Pantheon

Chapter Forty-three

Florence did not come to him, but hesitated. She moved slowly, as if she were approaching a dangerous animal. James wondered if it was the way he looked, if the beating on the train, along with the pain of the last month, had turned him into an object of terror to his wife. She glanced to her side, ‘You can go home now, Ethel,’ she told the maid.

The woman collected her things, passed him, mumbling a goodbye — and still Florence stood there, watching him warily.

With Harry in the crook of his arm, James stepped forward and slid his free arm around her. Her body was stiff, uncertain. Still, he drank in long draughts of the smell of her, the scent taking him back in an instant to Norham Gardens, to the college gardens, to Madrid, to Barcelona, to every moment they had ever known together. He could feel them both, Harry and Florence, alive and in his arms.

And then, what seemed an eternity later, he felt her tremble, her body quaking quietly and gently. Her head buried in his chest, she was sobbing. Florence, who never cried. He moved to stroke her hair — but she sprung back from him.

‘When I heard the motor car outside, I thought it was him. I thought he had come back. I thought you were him.’ Her eyes were bright with fear. ‘But then you knocked. And why would he knock on the door of his own house?’

‘Florence. It’s all right.’ Suddenly he noticed a suitcase in the hall, the same one his wife had taken three weeks ago.

She saw him looking at it. ‘We were about to get away. Ethel was going to help me.’

‘You wanted to escape?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you weren’t here because-’ James put Harry down. ‘You weren’t here because you were… with him?’

She recoiled. ‘No, of course not. James, I could never-’

‘Because it’s taken me so long to find you, Florence. It’s been so hard to find you.’

‘But you never wrote to me. Not one letter. All the other mothers-’

‘He had my letters blocked. I wrote to you every day, sometimes three times a day. I wrote to you on the ship coming over here. He blocked them, Florence.’

Now she took Harry from him. ‘I thought you had decided to forget us, that you didn’t forgive me for leaving you like that. What else was I to think?’

James stepped forward, getting closer to his wife. ‘Why are you in this house, Florence? Why are you in his house?’

She blinked, a gesture of disbelief that her husband was actually there in front of her, that they were in the same room, hearing each other’s voices, no longer thousands of miles apart. ‘The day they allocated us to foster families, they said we would be rooming with the Dean’s elderly mother, at the official residence.’

‘On St Ronan Street?’

‘How do you…’ She regarded him curiously, then shook her head, dismissing the question, for now, at least. ‘But the mother never appeared.’

‘So you lived there with him?’

‘It wasn’t like that. The residence is enormous. There were staff living there. We had our own quarters; he respected our privacy. He bought a swing for Harry. As a temporary solution, I thought it would be all right.’

‘And when did you move here? Don’t tell me: I bet it was Monday.’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact. It was. How do-?’

‘Because that’s when I turned up at McAndrew’s office looking for you. Surely you suspected something, Florence?’

‘It was nearly August. Yale was almost deserted. It didn’t seem odd that the Dean would want to move to his summer-house. And I thought it would be good for Harry to be in the countryside.’

‘And were you together, the three of you? Like a little family?’

Florence looked at James, then lowered the child. ‘Harry, why don’t you show Snowy his favourite cherry tree?’ The boy turned to give his father a smile, then skipped off towards the garden.

She spoke quietly. ‘Preston started… taking an interest. Asking me about my research, having Ethel prepare dinner for us after Harry was in bed.’

‘Dinner? What, just the two of you?’

‘Yes. When he heard that I’d had no letters from you-’

‘“Heard”! I like that. He bloody arranged — ’

‘I didn’t know that then. He came over so sympathetic. He started telling me that if he had a wife as “intelligent” and “radiant” as me, he would never let her out of his grasp.’

‘The bastard…’

‘Just listen. He told me he had never married because he had never found the right mate. That was the word he kept using. Mate.’

James knew where this was heading. His hatred of this man was growing harder and colder.

Florence went on. ‘Then something strange happened. He asked if I ever drank. I told him that I had the occasional glass of wine. He told me to stop. He said alcohol was disastrous, that it ruined the eggs of a woman and the sperm of a man.’

James suddenly had an image of the Dean in his study, pouring those full glasses of warming, amber whisky. He had been happy enough to drink then… Except now James could see it: McAndrew regularly raising the glass to his lips, but never actually drinking from it. He was keeping himself in impeccable condition, just waiting for the right ‘mate’.

Florence was still speaking. ‘Another evening, we were talking about science. He began speculating over what kind of children we — he and I — would have together. Hypothetically, of course. “We’re both so accomplished academically,” he kept saying. “We’re both in flawless physical health. I believe our offspring would be perfect.”’

The fury James felt on hearing those words was like a flood of lava he had to fight to keep dammed. But he knew he must. He needed Florence to see that he was in control of himself now, that he was his own master.

And yet precisely this had been his subterranean suspicion, the very thing James had imagined. That the Dean’s belief in eugenics did not apply only to the human race in general, but to himself in particular. He wanted to create a world of supermen, most certainly, but he also yearned to breed a family of physical and intellectual giants in his own image, a latter-day pantheon of the gods: mythical men and women who would be blessed with perfection of body and mind. And he, Preston McAndrew, along with Florence — the Oxford scholar gifted enough to have been an Olympic champion — would be their founding father and mother.

‘And what did you say?’

‘I was frightened, James. Really frightened.’

‘Did he touch you?’

‘He tried, once. But I never let him anywhere near me. Nowhere near.’

James closed his eyes briefly as he digested what he had just heard. It made sense to him that McAndrew would not force himself on a woman who was reluctant. His goal was not immediate pleasure. He had clearly waited so long for a ‘mate’ he deemed worthy of his seed, he would be nothing if not patient. Of course, once he had found as rare a genetic specimen as Florence, he would have wanted her to produce several children for him. And that, he would have known, required consent. McAndrew was playing the long game, waiting for the beautiful Englishwoman to accept at long last that her useless, crippled husband was dead or at least that he was never coming back.

He caught Florence looking at him in a way he had not seen before. ‘What is it?’

She stepped closer. ‘When I planned this moment, seeing you again — which I did, a hundred times — I didn’t know how I would tell you all this. I worried that it would, that you would-’

‘Fly into a rage?’

‘Yes. That you would be so hurt and so angry that you would lash out, that you would do something… terrible.’

‘A month ago, I’m sure I would have done. But I left that man behind in England, Florence. Just as you did.’

She let her eyes look into his, the two of them joined in a single gaze. Before his injury, they could do this for minutes on end, content to dive deep into each other. She spoke quietly. ‘I left because I didn’t know how to protect Harry any more. Not because I stopped loving you. I never stopped loving you, James.’

‘I understand why you did what you did. You wanted our child to be safe and I wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t listen to anything or anyone except myself, Florence. I see that now.’

‘But I shouldn’t have done it. It wasn’t fair. You’re Harry’s father. I shouldn’t have done it.’ He watched as she fought the tears. ‘But everyone around me said I had to, it was my responsibility. Virginia, Rosemary, Bernard, they were all so certain, I-’

‘Shhh,’ he said, stroking her hair. ‘You’re a good mother. You were doing what you thought was right.’

‘I won’t ever leave you again,’ she said. ‘Never.’ She turned her face up to him and their lips touched in a kiss that was tender, full of the melancholy and ache of the long, last month.

The moment was broken by the sound of Harry crying. Instinctively James went towards the back garden, but Florence realized the sound was coming from the front. She rushed towards the front-door and opened it, letting out a dry scream that made James’s blood freeze.

There at the door, holding a tearful Harry in an awkward grip, was Preston McAndrew.

‘What a nice surprise,’ the Dean said. ‘Here we all are, playing happy families.’

‘Put my child down,’ James said in a voice that was pure steel. ‘Now.’

Harry was writhing, weeping as he tried to wriggle free. But McAndrew would not let go. ‘Don’t give me orders in my own house, Zennor.’ He was, James noticed now, dishevelled, the usual smoothness gone. He looked what he was, a man on the run.

‘Put Harry down,’ James said again. ‘If you want to hurt someone, hurt me, not my child.’

‘All right,’ McAndrew said, that smirk returning to his lips. ‘As you wish.’ He discarded the boy the way a man might cast aside a used cigarette, throwing him casually to the floor. Florence caught him and comforted him, but over Harry’s bowed head her eyes were huge as they focused on what the Dean held in his other hand. A revolver.

‘Now, how about I get comfortable in my own house?’ McAndrew stepped inside, the gun trained now on James.

‘The police will be here soon, you must know that,’ James said. He looked over to Florence. ‘He’s on the run. He’s wanted for talking to the Nazis and taking stolen American secrets.’

‘Of course,’ said McAndrew, his upper lip clammy with sweat. ‘I knew it was you. It couldn’t be anyone else.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid your friend on the train failed to do his job — and kill me.’

Florence looked aghast and confused.

‘It’s quite true, Florence, dear,’ the Dean said. ‘For once your deranged husband is speaking the truth.’ He stared at James. ‘When are you going to realize you’re not wanted, Zennor? You don’t fit. I have plans for Florence and me and there’s no room in them for you.’

Florence, still holding Harry, was burning, her eyes wild. ‘I wouldn’t touch you if my life depended on it.’

‘Hush, Florence dear, this doesn’t concern you. Now, James. I’m going to be generous. Leave us now and I will let you go in peace, no need for me to use this.’ He waved the gun.

‘Listen to me, McAndrew. The police will find you eventually. And when they do you will go to jail for what you’ve done. But if you kill me, you won’t go to jail. You’ll go to the electric chair.’

‘Oh and what difference would that make to you? Don’t tell me you care whether I live or die.’

‘Personally, it would give me great pleasure to see you die right now, McAndrew. But you need to go on trial first and not only for the murder of George Lund. America also needs to hear what you were planning, who you were prepared to help to get what you wanted.’

‘What, so that they will be shocked into fighting for your washed-up old country? Forget it. Now, Zennor, I won’t repeat myself. I’m giving you the chance to save your life. Just agree to say no more about Lund and leave now. Leave me here with Florence and Harry.’

‘Never.’ He glanced to his right.

‘All right, then take the child. I don’t want him anyway. He’s not perfect: he’s a weakling like his father. Leave me and Florence to make some perfect babies.’

James bit down on the anger that rose at these words, for he could not allow himself to be diverted. He needed to act calmly and decisively — and now was the moment. In a single, swift motion he ducked and grabbed up Florence’s suitcase, then charged at McAndrew’s midriff. But he wasn’t fast enough. The Dean squeezed the trigger and the gun went off with a noise like thunder.

Florence screamed, while Harry — who had been crying steadily — stopped, frozen.

Where was the bullet? James felt no pain. No time to think about that. He slammed into McAndrew and felled him, then drew back his free arm — the damaged, weaker left arm he had despised for so long — and used it to deliver a smart left hook to the Dean’s jaw, knocking him out cold.

He looked down at himself, fearing that he would, for the second time in his life, see a stain of red blood, spreading and expanding like a deathly inkblot. But there was no blood.

His eyes darted to Florence and Harry. Thank God, they too were safe and unmarked. He looked around the room, and saw eventually that the bullet had plunged harmlessly downward and was lodged now in the hard wood floor.

James stood up, exhausted. He reached for Harry, pulling him up so that they were looking at each other eye to eye and said the only words he could think to say. ‘Daddy’s here, son. Daddy’s here.’