John is an eroded statue left in an ornamental park. A ruin. A ruin, in a wasteland. Time had, with weatherbeaten hands, scraped off the outer skin of the sculpture, chipped off bit by bit of the marble. He had never known magic, the alchemy of change through love. His mother’s hands, so slender, so unused to harsh work, throbbed with pain as they touched him, tried to quieten his turbulence. He was restless and could often become boisterous. Phials of pills were emptied down his throat. The first born. The changeling. One who should have been destined to be part of that tradition created by the Native Patriots; the tradition of wealth, property, trade, perhaps a sinecure in the Church of England; a tradition spawned by those colonial masters. There were vast acres of estates to be looked after. Business. Trade. Commerce. Opportunities for entrepreneurship. A knighthood had been bestowed upon his maternal grandfather. Largesse. Philanthropy. The benevolence and privilege of wealth could have been his. Or he could have entered the Anglican Church; or one of those ancient British universities. No, there was no destiny for him. To look after him, this disruptive element in the smooth silken flow of their days, his parents had to suffer agonies. They had searched for explanations everywhere.

‘He was bullied in school. Made fun of, taunted.’

The British public school system perpetuated in those private missionary schools. Great, dedicated principles. Men of learning. Scholars. Yet, beneath all that stern and disciplined existence seethed the turmoil of childish and adolescent emotions. Sometimes whipped into submission, into conformity, mocked at by your own if you were different. John was different. The vine withered. The grapes grew sour.

Another explanation: ‘He fell off his cot as a baby,’ the father would say.

‘Who knows how it happened,’ Serena says.

The mother suffered in silence. They drove along the streets in their chauffeur-driven car. He sat beside her at church or at theatrical concerts, variety entertainments. As long as she was alive, he lived too.

His voice drags on and on whenever he speaks of those days. Grows petulant. He remembers an uncle. ‘He spoilt me, spoilt me. A corrupt man. He did bad things to me, he taught me dirty things,’ he keeps saying. ‘I can’t marry. It’s all dried up now. Dried up now.’