Chapter 21
‘You’re sure you can cope on your own, Betsy? You don’t want me to ask Meg to come over for a bit?’
‘I’ve only got to take them down the road.’ Betsy looked positively hurt. ‘And it’s just the two of them for the afternoon, Lisa. No trouble at all. Seb’s always very good when we pick him up later.’
‘Help me get Jansy into the car seat.’
It took them ten minutes to fasten the screaming kicking Janus into the restraining harness. Lisa realised that he knew where she was taking him, and why, and didn’t want to go. Every time she looked at him and remembered the happenings of only six months before she was sure it would come about again. The bloating, the aggression, the greed. The process was accelerated this time. She was sure Janus was about to clone again. He’d become steadily more contentious since she’d made the appointment with the paediatrician two days before. The boy had almost certainly overheard that, and she was sure he’d sensed that she’d finally decided she had to involve the authorities.
No one could doubt that there was something wrong with the child. Even Alec had noted it, had agreed to that. But Alec thought her unstable. She’d noticed the way he looked at her, seen the uncertainty in his eyes. He’d refused to discuss the possibility that Janus might have more than some mild allergy. He wasn’t prepared to countenance the suggestion that there was something seriously wrong with the child.
But even if he were to, Lisa realised, that would no longer be a solution to their problems. Alec was Janus’s father, as involved as she was. What could he do that she hadn’t already done? She needed to consult someone who would view the matter professionally, and Morgenstein seemed the perfect man. It even crossed her mind that the child might clone in front of the specialist. If she undressed Janus, took the earring out, he might clone then and there. Morgenstein would have to credit it. Furthermore, the doctor would be a witness to the fact that it was Janus, not Jeffrey or James, who was afflicted with the ability to clone. That would concentrate medical attention on this child. The doctors might even find a way to avert it happening in the future.
Janus began to kick again. Perhaps he guessed what it would mean for him if the outside world knew about his unbelievable attribute. She was near to tears as she realised what she had to do. She turned to Jiminy, drew him to her, hugged him tight. Then she lifted Jeffers up, high over her head, and swung him down again. The delighted child beamed.
‘I’ll do some painting with you when I get back,’ she promised Seb, ruffling his hair.
It was time to concentrate on Janus. He was her very own child, her flesh and blood. What option did she have but to take him to Morgenstein? She had her other children to safeguard.
‘It’s fairly urgent,’ she’d told the doctor’s secretary. ‘The child is getting really tense and hard to handle. There’s this odd puffiness I can’t account for.’
‘Wednesday, Mrs Wildmore? Ten-thirty all right?’
‘Can you manage a little later? Say around two? I have to get someone in to look after the three others, you see.’
‘Dr Morgenstein will see you in his lunch hour. One-thirty, Wednesday.’
‘That is good of him,’ Lisa had agreed gratefully.
She had to think of a plausible explanation for Betsy, alert her to the fact that she was leaving around ten but might not be back till late.
‘The trouble is, Betsy, that Dr Morgenstein may have to run extensive tests. I could be held up till quite late, you know. Perhaps not back till teatime, or even after the little ones’ bedtime.’
‘You think it’s as serious as that?’
Betsy’s loving concern made Lisa wince. Was she wrong not to tell anyone around her, to plan to spring it on all of them? It was the only way, Lisa felt, she could prove that her other children were normal, the only way to keep them safe. She had to see the specialist before she mentioned anything to anyone else.
Janus began to scream. Strapped in his car seat he could not move his body much, but he pounded everything within reach of his small tight fists. He sounded frantic. Betsy offered him a biscuit which he tore out of her hand and hurled it, crashing it with extraordinary force against the window.
‘He’ll settle down as soon as the car moves,’ Lisa told Betsy, oddly calm now that her course was clear. ‘I’d better leave. It can take more than an hour to get to Bristol, and then I’ve got to find a parking space.’ And she might have to stop on the way to calm Janus down.
‘I hope Alec’s meeting you. You’ll need some help.’
‘He can’t get away,’ Lisa said. ‘I’ve got to dash now, Betsy, or I’ll be late.’
Betsy leaned into the car, stroked the little boy’s head and kissed him on the forehead. He quietened at her touch. Then, as she withdrew, he began to scream again.
The motor purring into life lulled Janus into wailing. As they moved down the drive Lisa could see Betsy in the rear view mirror. She stood by the front door, waving at Janus secured in his seat. Lisa caught a glimpse of the child out of the corner of her eye. He was plopping his hands, forlorn and miserable. She felt a clutching at her throat, a misting of her eyes. This was her son; a small defenceless child she should be protecting with all her strength, not taking to the lion’s den.
A loud hoot jerked her back to reality. She only just managed to pull into a passing-place to avoid an oncoming motorist. Mark Ditcheat, she saw. He glared at her and wound his window down.
‘Ought ter know better’n that!’ he shouted.
Unnerved, with Janus keening thinly in the background, Lisa flicked on her favourite tape for driving. The rock and roll of Fats Domino appeared to tranquillise the child, she’d noticed that before. He’d finally resigned himself to the ride.
The moor road to Wells curved past the Graftleys’ on her right, and on through Pewksham. The village, Lisa had always felt, was aptly named. A slippery khaki skin of cow’s excrement surfaced the road, requiring careful steering to avoid a skid into untidy hedges at the roadsides. No rhynes to fence the fields in this part of the country. The Mendip spur already steeped the ground into much higher pastures.
A large herd of oncoming milch cows forced Lisa to stop the Volvo, allowing them to lumber past. Janus began to fuss immediately, banging the car seat back and forth, yelling at top pitch. As though stirred into action an old fat cow pushed a swollen belly at the car. Lisa could feel it rock. Large bovine faces surrounded her and swayed the car from left to right. Long dribbles of saliva appeared on the bonnet, tails swished into side windows. Lisa felt vulnerable, engulfed, drowning in a sea of ruminants. She turned the cassette recorder volume up to high to help the flow of adrenaline. And heard hooting behind her. She could see Frank, in his Landrover, urging her on. He drummed a brawny arm impatiently, pointed ahead. Lisa, unnerved, nosed the Volvo through the herd. A peremptory rattle on the bonnet showed her the oncoming farmer, red with fury, mouthing obscenities at her. She put her foot on the accelerator and foraged through.
Escaped, at last, to the main road Lisa drove beyond Wells, then turned left and wound the Volvo up steep Milton Lane and through on to the Mendips along the Old Bristol road: the scenic route. The high plateau, the Levels spread out beneath in shades of green, consisted of sparser, more arid pastures enclosed by dry stone walls. Lisa hurried past them, unseeing, her heart now beating fast. She looked in the rear-view mirror. The child in the car seat sat, his Buddha face staring, eyes closed, apparently asleep.
It was a lull; he suddenly began to pound everything within reach, to scream, to howl. Lisa slowed down, her ears drowned in the noise reverberating round the car. Shrill screams stabbed through her brain, preventing her from thought, from action. She could not drive through this. Desperate, she looked for somewhere to pull over, and saw Frank’s Landrover gaining on her. Taking his produce to Pakenham Moor kennels, she shuddered to herself. The last thing she wanted was that Frank should stop. She rolled down her window and waved him past, then saw an entrance to the Priddy woods on her right.
She had to find some way to stop the incredible din Janus was making. Whatever else was wrong with him, his lungs were very sound. His shrieks were piercing now, continuous. He’d no intention of quietening down. Was he trying to force her to return home again?
‘Wee!’ he screeched. ‘Wee-ee-ee!’
There was no other vehicle parked in the small space by the style leading to the woods. Lisa drew in, relieved. She was the only witness to the unbelievable racket Janus was making.
Janus’s head swung back as the car stopped, and he calmed down. His eyes, squeezed almost to oblivion, reappeared slowly, deeply sunk in folds. It seemed to Lisa he’d bloated even more. His neck wedged thick and tight against his anorak, a florid crimson mass against the yellow. His eyes were slits of animosity as he watched her every move.
His cries, less staccato, sounded like ‘wee’. Perhaps he needed to pee; he was so terribly puffed-up, so obviously waterlogged. Perhaps he was also in pain, needed to be taken out of the confining car seat. Besides, there was no way she could drive again with the child screaming the way he had.
Lisa unstrapped her child. He offered no resistance but stayed motionless, silent, staring beyond her.
‘Time to get out, Jansy.’
The head remained impassive, glazed eyes not focused.
‘Come on, Jansy. You need to go wee-wees and then we’re going for a walk. You’ll like the woods.’
He sat, fat legs outstretched, his arms unmoving by his side. Lisa pulled on the walking reins around his body. As soon as she relaxed the force he simply tumbled back. He seemed unable to move.
‘Come on, Jansy. Help Mummy get you out.’
She moved him slightly and his foot wedged inside the seat.
‘We’ve got to try!’ Lisa was almost ready to scream herself. She took a deep breath, bent her knees and attempted to lift the child out. He seemed wedged where he was, immobile, his eyes showing pain.
‘He is a big one, isn’t he?’ the young man smiled, parking his bicycle, a pair of greyhounds halting at his side. ‘Can I give you a hand?’
Lisa flashed teeth at him as he, using a young man’s strength, eventually managed to lever Janus out and hand him to her.
‘Hold on a mo’,’ he said, eyeing the style. ‘I’d better help you over that as well.’
‘Thanks,’ Lisa called after him. His dogs had moved off at a rapid pace and he was keeping up with them.
‘Any time!’ he called back, waving tan leather. He’d let the dogs roam free.
Janus was standing, stolid, on the style. Lisa grasped hold of him, all forty pounds, heaved him into her arms and walked unsteadily into a small track at the side. The child began to moan, to kick at her arms.
‘Stop it, Jansy. We’ve got to go further in,’ she told him, clinging on in spite of leg lunges into her abdomen. Changing tactics, Janus clawed at branches above him, began to tear at his clothes. They were a few yards into the woods now and, branching off into an even smaller track, Lisa searched desperately for cover. Her child was in pain, she had to help him. But what she suspected was about to happen needed to happen in privacy.
A stumble on a tree root brought her to her knees. Before she could balance herself Janus had tumbled out of her arms and into the soggy undergrowth. She grabbed the walking reins and pulled against the child, sinking down into woodland soil softened by decaying pine needles. Lisa looked around her. The spruces’ arms stretched overhead, blocked out daylight, and enfolded them in deep shadow. She grasped the child, now crying softly and pulling at his clothes, between her knees. Slowly, gently, methodically, she began to undress him, slipping the reins carefully under the clothes as she took them off, keeping the child secure. He made no attempt to fight her.
The naked child was now between her legs, the walking reins still round him, the earring still in his earlobe.
‘Keep still, Jansy. I’m going to take your earring off.’
Apparently he understood what she was doing. He made no further attempt to get away; he was going to cooperate.
Lisa undid the tiny clasp and removed the earring, then carefully slipped it on to her little fingertip. A lurching terror gripped at her. The child was naked. He could now clone. She could not stop it. That would be going against the child’s nature; it would be simple cruelty to do that. But this time it would be different, this time she was prepared. Prepared? She almost laughed at that, her face a twisted mask of fear and frustration. If she were right there’d be a second toddler this time: a child, a human being who could already speak a few words. How could that possibly be?
She didn’t know. All she could think of was that she had to allow Janus’s body to do what it wanted to. Even as she watched she could see him oozing around the walking reins. It would be torture not to free him.
‘I’m taking off the reins now, Jansy.’
She clicked them undone. The child was in front of her, naked, his body entirely free from any artefact. There was nothing she knew of now that would prevent him from cloning. He was, she saw, terribly swollen, podgier even than at the weekend - than this morning - than a few seconds ago! The time was ripe.
‘Go on, then, clone!’ she told him sadly, eyes wet, nose moist. ‘I’m not going to stop you.’
The child stood, motionless, and suddenly began to pee. A long, steady stream of liquid oozed out of him and she could dimly see the puffiness going down. Or was she imagining it? Had she imagined everything? Was Janus simply suffering from some sort of dropsy, and she’d chanced across the self-cure? Perhaps Alec had been right; the child was allergic to the gold earring and had swollen up because of that.
The stream of liquid continued, threatening her handbag and the little heap of clothes. Lisa pitched herself sideways on to her knees and lurched her body forward, shoving everything to the side. Though the light was filtered through dark greens Lisa could see the liquid was denser than urine, darker coloured. There was an odd chlorine-like smell. She sat back on her heels, almost convinced that nothing further would happen.
She drew a sharp breath in. When she looked at Janus again she saw his body, thinner now, bones showing, elongating sideways. Desperate, she rubbed her eyes and looked again. She saw the shape before her extend, broaden out. Tears cascaded down as she watched her son metamorphose before her. The rotund toddler of a few moments before was turning into an oval shape, arms spread wide. He stood silent, vacant eyes staring in front of him. As the shape continued to expand he lost balance, toppled on to his back.
Lisa felt a tight band drawing around her, a straitjacket of horror. It took all her strength to stop herself running away, to stay with her child. He was her son. She had to be there when the awesome act she was witnessing came to an end.
The pale shape was even wider now, the broadened head on top staring with eyes reaching further and further apart, fixed and unmoving. The mouth, Lisa saw, had become a huge round, gaping in a silent shriek. The whole form was spread-eagled on the ground. A shaking writhing motion rippled through it as the distended head showed a fissure forming at the crown. By the fontanelles, Lisa thought sadly, tears flooding her cheeks. And as she watched, every action played out in slow motion, a rift appeared, cleaving down, the bridge of the nose opening, splitting wide.
Riveted, unable to move her gaze, Lisa watched the neck divide, a snap of Adam’s apple, a moan from the little form as the collarbone burst forward, ribs lengthening out, dilating. A deep furrow channelled into the breast, running down towards the navel. Would his belly split open, its contents spewed over pine-needled earth? Would he die in agony before of her? Was Janus now too old to clone, the process gone terribly wrong?
As Lisa, unable to move, watched helplessly the long deep fissure reached the child’s genitals. There was a lurch, a rending tear as the shape split in two.
Lisa bent double, a pain inside herself, the pain of a mother watching, impotent, as her child is torn apart in front of her. Her heart pumped hard, adrenaline surged through and gave her the power to use her limbs. She crawled nearer the movements on the ground. There was no longer any doubt about it: there were two children.
Two heads, ears sprouting out between them; two pairs of eyes either side of a nose she recognised. Two necks, two trunks, two stumps of arms growing, like the horns of a snail emerged from its shell. Even as she looked, they sprouted to match the other sides. Looking down Lisa could see two small sets of genitalia, leg stumps emerging left and right, growing apace, becoming two completely formed bodies.
Two entities; two individuals who had taken on the look of two familiar toddlers, eighteen months, identical. Indistinguishable, in fact, from Janus; a thinner, unbloated Janus. There were two naked toddlers on the woodland floor, on their backs, side by side. They lay still, panting, then seemed to draw within themselves. To Lisa’s absolute astonishment they sat up, looked around, saw her, and smiled at her.
‘Mumumumum…’
Two toddlers gurgling at her. A vision of the day, so long ago now, when she’d had her pregnancy confirmed came back to her. She had seen this happen before, she realised. Seb, standing in the meadow, had held two wings of a fritillary. She understood now why he’d been able to catch the butterfly. It was in the act of cloning, unable to flee. She could no longer hide the facts of cloning from herself, pretend it hadn’t happened. She’d witnessed it.
This new form of reproduction was more serious than even she’d conceived of. It was clearly not confined to Janus. She remembered the clover: leaves multiplied, flower petals crowded tight. The phenomenon had already spread, had infiltrated the lower forms of life. Infected eggs, larvae, seeds: they were all set to proliferate, to become a random burgeoning of life which could not be restrained. It was happening all around them: to insects, crops, farm animals, even to wildlife. Were other humans involved, or was Janus unique? What should she, could she, do?
Lisa looked round. Had anyone else observed this unbelievable event? She could not know. The scene she’d witnessed had petrified her, slowed her brain. She hadn’t been aware of her surroundings, had simply watched, incredulous, as Janus turned into two.
She could still hear the young man calling to his greyhounds. The actual cloning must have been virtually instantaneous.
Two Januses were with her now: mobile, already sitting up, then standing side by side. And about to head, she guessed, in different directions.