by S. L. Powell
‘Oh, you poor thing,’ said Mum. She put a hand on Gil’s shoulder. ‘Whatever happened?’
‘He was just horrible to me,’ said Gil. ‘He said I was rubbish at skating because I hadn’t been for three weeks and then he kept laughing and trying to push me over. I know I should have stayed there but he was really doing my head in. I couldn’t cope with it.’
‘It’s so unlike Louis,’ said Mum, shaking her head. ‘What’s got into him? I didn’t think he was the sort to behave like a bully.’
Gil put on his most miserable face and looked at the floor. It was going well, but he still had to get round Dad, who was looking disapproving.
‘So you came home on your own?’ said Dad. ‘All the way from the ice rink?’
‘Yes,’ Gil said. ‘I was careful, Dad, honestly.’
‘And what exactly have you been doing since you got here, given that you couldn’t get into the house?’ said Dad.
‘Not a lot. Well, I did go to the library for a bit. I thought you wouldn’t mind that,’ said Gil.
Dad looked really irritated. ‘The whole point of making plans is so that we know where you are and we know that you’re safe,’ he said. ‘Now we find you’ve been wandering the streets for hours. You should have sorted it out with Louis. I’m not impressed.’
Mum stepped in. ‘Come on, Matt. Gil hasn’t actually done anything wrong. He just used his common sense in a difficult situation.’
There was a little pause, and Gil thought the worst was over, but Dad wasn’t finished.
‘I’m going to phone Louis and ask him what on earth he thinks he was doing,’ said Dad, switching his anger to another target. ‘He must have realised that his actions were putting you in potential danger. He should have stopped you leaving the rink.’
‘No, Dad!’ Gil protested, in genuine panic. ‘You can’t do that! It’s too embarrassing. Look, I’ll phone him.’
He went straight to the phone with his heart banging and pretended to dial numbers. Then he had a one-sided conversation, loudly enough for Dad to overhear.
‘Oh, hi, Louis, it’s Gil. Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, I just came home. Ye ah, cool, I’ll come over. Cool. See you in a bit.’ He put the phone down and went back to Mum and Dad.
‘Louis is sorry and he wants me to go over,’ Gil said. ‘Is that OK?’
‘Sure,’ said Mum, looking at Dad.
Dad just about nodded.
Gil heard the phone ring again as he was walking away from the house and it bothered him, though he wasn’t sure why. There was no way Louis would call him, and Jude wouldn’t be stupid enough to call the house phone.
Gil wandered up the road without being sure where he was going. After a while he found himself at the library again, but the instant he went inside he realised it wasn’t such a smart move. He was sick of the sight of the library. The ghost of Jude lurked around every corner and the longer Gil sat and pretended to read books, the harder it was to persuade himself that nothing at all had happened.
Jude had everything he needed now to break into the labs. And Gil knew he would only find out about the raid when Dad found out, and then he would have to fake surprise or concern or something else he didn’t feel. He longed for it to be over quickly.
After an hour Gil judged that Dad would have had time to get over his irritation. He went home and rang the bell, but when Mum opened the door she looked so white and scared that Gil wished he could just turn and walk away again.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Dad wants to see you in his study.’
She didn’t move away from the door. Gil stood looking at her, gradually filling up with fear. Seeing Dad in his study was bad news. It was like being sent to the headteacher’s office. What had happened while he’d been out?
‘You’d better come in and get it over with,’ said Mum at last, pulling the door open properly.
It was a long way down the corridor to the study. The door was shut. Gil knocked and then waited.
‘Come in,’ said Dad’s voice.
Gil pushed, feeling the bottom edge of the door catch on the springy carpet, and stepped inside.
Dad was sitting in his office chair. He leant forward as Gil came in. ‘Ah, Gil!’ he said. ‘Good, good. You’re back. You’ve had a successful time, I hope.’ His voice was thick with sarcasm.
‘Yes, it was —’ Gil began.
Then he stopped. There was someone else in the room. Someone hunched up in Dad’s armchair in the corner. Gil turned his head to look.
It was Louis.
Louis looked up at Gil, not speaking. His lips were set in a straight line and his eyes were hard. They fixed themselves on Gil’s face until Gil had to look away. His legs felt as if they were about to fold underneath him and he badly wanted to sit down, but there wasn’t another chair.
‘Perhaps you’d like to tell us where you’ve actually been,’ said Dad.
‘At the library,’ said Gil, as casually as he could manage. He had the weird feeling that Louis had suddenly morphed into a third parent.
‘Oh, the library. I see. And where was it you told us you were going? I’ve quite forgotten.’
When Gil said nothing Dad went on, his sarcasm gradually curdling into something even more unpleasant.
‘You see, shortly after you left the house we had a phone call from Louis. He wanted to know if you were at home. Which was a bit of a surprise, as we were under the impression that you were on your way to see him. Given what we believed had happened at the ice rink this morning, I’m afraid I was rather harsh on Louis initially, until of course he told us what had really happened, and offered to come over and tell us about your behaviour over the past few weeks. About the way you’ve been treating him. About all the times you’ve slipped out of school without explanation. About the fact that you weren’t at school at all last Monday, and apparently told Mr Montague you’d been ill at home – this is true, isn’t it?’
‘So you believe Louis without even bothering to listen to what I’ve got to say,’ said Gil. ‘That makes me feel great.’ He tried to sound as sarcastic as Dad but he couldn’t really summon enough energy.
‘Yes, I believe Louis, I’m afraid,’ said Dad. ‘And now I want you to tell me what you’ve actually been up to.’
‘You snake, Louis,’ Gil said. But he couldn’t give the insult any bite, and Louis didn’t so much as blink.
‘Yeah, Gil, you hate me, don’t you?’ he said steadily. He stood up. ‘Is it all right if I go now?’ he said to Gil’s dad.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Dad, smiling so warmly at Louis that Gil felt a sudden rush of raw anger. It made him want to smash Louis’ face against the study door until it bled. ‘Thank you, Louis. You’ve done a very brave thing.’
Louis almost brushed Gil’s arm as he went past to the door. Then the door clicked, and Gil was alone with Dad.
‘Sit down,’ said Dad, waving at the armchair.
Gil sat down. The cushions were warm where Louis had been sitting and the warmth soaked into Gil’s muscles, making him weak and tired. He had no idea what to do now. It was like being carried along in a fast-flowing river, waiting to drown. He should fight and shout and struggle, but he didn’t know if he could be bothered any more.
‘I’m waiting,’ said Dad.
The tiny tick-tick-tick of Dad’s watch punctured the silence.
‘Gil, I don’t know what you think you’re trying to achieve here. I don’t know how you imagine you’re going to make things easier for yourself by not talking.’
What would happen if he just kept his mouth shut? What exactly could Dad do? Sanctions again, Gil thought. Permanent sanctions this time. So what? You can’t control me, Gil said to Dad in his head. You have no power. It’s too late to stop anything now.
Dad picked up a piece of paper from his desk and thrust it out at arm’s length. Gil saw that it was Jude’s leaflet. ‘Louis told me you’d tried to get him to hand these out with you at school. Is that true?’
Gil shru
gged.
‘He said you had hundreds of them. Where did you get them from?’
Gil shrugged again.
‘I want to know what you’ve been up to. I insist that you tell me where you’ve been going when you’ve played truant from school.’
‘It’s none of your business what I’ve been doing,’ said Gil finally.
‘Oh, but it is my business. I’m your father. I have a right to know. You’re thirteen years old, for God’s sake. You’re a boy. It’s my job to protect you and stop you from doing stupid, reckless things that could put you in danger. Do you understand?’
‘Yeah, I understand,’ Gil said. ‘I understand that you haven’t got a clue.’ He was almost beginning to enjoy himself. He was doing what Jude had done, calmly provoking Dad to the point of fury. Dad’s breathing was quick and short now, as if he’d been running, while Gil felt more and more in control.
‘Gil, I really thought we’d reached agreement on certain things. I took a huge risk taking you to the labs. I treated you like an adult. I showed you everything, I explained everything, you accepted it all. And then I find this – this . . .’ Dad waved the leaflet violently right in Gil’s face. ‘I find you’ve gone behind my back. I find you’ve systematically lied to me. You lied just now, when you told us you were going to see Louis, and you lied yesterday when you pretended you had an arrangement to meet him at the ice rink. How many other times you’ve lied, I don’t know. Perhaps you’d like to enlighten me, would you?’
‘You know what your problem is,’ said Gil. ‘You can’t bear to think that I still disagree with you about the labs. You just think you’re right about everything.’
‘On this subject, I am right.’ Dad screwed up Jude’s leaflet and hurled it at the wall. It bounced off and skittered away under his desk.
‘Yeah, sure.’ Gil had to fight an urge to laugh at the sight of Dad slowly destroying himself with rage.
‘My God, Gil, you have no idea, have you? You are so woefully ignorant. Without the kind of techniques developed in animal experiments in places like my lab, you wouldn’t even exist. You wouldn’t be here at all. Or if you were . . .’ He stopped suddenly and covered his eyes with a hand.
‘Go on,’ said Gil after a while.
He could feel that Dad’s anger had vanished without warning, like water sinking into hot sand. He’s just too pathetic to fight, thought Gil. He’s given up. But his sense of triumph quickly evaporated. There was something wrong, something badly wrong, but he didn’t know what it was.
‘What do you mean, exactly, that I wouldn’t exist? Dad?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m talking nonsense,’ Dad said, shaking his head quickly, as if he was trying to shake away the words he’d spoken.
‘I want to know what you meant. You said I wouldn’t be here without places like your lab. Why did you say that?’
Dad rotated slightly in his chair so he was no longer looking Gil straight in the eye. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Ignore me.’
It’s nothing. Gil stared at Dad while Dad looked away, and in Gil’s mind a little pile of memories began to fall one after the other, like dominoes knocking each other down. The time Mum lost it completely after Sunday lunch. She’s fine. It’s nothing you need to worry about. The times he’d asked them about Granny. Don’t worry. It’s not your problem. The time he’d told Mum and Dad how selfish they were for only having one child, and Dad had stopped Mum in mid-sentence. Let’s leave it like that. The earthquake that had happened in Gil’s head when he found out just what Dad did for a living. I was going to tell you. When you were old enough. His head was crammed with the things they didn’t tell him, or half-told him, or brushed aside as unimportant when he asked a direct question. And now – it’s nothing, Dad said.
But it’s not nothing, it’s not nothing, it’s not nothing, thought Gil desperately. It can’t be nothing. So what the hell is it? The noise in his head built to a roar that was like a train thundering through a station. He took a deep breath, and started.
‘OK, Dad. So you accuse me of lying. You say I’m going behind your back. But there’s all this stuff you and Mum are hiding from me, as if I’m too stupid to understand it. You never told me what your job was, you’ve never told me what’s wrong with Granny, you try to pretend Mum’s fine when she isn’t. How many other things are there that you haven’t told me? I don’t see why I should tell you the truth when you never tell me anything. I don’t know what you were going to say just then but it wasn’t nothing, was it? I’m so sick of it.’
Gil was aware of his voice getting louder and louder until he was practically spitting the words at Dad, and then his throat became so tight it was impossible to go on. But Dad didn’t react. He was quiet, looking out of the little window into the front garden. At last he turned to face Gil again.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ he said. ‘There are things we haven’t told you. Perhaps it’s time.’
‘I want to know everything,’ said Gil.
‘I hope so,’ said Dad.
He sounded tired, and his face was full of a sadness that frightened Gil.
Stop, Gil wanted to say. Don’t tell me. But it was too late.
‘I need to tell you something about yourself, Gil. I need to tell you the story of how you came to be. You see, your mother and I never thought we would have children. We never intended to. And then there came a day when we realised we wanted it more than anything else in the world. But there was a problem.’
‘Are you trying to tell me I’m adopted?’ Gil interrupted.
‘No, you’re not adopted. You’re our child, our biological child. But you weren’t made in the normal way. Actually, you were created in a lab.’
‘You mean I was an IVF baby?’
‘Yes, that’s right. You were made in the same way that I make my mice.’
‘But that’s just because you couldn’t have kids, isn’t it? That’s why people have IVF treatment. You create a baby in a test tube instead of it happening inside the body, that’s all.’
‘Not exactly, no. Not in your case. We had you made very carefully. We had you screened when you were a minute bundle of only eight cells. We got them to do something called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, which means that they took one cell away and analysed the genes to make sure you were – OK.’
‘What do you mean, OK?’
Dad looked down at his hands. ‘It’s possible that Rachel – I mean, your mother . . .’
‘Dad, I know who Rachel is.’
‘It’s possible she carries a genetic disease, a serious disease that means she might die much younger than she should.’
‘Is it cancer?’ Gil heard his own voice as if it was coming from far away.
Dad gave a small, sad smile. ‘No, it’s not cancer. I think sometimes she wishes it was cancer. With many kinds of cancer now you have a chance, if you catch it in time. With the disease that runs in your mother’s family there is no chance. If you are born with the genetic defect that causes the disease, you become ill, you spend the next fifteen years or so slowly losing control over your body and your mind, and then you die. That’s all there is to it.’
‘Isn’t there a cure?’
‘Not yet. There are treatments that help to some extent. But there is no cure.’
‘That’s what’s wrong with Granny, isn’t it?’ Gil said.
‘Yes. It’s called Huntington’s Disease.’
‘So that’s why you’ve never let me visit her,’ said Gil. ‘Because I would have asked too many awkward questions.’
‘We wanted to shield you from it all,’ said Dad. He didn’t quite meet Gil’s eyes. ‘We had some very difficult decisions to make. Your grandmother started to become ill just at the time we began to think about having children. When she was diagnosed, and we realised that Mum could be carrying the disease too, we gave up on the idea of children. We couldn’t take the risk of passing it on to another generation. We went off and did other things instead. Exotic holiday
s, lots of plane trips . . .’
‘Screwing the planet up for me, then.’ Gil tried to be angry, but it didn’t work. He felt both weightless and tremendously heavy.
‘Yes. In a way. Except nobody really knew about global warming then. But after several years of enjoying ourselves, we found we still desperately wanted children. And IVF made it possible for us to have a child that we knew would never suffer from the disease that has gradually destroyed your grandmother.’
Gil had a sudden memory of the gigantic photo of an embryo that hung on the wall of Dad’s office. I just happen to know it’s a human being. Gil remembered the way Dad had said it, and he knew at once why the picture was there.
‘That picture in your office,’ said Gil. ‘It’s me, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s you, when you were a cluster of cells just two days old,’ said Dad. ‘It’s been there since you were born, as a continual reminder to me of what a miracle you are.’
Gil heard what Dad said, but it was like listening to a snatch of dialogue on the television, completely unrelated to anything in Gil’s life. The photo of the embryo floated in his mind like an image from a dream and he struggled to make a connection with it. It was the weirdest thing he’d ever had to try and understand, like discovering he was an alien life-form. That’s me, he told himself. Those blobs are me. They built me. Even now he was a collection of microscopic blobs, but there were a hundred trillion of them, all working away quietly to make him Gil. It made no sense.
Dad reached down to the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the photo album.
‘It was hard on Mum,’ he said. ‘It was all she thought about for a couple of years. She kept photos of every embryo at the point they were tested for Huntington’s Disease.’
He let the album fall open and Gil looked again at the smudgy blobs that he’d assumed were something to do with Dad’s research. Thomas. Imogen. Anna. David. They were not mice or rabbits or guinea pigs. They were his brothers and sisters, all the brothers and sisters he’d never had, all the children Mum and Dad had never had.
