Double Blind

by Edward St. Aubyn

  ‘It is, it is,’ said Guido, feeling a pang of disloyalty towards Brother Manfredi, whose birthday party in the vegetable garden last year had been the talk of the monastery for weeks.

  ‘Signor Saul, I wanted to discuss a delicate matter with you…’

  ‘You want the number of my proctologist in LA?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Father Guido, ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘Just kidding,’ said Saul. ‘Say it how it is, Guido; tell me what’s on your mind.’

  ‘I have been asked by the Curia,’ Father Guido launched in blindly, ‘to approach you about a share of the profits from the scan of Fra Domenico’s brain.’

  ‘Well now, technically, that’s our data,’ said Saul, ‘because of a certain form you signed before we did the scan, and without which we would not have done the scan, but we’re hoping for a big endorsement from His Holiness – we don’t want you guys saying we stole one of your relics, right? – so we could certainly look into profit sharing on that basis. I’ll get our legal team on to it on Monday, but I can tell you we’d be totally open to a collaborative approach.’

  ‘Oh, wonderful! God be praised!’ cried Father Guido. ‘It is a great weight off my mind.’

  ‘Don’t sweat it,’ said Saul. ‘Just keep on enjoying the party.’

  ‘Yes!’ said Father Guido. ‘Thank you. I am enjoying this party more than I can say.’

  On the screen, there were now vertical blocks of brilliant colour. The synthesisers were playing a gentle meandering melody.

  Neon lights

  Shimmering neon lights

  This city’s made of light

  Father Guido felt the radiance of each colour filling his body. Stained-glass windows had been designed to make cathedrals into images of Paradise, but here he was, in the open air, flooded with light, in the cathedral of nature: the whole world was Paradise, these musicians were angels masquerading as robots to camouflage themselves in the contemporary world; his heart, in fact every cell in his body, was a rose window through which the light of eternity was streaming, but also from which it was streaming at the same time. It seemed to be everywhere, not just beamed down like a spotlight from a remote location beyond the sky.

  ‘This is the city of light,’ he whispered to himself. ‘This is what I was looking for through the kaleidoscope.’

  * * *

  So much lawn, thought Francis, and so much night lighting, disorienting the moths and bats. Although it was still quite early and none of the other guests were yet in circulation, most of the signs of last night’s party had already been dismantled and removed. He had promised Hunter that he would take a look around Le Plein Soleil and see what could be done to increase the biodiversity of the property. Ploughing up the lawn would be a good start. A field of mixed grasses, with mowed paths winding through it, would be filled at this time of year with wildflowers and poppies. Hunter had nine acres, an astonishing amount of land in the circumstances, but a relatively small amount in the context of wilding. The larger drama of this part of the Mediterranean landscape was its dryness and the abandoned, unmanaged scrub covering the hills and mountains a few miles back from the monstrously popular coast. It was a brittle zone, a fire hazard made more incendiary by the lack of animals, wild or domestic, to control the accumulation of leaf litter, pinecones and dead wood that made fires so violent and hot that nothing could survive their passage. The average amount of dead wood was three times higher than a hundred years ago, and after each fire, the rain washed away more topsoil making a poorer environment for the regeneration of pines and oaks.

  On the smaller scale of Le Plein Soleil a lot could be done by taking simple measures. The property was divided and contained by walls that could be turned into dry-stone walls by removing the cement fillings, leaving nooks for lizards and salamanders and lichens. Hunter could join the Mediterranean ‘amphibian ark’ by creating a shady pond for frogs to breed in. A third of amphibians in the region were endangered, and worldwide the whole class of Amphibia was under threat from chytridiomycosis, a deadly set of fungal diseases with no known cure. To prevent the pond from becoming a stagnant nursery for mosquitoes, there could be fish that ate mosquito larvae while the tadpoles grazed the algae growing on the walls, and lily pads for the frogs to sit on when they were grown up, and a gentle flow of water that would eventually run into an orchard, irrigating trees to provide unsprayed fruit for Hunter’s household, as well as food and flowers for bees and wasps and caterpillars and birds. Amphibians were especially sensitive to chemicals in water and so he would suggest large storage tanks, hidden along the top of the slope, perhaps behind a new olive plantation, for collecting the winter rainwater and then releasing it slowly through the arid summer months. At the far end of the orchard there could be a few log hives and tree hives, not to harvest honey but for pollination and support for the beleaguered bee. Lavender, which would attract butterflies as well as bees, could replace the fertilised, heavily irrigated beds of gaudy, flimsy flowers. Maybe he could persuade Hunter to plant a small oak grove. Oaks supported over three hundred other species, many more than the palms and pines that currently dominated the property. Yes, an oak grove, perhaps beyond the orchard, among the wild beehives and a new herb garden of rosemary and thyme and basil and sage, and lemon verbena.

  In the last tapering triangle of Hunter’s land, there was a whitewashed hexagonal pavilion, its arched windows edged with pale orange marble and an open doorway overlooking the sea. From the pavilion, two paths curved through the rock garden to the edge of the water, where a flight of steps led down to a private harbour, tucked out of view from the house. There was nothing growing on or immediately around the pavilion at the moment, which could easily have an orange-flowered trumpet vine encircling it, or evergreen ivy with dark berries to feed the birds in late winter and early spring; or honeysuckle, favoured by the amazing hummingbird hawk-moth. Two or three lime trees with their soporific blossom might replace some of the rock garden and mark the far end of the property with shade and a place to rest.

  As he was staring at the pavilion, imagining the appearance and impact of various climbing plants, Francis saw Father Guido on its threshold, still gazing at the sea in the early morning light. He eventually stepped out, seeming rather dazed and lost in thought.

  ‘Good morning,’ Francis called, across the rock garden.

  ‘Ah, buongiorno,’ said Father Guido. ‘It is very beautiful. Everything is very beautiful, you agree?’

  ‘I agree,’ said Francis, walking over to the pavilion, smiling. ‘You’re up early.’

  ‘I have not been to bed,’ said Father Guido. ‘I have felt too exhilarated by the party and the kindness of the guests and the power of the concert, and then, when I was determined to go indoors, I was enchanted by the rising sun. I have been sitting here.’ Father Guido indicated the cushioned bench inside the pavilion.

  ‘May I?’ said Francis.

  ‘Of course,’ said Father Guido, seeming delighted to have an excuse to go back to his favourite spot. ‘Let’s sit down and look through this archway. For some reason it is even more beautiful, when it is…’ Father Guido searched for the English word.

  ‘Framed?’ suggested Francis.

  ‘Exactly. Like a picture,’ said Father Guido. ‘Nothing is added to the view, except the edges, and so it becomes a picture!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Francis.

  ‘So, you are the one who is up early,’ said Father Guido.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Francis. ‘I’m a naturalist, and Hunter asked me to have a look around and think of some ways to help more plants and animals make a home here.’

  ‘Oh, that is excellent,’ said Father Guido. ‘I am a Franciscan and we love all forms of life, all aspects of creation.’

  ‘Perhaps you can help me come up with some ideas,’ said Francis. ‘Saul tells me you have some lovely woods and gardens around your monastery.’

  ‘Ah, yes, it is lovely,’ said Father Guido. ‘I ha
ve always lived in Perugia, which is very fortunate, but you know, everything has grown quieter there since I was a boy. The birds are quieter in the spring, the cicadas are quieter in the summer. When we were children, we used to go into the woods to watch the fireflies; now many of the woods are dark. My mother used to warn me to watch out for the cinghiale, how you say?’

  ‘Wild boar.’

  ‘Yes! Now I would be so happy to see more of them. The country has grown…’

  ‘Thin?’ suggested Francis.

  ‘Yes, thin. Instead of an orchestra, we have a harpsichord, an old harpsichord, so to speak, with many dead keys.’

  ‘Ninety-three per cent of the biomass of all the birds and mammals on this planet is made up of human beings and their domesticated animals,’ said Francis, ‘only seven per cent is wild.’

  ‘Can this be true?’ said Father Guido.

  ‘Yes, that’s how much wildlife is crushed under existing conditions.’

  ‘Incredible!’ said Guido, removing his glasses and wiping his eyes with his sleeves. ‘Forgive me, I am very emotional today. We must help.’

  ‘Everyone can help,’ said Francis: ‘plant a window box with seeds rather than with plants propagated with pesticides, reintroduce bison to the Carpathian Mountains, give the sea a rest, stop drowning dolphins and turtles in fishing nets, put out a birdfeeder; and between now and lunchtime, you and I can help by coming up with some ideas about how to revitalise this little park. The distribution of species is not fixed, it changes constantly with local immigrations and extinctions. Unless we insist on extinction, the natural cycles of a place are like a kaleidoscope, with pieces falling in and falling out.’

  ‘Ah, sí!’ said Father Guido. ‘Yes, yes, I have had this vision also, last night, it is…’ He took Francis’s hand, but seemed unable to say anything, wonder and incomprehension taking turns in his old and innocent face. ‘Forgive me, I have not the words.’

  15

  ‘Hi, darling, let me put on my headphones,’ said Lucy. ‘“Stop radioactivity”,’ she chanted, ‘or, at least move it a little further from my brain.’

  She was lying in a hammock on Hunter’s private terrace, watching a bumblebee crawl into a wisteria bell and clamber out encrusted in pollen. The other guests had gone, except for Saul, who was leaving later that day. She and Hunter would then have a few days alone; alone, that is, apart from the unavoidable Jade – she sometimes expected to find her in Hunter’s bed, with her radiant teeth, asking if there was anything she could do to help – and, of course, the Plein Soleil ‘team’, which numbered somewhere between ten and twenty, it was hard to tell, since each day new people greeted her from behind a rose bush or stood politely aside on the staircase, carrying fresh linen or bottles of mineral water.

  ‘So, how are you?’ she asked, when she had the phone far enough away from her to talk comfortably.

  ‘I’ve got some big news,’ said Olivia, ‘or, at least, some growing news.’

  ‘Oh my god, you are pregnant,’ said Lucy, who had already talked with Olivia over the weekend about her emphatically late period.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Lucy, hedging between congratulations and com- passion.

  ‘We’re both a bit stunned.’

  ‘Are you still unsure what to do?’

  ‘It’s just that…’

  ‘Have the baby,’ said Lucy impulsively. She realised, as she said it, how much she was longing for a set of multiplying cells she could be wholeheartedly enthusiastic about, and how much her vote was driven by a wave of sadness about no longer being able to have a child herself, given her uncertain prognosis. ‘As long as I can be a godmother,’ she added. She was going to have to compromise, given that she wasn’t going to be a mother or, for that matter, a god. She watched another bumblebee launch itself, weighted with cargo, into the air. It seemed to be her own atmosphere she was trying to lighten, as much as Olivia’s.

  ‘Obviously you’d be the godmother,’ said Olivia.

  ‘Francis is great, you’re great…’ Lucy felt herself getting lost in a complex, hollow mixture of regret and relief. Three years back, Nathan had talked fervently about having a child, wanting to tie down their relationship with the steel cables of parenthood. She had prevaricated, perhaps already knowing that she didn’t ultimately want to stay with him.

  ‘Francis is great,’ said Olivia, ‘but we haven’t been together for that long, and he doesn’t make a fortune counting nightingales and living in a tied cottage. Nor do I. And I’m attached to my independence – or at least used to it. Attached to being non-attached; it feels like there could be a problem lurking there.’

  Lucy didn’t answer immediately. She was thinking about how divided she had always been about having a baby: wanting to give it what she hadn’t had, while fearing she would pass on the worst of what she did have. Recently, she had been thinking more and more about the stresses of her childhood in relation to her illness. It was one of the penalties of her holistic approach, not to allocate blame, but to wonder about the psychosomatic chain, if there was one.

  ‘Is the adoption thing coming up for you?’ she asked. ‘I mean, Karen didn’t want to have a child when she was pregnant with you.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Olivia, ‘but I didn’t meet her until I was twenty-six, so she doesn’t play a huge part in my thinking.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Lucy, agreeing in a way that implied that it couldn’t be quite so simple, but hurrying on to a more affirmative note. ‘I can so easily picture Francis walking around Howorth with a baby strapped to his chest.’

  ‘So can I,’ said Olivia.

  ‘And also,’ said Lucy, in a more practical tone, ‘Hunter has become wild about wilding and is planning to give Francis all sorts of gigs, including wilding his ranch in California, which is huge compared to this place.’

  ‘I know, that’s exciting,’ said Olivia, ‘and Francis is already halfway through his report on Plein Soleil, but we can’t rely entirely on Hunter to pay for the costs of bringing up a child.’

  There was a sharp edge to Olivia’s tone that made Lucy feel that she was more of a charity case than she would have liked. She was running EpiFutures, but she was also following her doctor’s instructions not to push herself too hard. In her experience, what ‘too hard’ meant in the corporate world was the point at which insanity became counterproductive. At Strategy, there had been a semi-satirical competitiveness about late hours and work-annihilated weekends from which she knew she was now exempt but also knew that she was now excluded.

  ‘That’s another thing that worries us about having a baby,’ Olivia went on, ‘there are seven billion of us already de-wilding the planet.’

  ‘True,’ said Lucy, ‘but there’s a drastic shortage of sane human beings, and you and Francis would definitely provide the world with one of those. How does he feel, other than co-stunned?’

  ‘Open,’ said Olivia. ‘Hang on, here he is, I’ll ask him.’

  Lucy could make out some muffled response from Francis. She took the opportunity to swallow the medicinal mushrooms she had ready on the ledge beside the hammock: chaga, maitake, lion’s mane, reishi, coriolus.

  ‘He says he’s apprehensively excited by the pregnancy,’ said Olivia, ‘but stoically resigned to ending it, if that’s my decision.’

  ‘In other words, he’s being perfect as usual,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Perhaps too perfect,’ said Olivia, ‘I think he may be a cyborg.’

  ‘You could be the mother of the first cyborg-sapiens child,’ said an awestruck Lucy, ‘and the child shall be called The Chosen One.’

  ‘That’s made me feel much better about my decision. There’s nothing like starting a new race and a world religion to take the pressure off,’ said Olivia. ‘Hang on, Francis is trying to give me a long list of his all too human failings.’

  ‘A classic cyborg move,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Absolutely classic,’ said Olivia. ‘I think I’m going to have to adjus
t his settings – switch off Human Camouflage to get my perfect companion back.’

  ‘For God’s sake hurry,’ said Lucy, ‘before Human Camouflage achieves a black box recursive learning autonomy, making it more human than any human being, until it ends up destroying us on the logical but unintended grounds of our sub-optimal humanity.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I was worried about,’ said Olivia.

  ‘I’d better leave you to deal with that emergency,’ said Lucy.

  ‘I’ll call tomorrow to check up on you,’ said Olivia. ‘I feel I’ve taken all the airtime today.’

  ‘Well, not quite,’ said Lucy, ‘and, anyway it’s a huge moment in the history of the species.’

  ‘Thanks for putting it in perspective,’ said Olivia, ‘it’s so easy to lose sight of the big picture.’

  After they had said goodbye, Lucy switched her phone to silent. She wondered how helpful she had really been to Olivia. These playful riffs had always been a feature of their friendship, especially when there was something going on that was too charged to be worked out logically or conclusively. She saw now that the news of Olivia’s pregnancy had released an undertow of grief about the fact that she could no longer, in her own eyes, responsibly have a child. She had defended herself against that grief with a muddled fantasy about having a child with Nathan, as if the missed opportunity to be a single parent with a menacing diagnosis, bringing up a young child with a man who now hated her, were something to regret.

  Apart from anything else, if she had a small child she might well not be lying in Hunter’s private hammock; although six months ago it was the last place she would have imagined herself being under any circumstances. When she had first met him, he had been far too charming to be lovable and when she started working for him, she often found him positively obnoxious. It was only over their dinner in November, on his second visit to London, when he had chosen to be open rather than impressive, that he became impressive for the first time. She could see that his manic lifestyle was scheduled by chronic loneliness and by the suspicion that any surrender to true feeling would act as Kryptonite to his superpowers. He was obviously attracted to her, but his relative authenticity was still too new for her to be able to trust him with her diagnosis. After that dinner she had thought about him more often, with a vague erotic curiosity, but she still chose to register her biopsy as ‘sick leave’. It was only when he turned up unexpectedly at Howorth that things changed more convincingly. His charm was replaced by kindness. His professional audacity turned out to be an extension of his emotional courage, rather than a substitute for it, as she had first suspected. He enveloped her in a protection that not only made her feel safe, but left her free to feel unsafe: when she was overcome by terror and despair (which she sometimes still was) he would meet her in whatever black site she had been abducted to by her fears.