where he stared at it for a long time. Then he stood up, walked round the kitchen in circles, sat down, stood up again and walked round in circles some more. Then he made up his mind. Tm going to London to settle some business,’ he told Jane, who was working in the garden. He left the house and went to the station, where he hired a cab.
During the journey, he tried to calm his wildly beating heart.
At that hour of the afternoon, St James’s Street seemed lulled by a peaceful silence. Wells ordered the cab driver to stop at the entrance to the street, and asked him to wait for him there. He straightened his hat and adjusted his bow tie, then sniffed the air, like a bloodhound. He concluded from his inhalations that the faint, slightly heady odour reminiscent of jasmine, which he detected through the smell of horse dung, must be narcissi. The flower added a symbolic touch to the scene, which pleased him, for he had read that, contrary to popular belief, the name ‘narcissus’ derived not from the beautiful Greek god but from the plant’s narcotic properties. The narcissus bulb contained hallucinogenic opiates, and this oddity struck Wells as terribly appropriate: were not all three of them – the girl, Tom and himself – caught up in a hallucination?
He studied the long, shady street, and set off down the pavement with the leisurely air of one out for a stroll, although as he approached the apparent source of the aroma, he noticed that his mouth had dried. Why had he come there? What did he hope to gain? He was not sure. All he knew was that he needed to see the girl to give the recipient of his passionate letters a face or, failing that, to glimpse the house where she penned her beautiful letters. Perhaps that would be enough.
Before he knew it, Wells found himself standing in front of an undeniably well-tended garden with a tiny fountain on one side, and enclosed by a railing at the foot of which lay a carpet of pale yellow flowers with large petals. Since the street boasted no other garden that could rival its beauty, Wells deduced that the narcissi before him, and the elegant town house beyond, must be those of Claire Haggerty, the unknown woman he was pretending to love with a fervour he did not show the woman he truly loved. Not wishing to give too much thought to this paradox, which was nonetheless in keeping with his contradictory nature, Wells approached the railings, almost thrusting his nose through the bars in an attempt to glimpse something behind the leaded window-panes that made sense of his urgent presence there.
It was then he noticed a girl looking at him, apparently perplexed, from a corner of the garden. Realising he had been caught red-handed, Wells tried to act naturally, although his response was anything but natural, especially since he realised straight away that the girl staring at him could be none other than Claire Haggerty. He tried to gather himself even as he gave her an absurdly affable grin. ‘Magnificent narcissi, miss,’ he declared, in a reedy voice. ‘One can smell their aroma from the end of the street.’ She smiled, and came a little closer, enough for the author to see her beautiful face and delicate frame. Here she was at last, before his eyes, albeit fully clothed. And she was indeed a vision of loveliness, despite the slightly upturned nose – it marred the serene beauty, which was otherwise reminiscent of a Greek sculpture – or perhaps because of it. This girl was the recipient of his letters, his make-believe lover.
‘Thank you, sir, you’re very kind,’ she said, returning the compliment.
Wells opened his mouth as if to speak, but hurriedly closed it again. Everything he wanted to tell her went against the rules of the game he had consented to play. He could not say that, although he might appear an insignificant little man, he was the author of those words without which she claimed she could not live. Neither could he tell her he knew in precise detail her experience of sexual pleasure. Still less could he reveal that it was all a sham, urge her not to sacrifice herself to a love that only existed in her imagination, for there was no such thing as time travel, no Captain Shackleton waging war on the automatons in the year 2000. Telling her it was an elaborate lie that she would pay for with her life would be tantamount to handing her a gun to shoot herself through the heart.
Then he noticed she had begun giving him quizzical looks, as if his face seemed familiar. Afraid she might recognise him, Wells hurriedly doffed his hat, bowed politely and continued on his way, trying not to quicken his pace.
Intrigued, Claire watched for a few moments as he vanished into the distance, then shrugged and went inside the house.
Crouched behind a wall on the opposite pavement, Tom Blunt watched her go in. Then he emerged from his hiding-place. Seeing Wells had surprised him, although not excessively. The author would likewise not have been surprised to find him there. Apparently neither of them had been able to resist the temptation to look for the girl’s house, the location of which she had subtly revealed in the hope that if Shackleton came back he could find her.
Tom returned to his lair in Buckeridge Street, unsure what to think of Wells. Had the author fallen in love with her? He did not think so. Maybe he had gone there out of simple curiosity. If he were in Wells’s shoes, would he not also have wanted to put a face to the girl whom he addressed using words he would probably never utter to his own wife?
Tom fell back on the bed feeling completely exhausted, but his anxiety and permanent state of tension prevented him sleeping more than a couple of hours, and before dawn he set off once more on the long journey to the writer’s house. These walks were keeping him fitter than the training sessions they were put through by Murray, whose hired assassin had still not appeared to punish his flagrant breaking of the rules. Even so, Tom had no intention of lowering his guard.
Wells was waiting for him on the doorstep. He did not look rested either. His face was crumpled and his eyes had dark shadows under them, although they were twinkling mysteriously. Doubtless he had been awake all night, writing the letter he now had in his hand. When he saw Tom, he greeted him with a slow nod and held out the missive, avoiding looking him in the eye. Tom took it from him, and, similarly unwilling to break the silence, which was charged with tacit understanding, turned to go back the way he had come.
Then he heard Wells say: ‘Will you bring her last letter even though it needs no reply?’
Tom turned to him with a profound sense of pity, although he did not know whether he felt sorry for Wells or himself, or possibly for Claire. At length he nodded glumly and left. Only when he was at a comfortable distance did he open the envelope and begin to read.
Tom hung his head, imagining how moved the girl would be by these words. He felt pity for her again – and, in the final analysis, an overwhelming sense of self-disgust. She did not deserve to be deceived like this. The letters might save her life, but in the end they were only repairing the harm he had so selfishly caused, merely to quench the fire between his legs. He felt unable simply to congratulate himself for preventing her suicide and forget the whole thing, while Claire was ruining her life because of a lie, burying herself alive due to an illusion.
The long walk to Harrow helped him gather his thoughts, and he concluded that the only reparation he could make that would ease his conscience would be actually to love her, to make into a reality the love for which she
