Soul

by Tobsha Learner

  Sweat ran in rivulets down Gabriel’s forehead, plastering his hair to his skin. In that moment she saw the man he would become.

  ‘It’s you, isn’t it? It was your blood.’

  ‘I made a decision,’ Julia said, her voice deceptive in its calmness. ‘I guess you could say that nurture triumphed over nature.’

  Later that night, Julia sat in the lounge room, the tape cassette player on the coffee table before her. After she’d promised to see a psychiatrist, Klaus had finally agreed not to press charges.

  She glanced up at the portrait of Lavinia Huntington, then, her finger pressed down on the erase button; she wiped all the cassettes to Klaus. At last her anger had begun to fade.

  78

  Newgate Prison, 1862

  LAVINIA SAT IN THE CORNER OF the prison cell, on the narrow wooden bench that ran alongside the scarred and uneven wall. A tin bucket filled with water stood in the opposite corner; a small barred window, framing her last afternoon, set high into the wall above her. Blindly, her fingers traced the initials carved into the wooden surface she was sitting on: initials of the women who had been hanged before her. Shivering, she felt all of them in the room with her, a profound mass terror seeping up through the stone floor. Where would she find redemption now, except in the memory of those who would live on?

  ‘Lavinia.’

  He stood on the other side of the bars, smaller than she remembered, his hair now greyer. There was no judgement in his eyes, only a weighty sadness.

  ‘Father!’ She was at the bars in a moment. Their hands intertwined; weeping, she lifted them to her face.

  ‘Child, I should have taken you in when you asked me. This I shall regret until my dying day. Now compose yourself, I have Aidan waiting outside.’

  As the gaoler went to fetch her son, Lavinia wiped her eyes on the hessian skirt then smoothed down her unruly hair. Somewhere in the shadowy corridor there was the creak of a heavy door.

  Bewildered and wide-eyed, the child was carried in by a matronly prison officer. As they drew nearer, Lavinia could see Aidan was close to tears. Her cell door was unlocked and her father stepped inside.

  ‘I shall collect him shortly,’ the prison guard announced before delivering the child into Lavinia’s arms.

  ‘Mama.’ Aidan wrapped his arms tightly around her neck. She buried her face in his ringlets, the tiny weight of him dissolving all that lay before her.

  ‘Mama’s going away, but you will see her again soon, I promise,’ she whispered

  She looked at her father. ‘He will come into his inheritance when he is eighteen. My will is with Mr Cohen. I have left instructions as to who will be his ward after your death.’

  ‘Until then I shall take him back to Ireland, and I promise you he shall have the best care and education a child could wish for.’

  ‘Thank you, Dada.’

  Hearing the childish name, the Reverend broke down weeping.

  It is almost dawn. I thank God that my stay in this formidable hell has been brief, only days since my sentencing. In a few hours I shall no longer be of this world; it has been a short life—a mere twenty years—and although my act was calculated, I have known since I was a child that I was capable of such deeds. I am guilty of loving passionately; I am guilty of jealousy and romantic ideals. I am also guilty of murder, but I pray that you, my invisible and silent companion, will be humane in your judgement.

  In the distance, Lavinia could hear the rattling of the prison guards’ keys and their footfalls as they approached the cell. Trying to control her violent trembling, she closed the whispering box for the last time.

  79

  Los Angeles, 2003

  JULIA LOOKED AROUND THE TABLE at the four Defense Department representatives. Along with Colonel Smith-Royston, she also recognised a military psychologist from the Psych Division, but there were two others she had never seen before: General Burt Jennings, a muscular grey-haired patrician in his sixties; and the Head of Personnel, Amanda Jane, an African– American woman in her late forties. Flinty and angular, she appeared the most suspicious of the geneticist. Clicking a biro impatiently, she scanned the report in front of her and occasionally peered over her bifocals at Julia with forensic appraisal.

  Behind the table a photograph of the President hung above the imitation fireplace; his closely set eyes held a faint gleam of incredulous bewilderment as if even he could not entirely fathom the chaos he had inherited.

  Only the crackle of turning pages broke the tense silence as the four officials finished reading Julia’s report.

  Feeling anxious, Julia poured herself a glass of water. The general looked up.

  ‘Let me get this straight. What you’re suggesting is that there may be several genetic factors involved in the individuals of interest, but you haven’t been able to separate those factors from external influences.’

  ‘Sometimes genetic traits require external circumstances to launch them. In this case, an individual may have this particular mutant gene function, but if something in their environmental experience—call it “nurture”, if you like—doesn’t encourage the gene to detonate, then it’ll just stay dormant on the DNA.’

  Amanda Jane leaned forward, her chin jutting out. ‘In plain English, Professor Huntington, you’re telling us it would be a waste of time and resources to genetically profile potential frontline combat troops?’

  Hesitating, Julia focused on a point somewhere between Amanda Jane’s eyebrows. Knowing that she was being less than honest, and risking both her career and reputation, Julia swallowed before speaking. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Then simplify, Professor Huntington. It’s what we pay you for.’

  ‘In plain English, it would not be ethical of me to suggest that, even with the required genetic profile, any particular man could kill in close combat without some later regret or remorse. In the course of my research I discovered that I simply couldn’t isolate this propensity from other factors.’

  ‘Such as?’ asked the general.

  ‘Free will, sir.’

  Leaving the conference room, Julia felt as vulnerable as a target on a shooting range. On the way down to the main entrance, she noticed a campaign poster for the Candidate, offering wonderfully inarticulate platitudes instead of policy. He seemed an ironically apt choice for the current apocalyptic times.

  Leaving the Defense Department building, she stepped out into the sun.

  80

  Life, confession and

  EXECUTION

  of

  Lavinia Elspeth Huntington

  For the MURDER of her husband

  Colonel James Edwin Huntington

  by

  The Honourable Stanley Taylor Williams Esquire

  OLD BAILEY, THIS COLD MORNING OF January tenth, in the year of Our Lord eighteen sixty-two. The sheriff, with his attendants, arrived at the prison and proceeded to the condemned cell, where he found the condemned’s father, the Reverend Kane of Anascaul, County Kerry, engaged in prayer with his daughter. After the usual formalities, Mrs Lavinia Huntington was conducted into the press room where her hair was cut short. The executioner and his assistants then commenced pinioning her arms, which operation they skilfully and quickly dispatched. The condemned uttered not another word.

  At a quarter of an hour before eight, the arrangements having being completed, the bell of the prison commenced tolling and the melancholy procession was formed, the prison chaplain preceding the culprit on her way to the fatal drop, and reading the burial service for the dead. No sound, if we except the deep sighs of the unhappy woman, interrupted the clergyman as the procession moved along the subterranean passage.

  Outside, the gallows were surrounded by a great multitude of people, some of whom had travelled from as far afield as Lancaster to view the hanging of the creature who has been dubbed the Snuff Murderess. A great proportion of the onlookers were female, the fairer sex taking a particular pleasure in the execution of one of its kind, and there was all
manner of heckling as the unfortunate woman arrived by prison cart.

  Before the scaffold, Mrs Huntington was seen tremulously to thank the sheriff and the worthy governor of the prison for their kind attention to her during her confinement. Then, perilously, her knees shaking, she ascended the scaffold and was placed in the necessary position. While the executioner was adjusting the fatal apparatus of death, the accused appeared deeply absorbed in prayer. The executioner, having drawn the cap over the accused’s face, retired from the scaffold. On the signal being given, the bolt was withdrawn and the unhappy woman was launched into eternity. A few convulsive struggles were perceptible, and she ceased to exist. After a time, the body was cut down and conveyed into the prison.

  Aloysius, staring at the broadsheet, recognised only the name ‘Lavinia’.

  ‘You know I can’t read a word, Samuel.’

  Samuel put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I thought you should have it anyway. It was quickly done, and afterwards a great quantity of birds rose up into the sky. Aloysius, I believe it were her soul breaking free at last.’

  Aloysius turned away, his shoulders shaking as he silently fought his emotions.

  ‘I’ll pray for her, and for the child left behind,’ Samuel said.

  In lieu of an answer, the Irishman reached out and grasped the great calloused hand of his young friend.

  81

  California, 2003

  TOM DONOHUE HAD PICKED HER up outside the Defense Department building. She’d asked him to drive her out to the Joshua Tree reserve, and now, with the desert laid out before them, the cacti standing like silent sentries, the occasional cricket rasp breaking the air, Julia opened a bottle of champagne and filled two plastic cups.

  She leaned over to kiss him. It had been four weeks since their first date, and two months since the encounter with Klaus. She had rung him the day after, determined to return his gun, and they had been seeing each other ever since.

  ‘So what exactly are we celebrating?’ Tom ventured. He put his head back and breathed in the atmosphere; it was fragrant with the scent of heat from the fading day.

  Before completing her report, Julia had deliberately destroyed all evidence of the heightened activity that indicated ANG–1. Although she knew it was only a question of time before other geneticists made the same discovery, she had reached her personal decision. In any case, would they ever really be able to separate nature from nurture and then calculate in that other crucial factor, free will? Surely it was possible that whatever one’s genetic inheritance, one could still evolve consciously beyond the genetic propensities of one’s ancestors? The willingness to take moral responsibility was an immeasurable factor.

  Either way, Julia was convinced Tom had been right: there were at least two propensities linked to the same mutant gene function—a capacity to kill, and a capacity to carry out that killing without emotional consequences.

  ‘It’s signed, sealed and delivered,’ she said.

  ‘And?’

  She looked at him, marvelling at the ease with which she’d found herself trusting the former Delta Force soldier.

  ‘Come on,’ he persisted, ‘I need to know the official verdict.’

  ‘Officially, my findings were inconclusive.’

  ‘The unofficial version?’

  ‘I prised open Pandora’s box then decided to slam the lid shut again. Although you do realise that some other geneticist is going to discover it all over again in a nanosecond?’

  ‘Thank you.’ He looked at his watch. ‘A nanosecond—I think that gives us enough time.’ He kissed her, then pulled her down onto the blanket.

  The four Defense Department officials waited until they knew Professor Huntington had left the building, then General Burt Jennings nodded to Amanda Jane, who picked up a telephone. A moment later, Matt Leman, the representative from Xandox, was ushered in.

  Colonel Smith-Royston pulled out a chair for the newcomer.

  ‘Now, Mr Leman, I believe Xandox has some information to share—or perhaps sell?’

  82

  Cork, 1875

  THE PHOTOGRAPHER STEADIED THE legs of his tripod. The wind whipped up the camera cloth and sent Aidan’s cap flying. Behind them, the ship’s horns blared.

  ‘Now I know it’s mighty breezy, and any minute we will have cloud, but Master Huntington, if you could just look a little cheerful about taking this momentous trip to the land of the brave and the free.’

  Pulling himself up to his full height, Aidan stared at the seagulls that soared above the dock in a cackling spiral. He wondered if he’d ever see the Irish sky again.

  The photographer disappeared beneath the cloth. Next to him, Aloysius played the buffoon until he finally got the youth’s stern face to break into a shy smile.

  Beyond them, way out to the horizon, the ocean continued its timeless pounding.

  Bibliography

  The following are a selection of books and articles I read during my research for Soul.

  Davidoff, Leonore, The Best Circles: Society, Etiquette and the Season, London: Cresset Library, 1986.

  Duncan, David Ewing, The Geneticist who Played Hoops with my DNA, London: HarperCollins, 2005.

  Dyos, H. J. and Wolff, Michael (eds), The Victorian City: Images and Reality (Vol 1), London, Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976.

  Gould, Stephen J., The Mismeasure of Man, New York: Norton and Company, 1981.

  Grossman, Lt Col Dave, On Killing:The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1995.

  Hartman, Mary S., Victorian Murderesses: A true history of thirteen respectable French and English women accused of unspeakable crimes, New York: Schocken Books, 1976.

  Knelman, Judith, Twisting in the Wind:The Murderess and the English Press, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.

  Picchi, Debra, The Bakairi Indians of Brazil: Politics, Ecology and Change, Illinois:Waveland Press, 2000.

  Pool, Daniel, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

  Ridley, Matt, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, London: HarperCollins, 1999.

  Ridley, Matt, Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience and What Makes us Human, New York: HarperCollins, 2003.

  Sweet, Matthew, Inventing the Victorians, London: Faber and Faber, 2001.

  The Illustrated London News (Feb 1861–Dec 1861).

  Welsh, Alexander, The City of Dickens, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks go to Professor Marilyn Monk, Dr Tim Newsome, Jennifer Bostock, Professor Nelson Freimer of the Center for Neurobehavioral Genes, Los Angeles; Dr Ainsley J. Newson, Paul Schütze, Jeremy Asher, Viv Neary, Japhet Asher, Adam Learner, Nina Learner, Maggie Rosen, Maeolisha Stafford, Dr Alistair Owen, Eduardo Sanchez and Matthew Ollerton. Thanks also to my publisher, Linda Funnell, and editors Julia Stiles, Nicola O’Shea and Lydia Papandrea; and my literary agents, Rachel Skinner (Australia), Catherine Drayton and Kimberly Witherspoon (US), and Julian Alexander (UK).

  About the Author

  Tobsha Learner was born and raised in England and has lived in both Australia and the USA. She is well known in Australia as a playwright and her first collection of short stories, Quiver, has sold over 150 000 copies internationally. Her second book, Madonna Mars, was a thriller set in Los Angeles and Washington. Her third book—the bestselling The Witch of Cologne—was her first work of historical fiction and was followed by another collection of short stories, Tremble: Sensual Fables of the Mystical and Sinister. Tobsha divides her time between London, Sydney and California. Soul is her fifth book.

  Visit Tobsha Learner at her website:

  www.tobshalearner.com

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  Other books by Tobsha Learner

  Quiver

  Madonna Mars

  The Witch of Cologne

  Trembl
e

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  First published in Australia in 2006

  Revised edition published in 2008

  This edition published 2010

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  www.harpercollins.com.au

  Copyright © Tobsha Learner 2006, 2008

  The right of Tobsha Learner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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