Chapter 27
‘Where’s Bestie, Mummy?’
‘It’s Saturday, Seb. You know that.’
‘Where’s Daddy?’
‘He won’t be back till late. I told you, we’re going on a picnic.’ Lisa opened the back of the Volvo estate she found so useful for the family, and piled in a picnic basket and her bag of bits and pieces. Four child seats were permanently anchored in the car – three behind her and one right at the back, leaving a small amount of room for luggage. ‘You sit between Jeffers and Jiminy, Seb. Jansy can sit in the back.’ She strapped them all in. ‘We’re going to Brean Sands. We can play on the beach and look for wildflowers on the cliffs.’
It was one of those glorious late autumn days that occur surprisingly often in Somerset. Sunny, mild, almost like summer.
She got into the driving seat and started out. The children all sat quiet. Jiminy, she could see in her rear view mirror, was nodding off. He seemed to need more sleep than the others. Seb counted the number of tractors they passed, Jeffers tried to repeat them after him.
Janus had bloated up again alarmingly in just ten days. Perhaps, Lisa conjectured, the pre-cloning had escalated because there was nothing fixed to his body. She was sure the time had come again. She was taking them to the beach because she was about to put her new theory to the test.
She heard Janus kick steadily sideways, squirming into impossible positions. She saw fat arms raised, holding apple juice, and heard him spit the biscuits he’d demanded. Lisa, exasperated and almost near breaking point, drove on regardless.
It was clear to her that he knew what she had in mind. She was sure he could read her thoughts. She ignored the sounds coming from the back, concentrated on her driving across the moors and down towards the sea.
They arrived to find the water calm and glittery, the short grass on the cliffs sprouting its mantle of vivid green. A small level headland was ahead, approached by a lurching track which no one else would be keen to navigate in the off season. The shore line here had rocks among the sand. Debris was strewn around. She drove the car up the sandy track towards a place which overlooked a stretch of sandy ground a few feet above the beach. No one else was about.
Lisa unstrapped the three boys in the middle seats and allowed them to run free. She released Janus from his car seat but carefully kept his walking reins on, holding him secure as she tried to formulate a plan.
‘Let’s build some sandcastles,’ she suggested to her little brood.
They trooped along cheerfully, scooped sand, toddled about. Seb built a sandcastle, Jeffers stuck shells all over it, Jansy was collecting stones. Stones - he could hit the others with stones! Lisa began to panic, an odd lurching of prescient danger flooding through her mind.
It wasn’t, apparently, what he had in mind. Janus set the stones out carefully. He selected different colours for different positions. The speed, the way he seemed to know precisely what he was doing, astonished Lisa. She watched him build a complicated looking honeycomb.
He looked up at her expectantly. ‘Dinnay,’ he told her, pointing. ‘Jansy make Dinnay.’
‘It’s very pretty, darling.’
‘Dinnay, Mummy.’
‘We’ll have the picnic now, shall we?’ she said. ‘Let’s walk over to the car to get the basket out.’ She grabbed Janus by the walking reins again, and firmly kept him by her.
‘You go first, Jeffers. Jiminy?’ She turned to see the little boy apparently still sitting on the sand.
‘He’s asleep, Mummy. Shall I wake him up?’
In her confusion she let go of Janus and ran towards the sand again. ‘Jiminy?’ she called, a spike of worry scratching her back. ‘Jiminy? Are you tired? Shall I carry you?’
The toddler just seemed to sit there. When she came up to him he smiled that glorious sweet smile that only Jiminy seemed to have. Love for the little boy came flooding over her. She scooped him up, raised him to her neck, and walked slowly towards the car.
‘Help Jeffers with the last bit, Seb,’ she asked her eldest son. ‘He might slip backwards.’
‘I’ve got him, Mummy,’ Seb shouted gaily. He loved to help with the triplets. ‘Shall I get Jansy now?’
Janus hadn’t moved; he was still busy with his stones. ‘No! I’ll see to Janus.’
The child looked at her solemnly. ‘I know how to do it, Mummy.’
‘Just make sure Jeffers is all right, would you Seb?’ Lisa said, softening her tone.
There was no need to help Janus. He scrambled up behind them, then butted ahead, elbowing into Seb.
‘Jansy!’ Lisa called, unsure how to control him while she was carrying James. ‘Don’t push!’
He turned; was that a wistful look? He seemed to be trying to shrug his clothes off.
‘Look, boys.’ Lisa, puffed from the short walk and herding the three boys in front of her, still carrying James, pointed to a stretch of inviting grass by the car. ‘Let’s sit down over there.’
The little boys began to troop obediently towards the spot. Lisa was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. The burden of coping with Janus, together with the secret she was hiding, were beginning to take a huge toll. She felt completely drained, almost lightheaded. Sitting down gratefully, she placed James next to her and called Seb to gather the others round. She put her arms around the little boy, did up his coat. Was it too late in the season, would he catch a chill?
‘Wee wees,’ Janus announced.
He looked strained, puffed, white. He was about to clone again: Lisa could sense it. She couldn’t face the consequences of another cloning. Not now; not ever again, maybe. She had to try the method she’d thought through. She prayed that it would work.
‘Wee wees!’ Janus repeated, urgent and loud.
Lisa grabbed the walking reins, pulled the loop around her wrist, and turned to Jeffrey. ‘Come here a minute, Jeffers.’ She pulled the child towards her and unclasped the gold earring. He didn’t need it. She’d use that one for Janus. She smiled at him, pushing him off, and turned to Janus.
‘All right, Jansy,’ she said, gathering him into her arms, holding him to her, kissing him.
‘Wee wees,’ he cried out.
Quickly she stripped the child naked and set him to pee. A long deep yellow stream came out of him. Lisa’s tears overflowed as she remembered Priddy Woods - and the bathroom scene of so long ago.
She let him pee for a time, saw the deep yellow turn even darker. Before he could finish she pulled the child to her, grasping his arms, and tried to push the gold earring back into his ear. He wriggled, twisted to get away. The odd yellow liquid sprayed everywhere. On Lisa’s legs, on Jansy’s clothes. She didn’t care. She had to get that earring in.
‘Mummy,’ Seb tried to get her attention. ‘Mummy! Come quickly! Jiminy’s gone!’
Her mind, in limbo between the world of reality and out of it, stayed focused on Janus. ‘Keep still, Jansy.’
He was still peeing, visibly slimming down. She struggled with the earring. The hole in Janus’s earlobe had grown smaller since Alec had taken the earring out, virtually joined up. Would she manage it in time? He couldn’t clone while she held on to him. Or could he? She shuddered. Perhaps, once the process had started, he couldn’t stop.
Even as she held tight she could feel the earlobe reduce. This was her chance. Resolute, she pushed the earring through. She’d drawn a small trickle of blood. That and their sweat mingled into a slippery ooze. She heard the click of the fastener shutting, and let the child go.
‘Mummy!’
Lisa returned herself into full consciousness of what else was going on around her. She noticed, alarmed, that the other two toddlers had wandered off. Where were Jeffrey and James?
Her body drenched in sweat Lisa pushed herself to her feet to follow Seb. The reins she’d taken off Janus were still in her hands - but he wasn’t! Then she remembered. She’d unlatched him to let him start the cloning process. She dashed back to the child and scooped him up. There was just one of him, and he was quiet now, submissive.
‘Jiminy! Jeffers! Where are you?’ she called frantically.
‘Jeffers is over there, Mummy, building a house.’
She saw the red-clad rear lifted high as he collected stones and shells to build some sort of fortress. Where was James?
‘Mummy! You’ve got to fetch Jiminy.’
‘What d’you mean, fetch Jiminy?’
‘He’s down there, Mummy. Look!’ Seb took her arm, walked her to the edge of the cliff and pointed down.
‘You mean he fell down there?’ She choked. She’d neglected her little Jiminy, allowed him to get hurt. The sweetest, most delightful of her children.
Seb pulled at her hand again. ‘Over here, Mummy.’
‘No, Sebbie,’ she gasped at him, feeling the dizziness of vertigo, not capable of any movement, forward or back.
‘He’s down there, Mummy,’ Seb assured her again. ‘He slidded down.’
Lisa cautiously approached the ledge, put Janus down, laid herself on the sand and forced herself to look at the rocks below. A heap of blue: the body of a toddler. Her Jiminy. How could she have been so distracted? Had Janus deliberately drawn her attention away?
Absurd. She was being utterly unfair. The child had been about to clone again; she’d had to counter that. It wasn’t Jansy’s fault. He couldn’t help himself, he needed her as much as her other children did. More, perhaps.
Lisa made herself get up, intending to run down the small path and on to the beach below. And then she saw that right beside her was a slide. A long sandy slide no doubt made by children in the summer months. That’s what Seb had tried to tell her. The child had used that.
‘Look after Jansy and Jeffers,’ she told Seb as she took her anorak off and sat on it, sliding down quickly, landing by the child on the beach. He half sat, half lay, quite still.
Heart pounding, disgusted with herself, appalled, she understood that the burden she was carrying had been responsible. It was too much for her, it was no longer safe to keep this harrowing knowledge to herself. She had to confide in someone, trust some other human being with her grim secret. But who was there to confide in? Crying and sobbing, she rushed towards the inert body and saw the child stir, sit up and rub his eyes.
‘Mummy,’ he said, holding out his arms and smiling at her.
He couldn’t be badly hurt, he wasn’t even crying. What was she thinking of? Was she really deranged, unbalanced? Why had she thought that he was dead? She gathered up the child, nuzzled into his neck, and covered his head with kisses. He gurgled at her. He seemed as chirpy as before, a cheerful little boy. Heart beats subsiding, satisfied at last, Lisa lurched up the short steep slide towards the other children.
‘I couldn’t stop him, Mummy. He slidded down.’
‘He must have been tired,’ Lisa said, uncertainly. Was something wrong with Jiminy? Did Morgenstein have a point and all three were allergic to metal? Afraid of damaging her delicate child she took his earring out.
Lisa could not shake off a feeling of danger, of impending loss. Dark forces, she sensed, were gathering again. This time she was afraid they might well overwhelm her.
‘We’d better get home,’ she told her quartet, first settling Jiminy into the car, then dressing a curiously docile Janus. ‘It was a bit too late in the year to come to the beach.’