CLONER : a Sci-Fi Novel about Human Cloning (A Captivating Story about Reproduction Outside the Womb and Identical Humans) (25 page)

‘Steady on there, young man,’ Alec smiled at him, but Lisa saw a faint frown of worry on his brow. ‘You’ll choke yourself!’

He was greedy enough to do it. Lisa put the knife carefully away and watched Janus’s reactions to the new supply of apple with growing distress. Trickles of liquid dribbled from the corners of his mouth and down his chin. As she watched him swallow, gulping large chunks of apple, Lisa saw him swell up even more. If he doesn’t clone soon he’s going to burst, suddenly flashed across her brain. And he can’t clone if he’s got an earring on.

She saw the child fingering his earlobe, pulling it down. He was quite capable, she suspected, of pulling the lobe off to get his way. And then - and then the clone would also have a piece out of
his
lobe.

Lisa began to feel herself slip into another world; an eerie, surrealistic world where cloning was the norm. Had she imagined it, or were there far more spiders, spinning dense webs around her home, trapping more flies? She watched a large black fly, slowed by the cool of morning, crawl slowly up a kitchen windowpane. Transfixed, she seemed to see its swollen body elongate, then buzz its wings and prise apart as it split and two more wings emerged from the centre. Two smaller flies crawled slowly up the pane. It reminded her of the stag beetle which had crawled towards the spilt milk. Don had squashed it, she remembered now. Pushed his heavy boot on it without a qualm. Because he’d known that if the beetle drank the milk it might start to clone.

A feeling of hopelessness enveloped Lisa. She wanted to share her terrible secret with Alec, to scream her horror at this catastrophe about to engulf the world, to sob her fears away. What if she did? He wouldn’t believe her, he’d call in the caring professions, they’d find out she was telling the truth and - she’d lose her children. And the phenomenon would still be there. What had been started could not be undone.

Lisa, trying to appease Alec, merely succeeded in widening her mouth into a nervous grin.

‘You think it would be funny if he choked?’ she heard him demand. He could be quite sarcastic.

‘Of course not. I was thinking about something else.’ She supposed it had been rather an odd reaction. If Alec knew what she was really thinking he’d call in a whole gaggle of psychiatrists.

‘I’m glad you’ve got time to think,’ Alec crabbed at her, putting down his paper and energetically spooning cereal into Jeffrey. ‘I think your other sons need your attention. I’ve told you till I’m sick of repeating it: get some more help. We could arrange for Geraldine to come in a couple of hours on Saturdays.’

He wanted Geraldine back. He was using their children as an excuse to see more of her.

‘With Duffers, I suppose,’ Lisa snapped at him, her lips drawn tight. ‘Two extra mouths to feed.’ If she allowed Janus to eat whatever he demanded, would he actually burst?

‘You would at least have help for part of the weekend,’ Alec intoned. Using the accusing persistent voice of someone who knows all the answers. ‘I can’t always be there.’

‘I have no problems on my own with them,’ Lisa thrust at him. ‘It’s only when you’re around that they give trouble.’

‘I know,’ he said, resigned. ‘I put them up to it.’

‘And, anyway, I think there’s something wrong with Janus.’

‘He’s a toddler, Lisa. Just a little assertive, that’s all. He’s stronger than his brothers.’

So he’d noticed that. Lisa looked at her husband from under hooded eyes and forced herself into a gentle voice, even a covering smile. ‘You don’t understand, pet. I’m not talking about the way he behaves.’

‘There’s a physical problem?’

‘Just look at him, Alec. He’s all bloated.’

‘You mean his ear? He’s getting allergic to the earring. I told you that would happen.’

‘I’m talking about the whole of his body, for goodness sake! He’s positively enormous. He ought to see a specialist. Diana gave me the name of a really top man in Bristol: Walter Morgenstein. That idiot Gilmore insists there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Honestly, Lisa, it’s
you
who ought to see someone.’

‘If you’ll just take a decent look at him, Alec. Just for once, instead of instantly assuming I’m off my nut.’ Lisa pulled the table out on its casters, exposing a row of four little boys wedged on a bench against the wall.

‘Can I get down now?’ Seb asked politely.

‘Of course, darling. Go to the playroom. We’ll all go out for a walk later on.’ She turned to Alec. ‘If you can hang on for just a minute. Help me get Jeffers and Jiminy into the playroom.’

They returned to find Janus, round-eyed and solemn, his puffed-up hands pushing the table drawn back to him away, about to tumble off the bench. Lisa held out her hands and smiled.

He started to bellow, flailing his little legs and kicking at her, tubby hands made into hard fists.

‘Jansy,’ she cooed, her voice soft and gentle.

He screamed again and started hurling both plates and cutlery on to the kitchen floor.

‘That’s enough of that, Janus!’ his father thundered and picked him up, removing a plastic spoon from the child’s hand. ‘Let go of that.’ Alec wrestled the spoon away. The child, defeated, sat on his father’s arm, now quiet, alert blue eyes staring beyond him.

‘It’s not merely the constant aggression and the rowdiness,’ Lisa explained, resigned to picking up the debris from the floor. ‘It’s more than that. He’s not just chubby because he eats a lot; he’s far too puffy. I want that chap in Bristol to take a look at him.’

Alec sat down and held the toddler out in front of him, his hands under his armpits. He couldn’t fail to see that he was swollen - an odd curious sort of sponginess along his arms and legs, a strange and quite unpleasing billowing of his trunk, a sort of bulging in the abdomen. It looked as though the problem could be abnormal water retention. The little pot belly, straining the yellow T-shirt, bulged out like a balloon.

‘Sorry, Lisa; I do see what you’re getting at.’ Alec turned to her, holding the child against his shoulder now and standing up.

‘If you think Geraldine will give up her time to come on Saturday mornings, that might help,’ Lisa decided to placate her husband.

‘She loves the children.’

Did Alec really believe that? Did he really not know that the girl was making a play for him?

‘She tolerates them, and she’s quite good with Jansy, I admit. Plays with him on his own.’ Probably, Lisa thought, she liked the macho in the boy, even at his tender age.

The child in Alec’s arms started to wriggle, then to pummel his father’s head.

‘Right, Jansy, off we go to the playroom.’

Lisa’s face became tense again. ‘I usually put him in the playpen in the dining room,’ she said. ‘He’s rather rough with Jiminy. He’s so sweet-natured, he lets Jansy do anything he likes. I prefer to keep an eye on him.’

‘Really?’

‘Really, Alec.’

‘The playpen it is, young Janus.’

The child was pulling roughly at his hair, throwing himself backwards and forwards, his flesh oozing around his clothes.

Alec looked at his son. ‘I think you have a point. Will you make the appointment with Morgenstein, or shall I?’

‘I’ll see to it first thing on Monday,’ Lisa announced. ‘Just put him in the playpen. Give him his flock of woolly sheep to boss. He’ll be okay.’

CHAPTER 21

‘You’re sure you can cope on your own, Betsy? You don’t want me to ask Meg to come over for a bit?’

‘I’ve only got to take them down the road.’ Betsy looked positively hurt. ‘And it’s just the two of them for the afternoon, Lisa. No trouble at all. Seb’s always very good when we pick him up later.’

‘Help me get Jansy into the car seat.’

It took them ten minutes to fasten the screaming kicking Janus into the restraining harness. Lisa realised that he knew where she was taking him, and why, and didn’t want to go. Every time she looked at him and remembered the happenings of only six months before she was sure it would come about again. The bloating, the aggression, the greed. The process was accelerated this time. She was sure Janus was about to clone again. He’d become steadily more contentious since she’d made the appointment with the paediatrician two days before. The boy had almost certainly overheard that, and she was sure he’d sensed that she’d finally decided she had to involve the authorities.

No one could doubt that there was something wrong with the child. Even Alec had noted it, had agreed to that. But Alec thought her unstable. She’d noticed the way he looked at her, seen the uncertainty in his eyes. He’d refused to discuss the possibility that Janus might have more than some mild allergy. He wasn’t prepared to countenance the suggestion that there was something seriously wrong with the child.

But even if he were to, Lisa realised, that would no longer be a solution to their problems. Alec was Janus’s father, as involved as she was. What could he do that she hadn’t already done? She needed to consult someone who would view the matter professionally, and Morgenstein seemed the perfect man. It even crossed her mind that the child might clone in front of the specialist. If she undressed Janus, took the earring out, he might clone then and there. Morgenstein would have to credit it. Furthermore, the doctor would be a witness to the fact that it was Janus, not Jeffrey or James, who was afflicted with the ability to clone. That would concentrate medical attention on this child. The doctors might even find a way to avert it happening in the future.

Janus began to kick again. Perhaps he guessed what it would mean for him if the outside world knew about his unbelievable attribute. She was near to tears as she realised what she had to do. She turned to Jiminy, drew him to her, hugged him tight. Then she lifted Jeffers up, high over her head, and swung him down again. The delighted child beamed.

‘I’ll do some painting with you when I get back,’ she promised Seb, ruffling his hair.

It was time to concentrate on Janus. He was her very own child, her flesh and blood. What option did she have but to take him to Morgenstein? She had her other children to safeguard.

‘It’s fairly urgent,’ she’d told the doctor’s secretary. ‘The child is getting really tense and hard to handle. There’s this odd puffiness I can’t account for.’

‘Wednesday, Mrs Wildmore? Ten-thirty all right?’

‘Can you manage a little later? Say around two? I have to get someone in to look after the three others, you see.’

‘Dr Morgenstein will see you in his lunch hour. One-thirty, Wednesday.’

‘That is good of him,’ Lisa had agreed gratefully.

She had to think of a plausible explanation for Betsy, alert her to the fact that she was leaving around ten but might not be back till late.

‘The trouble is, Betsy, that Dr Morgenstein may have to run extensive tests. I could be held up till quite late, you know. Perhaps not back till teatime, or even after the little ones’ bedtime.’

‘You think it’s as serious as that?’

Betsy’s loving concern made Lisa wince. Was she wrong not to tell anyone around her, to plan to spring it on all of them? It was the only way, Lisa felt, she could prove that her other children were normal, the only way to keep them safe. She had to see the specialist before she mentioned anything to anyone else.

Janus began to scream. Strapped in his car seat he could not move his body much, but he pounded everything within reach of his small tight fists. He sounded frantic. Betsy offered him a biscuit which he tore out of her hand and hurled it, crashing it with extraordinary force against the window.

‘He’ll settle down as soon as the car moves,’ Lisa told Betsy, oddly calm now that her course was clear. ‘I’d better leave. It can take more than an hour to get to Bristol, and then I’ve got to find a parking space.’ And she might have to stop on the way to calm Janus down.

‘I hope Alec’s meeting you. You’ll need some help.’

‘He can’t get away,’ Lisa said. ‘I’ve got to dash now, Betsy, or I’ll be late.’

Betsy leaned into the car, stroked the little boy’s head and kissed him on the forehead. He quietened at her touch. Then, as she withdrew, he began to scream again.

The motor purring into life lulled Janus into wailing. As they moved down the drive Lisa could see Betsy in the rear view mirror. She stood by the front door, waving at Janus secured in his seat. Lisa caught a glimpse of the child out of the corner of her eye. He was plopping his hands, forlorn and miserable. She felt a clutching at her throat, a misting of her eyes. This was her son; a small defenceless child she should be protecting with all her strength, not taking to the lion’s den.

A loud hoot jerked her back to reality. She only just managed to pull into a passing-place to avoid an oncoming motorist. Mark Ditcheat, she saw. He glared at her and wound his window down.

‘Ought ter know better’n that!’ he shouted.

Unnerved, with Janus keening thinly in the background, Lisa flicked on her favourite tape for driving. The rock and roll of Fats Domino appeared to tranquillise the child, she’d noticed that before. He’d finally resigned himself to the ride.

The moor road to Wells curved past the Graftleys’ on her right, and on through Pewksham. The village, Lisa had always felt, was aptly named. A slippery khaki skin of cow’s excrement surfaced the road, requiring careful steering to avoid a skid into untidy hedges at the roadsides. No rhynes to fence the fields in this part of the country. The Mendip spur already steeped the ground into much higher pastures.

A large herd of oncoming milch cows forced Lisa to stop the Volvo, allowing them to lumber past. Janus began to fuss immediately, banging the car seat back and forth, yelling at top pitch. As though stirred into action an old fat cow pushed a swollen belly at the car. Lisa could feel it rock. Large bovine faces surrounded her and swayed the car from left to right. Long dribbles of saliva appeared on the bonnet, tails swished into side windows. Lisa felt vulnerable, engulfed, drowning in a sea of ruminants. She turned the cassette recorder volume up to high to help the flow of adrenaline. And heard hooting behind her. She could see Frank, in his Landrover, urging her on. He drummed a brawny arm impatiently, pointed ahead. Lisa, unnerved, nosed the Volvo through the herd. A peremptory rattle on the bonnet showed her the oncoming farmer, red with fury, mouthing obscenities at her. She put her foot on the accelerator and foraged through.

Escaped, at last, to the main road Lisa drove beyond Wells, then turned left and wound the Volvo up steep Milton Lane and through on to the Mendips along the Old Bristol road: the scenic route. The high plateau, the Levels spread out beneath in shades of green, consisted of sparser, more arid pastures enclosed by dry stone walls. Lisa hurried past them, unseeing, her heart now beating fast. She looked in the rear-view mirror. The child in the car seat sat, his Buddha face staring, eyes closed, apparently asleep.