Fifty Fifty (8 page)

Jude wanted to close down the labs where Dad worked.

Dad hated Jude and everything he stood for.

Jude hated Dad and everything he stood for.

Dad thought Jude was a dangerous nutter who wanted to kill him.

Jude thought Dad was an evil scientist who tortured animals.

And me? thought Gil. What am I supposed to think?

Of course he knew that people did experiments on animals. But he knew it in the same way that he knew Beijing was a city in China – it was a fact that lived in a corner of his mind
somewhere, filed away with lots of other facts. It had never made him
feel
anything. He hadn’t ever wondered about what sort of experiments they were, or what kind of animals they
used, or who actually carried out the experiments.

Now he’d discovered it was his
dad
who carried out the experiments.

And Dad had never told him.

Gil had a vision of Dad in a white doctor’s coat, bending over a cat that was pegged to a table, belly-up. A razor blade flashed. Blood spurted on to the clean white coat.

Was that what he did all day at work?

Gil urgently needed not to think about it. He went downstairs, checked that Dad’s study door was closed, went into the front room and put the television on quietly. Then he sat and
channel-hopped until he found what he was looking for –
Fireman Sam
, baby television, the kind of stuff he always liked to watch when he was ill.

There was a tap on the front room window which made Gil leap off the sofa as if something had bitten him. It was Mum, peering through the glass, smiling and waving. He went to the front door and
let her in.

‘I locked myself out,’ she said. ‘Silly of me, wasn’t it? Have you eaten?’

Dad was there instantly. Gil didn’t even hear the study door open. It was as if Dad had beamed himself down out of the Starship Enterprise.

‘I was getting worried,’ he said to Mum. ‘I’ve just tried to phone you.’

Mum smiled, but she looked cold and tired. ‘I left my phone here somewhere. And my keys. Sorry.’

The
Fireman Sam
theme tune drifted out of the front room, and Mum looked at Dad. ‘Did you say Gil could . . .?’

‘Forget it,’ said Dad. ‘The television doesn’t matter, in the scale of things. Let me make you some lunch.’

They both went into the kitchen, and Gil went back to
Fireman Sam
. He watched him rescue Bella’s cat Rosa from the top of a tree while he weighed up the choice he needed to
make.

Dad or Jude?

It was simple, really, Gil realised – as simple as Fireman Sam plucking the cat out of the tree. He didn’t need to know whether animal experiments were right or wrong. He
didn’t need to know anything about them at all. The only thing that mattered was that Jude had pushed Dad to the limit. They’d gone head to head, and it had taken Jude less than five
minutes to defeat him completely.

It was suddenly clear to Gil that he had found the thing he was looking for, the secret power that could make your enemy crumble into a pile of dust. Animal rights – this was the issue
that made Dad froth and fall apart like a piece of chalk dropped in acid. If Gil joined Jude’s campaign against the labs it would drive Dad crazy. It was even better than taking up smoking,
because it wasn’t illegal for a thirteen-year-old and it wasn’t likely to kill him.

Gil’s first step came at lunch on Sunday. Dad had roasted the venison he’d bought from the market. It smelt good, but Gil had already decided what he was going to do. He watched Dad
carve slices of meat and pile them up on the dish, while steam rose from the bowls of roast potatoes and parsnips and peas and broccoli and carrots. Gil waited until Dad was about to put the meat
on his plate before he made his announcement.

‘Actually, you know what?’ he said. ‘I really don’t want any meat.’

‘What?’

Dad stopped with the meat in mid-air.

‘I’ve been thinking about becoming a vegetarian,’ Gil went on. ‘I might as well start now.’

‘Gil, are you sure?’ said Mum anxiously. ‘You’re growing like mad at the moment. It might not be good for you.’

Dad didn’t move.

‘Is this a result of all that animal rights nonsense yesterday?’ he said at last.

‘No, of course not,’ Gil said, innocently. ‘Actually it’s a result of what
you
said, Dad.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘When we were at the market you said you shouldn’t eat any animal unless you were prepared to kill it yourself. Well, I agree with you. I wouldn’t be prepared to kill the deer
this venison came from. So I’d better not eat it, had I?’

‘It’s organic,’ said Mum. ‘And RSPCA-monitored.’

‘You mean it was happy before it was murdered? No thanks. I’ll just have the veg.’

Gil went to help himself to roast potatoes, but Dad moved the dish before he could get to it.

‘Sorry, Gil,’ he said. ‘You’d better not have those. They’ve been cooked in the meat juice, I’m afraid. And that means you can’t have the parsnips,
either. Or the gravy.’

As Dad whisked away the potatoes, a gorgeous meaty smell wafted up Gil’s nose and all at once he had a vivid glimpse of what he was letting himself in for. No meat. No chicken, no pork, no
bacon, no ham, no beefburgers, no sausages. It was going to be really hard. He shut his eyes briefly. He was going to need every gram of willpower he possessed.

‘I think I’ll just have some bread and cheese, then,’ Gil said.

Mum started to get up, but Dad put a hand on her arm.

‘I think you’ll just go and get it yourself, then,’ he said to Gil.

As Gil came back to the table with bread and butter and cheese he was aware of Dad watching him intently.

‘You know, Gil, if you’re going down this route, you might want to consider doing it properly,’ Dad said through a mouthful of meat.

‘What do you mean,
properly
?’

‘You shouldn’t be eating cheese either,’ said Dad. ‘Do you know how they make cheese? They mash up dead calves’ stomachs and use it to break down the
milk.’

‘Matt, please,’ said Mum, putting down her fork. ‘Not over lunch.’

‘I’m just telling him the facts,’ said Dad. ‘That butter you’ve got there – it’s a direct consequence of killing animals for their meat. Cows start to
produce milk only when they have calves. The female calves are allowed to grow up to have more babies, but the male calves end up on the dinner table as beef. Milk is just a useful by-product of
the meat industry. So you see, Gil, if you’re not going to eat meat, the only logical choice is to become a vegan and not eat anything at all that comes from an animal.’

Gil swallowed a lump of cheese with an effort. Jude would know how to argue back
,
he thought. Jude would be able to smash Dad’s stupid facts to a pulp and wipe that self-satisfied
grin off his face. He was still considering how to reply when, to his complete surprise, Mum stepped in.

‘Don’t give him such a hard time,’ she said. ‘Let him make up his own mind. He needs to think these things through for himself.’

Dad looked as surprised as Gil felt.

‘I’m helping Gil to think things through, that’s all,’ he said.

‘No, you’re not. You just want to win the argument. Look, he’s allowed to have principles, Matt. After all, we did. We stood up for what we believed in. I was a vegetarian for
years. Ten years, at least. Just – let Gil have a bit of space. Even if you don’t agree with him.’

There it was – a tiny crack in the wall. Gil couldn’t believe it. Very gently, like a butterfly stamping, Mum was putting her foot down. She was disagreeing with Dad.

‘I never knew you were a vegetarian,’ Gil said. ‘Why did you give up?’

‘Well,’ Mum said. ‘I suppose there was a point in my life where it no longer seemed terribly important.’

Dad suddenly looked up at Mum. On his face was another of those expressions that Gil knew he wasn’t meant to notice, let alone understand. Mum just concentrated on her dinner, and a
silence settled over them.

Gil finished his bread and cheese first, but for once he didn’t try to get away from the table as quickly as possible. He waited until Dad had put his knife and fork neatly on his plate
and leant back in his chair, and Mum looked as if she was about to get up, and then he jumped up and started to clear the table without even being asked. He ferried plates and dishes and cutlery to
the dishwasher and passed them to Mum for stacking. Mum thanked Gil for every single plate – as if he was handing her ten pound notes, Gil thought. He was impressed at how easy it was. If he
worked at it a bit he might be able to get Mum on his side, and then Dad would be out on his own in the cold.

There was just the big meat plate left on the table.

‘Let me get that,’ said Mum.

‘No, it’s OK,’ said Gil. ‘I can do it.’

He carefully lifted the oval plate that was as big as a tray and passed it to Mum. She took it from him, smiling. And immediately – Gil saw at once what was going to happen, but he could
not stop it – her fingers buckled and it slid out of her hands.

Gil felt the crash of the heavy plate smashing into the tiled floor like a physical shock, but it was Mum’s scream that really scared him. It was a scream like feedback through a
microphone. It hurt his eyes and the inside of his skull as well as his ears. And it didn’t stop. Dad sprang up from the table and looked at the smashed plate, the meat splattered on the
tiles. Then he looked at Gil.

Gil shook his head. ‘I didn’t . . .’ he started to say, but he couldn’t make himself heard above Mum. She was screaming, screaming, screaming, her hands hanging at her
sides, tears pouring down her face. Dad stepped over the mess of meat and crockery and put his arms around her. She didn’t move. She went on screaming.

‘Shhh, shhh,’ whispered Dad. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right.’

Mum’s scream gradually turned to sobbing. She howled into Dad’s chest.
Please, make her stop,
begged Gil inside his head. It was horrible to watch, like one of those news
reports with women wailing because their whole village has been wiped out by some catastrophe. He wanted to run away but he was pinned to the spot.

‘It’s all right,’ Dad said, over and over again. ‘It’s all right.’

‘I – I dropped – dropped it,’ she sobbed at last. ‘I dropped it, Matt. Oh God, I’m so scared. I’m getting so clumsy. And I forget things now – I
forget things all the time. Like yesterday, locking myself out. I’m so scared. I don’t think I can stand it. What am I going to do?’

‘It’s just a plate, Rachel,’ said Dad. ‘Everybody drops things sometimes. It’s completely normal.’

‘It was my mum’s plate.’ Mum started to cry again.

‘Look, perhaps it wasn’t you. Gil passed you the plate, didn’t he? Perhaps it was his fault.’

Dad turned his head towards Gil, and at once Gil opened his mouth to deny everything. But then he read Dad’s face properly and stopped, bewildered. Dad wasn’t accusing him of
anything. He was pleading with Gil to take the blame away from Mum.

‘Yeah, I wasn’t very careful, Mum,’ Gil said at last. ‘I’m sorry.’

He felt sick, as if he’d been blindfolded and spun round in a room he didn’t know. It was impossible to tell what was going on. Half an hour ago Dad had been stalking him like a lion
looking for a chance to pounce on its prey. Now he seemed to be begging Gil to join in with some kind of weird game to make Mum feel better. And there was Mum, crying like a baby in Dad’s
arms, when at lunchtime she’d stood up to Dad and told him to leave Gil alone.

What the hell were they doing to him?

Dad took Mum out of the kitchen. Gil listened to her sobs growing fainter as she went up the stairs. He knelt on the floor and began to pick up chunks of broken plate and put them in a carrier
bag one by one. After a while Dad came back and tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Leave it, Gil,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it later.’

Gil watched him go to the little medicine cupboard high up on the kitchen wall and take out a packet of tablets.

‘What’s wrong with Mum?’ Gil said.

‘She’s just upset, that’s all.’

‘Dad, it was a plate. She screamed like someone was trying to kill her.’

Dad fiddled with the tablets and didn’t reply.

‘Is she ill?’ asked Gil.

Nothing.

‘Dad, please tell me. I can handle it.’

‘No, I think she’s all right,’ said Dad at last. ‘Honestly, Gil, it’s nothing you need to worry about.’

‘So what are those tablets for?’

‘It’s just something to calm her down a bit.’ Dad slipped the little box into his pocket and turned away, but Gil had already seen the label.

‘It’s Valium, isn’t it?’ Gil said. ‘I know about Valium. We did it at school, in drug education.’

Dad didn’t look round. ‘Yes, it’s Valium. But Mum’s not taking it because she’s ill. She’s just got herself into a bit of a state and she needs a sedative.
I’ll be down in a while.’

Valium. People who were mentally ill took Valium. If you took it for more than a few weeks you could become addicted to it.

So was Mum having a breakdown? Was she going mad? Why was Dad trying to pretend she was fine when it was obvious she wasn’t?

Gil stared at the dishwasher. He could start the wash cycle, that might cheer Mum up.

Was any of this
his
fault? he wondered.

Why did they never tell him anything?