Chapter 16
Lisa, gasping and out of breath in the triplets’ room, lay back on the double bed, waiting for her racing pulse to subside. She tried to drain her mind; without success. The bathroom images flashed lurid and clear.
She levered her torso up, great shafts of pain stabbing her brain. None of it could be true. She was slipping out of reality, her mind a turmoil of emotions. Exhaustion, perhaps. A whole year of looking after the children, no holiday. Added to that the party today, her fury at Geraldine’s desertion, bathing the triplets on her own. Worn out, she’d hallucinated. That’s what it must have been.
She looked across the room, holding her head, trying to still bands of tightening aches. Three cots, she counted on trembling fingers, holding three infants. One year old today. Her triplets were toddlers now. Janus, Jeffrey and James. She pointed them out to herself: yellow for Janus, red for Jeffrey, blue for James. All stretched out in their cots, all present and correct.
A vision of the lifeless baby in the bath flooded back. A silent unmoving body, intense blue, staring eyes, gold curls - exactly like her triplets. A shaft of fear tightened her lungs, and Lisa’s whole being shuddered. There was no noise or movement from the children. All three were lying still. Too still? A thudding in her ears as Lisa’s blood surged through and pulsed, strong and overpowering, through her head, distending pain. She wanted to get up and found herself held down. Her muscles refused to obey the impulses she sent to her brain. She let herself sink back, tears flowing. Had one of her little ones died? Was she denying it?
Slowly, the rushing in Lisa’s ears receded. She succeeded in lifting an arm, pulled herself up to sitting and then stood. Fighting back dread, she lurched towards the cots, grasping at bars. The babies appeared to be asleep. She could hear them breathe, could see their clothing rise and fall, noticed their little fists were curled. James had his left thumb in his mouth and Lisa now saw the bracelet on his wrist. JAMES, she read; then read it again. It still said JAMES.
She turned to Jeffrey. He was lying with his left arm under the duvet. Lisa folded the bedding back carefully and raised up the little limb. The silver bracelet blinked JEFFREY at her. Breathing more easily she slid the arm back under the duvet.
It was Janus’s turn. She sagged towards his cot and grabbed the top rail. He wasn’t asleep yet. He was lying, eyes wide, unblinking, evaluating her. The blue irises didn’t move; they stared at her. She felt the intensity and then, taken off guard, saw the gleam again, lasering into her head, her brain, her mind. A tingle of alarm arched through. She braced her legs and forced her face towards the child.
‘Hello, Jansy.’
The baby went on staring as before.
‘Time to go to sleep,’ she murmured, dipping her hand into the cot, stroking him. He twisted his head away, then turned back to stare again, unmoving, truculent.
His bracelet; she simply had to see it. She could not go back to the bathroom, and what it might contain, without first making sure. It was ridiculous to be afraid. The child in the cot was only one year old. She was the stronger, she could pull up his arm and check his wrist. ‘Just want to see your arm,’ she cooed at him, softening her voice. His eyes grew less intense, began to move.
The insistent trilling of the cordless on the bed startled her. She gawped, unable to move her feet, virtually catatonic. Her left hand clutched the cot rail in a vice-like grip. The ringing stopped; Lisa felt able to relax her hand away and draw herself upright.
The phone began to ring again. Waves of panic flowed from her guts to her head. Her blood, suddenly released, rose to her face, making her feel as though her skin were burning. She put her hands up to her cheeks to cool them. She had to take control. She hit her clenched right fist against her left arm, releasing fingers, and forced herself to go to answer the insistent trilling.
‘Ha... hello!’
‘Lisa! There you are at last. You sound odd. Is something wrong?’
‘It’s you, Alec.’ She hiccupped, sat on the bed and leaned back on the scattered cushions interspersed with toys. ‘I’m just utterly exhausted.’
‘Of course, darling. Thought you might still be in the midst of things. The party. How did it go?’
‘What?’
‘The birthday party, Lisa. Is something wrong? What’s going on?’
‘The party, yes. All right, I suppose. I’m just completely drained.’ Lisa sighed a long deep sigh of utter weariness.
‘You sound terrible, darling. Are you all on your own?’ He appeared anxious.
‘Yes, thank goodness. It all went on a bit.’ She eased back against the pillows, shutting her eyes, shutting out the present. ‘Betsy had to leave before bath time.’
‘Didn’t Gerry stay on?’
Fury suddenly overpowered her. If the girl had pulled her weight all this wouldn’t have happened. ‘Geraldine!’ she spat the name out. ‘She was worse than useless.’
‘Now what?’ She heard irritation creeping through Alec’s voice. ‘How did she get across you this time?’
Of course he’d take the girl’s part, Lisa’s mind fired bitterly. And probably rather more than that. Always that readiness to drive her home, however tired he was. Pleased, Lisa suspected, to get away, to have a drink at the Fitch-Templetons - or so he claimed - while she stayed behind to prepare their meal.
‘She just left me to it,’ Lisa wept, diffusing rage. ‘All by myself.’
‘She didn’t help you bathe them?’
‘And you’re never here, not even on their birthday,’ she suddenly sobbed, outraged. ‘They’re your children too, you know!’ Alec’s obsession with Flaxton was depriving her children of their father.
‘So what did she do this time?’ His voice had turned jocular, humouring her. ‘Pop the balloons?’
‘Ran off with the conjurer!’
‘The conjurer?’
‘A rather dishy young man. I saw the ad in the local paper. It was my special surprise. Went down a treat with everyone.’
At first there was silence. His laugh, when it came, was awkward, subdued; as though what she’d said was in bad taste. ‘I’m sorry, pet. It’s just the thought of Gerry popping out of a hat - like a rabbit!’
He almost sounded jealous... Was he actually having an affair with Geraldine? Lisa brushed the thought away. Compared to what might be waiting for her in the bathroom it was irrelevant.
‘She left me coping with all four of them in the bath while she went gallivanting off.’
His voice had changed again. ‘I’m sorry, darling; you’re worn out. I’ll read the riot act to her next time I see her, I promise.’
‘Always bloody Flaxton first,’ Lisa wailed. ‘Even with Geraldine.’ Annoyance made her voice stronger, edged determination into it. ‘At least it will be Betsy tomorrow morning.’
‘Betsy? Why won’t Gerry be coming?’
‘She’s having lunch with Nigel Carruthers.’
‘With Carruthers? Geraldine?’
‘He is her uncle, remember. Apparently he regularly takes her out to a posh lunch.’
‘That’s a constant, is it?’ Alec sounded both surprised and, Lisa felt, upstaged. ‘Does it happen often?’
Did he suspect a liaison between the girl and her uncle? Surely not. Lisa was too tired to pursue it. ‘Every other week or so.’ She shrugged it aside. ‘It’s one of the few appointments Geraldine sticks to. Anyway, I’ve decided to get rid of her. Maybe I can persuade Betsy to give me more time.’
‘Dump Geraldine before you’ve had a chance to find someone else? That’s brilliant, Lisa.’ The icy tone.
‘She’s more trouble than she’s worth,’ Lisa shouted back. Her voice began to rise, crescendoing into hysteria. ‘She’s always getting everything wrong. She simply piles the dried laundry into the cupboard in a ball! She – ’
‘Steady on, darling...’
Lisa gulped, regained her breath. ‘And that bloody dog of hers on top of everything else!’
‘So tell her to leave the dog at home, if that’s the problem.’
‘No, that’s not the problem! Geraldine simply isn’t up to it. I’ll talk to Anne.’
‘Anne?’
‘Anne Marsden, Alec! The one who runs the playschool.’
‘You think she knows a better mother’s help?’
‘We could send the triplets there for the mornings,’ Lisa found herself saying. ‘That would give me real time off. Meg’s always telling me Anne’s longing to have them.’
‘Something we could think about,’ Alec soothed her.
‘They’ll be safer, better off.’ Why hadn’t she thought of it before? ‘If Anne can cope with the triplets now I can dispense with Geraldine.’ She paused at that. ‘Even the idea of it makes me feel better.’
‘You sound completely overdone, pet. Why don’t you ask Meg to come over?’
The very last thing she wanted. She cleared her throat, pushed her voice firmly into control. ‘I’ll be all right now, darling. Honestly. Just needed someone to let steam off to. You really need not worry.’
‘You make me feel a heel,’ he said, sounding glum.
‘I know you’d have been here if you could,’ Lisa sighed, her fury spent. ‘I’m not really getting at you. Just that girl letting me down at the last moment.’
‘That’s why I’m ringing; I simply can’t get back tonight.’
‘Oh, Alec!’
‘I know, I know.’
She breathed in deeply. It would give her time to think. There was no way she could possibly explain what had been happening over the phone. ‘Never mind; everything’s quiet now. I could use an early night.’
Coherent thoughts were beginning to form in Lisa’s head. She’d check Janus’s wrist, make absolutely sure the bracelet was secure...
‘…be back around tea time.’
‘Sorry, darling. I didn’t quite catch what you said.’
‘You sound terrible, Lisa. We’ve got to get you more time away from those children. Get hold of a trained live-in nanny after all, perhaps. We can afford it.’
‘No!’
There was a pause; obviously Alec trying not to lose his temper. ‘We won’t discuss it now.’
Lisa, making another supreme effort to compose herself, suddenly saw Geraldine in front of her, smirking at Alec, pouting her lips. Sending the children to Anne’s playschool would mean Alec wouldn’t have the opportunity to see so much of the girl.
‘There’s nothing to discuss. Once I’ve got rid of Geraldine there’ll be one less child to look after!’
Another silence. ‘I’m sorry, Lisa. I really can’t stop now. We’ll talk it through tomorrow. I’ll take the children over at the weekend and give you a break, I promise.’
Take over? She’d tell him everything tomorrow. At last she’d be able to share her terrible secret with the only other human being who could really understand her plight. Because, after all, he was their father, and as much involved as she was. And Alec would have to acknowledge what was going on. She’d the evidence - the all-too-solid evidence - to show him.
‘Mummy!’
Not now, she couldn’t think about all that now. ‘Seb’s calling me,’ she said, getting up from the bed. ‘I’ll take the phone through. You could just say goodnight to him.’
‘Did you have a good party, Seb?’
‘Lots more wabbits; white bwabbits.’
‘Anything else?’
‘And pigeons flewed round the playroom. I’s going to crayon with Mummy.’
‘Splendid. ’Night, Seb.’
Lisa clicked the receiver into standby and sank on to the rocker in Seb’s room. ‘You crayon, Seb. I’ll watch you. Mummy’s very tired after the party.’
He coloured in the picture they had worked on yesterday. ‘Brown and white moo cows,’ he said. ‘Like Auntie Meg’s.’
‘You like the Jerseys best?’ Lisa asked, aware that he was drawing several calves for each cow. Had he guessed what had happened? Known it would? He was the one who’d seen it all before.
‘Want to go down,’ he told her solemnly. ‘’Night, Mummy.’
She wished it were. At least there’d be no Alec to counter, no one to disrupt her while she tried to work out a solution to her - to their - dilemma. She’d need the wisdom of Solomon to get it right.
A kiss and hug for Seb, and she tottered to the door, grimaced goodnight. She crept unwillingly back to the triplets’ room. Janus was asleep, just like his brothers.
Trembling, shaking a little, she raised his arm, looked at the bracelet on his wrist. SANVI? Was that a curse? Her thoughts darted aimlessly through her memory. Something Japanese? How could that be connected… Had the bracelet also cloned? Her hand now numb, the prickles of pins and needles in her fingers, Lisa dropped the small wrist. Janus lay like any child asleep: peaceful, deep breaths, showing downy cheeks, a small right fist above the bedding. She walked around the cot to look at his face, lifted his arm again.
Utterly, completely paranoid, she scolded herself, and laughed out loud. Of course the answer was quite simple, quite straightforward. The bracelet said JANUS: upside down! She’d put it back the wrong way round.
Proof, then; that it had happened. She’d taken the bracelet off, and put it on again, and it wasn’t too tight. A grim dark feeling of despair, of forces beyond her understanding, her control. She unlatched the silver band, her head on fire. The infant stirred. Lisa, keeping her grip on the child as though her life depended on it, turned the bracelet round and fastened it on again. She looked at it - it spelled JANUS. And it was right. There was no mistaking him: strong, alert, demanding. He was, she realised, still with her. It was the clone who was dead.
Don’s low, defeated voice came back to her: ‘Not’ing as be done but bury ’un’.
Her body shook as she shuddered at the implication. What if there really was a body in the bathroom? What if the nightmare she’d just been struggling through were real? Don’s eyes had lighted on the bracelet, had stayed there, had drawn their firm conclusion. What if he talked, sent Frank round? She had to act now, show courage for her children’s sake. She could not wait for Alec. She had to look into the bath, confront what it contained.
Lisa walked into the children’s bathroom and turned to shut the door slowly, deliberately, too terrified to face the bath immediately. She put her left hand behind her, feeling for the stool. She’d sat on that just a short time ago to dry each one of her little brood. The memory she feared, the picture she wanted to erase, suddenly came back to her. Another baby, just like the triplets, in the bath with Janus.
How could that be? It made no sense at all. It was against the laws of nature, against every experience she’d ever had or heard of. Except, of course, for what she’d heard from Don about the newborn farm animals. What had he said?
‘Next time us looked t’were three on they. T’won’t do.’
Indeed it wouldn’t do. If anyone caught a hint, a glimmer, a whisper of what had happened, she and her family would be overwhelmed. Cameras, microphones, members of the press. They would become a freak, a circus show.
Why was this happening to her?
‘I reckon it be that Multiplier stuff,’ she remembered Meg saying, the day that James was - appeared. Is that really what had made Janus different from other children? That she’d assimilated some of Meg’s produce when she was pregnant? Had it, in spite of Meg’s care, become contaminated?
Quite possibly it had; but it wasn’t very likely to affect Janus now. Whatever had happened before, Flaxton had delayed the launch of Multiplier specifically to give them time to change the formula. Alec had blown his top about it often enough. And he’d complained that they’d had to dispose of the old formula completely. Scrapping the original supplies had cost Flaxton a fortune.
She thought back to what Meg had brought for the birthday tea today. Janus wasn’t allowed any dairy products. Anyway, the clotted cream must be innocuous by now. A vision of the child’s face in the bath, plastered with a dark red sticky mass - the blackberry jelly! Blackberries were not in season yet. That had to be last year’s jelly. And Janus was a lusty eater. He’d probably gobbled up quite a lot of that. But could that really have had such catastrophic effects?
Janus had been bloated before the tea. Very bloated - and aggressive. Just like the time when he was barely two weeks old, when James made his appearance. In those days he’d drunk Meg’s goat’s milk. Now last season’s bramble jelly, still impregnated with the old strain of Multiplier, might well have been the trigger for another cloning.
Elbows on her knees, head drooped forward on her upturned palms, Lisa felt hot tears trickle through her fingers. She had to think, to work out what the consequences might be, for all of them - for Janus, for the other children, for Alec, for herself.
That wasn’t all. The Graftleys were involved as well. And Flaxton; she’d been so busy thinking about her family that the implications for Flaxton had escaped her. She took on board, for the first time, what exposure of the effects of that first batch of Multiplier might do to the company. She didn’t need to be an expert in marketing to know that their products, though modified, would instantly be shunned, that they’d be bankrupt within weeks. Public awareness of cloning would finish them.
Did Flaxton - did Nigel Carruthers - understand the real fruits of their fertiliser? Did the company, even now, realise that cloning was going on?
If Flaxton did know, they’d very successfully hidden their knowledge from everyone, including Alec. She was quite sure that no vestige of such a thought had come to him. And Frank? She’d heard Frank singing the praises of farming with Multiplier - because it paid. Frank wouldn’t let such a dangerous cat out of the bag. He’d cover up.
And Don? Of course Don knew, better than anyone. So why would he collude with Flaxton? Because, Lisa guessed, Frank had convinced him that they’d already put the matter right. The two of them had systematically slaughtered anything and everything bred on Crinsley Farm last year. The lambs, the kids, the calves, Meg’s chickens, even the kittens - that’s why Frank had made sure they were all drowned! He hadn’t forgotten his promise to Seb at all.
It didn’t end there. Lisa remembered the shocking slaughter of the rabbits she’d seen in the meadow. Quite likely Frank thought he’d eliminated all residuals. He couldn’t know about Janus, had no idea about the human factor.
‘Them baint stout arter they fust ’uns,’ Don had declared. He meant, presumably, that after a cloning animal reached a certain stage of development its clones were vulnerable. Janus’s new clone had been weak to start with. That’s why he’d died.
She sighed. All that was pure conjecture. She couldn’t verify any of it - all she remembered was that there’d be an extraneous baby in the bath. Lisa inched her head round, eyes searching everything except the bathtub. Her hands began to fold towels, straighten out flannels, put toothbrushes away. She bent towards the floor and mopped the water up with the hand towel by the basin, flushed the vomit in the lavatory, began to clean the white porcelain, the seat. She could not put it off any longer, now. She looked into the bath.
The first thing she saw was the bathmat. Soggy tufts of blue cotton were heaped in the tub, mounded but innocuous. Gingerly she pulled it back - and there was nothing. Nothing but a filthy bathtub, disgusting plastic ducks, a rather curious yellow colour staining the ring of dirt around the bath. Nothing more.
A surge of hope rippled her frame. Had she really imagined it all? Was Alec right, and she was heading for a nervous breakdown? She pinched herself and the pain was real enough. She was here, in her bathroom, now. She wasn’t dreaming.
She looked around. The bathroom was still a mess, heaped linen on the floor. But she’d seen another little boy. Tears poured as she remembered his small lifeless body. Had that, somehow, got under the jumbled laundry on the floor?
She flung pillow cases, cot covers, nappies around the small room. No sign of a body, of anything except the usual attributes of a children’s bathroom. It wasn’t there! She’d been wrong; she must have been. Apparently she’d fantasised it all. There was no body, no clone. It had all happened in her imagination. Alec was right.
Water - she desperately needed water. Lisa turned the tap on full, felt the cold water over her hands, splashed it on to her face. She guzzled great swallows of it, grabbed a mug and greedily poured the cold liquid down her throat, over her hair, her neck, her breasts. She felt contaminated and needed cleansing, felt the flow of water gush over her, liberating her, cooling her, permitting her to leave. There was nothing she could do here. There was no body, no incriminating evidence. She heaped the dirty laundry into a pile, placed it outside the door. Her breathing was becoming laboured again - she was overwrought, overdone, out of control.
Lisa went down the corridor to her bedroom, exhausted, unsteady on her feet. She opened the windows wide, breathed in cool, evening air, fanned her face eagerly with the day’s newspaper. A deep crimson glow across the skyscape thinned slowly into grey across the moors and dimmed the green into black. The willows stood silhouetted, a faint gold dripping from the top branches, firing them into a dying flame. So much beauty hiding so much pain. The whisper of a bat chasing nocturnal insects, the predatory hooting of an owl. Balmy country noises to calm her down.
Lisa smiled to herself. The silence would heal her. There was too much upheaval in her life. Once the children spent several hours a day away she would be able to enjoy time to herself again, be free to think of her paintings, how to progress her work. Even mothers needed time off.
A muffled sound she assumed was some nocturnal animal pierced into her consciousness. Rhythmic, continuous, it seemed to stem from the bottom of the garden by the fruit trees Alec had planted earlier that spring. A rabbit, perhaps, was digging a warren. Or a badger sett busy making a home inside their boundaries. The idea appealed to her.
A constant steady slurp reminded her of metal cutting through earth. Was someone digging in the field? Using a spade at this hour?
‘Doin’ a spot o’ gardenin’, tha’n it?’ a disembodied voice spoke up, fluttering on the damp night air, clear as a bell. ‘Bit o’ extra cash.’
Lisa felt long black shadows closing in on her as she stared across the moor. The voice sounded like Mark Ditcheat, their neighbour beyond the rhyne. Whoever he was talking to didn’t reply.
‘Yer be out late.’ The demanding voice, evidently not to be stopped, sounded suspicious.
‘Arr; git t’plant t’tree.’
Another familiar sound; where had she heard those gruff tones recently?
‘Tree? This time o’night?’ A laugh. ‘Where be the fire, then?’
‘Cum when ’im at t’house be Lunnon way,’ she recognised Don’s voice.
Don was planting a tree in their garden in the middle of the night? That was absurd; Don had no business being in their garden at all. Saunders did all that...
“Them be dead; not’ing as be done but bury they critturs”; the words Don had muttered only a short time ago reverberated in Lisa’s mind. The cool, so welcome minutes earlier, was making her feel cold. Don was digging up earth - to bury something. To bury a something - a ‘crittur’.
She hadn’t imagined it at all. There had been another cloning, another clone. Another child - just like her triplets. And Don had taken it. Taken it off, just like he did with the farm animals. He was digging a grave for flesh of her flesh, burying it because “Tha’ be t’right t’ing as us ’ud do”.
Lisa leaned her head against the window frame, drew in her breath. No doubt Don meant well, meant to help her. But what he was doing was without her permission, her consent. She wanted - needed - the body. To mourn him; he was her child just as much as Jiminy was hers. And she’d to show him to Alec. How else could she convince him of something which was so unbelievable?
‘Us be tellin’ Frank yer be moonlightin’,’ Lisa heard Mark cackle now. ‘Us be seein’ yer at t’Young Farmer’s meetin’ ternight. Him be talkin’ ’bout that there Multiplier. Got a promotion on.’
‘Oh, arr.’
‘Gie they trees Multiplier and yer be bound ter git good crops,’ Mark volunteered.
‘Arr.’
‘Bin lookin’ o’er they cattle,’ Mark went on, his voice tailing off as he walked away. ‘Can’t be too careful…’
Cattle rustling was a thriving crime on the Levels. Most farmers counted their animals morning and evening. Presumably that’s why the man was there.
Lisa remained at the window, listening intently. There was a slow shuffle of metal dragged over the local quarry chippings Alec liked to spread along his paths. No doubt that was Don hiding the evidence of his nocturnal digging. What should she do? Confront him, demand to know why he was in her garden?
She hadn’t the strength for that, she couldn’t possibly. She had to let it be for now, talk to Alec about it when he came back, let him take the responsibility. She’d done enough. It was time for Alec to shoulder some of the burden.
Would Don tell Frank? Probably not, because there was no reason to. As far as Don was concerned, he’d buried a body - just like he did at Crinsley Farm. It was unlikely he’d tell anyone.
Soft summery air billowed around her, stroked her shoulders, her cheeks, her hair, embraced her with the balm of the fresh scents of nature. Lisa leaned her head against the window frame. Damp evening mist laid drops of water on her lips, her eyes. She breathed in deeply, felt the contentment of the country night suffusing through her.
Calmer at last, she stole into Seb’s room to see him fast asleep. She crept into the triplets’ nursery again. Three babies, breathing, sleeping, present in three cots. She checked that they were there time and again. She moved, as in a dream, to Janus’s cot. She stood and watched as his head turned on the pillow, serene, the sleep of innocence.