41
Her voice startled him, cutting through the New Age music of a harp across breaking waves that wafted through the room.
‘What is it you are looking at, John? What are you trying to see?’
He pressed the shutter then turned to Naomi. ‘Phoebe’s now very definitely a miniature copy of you!’
‘That’s not answering my question,’ she replied tartly.
He looked away awkwardly, staring around the room. It was pretty and cheery; the high, beamed ceiling and west-facing dormer window made it feel light and airy, even on a gloomy morning like this. They had decorated it themselves, with candy-striped curtains, and a jungle frieze running around the walls.
It was Saturday morning. John had cancelled his regular tennis game with Carson Dicks because he had seen how exhausted Naomi was, and wanted to give her as much help this weekend as he could. Unlike Naomi, her mother was not very domesticated. She could barely cook, and most appliances remained enigmas to her.
She still lived a genteel life, and occupied herself working in an art gallery in Bath specializing in local, but obscure, water-colourists.
There were times when Anne Walters was extremely focused, but there were as many days when she seemed to be in a world of her own.
Lowering his camera, he put an arm around Naomi and hugged her. Through the soft wool of her jumper he could feel her ribs. She’d lost a lot of weight in recent months.
Outside, trees and shrubs keeled over in the strong March wind, and pellets of rain rattled against the roof. Heat from the radiator shimmered against the window. He hugged her even harder, protectively, watching Luke and Phoebe sleeping in their fluffy bedclothes in their cots just a few feet apart. He smiled, bleary-eyed, down at their innocent faces, at their almost impossibly tiny hands. Luke made a tiny cooing sound. Moments later it was echoed by Phoebe.
The room had a sweet, milky smell that he’d come to adore. The scents of baby powder, freshly laundered clothes, bedding, nappies and another wonderful smell that permeated everything, which seemed to come from their skin. The smells of his children.
The health visitor was really pleased at the weight they were putting on and with how they were doing generally. They were great babies, she told John and Naomi, beautiful, healthy, bonny.
So far.
So far.
And that one fear hung like a cloud stretching out to the horizon of his life. How long before they could be sure their kids were really fine and healthy? Before whatever Dettore had done or had failed to do showed up in them? What hidden time bombs were they carrying?
Sure, he knew, all parents had fears about their babies. Many of them the same kinds of fears he was having. But none of them had done what he and Naomi had.
Above him, a fairground carousel mobile hung from a beam, each of the animals swaying very slightly in the draught. Strung across each cot were threaded taffeta rattles, and in several of the books he had read it said that by one month old, each baby should have learned to get sounds from it. So far, they hadn’t shown any signs of interest. Not that that meant anything, he knew, nothing to worry about at all. Not yet, at any rate.
‘Are you looking for some sign?’ Naomi asked, her voice sour. ‘Are you waiting for a mark to appear on their foreheads like some kind of designer label, telling the world these are not just ordinary babies?’
He tried to kiss her but she pulled away. ‘Darling, I like to be up here with them as much as I can. I love just looking at them, talking to them, like it says in the books, the same stuff we did with Halley. Putting on music for them, playing with them when they wake, and helping you feed them, changing their nappies. I absolutely love being with them, really I do!’
‘I asked my mother if she ever talked to me when I was asleep in my cot,’ Naomi said. ‘She didn’t; nor did she play me any music. But somehow I survived. Guess I was the one that got away.’
Phoebe stirred, then Luke. Luke held out his tiny hand. John touched it with a finger and moments later Luke’s own tiny fingers curled around it, gripping it for several seconds. It was one of the most amazing sensations John had ever felt in his life.
‘See that?’ he whispered to Naomi.
She smiled, and nodded
Luke continued to hold his finger for several seconds, before releasing it. Then John leaned down and stroked each of their faces, one with each hand. ‘Daddy and Mummy are with you,’ he said. ‘How are you doing, little angels?’
Phoebe opened her eyes suddenly, and in the same instant, Luke opened his. It was uncanny, he thought, how they always seemed to open them at the same time. Both of them were watching him.
‘Hallo, Luke. Hallo, Phoebe. Hallo, darling angels,’ he said, shifting his position, encouraging them, as both sets of eyes tracked him. He saw the curl of a smile on both their lips and smiled back. Then he leaned forward and pinged the taffeta cord of Luke’s rattle. Both pairs of eyes remained fixed on him, but they stopped smiling.
He pinged Phoebe’s rattle, hoping to encourage her to reach up and touch it herself. But like her brother, she lay still, just observing him. Then after a few moments, as if they had grown bored, both babies closed their eyes in unison.
Naomi turned and walked back out of the room. John followed her, gently pulling the door to behind him, and leaving it slightly ajar.
As his footsteps retreated down the stairs, the eyes of both babies opened in unison. Just a brief flicker, then they closed again.
42
‘So congratulations, John,’ Carson Dicks said, raising his glass. ‘Here’s to your first few months.’
John rarely drank at lunchtime. He never usually even went out for lunch, preferring to eat a sandwich at his desk. But today Dicks had wanted to discuss the design of an experiment with him, and had driven him to a nearby pub.
A short, tubby man in his early fifties, with a crop of wild, fuzzy hair, an unkempt beard, and glasses as dense as the bottoms of wine bottles, Carson Dicks was any cartoonist’s dream caricature of a mad professor.
John raised his glass. ‘Cheers!’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
‘ Skal! ’
John grinned. ‘ Skal! ’ Then he drank a mouthful of the Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.
‘So, how are you finding life at Morley Park?’
He detached some of his sole from the bone with surgical precision. ‘I’m very happy. I have a great team, and the place has the academic feeling of a university but it doesn’t seem to have the politics of one.’
‘Exactly. That’s what I like. There’s some, of course, as there is in all walks of life. But here it doesn’t interfere. We have this huge diversity of departments and research, but there’s a great sense of unity, of everyone pulling together, working towards common goals.’ He paused to fork an entire battered scampi into his mouth, then continued talking as he chewed. ‘We have the pursuit of science for Health, for Defence, and for the far more intangible – and of course debatable – Greater Good. ’ He gave John a knowing look.
‘And how do you define the Greater Good?’ John asked, suddenly feeling a little uncomfortable.
Dicks swilled his mouthful down with some more wine. One shred of batter dangled precariously in his beard and John found himself watching it, waiting for it to tumble.
‘It’s something we haven’t talked about. A lot of people here did read that unfortunate interview you gave in the States. But of course, being British, no one wants to embarrass you by raising it.’
‘Why didn’t you mention it before?’ John asked.
Dicks shrugged. ‘I was waiting for you to do that. I respect you as a scientist. I’m sure you wouldn’t have done anything without a great deal of thought and investigation.’ He broke off a piece of his bread roll and buttered it. ‘And of course, I know the press must have got it wrong. Designer babies aren’t possible, not yet, are they?’ With a broad grin he again stared hard at John, as if for confirmation.