The Many Lives of John Stone

  * * *

  Mr. de Souza himself comes in at one o’clock, carrying a small, circular tray. He makes Spark jump. She sits up, finding it strange to emerge from her waking dream to see John Stone’s lawyer and her immediate surroundings.

  “How are you doing? My secretary tells me you’ve not surfaced since this morning.”

  He pushes the tray onto the table. Small triangular sandwiches—prawn, cheese, egg—are arranged on a white pottery plate. The bread smells good. There is a mug of strong, steaming tea.

  “You know, don’t you?” Spark says.

  Mr. de Souza leans his back against the door so that it clicks shut. “I am proud to be John Stone’s Friend. I am the most recent in a very long line of Friends.”

  “Why does he want me to know?”

  “I really mustn’t interrupt you, Miss Park. Find me when you’ve finished.”

  * * *

  At a quarter past three Spark slips out of the room and finds a bathroom where she washes her face and finger-combs her hair. Sempervivens. A word that is now permanently etched in her brain. That face in the crowd in the painting in the National Portrait Gallery: It wasn’t one of John Stone’s ancestors, it was the man himself. Martha and Jacob are also sempervivens. Stowney House. Not a home, but a sanctuary, which the Spaniard built all those centuries ago. Spark looks at herself in the mirror and the tears come again: for Jean-Pierre, for Isabelle, for herself. Now she understands the cause of Martha’s distress: The ancient woman in the photograph must have been her daughter. Martha has survived all of them, but her daughter, the last of her children, clung on to life as long as she could to stay with her mother. No wonder Jacob was anxious about her own arrival at Stowney House. No wonder John Stone threw Ludo’s phone into the marsh. Spark weeps because by sending Ludo the photograph of the street woman and John Stone in New York, she understands how she has put them all in danger. If their secret gets out, it will be her fault. And she weeps because of John Stone’s request at the end of the final notebook: Respect the privacy and the sanctity of their home, as someone who could have been a Friend to them. What a mess she has made of all of this.

  * * *

  Spark gathers together the exercise books and goes in to thank the secretary and say good-bye.

  “Shall I take those for you?” asks the secretary.

  “Oh, no,” says Spark, hugging them to her. “I’ll return them to Mr. de Souza myself.”

  He has heard her voice and comes down the corridor to greet her, his manner bright and pleasant.

  “Shall I relieve you of those?” he says. “Come on through.”

  He closes the door behind him and locks the exercise books in his desk drawer. Spark hopes the cold water has calmed the redness around her eyes and nose. She tries not to sniff. The lawyer sits back behind his desk and gestures for her to sit down too.

  “So now I know everything,” she says. “Except why Mr. Stone wanted me to know.”

  “It would be more accurate to say that you know a little. A very small tip of a very large iceberg. I understand that it is that early period of his life that Mr. Stone most particularly wanted to share with you—”

  “Mr. de Souza, there’s something I’ve got to tell you. I gave a picture of Mr. Stone to an American friend—Ludo—when I was in New York in February. I didn’t know who Mr. Stone was at the time. He was just a stranger in the street. But Ludo has taken my picture and matched it with a painting in the National Portrait Gallery. He’s written this app, you see, and—”

  “I know the painting you’re referring to: Haydon’s The Anti-Slavery Society Convention. We’re aware of Ludo and his app. The matter is in hand.”

  “It is?”

  “I doubt anything will come of it but, if it does, Mr. Stone has connections with people who know how to tidy up a messy situation.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “Please don’t concern yourself.”

  “It’s Ludo that I’m meeting later—”

  “In which case it would be convenient if you could convince him to forget that he ever heard of Mr. Stone.”

  “I’ll try—though I doubt he’ll listen to me. He’s very excited about his discovery.”

  “I assure you that it’s not the first and it won’t be the last time someone has voiced suspicions, which are difficult to prove—”

  “Can I ask you a question, Mr. de Souza?”

  “Please do.”

  Spark pauses to take a deep breath. The lawyer gives her an encouraging smile.

  “I’ve recently been told that I’m adopted.” It hurts to say it. As if it’s an admission that she’s been abandoned, that she was an unwanted child. She watches Mr. de Souza’s eyes widen; he picks up a paperweight and puts it down again. “I see. And how can I help you?”

  “My middle name is Theresa—I was named after my birth mother. Could the Thérèse mentioned at the end of the notebooks be my mother?”

  The lawyer’s lips part and close again. He looks through the window and then back at Spark. “That is a question you must put to Mr. Stone.”

  So she is. The evidence wouldn’t stand up in a court of law but they both know he’s just admitted it. Thérèse is her mother. Spark becomes aware that she is trembling.

  “Was Thérèse a sempervivens?”

  “Miss Park, I have been instructed to let you read the notebooks. I am not at liberty to enter into a conversation with you about them.”

  “Please! I’ve got to know! You can’t let me read those notebooks and then not tell me! Was Thérèse my mother? Was she a . . . sempervivens?”

  Spark’s eyes grow anguished. Mr. de Souza looks at the ceiling as if he wishes she were not there; a deep crease has formed between his eyebrows.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  “Miss Park, I’ve already sent Mr. Stone a text saying that you have read his notebooks. He’ll be in touch as soon as he receives it.” He smiles at her. “You can count on that.”

  Spark’s mind races. She struggles to recall what the Spaniard told Jean-Pierre in the cave: that only a union between two sempervivens parents ever produced a sempervivens child. She repeats this to Mr. de Souza and asks if that is correct—and if he can’t answer, could she please have another look at the notebooks?

  “Yes, for what it’s worth, that is what Juan Pedro told the Spaniard. Both parents would have to be sempervivens in order for a child to inherit their longevity.”

  “So that explains why Martha lost all her children—she outlived them all. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  Mr. de Souza nods briskly. “Mr. Stone will be able to answer the many questions you have.”

  He turns away from her to look out at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The two of them sit in silence for a moment. Spark’s heart is racing. Bong! When the ancient grandfather clock which she passed in the entrance hall sounds, Spark checks her phone and leaps to her feet when she sees the time.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.” She gathers up her bag and jacket as she talks. “I need to be at the National Gallery café by four.”

  The lawyer rises from his desk. “I’ll walk down with you and hail a cab. There’s usually one to be found in Kingsway.”

  “Oh, I’m fine catching the tube.”

  “It’ll be quicker by cab. You’ll allow me to take care of the fare, of course.” He walks to the door and holds it open for her. “I promise to be in touch as soon as I hear anything.”

  “Thank you. And thanks for . . . everything.”

  The lawyer takes a business card out of his wallet and hands it to Spark. “I want you to feel that you can call me at any time. After all, we have something in common now. We are links in a very long chain. The sempervivens—understandably—have told very few people the truth about themselves. The Spaniard used to call it the eternal legacy—”

  “Eternal legacy?”

  “A rather dramatic description, I agree, although I can understand why he coined the term. You kn
ow, John tends to forget what a truly extraordinary life he has led—and how unique he is as a consequence. But I never forget.”

  “You really like Mr. Stone, don’t you?” says Spark.

  “I’ve devoted my life to him. How could I not?”

  The National Gallery Café

  The streets of London blur by, unnoticed, until the black cab deposits Spark, ten minutes early, in Trafalgar Square. It is as if the ground has shifted beneath her feet and her sense of balance has gone. How can she carry on as normal, knowing that someone who was on intimate terms with the Sun King also watched the first moon landing and now communicates by text message? Not only that, but there are—and have been—others like him. Including a woman Spark must now assume gave birth to her. And she can’t say anything to anyone.

  Spark sits at a small table at one end of a long marble-topped bar in the National Gallery café. Above her head is a giant floral display, all whites and red, so that the aroma of ground coffee mingles with the perfume of lilies. The high-ceilinged room is vast, and the tinkling of cutlery and murmur of conversations swirl upward into the airy space. Through the tall windows, Nelson’s Column rises up into a clear sky. On any other day Spark’s camera lens would have been hovering over the scene like a bee over flowers, but today her head is filled with images of another grand room, one with many golden mirrors, and windows that look out over gardens where fountains are dedicated to Apollo and to Neptune, and where lovers are told they can never marry, because the boy is likely to outlive the girl by centuries.

  How can she meet with Ludo now? What is she supposed to say to him? Talk about the weather? Her actions—sending Ludo the photograph and bringing him to Stowney House—have not only put Martha, Jacob, and John Stone at risk, they have also made Ludo the enemy. Which means that whatever her feelings are about him (not that she’s clear what they are), and even if those feelings are reciprocated (which somehow she doubts), she must ignore them. It is her duty to walk away. She has already betrayed the sempervivens once and cannot risk doing so again. She should not have come. No, she should not have come. She should go now, before Ludo arrives. Someone is clearing their throat next to her. Spark looks up, out of sync with the world. A waitress in a white shirt and long black apron is speaking: Her lips are painted scarlet and the words coming out of her mouth are just noise.

  “I’m sorry,” Spark says, “I haven’t looked at the menu yet.”

  “I think your friend has already ordered for you,” says the waitress, indicating a round table in the corner. Spark turns her head to see a slim, black-T-shirted figure in spectacles looking in her direction. When her gaze meets Ludo’s, he smiles his easy smile, he greets her with that two-fingered salute of his, and he makes it impossible for her to do anything but to get up and walk toward him.

  * * *

  “I was wondering how long it would take for you to notice me,” says Ludo, as Spark slides in next to him on the curved, red leather seat.

  “Real life is elsewhere,” she says. “Were you here before me? I didn’t see you.”

  “I waved at you a couple of times but you didn’t react. Not a flicker—”

  “Were you watching me?”

  His hair has grown. It’s sun-bleached, too, after Italy. And he’s tanned, a lovely golden tone. “I guess. You were so far away I didn’t want to break the spell.” Although he is smiling, Ludo strikes Spark as being a tad on edge. But then, she’s not helping, and before he left for Florence they did not part on exactly good terms. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine,” she says.

  “You don’t sound it—”

  “Oh?”

  A silence falls between them.

  “I like your choice of café,” Spark offers.

  “Glad you approve. So, where’s the shopping?” Ludo makes a show of looking under the table. “I was expecting bags. A heap of bags. Couldn’t you find anything to buy in the whole of London?”

  Spark shakes her head. Ludo has already ordered a proper afternoon tea. “Is this okay for you? Can I serve you a scone? I know what to do with them now—”

  Ludo splits the scones and spreads on dollops of Jersey cream, then lets teaspoons of runny strawberry jam drip onto them, like blood on snow. Spark, however, is barely paying attention. It is as if the weight and mass of this newly acquired knowledge is pressing the breath out of her. What would be the consequences if she weakened, and revealed that the painting Ludo told her about doesn’t depict John Stone’s ancestor, but is, in fact, a portrait of the man himself?

  “Here,” Ludo says, offering her a plate. “Tuck in.”

  “Tuck in?”

  “Andy gave me some English lessons.”

  Spark looks down at her scone. Does she have the strength to bear the burden of this astonishing secret? Already, nightmarish sequences are beginning to play in her head: a press scrum outside Stowney House, the lane jammed with cars; Martha, hysterical, hiding in the kitchen; John Stone failing to restrain Jacob; journalists desperate to snatch a look at these near-immortals, wanting to tease out their secrets and their strange ways, demanding to know if they’ve been contacted by the big players in medical research. What price for a sample of sempervivens blood, or bone marrow, or stem cells? One slip of the tongue and all of that could become a reality. If she told Ludo, he probably wouldn’t understand why he shouldn’t announce it to the world. For the greater good. Or whatever. And it would all be her fault.

  Abruptly she slides out from the table and stands up. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I can’t do this. Please don’t ask me to explain. I’ve got to go.” She pulls a fiver from her jeans pocket and places it under her saucer. “I hope that covers it.”

  Ludo attempts to hand back the fiver to her, but Spark refuses to take it. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “What have I done?”

  “It’s not you. It’s me. I’m sorry.” Spark spins around and walks briskly toward the drafty double glass doors that open out onto the street. Litter skitters across the pavement. Overhead a helicopter engine thrums. The crowds part for her as she strides purposefully across Trafalgar Square toward the underground. When she reaches the giant lions, Spark stops to look behind her. She is as relieved as she is disappointed that Ludo has not followed her. Around her life goes on: Red double-decker buses and black cabs wait at traffic lights, filling the air with fumes; in Trafalgar Square every other person poses, smiling their best smiles, in front of a loved one’s camera; a child runs at a cluster of pigeons, scaring them so that they take off and fly over the fountains and circle back around Nelson’s Column. Spark blinks back the tears: This information is overwhelming; she feels so alone with it locked up inside her head. How she would have liked to spread out this knowledge like a feast and share it with Ludo. Instead, her last memory of him will probably be seeing her own reflection in his glinting, rectangular spectacles. And behind the glass, in his tortoiseshell eyes, an expression of bewildered hurt.

  And there is still something she doesn’t know. Why has John Stone allowed her to glimpse these wonders? Why her? Is it something to do with her birth mother? As Spark descends the steep stairwell leading to Charing Cross tube, she feels a hand on the small of her back. Her heart leaps. It’s him! But it’s not Ludo. It’s John Stone’s lawyer.

  “Miss Park,” he pants. “Thank goodness.”

  “Mr. de Souza! Is something wrong?”

  “I’ve been calling you for the last twenty minutes.”

  Spark glances at her phone: There are six missed calls. “I’m sorry, I had it on mute when I was reading the notebooks.”

  Mr. de Souza is out of breath and leans forward slightly while he recovers himself. He leads her by the elbow back up into Trafalgar Square.

  “Do you want to sit down?”

  He shakes his head. “I have reason to believe that Mr. Stone is about to go into hiding: He has been planning a journey from which he will not return—”

  Spark stares at him. “What are you talkin
g about?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound melodramatic. . . .” The lawyer has to pause to get his breath back. “Mr. Stone is not a well man. He’s been suffering from a serious disorder of the nervous system for some time. These last weeks have taken their toll, and his health has deteriorated sharply. He refuses to see a doctor in case his ‘difference’ is detected.”

  Spark feels a stab of guilt. These last weeks—does he mean since her arrival at Stowney House?

  “How ill is he? Do you mean he’s going to die?”

  “It is what he believes—”

  “But he hasn’t seen a doctor?”

  “No. John is a proud and dignified man, and does not wish to be a burden to his friends. He feels that it will cause the least distress for everyone if he slips away unannounced. He has arranged to end his days in a safe house, a place where those who love him cannot find him.”

  “Slip away unannounced—you mean without telling Martha and Jacob?”

  “He believes it’s the kindest thing to do—”

  “But it’s not! Keeping the truth from people is cruel—everyone deserves to be told the truth!”

  “I happen to agree with you, although I can also understand that to cause Martha distress, in particular, is something John would wish to avoid at all costs. Dealing with past losses has all but broken her. The point is, Miss Park, if you wish to find out more about your parentage, you need to go to Stowney House without delay.”

  “Why couldn’t you have told me this before?”

  “Half an hour ago, I didn’t know. The truth is I was counting on him to change his mind as the time drew near. This afternoon my secretary took a call from the car hire firm we always use for John. They were ringing to confirm our reservation. A reservation that we did not make. My secretary queried it and had me return their call. It transpired that it was John himself who had made the booking—and he specified the time but not the destination. John has never, and would never, involve himself in travel arrangements. I did not expect John to put his plan into action so soon. Perhaps his symptoms have worsened. I’m convinced that he intends to disappear—”