The Darwin Conspiracy (7 page)

“Incidentally,” said Roland, “I think Darwin had a freaky side.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for one thing he was obsessed with hermaphrodites. He kept finding barnacles with two penises and it shook him terribly. He abhorred the whole idea. I think he feared it because there was so much intermarriage in his family. And then later, of course, he saw that hermaphrodites are proof that nature can throw off mutants, which was an important concept for his theory.”

“How do you know all this?”

“It’s an interest of mine. Not Darwin. I mean hermaphrodites.”

Hugh could not help but laugh.

“Hugh! My God.”

The woman’s voice caught him from behind, a mid-Atlantic accent.

He identified it at once and stiffened with anticipation and dread. He turned slowly, but a knot of people was passing through the archway of Burlington House, silhouettes backlighted by the sunny courtyard, so that he didn’t spot her right away. She spoke again.

“What are you doing here?”

He kissed Bridget lightly on the cheek and there was an awkward moment as he pulled back while she leaned forward to kiss the other.

His first thought was that she looked older. There was a fleshiness to her cheeks that widened her face, and her blond hair looked a little thinner. But the impression lessened as he looked into her eyes and saw there the familiar mixture of friendliness and reserve. She was like an estranged sister. It hadn’t really been all that long: six years. He had last seen her at the funeral, when he could barely speak to her—or to anyone else, for that matter. She had written him a letter—she wanted to keep in touch, she said—but he hadn’t answered. In those days he hadn’t been able to think of anyone else, only of his own pain. That was still true, come to think of it.

She was staring at him, waiting, and he realized he hadn’t answered her question.

“Just visiting,” he said, gesturing toward the thick wooden door he had just closed.

“I meant here in London.”

“Oh, thinking of doing some research. And you?”

“I live here—remember?”

“Yes, of course. My father told me. I meant now.”

“The Hogarth Exhibition.” She turned and tilted her head toward the Royal Academy. “But what’s in there?” she insisted, looking again at the door.

“Not much. The Linnean Society.”

“And what conceivable interest do
you
have in the Linnean Society?”

She hadn’t changed—she was never one to stop until she got what she wanted.

“Darwin. I’ve gotten interested in Darwin.”

Bridget was staring at him again, with arched eyebrows, and it made him nervous.

“So I thought I’d take a look at the Society. Of course, it’s not where it was when he and Wallace delivered their papers. It’s moved since then—and, well, actually, he didn’t turn up for his paper. Sick, as usual.”

Why was he running on like this? He knew, of course; he felt anxious, but he didn’t want to dwell on it. “Still, they’ve got some good portraits. Here, I’ve got some cards.”

He handed her two four- by six-inch reproductions of the paintings he had just seen. There was Darwin, stooped with the weight of a foolish world on his shoulders, gloomy as Jehovah in his long white beard and dark overcoat. And Wallace, relaxing in a chair next to a painting of a tropical forest. A book depicting a brilliant green butterfly rested on his knee and his eyes beamed behind wire-rimmed spectacles.

“Hardly Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” she ventured, opening one of the cards. Inside was the reproduction of a centennial brass plaque that read:

C H A R L E S DA RW I N

and
ALF R E D RU S S E L WALLAC E

made the first communication

of their views on

T H E O R I G I N O F S P E C I E S

BY NAT U R A L S E L E CT I O N

At a meeting of the Linnean Society

On 1st July 1858

1st July 1958

“Let’s go get a drink,” she said abruptly. “I suspect you need one.” He tried to find an excuse but she had already locked arms and was marching him up Piccadilly, her eyes scanning the street ahead.

“No pub,” he said. “They’re never around when you need one.”

“Which is pretty much all the time with you, as I remember.”

He fancied he heard more and more of her native New Jersey punching through the faint English lilt.

They settled for a small restaurant and he headed for a table by the window where the passersby might provide a distraction. A waitress in a white apron ambled over and he asked for a beer and Bridget ordered a sherry in clipped tones.

“So when exactly was it that you became English?” he asked. “I mean, was there one specific moment when you crossed over the line?”

“Very amusing. If it’s kissing both cheeks you’re referring to, you should know everyone who’s lived here long enough does that.”

“Yeah, but you did it right away. Wasn’t it in the taxi line at Heathrow?”

“It was in the
queue,
if you must know.”

“I see you haven’t changed—as quick as ever.”

“
You’re
the one who apparently hasn’t changed.”

He didn’t answer. Change—if she only knew how much he had changed.

“So, when did this Darwin fascination start?”

“Oh, I don’t know exactly. I’m still looking around.”

“For what? For what you want to do when you grow up?”

“Something like that.”

“I heard that you were a bartender. And then you did something out west, didn’t you? Picking apples, forest ranger, something dramatically adolescent like that?”

He let it ride and sipped his beer.

“And you went to that strange place—what’s it called? One of those islands in Galápagos.”

“Sin Nombre.”

“That’s it. No wonder I can’t remember it. And did your man Darwin visit there too?”

“No. It’s only a small island. There’s a research project there, looking at Darwin’s finches, measuring them—the length of their beaks, that sort of thing—to see how they change when conditions change.”

“I see. Measuring bird beaks. And you were doing this for a degree?”

“Yes. Well, I was. But I didn’t finish my time there. It was actually kind of rough—in the sense of depressing. I left.”

“You left? Meaning what—you washed out?”

“You could put it that way.”

“So you never got your degree?”

“No, not yet. I talked to my adviser—he’s at Cornell—and I told him I wanted to come here, maybe write something about Darwin.”

“I see.”

“Trouble is, so much has been written about him. It’s hard to imagine coming up with something new, not to mention earth-shattering.”

“Uh-huh.” She was quiet, thinking, but only for a moment. “I bet your dad’s glad he spent all that money for you to go to college.”

He stared at her, hard. She had always been proud of her insensitiv-ity and she was always presumptuous, insisting she had the right to give him advice like an older sister. Any minute now she would start talking about his brother.

“It didn’t cost so much. Not like Harvard.” He realized it was a weak comeback and she paid it no mind.

“Listen to me, Hugh,” she said, leaning forward. “From what I heard, you’re just drifting. You’re what—thirty years old?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Twenty-eight. Don’t you think it’s time—”

“For what? To get over it, you mean?”

“Well, yes. Others have.”

“Like you.”

“Like me.”

“What do you mean, ‘from what I heard’? Who are you talking to, anyway?”

“People. The world’s not such a big place, you know.”

He looked down at her wedding ring. His father had told him about that too.

“Yes, I’ve married. And I’m reasonably content.” She paused. “I wouldn’t say I don’t think of your brother from time to time—I think of him
often,
as a matter of fact. But one has to get on with one’s life.

That’s not being heartless, it’s just realistic. The world really does go on, you know. That may be a cliché, but it’s true nonetheless. You have to get on with things.”

“I know that, but—you know—it’s different with me.”

“Because you always thought he was better than you. And because you think you’re responsible for his death.”

He was too stunned to speak. He’d known it was a mistake to sit down with her.

“I’m sorry to talk like this, Hugh. But somebody has to. You’ve got to get over this. It’s absurd for you to blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault, for God’s sake. Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone wasn’t there. I was.”

As he spoke, the loop of memory played in his mind again—the rocks, the waterfall, the shadow of the falling body and the pool of bubbles looking odd in the shaft of sunlight.

He willed her to talk again, if only to interrupt his thoughts, and she didn’t disappoint him.

“You know, self-pity doesn’t get you anywhere. And it’s very unat-tractive, especially on you, Hugh, of all people. You’re young. You’re handsome. God, half the women I know were in love with you.”

He wanted to bring the encounter to an end.

“Where were they when I needed them?” he said, with a half smile.

He looked at his watch.

“Someplace to go?” she asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I’ve only got a few minutes more.” He took another sip of beer. He wanted another one, but more than that he wanted to leave.

“Why didn’t you answer my letter?” she asked.

For a moment he thought of pretending he hadn’t received it. But that kind of lie never worked with her; she would see through it and just go barreling ahead as if it wasn’t worth acknowledging.

“I don’t know. I didn’t want to go over the whole thing. I didn’t want to think about it, I guess.”

“So you went off to be by yourself and stare out at the ocean. That’s a good way to take your mind off things.”

“Yes, well, in any case, it didn’t work.”

“I would think not.”

He decided to change the subject. “What’s he like—your husband?”

“Erik. And he’s very smart. He works in the City and we have a flat in Elgin Crescent.”

“I see. Kids?”

“No.”

“And you—do you work?”

“Life of leisure,” she said, sitting back and rubbing her ring with her thumb. It was a false gesture, pretending at some bourgeois compromise, and she played it that way. A silence set in and he resolved not to break it. After half a minute, she spoke.

“And your father. How is he?”

“He’s remarried.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“A good woman, or so it seems. Kathy. They’ve been married about three years now.”

“No kidding. That’s amazing. He’d been single for years, ever since . . . how long ago did your mother leave?”

“A long time. I was a teenager.”

“And how do you get on with Kathy?”

“Okay, not bad. I don’t spend much time with them. They seem good together, but I can’t say it’s really changed him.”

“He’s not exactly a touchy-feely kind of man.”

“No. But he’s stayed on the wagon. He seems to be making an effort to get engaged in things now, including with me. I think Kathy’s pushing him in that direction. He kept pressing me to go back to school. So I got into this evolutionary biology, partly to get him off my back, and then ended up liking it.”

Hugh didn’t say what he was thinking—that his father had made some kind of peace with the past and “moved on,” as Bridget would put it, but that he still believed his father had never forgiven him and undoubtedly never would. Certain things you just don’t get over.

He could see that Bridget had something on her mind. She leaned across the table toward him and spoke in a low, intimate tone.

“Hugh, there are some things that even you don’t know about. I don’t know if you even
should
know, but it might help. It might make everything a bit easier.”

“Bridget, for Christ’s sake. Could you be a little less cryptic?”

“No, I can’t. But maybe you should just be open to thinking about things in a different way.”

“What the hell does that mean? Bridget, if you’ve got something to say, just say it.”

“Maybe sometime. Let me think about it.”

“Have it your way.” He put down his glass and stood up. “I’ve really got to go—sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be playing games. I’m not—I hope you realize that. All this is too important.”

“Sure. I guess. But I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

He paid the tab and by the time they reached the door, she was a flurry of resolution. She insisted on taking his phone number, and he found it on a piece of paper in his pocket—the rooming house in Cambridge—and read it aloud as she punched it into a PalmPilot. She said she was going to invite him for dinner.

“Promise you’ll come.”

“Maybe. I’ll have to see.”

On the sidewalk, she leaned over to kiss him, both cheeks, saying how glad she was that they had bumped into each other, and then she turned abruptly and walked down the street, her heels clicking against the pavement. He thought she looked broader across the hips and wondered fleetingly if she was pregnant.

What would it have been like, he thought, if she was carrying my brother’s child? What would their children have been like? All that powerful DNA conjoining, his brilliance and her drive, making little gods in diapers, almost too perfect for this world.

All that time we were talking, he thought, and we didn’t even say his name.

So he said it to himself: Cal.

Cal, Cal, Cal.

He spotted the building at once, number 50 Albemarle Street. A discreetly placed brass plaque announced it as home to John Murray, Publishers. He stepped back to examine the eighteenth-century town house.

It was five stories tall, cream-colored with a cranberry-painted cast-iron fence leading to the imposing front door. French windows peered down from the first floor. The blank facade of a NatWest bank next door made it doubly quaint.

He tried to imagine the crush of buyers nearly two centuries ago, shouting up at the windows to obtain the early cantos of Byron’s
Don
Juan.
Or Jane Austen’s messenger delivering a carefully wrapped manuscript of
Emma.
Or the frail figure of Darwin in a top hat, prematurely aged, gripping the railing to climb the steps in order to negotiate yet another edition of the
Origin.