Chapter 20
‘I could come down any weekend you like,’ Sarah Wildmore said carefully. ‘Really, I’d love to help with the children.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Sarah. We’re fine.’
‘It would be so nice to see something of the little ones.’
‘I can’t do everything!’ Lisa suddenly snapped at her mother-in-law. ‘My exhibition is next week, and the boys have just got over colds and been at home, and I haven’t even got that awful Geraldine to help me now.’
‘You finally sacked her? I didn’t realise.’
‘There’s nothing for her to do! The boys are at playschool every morning, and Betsy picks them up for their walk after their nap.’
‘So the poor girl’s redundant.’ Sarah laughed, but Lisa could hear the nervousness.
‘As a matter of fact, she’s been taken on by the person who runs the school. She’s one of the trainees helping with the children.’
‘Really? Geraldine? Did you give her a reference? I thought you said she was completely useless?’
‘Inexperienced,’ Lisa said warily. ‘She has a lot to learn. Anne Marsden’s equipped to teach her.’
When Nanette Fitch-Templeton had rung and asked Lisa to give Geraldine a testimonial, she’d hardly been in a position to refuse. ‘She did so love being with your little ones, Lisa,’ Nanette had flattered her. ‘That’s why she’s so keen to get experience at Lodsham House. Such good training for her,’ Geraldine’s mother had insisted, trying to press Lisa into writing something the girl could use.
‘I suppose so. She is still rather immature,’ Lisa had answered evasively.
‘I know, my dear, I know. These teenagers...’ She trailed to a stop. Lisa could almost hear her try to work out the right approach. ‘But she did learn so much from you, and she’s absolutely desperate to try for the Norland training.’
The girl had never mentioned such a possibility to her. But Lisa had been in a quandary. Geraldine was, after all, Carruthers’ niece. Alec wouldn’t tolerate direct criticism of the girl. ‘I stressed how young she was to Anne,’ Lisa excused herself to her mother-in-law.
‘Of course,’ Sarah said softly.
‘We parted on perfectly amiable terms. She often pops in at weekends.’
‘I wondered about that.’
Did Sarah also suspect Alec was having an affair with the girl? Probably thought it a good idea, Lisa thought sourly. ‘I’m supposed to entertain some of the Flaxton bigwigs,’ she finished up, a little calmer. ‘Neither Betsy nor Geraldine can give me much help with that.’
‘Dinner parties, d’you mean?’
‘That sort of thing.’
‘If that’s what’s worrying you,’ Sarah said. ‘I could make myself useful. Why not ask me down next time you’re roped in and I’ll see to it. You play the little wife, I’ll be the dowager.’
Lisa was annoyed with herself for making such a silly mistake. If she didn’t fall in with that suggestion Sarah would have concrete complaints next time she talked to Alec.
‘Of course I know how much you have to do,’ her mother-in-law intoned. ‘But it’s the sort of thing I’m really good at.’
Lisa could picture the scene with Alec. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting some more help for her, Allie?’ she’d suggest to him demurely, insinuatingly. She always called him Allie; you’d think he was still a baby. ‘It can’t be right to keep my only grandchildren away from me like that.’
It wasn’t, Lisa thought irritably, as she parried her mother-in-law with promises of a visit later in the month, that she didn’t know she was going through a bad patch. Who wouldn’t, with four such young children under foot? Hardly grounds for ‘Seeking some sort of professional guidance’, as Alec had so pompously put it.
The suggestion had, however, struck a chord with Lisa. Was she actually neurotic? Was her imagination playing tricks on her? Even to entertain the idea of cloning, when there were plausible alternatives, did sometimes seem absurd even to her. Yet it had happened. She’d found James, not given birth to him. She didn’t believe she could be mistaken about a thing like that.
What annoyed Lisa most of all was that Gilmore had taken it on himself to intimate she needed more help in the house. What on earth did an ordinary GP think he knew about it? A medical education hardly equipped one to run a home. Meg, too, had said she looked ‘clumblefisted’, whatever that was supposed to mean. Trevor was the only one who didn’t get at her, who had something encouraging to say.
‘You really are a marvel, darling. These paintings are exactly what the market wants,’ he’d smiled at her last time he’d looked over a new batch.
What none of them could even guess at was the real strain she was under. And that had nothing whatever to do with coping with so many young children. Don Chiver’s death haunted her. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that it hadn’t been an ordinary accident. It wasn’t just what had happened, it was the way it had affected Frank. He appeared shaken, even more furtive than before. His odd habit of looking over his shoulder, of dropping his voice as though afraid of being overheard every time she came across him, struck Lisa as significant. Had he played some part in Don’s death? Surely not. Why would he want Don out of the way? The man had been loyal to Frank and his family all his life; he would never have done anything to hurt them. It was Don himself who’d been responsible for helping Frank cover up by killing suspect livestock, ploughing up suspect crops. If he’d wanted to make it all public he’d have done it long ago. And Don had disposed of the first batch of Multiplier. Built a huge bonfire, Frank had told Alec, burned all of it together with an old elder hedge which he’d grubbed out.
Lisa remembered the warnings about disposing of elders. Is that why Don had had an accident?
‘Terrible waste,’ Frank had complained about burning the first batch of Multiplier. ‘Money be going up in smoke.’
No, Frank had nothing at all to gain from Don’s death. In fact, Frank’s reaction had elements of fear in it, as though Don’s death were some kind of warning. What really worried Lisa now was that Frank had suddenly shown more than the usual interest in the triplets. It reminded her of Don. She was pretty sure Don hadn’t told Frank about the dead clone. And, even if he had, why was Frank only reacting now? Were her children in some sort of jeopardy?
Lisa shook herself. The earrings were in place. It couldn’t happen again, she could relax. Each triplet had a tiny, delicate little band of precious metal slipped through an equally tiny hole in the left earlobe. Plain gold for Janus, twisted platinum for Jeffrey to distinguish it from the plain silver one for James. It was quite difficult to spot them unless one knew precisely what to look for. And Lisa was positive that the thin gold band kept Janus from cloning. But, in spite of the earrings, Lisa knew the old problem was there, waiting to pounce, demanding some sort of permanent resolution.
Lisa had no difficulty distinguishing Janus from his brothers, with or without the earring. And he seemed to know what she was thinking. She had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew perfectly well she was worried about him, and for him. A new problem had surfaced recently. Janus wasn’t only bulkier than his brothers, and unusually strong. He was also extremely bright - and far too assertive.
‘I’ll just put Jiminy and Jansy in the playpen,’ Betsy called to Lisa, when she was clearing up in the kitchen. ‘Jeffers needs changing.’
Before she could shout a warning Lisa heard the howls from the playroom, and when she arrived, just seconds after loading a cup into the dishwasher, then running down the corridor, Janus was standing up, gripping the playpen rail with one hand and bashing his gentler brother on the head with a wooden brick with the other.
‘No, Jansy!’ Lisa shouted at him.
She saw the child’s gleaming shining eyes turn to her for help, felt his frustration. She was restraining him from being himself. She really had no option but to do so.
‘That’s really naughty!’ she told him.
He grinned at her, confident of his strength, evidently content to wait for the right moment to show it.
‘Stop that now, Jansy.’ Lisa took the brick out of the child’s hand and lifted up her delicate docile little Jiminy to comfort him. He smiled at her through his tears. ‘You’re not to hit your brother.’
The toddler turned deliberately away. There was a hiccup as he heaved vomit all over the carpet the playpen was standing on.
‘Really, Jansy!’
‘I expect he just had too much tea,’ Betsy soothed. Janus turned towards her and lifted up his arms, waiting for her to pick him up. ‘He’s too small to know when he’s had too much,’ she tried to appease Lisa, hugging the child to herself. ‘See, he’s as good as gold now. We’ll just get a cloth and mop it up, shall we?’
Janus allowed Betsy to lift him out and take him to the kitchen to fetch a cloth. When they returned he was smiling at her, putting fat little hands into her hair and laughing. She set him down by Jeffrey and climbed into the playpen with the two children, bending to clean up the mess.
‘There!’ she said, turning to Lisa who was still holding James in her arms, stroking curly blond hair out of his eyes. ‘Jansy’s trying to help me. Isn’t that sweet?’
Janus was putting his hand in the mess, coiling up a pugnacious fist, plastering the vomit over Jeffrey’s face.
‘Oh, look at that,’ Betsy cooed, gently opening the small fist and cleaning it with the cloth. ‘He’s trying to feed his little brother.’ She smiled at Lisa. ‘They can’t know what they’re doing.’
Lisa kept her feelings of helplessness from Betsy by placing James on the floor and walking him towards the playpen. As they approached she saw Janus’s eyes glow - that curious gleam which told her he was different from her other children. He stretched his right arm out, caught at her hair and pulled.
‘Jansy! You’re hurting Mummy!’
‘Oh, dear,’ Betsy was saying, dropping the mopping-up cloth to help disentangle Lisa’s hair.
‘It’s all right, Betsy. I can handle it.’
Lisa grasped Janus’s fingers and pried them apart. The strength in them amazed her, then frightened her. He was eighteen months old, she told herself repeatedly. Only eighteen months.
‘Mau, mau,’ he suddenly announced. ‘Mau, mau.’
‘Isn’t that sweet.’ Betsy’s moon face split into melon halves. ‘He’s trying to say Mummy!’ Tender eyes turned to Lisa. ‘Is that the first time he’s said that instead of mumum?’
It wasn’t the way Lisa interpreted it. Janus already had a pretty large vocabulary. To her it sounded like ‘more, more’. The question was, more what?
‘Jansy, stop making that scrunching noise,’ Lisa scolded.
‘You’re becoming completely impossible to live with,’ Alec seethed. ‘All the child did was crunch an apple in his mouth!’
True so far as it went, Lisa thought to herself; but certainly not what was really going on.
Janus was sitting on the bench beside James, round blue eyes clamped on Lisa, determined jaws rhythmically chomping apple.
Crunch, crunch. The apple slices set out in front of the child disappeared at an alarming rate, and when he’d finished those he grabbed at James’s.
Lisa’s hand shot out to stop him.
‘Those are Jiminy’s, Jansy. If you want more you can always ask.’ She saw Alec’s head emerge sideways from behind the paper, watching her.
‘Mau, mau,’ Janus said promptly, hand outstretched.
‘More please.’
‘Mau pees!’
‘I’ll cut you some.’
The knife, a small sharp kitchen knife for paring vegetables, rapidly cut another Golden Delicious in half, took out its core and sliced swiftly through the soft flesh, cutting crescents. Lisa pushed three slices at Janus and saw him grasp them and devour them. This time he stuffed all three into his mouth at once.
‘Steady on there, young man,’ Alec smiled at him, but Lisa saw a faint frown of worry on his brow. ‘You’ll choke yourself!’
He was greedy enough to do it. Lisa put the knife carefully away and watched Janus’s reactions to the new supply of apple with growing distress. Trickles of liquid dribbled from the corners of his mouth and down his chin. As she watched him swallow, gulping large chunks of apple, Lisa saw him swell up even more. If he doesn’t clone soon he’s going to burst, suddenly flashed across her brain. And he can’t clone if he’s got an earring on.
She saw the child fingering his earlobe, pulling it down. He was quite capable, she suspected, of pulling the lobe off to get his way. And then - and then the clone would also have a piece out of his lobe.
Lisa began to feel herself slip into another world; an eerie, surrealistic world where cloning was the norm. Had she imagined it, or were there far more spiders, spinning dense webs around her home, trapping more flies? She watched a large black fly, slowed by the cool of morning, crawl slowly up a kitchen windowpane. Transfixed, she seemed to see its swollen body elongate, then buzz its wings and prise apart as it split and two more wings emerged from the centre. Two smaller flies crawled slowly up the pane. It reminded her of the stag beetle which had crawled towards the spilt milk. Don had squashed it, she remembered now. Pushed his heavy boot on it without a qualm. Because he’d known that if the beetle drank the milk it might start to clone.
A feeling of hopelessness enveloped Lisa. She wanted to share her terrible secret with Alec, to scream her horror at this catastrophe about to engulf the world, to sob her fears away. What if she did? He wouldn’t believe her, he’d call in the caring professions, they’d find out she was telling the truth and - she’d lose her children. And the phenomenon would still be there. What had been started could not be undone.
Lisa, trying to appease Alec, merely succeeded in widening her mouth into a nervous grin.
‘You think it would be funny if he choked?’ she heard him demand. He could be quite sarcastic.
‘Of course not. I was thinking about something else.’ She supposed it had been rather an odd reaction. If Alec knew what she was really thinking he’d call in a whole gaggle of psychiatrists.
‘I’m glad you’ve got time to think,’ Alec crabbed at her, putting down his paper and energetically spooning cereal into Jeffrey. ‘I think your other sons need your attention. I’ve told you till I’m sick of repeating it: get some more help. We could arrange for Geraldine to come in a couple of hours on Saturdays.’
He wanted Geraldine back. He was using their children as an excuse to see more of her.
‘With Duffers, I suppose,’ Lisa snapped at him, her lips drawn tight. ‘Two extra mouths to feed.’ If she allowed Janus to eat whatever he demanded, would he actually burst?
‘You would at least have help for part of the weekend,’ Alec intoned. Using the accusing persistent voice of someone who knows all the answers. ‘I can’t always be there.’
‘I have no problems on my own with them,’ Lisa thrust at him. ‘It’s only when you’re around that they give trouble.’
‘I know,’ he said, resigned. ‘I put them up to it.’
‘And, anyway, I think there’s something wrong with Janus.’
‘He’s a toddler, Lisa. Just a little assertive, that’s all. He’s stronger than his brothers.’
So he’d noticed that. Lisa looked at her husband from under hooded eyes and forced herself into a gentle voice, even a covering smile. ‘You don’t understand, pet. I’m not talking about the way he behaves.’
‘There’s a physical problem?’
‘Just look at him, Alec. He’s all bloated.’
‘You mean his ear? He’s getting allergic to the earring. I told you that would happen.’
‘I’m talking about the whole of his body, for goodness sake! He’s positively enormous. He ought to see a specialist. Diana gave me the name of a really top man in Bristol: Walter Morgenstein. That idiot Gilmore insists there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Honestly, Lisa, it’s you who ought to see someone.’
‘If you’ll just take a decent look at him, Alec. Just for once, instead of instantly assuming I’m off my nut.’ Lisa pulled the table out on its casters, exposing a row of four little boys wedged on a bench against the wall.
‘Can I get down now?’ Seb asked politely.
‘Of course, darling. Go to the playroom. We’ll all go out for a walk later on.’ She turned to Alec. ‘If you can hang on for just a minute. Help me get Jeffers and Jiminy into the playroom.’
They returned to find Janus, round-eyed and solemn, his puffed-up hands pushing the table drawn back to him away, about to tumble off the bench. Lisa held out her hands and smiled.
He started to bellow, flailing his little legs and kicking at her, tubby hands made into hard fists.
‘Jansy,’ she cooed, her voice soft and gentle.
He screamed again and started hurling both plates and cutlery on to the kitchen floor.
‘That’s enough of that, Janus!’ his father thundered and picked him up, removing a plastic spoon from the child’s hand. ‘Let go of that.’ Alec wrestled the spoon away. The child, defeated, sat on his father’s arm, now quiet, alert blue eyes staring beyond him.
‘It’s not merely the constant aggression and the rowdiness,’ Lisa explained, resigned to picking up the debris from the floor. ‘It’s more than that. He’s not just chubby because he eats a lot; he’s far too puffy. I want that chap in Bristol to take a look at him.’
Alec sat down and held the toddler out in front of him, his hands under his armpits. He couldn’t fail to see that he was swollen - an odd curious sort of sponginess along his arms and legs, a strange and quite unpleasing billowing of his trunk, a sort of bulging in the abdomen. It looked as though the problem could be abnormal water retention. The little pot belly, straining the yellow T-shirt, bulged out like a balloon.
‘Sorry, Lisa; I do see what you’re getting at.’ Alec turned to her, holding the child against his shoulder now and standing up.
‘If you think Geraldine will give up her time to come on Saturday mornings, that might help,’ Lisa decided to placate her husband.
‘She loves the children.’
Did Alec really believe that? Did he really not know that the girl was making a play for him?
‘She tolerates them, and she’s quite good with Jansy, I admit. Plays with him on his own.’ Probably, Lisa thought, she liked the macho in the boy, even at his tender age.
The child in Alec’s arms started to wriggle, then to pummel his father’s head.
‘Right, Jansy, off we go to the playroom.’
Lisa’s face became tense again. ‘I usually put him in the playpen in the dining room,’ she said. ‘He’s rather rough with Jiminy. He’s so sweet-natured, he lets Jansy do anything he likes. I prefer to keep an eye on him.’
‘Really?’
‘Really, Alec.’
‘The playpen it is, young Janus.’
The child was pulling roughly at his hair, throwing himself backwards and forwards, his flesh oozing around his clothes.
Alec looked at his son. ‘I think you have a point. Will you make the appointment with Morgenstein, or shall I?’
‘I’ll see to it first thing on Monday,’ Lisa announced. ‘Just put him in the playpen. Give him his flock of woolly sheep to boss. He’ll be okay.’