I am transfixed by her haughty, magisterial eyes. Something flashes into my mind, something indefinable. Fuck, there is just no escape. No matter which way I turn, how far I run, I always end up at the same door. I turn away from her and press my palms into my eyes. Oh, Victoria, Victoria! It seems you will have your revenge, after all.

‘Would you like some iced tea?’ my mother offers kindly.

‘No,’ I say, slowly. I take my palms away from my eyes and face her. ‘And what do you want in exchange?’

‘A successor. A hidden hand to hold the power after me.’

‘Me?’

She shakes her head slowly. ‘It was never you.’

Something inside me shrivels and dies quietly, but my voice remains calm and distant. ‘Why not one of Marcus’s sons?’

She shakes her head again. ‘The die was cast. By you.’

‘No,’ I state firmly. ‘You can’t have Sorab.’

‘He is not yours to give. Children come through us but they do not belong to us. The decision to join us is his to make.’

‘He won’t join you. I will teach him different from what I was taught. I will bring him up to know right from wrong.’

She nods as if conceding. ‘By all means. You may educate him in any way you wish, but if he decides, when he is able to, to join us, you must not stand in his way. That is all I ask.’

‘Why would he ever want to join a brotherhood of death and destruction if he had choice?’

‘You have your role to play. I have mine. He has his.’

‘And if I agree, you will leave my family alone.’

‘Until Sorab is eighteen, we will never contact him.’

‘What will you do? Trap him into committing some crime or scandal and then blackmail him?’

‘No. That won’t be necessary.’

I frown. ‘Offer him money, power and prestige?’

She seems amused. ‘Sorab is a catalyst. Offering him such things would be a waste of time.’

‘What then?’ I ask, frustrated.

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you more.’

‘Thanks, Mother.’

She smiles gently. ‘It’s all a beautiful and intricate game. Be courageous in the path you have chosen. There is nothing to fear. You have within yourself all that you wish to become and much more that you cannot yet even imagine. May our infinite creator bless and guide your path.’

I can hardly recognize her. I have only ever known her for malicious wit and vicious gossip, the spoilt wife of an astoundingly rich man, the unrivaled queen of the Kingdom of Snobbery. The transformation is too great to comprehend. ‘Why have you chosen the path you have?’

She looks at me as if I was a child again. I can barely remember her like this. Perhaps one little memory when I was five survives the brutality of my upbringing.

‘I was born into it. We are obliged. It is our divine destiny and we play the part given to us by our creator. We help prepare the harvest, by separating the wheat from the chaff, for want of a more eloquent metaphor. If there were no protagonists in this world, there would be no opportunity for a human soul to choose ‘good’ over ‘evil’. The negativity we perpetuate is a tool. Everything is a tool. This conversation is a tool. Use it as such.’

‘But the wars, the wanton destruction of water, air and earth—where is the choice there?’ I ask.

‘We are the hidden hands. Our job is to provide the catalyst. Yours is to use it. Violence, war, hatred, green control, enslavement, genocide, torture, moral degradation, prostitution, drugs—all these things and more, they serve our purpose. What do you do in relation to our urgings? Will you succumb to the darkness or will you stand and shine your inner light? If I put a gun in your hand, I am giving you a tool. It has the potential to be either positive or negative. The outcome depends on you.’

I drop my face into my hands. My heart feels so heavy.

‘Remember always that it is just a game. No one really gets hurt or dies. Offstage we are all the best of friends.’

I turn on her angrily. ‘Dress it up all you want. I don’t want Sorab to play catalyst. I want him to have a normal life.’

‘Can you look beyond what your eyes are showing you? Express love and happiness in a world of fear and darkness, and if you can, you will be as a beacon of light into the darkness.’

I look at her. ‘All right. I take up your challenge. We’ll see who gets Sorab.’

‘Goodbye, Blake.’

She presses a button and the car comes to a stop. I get out and close the door and the car moves away.

Thirty-One

Lana Barrington

How can I describe that moment Brian brought Sorab back to me? I had been told to stay indoors, and I was standing at the window that looks out to the gate when I saw them. Oh! I wanted to cry or call out to Sorab, but I couldn’t. I was so happy I lost my voice. There was not a word I could say. I turned around and ran to the front door. And it was Sorab who spoke first.

‘Mummy,’ he said.

I burst into tears. I couldn’t help it. I grabbed him from Brian and squeezed him so hard he squealed. Then he held onto my neck and said, ‘Sorab home.’

‘Oh, darling. Yes, you are. You are home.’

He waved at our housekeeper and he blew Geraldine a shy flying kiss but he wouldn’t leave me. I wouldn’t have let him go to anyone else anyway. I took him inside and he was hungry, poor thing. We made him scrambled eggs and a slice of toast and afterwards I let him have a red lollipop. I was so happy but all the time I kept glancing at the phone.

Finally, Blake calls to say he is on his way home. His voice trembles with emotion.

‘Are you happy, Lana?’

‘Yes, I’m happy.’

‘Good,’ he says softly.

‘Is everything all right, Blake?’

‘Yes, everything is just fine.’

And I laugh, a shaky, nervous, overjoyed sound. I feel as if we are just starting again. We’ve been given a second chance.

‘Say hello to Sorab,’ I say and hold the phone to his ear. I don’t know what he says, but Sorab listens intently and suddenly grins.

I am still holding Sorab pressed against my body when our housekeeper comes in with a slim black box.

‘Someone dropped this off at the front gate,’ she tells me.

I take the box from her curiously, snap it open and frown.

Inside, nestled on velvet, is Blake’s watch.

Epilogue

‘Time and the ocean and some guiding star and High Cabal have made us what we are.’

—Sir Winston Churchill,

Prime Minister, UK, 1940–1945 & 1951–1955

The woman awakens to the sound of a child’s laughter floating in through the open windows. She smiles and stretches, then strokes her belly. It is just beginning to show. A very small bump. She sits up and, hooking her feet into slippers, goes to the window. She can see her husband and son at the bottom of the garden. The boy is perched on his father’s shoulders and trying to peer into a bird’s nest.

She has the urge to run to them, but she doesn’t. Instead she savors that scene, a moment of beauty and joy. We have survived something so profound that it has bound us together like a tightly woven rope, she thinks. We aren’t the same fun-loving innocent people we once were but we are finally free.

Suddenly overwhelmed by emotion she finds herself running out of the bedroom and down the stairs like a child. Hurtling towards them.

At the double doors that lead to the garden she takes off her slippers and steps lightly on the tiles. They are already sun warmed. It is a beautiful day and there is not a cloud in the sky. The grass is cool under her feet. Before the man or the child have realized, she is already there. She throws her arms tightly around his waist and lays her cheek against his warm shirt. He stumbles forwards slightly with surprise and her son squeals. ‘Oh, Mummy,’ he scolds, ‘you’re going to make Daddy and I fall down.’