CLONER : a Sci-Fi Novel about Human Cloning (A Captivating Story about Reproduction Outside the Womb and Identical Humans) (41 page)

The sea of faces smiled embarrassment, hats nodded, hands clapped demure sympathy.

‘My family and I will be sad to leave Somerset. In spite of what has happened, we have three splendid sons who were born here. We can’t change the past, but we can look with confidence into the future. And a new future is there for us. I’m absolutely delighted to tell you all, it’s been confirmed. We have a baby daughter on the way.’

‘You’ve seen Parslow?’ Diana whispered to Lisa, eyes wide.

‘All those tiresome tests,’ Lisa agreed, smiling away unease. Was there any way in which Parslow could have harmed her already? She didn’t think so.

A faint ripple of surprised applause stirred through the audience. Nigel Carruthers rose to his feet.

‘A toast to our very good friends,’ he boomed, raising his glass, crashing his palms together.

It was then that the applause became thunderous.

CHAPTER 37

‘Will Uncle Trev be there?’

‘Hold on a minute, Seb. I’m on the phone. Sorry, Dr Gilmore. Why do you want to do a blood test?’

‘For Mr Parslow. I can take the sample from you, Mrs Wildmore, and send it up to him. No need for you to go to Bristol.’

‘I thought he’d already sent my samples in and had the results?’

‘That’s just what I was saying to you. All Mr Parslow’s files have been destroyed.’

‘Destroyed? How?’

‘There was some sort of break-in at his laboratory, very distressing. All his records gone, his samples smashed. Terrible business.’

Lisa was delighted about her records. Maybe fate was taking a turn in her direction for a change. ‘But I thought he sent
you
my results? Can’t you just send them back?’

A short pause, a clearing of Gilmore’s throat. ‘It seems he did some tests which wouldn’t be relevant to y... the records here. Aspects of his research.’

So Parslow hadn’t changed his spots - just his manner. ‘He used
my
samples for his research?’

There was no reply.

‘Without asking my permission first?’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Wildmore. I can’t comment on that.’ There was a chill in his voice. ‘All I’m doing is – ’

‘I’ll be in touch, Dr Gilmore,’ Lisa said coldly. ‘Thank you for ringing.’ And she put the receiver down. Had Parslow used her records without her permission − ? Should she challenge him?

‘Will he, Mummy? Will he come?’ Seb was asking her, pulling at her sleeve.

‘Will who come? Oh, yes; Uncle Trevor. Sorry, darling.’ Lisa remembered, too late, that she’d forgotten to ask Seb’s favourite uncle designate to join them for his fourth birthday party. ‘I think he’s in Bath, Seb.’

‘Can you ring him and ask him to come?’

‘I could try,’ she said, annoyed that her preoccupation had stopped her working that one out. ‘He might just be able to make it.’

Seb stood tall and eager in the hallway as Lisa tapped the contact number. Busy. She twirled her mobile restlessly as she tapped two more times. ‘Trev, at last! You’re obviously getting far too important.’

‘Well, there you go, Lis. I have this lady client who paints wonderfully evocative West Country scenes. The galleries are flooding me with requests for shows!’

‘I know, I know,’ she agreed lightly, though there was at any rate some truth in what he said. ‘If only I had more time!’

‘Is something wrong?’

‘Nothing you can’t put right. Seb wants to invite you to his birthday party; we hope you’ll be able to drive down from Bath and be with us this afternoon.’

‘Right away, you mean?’

‘That would be great. Alec’s already on his way.’

‘I’d love to join you.’

‘We’re off next week, so Meg’s giving the party. She says I’ve got too much else on my hands, with the move and everything.’

‘Good old Meg.’

‘Not so much of the old; she’s my age... Anyway, here’s Seb.’

‘Hello, Uncle Trev.’

‘Many Happy Returns, Sebbie! So what’s your favourite present?’

‘I like your paint box,’ Seb answered diplomatically. ‘I’m going to try it out soon.’

‘And the favourite is?’

‘I haven’t got it yet. Daddy’s giving me a pony. When we get to Islay.’

‘A pony? All to yourself?’

‘Jeffers can ride it sometimes, but Jansy can’t until his leg is better.’

‘I can’t compete with that!’

Lisa took the receiver back from Seb. ‘We’ll see you later, then?’

‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Trevor said, a warm tone in his voice. ‘I can leave here in about ten minutes. See you at four.’

‘That’s wonderful! Seb’s thrilled. At Crinsley Farm, remember. Look out for Alec’s Audi outside their house, then you won’t miss it.’

‘I’ll be there. Well, courtesy of Lodsham herds.’

Lisa took Seb’s hand in hers. She walked him out into the garden, her heart singing at the happiness in his eyes, and went over to Janus and Jeffrey playing in the sandpit.

Jeffrey was chanting
Baa Baa Black Sheep
at the top of his voice. Janus, his cast-wrapped leg stretched out in front of him, was making shapes in the sand. Perhaps he’ll be a sculptor, Lisa fantasised. She was astonished at the boy’s precocity. He chiselled the sand quickly, expertly. Four identical sand rabbits, their ears laid back, crouched sentinel by the large warren he’d built for them.

‘They’ve got to hurry up, Mummy. We’ll be late!’

‘It won’t take me long to get them ready,’ Lisa assured Seb. ‘Come on, then, Jeffers. You first.’

‘Can you make a pony?’ she heard Seb ask Janus.

‘Pony,’ Jansy said, sweeping the bunnies back to sand and assembling the massive body of a quadruped, its swollen belly curved, kneeling on its front legs.

Lisa’s deft fingers changed Jeffers into clean clothes and shoes. She walked him to the sandbox. ‘See he doesn’t get himself dirty now,’ she instructed Seb.

It took a little longer to ready Jansy. His face, at one time so podgy, looked wan. Unwinking blue eyes were solemn now, round with awareness, the sockets sunk deep with pain. Lisa’s heart went out to him. He’d paid heavily for trying to save his brother.

‘Let’s get you ready now, shall we, Jansy?’ she suggested softly. Changing trousers caused him distress.

‘Jansy going to party,’ he agreed. ‘Play with Phyllie.’ He beamed at her. The cheerful open smile of a two-year-old for his mother. No vestige of that crafty gleam that used to plague her, though his eyes were still bright intelligent. Slowly, methodically, they moved in unison. It wasn’t unlike having a handicapped child, Lisa thought suddenly. Jansy needed her help. He could not walk without her, he was dependent on her. And even when his leg was healed they would remain partners, conspire to keep his secret secure.

That was no longer difficult, of course. He would never clone again, even when the cast came off. Not ever. Their nightmare was over at last. Whether Alec believed her or not no longer really mattered. She had three sons: Seb and her twins, Janus and Jeffrey. And, she hugged to herself, a new life stirring within her, a baby daughter.

Her hands, busy brushing the sand from Jansy’s hair, twined his blond locks around her fingers, then wiped him clean. As she slipped the yellow shirt over his head her mind went back three years. Seb’s first birthday, when Gilmore had confirmed she was pregnant again. That was the time she’d found the four-leaf clover and wished for twins on it.

And that, she thought ruefully, squeezing her lids shut on the moisture in her eyes, is what she’d ended up with. Twins, not triplets. Her wish had come true. She’d never wish again; not for a single child, not for anything specific. She’d gladly take whatever fortune chose to give, and take it gratefully.

That day had been, she remembered fondly, a burnished summer’s day. The soft fresh air had enveloped her gently in a warm embrace. She’d been eager, then. Hungry for more children, ambitious to prove her womanhood. This time she was content to allow life to flow through her, with her.

She placed a bottle of champagne in the pushchair beside Janus. They would celebrate their last Somerset birthday party with the Graftleys, with Trevor. She could see the tall meadow grass across the road beckoning, waving its welcome. She’d push Jansy in his chair, and walk the other children through the fields, over the Graftleys’ home meadow. It would be fun to see how many varieties of butterfly they could count, to pick the blooming wildflowers, to enjoy the trinity of clover leaves, to see the vegetation and the wildlife back to normal quantities. The new strain of Multiplier wasn’t causing problems. The skylark sang his song for her: high, glorious, gliding the wind.

‘Come on, Jansy. Let’s get you comfortable in the chair.’

He didn’t want to be strapped in. The well-worn meadow path was smooth, safer than walking round by road, but even so she wasn’t going to risk a tumble for Janus at this stage.

‘One, two, three, go!’ Lisa sang out, shepherding the children down the drive, her mind busy with the new life to come. She would never forget her Jiminy, but she was ready, now, to live again. ‘You wait here for a moment,’ she told Janus, ‘while I see the other two across the road to the field.’

As she spoke the approaching roar of a lorry speeding towards the curve of their narrow lane held her back inside the drive.

‘They go much too fast,’ she told her children, exasperated. ‘Gerry’s daddy promised to have a word with them. They’ve no right to risk everyone like that. Even the animals aren’t safe.’

The deep yellow of a Flaxton lorry hurtled past, quickly enough to make the logo appear to grin.

‘It’s the same driver,’ Seb shouted. ‘I’m going to tell my Daddy on him.’

‘The one who hooted the herd into us?’ Lisa asked, startled. ‘Are you sure?’ She’d brought the incident up with Nigel Carruthers at the Bath & West showground, but she’d tackled Fitch-Templeton as well.

‘Of course, my dear,’ his bland soft voice had tried to reassure her. ‘I’ll see to it first thing tomorrow.’ She’d seen him swallow up her hair, her willowy figure, her neat ankles. His narrow lips had curved a cusp of twisted red. ‘We’re fitting tachometers to each vehicle now. That will discourage them from going over the speed limit! The fines are quite horrific.’

‘Not that one,’ Seb told her. ‘It’s the one who parked our car at the Show,’ he explained. ‘I can tell because he wears those funny glasses. Like the man who carried Jiminy up the Tor.’

An icy finger snaked down Lisa’s spine. ‘Really, Seb? Are you quite sure?’ The old familiar terror gripped her in its tentacles. The lorry had hurtled past at a quite idiotic pace. She shuddered as the memory of her dead child came back, felt the horror of it. Alec was right; they had to leave. Abandon the sounds, the sights, the incidents which could bring it all rushing back at her, engulfing her, drowning her.

All was quiet now; no sound of traffic, not even the chugging of a tractor. At least the lorry had passed; it wouldn’t come this way again today.

Lisa held the two children in each hand and looked first right, then left, then right again. All clear; no new sound, only the wind in the willows whistling by. She marched them over the road, unlatched the rusty gate, swung it wide and saw them into the safety of the field.

‘Stay there,’ she told them. ‘Go on a bit further, but not too far. See how many different butterflies you can count. I’ll just fetch Jansy.’

As she turned she saw the massive structure of her home for the past five years. Large windows outlined in Bath stone, the high red brick walls they’d softened with climbing roses; stolid, serene. Had bad luck really haunted them because they’d cut down that old elder hedge?

Her eyes followed the drive down to Jansy’s chair. The little boy, evidently bored with waiting, had begun to rock it. His white-cast leg was moving up and down, his body back and forth. He must be getting stronger, Lisa thrilled. The pain must have lessened, perhaps gone away. He’d soon be well, running around like her other sons.

He was swinging his body, jolting himself back to reach the brake Lisa had carefully put on, intent on unlatching it. The strong fingers gripped back and down. She saw the chair begin to move; slowly at first, then gathering speed. She began to run, then sprint towards her child.

‘Don’t move, Jansy!’ she cried. The terror of losing him gave her voice sufficient mastery to make him hold himself back as he looked towards her. The pushchair, no longer given impetus, turned and slowed into the curve of the wall by the drive, edging rather than rushing its way.

‘
No
, Mummy!’

She heard the alarm in his voice, the warning; then took in the reverberating throttle of an accelerating motor. Her eyes turned up the lane.

‘
Sto…o...p
!’

The shrill penetrating yelp which Janus hurled across the road at her screamed terror into her mind. Twisting her body sideways, veering along the verge, her knee knocked her unbalanced as she slammed into a jutting stone. Hip crashing down hard, she faced the road, unable to move, the lorry charging at her.

The next few seconds played out in slow motion. Young, powerful: the buttercup colour of the lorry reflected on the driver high in his cab. Young, powerful: milky white freckled skin, shafts of bright sunlight stabbed spears of bronze through thick black hair, mouth broadening into strong white fangs about to grind. And in that instant Trevor’s words turned into images for her: that was the one, the handsome one who’d carried Jiminy to his death, hair now dyed black to hide the red. He’d turned the lorry round, waiting his chance to ambush them. And it had come. Flaxton’s huge transporter was his weapon, aiming to grind, to pulverise. To kill.

The thunder of dust-stirring bulk tore along the road, the bug-yellow snout, its eyes, its face, its body - the giant lorry charged at her and her child. He missed her by inches.

‘Jansy!’ she shrieked.

The snorting heaving monster juddered between her and her child. Smoke from the exhaust filled her mouth, her eyes, her ears; stifled her. An intense sudden stab in her abdomen drowned pain, drowned thought. Tears streamed her eyes clear as she peered desperately for a sign of Janus. Where was her child, her son?

She saw the pushchair advance towards her, the yellow T-shirt hunched, a headless bulge looming through clouds of dust. Had the lorry killed Janus? Was the chair bringing his lifeless body to her?

‘
Mummy!
’ she heard. ‘Mu...u...mmy,’ she heard him sob. He was alive.

At first she could make nothing out, and then she saw the teetering pushchair turn to rocking, gather speed, turn wheels towards her. Two small fists dragging - flailing - along the road. Janus was bent double to gain momentum, was rushing himself towards her, mobile, unhindered.

The steamrollering yellow had passed, the grinning mask of death had overshot its target. Sharp pains in Lisa’s belly began to squeeze; she groped herself upright and lurched towards Janus.

She caught hold of the pushchair handle as she heard the screeching brake of the lorry up ahead. The drive to Mark Ditcheat’s farm flashed into her mind, quite near along the lane. He’d turn there, try again; or simply back towards them.