Misspent Youth (18 page)

I
T WAS HALF PAST FIVE
in the afternoon when the computer informed Jeff he had an incoming call from James. Did he want to receive it?

Jeff sat back in the black leather chair, putting his hands behind his head. He could hear tiny cracking noises as his shoulders stretched. “Let it through.”

There was an intricate molecular structure playing on the desk’s main screen, coiled streamers burning green and tangerine like alien DNA. The arrangement was one of the latest nano filaments produced by Caltech, which he was studying to see how much progress they’d made on bonding alignments. It was replaced by James’s chubby features.

“My God, I actually got through,” James muttered; it wasn’t entirely good humored.

“Sorry. I’ve been getting myself back up to speed on the superconductor project. There’s a lot of techniques I need to learn about.”

“Well, I hope Martina Lewis appreciates the effort.”

“Who?”

“The one down at Knightsbridge.”

“Oh, her.” Jeff flinched a smile. “Yeah, right.”

“Jesus, Jeff. You forgetting their names already?”

“Not with everybody reminding me, no.”

“Ah. How is Sue?”

Jeff pulled a face. “Unhappy. Is that what you called to ask?”

“No, actually. If she ever allows you out again, Alan and I were going to meet up on Thursday for a pint. Strictly boys only; you can tell her she has my word on that. You game for it?”

It was the third time Alan and James had asked him out over the last week. Each time he’d refused. This was going beyond impolite. “Ah crap, no, I’ve got a whole load of teleconferences with the Americans on Thursday. Can’t make it, sorry.”

James stared at the top of the screen, where his return camera was. “Okay, Jeff,” he said in a level voice. “When you want to come out with us, you give us a call.”

“Sure. Won’t be long. Just got a bit of a backlog on right now.”

James’s image vanished.

“Bugger it,” Jeff muttered. He’d invested decades in those friendships. It was painful for him to watch antagonism and hurt erode them away. But he simply couldn’t stand another miserable night in the pub listening to the same conversation they’d had for the last twenty years being replayed with tiny variants. Not again.

One thing was for certain, he needed to get laid, but good.

He told the Europol team to get ready for an evening in Peterborough. Tim had said there were plenty of clubs there. A girl for the night would be easy enough if Martina Lewis was anything to go by.

S
UE FOUND HIM
as he was getting dressed for a night clubbing. He’d already chosen loose cream trousers, a geometricist’s ideal of a Hawaiian shirt in black and chrome yellow, gray jacket with a contemporary cut so it didn’t meet across the front. Which just left him puzzling over which shoes to wear when she rapped lightly on the door frame and walked into his bedroom.

“Off out?” she asked.

“Yeah, I thought I would.” His voice came over as too defensive.

“I thought we should talk, but it can wait a while.”

“No, that’s all right.” He abandoned the shoes and sat on the edge of the bed.

Sue came over and sat beside him. She was very prim and composed, a light mauve cardigan drawn around her white blouse; long ocher skirt. “It’s not working, is it, me being here?”

“I was stupid,” he blurted. “She was young, and eager, and I was by myself, and it was easy. That sounds so old, I know. But that’s the truth of it.”

She gave him a sorrowful little look. “Maybe that’s the way it was that night. But if it hadn’t have been then, it would have been another night. I think that’s what upset me the most. Me of all people, I should have known better.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You and I. It was only ever sex. This time round. I mean, were you really expecting us to stay together for another fifty years till death do us part?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“I have…. Well, I have now. Let’s face it, we barely made it through the last nineteen years, and we only managed that because we didn’t spend any time together. All we did was live under the same roof occasionally, which meant we could be polite when we did bump into each other. That’s how we survived so long, no emotional entanglement.”

“You’re being too negative.”

Her hand rubbed his leg. It was as if she was stroking a pet. “Did you love me, Jeff, nineteen years ago? Were you smitten and besotted, and ready to lay down your life for me?”

“You know why we got together back then.”

“I do. And I’m not saying it was a bad thing. We both got Tim out of it, even though he’s more yours than mine. But it was never meant to last. We would have shaken hands and finished in a civilized fashion; then this treatment came along and buggered our arrangement to hell.”

“Men and women can never be friends. Good quote.”

“What?”

“It’s a line from
When Harry Met Sally
. Billy Crystal, he said men and women can never be just friends—the bloke always wants to sleep with the girl. I think he might be right.”

“You certainly did, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Like you said, everything changed.”

“I can’t believe I was so stupid. Sex always ruins everything.”

“Hey, it wasn’t that bad while it lasted.”

Sue glanced around at the big bed that they’d shared all too briefly. “All four nights of it.”

“I don’t regret it.”

“I do. I kidded myself that it meant something. That it might be the start, not the finish.”

“It still could be. We’re grown-ups, we can work round Martina Lewis.”

“And Nicole? And Patrick?”

“We were good together. You know it.”

“In bed, yes. But be honest, Jeff, what else is there? Don’t you want someone you can talk to about your work? Someone who’ll be sparky and intellectual, and challenge your ideas, and appreciate them. I can’t even spell quantum mechanics, Jeff.”

“Don’t do that, not ever, don’t sell yourself short.”

“I’m not. That’s what makes this the hardest part of all. I was just a shadow of a person when you met me; I had no self-esteem, I couldn’t look after myself, I was a complete and utter mess. Well, I’ve grown up from that silly little girl, Jeff. I’ve learned how to be a fully fledged modern bitch, which is the only survival trait that counts in this world. I can swim with the sharks now, and they’ll be the ones who get scared when I’m in the water. What I cannot be is your trophy wife, not anymore. It didn’t matter before, when there was no sex. But now there is, and I’m not going to wait loyally at home while you shag everything in a skirt so you can try out your new body. And I know enough about men to know how strong that temptation is for you. So the way we are today just can’t exist. That was my mistake, I fooled myself into believing it could out of pure sentiment. Sex stopped me thinking straight; but then I never claimed to be that smart.”

“All right,” he said, though it was a bitter defeat. “So where do we go from here?”

“The way we always said we would. I kiss you and Tim good-bye, and that contract we signed takes care of me financially.”

“Just like that?”

“Don’t go all sullen on me. Let’s see if we can prove Billy Crystal wrong. I’d like us to stay in touch; Tim, too, if he’ll ever speak to me again.”

“You’re his mother.”

“I know.”

He found it hard to believe they were being so casual about an event so enormous. “So, when will you go?” he asked unsteadily.

“My bags are packed.”

“All of them?”

She smiled at the involuntary high note of surprise in his voice. “No. Enough clothes for a week or so. I’ll collect the rest later, when I’ve found somewhere to live.”

“Aren’t you going to use the flat?”

“I will to start with. But I want somewhere of my own eventually.”

“Ah. Right. Have you got somewhere in mind?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of friends down in London. Or maybe I’ll make a clean break. Cornwall is lovely these days, almost the same climate as the Mediterranean used to have.”

“What about your mother?”

Sue’s brittle cheerfulness faltered. “I don’t know. It depends where I end up. I’ll have to have her close by, and I don’t suppose the location matters to her.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to give it one last try?”

“Don’t be so gallant. You know this is the only option.”

“So who gets to tell Tim?”

“I suppose we’d better do it together.”

T
HE BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES
promised such a thing was impossible for the whole of the noughties. Slick, smartly dressed public relations officers ridiculed the crusty Greenpeace protestors on television news and discussion shows, while smooth corporate vice presidents stood up in front of Westminster’s Parliamentary select committees and explained in big technical buzzwords exactly why gene seepage was not going to happen.

It did, though. Foreign genes carefully spliced into crops to produce higher yields, or fungal resistance, or immunity to disease, or to harden them against insects, somehow managed to migrate across the species barrier. Most of the new mutations were subtle, not even visible outside of a DNA test. But the ones that the eye, and more important the camera, could see, were often spectacular. Cowslips with hand-size scarlet flowers. Rye grass two meters tall. Nettles with buddleia cone flowers. Honeysuckle with peapods.

Individual specimens would turn up one year, to be surrounded by camera crews and protestors, and eventually a police cordon. Freaks and one-offs, the company spokesperson would announce, sterile and worthless; only to find next year that a hundred more specimens had germinated. Between 2015 and 2020, if you believed the burgeoning datasphere news streams, the triffids had finally arrived in force. By the time Tim was born, it was old news. Increasingly sophisticated GM sequencing techniques had finally inhibited ninety-nine percent of gene “jumps.” Nature had culled the truly invalid mutant varieties, leaving hardy strains that were here to stay.

Of all the mutants rooting down in Europe, elephant keck, as it had been nicknamed, was the most prolific and obvious. Ordinary keck that had picked up a growth gene intended to increase cereal crop size, it plagued every hedgerow and verge across the continent, with stems burgeoning to between two and three meters high, then sprouting an umbrella of grubby white flowers on spindly stalks. Coarse floppy leaves protruded underneath these canopies, a dusky green stained with cabbage purple along the stalks. They cost councils and farmers a fortune to chop them down along the roads. Elsewhere, they went unchallenged.

That included the Exton estate, a couple of miles down the road from Empingham. It was a huge domain of arable land, crossed with public and private paths that had been tarmaced for the tractors and other farm machinery. The total absence of traffic made it a long-term favorite for hikers, dog walkers, and fitness fanatics.

The exercise regimen that the Brussels University Medical Centre had given Jeff assumed a modest climb back up the performance graph to full fitness. Looking at the outline, he wasn’t entirely sure what kind of level they envisioned raising him to. Olympic qualification standard, apparently. He hadn’t followed any of it with blind devotion, although he’d stuck to their basic requirements. That meant a twice weekly jog, accompanied by four Europol team members, who had no trouble at all keeping up with him (including the female officers).

This morning he’d suggested that Tim join him. After some coaxing the recalcitrant boy gave in and agreed. Jeff was thankful for that: it was a way of spending time with his son, without the two of them sitting together at the table in the kitchen and trying to fill the awkward silence with labored conversation. Tim hadn’t taken Sue’s departure well, dealing with it the only way he knew how, by retreating back into his sulky shell.

There wasn’t anything to see on the jog; as soon as they cleared the meadowland around Exton itself, the ubiquitous elephant keck rose up on either side of the tarmac, then drooped overhead. It didn’t quite form a tunnel, leaving a ragged strip of bright turquoise sky directly above.

“How are you coping?” Jeff asked after ten minutes. His wrist strap monitor showed a heart rate of 141, and he was barely sweating. Not bad for a seventy-eight-year-old.

“Okay,” Tim wheezed. He was red-faced, breathing heavily.

“Good.” Jeff slowed the pace. “How’s school going?”

“Dad!”

“All right. Shit. Sorry.” He stopped running, and put an arm around Tim’s shoulder. There was a moment when he thought the boy would shrug him off. It passed. “I know this isn’t fair. It never is.”

“I can’t believe she just left like that.”

“It’s not her fault, Tim. You know that. It was me.”

“But…”

“Say what you think, son, I’m not going to object. I know every father says this, but I’d like to think we can talk about anything.”

Tim’s gaze wandered across the umbrella sprays that were emerging from the top of the elephant keck, thumb-size flower buds just losing their dark green hue as they prepared to open. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does, to me at least. You were going to say Mum’s been visiting London for years. Am I right?”

“No, Dad, I was going to say Mum’s slept with more people than you have. I watched them come and go before I even knew what was really happening. It was the day I finally found out what they were when I needed this talk. Okay? And that was about ten years ago.”

“Oh, shit. We all need to go and see shrinks, really, don’t we? I knew you knew, son, I simply didn’t realize how much it bothered you. You never said.”

“What? That my parents had a sham marriage, that it was all a front? Thanks, Dad. Are you going to tell me it was for my benefit?”

Jeff took his arm away from Tim’s shoulder, and looked un-flinchingly into his son’s hostile face. “Okay, look, this is the way it is. Hundred percent truth. I was old and rich, your mother was young and pretty. It never was a marriage, not in any definition. But we had you because we both wanted to. And that means taking on a lot of responsibility, however politically incorrect that might sound today. So we made the best home life we could for you. Kids get badly hurt if their parents are shouting at each other all day long. We accepted the situation for what it was, and made rational choices. Don’t believe me if that’s what you want, or simply tell me to fuck off and die; but we wanted the best for you. And the way we played it was the only way we could give you that. I’m sorry that you saw through us so early, and that I didn’t help you then, but can you honestly put your hand on your heart and swear we didn’t care? Until you’ve done it, you’ll never know how special having a child is. You were our world, Tim, and you still are. Just because Sue’s left doesn’t mean she’s gone and rejected you or anything like that. The one thing that upset her the most was what you’d think about her. Well, I’m asking you not to, don’t think anything bad. This split was my fault. Nothing has changed between your mother and me except for physical distance.”

Tim shook his head as if he was getting rid of a persistent wasp. “You two were getting on. I know you were. You were together. I saw that. I thought, I dunno, things were going to be different.”

“If we bumped up your expectations, then I apologize again. We both agreed that was stupid of us.”

“You didn’t give it much of a chance, did you?” Tim said broodily. “Less than a week.”

“No, I didn’t, did I?” Jeff turned away, and started walking. “I really don’t know how to explain that one to you. I don’t think there is anything to say.”

Tim caught up with him. The anger had faded a little; now there was just confusion and a fair degree of pain. “I just don’t get it, Dad. She was the first girl you laid eyes on. What did you see in her?”

“I didn’t see anything in her. It was just one night.”

“But look at what it did, what happened because of it!”

“I know, Tim! All right? I know. It brought everything to a head, far too quickly. If I was thinking with my brain instead of my dick then maybe your mum and I would have stretched this out until after you went to university.”

“Oh, so that’s what matters, just putting on a front till I’m conveniently out of the way.”

“Anything that would have made this easier for you should have been our priority. We were selfish. But after what I did we didn’t have any choices. Look, I know this hurts, but we were never going to stay together.”

“Maybe, I sort of knew that, I suppose. But…now there’s these others, too,” Tim said lamely. “It’s like you’re rubbing my face in it.” The first girl had been three days ago, a scant two days after his mother left. He’d come down to breakfast to find her in the kitchen with his father, almost in a replay of that time he’d found his parents canoodling. She was dressed at least, if you counted her clubbing clothes, a short skirt and lace-up top. One look and he had her branded forever in his mind as a total bimbo; late twenties with a hairstyle and makeup that harked back too many years, as if they alone could fool people into seeing her as she had been back then.

Each morning since it had been a different girl. All of them picked up the previous night. All of them spending the night.

“Come on, Tim, you know that’s the last thing I’d do,” Jeff told him gently.

There were a lot of things Tim wanted to say. Like: It’s so embarrassing. Couldn’t you be discreet like Mum was? Or even: How do you do it, pull like that every night?
Because I never can.
All that came out was: “It’s not like you.”

“Not like me,” Jeff repeated in a murmur. Finally they’d come to the end of the wall of elephant keck, stepping out where they had a decent view around. The road dipped away ahead of them to run between a couple of small lakes. They’d both been dug out centuries ago, when the lord of the manor had used them as fish breeding ponds to supply his own table. Since then, an elaborate stone boathouse called Fort Henry had been built on the upper lake, like a miniature castle. As follies went, it was quite splendid. “Come on,” Jeff said. He steered Tim to the side of the road, and they sat on the grassy bank facing the lower lake. The Europol bodyguards huddled together on the road, politely out of earshot.

“I’m not like me,” Jeff said eventually. “Look at me, Tim; physically I’m your sort of age. You have to know what that means.”

“Yes,” Tim said cautiously.

“Girls, Tim. They’re important. In fact, they’re a necessity.”

As always, Tim’s body betrayed him. He was blushing hot again. “Um, yeah, suppose so.”

“I know it’s been a bit much to absorb all in one week. But when they rejuvenated me they made me very mortal. Weaknesses of the flesh, and all that.”

“I see.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I do understand. It’s just…I don’t even remember the names of the first two.”

“Me neither.” Jeff chuckled. It died away as Tim’s expression remained blank. “Ah, now I think I get it. Too many too quickly, is that right?”

“They’re your girlfriends; if that’s how you want to treat them, then fine.”

Jeff couldn’t help it, he laughed openly at that. “Girlfriends! Tim, they’re one-night stands, okay? We’re not talking about replacement wives and mothers here. Don’t confuse love with sex, they’re very different.”

“I know. It’s just that this is all very different for me. I suppose I’ll get used to it.” He made it sound as though that would be the hardest thing in the world he could ever do.

“Oh, Tim, you haven’t gone and put me on a pedestal, have you? Not me?”

“You’re my dad. We always got on before.”

“We still do, son, and we always will. No matter how awkward it is between us, you can always rely on me, I promise. But please don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m some kind of saint. I’m not. Really, I’m batting for the other fella. It’s a lot more fun.”

Tim’s answering smile was sly. “No, you’re not. You’re Jeff Baker, you gave the world memory crystals.”

“Ho-oo shit.” Jeff laid back on the grass. Two swans on the lower lake slid about briskly, leaving almost no wake behind them. A row of cygnets hurried after them, playing among themselves with kittenish delight. Beyond the lake the landscape of low, crumpled valleys rolled away into misty distance, fields fresh with the new green of summer crops. The English countryside as legend told it, as it should be. A vista that made him feel, finally, as if he had come home. With Sue gone, the last of what went before had ended. It was time to start clean. That meant Tim, too, treat the boy as an equal. “All right, Tim, last shock of the week. If you’re up to it. And I’m not joking.”

“How bad?” Tim couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

“Bad. The final skeleton in the closet. You might want to follow your mother and leave after this.”

“It’s not…You didn’t kill anyone, did you?” Tim gave the Europol team a quick guilty glance over his shoulder.

“Oh no. Worse than that. I’m a fraud.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Okay, you judge then.”

“Go on.”

“You know I was married once before?”

“Yeah. You never talked about her; neither did Mum. But I caught it when I accessed some of your biographies in the datasphere. They never say much about her. She was called Tracy, wasn’t she?”

“She certainly was, dear old Flaky Tracy.”

Tim sniggered. “Flaky Tracy. What, did she have dandruff?”

“Yeah.” Jeff gave him a conspirator’s grim. “On the inside of her skull.”

Tim laughed.

“Honestly, Tim, I’m not kidding, she was an absolute angel to look at. Small, blonde, utterly adorable, good figure. Maybe not quite as beautiful as your mother, but men looked around when she walked into a room. Know what I mean?”