The Avatari (10 page)

‘Do you want a caretaker or a valet?’ Duggy asked, mulling over the issue for some time.

‘I want a friend.’

‘Very well. Thank you, sir. The sergeant smiled, his hand resting on his plastic leg.

CHAPTER 6

Basildon, Essex, England

1950–1970

It was in September 1945 that Lucas Hamilton had returned to Basildon, his hometown in the County of Essex, with his pregnant wartime Italian bride, Antonia. He had resumed running the family pub that his uncle had been looking after during the war years. Their daughter, Susan, was born just before Christmas.

Susan never really remembered her father, who had shot himself when she was just three years old in the pub’s back room which served as their liquor store. It was ironic, if you considered how he had survived the rigours of battle around the mountains of Monte Cassino. His death had come as a shock to some of the townsfolk, because ever since Lucas had married the vivacious, dark-eyed Antonia, no one who knew him could remember the big, quiet man looking happier. Some even said that had they entered the local contest, they would easily have won the flitch of bacon customarily given every year to the happiest married couple in Dunmow. The older townspeople, however, had shaken their heads and muttered darkly, ‘It runs in the family.’ Lucas’s grandfather and an uncle before him had also committed suicide.

Everyone who saw the little girl remarked that she had inherited her father’s blonde hair and long, slender bones. The dark eyes and clear skin, which had so enamoured Lucas during his short leave at Brindisi, had come from her mother; those, and a full figure, as she matured.

When Lucas died, the townspeople did not expect the young widow, who spoke little English, to take over the running of the pub. They assumed she would sell it, take the money and go back to her native country. But take over Antonia did and, to everyone’s surprise, made a success of it. She worked hard, rising early and sleeping late, asking no favours of anyone, and was as thrifty as they come – qualities respected in the south-west. By and by, Antonia added little touches like olives and different varieties of cheese from her native land, quite a novelty for the locals who were used to downing their Guinness with pickled eggs and crisps. Of course, her tight, low-cut dresses and the intense, direct manner in which she sparred and bantered with the customers, her bosom thrust forward, were an added attraction. In later years, the locals would compare her to Gina Lollobrigida, but in 1950, the Italian actress was hardly known beyond her shores.

Antonia’s behaviour scandalized some of the local matrons, who complained against her wanton ways to the vicar. The clergyman promised to look into it, but ended up having his evening tot at the Honest Ox. Antonia realized, however, that she would ultimately need the goodwill of the locals and not just of her select clientele to survive. She began participating in community events and contributing generously to the town council, the vicarage and the local cricket and football teams.

In later years, Susan Hamilton would remark that her own mathematical talent was first revealed when she discovered how easily she could win at poker. This was yet another novelty introduced by Antonia who, in her earlier job as a bar girl in Brindisi, had seen how popular the game was with the American troops. She managed to start it off in her own pub, modestly, at first. In no time, however, it had completely replaced cribbage, the card game customers at the pub would play earlier. Every evening, Antonia would join a table, her daughter on her lap, and play a decent hand, never losing, but carefully dropping out when she was winning too much. She was too shrewd to allow herself to win at cards and risk losing a customer.

Susan’s first memories were of herself at age four, perched on her mother’s lap at a card table by the fire, her tiny hands reaching out for the coloured pictures in Antonia’s hand. By the time she was six, Susan had mastered the rudiments of poker. At the age of eight, the child was making ten pounds a week at the pub, playing against regulars and curious visitors who came to play with her from as far away as Saffron Wilde. By this time, Susan had also taken full charge of the pub’s accounts, tallying the figures with a bored air before getting back to some book she was reading.

The young girl’s brilliance did not ebb at school, where she would go on to make a clean sweep of most of the academic prizes on offer. Her classmates found that she was truly gifted at mathematics, spending most of her maths class doing sums and remaining far ahead of her peers by reading up on the subject in the school library. Even in subjects like history, her memory for dates and events was phenomenal. In areas where her natural ability failed her, she would make up through dogged determination and just plain ‘swotting’. On the day the class took the last test of their finals, Susan chose to miss the class outing planned at the local cinema, preferring, rather, to sit in the school library and pore over a mathematical treatise.

She grew up to be a tall, pretty girl with many secret admirers but no boyfriends. Most of the young men buzzing around her were in awe of her and Susan appeared too oblivious to their existence to give them any reason for hope. The standoffishness most of her classmates secretly criticized her for was, in reality, a form of camouflage for the painful shyness she couldn’t bring herself to shed. Susan kept very much to herself, turning for company to her books and her only real friend, a small, dark Irish girl called Eithne, whose parents – travellers, derogatively called ‘pikeys’ – camped during the winter months in their caravans or
vardos
on the common. When she graduated from class, the reference to Susan in the yearbook was unabashedly, cruelly candid: ‘Got to the top,’ it said. ‘Made few friends on the way.’

Even though they were two completely different personalities – Antonia naturally gregarious and Susan markedly reserved and given to bouts of brooding – the mother and daughter bonded well. Antonia doted on Susan, embarrassing her, at times, with her protectiveness. When Susan finished school, she had a full scholarship to Cambridge waiting for her. Antonia worried about sending her away from home; she knew how poor her daughter’s social skills were. In their close-knit community, this was often indulgently glossed over, but she knew that college would be a different matter. Antonia really had no choice, however; her daughter’s mind was made up. When Susan left home, her mother hugged her and gave her a piece of homespun advice: ‘Know when to cash in the hand,
angela
, even if it promises you a much bigger pot.
Chi troppo vuole null astringe
; he who wants too much catches nothing.’ The girl would remember the words later as darkly prophetic.

Susan joined Girton, the first college in Cambridge to admit women. She was interviewed by Fred Bromley, the Head of Studies for Mathematics, in his chambers, along with two other girls who had taken Mathematics and were known in Cambridge lexicon as
mathmos
. Bromley was a tall, stooping, balding don, who smelt faintly of eucalyptus oil.

‘Excellent academic record you have, Miss Hamilton,’ he murmured, addressing Susan as he glanced at a file in front of him. ‘Any particular interests?’

‘Number theory and elliptical curves,’ she said shortly.

The don looked up, startled. He had thrown this question at numerous First Years and never received so direct an answer. ‘And is there any particular line of work you are looking at?’ he enquired, now staring intently at her.

‘I should like to work on solving Fermat’s Last Theorem,’ Susan replied.

One of the other girls in the room tittered.

Fermat’s Last Theorem was an extension of the Pythagorean Theorem which, though deceptively simple, had eluded a solution for four centuries. Some mathematicians believed no solution would
ever
be found. Its author, Pierre Fermat, had scribbled the theorem on the margins of a mathematical text and claimed that he had actually worked out a solution. It was, however, never found.

A benign smile began working its way on to Bromley’s face, but a glance at Susan made the Head of Studies rein it in. This was Cambridge; the First Years you patronized today could be decidedly caustic about you tomorrow when they wrote their memoirs – as Nobel laureates. ‘Indeed, Miss Hamilton,’ the don confined himself to murmuring, ‘indeed.’

When Susan was interviewed by James Russet, the Master of the College, he insisted she try out for rowing; she might even get to row for Cambridge in the boat race, he said encouragingly. Susan hadn’t even known that women participated in the celebrated event.

‘I am not much of a sportswoman,’ she protested.

She was telling the truth; her sports instructors at school had despaired over her lack of coordination.

‘I’m sure you will do just fine,’ Russet insisted. ‘With your build and height, you’re bound to be a natural. Anyway, all the races in the Michaelmas term are for the First Years.’

Susan couldn’t quite argue against his observation on her build; she was five feet eleven inches tall and weighed eleven stone. She decided to give it a go and then, quite certain that she wouldn’t be asked to pursue the sport further, get back to her books.

Her visit to the Boathouse changed all that. After a few hesitant attempts at getting her balance right, Susan proved to be a natural, taking out a scull and bringing it back without capsizing on her very first attempt on the water. The captain of the women’s team, who was taking a look at all the tryouts, marked her name on the clipboard she was carrying.

‘Susan Hamilton,
mathmo
– did I get that right?’ she asked.

‘I don’t really know if I want to participate in this,’ Susan protested.

‘Six o’clock tomorrow morning,’ the captain snapped back, evidently paying no attention to her protests.

And so it was that Susan found herself training on the river and at the gym with the rest of the ‘boaties’. She wanted to practise on single sculls, but they had put her down for double sculls, along with Jill Ambrey, another fresher from her college who was in NatSci or Natural Sciences. The practice sessions were gruelling and Susan’s body ached constantly, but she enjoyed the discipline of the schedules and the crisp air against her face as they skimmed the water. It was a sport where grace and raw power were intrinsically linked, where for the duration of her time on the water, her mind focused on nothing but herself and her mate, moving in unison on the slide, their oars gliding and dipping and pulling water savagely, yet with controlled grace. In Cambridge, where rowing champions were demigods, it earned Susan social acceptability, which she had never previously enjoyed with her peers. She also realized that with her improved musculature, she was making young men’s heads turn more frequently.

On Saturday evening, as they finished practice, Jill turned and asked her, ‘So what are you planning to do?’

‘Get back to my room. Study a bit, I guess.’

‘There was a notice on the board about a get-together organized for the First Years at The Mill.’

Susan tried to get out of it, but Jill persisted until she had managed to convince her to go. It was there that she would meet David Sage, another freshman from Darwin College, who was studying Modern and Medieval Languages. David was from a government school in Chelsea. He had a ruddy, earnest face and was about two inches shorter than Susan. Both were there alone and equally inept at joining the raucous crowd in the centre of the pub. The two stood against the bar and Susan began a conversation, simply because she didn’t want anyone to notice how ill at ease she was in those surroundings.

‘What language are you taking?’ she asked David.

‘Italian,’ he replied, not looking at her directly.

‘
Realmente
?’ she said, turning to him with a smile. ‘My mother is Italian.’

‘Italian?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I should have known!
Ochio
scuro e capello biondo e il piu bello del mondo!
Dark eyes and blonde hair – the most beautiful combination in the world!’

Susan laughed and their conversation became more animated.

‘So what’s it going to be after MML?’ she asked him, using the common abbreviation for his course title, as the party began winding up.

‘History,’ he said shyly.

But Susan could tell he had a plan – unlike most of the other students she had met who appeared to be just muddling along. ‘And what’s the big dissertation topic?’ she asked.

‘I’ll tell you if you have lunch with me next Saturday,’ David said with a grin.

‘You’re taking advantage of a sozzled girl!’ she protested with a smile, raising her beer mug.

‘Ach. If I was to take advantage of yer, it’d be tonight, lassie,’ he said in an exaggerated Scottish brogue.

They both laughed uproariously and Jill, who was keeping an eye on her friend, looked at them and smiled. Susan had found herself a fellow bookworm.

They became a classic Cambridge ‘couple’, going to the university events and socials together. They would sit at the same table in the library, punt on the Cam and walk around the ‘Back’. David would come to her races and watch the ‘bumps’, that curious form of race where the competing boats were separated by a length and a half at the start and the object of the race was to ‘bump’ into the boat ahead, thus eliminating it from the race. Both Susan and David came to know the other’s subject quite well. She was fascinated by David’s theory about Kublai Khan’s final resting place and they would often talk about it. While she was tolerant of his ignorance about her work, he tried hard to understand some of its nuances. He even did some extra reading to keep up with her. If they couldn’t be together more often, it was because David had to take on the responsibility of tutoring schoolboys to earn some extra money. While Antonia always sent her daughter money, David had nothing to fall back on, apart from his scholarship which barely covered his tuition.

‘You’re an expensive proposition, woman,’ he said, when Susan complained.

She knew that David was saving for the gap year, when he planned to visit Florence after finishing his MML. Susan had already decided to accompany him.