chapter forty-two

Jeux d’avril

Cleїs and her guests were seated at an enormous round table. All were women in their twenties and thirties, but they were dressed in extravagant silk creations of an earlier, pre-revolutionary era. The clothes shimmered with precious metals, the revealed flesh bedecked with ivory pearls and fine golden latticework. The place settings sought to compete with the calm elegance of the Ancien Régime and the youthful high spirits of the women. Champagne had already been served, and now the waiting men brought silver tureens of kedgeree, and from behind each seat gently ladled the golden, steaming rice mixture onto spectacular plates. At the same moment, with even greater delicacy, they pinned a paper fish to the back of each dress; all that is, save the host’s. The princess could hardly contain her laughter as the men completed the task, and had to press the heavy champagne flute against her lips to avoid alerting her companions to the trick.

Frank shut the French windows. The shrill humour of the ladies distracted him from his painstaking annotation of the details of Katt. He had promised Cleїs a result by Sunday, and indeed on Sunday he had taken the crucial step. He had, however, recognised the princess’s love for the marmalade cat, and so spared her the experience of seeing him bleed it out into the nutriment. He stirred the black liquid. The two cat bodies curled around each other and turned like yin and yang: the one vividly orange, the other a yellowing grey. He removed the grey now, dropping it into a wheelbarrow and covering it with a tarpaulin in case the princess or one of her guests should come onto the balcony.

Experiments with insects had assured him that the new cat would waken, but he was unsure when this renaissance would happen. Beetles took on average 30 hours to show signs of life. He assumed the number of cells in the subject was the deciding factor, and a cat had far more cells than a beetle. However, the blood systems were completely different, and the beetle had an exoskeleton that could delay the absorption. It was now approaching 1 pm on Thursday. Frank had to admit that he was experiencing the discomfort of impatience. The orange island turned slowly and lodged against the side of the tank. Frank made a note of the time in his log and returned to the main room.

The laughter had subsided, which was calming. Frank liked silence.

Human silence.

Frank needed the tiny sounds of the massive progress of geological time: the creaking of continental plates, the shifting of ancient dust, the turning of bacteria in old wood. Arctic wind and waves and Sami whispers.

Now he heard a female voice uttering quiet open vowels in a language which belonged to no nation. He glanced into the dining room and found it deserted; the plates still splashed with kedgeree and the champagne still hissing in the flutes. He moved towards the withdrawing room and found the source of the voiced breath. One of the women seemed to be praying to her pearls, which slipped like a rosary between her fingers, and then, unlike a rosary, between her parted lips. Meanwhile the others stroked her hair, breasts and shoulders as Cleїs kissed her dark triangle and then parted the lower lips with her tongue. The gentle penetration seemed a signal to the others, who now let fingers slide into the finest brocade and hence to the cunts and asses barely concealed beneath.

Frank felt cleansed by the limitations and sincerity of the physical acts he witnessed. They were simple and pure: decorative even; nothing like the pagan rutting of his parents on the permafrost. Neither were they like his own brief but intense ecstasies, obtained as he accepted the burning semen into his porcelain body, and felt his own cooling between his flat stomach and the surface against which he was pressed.

He turned his back on the confection of pink and pearl. His mood was lifted, even spiritual, and he took a long mouthful of slightly fizzing champagne before returning to the balcony. The cat rubbed itself against his leg and mewed its hunger. Frank lifted his marmalade child and looked deep into its still, seeking eyes. He knew he should note the time of awakening, but it would now be but a rough estimate. The final part was much, much more important. What he needed was in the withdrawing room, and he was not to be delayed by respect for the acts of wild tribadism that were taking place within. Keeping the cat firmly pressed to his chest he stepped over the writhing bodies and gently used his free hand to move a slender foot from the door of the cabinet which held the cameo.

Cleїs was amazed to feel her face being firmly pulled away from the spread buttocks of her prize guest, although that place was instantly invaded by the tongue of another daughter of the aristocracy. Cleїs sat utterly still and unaware of the sounds and movements behind her as Frank silently placed the cat upon her naked lap. She let her hands rest against each flank as he revealed the cameo; and as he did the cat curled and slept in her arms.

“Vous aurez votre petite fille,” he whispered. She smiled. The lovers beyond sighed their assent in a unison shudder of satisfaction, like a terrible, rumbling, feline purr.

chapter forty one

The Evil Empire

The room was large and filled with the lateral light of an early March afternoon. The shadows of the few skyscrapers that matched the one within which they sat scribed irregular flat parallelograms across the table, while the three dimensional spaces between sizzling with amber sparking dust and tobacco smoke. The portrait of the president hovered behind the moving motes. His moving image meanwhile dominated the television screen towards which every face was turned.

“There is sin and evil in the world, and we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past...” Frank cast a rapid glance over the other men and one woman at the table. None smiled at the rhetoric. He felt the old oppression at his throat once more, and also at his pocket. Driscoll was correct; the agenda had changed. The flow of government money was about to dry up in the area of narcotic supply to its citizens. Reagan was simplifying internal issues in order to move resources elsewhere.

“I urge you to beware the temptation of pride -- the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.” Driscoll ground out his Cohiba. It had been cold for some time. He shot a look at Frank, a look which conveyed panic, hopelessness and supplication at the same time. It was not possible to leave the table, so Frank merely brought his index finger to his own lips and closed his eyes as if in contemplation.

In reality he had already grasped both the new agenda and the way he could use Driscoll in maximising his future profit. He considered all the faces around the table once more, and sure enough, they all shared Driscoll’s palpable fear at the changing order of things. All, that is, except the one female. He made a mental note to discover her history. He returned his attention to the president’s face, constructed from fluorescing powders on a cathode ray screen.

“ ...our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow man. For in the words of Isaiah: "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increased strength. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary."

Chairs creaked as the hardened government executives received the words of Isaiah coming from their president. As the speech ended the applause in the room was formal and restrained. The woman rose and switched off the television.

“I think you can all see where this is going, so I’ll cut to the chase. Our policy in regard to the control of narcotic supply has changed. The US government will in future seek to exclude all narcotic substances in the classes with which this group has dealt. We expect that any intelligence from this room that may help us eliminate supply lines will be promptly offered.” She allowed her gaze to linger on Driscoll.

“This operation is to be wound down and some of you will be redeployed to supporting the new initiative; the focus will be on missile defence systems. I will be holding a briefing on this later today. Just now I need to clear up a few issues with Mr Driscoll and his team.”

Frank had his eyes closed, although he sensed the sunlight fading as he heard the chairs push back from the table and the leather shoes squeak their charges from the room. Driscoll poured water into a glass and swallowed noisily.

“Mr Driscoll; we are not ungrateful for the efforts you have made in support of our policies in the past, but the future is not in biochemistry. We will assist you in regard to patents that will minimise the financial effects, but only if you cooperate by supplying intelligence.”

Driscoll crashed the glass to the table. “You remove my company’s income and expect me to give you everything I know about the trade for a promise of 5 cent on a pack of suppositories? Dream on sister! This is a multi-billion dollar industry.”

“A multi-billion dollar industry that is illegal and which represents what the president rightly called one of the moral evils of our past.” The woman turned her back on Driscoll and Frank and stood at the window, overlooking the lights of the evening traffic below. “You can help us and survive in business, or you can find yourself implicated in the supply of narcotics and face a jury. A jury chosen by the president. A jury that has American moral values at its core.”

Driscoll slumped in his chair. His breath became shallow. Frank waited for him to realise the utter powerlessness of his situation and then made his move. He coughed gently to remind the woman of his presence.

“Mr Corner?”

“I wonder if I may discuss the health effects of nuclear events in the upper atmosphere with some of your scientists.” Frank wrote some meaningless mathematical phrases on his jotter.

“I’m not sure I follow you, Mr Corner,” the woman replied, but at the same time she glanced at the jotter and waited for his response.

“We all know of the appalling health legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I believe that I may be able to help develop medicines that could protect American citizens from radioactive consequences of nuclear events in the upper atmosphere. You have researched the atmospheric currents that would apply to large doses of radiation being released at these heights, I assume?”

“I... I’m sure we have, but I will arrange for you to meet with General Abrahamson as soon as possible, in case you have something to offer.”

Frank stood. “You can get me through Driscoll Biochem.” He smiled as he heard Driscoll’s breath hit the air in the room, sensed his heartbeat change. He put his hand on Driscoll’s shoulder, bringing him to his feet. With his composure regained Driscoll turned and shook her hand. “I look forward to your call, Miss...?”

“Lamarche; and it’s Mrs Lamarche. We will talk soon.”

Frank and Driscoll left the room, but only Frank heard her pick up the telephone and initiate a call to her superiors. Driscoll’s mind was on the salvation of his company. He had only one man to thank for it, and he was determined that they would celebrate together in the finest possible style.

chapter forty

The Pepper Mill

Mühsam never announced his coming with anything as discrete as a tap on the door. Glassware threatened to topple in response to the crashing entry. Papers spiralled to the floor.

“How is the work progressing, Herr Kørner? Are you managing to isolate the defective genes from the samples?”

“I have some interesting results, but as to which results are more interesting than others I am not yet sure. I really need more samples from confirmed cases,” replied Frank, removing his breathing mask with feigned difficulty in order to give himself time to hide his irritation.

“Well, that is exactly the substance of my visit, Herr Kørner. Intelligence has located a veritable nest of these degenerates, and I have decided that you are the best person to engage in some hands-on research. Field work; empirical evidence; the stuff of science is it not? I am sure you are excited by this prospect.”

Frank was far from excited by the prospect, since he believed that any opportunity he was to be offered here was only an opportunity to make himself a victim of the inhuman processes that were carried out daily in the camp. He had seen the bodies being removed to the ovens and knew that the appetite of the flames was insatiable. Nevertheless his survival depended on living up to the expectations of the authorities.

“It sounds fascinating, professor. I look forward to designing the research.”

“The design is done, Herr Kørner. All you need are some new clothes, which have been already requisitioned for you. The first stage is to get you into the nest itself. Look at these photographs please.”

The professor dropped a thin stack of large prints onto the desk. The first showed a male and female couple standing at a hotel bar. In the next the man was sitting at a typewriter.

“Who is this?”

“This is the son, and that is the daughter, of a celebrated German novelist. He is presently employed as a journalist. Here is some of his so-called work.” A more substantial pile of newspaper clippings followed the photographs onto the desk. “And here are his published novels to date; the latest is, I believe, a kind of autobiography.” Four books flattened the papers.

“Am I to read all this before beginning the project?” Frank had avoided fiction for years, and was sure that Mühsam would frown upon his childish love of Dickens.

“Unfortunately we do not have the luxury of a period of preparation. Just make sure you can recognise him and his sister and can make conversation about his work. You leave for Berlin inside the hour,” and with that Mühsam strode from the office, leaving Frank to come to terms with the fact that he was, in some sense, getting out of the camp. He opened the autobiography and within a few pages had understood two things: the identity of the author and his similarity in many respects to Frank himself.

The Fuhrer had set him to work hunting down people like himself; that is to say the homosexual offspring of genius. It was elegant and terrifying at the same time, but it gave him back his power and it would get him into a less oppressive place than this camp. He went in search of coffee and the promised clothes. The camp coffee caused intense pain in the head and stomach which only abated slowly as the car sped towards Berlin. On the other hand Frank was more than satisfied with his new clothes, generous in fit, sumptuous in fabric and, above all, French. He had also been provided with a wad of fifty million mark notes and instructions to spend them on buying alcohol and drugs for the object of the study. Life had suddenly taken a dramatic turn for the better.

The car stopped outside a cabaret: The Pepper Mill. The driver opened the door for him, giving the appearance of a wealthy businessman and his chauffeur, but the brief conversation was chilling. “We will know when you are ready to be collected, Herr Kørner. You will not be alone in there.”

Frank gathered the city air into his chest, countless fragments of the complex lives of its inhabitants. It tasted good. He lit a cigarette and entered the new world; his old world.

chapter thirty-nine

The Wyckham Arms

The Public Library is a wonderful institution. Founded by a Victorian philanthropist, the one which Kay passed on her way to work had enabled the education and entertainment of generations in this seedy end of South East London. However to Kay it represented something far more focussed than the benevolence of its patron; it had enabled her to discover Frank’s address, and had given her the opportunity of observing him on a daily basis. He would not be there yet; Frank did not arrive until after ten and she clocked on at nine, but she would make it her business to devote some of her lunch hour to watching him sitting at a monitor. At this stage she did not know exactly why she was intent on keeping such a close eye on Frank. He had announced his presence with the grisly remains of her friend in Listowel. She was determined not to be surprised by him as Trisha had been.

Yet behind the logic of that argument she was aware of an uncomfortable, savage pleasure. Like a cat she enjoyed the silent, careful stalking of the prey. Like a cat she anticipated the game of toying with her victim; then the ecstasy of crunching his bones and licking out his entrails.

Shocked at her thoughts and the dampness in her cunt she looked into the grey London sky before entering the betting shop and clocking on. The pale faced punters were already shuffling about the room, their flesh the colour and texture of the racing papers, their smells tobacco, alcohol and coffee. The lost and hardened losers rarely ate, and seemed to contain famine within their cheap clothes. Kay felt sometimes that she gave out the scraps of paper detailing bets as a priest administers the host: her punters retiring to bars and coffee shops to silently digest their hopes, and to pray for their own salvation.

The odds meant nothing to her. In this way she was immune to the contagious flow of ratio that fed the cancer in her customers. She checked off slips concerning probabilities for horses, dogs, football teams and even aspiring singers without the slightest desire to know of the realities they in some way described. Her only concern was the balance between the chances of her survival or Frank’s. There was no possibility of a no-score draw in this encounter.

Her colleagues had aspirations of understanding the relative prowess of the punters, and when certain customers placed bets would rush to a neighbouring establishment to replicate a wager that was guaranteed to be “golden”. Kay had already learned that this practice was a sign of co-dependency and had made the bet-takers as hollow as the bet-makers. Theirs was a virtual life, fed by half comprehended details of an event somewhere else. She, on the other hand, was living the contest, backing herself to survive, and she was likewise forced to do the study of form that would secure her victory.

But Frank was a horse of a different colour. His ability to survive had been clearly demonstrated to her, and she had seen his ruthlessness and pride at first hand. She would have to prepare thoroughly, and that meant careful observation of his behaviour wherever she could find it.

Thus, at one a.m. she checked out for lunch and, pausing only to pick up a bottle of water and a packet of crisps from a corner shop, headed for the library where she would be sure to find him.

To her astonishment she saw Frank leaving the library and walking rapidly along Brockley Rise. The determination of his step in contrast to the lethargy she had observed over the previous weeks sent alarm bells ringing in her brain. He knew something and was acting. Kay tried to reason that this probably had nothing to do with her, but the images of her customers’ faces told her the truth: he knows something that you don’t. She opened the water and rinsed her mouth. Air came in but she didn’t feel it. She ceased to respire and decided to act.

And Frank entered the Wyckham Arms.

Pubs at lunchtime in south east London were not the natural environment of young women unless they had business to conduct. Kay found that business being conducted along with many others, equally unregulated by the government. Then she found Frank, clear spirit in one hand and Guinness in the other moving to a table near the darts board. His target was an Irishman in his forties, obviously employed in the building industry. She took in the overalls, the spits of plaster on the boots, the heavy hand supporting the forehead as Frank passed in front of him, placed the Guinness on the cheap table and settled himself. She wanted to move closer in a risky, possibly fatal attempt to overhear the conversation, but a sudden jarring bolt of recognition paralysed her. She knew this man. He had been Trisha’s next-door neighbour in the Ash Field.

One glance in her direction an Anthony, for that was his name, would jump up and greet her, whole-heartedly welcome her and invite her to meet his new friend, for she knew his nature. If this happened she would not survive her lunch hour. Striving for South East London anonymity she gently turned and headed for the ladies.

She crouched in a booth helplessly reciting the scratched obscenities on the toilet door and trying minimise her inhalation of excrement and stale supermarket perfumes. The few women in the bar meant that she had a generally solitary residence, although she had to feign illness to avert the concerns of one who used the lavatory as an office to set up her afternoon appointments, the details of which Kay wished she had not overheard. Some men had unusual ways of finding relief. Eventually she accepted the culture of her temporary cell and emptied her terrified bowels into the lavatory.

She stopped breathing for too long, but then refused to gulp in the fetid air. Instead she controlled the passage of gasses, and this produced a glacial calm. She stood, adjusted her clothing and rinsed her face and hands. The bar was quiet now. Frank and Anthony were gone. The bar tender was intent on studying the racing pages, although he must use a rival bookies. The tables had not been cleared and Kay went to the one that Frank had occupied, just to know she could bear to do it. Nestling under the Guinness glass, stained now with the sienna alcohol was a rectangle of decomposing paper. She lifted the glass and gently turned the paper.

It fell apart against her fingers, but that meant nothing. The blood pulsed in her veins, her saliva ran hot and tension dissolved in a suppressed orgasm. It was the voucher for the seaweed baths in Ballybunion; her bait, the first speculative step in her counter attack on Frank. The bait had been taken; now she had to set the trap.

chapter thirty-eight

“Norway”

A virus is a system that exists somewhere between an inorganic chemical and a living cell. It’s approximation to the processes common to all living things can only be approached by the penetration of an organism and by a parasitic and debilitating relationship with the host. It was for this reason that Frank had named his sequence of proteins, enzymes and some modified sections of RNA “Spong”. The thrilling thing about working outside of the nationally controlled academies of chemistry or biology was that you could be genuinely creative and take risks; massive risks.

Frank despised the conventions of academic scientific behaviour. He knew that in the first place this was because his father had brought his family up inside the Arctic Circle, rejecting all comforts of civilisation save for those he chose to create himself, and that maverick spirit was something he had from both nature and nurture. In the second place he despised conventional science because he had seen the finest minds prostitute themselves time after time to political agenda or commercial interests. He had always taken the view that both commerce and politics should pay for his services, and to date he had managed a long and lucrative series of lives by holding to that philosophy.

He moved to the balcony of his Manhattan penthouse and lit up a Lucky. He felt the rough smoke rip into his lungs and gently coughed. Here was another example of scientific prostitution: it was evident that tobacco smoke had a deleterious effect on the lungs and hence on the respiratory system. Of course it meant nothing to him; he could defeat a thousand cancers or cardiac arrests; but every day doctors were seen to be advocating the health benefits of tobacco and denying the harmful effects. Scientific whores, secreting their money and frustration as they watched the tumescent structure of the Stock Exchange spill its load of profit across the distended bellies of the tobacco companies.

The smoke glittered, rose and fell towards the seething dark core of Central Park. The fact was that now he was into his fourth phase of existence, he was able to make some comparative judgements; and he surely judged this life, in New York towards the end of the fifties as being in every respect superior to those phases he had experienced before. He had despised the hypocrisy of all societies in comparison to the frozen Eden of Edgeøya. Here, now, the driving muscle of industry, particularly chemical industry was balanced by a thriving aesthetic culture. Frank regarded himself as a renaissance man; Shakespeare, Leonardo and Copernicus were of his kind, though obviously not his equal, since they had succumbed to mortality. Here he could taste it all: wealth, science, art, immortality.

And sex. He ground the white butt into the granite floor, orange particles expiring on the jet plane. Jack and he were perfect; had been perfect. For lives he had remained aloof from the pathetic attempts at gratification that drove those around him, and at last he had found an artistic soul that mirrored his. They were almost axial images of each other, even down to the hairline. Frank had considered giving Jack the gift of the nutriment and eternal, episodic life. Spong had destroyed that dream. Spong the hanger-on; Spong the one who had offered to prostitute himself for a cigarette in the dark park below only a few days ago. The virus was named for, and a gift for Spong.

America told itself that it retired early and set off for work before dawn. That may be true in Maine, but it certainly didn’t hold in Manhattan. Those that prowled the Jazz Clubs at two a.m. either slept in or rose to work fuelled by chemical stimulants. Seeking the stimulation of jazz rather than chemistry, Frank left the apartment and headed for the Village.

“There’s new, and there’s too new. That was just too new for me,”

“Well, it’s kind of interesting the way he uses the piano like eighty-eight tuned drums.”

“Eighty-eight un-tuned drums in my book. Give me Davis any day.”

“God, Seth, you Northerners just have to be so cool all the time.”

Frank stood back for the exodus of villagers and then descended the fifteen uneven steps into the miasma of coffee, bourbon and weed that was the living atmosphere of the club. Taylor was one of his favourites; tight, percussive and unexpected, rather like himself. He settled into a table away from the band, behind a wood and glass partition. The notes; piano drum and trumpet came over the physical wall in waves, each of which calmed his arctic soul. It was only once calmed by this and vodka that he began to recognise words and accent. Spong was here with a woman.

“...fantastic. Andy just filmed us doing anything!”

“What do you mean, Bennett? What’s anything?”

“Like, just anything! He filmed me giving head.”

“What did Jack think of that?”

“He loved it. He say’s I’m to head what Warhol is to tomato soup. I make it art!”

“Oh God, I wish I could wrote that in the New Yorker, but my editor would fire me straight out.”

Frank took a long pull on his vodka and tapped out a Lucky. He knew exactly who this woman was: one of the most influential art critics in town; only Greenberg’s opinions carried more weight than hers, and that balance was swinging in her favour.

“You know that Norwegian that Jack was knocking around with; Frank something?”

“Yes, he does perfumes. I have some. They’re great.” The notes cascading from the piano fought equilibrium battles with the drums in the thickened air. It was beautiful, but Frank could only hear the damning conversation.

“Well Jack says there are two kind s of head: I do it the best way and Frank did it the Gnaw way! He said he had sores on his dick for weeks. Norway, Gnaw way: get it?” The critic coughed laughter into her martini. Frank carefully rose from his table and left the bar. Spong was already dead.

chapter thirty-seven

Taylors Hill

Kay’s mother’s form was framed by the reception hatch, her black raincoat and matching wide brimmed hat, already slightly dated, but purchased from Harrods so therefore to be worn at any hint of precipitation. Kay let her gaze flutter over the comics and infantile crayonings on the coffee table. She noticed a paperback amongst the copies of Beano and Bunty and extracted it: “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. Comforting, but read at least twice already. She felt like Eustace, imprisoned in a monstrous body for doing something of which she was unaware, and she supposed she felt a certain hope that this clinic might help her in some way. Pages flew from the table as her mother settled onto the undersized seat beside her.

“The doctor is sending his nurse down to collect us. How are you feeling now?”

Kay’s eyes met her mother’s, which tried to flicker away, but then, through an effort of will, returned, almost nervous, as if she were the child and Kay the adult. “I’m hopeful,” said Kay, with little conviction. To the relief of both the nurse arrived, the uniform like the dragon’s skin, concealing the person within, producing a function alone.

They ascended the wide staircase, which may once have been almost stately, the windows on the Western walls giving increasingly panoramic views of Salt Hill; the church tower, the amusement arcades and the sea beyond; even the faint humps of the Aran Islands. “The doctor would prefer to talk to you first,” said the nurse, addressing Kay’s mother. “Kay can wait here,” and she indicated a long bench with another coffee table, this time loaded not with comics and drawings by children, but with medical journals and copies of National Geographic Magazine. This was much better. Kay settled to an account of a sailing trip around the Arctic Sea while her mother entered the office. She was examining a grey photograph showing a hill on the Island of Edgeøya when the sub-zero temperature seemed to ooze out of the page and squeeze her heart. It was an anxiety threatening to spill over into blind terror.

The voices came from within, one calm, male yet light, accented strangely, doing most of the talking; her mother almost whispering, far from her normal strident, gin-tinged overconfidence. The voices were from within both the room and Kay’s own head; so deeply within that they had almost no objective claim on reality, but she listened, freezing.

“..that these dreams, well, they are always nightmares, are taking over her life completely.”

“Such dreams do have the power to do this; to send your daughter mad. Freud has written much on this as you may be aware. In fact it is probable that your daughter is already mad, in a clinical sense; but do not despair, Mrs Macnamara; it is for this reason that the Taylor’s Hill Centre exists. I am sure my colleagues and I will be able to halt this distressing slide into the abyss and restore to you the lively, happy girl you once knew.”

“I’m not sure I ever did know Kay as that, but it would be wonderful. My husband and I are so worried.”

“I must warn you that sometimes the idea of admission to such a hospital facility as this can upset a person, especially a child of only nine years. She may even lash out or make ridiculous claims, so my nurse will sedate her if this should happen. You don’t have to be here if that would upset you.”

“I think I’ll be alright... Do you want to see her now?”

The door opened and the nurse presented an empty functional smile and led her into the office. Three tall windows filled the wall behind the desk and Kay was dazzled by the assault of light. The thin figure of the doctor coalesced from the brightness, assuming breadth and detail. It was at that moment that she burst like a cloud, flinging herself at the desk in an effort to attack before it was too late, but it was already far too late. Frank smiled as he watched her mother hold her down while the nurse administered the sedative. The treatment had begun.

chapter thirty-six

An Easter Offering

The large glass sphere wobbled slightly as Frank opened the tap that allowed the vaporous product of two exotic and modified volatile liquids to rise into the condenser that fed it. Gentle heat would now promote an equilibrium reaction, the results of which could be harvested to provide the raw material of the bone gas. The addition of Sulphuric Acid to this in the presence of oxygen initiated the action of the gas; its rapid expansion into the atmosphere and penetration of the flesh of the victims. Frank had designed the gas so that breathing it resulted in a relatively quick “death”, if one could refer to the state of being without bones “death”. Actual death was caused by suffocation primarily, since the lungs had no rigid chamber within which to expand and contract. Breathing in gave the gas ready access to the capillaries in the mouth, and then the lungs and thus the effect was rapid. In order to give the user of the gas a measure of protection Frank had designed it so that it penetrated the epidermis more slowly. It was thus possible to use the gas as an offensive weapon in close combat as long as one could make a retreat before taking a breath.

He let his left first and second fingers rest against the large sphere for five seconds to gauge the temperature, a trick he had learnt from his mother in regard to cooking, and to Frank this chemical process, although more dangerous, was no less a matter of art and subjective judgement. The bubbles began to rise in the liquid, which was now attaining the required chrome green colour, so he began to run cold water through the Liebig condenser in preparation for the collection of the raw gas in a series of large and very thick glass cylinders. His attention was broken by the sound of the outer door to the laboratory being pushed open and Professor O’Connell’s rather tuneless and wordless singing.

“Good afternoon Mr Kørner. What a beautiful day: Good Friday, the tragic death of our Lord, but a temporary death that led to salvation for us all. I have just attended a splendid performance of sacred music by Handel in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and I must say it has enabled me to put all this talk of spies and compromise behind me. With your gas we are assured of victory over the English oppressors, and so I am going to press Pearse and Connolly to go ahead. This is indeed the dark vigil before the rebirth; the rebirth of our Lord and the rebirth of our people!”

“I am glad that my contribution will be so decisive. I can assure you that, used correctly, the effects will be exactly as I described to the committee.”

“And we will owe you a debt of gratitude Mr Kørner,” and here the professor paused for a moment to remove his heavy tweed coat, “although it will have to be expressed tacitly, I have found that de Valera has made commitments to the bishops in regard to our constitution that may make your position.... difficult.”

“In what respect?” asked Frank, hardly noticing the words, but sensing the weight behind them, as he followed the progress of the tiny green drops into the collecting jar.

“The bishops, and of course the people, bear a great deal of resentment towards the English in regard to their suppression, some might go so far as to say, attempted destruction, of our faith and language. De Valera tells us that this resentment will help unify the people behind our cause, and no doubt it will, but the bishops have made certain demands.”

Frank slid a weighty glass disc over the first collecting cylinder and rapidly positioned the next. He wondered for a moment if the fact that the gas was a little heavier than air was an advantage or a disadvantage before turning to make a greater engagement with the professor.

“What kind of demands can the bishops make of a government that does not even exist?” he enquired. “They can hardly make attendance at church compulsory, that would be as bad as the controls on liberty that you are striving to remove!”

“Not in the view of the bishops, and neither in the view of de Valera, I am told.” The professor sat and withdrew his battered pipe. “State and church will be as one. This means that your particular affections will not be tolerated. The role of the male is to head the family and father children; Catholic, Irish-speaking children. Mr Kørner, I am sure you are aware of the distaste I have for the unnatural acts in which you indulge; but I feel that this proposed unity of church and state may not lead to the liberty of our people that most of the committee so strongly desire.”

Frank smiled gently, and considered the countless acts of debauchery he had witnessed in Paris. Catholic bishops had been amongst the most enthusiastic participants in these dazzling exhibitions. The hypocrisy had always been there, but to found a nation on such hypocrisy was more than he was prepared to countenance. He smiled again.

“Do not concern yourself, professor. The important thing is that the rising is both swift and decisive, is it not?”

“Yes, yes; of course. The rest is politics.”

“In God, we trust,” said Frank, as he removed the Sulphuric Acid from the bench. His bone gas would take no part in the establishment of such a state; besides, by tomorrow O’Connell would be dead and he would be on his way to the Arctic Circle with the Irishman’s cerebral foam safely packed for the transfer.