Fifty Fifty

by S. L. Powell

  Gil, I hope this finds you OK. I hope the police didn’t frighten you too badly. The first time is always the worst. After that you get used to their bully-boy tactics. You tried to help me – I appreciate that. You’re a true friend. Maybe you’ve seen us on the news. Maybe by the time you read this they’ll have bulldozed the park, but the struggle will go on. There are so many battles to fight, Gil. Perhaps you’ll join us some day. Remember – the revolution will not be televised! I’ll see you around, brother!

  Jude felt like clean air, freedom, defiance. Jude had leapt out of the cage, and this was a clear invitation to follow him. Gil folded the note again carefully and hid it right at the back of the drawer under his bed.

  On Saturday morning Dad woke up in a horribly good mood.

  ‘Well, Gil, you’ve done fairly well this week,’ he announced over breakfast. ‘We’re not going to abandon the punishments just yet, so you can’t go skating, I’m afraid, but we think you’re due for a bit of a treat.’

  Gil didn’t like the sound of it.

  ‘I’m going to take you into town,’ said Dad. ‘I want to go to the market, but then there’s a special exhibition on at the Natural History Museum. I thought we could go there together.’

  He waited. Gil couldn’t think of a reply, except for ‘Thanks, Dad, but I’d rather spend the day cutting my toenails’, which probably wasn’t the answer Dad wanted.

  ‘Don’t look so enthusiastic,’ said Dad, raising his eyebrows. ‘Anyone would think it was another punishment. Anyway, you don’t really have a choice. Your mother’s going to the hairdresser’s and we don’t want you to stay at home on your own.’

  So there it was, thought Gil. A compulsory reward. You are going to enjoy yourself whether you like it or not. Another of Dad’s specialities.

  They went into town on the bus and Gil wandered slowly round the market behind Dad for what felt like hours. Dad pored over the food stalls, buying watercress, a bag of tiny apples and some smoked eel. The eel looked revolting, like a piece of rotting rope. Then it was on to the butcher’s stall, where Dad chose some lumps of blackish-red meat that looked as bad as the eel.

  ‘What is it?’ Gil asked.

  ‘This one’s venison,’ said Dad. ‘Deer meat. It’s just like steak. We had it at Christmas, remember?’

  ‘You made me eat deer?’

  Dad laughed. He was still in a good mood. ‘And this one’s rook,’ he said. ‘Wild rook.’

  ‘Rook? You mean those big black birds that look like crows?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Dad, how can you?’ said Gil, pulling a face.

  ‘How is it different from chicken, exactly?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Well, it’s . . . I don’t know, but . . .’

  ‘It’s better than chicken, if you think about it,’ said Dad. ‘Chickens live cooped up on farms, in pretty unpleasant conditions a lot of the time. These rooks spent their lives flying around, free as a bird.’ He chuckled. ‘My personal view is that you shouldn’t eat anything you wouldn’t be prepared to kill yourself. Agreed?’

  Gil said nothing. He tucked the comment away in his memory in the hope that a smart answer would occur to him later.

  Gil had to admit the museum wasn’t so bad. As he looked up at the huge grin of the Tyrannosaurus skeleton that almost filled the entrance hall, he even felt a little flicker of excitement. When he was six it had been his favourite thing in the whole world, even though it scared him half to death. He’d pleaded with Mum and Dad to take him to look at it again and again and again. In those days dinosaurs had walked in his dreams and he’d really believed they were more than just heaps of bones. To day the special exhibition was fossils, too, and Dad leapt about from cabinet to cabinet as if there were springs in his shoes.

  ‘Tiktaalik . . .’ he murmured. ‘Oh, this is so amazing. Do you see, Gil, how it’s exactly halfway between a fish and a reptile? The head is flat, like a crocodile, and it’s got teeth, but it’s also got scales, and the fins are turning into prototype limbs, so it can walk about in shallow water. Do you see?’

  He stood there, breathing misty patches on the glass, while Gil watched him.

  ‘This is the moment where life began to leave the sea,’ Dad whispered. ‘We evolved from a creature like this. Extraordinary. And it’s still all there – it’s all there in our genes. All the information that built Tiktaalik.’

  It was weird, thought Gil, to see Dad fizzing with excitement about what was basically just a fish-shaped lump of old rock.

  When they left the museum they headed back towards the bus stop by the little park. Gil had always known they would end up here, but as the park got nearer his heart started to thump hard against the inside of his ribs. His arms hurt, and he had to concentrate on his breathing. It was just like his terrified excitement about the Tyrannosaurus all those years ago. Gil couldn’t work out what he was so scared of. Seeing Jude? Not seeing Jude? Dad’s reaction when he saw Jude? Dad paused to look in a shop window. Gil carried on walking, too nervous to stop, but as he came down the street past the last few shops he saw it was all over. The park was completely boarded off, and poking up over the top of the high fencing was the shovel of a bulldozer. Jude’s tree had vanished, and so had the other one. Gil stared at the gap where the trees had been, trying to remember how the branches had fitted into the space. He was nearly at the bus stop before he saw the really important thing.

  Jude was still there. Not in the park, but outside the fence, right next to the bus stop. There were two tables on the pavement, with a big display board leaning on the fence. The tables were piled with leaflets and books, and Jude was standing behind one of them. He was showing someone a leaflet and talking with the same bright confident look on his face that Gil had seen on the television. He looked up for a moment at Gil, shook the hair out of his eyes and sprang over the table.

  ‘Gil! Gil, I’m so glad you’re OK! That whole thing with the police was ridiculous. Did you get your bag back? I got someone to bring it into school for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gil said. ‘Thanks. I saw you on the news.’ He felt suddenly stupidly shy and he could hardly get the words out of his mouth.

  Jude looked at him, grinning, nodding. ‘Yeah, we got some good publicity out of that,’ he said. ‘Even though we lost the trees.’

  ‘I was worried you’d be arrested,’ Gil said. Oh crap. He was talking like a total moron. But Jude shook his head slowly, still grinning.

  ‘That would have been a terrible waste,’ he said. ‘It was all a bit of a side-show for me, really. I was doing a friend a favour because they didn’t know anyone else who had the time to spend a week living in a tree. Don’t get me wrong, I think climate change is a pretty big issue, but personally I’m saving myself for a greater cause.’

  He waved a hand at the tables behind him. Hanging along the front was a banner that read CLOSE DOWN THE LABS – PROTECT ANIMAL RIGHTS. The display board propped against the fence had an enormous poster of a ginger-brown monkey with huge sad eyes and what looked like a tangle of wires around its ears. Gil’s head was still so full of trees that he couldn’t make sense of the picture for a while.

  ‘Well,’ said a voice, so unexpectedly that Gil jumped. It was Dad, standing right at his shoulder. Gil had completely forgotten that Dad was with him, but it was too late now to do anything about it. Dad moved a step closer so that he was face-to-face with Jude. There was a long moment where they stood and gazed at each other, like two stags before they charge and smash heads. It was long enough for Gil to notice that the two of them were about the same size and both had very blue eyes.

  ‘So you must be the young man who nearly got my son arrested,’ said Dad, as if it was a totally normal thing to say to someone he’d never met before.

  ‘And you must be Dr Matthew Walker, torturer of defenceless animals,’ said Jude, showing his teeth. It didn’t look like a smile. ‘Delighted to meet you.’

  Dad didn’t move. He just stared Jude d
own.

  Gil’s head began to whirl. How did Jude know Dad’s name? Why was he calling him a ‘torturer’?

  ‘I don’t believe you know anything at all about what I do,’ said Dad at last.

  ‘Oh? Really? There’s quite a lot of interesting information on your website. Of course, it doesn’t actually say how many animals you’ve butchered over the past year, but if you read between the lines . . .’

  ‘You know, if you didn’t twist the facts so much I might have more time for people like you,’ Dad interrupted. He stabbed a finger at the giant monkey, and Gil could see his chest rising and falling quickly. ‘That picture you have up there, for example, has nothing whatsoever to do with our labs. It’s a photo from America, and it’s at least twenty years old. You know that perfectly well. You just like to wheel it out to prop up your pathetic sentimental arguments.’

  The monkey gazed down sadly. Its face reminded him of Mum, Gil realised, and then he saw that the wires weren’t wrapped around the monkey’s head. They were poking out of its skull. The photograph clearly showed slots in the monkey’s head where the wires had been plugged in, as if it was going to be connected up to an electrical circuit.

  ‘You scientists are the ones with the pathetic arguments,’ said Jude calmly. ‘So, if you’re not prepared to discuss monkeys, are you going to admit what other dumb creatures you torture? Mice? Frogs? Guinea pigs? Or are you going to try and tell me you only experiment on lettuces?’

  ‘Our research does not involve any form of torture. Torture is what human beings do to each other. What we do is very carefully monitored, and it’s far more humane than farming. We look after our animals.’

  ‘What kind of an excuse is that? How does that justify messing about with animals as if they were just bits of computer equipment?’

  ‘I have never killed an animal needlessly,’ said Dad, so quietly that Gil could hardly hear him.

  ‘Oh, but you’ve killed them, haven’t you? You’ve killed them. When they’ve stopped being useful to you, when you’ve cut out so much of their brains that they might as well be vegetables anyway, when you can’t cure the diseases you’ve given them – you kill them then, don’t you?’

  A tiny bit of spit flew out of Jude’s mouth and landed on Dad’s cheek. All at once Gil’s feeling of confusion began to turn into fear. What if Dad hit Jude? Was Dad capable of hitting someone? Gil couldn’t remember ever seeing him like this. Dad never lost an argument, and if he lost his temper he always calmed down quickly. But now, facing Jude, Gil saw him so angry he could hardly speak, and trapped in a corner that he didn’t seem able to escape from.

  ‘Dad,’ said Gil. He pulled Dad’s arm, but Dad didn’t move. Neither did Jude. At one of the tables Gil could see a woman tidying piles of leaflets, her eyes fixed on Dad and Jude as if she was getting ready to step in the second either of them raised a hand.

  Then very slowly Dad dropped his eyes and let his body relax. He took a step away from Jude, like a cat backing away from a fight it knows it can’t win.

  ‘Oh, this is crazy,’ he said, running a hand over his mouth. ‘I’m wasting my time.’

  Jude was silent. He stared at Dad a little longer, as if to make absolutely sure he was defeated. Then he took a deep breath and turned to Gil.

  ‘I’m sorry, Gil,’ he said. ‘I know this is your dad, but I feel so strongly about this. I can’t pretend I don’t care just to protect your feelings.’

  Instantly Dad sprang to the attack again.

  ‘Leave my son out of it,’ he said. ‘Leave him alone. Keep your damn ideas to yourself.’

  ‘Don’t you think he’s old enough to make up his own mind? You can’t brainwash him for ever.’

  ‘Brainwash.’ Dad tried to laugh. ‘Oh, that’s funny. Gil, tell this man what I do.’

  ‘Um – you’re a scientist,’ Gil said.

  ‘Bravo. What kind? What do I actually do?’

  ‘I’m not really sure, Dad. I don’t think you’ve ever told me.’

  ‘Where do I work? I mean in which building?’

  ‘In the university somewhere?’

  ‘You see?’ Dad turned back to Jude. ‘He hasn’t got a clue. How is that brainwashing, exactly?’

  ‘He’s got a right to understand the arguments,’ said Jude.

  ‘I don’t really know what you’re arguing about,’ Gil said. ‘Not properly, anyway.’

  Jude grabbed a booklet off the table behind him. ‘Read this,’ he said, handing it to Gil.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ snapped Dad. ‘It’s a load of inaccurate propaganda.’

  ‘So you’re going to ban him from reading it, are you? You’re going to tell him that science is a wonderful journey towards knowledge and progress and all that garbage? You don’t want him to know about the kittens with holes where their eyes should be, and the two-headed mice, and the rats with tumours as big as your fist – all the monsters you scientists have deliberately engineered in your glorious quest for the truth, do you?’

  A bus had pulled up at the bus stop. Without another word Dad put a hand on Gil’s shoulder, and Gil allowed himself to be marched away. He rolled up Jude’s booklet and stuffed it in his back pocket.

  The bus was halfway home before Dad said anything.

  ‘So,’ said Dad at last, ‘what on earth possessed you to pass personal information about me to a complete stranger?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He knew my name, and he knew what I did. What did you tell him?’

  ‘Dad, I didn’t tell him anything. Well, I might have told him my name, but that was it. We were talking about smoking and —’

  ‘You mean he was encouraging you to have a cigarette.’

  ‘No! He was telling me how stupid it was! I just said some of the stuff you’ve told me, about the damage smoking does to DNA, and he asked if you were a doctor. And I said no, you were a scientist. That’s all. He must have found the rest out himself. Maybe he Googled you, I don’t know. What do you do, anyway?’

  ‘Oh, you heard the man back there. I torture small animals for fun. Just for the sheer hell of it.’ Dad stopped for a moment. After a pause he went on. ‘Let’s hope the house doesn’t get fire-bombed.’

  ‘Dad, what are you talking about?’

  ‘Some of those animal rights protesters are insane. They love animals, but they hate people. They wouldn’t think twice about trying to hurt us.’

  ‘You’re crazy. He’s not like that,’ said Gil.

  ‘What’s his name?’ asked Dad.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Gil looked out of the bus window. ‘He didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Well, whoever he is you’re not to talk to him again, Gil, do you hear me? He’s dangerous. And he’s also wrong.’

  When they got home Mum still wasn’t back from the hairdresser’s. It was late, and Gil was hungry. Dad made sandwiches, and then took his own plate and went and shut himself in his study.

  Well then, Gil thought. He sat in the kitchen, stripped the crusts off his sandwich and ate it quickly. Then he went up to his room. By the time he got to the top of the stairs he was exhausted, as if he’d swum thirty lengths at the pool.

  The booklet that Jude had given him crackled in his trouser pocket as he sank on to the end of his bed. Gil wondered why Dad hadn’t taken it off him and thrown it in the bin the moment they’d got home. Maybe he didn’t care if Gil read it or not. Gil knew he probably ought to read it, but it was too soon. He felt as if he’d just stepped off a rollercoaster ride that had lasted most of the morning, and his head needed some time to return to normal. Gil keeled over sideways on the bed and gradually let his mind begin to sort out the tangle of things he had discovered that morning.

  Dad worked in the labs where they did experiments on animals.

  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.’