The Blake Soul

by I C Camilleri

  “If you had any credit cards in your bag, you had better contact your bank and cancel them because that’s the first thing they will try to use.” He took her hand and led her to the bench and she followed blindly, totally forgetting her previous suspicions. He gave her his phone.

  “Very posh phone, did not steal it in this park?” She smiled weakly. Her hand was shaking as she punched in the numbers, but she took a deep breath to calm her nerves and she spoke clearly to whoever was on the phone. She had no qualms about revealing all her personal details in front of Josh, who could easily have been a serial killer for all she knew.

  She really needs some private lessons in personal survival, Josh thought.

  “So you’re Maria Conti, British doctor banking with West Bank, sort code 5078, account number 836935, here for a holiday presumably without having read a tourist brochure advising which areas to avoid. Hi, I’m Josh Blake,” he said when her conversation with the bank was over. He looked into her eyes to see whether his name rang a bell, but she seemed too emotional to notice and just shook his hand. She probably never went to the movies or read a gossip magazine. This pleased him, perhaps he could start afresh with no bad reputation preceding him.

  “I think that we had better take care of your forehead next, it definitely needs a few stitches.” He took her hand and led her out of the park. Again there was that blind trust in someone she had just met. She must have been very lucky to have survived this far or else she was too dazed with the bang on her head to consider common sense. He wondered if his car would still be parked outside. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw it; apparently it was too expensive to steal.

  She slid into the passenger seat and then panic started to flood her face.

  “Oh no, how am I going to pay for everything? I have no money, no credit cards, no travel insurance and no passport, and I haven’t even checked in a hotel yet. I put my travel bag in the bus station lockers and the key was in the bag they stole so it seems as though I have no clothes other than the ones I’m wearing and the jacket is not even mine. No one knows I’m here. I just took the first plane out of England without telling anybody where I’m heading.” She looked helplessly at Josh, large tears flowing down her face. He ran his thumb across her cheeks and wiped her tears away. He replied with what he hoped was a very reassuring voice.

  “Hey that’s OK. I’m going to take you to my doctor first and then sort out the rest later. I can pay for whatever you need to buy and you can also stay at my house. I have plenty of bedrooms and my...erm housekeeper lives in a nearby annexe so you won’t be alone with me,” he added hastily. He always hesitated what to call Julie. She wasn’t his mother though it felt like it to him, and he was too old to call her nanny, so housekeeper will have to do for now. Julie’s presence would hopefully make her feel more secure but he didn’t think that the word safety had penetrated her conscious level yet. In any case it was either him or the park for her. He must be the better option.

  “I should call my brother, he’ll tell me what to do. I can’t think straight at the moment. I don’t want to put you through too much trouble.”

  “I do not have anything better to do, so it’s my pleasure. My biggest hobby is helping damsels in distress so I’m glad that I have bumped into you, you certainly fit that description,” he smiled as he started up the engine. “My cousin Freddie, who is a doctor, owns a hospital which is just fifteen minutes away, so if you can stop the bleeding for that long you’ll be fine, don’t die on me yet.”

  She smiled and then they were off. But the moving car was her second jolt back to reality as she realised that she was in a car with a total stranger taking her to God knows where. She looked around and fidgeted, trying to find an escape route should he turn nasty.

  “What is bothering you? Did you just realise that you completely trusted a stranger and he has whisked you away in his car after you have given away all your bank details and the fact that probably no one knows that you are out here on your own? Believe me, if I wanted to take advantage of you I would have accepted their offer in the park. It was tempting but I only sleep with women if they want me to.” He glanced at her and saw her cringe at his comment. He quickly moved on, “So you can rest assured, you are safe with me.”

  She still looked unconvinced.

  “Ok, get it off your chest. Ask away, you will not offend me. Ask me whether I’m in the drug trade or the sex trade...or both. A rich man in a Ferrari in that kind of park has to be one or the other,” he said with a big smile.

  “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

  He laughed, “Oh, that is just the tip of the iceberg, you’ll see. I can read though anyone. But back to your concerns, I can assure you that I did not go to that park to corrupt some poor soul with drugs and I am not about to sell you off for sex. I went to the park because...well it’s a long story and it’s hardly credible. I’ll tell you all about it this evening if you will accept to have dinner with me. This is a first for me, I usually get swamped for autographs but you are calling me a pimp. I am deeply insulted. Don’t you watch any movies back in the UK?” He chuckled as he flung his cap on her lap and passed his fingers through his jet-black hair. He saw her flush deep red as realization slowly dawned on her. The cat was out of the bag. Well, he hadn’t thought it would stay buried for long. At least he knew that the baseball cap was a relatively good disguise.

  “Of course…..that’s why you looked so familiar!” she exclaimed. “Sorry, but my brain is not functioning too well these days. And still, you can’t blame me. No one expects an A list celebrity to walk amongst us mortals especially in a park which apparently has a very bad reputation. And yes, I did watch some of your movies, we do get them in the UK, you know. I must remember to ask for your autograph before we part. I might get millions for it.”

  “But the curious thing is that you looked very familiar there in the bookstore. Have we met before?”

  “Not unless you can see through the TV screen.”

  A fleeting picture of them being intimate crossed his mind. “You and I, did we ever…” he cleared his throat. Perhaps she had been one of his many flings during his visits to the UK. Why couldn’t he remember? “Have you ever been to one of my movie premiers in London?” He didn’t always remember what happened during the wild drunken parties that followed such events.

  “No.”

  “What about the Bafta Awards...or some chat show in the UK? Perhaps you were in the audience and we somehow met and….”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever been to the States then?” he insisted.

  “This is my first visit. And I don’t stalk celebrities either. Trust me, we’ve never met before today. I must have this sort of plain face that everyone resembles. You must have mistaken me for someone else.”

  “Do you honestly think that you are plain?” he asked in disbelief. “I can tell you that you have a very unusual and beautiful face, quite unique. I should have remembered someone like you.”

  She could tell that his comment was genuine and there was no flattery attached with it, but she looked away embarrassed, but somehow pleased.

  He continued to drive on in silence, deep in thought. He knew for certain, like a sixth sense, that perhaps in another life he had deeply cared for and even loved this girl, their lives had been entwined and he had shared her pain and joy. But that was all it was. ... just a distant muddled feeling.

  He suddenly felt scared. He liked his solitary existence and he just couldn’t afford to let anyone close to his heart. He had to be careful; after all he had just promised himself that he did not need to get involved with her. He clenched his teeth in determination and turned off the main road into a large parking area. They went inside the hospital and they were ushered into an examination room.

  Confessions

  “Well, what has my baby cousin been up to now?” Freddie was almost as tall as Josh, over six feet tall. They both had the same perfectly chiselled features; the only
difference between them being their colouring, Freddie was fair with blue eyes, and Josh dark with black hair and eyes. Maria thought that they both looked like perfect pictures out of a glossy magazine, even Josh whose straight black hair was all untidy and ruffled up after that windy ride in his Ferrari. She felt very small and insignificant standing between them, especially with the unflatteringly large jacket falling down to her knees. She meekly lay down on the couch and listened to Josh recounting her harrowing experience in the park. Freddie immediately set to work, cleaning and suturing the wound.

  “Maria Conti, I know that name,” Freddie smiled broadly. “I have read your article in the British Medical Journal last month. I had imagined the author to be an old, wise but crumbling professor, not such a beautiful and captivating young doctor.”

  “Freddie, stop hitting on her,” Josh snapped as he watched from the corner of the room.

  “Did you hear that tiny squeak? Was it someone trying to say something?” Freddie asked Maria with a smile as he completely ignored his cousin. “But seriously, your breakthrough was astounding and the whole medical world is waiting with great enthusiasm for the outcome of your trial. If cancer cell division could be halted that easily there is no limit to what we could do....” Then they entered into a whole medical jargon conversation which seemed all gibberish to Josh. He listened on, feeling very sour. But he continued to observe them closely, trying to glean all the information out of their conversation.

  The two cousins often met and shared double dates, and Freddie always managed to monopolize everyone around his table with his extrovert jubilant chatter. But Josh never minded that. If anything he encouraged it. That way he would be able to sit back and shut himself alone in his thoughts. There would be no need for pointless forced conversations, and he would then only join in during the interesting part of the evening, bed sharing and swapping. But that day Josh found himself resenting his cousin’s absolute dominance. He could not help frowning and grinding his teeth in annoyance.

  He knew that Freddie, like himself, was heartless when it came to women. But Josh was honest about it and girls approached him at their own risk, whereas Freddie tricked them into thinking that it was true love and then mercilessly broke their heart. Josh just didn’t want Maria to get sucked into his cousin’s charm and get hurt after she was brutally used. But she looked like a sensible no-nonsense kind of girl and she would easily see through Freddie. He looked at her hand; there was no engagement ring there, though there was a mark on her finger that suggested that there had been one recently. Perhaps that was why she left England in such a hurry, to escape this fiancée. Was he the same man he saw slipping a ring through her finger in the morgue? Of course not, that was just his imagination.

  “...and how did you end up in the UK?” Freddie was saying, “You don’t look British with your dark eyes and olive skin, you look more Mediterranean.”

  “Well my dad is... was an Italian psychiatrist, actually from Sicily, and he moved to the UK to do research years ago, so I was born and bred in the UK. But I actually have Italian blood running through my veins.”

  “Is he still working there?” Freddie was trying hard to keep the conversation going as much as possible.

  Her face was flooded with pain as she answered, “No, my parents both died two months ago in a skiing accident and I’m the only one still living in the UK after my only brother immigrated to Kemmuna, one of the islands making up the Maltese archipelago just sixty miles south of Sicily. I have plenty of relatives living in Sicily, and there the families are all closely-knit so I might move closer to my roots someday. I see no point in persisting to live in the UK now.”

  Especially after the breakup with your fiancée, thought Josh. It was surprising how much information he could glean out of people by just closely observing their body language. That had always been his strongest point, though most people considered him a freak capable of some kind of psychic sense. He could tell that Maria was passing through a heartbreaking period in her life. She probably had to cope with both the death of her parents and this breakup. And the latter must have been so traumatic that she had to take that first plane out of England.

  “Sorry for asking,” Freddie said. He looked genuinely embarrassed at having caused her pain with his probing questions. He took off his rubber gloves and looked back at her, “Well, you are all ready. The edges have come together nicely and, with time, you would hardly see anything but a faint white scar. Naturally, I will have to report your injuries to the police. Were you hurt anywhere else?” He passed his fingers lightly over her bruised neck and was about to unzip the large jacket, but she quickly stopped him.

  “I’m fine, no other injuries. Those are just bruises when he tried to strangle me,” she said.

  Freddie smiled sweetly at her, “I have to complete a comprehensive report detailing the full extent of your injuries. You know how they are, they will hound me down if I don’t. There must be a reason why you ended up wearing my cousin’s jacket.” He silently pulled the curtain round her bed as he proceeded with his examination.

  Josh scowled, he was sure that Freddie was abusing his position and overstepping his mark, and Maria’s bright red face coupled with his satisfied smirk when the curtain was finally pulled back was proof enough.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you again in five days’ time to remove your sutures. Where are you staying? Perhaps we can meet before then and we can continue our conversation. Your research is very fascinating. I could do with someone like you working here with me.” Freddie must have liked what he had seen behind the curtain.

  Maria mumbled something about a vague hotel. But Freddie persisted, oblivious to her evasive answer, “Josh, you don’t have to drive her around. I’ll take her to her hotel. Just give me fifteen minutes to finish off my report and fax it through, and then we’ll go.”

  “I’m really late and I have to meet up with friends this evening. I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She looked at Josh and silently asked him to keep his mouth shut. He smiled and obliged, after all he had been silent during Freddie’s two-hour empty conversation, and he was not about to open his mouth now. His cousin had taken far longer than was necessary for a couple of sutures and she knew it. She had seen through Freddie’s persistent flattery just as Josh had thought she would and she wanted to avoid further contact. She seemed more inclined to trust the silent brooding Josh than the friendly talkative Freddie.

  “Freddie can be quite intense, I apologize for that,” he said as he held the car door open while she slid in the passenger seat.

  “Thanks for covering up my lie.” She was suddenly feeling more independent and capable of thinking for herself. “You probably have better things to do than babysitting me. I don’t want to ruin your evening. I should go to the police station and take it from there,” she said as he slipped in the driver’s seat beside her.

  “I don’t mind, really, I had nothing planned. You are transforming my otherwise boring evening into an active and stimulating challenge. But if you want to spend the night at the police station I won’t stop you.” He paused and saw her wrinkle up her nose as she imagined having to sleep in a cold cell just because she had no place to go to.

  “Come on, you won’t like that. And there is also the fact that you have no clothes. You can keep my jacket but it is a bit too big for you. Do you plan to wear it till you get your credit cards back which might be in two days’ time or perhaps even longer? Alternately, we can go to the police station to report the incident and then we can go to my personal shopping assistant Rita, you’ll like her, she’s nice. She does all my shopping for me because I absolutely abhor department stores. She can measure you up and put together a suitcase with everything you need.” He looked at her and added grudgingly, “Unless you would like to choose your own styles. In that case I will have to wait around.”

  She burst out laughing; the apprehensive look on his face was hilarious. “Don’t worry, I will not burden you with my shopping. We
can go to Rita’s and she can choose things for me. I’m not fussed. I only have to stay at your place for one or perhaps two nights. I will move out as soon as I get the new set of credit cards. I will insist that I need them as soon as possible. And then I will pay for the clothes and Freddie’s bill, and the watch you had to give away to pay for my freedom and everything else. So how much was I worth? That watch looked really expensive.”

  “I never liked that watch anyway. I did make a good bargain today; I got a pocket-sized porcelain doll for a couple of bank notes and a watch I hated. I bought you fair and square, you now belong to me.” He leaned over to the passenger seat and patted her cute little nose with his finger.

  His sudden closeness stunned her. She half expected him to kiss her and she looked somewhat crestfallen when he moved back. She saw his crooked smile; he must have noticed her initial eager response. She blushed, looked down and mumbled, “I’m yours only until I repay all my debts. You’ll see, I won't be a damsel in distress for long.”

  He smiled, so she was the independent type. He didn’t mind letting her think that she was in control. He had no intention of accepting a single penny from her and she will not move out so soon if he could help it, at least not until he got to the bottom of his weird feelings. She will only leave if he wanted her to. He knew how to play dirty and manipulate other people’s thoughts. He drove out of the parking lot and headed for the police station. It did not take long to report the incident.

  “You are pampered,” Maria said as he drove to Rita’s store. “Wow, personal shopping assistant, do you do anything for yourself, do you cook, clean or wash your clothes?

  “No, my housekeeper does everything for me. Well actually Julie is not my housekeeper, she is more like a mother to me. She’s been taking care of me from day one. And when I grew into an adult I realised that I still needed looking after. I was still as helpless as that tiny baby. So I built an annexe for her in the back grounds of my place. She lives there and comes in every morning to clean up the house, do the washing and cook breakfast, dinner and whatever else I need. Yes, you are right, I guess I am spoilt, she would even feed me with a spoon if I wanted to.”