CLONER : a Sci-Fi Novel about Human Cloning (A Captivating Story about Reproduction Outside the Womb and Identical Humans) (3 page)

‘’Ack, ’ack.’

‘Mark’s dillies?’ Frank smiled down at Seb. ‘Him do run a team o’ Khaki Campbells alongside the moor; stops they lorries going too fast.’

‘Not a team,’ Lisa said. ‘At first there was just one. A bit aggressive, actually; and round enough to look like a pregnant duck!’

‘Dillies lays eggs,’ Frank said, staring at Lisa.

She smiled away her irritation; she wasn’t that much of a townie! ‘Of course; it’s just that this one was so bloated, somehow. And she rather took against our being there, didn’t she, Seb?’ She turned to face Frank, keen to understand what he’d meant. ‘How can they slow the lorries down?’

He chuckled. ‘They drivers either cut their speed to allow for they, or mow they down.’ He grinned. ‘Works, either way.’

Lisa shuddered at the calculated callousness of it. ‘I did notice a driver brake,’ she agreed. ‘I thought he’d run that fat duck over, but he swerved, and when he’d gone there were two quite ordinary ducks waddling along, without a feather out of place. They seemed quite amiable, as well.’

The farmer stared at her, his eyes blank, and then turned to Alec. ‘Problem us be having now baint how to increase yields; be more how’n us stop they getting out of hand. Twin lambs be fine and dandy; but more’n that and it can turn bad all round.’ He drained his mug and looked up slowly. ‘Don come across a set o’ triplets only t’other day.’

Frank looked across the room at the silent Don sitting by the window and putting back the cider. Lisa had often marvelled at the man. Quite old, seventy at least she judged, but he was as sinewy and firm as many a younger man.

‘Arr,’ he said, drinking deep. ‘Not allus t’best thing. ‘Twere the one wi’ the twin lambs; us forgot to tag ’un. Next time us looked twere three on they! Her couldn’t handle they wi’ jest two teats, and littl’uns were missin’ out. Missus had to hand rear ’un. T’wont do.’

‘All money in the bank,’ Alec put in hurriedly.

‘Not if they dies o’ starvation, it baint.’

‘I think it might encourage rabbits, too,’ Lisa put in. ‘Seb and I came across a whole warren.’

‘Coneys?’ Don asked, suddenly animated, looking up. His eyes, Lisa noticed, were almost colourless. A light blue-grey. ‘Yer saw they in t’homeground?’

‘Really big ones,’ Lisa told him eagerly. ‘All standing on their hind legs. They weren’t even afraid of us.’

‘Us’ll put paid to they tomorrow.’ Frank crashed his mug down. Bronze drops spurted down the pewter into a pool, the quarry tiles glistening red. ‘Us’ll shoot t’whole lot o’ they damn critters.’

Lisa, shocked at the threat of such wholesale slaughter, felt a lurch in her belly. A churning feeling stirred the contents of her stomach. Seb’s weight on her lap felt heavy. She tried to shift him further down her knees as heartburn made her flinch.

‘Go and see Daddy, Seb.’

He trotted off obediently. Lisa could feel colour flood her shoulders and reach into her face and hair as blood surged round her body.

‘You be feeling all right, my duck?’ Meg’s voice seemed distant.

Lisa grasped the table in front of her, lowering her head between her arms to drain the blood.

‘Us’ll fetch some water.’

Alec was by her side, putting his arms around her shoulders, then squatting next to her, keeping Seb from trying to climb back on to her lap. Her hair felt sticky, plastered to her forehead.

‘Up we go!’ Alec heaved the little boy against his shoulder. ‘I expect it’s the new baby,’ he said, softly, whispering into Lisa’s ear. ‘Would you like me to run you home?’

‘Dare say it be account of the clover her had a go at.’ Meg put a filled glass of water on the table. ‘Them do say as it baint good for pregnant women.’

‘Clover? Lisa
ate
clover?’

‘Just sucked a bit o’ nectar out.’ Meg laughed at him, but her brown eyes were veiled. ‘Only a drop. Her’ll be as right as rain again tomorrow.’

Lisa sipped slowly from the water Meg had brought over for her. The cool liquid helped calm her. She dipped her fingers in and spread a few drops over fiery cheeks.

‘Morning sickness in the afternoon,’ she managed to gasp. She pushed back her chair and headed for the bathroom. The dark unfamiliar house made her nervous. She drew in great gulps of air, and then felt as though her body were distended, bloated up. Just like the sheep Meg had talked about.

The firm direction of Meg’s hands steered her through a door. ‘I be lighting the lamp.’

Kneeling by the lavatory bowl Lisa allowed the contents of her stomach to erupt. An odd intense yellow stained the bowl. It reminded her of something - she couldn’t quite place it. In any case, quite different from the trickle of innocuous white she’d sicked up when carrying Seb. She looked at the lurid colour and felt prickles of panic stabbing through her body. The vivid buttercup hue of egg yolks came to mind - Meg’s double-yolked eggs  – and precipitated further retching. Perhaps deeper-coloured vomit was a sign of twins, she tried to soothe herself.

Another turn in her belly brought on a further spasm which seemed to relieve Lisa of whatever her body had taken such exception to. The liquid was now clear. Quite suddenly she felt all right again.

Flushing the bowl and splashing her face and hands with water, Lisa rubbed a towel briskly over her face. No further problems; just pregnancy nausea of a slightly different kind. She’d check it out with her GP.

‘Each period of gestation is different,’ Roger Gilmore had intoned over the telephone that very morning, ringing through confirmation of conception. ‘Just take it easy. You’ve got a toddler on your hands as well, this time.’

‘It’s nothing at all,’ she reassured Alec as she hurried back into the room where the others were. ‘I think it’s just that Somerset clover is so rich - like everything else around here! When I pulled off a chunk of petals you couldn’t even see that they’d gone.’

Sally and Jean had set the big table by the window. Freshly baked bread, Meg’s own clotted cream, the new season’s strawberry jam, farm butter, lardy cake and scones heaped the table high. And a birthday cake - Victoria sponge covered in chocolate icing - for Seb. A large solitary candle was at its centre.

‘I jest be lighting ’un,’ Frank said, walking over. ‘Now then, Seb. Blow, like a big boy!’

‘A nice of cup o’ tea,’ Meg offered Lisa. ‘Put yer right.’

‘I’d love some of that delicious whole-wheat bread,’ Lisa said eagerly. ‘I really feel quite hungry now.’

‘Eating for two,’ Meg laughed. ‘Spread some o’ my butter on that, and add a bit o’ jam.’

Lisa tucked into Meg’s food with relish. All wholesome, homemade produce. She was making a good start on feeding the new life within her.

‘You are wonderful, Meg,’ Lisa said, looking in awed admiration as Meg brought in another cream-filled bowl.

‘Us do make a good dollop o’ clotted cream,’ Meg agreed, putting it down. ‘But the girls laid the tea.’ She laughed. ‘Praise where praise be due. Them be turning into proper little maids.’

CHAPTER 3

‘Lisa! Wake up!’

She saw Alec looming by the huge bay window, staring across the Levels. Following his gaze she looked through the old glass, watched it distort the scene like a fairground mirror. Moorland expanded outwards below them, interspersed with willows and ringed by the Mendips painted a deep slate blue. As she watched the glass twisted double-bent willows into witch shapes, black and menacing. She could distinguish them quite clearly; pointed hats, broomsticks, billowing skirts. A whole coven of them down by the Sheppey flowing its way sinuously towards Bridgwater Bay.

‘Lisa!’

Why was he shouting her name? Alec was, apparently, intent on peering at the grassland, his face away from hers. Lisa saw dark grey clouds gathering forces, obscuring the hills, marching across the vast expanse of sky brooding over the pastures. The wind scrolled shapes into wet grass, snaking the different greens into glittering damask spread out in front of her. It winked at her, sudden eddies of white-flecked highlights eyeing her. First one, then two, suddenly hundreds of eyes gleamed at her, held her tight. Not eyes; circles on wings, she saw. Hundreds of butterfly wings hovering over the Levels, hugging the turf. She tried to shut them out and found she could not do so.

The patter of rain turning to hail began to beat hard against the window panes. Lisa could almost feel the hailstones knocking into her. The wind, only a sigh to start with, began to loud shriek into her ears. Blowing so hard it’s rocking a house as solid as Sedgemoor Court, she thought uneasily. Twenty-two inches of solid brick walls: a square house! How could a mere hailstorm cause such movement?

‘That’s our lot, then,’ she heard Alec say, his voice distinct and clear above the hail splattering against the glass. ‘After this one our family’s complete.’

‘Supposing I want three?’ Alec’s assumption infuriated her. If he refused to father more  –

‘Then you’ll have to make sure you’re carrying two,’ he grinned at her. That lopsided grin, the left side of his mouth higher than the right. His look unbalanced her, made her feel she was about to fall. She clutched at the shutters to steady herself and felt them opening. The vast spread of wood squeaked wide. She stepped away, shouting a warning to Alec, and then watched him turn his whole body towards her. Amazed, she saw he was holding Seb in his arms. But there was something odd about Alec’s face now. It seemed to be split in two - one side grinning at her, the other scowling.

Lisa braced back against the woodwork and tried to catch her breath. Something was wrong; something to do with her family. She rubbed her eyes and looked again, startled. Someone else was standing there. Who was that with Alec? The figure turned and she could see it was another man. A thickset bulky man, shorter than Alec, booted feet planted firm, astride.

Frank, Lisa recognised, astounded. A different Frank; the Frank of eighteen months ago, when they had first got to know the Graftleys well. Unfriendly, almost hostile. Keeping his distance, his eyes slits against outsiders, his shoulders hunched away. The dark curly head, without the grey, was lowered over something lying in a box. Small fingers waved unsteadily above the sides. A baby lying in a carrycot.

Frank had a pillow in his hands. He lowered it over the cot, pushed it down, pressed hard...

‘Stop!’ Lisa screamed. ‘You’ll smother it!’

He turned to her, small eyes spots of venom. ‘Baint human,’ he told her. A cold firm voice. ‘Baint nothing there but vermin. Old Don’ll be shooting the whole lot o’ they damn critters.’

She saw them, then; dozens of rabbits shot dead, their corpses lying in the meadow.

‘Darling: wake up! It’s me!’

And she saw Seb, apparently in Alec’s arms. He was also on the floor and on the chairs. He seemed to have split into little Sebs all over the place.

Lisa clutched her belly in sudden terror that she’d lose the new baby only just conceived. It seemed to quicken within her, grow from embryo to foetus within seconds, split into two…

As she felt the movement an image of one embryo appeared. A large oval, pulsating, and then slowly, inexorably expanding, its nucleus broadening. And then it divided into two, tearing apart like an amoeba, separating into two nuclei, apparently identical. She saw two distinct beings, pulsing with energy, beating their rhythm of life in unison. Two oval forms swimming in fluid, throbbing with vigour.

As she watched one form began to take shape, to grow, to swell, to bloat, then to dwarf the smaller one. The larger embryo opened up what looked like a giant maw. Lisa saw it slither towards the smaller one and engulf it in its jaws. She felt a pinching tearing pain within her, then saw the huge mouth close tight over the second embryo and swallow it. The larger embryo had absorbed the smaller one, had obliterated it from life.

‘Lisa!’

A grey mist swam across the image. The pinching turned to shaking - her shoulders were shaking in horror at what she’d seen. She held her hands over her abdomen, protecting it.

‘No!’ she called out. ‘No! Don’t do that!’

‘Darling,’ she heard. She recognised Alec’s voice, urgent and low. ‘Wake up! You’re having a nightmare! Lisa!’

The grey mist completely shrouded her, then turned to a cold measured festering sensation inside her. Cold; she felt so cold. And that sinking feeling, as though she were being sucked into a chasm, a cataclysmic series of events she could not control.

Her hands were interlocked, hard below the still-flat belly she clasped to herself. She could hear Alec talking to her, his voice caressing, could feel his hands against hers, stroking, trying to relax them. Her eyelids began to tremble. The gloomy grey turned into the soft orange glow of the bedroom lamps.

‘Are you all right, pet?’

‘I suppose so.’ Lisa struggled to open her eyes properly. Alec was sitting on her side of the bed, his hands now on her shoulders, sliding across her back, holding her to him, embracing her.

‘I couldn’t seem to wake you up. What was it?’

‘I dreamed you’d turned into someone else.’ She looked at him carefully, then round the room and down at herself. Only a crumpled nightdress to remind her of the scene in her dream. ‘It was so real  – ’

‘All that rich clotted cream at Meg’s, I expect,’ he soothed her, stroking her blonde damp hair with his right hand, his left arm holding her to him. ‘And that idiotic business of sucking clover.’ He kissed her hair. ‘I’m just the way I always was.’

‘And Seb - Seb turned into several little Sebs.’

‘You’re dreaming of a baby brother for him.’

‘And the new baby split in two.’ She shuddered as she remembered the vividness of it. ‘Split right down the middle. Divided in half like an amoeba.’

‘It was a nightmare, sweet. All over now, nothing to worry about.’

‘Like a fertilised ovum dividing into identical twins,’ she continued stubbornly.

She felt his arms tighten around her, hard. ‘Determined to copy Meg, aren’t you?’

‘Completely, exactly the same as each other,’ she felt impelled to carry on. ‘Split into two equal foetuses; well, embryos maybe.’ She shuddered again, seeing the giant maw opening up, then devouring, the second embryo. ‘And then one of them swallowed the other one.’

She could not shake the image off; it was so real, so tangible.

‘That’s what you get for wishing for two for the price of one!’ Alec rumbled good-naturedly. She felt his chest against her own, the pyjama buttons pressing into her. ‘It’s all right now, it was just a dream. There’s no need to worry. You know what the obstetrician said.’

‘I know. He went on and on about the fertility drugs not affecting this pregnancy. But my dream was about identical twins, nothing to do with that.’

‘Twins are twins.’

Lisa bolted upright, pushing her husband away from her, eyes blazing. The placid disposition nurtured by their serene country lifestyle seemed suddenly transformed into her previous, rather more stormy, temperament.

‘No, they’re not. Fertility drug twins are formed by two ova released and fertilised at the same time: fraternal two-egg twins. Identical twins are formed in a quite different way. They’re produced by the splitting of a single fertilised ovum into two - usually within the first two weeks of pregnancy.’

‘Whatever, Lisa,’ Alec cut her off impatiently. ‘We really don’t have to worry about more than one baby for this pregnancy. It’s quite different from the first.’

‘I’m not an idiot, Alec. I know fertility drugs often lead to multiple births, and I didn’t need to take them again.’ She paused, and looked at Alec. ‘But twins can just happen, too, you know!’

He released her, stood up, and walked towards the bottom of the bed. He heaved the duvet on to it, pulling it over her.

‘I see you’ve done your homework.’

She had. The time when the Hammersmith Hospital in London had kept her waiting. That’s when she’d decided to do a little research of her own. She couldn’t stop herself from feeling annoyed, even now.

‘I
can
still read, Alec. Motherhood doesn’t deprive one of one’s wits.’

It rankled, the memory of the way the doctors had brushed off her first efforts at enlisting their help in becoming pregnant.