Epilogue : September-October 2009
Claudia Reid stepped lightly across the village green and stopped outside John Andrews’ gallery. It was Saturday morning and the town was busy with late season tourists. She looked through the window at the various paintings displayed there, a confident smile spreading slowly across her face. She caught her reflection in the glass and adjusted her broad-brimmed straw hat. Still smiling to herself, she pushed open the gallery door. How different she felt from the first time she had walked through that door over three months earlier. She’d been a bag of nerves then, expecting to be arrested at any moment.
Lola looked up as she heard the door open.
“Claudia! How lovely! What a surprise! How are you? It’s been ages.”
She walked over to Claudia and hugged her. “Love the dress!”
“Thanks, I only bought it yesterday. I got it in an end-of-season sale. Isn’t this weather amazing? I can’t believe it’s late September and the drive up here was fantastic. Gosh, Lola, it’s so lovely to see you. How is everyone?”
“All fine, Claudia,” said Lola, amused at Claudia’s typically breathless delivery. “John’s finally picked up his paintbrush again, after much nagging from me. He and Lily have been out and about trying to outdo each other with the excellence of their lake views. She’s got a great talent and she’ll have some wonderful work to take back to New York with her. Tell me, have you given up your job yet?”
“I finished yesterday. I’m taking a few days off and then I start work in the prof’s lab. I’m very excited about it.”
“Have you had many visits from our Man from the Ministry?”
Claudia laughed. “The inscrutable Mr Digby Smith? No, not too many, although something strange happened after the first visit.”
Lola raised her eyebrows in question.
“Well, I told him all about my results from John’s buccal swabs and how I’d bent the rules by seeking John out, as well as by sitting on the results – I still hadn’t told my bosses when Smith talked to me – I kept putting it off. I explained that I was rather worried about how my bosses were going to react when I sprung the file on them and what they might do with the information. He just nodded quietly and told me to hang fire; that he’d look into it.”
“And? What happened?”
“That conversation was on a Friday. When I went into the lab the following Monday morning, I looked for the file and it was missing. So I checked the computer system and all record of it had disappeared. There was nothing. It was like the swabs and results had never existed. So officially, John’s DNA was never profiled!”
“Wow! Our Digby’s reach is a long one. Didn’t anyone at the lab say anything?”
“That was equally strange. Nothing at all was said, but I did get a few accusatory glances from the principal manager – he had this sort of wounded look on his face for days. Anyway, apart from that, Digby’s obviously just got me programmed into his calendar to contact every now and then. He calls for what he terms ‘a little chat’ to check I’m OK, which is very sweet. Bit of a cold fish, though.”
“You’re telling me! I’ve tried to break through that starchy Whitehall exterior but it’s not easy. Getting onto first-name terms was something of a coup – I reckon that lot are all cast in a mould and programmed from birth. You know, once he’s gone, I can never really remember what he looks like. It’s as if they’re chosen to be anonymous. And he never loses that formal edge; I reckon he probably sleeps in his tie.”
Claudia laughed. “I know what you mean. He’s sort of, well, grey.”
“That’s it. He should be Digby Grey, not Digby Smith.”
“It must be quite a job, transcribing all that stuff before he hands it over to the academics.”
“Yes, but he’s relaxed a bit on that. He’s now recording the conversations to make his life easier and to ensure accuracy. Some of the recordings are for language experts. He’s had John speaking in his original Tuscan dialect from San Sepolcro, the Naples one he learned when he went there, and several others. John’s very meticulous about it, wanting to be sure that what he says is correct. I know a bit of Italian, but when he goes back there, I can’t follow a word. Apparently the linguist Digby is passing the stuff on to says some days it’s like having Dante making recordings for him, others it’s like listening to a fifteenth century villager. He’s ecstatic, but also frustrated because he can’t publish it.”
She looked round as she heard the gallery door. “I’ll just see who that–”
Sophie and Phoebe charged into the room, interrupting her. “Mummy! Mummy! Look what Lily bought us–”
They skidded to a halt when they saw Claudia.
“Do you remember Claudia, girls?” asked Lola.
They scrutinised her unsubtly. “You’re the lady who taked photos on your phone,” said Phoebe, somewhat accusingly.
“You’re quite right, Phoebe, I did,” laughed Claudia. “And I came to your house. Do you remember that? Do you know what? I’m so glad I took those photos because it helped me look at so much more of your daddy’s work. He’s the best artist in the world, you know; you’re such lucky girls to have him as your daddy.”
“That’s very kind of you, Claudia,” said John, walking into the studio with Lily. “Something of an exaggeration, though,” he laughed.
“Not at all, John,” said Claudia, getting up to give him a hug. “You’re a real live Old Master working here in the twenty-first century. What could be better than that?”
As she turned to Lily to greet her, she heard Phoebe mutter quietly to Lola. “Daddy’s not old, Mummy.”
Over lunch, Claudia asked Lily about New York City. She’d been there once and wanted to know where her studio was.
“Upper West Side, just off Broadway. Quite a smart address. I was left the place … by a relative of my late husband.” She whispered the last part behind her hand to prevent Sophie and Phoebe from hearing.
“That’s near Central Park, isn’t it?”
“A stone’s throw. I go jogging there every morning, along with an army of other New Yorkers. It’ll be strange going back. I love New York City, but my heart has now moved across the Atlantic.”
“When will you be back?”
“As often as possible, and certainly for Christmas. The girls and I have already been making plans.”
“We’ll have to have a big party. And we can celebrate Sal and Ced’s engagement too.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Wonderful news. When did he pop the question?”
“It’s more how he popped the question,” laughed Claudia. “Typical Ced. He and Sal were out on their mountain bikes, up to their ears in mud. They were jogging through a particularly muddy field carrying their bikes, when Ced suddenly sank to his knees. Sal thought he was injured. He fished around in his cycling top and pulled out a box with the ring in it. He said something like, ‘Sal, I wanted to find somewhere special to us. This is it, a muddy field in the pouring rain and feeling knackered. I want to do this forever, Sal. With you. Will you marry me?’ Then he held up the ring.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Fisher, you’re the most romantic man who ever lived. I’ll love you always.’ She let him slide on the ring on her finger, then she pushed him over headfirst in the mud and jumped on him.”
“Well, it’s certainly different from candlelight and soft music,” laughed Lily.
Three weeks later, Lily had finally returned to New York. John was working in his studio when he heard the gallery phone ring. A moment later Lola leaned into the room.
“John, there’s someone on the line called Adam Fowler. Says he wants to talk to you.”
“I don’t recognise the name. Did he say what he wanted?”
“No, he just said he would very much appreciate talking to you. He was very polite. I thought he was one of Digby’s crowd, but he has a slight foreign accent, and that would never do with them!”
“OK,” said John, putting dow
n his brush, “I’ll take it on the extension in here.”
He walked over and lifted the receiver.
“John Andrews.”
“Hello, Mr Andrews, my name’s Adam Fowler.”
The voice was rich and deep, and somehow familiar.
“Yes, Mr Fowler, what can I do for you?” replied John, searching his memory to identify the voice.
“I was rather hoping I could arrange to come and visit you.”
There was the tone again, familiar and yet not.
“Are you interested in my work?” asked John.
“I am very interested in it. I had the good fortune to see a matching pair of your portraits recently. I believe you sold them to a friend of one of my friends.”
“Really?” John tensed. He’d sold quite a lot of work recently, but the man on the other end of the phone was very specific. A matching pair. He’d only sold one matching pair of portraits recently.
“Who was this friend, Mr Fowler?”
“His name is Smith. Digby Smith.”
John caught his breath. No one outside their tight-knit group should know of Digby Smith’s name, and no one should be able to connect John to him. He should ring off and call Digby Smith immediately. Checking the caller display, he saw that the number was withheld. However, he felt sure that with Smith’s resources, his technical people would have no trouble tracing any phone that called him, number withheld or not.
“Mr Fowler, I’m sorry, I’m really busy at the moment. I’ve a gallery full of impatient-looking clients and my wife’s had to step out. Could I call you back? If you could give me your number…”
There was a deep laugh from the other end of the line.
“Ah, mon ami, as cautious as ever. Do you think the authorities are still after you for sticking your sword in that scum Louis Brochard in the backstreets of Marseille?”
“What…?”
The caller switched from English to a broad Marseille accent of the seventeenth century.
“Didn’t you recognise my voice, Philippe? Even after all these years – and it’s been a few, heh – I knew yours instantly, even speaking that barbaric language.”
“Jacques? Jacques Bognard? How can… Jacques is it really you? Are you–”
“The same as you, Philippe? Yes, I am. We’re part of a very select group, the two of us.”
“Jacques. I didn’t know. Back then. I had no idea.”
Almost without thinking, John had slipped into the same Old French that Jacques was using.
“And I wasn’t sure about you,” said Jacques. “I was suspicious, but not sure enough. As you know, it doesn’t pay to advertise our particular characteristics.”
“But your eyes, Jacques, they’re not like mine.”
There was another deep laugh.
“It’s not a prerequisite to have pale grey eyes like yours, remarkable though they are.”
“It isn’t? I’ve never met anyone like us who didn’t have them.”
“Your sons, Henri and Michel, they had them. They are the same as us, huh?”
“Yes, they ... were,” said John hesitantly.
“Were?”
“Yes, Jacques. They are both long dead. Henri murdered.”
“Gisèle?”
“Yes, effectively.”
“And Michel?”
“Executed. In the French Revolution.”
“A noble cause. I nearly suffered the same fate myself. I’m sorry, Philippe. It brings home our mortality, despite whatever it is that keeps us alive.”
“It was a long time ago, Jacques.”
“Time. A strange thing. So many memories, but somehow they all seem like yesterday.”
“For me too. An acute memory seems to go with the territory. Jacques, where are you? You said your name is Adam Fowler now. Are you in England?”
“Yes, I live in London. Quite a successful businessman.”
“I’m not in the least surprised. In fact, I’d only be surprised if you told me you weren’t successful. How did you find out about me?”
“Through Digby Smith.”
“But I thought he only dealt with me. That’s what he said.”
Another deep laugh.
“What does he look like, your Digby Smith?”
“Er, he’s about my height, slim, sandy coloured hair. Late thirties.”
“Not short, overweight, balding and about fifty?”
“Definitely not.”
“Well, my Digby Smith is.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Philippe, it seems to be a little quirk of this secret crowd. They like to keep themselves anonymous, so they’re all called Digby Smith!”
“How bizarre.”
“That’s the English for you.”
“I knew there was another like us, like me, I mean. After some persuasion, my Digby Smith agreed to tell me, although he said he was unaware of anything to do with the other person. He said a colleague dealt with him. The only thing he let slip was that the person was a man. It was supposed to be all part of the secrecy.”
“I understand from my Mr Smith that they’ve been having a huge internal debate over whether we should be introduced. It suddenly occurred to them that we might know each other, or might have known each other some time in the past. They discussed it for weeks and they finally gave my Mr Smith a description of you that he was authorised to pass on to me. No name, just a description, but I knew you at once from that alone. When they said you were an artist, that confirmed it. They were amazed. However, once I knew it was you, I insisted that I should make contact. They agreed, knowing it was safe to do so, since obviously security is as important to me as it is to you. I wasn’t about to announce it to the newspapers.”
“Jacques, this is absolutely wonderful. Unbelievable. When can we meet?”
“That’s why I called, mon ami. I want to visit you as soon as possible.”
“That would be wonderful. But I can come to you. Why don’t I come to London?”
“No, I’d like a trip to the Lake District. I haven’t been there for, well, for a long, long time. May I come tomorrow?”
“Jacques, you don’t have to ask.”
“Then, mon ami, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Oh, what’s the address?”
As he put down the receiver, John was in a daze. He turned to see Lola standing in the doorway looking very surprised.
“Whatever language was that, John? It sounded like some gutter form of French. Is our Digby conducting his interviews on the phone now?”
His eyes slowly focused on her as her words filtered through the thousand thoughts and memories flooding across his mind. He walked over and took her in his arms. His eyes were alive with excitement. “Lola, you’ll never believe who that was.”
The following morning, John was too excited to settle to his work. He paced around the gallery, stopping constantly by the window to peer up and down the street. It was a grey, wet morning: a typical Lakeland autumn finally asserting its authority after a lingering and blissful extended summer.
“John!” cried an exasperated Lola. “For goodness sake, wearing out the floor won’t bring your friend here any quicker! If any customers come in, they’ll think you’ve gone potty. You’ll put them off. Go into the studio and do something!”
“I can’t think about painting, Lola. Don’t you realise how I feel? It’s been more than three hundred and thirty years since I’ve seen this man.”
“Then another half an hour won’t make any difference. Now shoo! You’re getting under my feet!”
He reluctantly did what he was told, but not before instructing Lola to call him the moment Jacques arrived.
“You can’t mistake him. He’s a bear of a man, as tall as Ced but bigger built.”
Close to one o’clock, the gallery door opened so quietly that Lola hardly heard it. She looked up to see the doorframe filled with a large, smartly dressed and powerfully built man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He dro
pped an umbrella in the stand and looked over to Lola.
“Shh!” he hissed softly as she turned to call John. She looked back to see the man had lifted his index finger to his lips, while his eyes wrinkled in amusement.
He tiptoed over to her and held out his hand.
“Adam Fowler,” he whispered. “You are Philippe’s wife?”
“Philippe? Er, yes, well, I’m John’s wife, actually,” she replied, echoing his whispers and rather awed by his huge presence.
“Of course. I apologise. Is he through there?” He nodded towards the studio. “I looked through the window but couldn’t see him, so I assumed he was working somewhere.”
“I don’t think he’s doing much work, but he is through there, yes.”
Suddenly, as if by magic, Fowler produced a large bunch of flowers from under his coat.
“These are for you, Madame. I thought the colours would remind you of the summer that has now decided to desert us. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this climate.”
Lola tilted her head and smiled coyly, impressed by his Gallic charm.
“Thank you, Mr Fowler, how very kind.”
“It is nothing, a mere token. Now, may I go through and disturb your husband?”
“Please, be my guest. I’ll find a vase to put these in. They are absolutely gorgeous.”
Adam Fowler stepped softly over to the studio door and gently pushed it open. He looked in and stood quite still, absorbing the moment as his eyes fell on the friend he hadn’t seen for so long.
John had finally picked up his paintbrush. When the voice with the strong Marseille accent rang out, he was momentarily startled.
“That is exactly how I have pictured you in my mind all these years, mon ami: working at your easel.”
John spun round and there was Jacques, the ever-reliable sea captain who had saved his life. He tossed the brush onto a small table next to his easel and strode over to his friend.
He stopped short about three feet from him and stared into his eyes, his head shaking with emotion.
“Jacques! I can’t believe it! Is it really you? You look thirty years younger than the last time I saw you!”
Jacques threw back his head and laughed loudly. “As do you, Philippe. The years have been good to us, heh!”
They hugged fiercely, Jacques lifting John off his feet and spinning him round as they continued to laugh in the sheer pleasure of the moment.
“Lola!” called John.
“I’m here, John,” she said from the doorway, regarding the two men before her rather as a proud mother would her sons.
“This is Jacques – my old and dear friend Jacques. Jacques Bognard.”
“I know, John. Jacques, Adam – oh, so many names! He has given me the most wonderful bunch of flowers.”
“Ever the Frenchman, Jacques,” laughed John.
“Well, I’ve been a Frenchman far more than I’ve been an Englishman, that’s for sure, and the French ways are not so bad; they rub off on you after a while.”
“You must be tired after your journey, Jacques,” said Lola. “What can I get you to drink?”
“I am fine for the moment, thank you, Lola. But we must celebrate; I have something in the car.”
“You drove all the way up here this morning?” said John, surprised.
“Yes, it is rather further than I anticipated. I apologise for being later than I intended.”
“You must be tired. Come, sit down.”
“Oh, I dozed most of the way, so I feel very fresh, and certainly invigorated to see you both.”
“You dozed…?” said John.
“I told you, Philippe, I have become quite a successful businessman; successful enough to enjoy the services of a driver to take me around. I’ve never been able to get to grips with motorcars. And these days, all this traffic. It’s a total nightmare. Give me a horse anytime!”
Lola made some coffee and they sat in the studio swapping stories, wanting to know everything about each other’s lives since Marseille. After ten minutes, Lola jumped up. “I’m going to close the gallery. I shan’t be able to concentrate on any customers. Let me go and lock the door.”
“Before you do that, let me get my bottles,” said Jacques, taking out his phone and calling his driver.
Five minutes later, they heard the gallery door open. “That’ll be Crawshaw,” said Jacques, standing and walking to the studio door. He half turned back to them and spoke behind his hand. “He knows me as Mr Fowler, by the way.”
“Thanks, Crawshaw,” they heard him say. “Did you succeed in booking a hotel?”
“Ja…. Er, Adam,” called John. “You must stay with us. As long as you can put up with the girls.”
“That would be wonderful, thank you,” Jacques called back. “I’d be delighted to make their acquaintance. Crawshaw, just sort out somewhere for yourself, old chap.”
Jacques opened the basket to reveal several bottles of champagne and some glasses. He filled three of them and raised his in a toast.
“To old friends and old friendships. May they endure forever.”
They chinked their glasses and sat back, silent for a moment.
John took a sip and looked affectionately at his friend.
“I went back to Marseille, Jacques, about a hundred years after you spirited us away on your ship. I went to the churchyard and saw the graves. What you did for Arlette, Georges and Mathilde was quite incredible. The graves were perfectly kept.”
“They still are, Philippe. They must be the best-kept graves in France,” laughed Jacques.
They talked through the afternoon until it was time for Lola to fetch the girls from school.
“Oh dear,” she said, blinking at the effects of the champagne. “I don’t think I should be driving after all this bubbly.”
“Easily solved,” said Jacques, taking out his phone once again. “Crawshaw will take you.”
Lola giggled as she got up. “The girls will be impressed. I hope they don’t think it’ll happen every day.”
About half an hour later, she returned with the girls and introduced them to Jacques. He instantly won them over by sitting on the floor to talk to them as they stood next to him, their eye levels now about equal. As with the flowers, he produced two beautifully wrapped presents from nowhere and handed them over. They unwrapped them gleefully to find two large, exquisitely dressed dolls.
“I hope they are not too old for dolls,” said Jacques to Lola. “I don’t like all these modern electronic things.”
“Too old?” laughed Lola. “Look at them!”
The girls were examining the dolls’ clothes and stroking their hair. Phoebe was talking to hers as if she had known her all her life.
“I’m going to leave you two to talk while I take these girls home for tea,” declared Lola. “Come up to the house when you are ready.”
Jacques smiled. “Use Crawshaw, Lola, he likes to be busy. I’ll call him to fetch us later. D’accord, mon ami?” he said to John.
Phoebe and Sophie glanced up, not understanding. But they said nothing.
Once Lola and the girls had left, Jacques opened another bottle and the pair continued with their reminiscences. The stories arose in no particular order, centring more on where they had both been at various times during the past three hundred years. They found that they had been living quite close to each other on more than one occasion.
“It’s amazing we didn’t bump into each other before,” said John.
“Think how our lives might have changed if we had,” mused Jacques. “We probably wouldn’t be sitting here in the Lake District of England, although we might still be sipping champagne.”
John looked into his friend’s eyes.
“You know, for some reason, I’ve been assuming all along that because we first knew each other over three hundred years ago, that we are contemporaries. Yet why should we be? We have only talked of our time together in Marseille and our lives since then. What about before? I c
ertainly wasn’t a young man when I first met you, as I suspect you weren’t. In fact, when I first met you, I was over two hundred years old; I am now not far short of six hundred. What about you, Jacques, how old are you?”
Jacques took a sip of his champagne and leaned forward. He raised his glass and touched it against John’s. Looking over the top of it, he sighed a world-weary sigh. “Philippe, my dear friend, to tell you the truth, I cannot say precisely how long I’ve been around. I only know it’s in the region of two and a half thousand years.”
Afterword
On 5th September, 2012, the many scientists working on the Encode Project (The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) published papers in various scientific journals explaining that noncoding DNA, or junk DNA as it is more widely known, is anything but junk. Their work has now shown that junk DNA has a profound significance in the myriad processes controlling the way our bodies work. The next few years will doubtless bring many new insights into this hitherto little-understood part of our genetic code.
Yes, Claudia was right!
But whether the triggers that junk DNA operates to switch on and off various bodily processes include those that cause ageing and, if they do, they can be controlled, remains to be seen…
David George Clarke
October 2012