“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Elizabetta Trebella whispered, rather more loudly than intended, as she snuggled against Oliver. They were huddled on the sidewalk, jostled by noisy health professionals spilling from the Toronto Conference Centre for a noon time break. “You have a fiancé and we have a professional relationship. There must be, at the very least, millions of ethical arguments against this sort of thing.” They had known each other since she first began treating Abelard for his seeming amnesia. They had become close friends and until today had never been physically intimate.
“The fiancé business will very soon be wound down. I have recently come to see that marrying Dominique would be a major mistake.”
“Is that ‘major mistake’ because you ran into me, a new woman you happen to find more to your taste?”
“Yes, I suppose that sort of thing does happen quite often and you should quite rightly be suspicious.” Elizabetta was, at this point, wondering where this was going. His mind seemed to have taken a turn to what looked very much like reasoning himself out of a relationship. But she needn’t have worried.
“It’s a bit more involved than a simple trade in for a new model. I should have seen through Dominique right from the start but, as you well know, good sense is helpless before the compelling logic of sexual gratification. Something about the selfish genes manipulating the host body to ensure that copies of them are made and passed on to the next generations and so on and so forth. You know the rest of the story.”
“So, you’re pleading the helpless victim of natural brain chemistry. Courts have as yet to permit such excuses and I don’t see why I should.”
He chose to ignore her quite valid point and plough on. “Can’t deny that your existence played a role in nudging me to reassess direction my life was about to take. And I did so with the new clear eyed objectivity your Sexiness afforded me. What I finally saw,” he continued, still ignoring her objections, which he felt were, in any event, half-hearted, “was her obsessive-compulsive nature. She’s a very successful banker and from what I hear she behaves appropriately in her professional life but with me and her friends she is utterly infantile. There is no conversation that she cannot hijack and transform into something about her, no matter how remote the connection. She overeats and, my trained eye assures me, is headed for obesity. There is not a drink to which she can say no and is quite regularly intoxicated. To quote her, she doesn’t have a problem with alcohol she has a problem with sobriety. I cannot imagine spending the rest of my life with her. I pine for the company of an adult, even if it’s only me”
“I know, my dear Oliver, as do your other friends. She can’t easily hide that sort of behaviour, try as she might. I do sympathize with you,” she sighed, burrowing deeper into his arms. She had for too long now fantasized about this moment. She was, not so secretly, delighted.
“Hold on,” he said with visible annoyance, as he fumbled to look at his cell phone screen to see whether he should take the call. If it was the hospital, he would take it. Otherwise it would be shunted to his voice mail. It was Abelard. He knew he was away and Abelard is not the type to make frivolous calls to friends temporarily out of town. This must be important.
“Hi, what’s up,” he said. “I must have misheard, say again; Florence, very nice town but I would need more than six hours’ notice; I’m not sure about that. Are you OK? I thought we had this put to bed; They did what to my condo? I’m a little worried about you….; Sure, I can get Felicity to check it out but all that’ll do is confirm that my condo was thrashed, not who did it; Hold it, I’ll need to write that down, that’s a lot of digits.
“Elizabetta, do you have a pencil and paper?
“OK, shoot; Yes I’ll repeat it. I’m to call this number and ask for Dona Maria and tell her I’ve got a sample from Abelard’s slime and I will hang up within 30 seconds. Who is this Dona Maria? Those two guys you killed, they were her men; She believes your story; Milly believes your story. How do I know you didn’t put her up to this just to get me to believe you? Milly, you want me to call Milly? Only from the airport; The Dona Maria call is to get me to the airport and the Milly call on the plane. OK. I’ll trust you.”
He snapped his phone shut and turned to Elizabetta. “Didn’t you assure me that Abelard had adapted,” he grumbled, visibly confused?
“What happened” she asked, more than a little disheartened at Oliver’s sudden mood change?
He quickly related his conversation to an increasingly downcast Elizabetta. She took a moment to compose her thoughts before daring to speak. “Abelard tried to convince me that his memories were all real, that he was actually a fourteenth century noble and had inexplicably survived until the present. I’d seen Napoleon, Julius Caesar and, the most popular one, Einstein reincarnations many times. But these people all had one flaw in common; they were completely dysfunctional outside their assumed personalities. Abelard was different. He was perfectly normal in every other respect. True, he was a bit scary with the way he matter-of-factly related the most gruesome stories from his imagined past. In fact, if the truth be known, I was at first concerned that I might be dealing with a sociopath. But none of the tests I ran on him revealed any abnormalities. In the scans I took, his brain looked perfectly ordinary. In fact, if I could have suspended belief, he was so normal I could easily have fallen for his account. There was only one treatment for him; get him to concentrate on the future and forget where he thought he came from. I wasn’t even going to try and cure an amnesia that was so obviously persistent.”
“So, he’s not cured, only learning to cope. I, of all people, should have known that. Although, I have to admit, you’re right about the physical evidence. It’s all in his favour. There is no detectible damage to his pre-frontal cortex, at least from the scans I’ve seen, and no apparent lack or, for that matter, overload of any particular chemicals. This must be one in the behaviorist’s’ court.
“Dona Maria Donatello, please,” Oliver said to the Italian speaker.
“Who shall I say is calling,” the Italian speaker answered in perfect British accented English?
“Please tell her I have a sample from Abelard’s slime,” he said matter-of-factly.
“One moment please.”
“This is Dona Maria, how can I help you,” came the most charming voice he had ever heard.
“I understand you are interested in Abelard’s extraordinary longevity and I happen to have the only sample of the slime in which he was found.”
“Yes, I am very interested, where can we meet. I….,” Oliver had hung up by then, having waited just under thirty seconds, as instructed.
“Well, that one checks out,” he said to Elizabetta, “let’s try Milly,” needing to get the full story before heading to the airport to make what he suspected would be an irreversible decision.
“Mr. Lord, please,” he asked.”
“Who shall I say is calling?”
“Oliver.
“One moment please.”
The response was almost instantaneous. “Oliver, my lad,” Milly shouted unable to hide from Oliver his intense excitement.
“I understand you are interested in a sample I have,” he said with some hesitation, since he still wasn’t sure about Abelard’s mental state.
“Are you in Montreal” Milly inquired?
“No.”
“Do you have the sample with you?”
“No.”
“Would you like to bring it to me or shall I come and meet you somewhere?”
Oliver again cut the connection as quickly as he could. He was now quite unsure as to his next move. But only for a moment. Shakespeare had contracted with a local shady security firm to pick up and hold Oliver. The sleek limousine pulled up to the curb where he and Elizabetta were still trying to figure out what to do.
“Mr. Lord would like to have a word with you,” the well dressed, stocky man said as he stood by the open back right hand passenger door, his arm gesturing for Oliver to get in.
&nbs
p; “Oh, good, I also need to see Mr. Lord. Would you mind terribly waiting until the next session is over, it is very important to my research. It won’t be more than an hour and we could meet right here again.” Oliver had not expected to get agreement from this determined looking thug but, amazingly enough, he assented and got back into the car. He then turned his attention to Elizabetta.
“You are the biggest single reason for my regrets, but I think I should go to Florence tonight,” he said very softly, covering her mouth with his lips.
“I had planned on taking some vacation right after this conference, so do you mind if I tag along,” she asked, a little winded from the extended kiss? “In fact, it really doesn’t matter whether you mind since I plan to go in any event,” she asserted, in response to Oliver’s negative head shaking. “My mother lives in Florence and it is about time for my annual visit.” She didn’t wish to trouble him with the minor detail that her mother was not actually home, having gone away on vacation.
“OK,” he sighed, at once happy she was to come along and worried because he knew there could be considerable danger. “Let’s get back inside, pick up our bags and leave by the stadium exit.”
Shakespeare suspected that Oliver had been alerted to Milly’s interest and when his man in Toronto reported that he was waiting for Oliver to return, he tersely ordered that they immediately take him. They were too late, Oliver and Elizabetta were by then on the way to the airport.
Chapter XVII
Where’s Abelard