‘You actually believe all this stuff?’
‘Look at it, won’t you?’
But Ben shook his head and sat back down on the arm of the chair. Meg groaned and looked up at him accusingly with one tired eye. She was a dog who liked peace. Raising your voice in her sleeping area just wasn’t on.
Matt held up the pages again. ‘They think some families might lack a genetic code that counteracts the disease. You know, I’m wondering now if Grandma had schizophrenic tendencies. She had some strange habits – do you remember? But everyone in the family used to talk about her as if she was only a bit eccentric.’
‘I do remember her being rather odd, but that doesn’t mean a thing. It certainly doesn’t mean you’ll pass something on to the girls.’
‘You know, I’m trying to picture it,’ said Matt. ‘I can see myself, forever on the lookout for early-warning signs in Amy and Josie. It would be sensible, in a way – early intervention and treatment would result in the best prognosis. But what kind of effect would it have on the girls if we were watching all the time for telltale signs?’
Ben wasn’t sure who his brother was talking to now. He might as well be alone in the office with the dog.
‘Sometimes, I’m stopped cold by the thought that one of the girls could grow up to be like Mum. I might end up being afraid of my own child. At other times, I imagine what a relief it would be if my children turned out to have any other problem at all but schizophrenia. I feel as though I might be able to make some kind of deal with God.’
‘You don’t believe in God,’ said Ben.
‘No, I don’t. But it doesn’t stop me. It’s the idea of a bargain, playing with the percentages. I go over and over the figures in my head. Chances are, I say to myself, both the girls will be fine. And genes aren’t the only factor. Schizophrenia is only about seventy per cent inherited – which means thirty per cent is due to environmental factors, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘So if we knew what other factors could influence people … If we knew, we might be able to create a different environment, so the genetic switch wouldn’t be flipped.’
‘Matt, you’re making far too much of this. You said yourself most of what you find on the internet is rubbish.’
‘“Crap”, I said. A steaming pile of cow flop, if you like. But not this. You know this isn’t rubbish, Ben.’
‘You’re worrying about nothing. Your children are perfectly OK.’
Ben’s attention was caught by a movement outside. The window looked out on to the narrow front garden and the farmyard beyond. His youngest niece, Josie, was sitting on the dividing wall.
‘That’s what I’m worrying about,’ said Matt.
Ben tapped on the window so that Josie looked up, and he waved. She giggled, waved back, then blew him a kiss.
‘There is absolutely nothing wrong with Josie,’ he said. ‘Or Amy, for that matter.’
‘Do you remember before she started school, Josie had an imaginary friend? She used to say her friend was with her, and talked to her all the time.’
‘For God’s sake, every child has an imaginary friend at that age, Matt.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘That’s because you had no imagination.’
‘Thanks.’
Turning back to the window, Ben saw Josie poke her tongue out at him, perhaps because she’d lost his attention for a moment.
‘Does she still have that imaginary friend?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Matt. ‘Josie doesn’t mention her any more, not since she started school. But that might be because she realized other people found it odd, so she stopped talking about it.’
‘Or it might be because she has real friends now and doesn’t need the imaginary one.’
‘Do you think so, Ben?’
‘With the best will in the world, it was a bit lonely up here for Josie when Amy was already at school and she wasn’t.’
‘Time will tell, I suppose,’ said Matt. ‘But I have to find out the facts. It was me who made the decision to have children. Well, me and Kate.’
‘Have you talked to Kate about it?’
Matt ran a hand across his face. ‘I need to know what to tell her first.’
‘When you were looking up all this information on the internet, did you come across any advice? What do they say you should do?’
‘Talk to a psychiatrist.’
‘And that’s what you’re going to do, right?’
Matt sighed. ‘According to some of these websites, the genetics of mental illness will be much better understood in twenty years’ time. But there isn’t much chance of research having practical applications within five years – when it would be useful to me. Or useful to you, Ben.’
‘I’m not planning on having kids any time soon.’
‘You’re past thirty. You won’t want to wait that much longer. Men have a body clock, too.’
‘If you say so.’
‘What about that girlfriend of yours?’
‘Liz? We’re just … Well, we’re just going out together, that’s all.’
Matt raised his eyebrows and gave him a sceptical glance.
‘What?’ said Ben.
‘Nothing. I just think you’ve been different since you got together with her.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
His brother snorted. ‘Be that as it may. In the end, Ben, you’ll have to face the fact that no one can tell you whether a child of yours will be healthy, or vulnerable to schizophrenia.’
‘That’s one thing I’m not going to worry about,’ said Ben firmly.
A few minutes later, he left his brother in the office and went out into the passage that ran through the centre of the house. When he was a child, the passage and stairs had been gloomy places. He remembered dark brown varnish, and floorboards painted black alongside narrow strips of carpet that had lost its colour under layers of dirt.
Things were very different now. There were deep-pile fitted carpets on the floor, and the walls were painted white. Or maybe it was some shade of off-white. Kate would know the exact name from the catalogue. The wood had been stripped back to its original golden pine and there were mirrors and pictures to catch the light.
Reluctantly, Ben turned and looked up the stairs. At the top, he could see the first door on the landing, the one that had been his mother’s bedroom. After the death of his father, she had gradually deteriorated until the family could no longer hide from each other the fact that she was mentally ill.
Isabel Cooper had been diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia, and finally the distressing incidents had become untenable, especially with the children in the house. Ben shuddered at the memory. He never wanted to witness anything like that, ever again.
On a Monday night in October, Matlock Bath’s Derwent Gardens were deserted. There was no one to be seen on the paths between the flower beds and the fountain, no one near the bandstand or the tufa grotto. The sycamores along the riverside were turning golden yellow. Their leaves drifted across the paths, undisturbed by passing feet.
At the far end of the gardens, past a row of stalls under striped awnings, was a temporary fairground. An old-fashioned waltzer and a ferris wheel, a train ride, a set of dodgem cars, all silent and still.
A figure approached from the direction of the Pavilion, a man in an overcoat, walking along the river bank, past the jetty where boats were tied up ready to take part in Saturday’s parade. He wandered apparently aimlessly, kicking at tree roots, making the fresh, dry leaves crackle under his feet.
He passed the waltzer and ferris wheel and found himself near a small hut that served as a ticket booth for the rides.
By the door of the hut, he stopped. There was no one visible in the darkness inside. But still he kept his eyes turned away, gazing up at the tower on the Heights of Abraham, high above the village. That was the place he’d rather be, surrounded by rushing air, with the wind loud in his ears. But the hilltop amusement parks had closed for the day.
‘It’s done, then? All over with.’
He froze. The whisper might have come from the hut, or from the river bank behind him. Or it might have been inside his head.
‘Yes, all over,’ he said.
Beyond the hut, he could see the dodgems lurking in the gloom of their wooden circuit, like a cluster of coloured beetles. There was a Rams windscreen sticker on a Leyland truck, backed up on the other side of the circuit. One of the operators of the fairground must be a Derby County fan. He wondered if the truck contained the generator that ran the cars, bringing life to the beetles, making them crackle and spark.
‘You’re evil, aren’t you?’
‘Am I?’ he said.
‘Really evil.’
He was distracted by the sound of the fountain splashing. A spray of water caught by the breeze spattered on to the rose bushes. Tip-tap, like tiny footsteps.
‘I’m not listening any more.’
Laughter swirled in his mind, making him shiver. ‘Too late.’
John Lowther pulled his overcoat closer around his shoulders as he walked away, scuffing his feet in the leaves. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do next. And he wasn’t at all sure about the voice, that awful disembodied whisper. It had sounded like the voice of a child.