine-covered patio, staring out at the sunset. He had a full head of jet hair, flowing loose to his shoulders, and an intensity of gaze that seemed visionary.

I took his hand. “Charles. You look well.”

“Never better! Greek life suits me. I love the people, the work I do in the village is fulfilling. I live for the day, my friends.”

We sat on the patio overlooking the village that tumbled down the hillside. I stared across to the almost perfectly circular bay, and the procession of fishing boats chugging into harbour.

“Later we’ll dine at a taverna in the village. First, let’s have a drink to freshen the appetite.”

He filled three small glasses with retsina and proposed a toast. “To my brother,” he said.

“To Jasper!” we replied.

Charles refilled our glasses. “Imagine my surprise, just yesterday, when the blue egg began glowing and Jasper called my name. I keep the egg on a shelf in the front room, on the off chance that he should some day call. But I must admit that I had given up all hope of hearing from him again.”

“We were discussing the very same thing,” I said. “What did he say?”

“It was early. I was about to leave the house on my rounds when I saw the glow. Do you know, but at first I didn’t realise what it was, and then I heard my name.”

He took a draft of retsina. “Jasper had time only to say that he was fleeing the Vark. He said that he was aboard an interspatial ship, and racing through occupied space. His colleagues had managed to open a secure link, which was how he had contacted me. But he was worried lest the Vark interpret the signal and trace their ship. He was brief. He said he would attempt to open the link again in two days - and that he had urgent news. He also told me to ready the receiver. I was about to ask him what he might be sending us when the link was broken.”

“It sounds as though he was in desperate straits,” Vaughan said.

“At least he’s alive,” I said. “We have that to be thankful for.”

“If he succeeds in opening the link, then tomorrow morning we might again hear from him. But come, let’s eat. Dani’s place serves damned fine food!”

We dined well that night on swordfish, and the whole village turned out to greet the doctor’s friends. Drinks were pressed upon us, and it seemed impolite to refuse such hospitality. I was regaled by stories of Charles’ expertise as a doctor. He was well-liked in the village, and, watching him across the table as he chatted in Greek to his friends, I found it hard to imagine that this was the same man who, before the war, had been so shy and self-effacing.