Dreams Before the Start of Time

by Anne Charnock

  He stands at the top of Primrose Hill looking down towards Regent’s Park and central London. At this time of the day—the air fresh and dewy, more so than in any metropolis he has ever visited—he can imagine the meadowlands of previous centuries, the grazing cattle, the sheep. He’s proud that London has preserved its green spaces. The walking commuters who use this park as a cut-through to the West End are already at work in their offices. The stream of early-morning runners has reduced to a trickle, replaced by the pram pushers—well-to-do local residents, or the droids of well-to-do residents—out and about with their beloved offspring.

  Gerard’s good humour, however, is ever so slightly marred; Dr. Kristina Christophe has not sent him a birthday message. He suspects she isn’t allowed to contact her clinic babies now that she’s retired. He went to her leaving party last year at the clinic, and he doubts he’ll be going there again.

  Every year, Dr. Christophe had held a soirée at her own home for those in her select group—as she called it. Those who were orphaned while in gestation. He wonders if these gatherings will be discontinued. He has often suspected that Dr. Christophe played Cupid at her soirées; she wanted to be sure they were happy, as though she felt party to their tragic start in life. But she shouldn’t have felt bad—they were all insured risks. Well insured.

  Dr. Christophe came to their wedding. She expressed her delight to Gerard that young people still believed in marriage. And she approved of Scarlett. Gerard knew why—he’d married up the gene pool. Scarlett’s parents had gone further than a standard clean-up of the mutation load. Scarlett is effortlessly supersmart and sleek.

  Gerard picks up his pace and allows his arms to swing as he walks down the steep path through the park. There’s nothing to stop him contacting Dr. Christophe, he reckons. He needs to talk with someone who won’t judge him, who will give him the benefit of the doubt. To his mind, Dr. Christophe has seen it all before; she seems unshockable, as though no manner of errant behaviour lies beyond her imagination. He’s sure she won’t ever change.

  An hour and a half later, having kept a steady pace through the back streets of Marylebone and Mayfair, picking a route through Green Park, then St. James’s Park, and crossing Westminster Bridge towards Archbishop Park, he finally arrives at the orphanage, not far from the Imperial War Museum. No one ever refers to Bertrand House as an orphanage, but Gerard knows a branding exercise when he sees one.

  He sits on the wooden bench he donated to Bertrand House, positioned as he’d requested, next to the rhododendron border. Five years ago, one of the trustees—a keen gardener it seems—argued that the rhododendrons should be rooted out. Fortunately, the two trustees who were former residents slapped down the idea; they didn’t see the border as overgrown shrubbery, of little horticultural merit. They saw a thicket, a jungle, a place for adventure, for expeditionary forces led by nine-year-olds, young boys and girls hacking through with wearable virtual machetes.

  Gerard surveys the scene, checking that the quirkiness of the gardens remains untamed: the den below the low-hanging boughs of a weeping purple beech; the overburdened rose trellis, a demarcation line between warring tribes. He sees a droid gardener in the distance, tending the vegetable plots. To the children, these plots formed the centrepiece of a survivalist community, struggling in the aftermath of an apocalypse. The nature of the apocalypse changed from day to day, according to their whims, but the consequence was a constant—all the adults were dead; the children had to grow their own food.

  It’s eighteen years since he left Bertrand House. He mentors five former residents, and he attends the alumni parties and career days. There’s no excuse for any child not to do well; they’ve had every advantage. As clinic orphans they’ve all benefited from some degree of genetic enhancement. Their caregivers at Bertrand House were well paid and affectionate. Class sizes were small, and each child had his or her own life coach.

  That’s exactly what he needs—a life coach to sort out the one and only fuck-up in his adult life.

  He’ll have to tell Scarlett. He doesn’t think she’ll be too upset; it’s history. But she might be upset by the financial implications. He finds it difficult to second-guess her reaction. Will she pity the boy, want to help him?

  He can’t conjure the woman’s face. He hadn’t remembered her name. Freya Liddicoat, as it happens. Gerard and Freya. Doesn’t sound right. He remembers standing at the beach bar waiting to order another round of drinks. He and his mates, after a perfect day of surfing, had probably downed a few pints by that point. The sun was low. It lit the bottles behind the bar—one of those moments when, as a young man, he knew life was good. She came out of the kitchen, pulled two pints, and while waiting for the froth to settle, she reached up and removed her hair grips. Her red hair fell in long crinkles around her face. His one lasting impression. Her hair alight in the setting sun. But he still can’t see her eyes, her mouth. He told her they were having a party later on the beach, and why didn’t she join them? She said she would. He can’t remember any conversation, maybe they didn’t talk much, but they exchanged profiles. They had sex on the beach. It was pitch-dark. The sex is no more fixed in his memory than a dream. But he sees her hair, from the bar.

  It was afterwards he felt embarrassed about the hook-up; it soon became obvious that she was ten years older than him, at least. So, after a month, he muted their connection, and not long after that, he blocked her. Evidently, she had kept tabs on him from a distance. She closed in last week, sent a message to his work address. At least she didn’t turn up in person.

  The kid is eleven years old. Skye, for heaven’s sake. Skye Liddicoat. Gerard, Freya and Skye? Not a likely combination. And she carried the pregnancy. No interventions at all, a raw birth, and an unprivileged upbringing, from what he’s gathered. She isn’t a fundamentalist or some weirdo; she just doesn’t have money. She’s poor and she’s come knocking, asking for help with the kid’s education, saying he can’t reach his full potential. Whatever that might be. Lord knows. Poor little blighter.

  Now they’ve exchanged a few messages, he realizes his initial error. He had assumed, at the beach bar, that she was a student with a summer bar job. But she was permanent bar staff. Over the years, she’s moved from one menial job to another, so what chance does the kid have?

  He looks up at the top floor of Bertrand House. It’s still a playroom for those wet days when the children are cooped up. His memory conjures the sound of a Ping-Pong ball hitting bat and table, at a child’s stuttering pace.

  What did Freya think she was doing, keeping the baby? Why didn’t she chase him for support years ago? He could have taken the boy off her hands, paid for postnatal improvements, enrolled him in a suitable school. She has completely wrecked the boy’s chances. And he suspects she’s holding back, that there’s something else she isn’t telling him, but he’s not sure how much he wants to know. He replied to her initial message, saying they should meet, that he wanted to meet the boy. He also pointed out that she ought to have told him she was pregnant; he had the right to know, if not legally then at least ethically speaking.

  The upshot: next week, he’s meeting her halfway, in Bristol.

  The droid gardener pushes his wheelbarrow to the green waste and tips out the pile of weeds. He backs up, then pushes the wheelbarrow along the rhododendron border and sets to work on the rose bed in front of Gerard. The gardener says, “Good morning. Am I disturbing you?”

  “No. Carry on,” says Gerard. He wonders why Bertrand House specified a male droid. The original gardener was a woman—Dora, strong as an ox. She worked here well into her seventies.

  The droid paces each side of the rectangular bed, his head turned as he scans the scattering of weeds and the roses, their buds still closed tight.

  “You don’t need those overalls, do you?” says Gerard.

  “Better to be safe than sorry.” He unhooks a laser from his tool belt and fires at each weed. He refixes the laser to his belt and takes an insecti
cide pen, sidesteps around the bed, applying the pen spray over each colony of aphids.

  Gerard wonders what kind of job Freya’s boy can hope for. He’ll have to operate within a small business that can’t afford a droid. But what? Bar work, kitchen work, like his mother?

  The following day—he didn’t want to taint his birthday—he informs Scarlett about the boy. And her first comment: “So, he’s your elder son.”

  He manages to stop himself from saying that Skye doesn’t really count. Rather, he says, “Perhaps it would benefit Louis to know his half-brother. It could bring out the caring side of his personality. At five years old, the difference between him and Skye won’t be stark. A few years from now, it will be too late.” He knows he’s being romantic. Most likely, it would be embarrassing for everyone even at this stage; they’d all note the subtle differences. And even though Freya’s boy is bound to be physically bigger, Louis’s mental dexterity would be apparent to everyone.

  Gerard arrives twenty minutes early at their agreed rendezvous, as though to emphasize that even though he’s an absentee father, he can still be relied upon for punctuality. He suggested the quayside of Bristol’s dry dock because it’s the final resting place for the SS Great Britain. He thought the ship would provide a good talking point. He can tell the boy about the ship’s history—the first ocean-going ship built of iron—about its screw propeller, and how the owners paid a high price for innovation: frequent repairs, structural changes to stop the yawing motion, which made all the passengers seasick. But maybe Skye isn’t interested in engineering. Gerard decides the ship’s chequered history will be far more interesting to the boy than simply saying it was the best, the biggest, the fastest.

  And the ship had a happy ending, eventually. After decades of carrying passengers to New York and Australia, it was converted to sail and transported coal, later becoming a quarantine ship and finally a coal bunker in the Falklands. But that wasn’t the end of the SS Great Britain. True, it had been scuttled and abandoned in Sparrow Cove in the Falklands, but it won redemption when it was towed back to Bristol for renovation.

  Gerard is pleased with his plan, but he’s far from relaxed. He paces back and forth along the quay, avoiding the shadows of moored vessels, for the breeze has a cold nip. Freya Liddicoat has been polite, measured, in her messages, but she might be quite different face to face. Hopefully, the boy’s presence will temper any agitation she might be feeling.

  He sees a woman in the distance who could be Freya, but she’s alone, no boy. As she approaches, he feels a thudding in his chest. Her hair is the giveaway, though a little dulled and shorter than he remembers. He doesn’t gesture until she smiles. She reaches out to shake hands. Her grip is confident. He’s relieved she doesn’t attempt to hug him. “Thanks for being early. I dreaded a no-show,” she says. “And thanks for sending the train fares.”

  His gaze flicks away from her face to her coat. He takes in the high-end brand and the poor quality of the coat seams. It’s a cheap rip-off.

  “Where is he?” asks Gerard.

  She glares at him.

  “Sorry. I mean, hello, and . . . where’s Skye?”

  “He’ll be along in half an hour. I’ve travelled up with a friend—she’s taken him for an ice cream.”

  “So we can talk?”

  “Yes, out of earshot. I’ve told him I’m meeting an old friend, nothing more than that.”

  “I’ve bought tickets for the museum ship.” He digs them out of his pocket and points to the SS Great Britain. “I thought he’d like to explore belowdecks.” He pushes his hands back into his pockets. “Will you tell him afterwards? That I’m his dad?”

  “Depends. Let’s see how it goes.”

  Gerard and Freya walk in step along the deck. Gerard stops and touches the crook of her elbow. They face one another. “You do realize, Freya, I’d no choice. I had to do the DNA test.”

  “Course you did. A one-night stand. I’ve had a few, and I’m sure you have too.”

  He says, more abruptly than intended, “I’m settled now.” They both fall silent, and Gerard is tempted to turn and bolt. Who is this woman, he asks himself? Is she a fit mother? Is she a bit dim, or what? He can’t tell much from her accent; there’s a pleasant-enough lilt. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” he asks.

  “Well, for one thing, you blocked me, didn’t you? I was pretty pissed off about that, but then . . . well, I got into a spot of trouble, if you must know. So I didn’t bother tracking you down.” She laughs. Gerard freezes. Her laugh sounds coarse to his ear. There’s a cackle within it. “As if I wasn’t in enough trouble already.” Her smiles slides away. “The pregnancy started to show, you know?” He looks away, inwardly shrinks, for he never thought a child of his would start life on board. “Some busybody reported me for having a drink. Hey! Don’t look at me like that. I wasn’t knocking back spirits. Just a beer. Well, the police turn up, and there’s alcohol in my system, and I’m incarcerated—mandatory three months, for one stupid beer during pregnancy, even as a first offence.” Gerard is open-mouthed.

  “I didn’t tell you about the pregnancy in case you brought in lawyers, judged me unfit.”

  “I might have done.”

  “Anyway, I was happy to have a baby. I’ve no regrets. He’s a lovely boy.”

  “And I want to meet him, but I need to know what you expect from me.”

  “I don’t want to share him, if that’s what you’re thinking. We have a nice life together. But it’s like this: he’s smarter than me. He deserves some private tuition, and a few extras—better tech, better clothes. And later, a few helpful connections. You could open doors for him when he’s older.”

  Gerard is sweating. He feels he’s getting dragged into Freya’s long-term plans. He blurts, “I told my wife about this. She understands, but she’s not exactly overjoyed that our son has a half-brother. I can’t blame her.”

  “I’m not interested in your wife—only in Skye.”

  “That’s fine, then. My wife wants me to make a deal with you. A one-time deal. A single payment. You’ll have to sign papers.”

  “You’ve not even met him yet.”

  “Which is better. Let’s talk about the money first, the compensation.”

  She walks off to the back of the deck. He joins her, and they look out over the waterway. Each seems hesitant to make the first move, to make the first indication of a ballpark figure. It’s all about trade, Gerard reckons—this much effort, this much risk, for this much reward. He imagines times past, the dock jammed with ships, under repair after long sea journeys. Iron pots to Africa, slaves to the New World, sugar to Bristol.

  “You know, Gerard. That was the best summer—when we met.”

  Half an hour later, Freya collects Skye and brings him aboard. Gerard sees a blur as the boy jumps off the gangway. He’s a strong-looking lad, and Gerard admits to himself that he expected a skinny kid, a waif—runt of the litter. He looks like a boy who spends most of his time outdoors. A surfer boy. Freya walks away towards the prow, and the boy jogs along the flat open deck. He stops to lean over the side of boat, gripping the iron rails. And then he jumps, trying to grab hold of the iron rigging. Freya is smart after all; this detour around the deck gives Gerard time to look at the boy so that by the time they approach him, with Gerard’s heart quickening, he has already assimilated quite a deal about this eleven-year-old.

  He’s robust and assured in his movements. Gerard can tell without any exchange of words that he’s a boy at ease with himself. And as they come close, side by side, he sees Freya’s features echoed in the boy—her hair, her good bone structure. But Gerard wonders if the boy’s open smile betrays him, a hint of some hidden incapacity. The shame of this thought makes his face burn.

  Freya says, “Skye, tell my friend Gerard what you just told me.”

  “I said, let’s you and me sail a ship one day.” His voice has the same lilt as his mother’s.

  She says, “And you’d have
an important job, wouldn’t you, Skye? Tell Gerard.”

  “I’d climb the rigging. I’d be the lookout.” He looks across the waterway, his hand to his forehead. “Land ahoy!”

  He wanted them to stay longer. Despite that, when they waved from the gangway he felt relief mainly. He leans on the railing. The physical aftereffect of the encounter is a tingling in his arms and legs, as though a dog had bared its teeth at him.

  He doesn’t find Freya attractive. And he’s relieved about that. Seeing her for the second time in his life, in daylight this time, the age difference between them was stark. But the boy’s going to be a charmer, maybe more so than his own boy.

  Louis Conlan-Rossi and Skye Liddicoat—their names clash. He shakes his head; he can’t grasp it—he has two sons. That’s the thunderbolt. Skye has lived in the world for these past eleven years, and Gerard has shared one half-hour with him. In those eleven years, Gerard has relocated three times, married, won his promotions, taken holidays to France, Italy, South Africa, New York. Travelled all over the world, in fact, like the lucky bastard he is. And the boy has probably never travelled outside England. He’s within spitting distance of manhood. He’s managed just fine without a father.

  Back home, he refers only once to Freya by name. He says she was much older than he expected. He makes that point straight away to Scarlett. “I must have been drunk that night, or the lighting was spectacularly kind.”

  “Or you were desperate,” she says teasing. “Anyway, as long as the boy’s happy and well cared for, that’s the main thing. Don’t feel you have to wade in there and reorganize their lives. I know what you’re like. Don’t go raising her hopes.”

  “I said we’ll pay compensation for past expenses, and pay a lump sum for his upkeep until he’s eighteen. It’s up to them how they spend it. I don’t think she’s the type to keep coming back for more.”