"I went into one of the little shops-you know the sort, full of horrible merchandise-and I bought a big pair of mirrored sunglasses, the kind you used to wear when your skin was so pale, and a hideous shirt with a parrot on it.
"Then taking off my jacket and turtleneck, I put on that horrible shirt, and the glasses, and I took up a station from which I could see the length of the wharf through the open doors. I didn't know what else to do. I was terrified that they would start searching the cabins! What would they do when they couldn't open that little door on Five Deck, or if they did find your body in that trunk? Then on the other hand, how could they make such a search? And what would prompt them to do it? They had the man with the gun."
He paused again to take another swallow of the Scotch. He looked truly innocent in his distress as he described all this, innocent in the way he never could have looked in the older flesh.
"I was mad, absolutely mad. I tried to use my old telepathic powers, and it took me some time to discover them, and the body was more involved with it than I would have thought."
"No surprise to me," I said.
"And then all I could pick up were various thoughts and pictures from passengers nearest me. It was no good at all. But fortunately my agony came abruptly to an end.
"They brought James ashore. He had the same enormous contingent of officers with him. They must have thought him the most dangerous criminal in the Western world. And he had my luggage with him. And again he was the very image of British propriety and dignity, chatting away with a gay smile, even though the officers were obviously deeply suspicious and profoundly uncomfortable as they ushered him to the customs people and laid his passport in their hands.
"I realized that he was being forced to permanently leave the ship. They even searched his luggage before the party was allowed to go through.
"All this time I was cleaving to the wall of the building, a young bum, if you will, with my jacket and shirt over my arm, staring at my old dignified self through those awful glasses. What is his game, I thought. Why does he want that body! As I told you, it simply never occurred to me what a clever move it had been.
"I followed the little troop outside, where a police car was waiting, into which they put his luggage as he stood rattling on and shaking hands now with those officers who were to stay behind.
"I drew near enough to hear his profuse thanks and apologies, the dreadful euphemisms and meaningless language, and his enthusiastic statements as to how much he'd enjoyed his brief voyage. How he seemed to enjoy this masquerade."
"Yes," I said dismally. "That's our man."
"Then the strangest of all moments occurred. He stopped all this chatter as they held the door of the car open for him, and turned around. He looked directly at me, as if he'd known I was there all along. Only he disguised this gesture quite cleverly, letting his eyes drift over the crowds coming and going through the enormous entrances, and then he looked at me again, very quickly, and he smiled.
"Only when the car drove off did I realize what had occurred. He had willingly driven away in my old body, leaving me with this twenty-six-year-old hunk of flesh."
He lifted the glass again, took a sip, and stared at me.
"Maybe the switch at such a moment would have been absolutely impossible. I really don't know. But the fact was, he wanted that body. And I was left standing there, outside the customs building, and I was ... a young man again!"
He stared fixedly at the glass, obviously not seeing it at all, and then again his eyes looked into mine.
"It was Faust, Lestat. I'd bought youth. But the strange part was ... I hadn't sold my soul!"
I waited as he sat there in confounded silence, and shook his head a little, and seemed on the verge of beginning again. Finally he spoke:
"Can you forgive me for leaving then? There was no way I could return to the ship. And of course James was on his way to jail, or so I believed."
"Of course I forgive you. David, we knew this might happen. We expected you might be taken into custody just as he was! It's absolutely unimportant. What did you do? Where did you go?"
"I went into Bridgetown. It wasn't even really a decision. A young very personable black cabdriver came up to me, thinking I was a cruise passenger, which of course I was. He offered me a tour of the city at a good price. He'd lived for years in England. Had a nice voice. I don't even think I answered him. I simply nodded and climbed into the back seat of the little car. For hours he drove me around the island. He must have thought me a very strange individual, indeed.
"I remember we drove through the most beautiful sugarcane fields. He said the little road had been built for the horse and carriage. And I thought that these fields probably looked the way they did two hundred years ago. Lestat could tell me. Lestat would know. And then I'd look down at my hands again. I'd move my foot, or tense my arms, or any small gesture; and I'd feel the sheer health and vigor of this body! And I'd fall back into a state of wonder, utterly oblivious to the poor man's voice or the sights we passed.
"Finally we came to a botanical garden. The gentlemanly black driver parked the little car and invited me to go in. What did it matter to me? I bought the admission with some of the money you'd so kindly left in your pockets for the Body Thief, and then I wandered into the garden and soon found myself in one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen in all the world.
"Lestat, all this was like a potent dream!
"I must take you to this place, you must see it-you who love the islands so very much. In fact, all I could think of... was you!
"And I must explain something to you. Never in all this time since you first came to me, never once have I ever looked into your eyes or heard your voice, or even thought of you, without feeling pain. It's the pain connected to mortality, to realizing one's age and one's limits, and what one will never have again. Do you see my meaning?"
"Yes. And as you walked around the botanical garden, you thought of me. And you didn't feel the pain."
"Yes," he whispered. "I didn't feel the pain."
I waited. He sat in quiet, drinking the Scotch again in a deep greedy gulp, and then he pushed the glass away. The tall muscular body was completely controlled by his elegance of spirit, moving with his polished gestures, and once again there came the measured, even tones of his voice.
"We must go there," he said. "We must stand on that hill over the sea. You remember the sound of the coconut palms in Grenada, that clicking sound as they moved in the wind? You've never heard such music as you will hear in that garden in Barbados, and oh, those flowers, those mad savage flowers. It's your Savage Garden, and yet so tame and soft and safe! I saw the giant traveler's palm with its branches seemingly braided as they came out of the stalk! And the lobster claw, a monstrous and waxen thing; and the ginger lilies, oh, you must see them. Even in the light of the moon it must all be beautiful, beautiful to your eyes.
"I think I would have stayed there forever. It was a busload of tourists which shook me out of my dreams. And do you know, they were from our ship? They were the folks from the QE2." He gave a bright laugh and the face became too exquisite to describe. The whole powerful body shook with soft laughter. "Oh, I got out of there then very fast indeed.
"I went back out, found my driver, and then let him take me down to the west coast of the island, past the fancy hotels. Lots of British people there on vacation. Luxury, solitude- golf courses. And then I saw this one particular place-a resort right on the water that was everything I dream of when I want to get away from London and jet across the world to some warm and lovely spot.