‘Ryan, Ryan… I get the picture.’
‘There are certain days when the Lord wishes us to act – certain pre-warning days, designated days-’
‘Where we mus’ be savin’ de souls of de lost. Warnin’ dem ahead of time.’
‘We are warning you, Irie.’
Hortense began softly weeping. ‘We only tryin’ to warn you, darlin’.’
‘OK. Great. I stand warned. Goodnight, all.’
‘That is not the end of our warning,’ said Ryan solemnly. ‘That is simply the first warning. There are more.’
‘Don’t tell me – eleven more.’
‘Oh!’ cried Hortense, dropping the phone but still distantly audible. ‘She have been visited by de Lord! She know before she be tol’!’
‘Look. Ryan. Could you somehow condense the other eleven warnings into one – or at least, tell me the most important one? Otherwise, I’m afraid I’m going to have to go back to bed.’
There was a silence for a minute. Then: ‘Erhuuummm. Very well. Do not get involved with this man.’
‘Oh, Irie! Please lissen to Mr Topps! Please lissen to ’im!’
‘With what man?’
‘Oh, Miss Jones. Please do not pretend you ’ave no knowledge of your great sin. Open your soul. Let the Lord let myself reach out for yourself, and wash you free of-’
‘Look, I’m really fucking tired. What man?’
‘The scientist, Chalfen. The man you call “friend” when in truth he is an enemy of all humanity.’
‘Marcus? I’m not involved with him. I just answer his phone and do his paperwork.’
‘And thus are you made the secretary of the devil,’ said Ryan, prompting Hortense into more and louder tears, ‘thus is you yourself laid low.’
‘Ryan, listen to me. I haven’t got time for this. Marcus Chalfen is simply trying to come up with some answers to shit like – shit like – cancer. OK? I don’t know where you’ve been getting your information, but I can assure you he ain’t the devil incarnate.’
‘Only one of ’im minions!’ protested Hortense. ‘Only one of ’im frontline troops!’
‘Calm yourself, Mrs B. I am afraid your granddaughter is too far gone for us. As I expected, since leaving us, she ’as joined the dark side.’
‘Fuck you, Ryan, I’m not Darth Vader. Gran…’
‘Don’t tark to me, pickney, don’t tark to me. I and I is bitterly disappointed.’
‘It appears we will be seein’ you on the 31st, then, Miss Jones.’
‘Stop calling me Miss Jones, Ryan. The… what?’
‘The 31st. The event will provide a platform for the Witness message. The world’s press will be there. And so will we. We intend-’
‘We gwan warn all a dem!’ broke in Hortense. ‘And we gat it all plan out nice, see? We gwan sing hymns with Mrs Dobson on de accordion, ’cos you kyan shif a piano all de way dere. An’ we gwan hunger-strike until dat hevil man stop messin’ wid de Lord’s beauteous creation an’-’
‘Hunger-strike? Gran, when you go without elevenses you get nauseous. You’ve never gone without food for more than three hours in your life. You’re eighty-five.’
‘You forget,’ said Hortense with chilling curtness, ‘I was born in strife. Me a survivor. A little no-food don’ frighten me.’
‘And you’re going to let her do that, are you, Ryan? She’s eighty-five, Ryan. Eighty-five. She can’t go on a hunger-strike.’
‘I’m tellin’ you, Irie,’ said Hortense, speaking loudly and clearly into the mouthpiece, ‘I want to do dis. I’m nat boddered by a little lack of food. De Lord giveth wid ’im right hand and taketh away wid ’im left.’
Irie listened to Ryan drop the phone, walk to Hortense’s room and slowly ease the receiver from her, persuading her to go to bed. Irie could hear her grandmother singing as she was led down the hallway, repeating the phrase to no one in particular and setting it to no recognizable tune: De Lord giveth wid ’im right hand and taketh away wid ’im left!
But most of the time, thought Irie, he’s simply a thief in the night. He just taketh away. He just taketh the fuck away.
Magid was proud to say he witnessed every stage. He witnessed the custom design of the genes. He witnessed the germ injection. He witnessed the artificial insemination. And he witnessed the birth, so different from his own. One mouse only. No battle down the birth canal, no first and second, no saved and unsaved. No pot-luck. No random factors. No you have your father’s snout and your mother’s love of cheese. No mysteries lying in wait. No doubt as to when death will arrive. No hiding from illness, no running from pain. No question about who was pulling the strings. No doubtful omnipotence. No shaky fate. No question of a journey, no question of greener grass, for wherever this mouse went, its life would be precisely the same. It would not travel through time (and Time’s a bitch, Magid knew that much now. Time is the bitch), because its future was equal to its present which was equal to its past. A Chinese box of a mouse. No other roads, no missed opportunities, no parallel possibilities. No second-guessing, no what-ifs, no might-have-beens. Just certainty. Just certainty in its purest form. And what more, thought Magid – once the witnessing was over, once the mask and gloves were removed, once the white coat was returned to its hook – what more is God than that?
19 The Final Space
So said the banner on the top of the newspaper. So proclaimed the revellers who danced through early evening streets with their shrill silver whistles and Union Jacks, trying to whip up the feeling that goes with the date; trying to bring on the darkness (it was only five o’clock) so that England might have its once-a-year party; get fucked up, throw up, snog, grope and impale; stand in the doorways of trains holding them open for friends; argue with the sudden inflationary tactics of Somalian minicab drivers, jump in water or play with fire, and all by the dim, disguising light of the street lamps. It was the night when England stops saying pleasethankyoupleasesorrypleasedidI? And starts saying pleasefuckmefuckyoumotherfucker (and we never say that; the accent is wrong; we sound silly). The night England gets down to the fundamentals. It was New Year’s Eve. But Joshua was having a hard time believing it. Where had the time gone? It had seeped between the crack in Joely’s legs, run into the secret pockets of her ears, hidden itself in the warm, matted hair of her armpits. And the consequences of what he was about to do, on this the biggest day of his life, a critical situation that three months ago he would have dissected, compartmentalized, weighed up and analysed with Chalfenist vigour – that too had escaped him into her crevices. He had made no real decisions this New Year’s Eve, no resolutions. He felt as thoughtless as the young men tumbling out of pubs, looking for trouble; he felt as light as the child sitting astride his father’s shoulders heading for a family party. Yet he was not with them, out there in the streets, having fun – he was here, in here, careening into the centre of town, making a direct line for the Perret Institute like a heat-seeking missile. He was here, cramped in a bright red minibus with ten jumpy members of FATE, hurtling out of Willesden towards Trafalgar Square, half listening to Kenny read his father’s name out loud for the benefit of Crispin who was up front, driving.
‘ “When Dr Marcus Chalfen puts his FutureMouse on public display this evening he begins a new chapter in our genetic future.” ’
Crispin threw his head back for a loud, ‘Ha!’
‘Yeah, right, exactly,’ continued Kenny, trying unsuccessfully to scoff and read simultaneously, ‘like, thanks for the objective reporting. Umm, where was I… all right: “More significantly, he opens up this traditionally secretive, rarefied and complex branch of science to an unprecedented audience. As the Perret Institute prepares to open its doors around-the-clock for seven years, Dr Chalfen promises a national event which will be ‘crucially unlike the Festival of Britain in 1951 or the 1924 British Empire Exhibition because it has no political agenda’.” ’