The Many Lives of John Stone

  “Are you saying that this could be my last chance to find out about my mother?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’ve taken the liberty of hiring a car for you to travel up to Stowney House. It is waiting for you in Saint Martin’s Place. I urge you to go.”

  “Why are you doing all this for me, Mr. de Souza? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Time is short, Miss Park. All that I can usefully say to you is that I am acting in your best interests. And that is precisely what my client has instructed me to do.”

  Spark looks at the clouds scudding over Trafalgar Square, at the temple-like façade of the National Gallery and the turquoise water rippling in the fountain basin. She looks back at Mr. de Souza’s expectant face. “I’ll go.”

  * * *

  As they walk up toward Saint Martin’s Place, Spark’s phone rings. She checks to see who it is. “It’s not Mr. Stone,” she says quickly. “It’s Ludo. And I’m not answering.”

  “Probably a good idea.”

  Half a minute later Ludo calls again. Before he calls for the third time they’ve reached a large black car illegally parked opposite the Salisbury pub. Mr. de Souza signals to the driver who hurriedly gets out and opens the rear door for Spark. He asks Mr. de Souza to confirm that it’s just the one passenger and that the journey is open-ended.

  “Yes. Take Miss Park to Stowney House and afterward drive her wherever she needs to go.”

  Everything is happening so quickly: Spark has the feeling she’s been strapped into a roller coaster and now that the ride’s started she can’t get out.

  “Good luck,” says the lawyer.

  “I’ll call you,” promises Spark.

  “Miss Park?”

  “Yes?”

  “The life John has led makes him unique and precious. He won’t thank me for telling you, but if you find him, try to persuade him to see a doctor.”

  “Why would he listen to me?”

  Mr. de Souza smiles at her: It is a heartfelt smile. “Please try.” The lawyer raps on the roof of the car; Spark senses she has an ally in him. The car cruises past crowds of tourists, and it occurs to Spark that not a single one of them will have ever heard of the term “sempervivens.” How bizarre. She seems to have known it forever.

  * * *

  The traffic is at a standstill—a giant construction truck carrying metal girders is delivering its payload in a series of delicate maneuvers—so that when Ludo calls again the car has moved less than a hundred meters. He has also sent her a text. Call me. There’s something you REALLY need to know.

  Spark hesitates, then answers. “Hello—”

  “Where are you?”

  “Saint Martin’s Place.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Just up the road from the National Gallery.”

  “Then don’t move—I’m coming to find you.”

  “I’m not on foot. I’m in a car.”

  “Whose car? Are you with someone?”

  “No, I’m on my own—in a hired car. What did you want to tell me, Ludo?”

  “Can’t I talk to you in person?”

  “I’m in a hurry to get somewhere—”

  “Trust me, you need to hear what I’ve got to say.”

  Spark knocks on the glass partition and has a word with the driver.

  “Okay,” Spark says. “The driver is going to pull over for a moment. But he’s really not supposed to stop here. Can you hurry? I’m a minute away. Turn left out of the café exit.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  * * *

  The car’s hazard lights click on and off. In the distance a siren sounds. Spark twists around in her seat, scanning the road for any sign of Ludo or the blue flash of a police car. She spots him in the side-view mirror running toward her and opens the car door. He jogs effortlessly, dodging pedestrians, hair flying out behind him. As soon as he’s inside the driver pulls away in a burst of speed, bumping down onto the carriageway from the pavement. Spark and Ludo sit either side of the generous backseat. He wipes his forehead with the back of both hands. She watches his chest heave and listens to the sound of his breathing. His eyes roam over the car’s luxurious interior, but if he’s puzzled, he says nothing.

  “Is the gentleman traveling with you?” asks the driver.

  “No,” says Spark. “We just need to have a word.”

  “Would you like me to park?”

  “No,” says Ludo. “I’ll find my own way back. Keep going.”

  The driver enquires if the air-conditioning is set at a comfortable temperature and, reassured that it is, he slides the partition shut. The car glides past Chinatown and the Dominion Theatre on Tottenham Court Road. For a while Spark and Ludo look through their respective windows, each giving the other the chance to be the first to speak.

  “Well, isn’t this splendid?” says Ludo in a falsetto voice, failing to sound like the Queen, and waving graciously at passersby. A young guy in a porkpie hat waves back.

  Spark laughs. “I’m sorry I left like I did.”

  “I ate your scone.”

  “Don’t ask me to explain.”

  “Okay. I won’t. Are you going back to Mansfield?”

  “Eventually.”

  They pass Goodge Street station. A new window display involving purple sofas and steel lamp shades is being constructed at Heal’s.

  “I can’t presume to know what’s going on in your head,” says Ludo, “but I don’t think I’m the person you think I am.”

  Spark looks at her hands. “I’m not still mad at you for the Stowney House thing, if that’s what you mean. Now I understand. If I’d have written your app, I’d have wanted to see inside John Stone’s gallery.”

  “I was a jerk. It was finding myself inside John Stone’s house with all those paintings—I’d gotten overexcited.”

  “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

  “Actually, no.”

  “Then you’d better tell me soon, or you’ll have a long trek back into London.”

  “It’s about John Stone—”

  Spark’s heart sinks. “I wish I’d never sent you that picture. Can’t you just forget you ever came across him?”

  “No, I can’t. And if you listen, I think you’ll be interested too.”

  “I really, really don’t want to talk about John Stone right now.”

  “Please hear me out.”

  Hear him out. Spark is not sure she can cope with any more hearing people out. Though after what she has just learned, anything that Ludo could tell her is going to pale in comparison. Spark sighs. “Go on, then. Amaze me.”

  Ludo frowns at her. “Do you know you can be pretty scary when you feel like it? I’m telling you this because I think you need to know, not because I’m getting some kick out of bugging you—”

  “I’m sorry,” says Spark. “It’s been a weird day. I’m listening.”

  “So. One of the portraits in John Stone’s gallery caught my eye. It took me a moment to realize why. Afterward, there was so much going on it slipped my mind. It was a painting of a woman in a red dress. She had eyes the exact color of yours and a cloud of blond hair like yours—the same texture, the same corkscrew thing going on. I’m not saying she was your doppelgänger, but she sure as hell looked like you.”

  Spark tries hard not to react. Could it be Thérèse? Could it be her mother? “How old was the painting? Present-day or old?”

  “Old. I’m guessing nineteenth century, maybe eighteenth. I wish I could show it to you, but I got interrupted by the swamp monster before I could take a picture—”

  “Who was she?”

  “There weren’t any labels,” says Ludo. “If that’s what you mean.”

  Spark grips her hands so tightly in her lap her knuckles grow white. She affects interest in something in the street. To Ludo she says: “So are you saying that John Stone owns a painting of a woman who looks a bit like me? Is that the information I really need to know?” To herself she s
ays: If that was Thérèse, my mother was a sempervivens.

  “That, and something else—”

  Spark brings her hand to her forehead and inhales deeply.

  “You okay?” asks Ludo.

  She tells him he’d better finish now he’s started.

  “Do you remember when we were both in the kitchen with John Stone, and he asked me not to take a picture?”

  “But you took one, didn’t you?” she asks.

  “I did.”

  “I thought so.”

  “When John Stone made such a big deal about his privacy, I e-mailed it to myself as soon as I left the room.” Ludo brings out his phone. “There.”

  Unposed pictures are always stronger. John Stone is walking toward the camera the flat of his palm outstretched, a stern expression on his face; Spark is looking at him, mouth half-open, a cup of tea in her hand, her brow registering concern.

  “I won’t be asking you for a copy!”

  “It’s the only photograph I have of you. You see, Dan called me in Italy to say that he’d found out that you were adopted, and that he was still trying to get his head around it. He said he’d always assumed you’d taken after your mum. So I asked him if you two were related at all. He said that my guess was as good as his, and that maybe I should run my app on you. He was joking—but I did. I used this picture of you and a couple I had of Dan and compared them.”

  Spark doesn’t care for the solemn expression on Ludo’s face. Her heart is beginning to thump. “So, Dan and me—are we related? What do our nose-to-chin ratios, or skull shapes, or whatever, imply?”

  “For what it’s worth—and I’m not claiming that my app is superaccurate; I’ve still got a lot of work to do—”

  “Don’t keep me in suspense, Ludo!”

  “It gave a three-percent probability that you’re related to Dan—”

  “Oh—”

  “But it gave a ninety-percent probability that you and John Stone are related.”

  Spark looks wildly at Ludo. “What?” she says.

  “I ran it five times. I used the street woman picture too. I even adjusted the algorithm. But it kept coming back the same, give or take.”

  “I don’t understand.” This is untrue, because at some level she does. Spark feels nauseous with the shock of it. She presses her lips together to stop herself shouting the reason out loud. That must be why John Stone has told her his secret. That must be why the notebooks, which she’d hoped would be filled with recollections of her mother, were, in fact, about him. It was his story he wanted to share. John Stone is my father!

  The safety belt locks as she tries to bend forward and Spark unbuckles it impatiently. She puts her elbows on her knees and cradles her head, covering her ears with her hands. Ludo puts his hand on her shoulder but she shoves it off. After a while she sits up and stares blankly out of the window, then refastens her safety belt. They are no longer in central London. She is vaguely aware of Ludo sitting motionless next to her and of the driver’s curious glances in the mirror. Now her mind is racing, piecing together clues to a puzzle she never realized until now that she was supposed to solve. The connection she sensed with John Stone in New York, when he first held her hand and wouldn’t let it go. The coincidence of Thérèse buying a property adjacent to Stowney House. Jacob’s gift—a twin portrait, hers and John Stone’s, as well as his parting comment: There’s things you don’t know. And today’s seismic revelations. Mr. de Souza said that the exercise books covered only the tip of the iceberg of John Stone’s long life, but that it was this period he particularly wanted her to know about.

  Spark’s brain tugs at her like a fretful toddler. There’s something else. Something else. And then it comes to her. If Thérèse is her mother and if John Stone is her father—

  “Stop the car!” shouts Spark, banging hard on the glass partition with the flats of both hands.

  The driver slams on the brake and mounts the pavement on a busy stretch of the North Circular. Spark throws herself out of the car and vomits into the gutter. I could be a sempervivens!

  * * *

  The driver passes tissues and a bottle of water to Ludo, who hands them to Spark. They look at her, unsure what to do, and hang back while she wipes her face, rinses out her mouth, and spits into the road. That’s why John Stone wrote only about his early life in Versailles: John Stone intended to prepare her for the discovery that she is likely to be sempervivens like her parents.

  Spark asks if they can give her a moment. The driver says that this a red route—he can’t stop here. But Spark is already walking away. She pulls out Mr. de Souza’s business card from her pocket and keys in the number. Trucks rumble by; she struggles to hear him. They have to speak very loudly at each other.

  “Mr. de Souza?”

  “Miss Park?”

  “Is John Stone my father?” Her voice cracks with pent-up emotion. “He is, isn’t he? That’s why he wanted me to read his notebooks. That’s why you hired a car for me and practically bundled me into it. Isn’t it?”

  The lawyer seems to be considering his reply. Spark watches the driver open the car bonnet as a warning. She presses her phone hard against her ear. Then the answer comes: “That is a question you must put to Mr. Stone himself.”

  “Then I am!”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “How can you refuse to answer me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The car’s hazard lights flick on and off. A truck thunders by and recedes into the distance.

  “Miss Park, are you still there?”

  “Yes,” she manages. “What if Mr. Stone’s not at Stowney House when I get there?”

  “Let’s cross that bridge if we come to it. When you arrive, could you call me to let me know whether or not you’ve found him?”

  “Yes,” says Spark. “I will do that.” She hangs up.

  Standing on the narrow pavement, Spark covers her mouth with her hand. She sways a little, caught in the fume-filled wake of another giant truck. The roar of the traffic compounds the roar in her head. He might not be in a position to admit it, but she sensed that he wanted to. The New York photograph—that started all this off—comes into her head. She pictures John Stone’s shining eyes—so brimming with life—as he confronts the street woman. Everything those eyes have seen. Everything he could have taught her. By inviting her to Stowney House, he’d been trying to pave the way between them. And look how she responded. . . . The phone dangles loosely from her fingertips; her head droops forward like a doll’s. Presently Ludo approaches her; he takes her arm and walks her back to the car. When the driver moves off again, a speeding van comes close to ramming into their rear. Its horn sounds again and again until the blaring, strident noise fades into a grimy cityscape.

  “Are you feeling any better?” Ludo asks. “The driver wants to know what you’d like to do. Do you want to carry on as planned?”

  Spark nods.

  “Then I’m going to travel with you. I don’t think you should be alone.”

  Ludo undoes his safety belt and slides into the middle seat. She leans into him and lets him put his arms around her shoulders. She is so very tired.

  Spark lifts her head to look at him. “I can’t talk about it.”

  “I get that.”

  Spark lets her head sink down again. “I’m going to have to trust you.”

  “And I’m going to have to prove to you that you can.”

  Beneath the hum of the engine, and the staccato bumping of tires over an uneven carriageway, Spark listens to the beat of Ludo’s heart. Her eyes start to close.

  “But can I just ask one thing?” he says.

  Spark’s eyelids snap open. Gently, he strokes her hair.

  “Was it the idea of being related to John Stone that got you so upset back there?”

  Every muscle tenses. Suddenly Spark is wide-awake. She looks up at him. If Ludo is curious, after all the detective work he has done, she really can’t blame him. On the other ha
nd, what does she think she’s doing, bringing Ludo, of all people, to Stowney House? Is she on the cusp of a very bad decision? She recalls the heartbreaking downward curve of Martha’s face after she mistook her daughter for her grandmother. She thinks about the beauty of the gift Jacob sculpted for her, of his guard-dog ferocity in the marshes, and of the courage it must have taken for him to come to see her in Mansfield. She is suddenly struck by the fragility of these people’s secret existence, and by the humbling trust that has been placed in her.

  Spark extricates herself from Ludo’s arm, sits up straight, and shifts away from him, sliding across the black leather seat.

  “You’ve been so kind to me today, but, you know, it’s probably not a great idea for you to come along—”

  Ludo stares at her. “I seem to be making a habit of upsetting you—”

  She forces herself to hold his gaze. “No. You haven’t upset me. It’s just that things are complicated right now.”

  She leans forward and asks the driver to pull over when it’s convenient. When she sits back, Ludo is looking incredulously at her.

  “Did my question make you change your mind? You can trust me. I won’t ask anything else if that’s how you want it—”

  “I think that would be asking too much.”

  “What? I don’t understand you.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  The driver turns into a suburban road and comes to a halt. Spark turns away from the hurt look on Ludo’s face. She wants to grab hold of his hand and tell him to stay.

  “When things have settled down for me, can I call you?” she says.

  “Do you want to?” Ludo gets out of the car, leaning in before slamming the door shut. “Sure. Call me if you want to.”

  The driver opens his window to call out directions to the nearest station, but Ludo strides away without looking back. Spark curls up in the corner of the backseat as the driver does a three-point turn and rejoins the North Circular. She lowers her window and breathes in hot, polluted air. Wind ruffles her hair as she stares blankly at the rows of houses blurring by. She is emotionally spent, and desperate for reassurance that she just did the right thing, which no one could give her.