The Triple Goddess (30 page)

‘Precocious child that I was, I knew how the senses adjust when they become dulled, impaired or lost. I knew how blind people can learn Braille faster than sighted ones, and how those who don’t speak the same language can increase their ability to communicate with each other when they have no choice but to try. I knew how acute an eagle’s vision is compared to mine, how the evidence picked up by a bloodhound’s nose is admissible in a court of law, how sensitive the antennae of insects are, and how an owl can pick up sounds that I couldn’t hear if they were amplified a hundred times.’

‘And…’

‘…it was then it struck me that invisibility, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Just as the self-conscious or guilt-laden feel that everyone is looking at them, so it should be possible to turn the perception around and, by reversing the force, repel what it previously attracted. I went about formulating the rudiments of how one might accomplish this. I determined to create for myself a multi-dimensional space in which the sensory tools of other humans could not operate as they are designed or accustomed to do. I would occupy an exclusive portable environment of my own.’

‘Which…’

‘…meant never walking full-frontal through a door, or marching directly from A to B. Instead one angles and curves and zigzags with gaze lowered. It is necessary to maintain a constant speed; fast or slow, it doesn’t matter so long as deportment is not erratic, because it is variation rather than constancy that attracts people’s attention.’

‘A person…’

‘…who aspires to immateriality wears drab clothing and irregular patterns that camouflage the body. There must be nothing crisp and definitive about the appearance. One eschews robotic gestures and heavy foot placement by coasting along as if on wheels, staying close to borders, and taking advantage of cover along the way. As when watching the speeded-up replay of a room on a camera it is the blur of comings and goings that are ignored, and the stationary objects that stand out, so a fleeting passage renders an individual visually subsidiary to the placement of fixtures and fittings.’

‘When…’

‘…en route to evanescence, one talks out of the side of one’s mouth in a voice halfway between drawling and articulation. Such manner of speech contributes greatly to reducing oneself in others’ sensory imaging range, which assists in diffusing and reducing one’s outline and cognitive impact. The vocabulary is confined to simple and vague, unallusive, terms such as “I doubt it”, “Possibly”, and “If you like”; to conditional expressions, subordinate clauses, and subjunctive phrases.

‘Answering a question with a question is a ploy to deflect inquisitiveness and make the interrogator self-conscious instead of nosey. Or one imagines oneself catching and firing those arrows of enquiry back at one’s verbal assailants, so that they become defensive rather than aggressive. By using bland language instead of colourful images and definitive terms, and mumbling, one conveys that whatever one is saying is unimportant. A person should be able to murmur the secret to eternal life and be ignored. Sorry, bad example.’

‘I would say that…’

‘…a profound understanding of both physical attitude and “mental placement” is required, and the point at which they merge. One has to tap into one’s latent ability to hang anywhere except in the present tense, and to prowl between the dimensions. Breathing comes into it, and posture. Deflation of ego and absence of thought are essential, because brain activity sends out signals that may be picked up by others.

‘It is only when the gears of other people’s cognition are disengaged that their perception of one’s physical molecular structure can be dissolved without their noticing. When transparency is the goal, in order to cancel the positivity of presence one has to still the vibrations that a body gives off; to avoid the hypodermic needles of others’ senses that seek to penetrate and draw out one’s essences and send them off for analysis. One must behave in so common-or-garden a manner as to make a nematode look lively, a sphinx seem talkative.’

‘Having said which…’

‘…the paramount consideration, as one gradually masters the art of invisibility, is to remain alert and adaptable, and able to make smooth transitions and adjustments in the field as circumstances dictate. The position of the enemy—as one comes to think of other people as—is constantly changing and conditions are never the same. However, once one has established an optimal path or position, one must proceed with confidence and stick to it without allowing oneself to be diverted. To falter is to fail…’

‘…and…’

‘…different environments call for different methods. The little brown weasel of a man who hugs the wainscot in his brothel-creepers may be unobtrusive and unrecognizable when there is a crowd in the room; but if people are sparse he will stand out like an archbishop at an orgy. Whereas in a flock of pink flamingos no individual is distinguishable, one would not fail to notice a singleton of the species on a tidal flat. Similarly, a dun colour will stand out amongst a sea of colour.’

‘People…’

‘…automatically shun those who are ostentatious and in-your-face offensive. One therefore practises the art of disguise in appearance and manner: loud clothing and voice, lack of concern for others’ personal space, poor personal hygiene, excessive untidiness, ugliness, deformity, disability, nervous tics, begging or playing a musical instrument in a subway for loose change, wearing tartan plus-fours at the opera, garlic breath—all are effective agents of distraction and deterrents to observation. People
literally
want you to disappear.’

‘Another…’

‘…part of my self-administered training was to feed the birds at my window and try, not to tame them, but to convince them that I wasn’t a threat. Perhaps, I thought, if I were to devote enough time to them I might succeed in understanding their speech, and being able to talk to them in some Esperanto of the wild. That might seem a strange method of advancing one’s self-effacing skills, but becoming one with nature is an important part of the discipline.’

‘Also…’

‘…in that diet is so important in defining one’s body image, I allowed myself no red meat, only fish and vegetables, both of which I ate raw. I gradually decreased the amount, in order to shrink my stomach enough so that I didn’t feel hungry; and I drank only water.’

‘Eventually…’

‘…I came to believe that I could have strolled out of the Louvre with the
Mona Lisa
under my arm, or been a third in a Roman Catholic confessional. I surmised that my permeable body might be capable of quitting the present altogether and floating backwards in time—I have no interest in the future—into a historical scene of my conscious or subconscious choosing, where I would be separated from the people and action by only a thin temporal membrane.’

‘You…’

‘…seem to have done exactly that, which, in addition to your having inspired a certain voluble confidence in me, might explain why I’ve felt comfortable enough to speak more words at once than at any time in my life.’

‘What…’

‘…none of this addresses is why I am in a business where I stand out like that one red flamingo in a mangrove swamp.’

Carew, whose expression throughout this had turned from attentive to amused at the idea of Lloyd’s as a mangrove swamp, and Arbella in it, held up both hands, and waited for her to signal by her silence that she was finished. ‘In addition to increasing your awareness of the past, has your self-education convinced you of anything in particular? A response of a few shortish sentences should serve to enlighten me.’

‘Yes.’

‘…Yes?’

‘The transcendental power of love.’

‘Ah.’

‘I believe that two people who are in love with each other can remain close in spirit and in full communication irrespective of the separations that Fate and Fortune may bring between them not only during their lives but forever thereafter in that what existed between them for however fleeting a moment endures undiminished in intensity and indelibly in Time throughout eternity.’

‘I see.’

‘Now it’s my turn, Mr Carew. I wonder whether you might tell me a little more about your brother Wat. He died when he was the same age as I am, didn’t he?—twenty-two.’

Carew gave Arbella a piercing look. ‘Wat, as I mentioned, was Father’s favourite son, named after himself over the objections of my mother, who wanted to call him Fabian. He was a part of my father’s expedition to Guiana searching for the mythical El Dorado, and took a dozen Spanish lances in the chest through his corselet, as he was leading his pikemen in a foolhardy attempt to capture San Thomé.

‘Wat’s men, who were devoted to him, refused to go on. We found out later that the Spanish had been tipped off by King James. You can imagine how Papa felt about James after that. We were not at war with Spain at the time, and James fawned on the Spanish king; even though until as late as sixteen twenty-one Parliament wanted him to open hostilities, he wouldn’t hear of it. Though James called himself Rex Pacificus, he was in truth the weakest and most indecisive of monarchs.

‘Things got worse yet. After Wat was killed, Father took his grief and anger out on Lawrence Kemys, his trusted captain and Wat’s closest friend, whom he groundlessly blamed for the failure of the attack and the loss of his son. Lawrence was so devastated by Wat’s loss and my father’s reaction that he committed suicide. First he shot himself and then plunged a dagger into his heart.’

‘Such an indescribable waste!’

‘Deep down my father knew he was responsible for both deaths. He should have refused Wat permission to accompany him, or at least not allowed him into harm’s way. And that was the end of any possibility that Papa might patch things up with my mother.

‘Papa suffered another loss: that of young Henry, Prince of Wales. Henry was a valued friend despite Father’s hatred of the King, and the considerable age difference between them. Henry was very fond of him too, and they used to spend long hours talking together in the Tower. The Prince shared my father’s interests in exploration, and literature, and couldn’t hear enough about his travels and exploits.

‘As disappointed as he was in me, Papa came to regard Henry as the son he could now never have, a talented and charming boy who would one day be King and make him proud.

‘The Prince was poisoned. Although it was never proven we suspected the Earl of Somerset, Robert Carr, the King’s catamite and a political intriguer of the worst sort, of arranging it after he fell out of favour. Father dosed Henry with the Cordial, hoping that the herbs might overcome whatever noxious substance was in his blood, but he died in agony, poor lad.

‘My father’s venom towards the King thereafter was increased still further, and he neglected his
History of the World
to immerse himself again in alchemy. It was as if he sought to alleviate his pain by formulating some potent anodyne, which, had it been discovered in time, might have saved the three people he cared about most in the world. But in science he was still all at sea, and he soon gave up.

‘My father has never recovered from the treble loss of Wat, Lawrence Kemys, and Henry; and to this day he bears me a grudge for being the one who survived, venting his frustration on me as formerly he did on Captain Kemys. He berates himself for not being able to save Wat, struck down in his prime, for whose life he would willingly have forfeited his own.

‘In Wat he saw himself at the same age, brave to the point of recklessness; whereas I to his shame did nothing but mooch about the Sherborne estate and talk to the manager, farmers, and labourers about agriculture and livestock and forestry. While I was a practical sort, Wat had the most romantic of dispositions. His poetic gifts, though raw and immature, promised to exceed those of my father, and Papa was generous enough to acknowledge this and even boast about them to his friends.

‘It was Wat’s death, which I also took very hard, that motivated me finally to see what I might make of myself. Although I had no desire to go to sea, it was in my blood, which was what prompted me to enter the shipping business.’

‘I’m so sorry about Wat, and the others.’

‘It was a long time ago; not that you would think so from the effect it continues to have on my father. His bitterness is compounded by the paradox of the situation whereby he, who long ago lost the will to live, was unable to die despite the best intentions of King James to inflict the sharpest penalty upon him. Wat and Lawrence and Hal were the three people Papa had pinned his hopes on, to help him bring to fruition the ventures he’d for so many years been restrained from pursuing himself.

‘Had James had died sooner, Prince Henry, upon ascending the throne, would surely have released and pardoned him, and provided him with the authority and wherewithal to outfit a final expedition to Guiana, one that had a very different ending. He and Wat and Lawrence would discover El Dorado, thrash the Spanish, and bring their ships home laden with booty to much acclaim.

‘Instead, languishing in the Tower, Father was racked by a pain of remorse greater than that any instrument of torture could have caused in him; and when James revoked his reprieve he went most willingly to his execution. You will recall his wit and cheerfulness at the block, which was caused by his belief that he was about to join his son, his captain, and his surrogate son, in eternity instead of spending it here and alone.’

‘Might you tell me in more detail about what happened after the execution?’