CLONER : a Sci-Fi Novel about Human Cloning (A Captivating Story about Reproduction Outside the Womb and Identical Humans) (20 page)

‘You sound terrible, darling. Are you all on your own?’ He appeared anxious.

‘Yes, thank goodness. It all went on a bit.’ She eased back against the pillows, shutting her eyes, shutting out the present. ‘Betsy had to leave before bath time.’

‘Didn’t Gerry stay on?’

Fury suddenly overpowered her. If the girl had pulled her weight all this wouldn’t have happened. ‘Geraldine!’ she spat the name out. ‘She was worse than useless.’

‘Now what?’ She heard irritation creeping through Alec’s voice. ‘How did she get across you this time?’

Of course he’d take the girl’s part, Lisa’s mind fired bitterly. And probably rather more than that. Always that readiness to drive her home, however tired he was. Pleased, Lisa suspected, to get away, to have a drink at the Fitch-Templetons - or so he claimed - while she stayed behind to prepare their meal.

‘She just left me to it,’ Lisa wept, diffusing rage. ‘All by myself.’

‘She didn’t help you bathe them?’

‘And you’re never here, not even on their birthday,’ she suddenly sobbed, outraged. ‘They’re your children too, you know!’ Alec’s obsession with Flaxton was depriving her children of their father.

‘So what did she do this time?’ His voice had turned jocular, humouring her. ‘Pop the balloons?’

‘Ran off with the conjurer!’

‘The conjurer?’

‘A rather dishy young man. I saw the ad in the local paper. It was my special surprise. Went down a treat with everyone.’

At first there was silence. His laugh, when it came, was awkward, subdued; as though what she’d said was in bad taste. ‘I’m sorry, pet. It’s just the thought of Gerry popping out of a hat - like a rabbit!’

He almost sounded jealous... Was he actually having an affair with Geraldine? Lisa brushed the thought away. Compared to what might be waiting for her in the bathroom it was irrelevant.

‘She left me coping with all four of them in the bath while she went gallivanting off.’

His voice had changed again. ‘I’m sorry, darling; you’re worn out. I’ll read the riot act to her next time I see her, I promise.’

‘Always bloody Flaxton first,’ Lisa wailed. ‘Even with Geraldine.’ Annoyance made her voice stronger, edged determination into it. ‘At least it will be Betsy tomorrow morning.’

‘Betsy? Why won’t Gerry be coming?’

‘She’s having lunch with Nigel Carruthers.’

‘With Carruthers? Geraldine?’

‘He
is
her uncle, remember. Apparently he regularly takes her out to a posh lunch.’

‘That’s a constant, is it?’ Alec sounded both surprised and, Lisa felt, upstaged. ‘Does it happen often?’

Did he suspect a liaison between the girl and her uncle? Surely not. Lisa was too tired to pursue it. ‘Every other week or so.’ She shrugged it aside. ‘It’s one of the few appointments Geraldine sticks to. Anyway, I’ve decided to get rid of her. Maybe I can persuade Betsy to give me more time.’

‘Dump Geraldine before you’ve had a chance to find someone else? That’s brilliant, Lisa.’ The icy tone.

‘She’s more trouble than she’s worth,’ Lisa shouted back. Her voice began to rise, crescendoing into hysteria. ‘She’s always getting everything wrong. She simply piles the dried laundry into the cupboard in a ball! She – ’

‘Steady on, darling...’

Lisa gulped, regained her breath. ‘And that bloody dog of hers on top of everything else!’

‘So tell her to leave the dog at home, if that’s the problem.’

‘No, that’s
not
the problem! Geraldine simply isn’t up to it. I’ll talk to Anne.’

‘Anne?’

‘Anne Marsden, Alec! The one who runs the playschool.’

‘You think she knows a better mother’s help?’

‘We could send the triplets there for the mornings,’ Lisa found herself saying. ‘That would give me real time off. Meg’s always telling me Anne’s longing to have them.’

‘Something we could think about,’ Alec soothed her.

‘They’ll be safer, better off.’ Why hadn’t she thought of it before? ‘If Anne can cope with the triplets now I can dispense with Geraldine.’ She paused at that. ‘Even the idea of it makes me feel better.’

‘You sound completely overdone, pet. Why don’t you ask Meg to come over?’

The very last thing she wanted. She cleared her throat, pushed her voice firmly into control. ‘I’ll be all right now, darling. Honestly. Just needed someone to let steam off to. You really need not worry.’

‘You make me feel a heel,’ he said, sounding glum.

‘I know you’d have been here if you could,’ Lisa sighed, her fury spent. ‘I’m not really getting at you. Just that girl letting me down at the last moment.’

‘That’s why I’m ringing; I simply can’t get back tonight.’

‘Oh, Alec!’

‘I know, I know.’

She breathed in deeply. It would give her time to think. There was no way she could possibly explain what had been happening over the phone. ‘Never mind; everything’s quiet now. I could use an early night.’

Coherent thoughts were beginning to form in Lisa’s head. She’d check Janus’s wrist, make absolutely sure the bracelet was secure...

‘…be back around tea time.’

‘Sorry, darling. I didn’t quite catch what you said.’

‘You sound terrible, Lisa. We’ve got to get you more time away from those children. Get hold of a trained live-in nanny after all, perhaps. We can afford it.’

‘No!’

There was a pause; obviously Alec trying not to lose his temper. ‘We won’t discuss it now.’

Lisa, making another supreme effort to compose herself, suddenly saw Geraldine in front of her, smirking at Alec, pouting her lips. Sending the children to Anne’s playschool would mean Alec wouldn’t have the opportunity to see so much of the girl.

‘There’s nothing to discuss. Once I’ve got rid of Geraldine there’ll be one less child to look after!’

Another silence. ‘I’m sorry, Lisa. I really can’t stop now. We’ll talk it through tomorrow. I’ll take the children over at the weekend and give you a break, I promise.’

Take over? She’d tell him everything tomorrow. At last she’d be able to share her terrible secret with the only other human being who could really understand her plight. Because, after all, he was their father, and as much involved as she was. And Alec would have to acknowledge what was going on. She’d the evidence - the all-too-solid evidence - to show him.

‘Mummy!’

Not now, she couldn’t think about all that now. ‘Seb’s calling me,’ she said, getting up from the bed. ‘I’ll take the phone through. You could just say goodnight to him.’

‘Did you have a good party, Seb?’

‘Lots more wabbits; white bwabbits.’

‘Anything else?’

‘And pigeons flewed round the playroom. I’s going to crayon with Mummy.’

‘Splendid. ’Night, Seb.’

Lisa clicked the receiver into standby and sank on to the rocker in Seb’s room. ‘You crayon, Seb. I’ll watch you. Mummy’s very tired after the party.’

He coloured in the picture they had worked on yesterday. ‘Brown and white moo cows,’ he said. ‘Like Auntie Meg’s.’

‘You like the Jerseys best?’ Lisa asked, aware that he was drawing several calves for each cow. Had he guessed what had happened? Known it would? He was the one who’d seen it all before.

‘Want to go down,’ he told her solemnly. ‘’Night, Mummy.’

She wished it were. At least there’d be no Alec to counter, no one to disrupt her while she tried to work out a solution to her - to their - dilemma. She’d need the wisdom of Solomon to get it right.

A kiss and hug for Seb, and she tottered to the door, grimaced goodnight. She crept unwillingly back to the triplets’ room. Janus was asleep, just like his brothers.

Trembling, shaking a little, she raised his arm, looked at the bracelet on his wrist. SANVI? Was that a curse? Her thoughts darted aimlessly through her memory. Something Japanese? How could that be connected… Had the bracelet also cloned? Her hand now numb, the prickles of pins and needles in her fingers, Lisa dropped the small wrist. Janus lay like any child asleep: peaceful, deep breaths, showing downy cheeks, a small right fist above the bedding. She walked around the cot to look at his face, lifted his arm again.

Utterly, completely paranoid, she scolded herself, and laughed out loud. Of course the answer was quite simple, quite straightforward. The bracelet said JANUS: upside down! She’d put it back the wrong way round.

Proof, then; that it had happened. She’d taken the bracelet off, and put it on again, and it wasn’t too tight. A grim dark feeling of despair, of forces beyond her understanding, her control. She unlatched the silver band, her head on fire. The infant stirred. Lisa, keeping her grip on the child as though her life depended on it, turned the bracelet round and fastened it on again. She looked at it - it spelled JANUS. And it was right. There was no mistaking him: strong, alert, demanding. He was, she realised, still with her. It was the clone who was dead.

Don’s low, defeated voice came back to her: ‘Not’ing as be done but bury ’un’.

Her body shook as she shuddered at the implication. What if there really was a body in the bathroom? What if the nightmare she’d just been struggling through were real? Don’s eyes had lighted on the bracelet, had stayed there, had drawn their firm conclusion. What if he talked, sent Frank round? She had to act now, show courage for her children’s sake. She could not wait for Alec. She had to look into the bath, confront what it contained.

Lisa walked into the children’s bathroom and turned to shut the door slowly, deliberately, too terrified to face the bath immediately. She put her left hand behind her, feeling for the stool. She’d sat on that just a short time ago to dry each one of her little brood. The memory she feared, the picture she wanted to erase, suddenly came back to her. Another baby, just like the triplets, in the bath with Janus.

How could that be? It made no sense at all. It was against the laws of nature, against every experience she’d ever had or heard of. Except, of course, for what she’d heard from Don about the newborn farm animals. What had he said?

‘Next time us looked t’were three on they. T’won’t do.’

Indeed it wouldn’t do. If anyone caught a hint, a glimmer, a whisper of what had happened, she and her family would be overwhelmed. Cameras, microphones, members of the press. They would become a freak, a circus show.

Why was this happening to her?

‘I reckon it be that Multiplier stuff,’ she remembered Meg saying, the day that James was - appeared. Is that really what had made Janus different from other children? That she’d assimilated some of Meg’s produce when she was pregnant? Had it, in spite of Meg’s care, become contaminated?

Quite possibly it had; but it wasn’t very likely to affect Janus now. Whatever had happened before, Flaxton had delayed the launch of Multiplier specifically to give them time to change the formula. Alec had blown his top about it often enough. And he’d complained that they’d had to dispose of the old formula completely. Scrapping the original supplies had cost Flaxton a fortune.

She thought back to what Meg had brought for the birthday tea today. Janus wasn’t allowed any dairy products. Anyway, the clotted cream must be innocuous by now. A vision of the child’s face in the bath, plastered with a dark red sticky mass - the blackberry jelly! Blackberries were not in season yet. That had to be last year’s jelly. And Janus was a lusty eater. He’d probably gobbled up quite a lot of that. But could that really have had such catastrophic effects?

Janus had been bloated before the tea. Very bloated - and aggressive. Just like the time when he was barely two weeks old, when James made his appearance. In those days he’d drunk Meg’s goat’s milk. Now last season’s bramble jelly, still impregnated with the old strain of Multiplier, might well have been the trigger for another cloning.

Elbows on her knees, head drooped forward on her upturned palms, Lisa felt hot tears trickle through her fingers. She had to think, to work out what the consequences might be, for all of them - for Janus, for the other children, for Alec, for herself.

That wasn’t all. The Graftleys were involved as well. And Flaxton; she’d been so busy thinking about her family that the implications for Flaxton had escaped her. She took on board, for the first time, what exposure of the effects of that first batch of Multiplier might do to the company. She didn’t need to be an expert in marketing to know that their products, though modified, would instantly be shunned, that they’d be bankrupt within weeks. Public awareness of cloning would finish them.

Did Flaxton - did Nigel Carruthers - understand the real fruits of their fertiliser? Did the company, even now, realise that cloning was going on?

If Flaxton did know, they’d very successfully hidden their knowledge from everyone, including Alec. She was quite sure that no vestige of such a thought had come to him. And Frank? She’d heard Frank singing the praises of farming with Multiplier - because it paid. Frank wouldn’t let such a dangerous cat out of the bag. He’d cover up.

And Don? Of course Don knew, better than anyone. So why would
he
collude with Flaxton? Because, Lisa guessed, Frank had convinced him that they’d already put the matter right. The two of them had systematically slaughtered anything and everything bred on Crinsley Farm last year. The lambs, the kids, the calves, Meg’s chickens, even the kittens -
that’s
why Frank had made sure they were all drowned! He hadn’t forgotten his promise to Seb at all.

It didn’t end there. Lisa remembered the shocking slaughter of the rabbits she’d seen in the meadow. Quite likely Frank thought he’d eliminated all residuals. He couldn’t know about Janus, had no idea about the human factor.

‘Them baint stout arter they fust ’uns,’ Don had declared. He meant, presumably, that after a cloning animal reached a certain stage of development its clones were vulnerable. Janus’s new clone had been weak to start with. That’s why he’d died.

She sighed. All that was pure conjecture. She couldn’t verify any of it - all she remembered was that there’d be an extraneous baby in the bath. Lisa inched her head round, eyes searching everything except the bathtub. Her hands began to fold towels, straighten out flannels, put toothbrushes away. She bent towards the floor and mopped the water up with the hand towel by the basin, flushed the vomit in the lavatory, began to clean the white porcelain, the seat. She could not put it off any longer, now. She looked into the bath.