Fifty Fifty

by S. L. Powell

  ‘Oh, you will,’ said Dad. ‘I have complete confidence in you, Gil.’ He gave Gil’s hand the briefest squeeze and dropped it, getting up from the bed.

  So on Saturday Gil went back to the labs with Mum and Dad.

  For the third time Gil entered the labs by the back door, this time with Dad ahead of him and Mum behind. As he climbed the winding stairs that led up to the room where Dad made his mice, Gil thought about what they were going to do when they got there. Dad would take a sample of cells from Mum’s body – cheek cells, maybe, because they were big and flaky and easy to scrape out from inside your mouth, or maybe a few drops of blood. Then he’d show Gil how to separate out the DNA and make billions of copies of gene IT- 15, the gene that caused Huntington’s Disease. It was a very simple gene, Dad had said – just the same three chemicals repeated over and over again, a recipe that told the cell how to make a kind of protein. But when the gene had too many repeats, it made a protein that was too long, like a big sticky worm. Over years and years the protein gradually filled the brain cells with a tangle of goo. And then at last, like Granny, you started to lose control of your body and your mind.

  It might be good news, thought Gil, or it might be bad news. As the three of them walked together in silence down the corridor to the brightly-lit white-and-silver room, Gil looked back at the person he had been the last time he had been here, and the time before that. He wasn’t sure how he was going to cope if the news was bad, but he had a sense that the Gil who had been in this corridor a few weeks ago, filming the labs for Jude, would not have coped at all.

  He knew so much more now. He knew what Mum and Dad had tried to protect him from, and he understood why. He knew what had made him so angry. He knew which things were his fault and which things weren’t. He knew that Dad wasn’t a monster or a torturer. He knew that the truth looked different depending which side of the street you were standing on, and that right and wrong came in shades of grey as well as black and white. He knew you could hurt yourself and other people so badly that it seemed like the end of everything, and still find that it was possible to survive and mend and move on.

  It was part of who he was, Gil told himself, as they got to the door of the room and he saw Dad looking round at him, and Mum trying to smile. He would face it, because he knew who he was now. He was Gil.

  With thanks to:

  Martha, for everything.

  Phil,

  for believing in me every step of the way.

  Betty and Charles, my mum and dad,

  for giving me the ability to see both sides of almost every story.

  Celia Catchpole, my agent,

  for her unflagging persistence and enthusiasm.

  Anne Clark at Piccadilly,

  for making this a better book.

  Dr Roli Roberts,

  for his careful checking of the science (all remaining errors are mine).

  Stephanie Hale at the Oxford Literary Consultancy,

  for her encouragement and support.

  Pearl Flanagan and Alison Coles,

  for their helpful feedback.

  All the family, friends and colleagues who have been so enthusiastic about this book.