Inheritance: The perfect child is now possible, page 10
‘They broke the law to get ahead and now we’re all shouldering the burden,’ the shadow health minister railed.
JJ responded, ‘They didn’t break the law. There was no law.’
‘The laws of nature!’ he boomed, red-faced and livid.
Frustrated and exhausted, Adelaide was about to put away her laptop when a text bubble popped up on the encrypted messaging service, Zingo, with the subject line: Pregnancy loss hope. The words sent a jolt of electricity through her. The message had all the hallmarks of spam, but the hook was impossible to ignore. She gingerly opened it, and a video filled the screen showing a blue ocean and waving palm trees on white sand.
‘Have you suffered the crushing loss of miscarriage or stillbirth? Has it happened more than once?’ a disembodied voice asked.
The island scene morphed into an animated background of lilac hexagons and medical symbols that moved in a hypnotic pattern. A man appeared dressed in a white business shirt, white tie and doctor’s coat. His outfit had an opalescent sheen that gave him a holographic shimmer.
‘I’m from Genolux, a gene-editing clinic based in beautiful Cyprus.’ He spoke in a slow, confident manner. His expression was warm. His skin was as smooth as an eggshell. ‘I’m here to give you hope. Fear has stymied the most exciting progress …’
Adelaide slammed her laptop closed, fuming, thinking, How dare they? and then, How did they know? She thought darkly of the ovulation tracker and baby growth app on her watch. Yvette had warned her against downloading anything that measured her hormone levels. Fem-tech products marketed to women to monitor their fertility were notoriously sketchy. The data they collected was coveted by all sorts of iniquitous entities. But after four miscarriages, Adelaide had been unable to resist the colourful apps that gave her the illusion of control.
She deleted the Zingo message and blocked the number. Then she deleted her ovulation tracker. When Ollie arrived with her lunch, Adelaide looked at him with sad, serious eyes and said, ‘I think we should be very careful not to get pregnant again.’
*
‘It’s 10 am. Shall we take a look at that speech?’ Martin pulled Adelaide out of her reverie and ushered her into the conference room.
‘I’ve made it a bit more pointed,’ she said, handing him her tablet, with her stirring call to action loaded.
‘Oh, yes?’ Martin tapped the device. ‘Let me see.’
Adelaide held her breath. Martin scanned the speech for thirty seconds before saying, ‘Jesus, Adelaide, we can’t say this.’
‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘It’s all true and there are growing movements agitating to give dignity back to GMs. We need to be on the right side of history.’
‘That may be, but this is way too much too fast. Parliament moves slowly. It’s like an ancient, lumbering mastodon. You can’t force it to speed up or it will crush you.’
‘That’s very cynical. Why bother working in politics if you don’t think we can change anything?’
‘This isn’t lobbying for more hospital beds or better schools. A lot of people are still wary of modified people, especially in Melbourne, and you can’t really blame them.’
Adelaide folded her arms. ‘Modified people aren’t more violent than any other group in the population. The media just focus on them because they like to whip up fear.’
‘The media don’t need to whip up anything. There are forty-nine families who will never forget April 23.’
Adelaide sighed. ‘Claire Bryce Day.’
‘Exactly. You’re asking a lot from people.’
She looked at the speech. ‘I can soften it.’
‘You need to liquify it,’ Martin said. ‘I can see two, maybe three sentences you’ll be able to keep.’
She stared at the page, her throat tight with disappointment. ‘Which ones?’
Martin gave her a sympathetic grin. ‘“Welcome all” and “Thank you for your time”.’
*
As Adelaide trudged back through parliament house’s stone tunnel at the end of the day, she fell into step with Martin.
‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come across the street for a drink?’
Adelaide removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She was feeling deflated and grumpy and she just wanted to go home, but it seemed a good opportunity to try to muster some support from her colleagues, and distract herself from Ollie’s silence. ‘Okay,’ she said, and soon she was settling herself at their regular rooftop table that had a view of the white columns of Parliament House through the canopy of plane trees that lined Spring Street.
‘You know, I’m on your side,’ Martin said, tugging at his tie knot. ‘Those laws are horrible. But it’s my job to make sure JJ stays in office. I have to be a little bit heartless to stop those who are truly heartless from getting elected.’
‘You don’t give the public enough credit.’ Adelaide took one of the glasses from a tray a waiter delivered.
‘The public’s scared. To the average man on the street a person who has been genetically modified to be stronger, better and smarter is a threatening thing.’ In the waning daylight, Martin looked tired. His stubble was flecked with white and grey. He sipped his beer like it was a restorative potion.
‘I guess.’ Adelaide sighed.
‘Case in point.’ Martin nodded at Darren as he sat down heavily with a pint in each hand.
‘I hear you’re single-handedly overhauling the GM laws, Adelaide,’ Darren said.
‘I’m trying to. You don’t agree?’
He shook his head and slurped his beer. ‘I think the laws around GMs should be made stronger. It’s a safety thing. For them and us.’
‘Separate but equal?’ Adelaide asked.
‘You sound like one of those Pure Movement nuts,’ Martin said.
‘I’m just saying what everyone secretly thinks, and if you don’t face up to reality, you’re going to find yourself out of a job.’ Darren drummed his finger on the table to drive his message home. ‘No matter what people say in public, when they’re alone in the voting booth the truth will come out.’
‘People who underwent gene editing are just like anybody else,’ Adelaide said.
‘Your precious Saint JJ isn’t here, Adelaide, you don’t need to signal your virtue now,’ Darren said. ‘Anyone who’s insides have been rewired like a bad fuse box repair job is not like everybody else. And I think the parents of the students who were there on Claire Bryce Day would agree.’
Darren poured more beer down his throat, then grinned. His cocksure smirk ignited a fire of indignation in Adelaide. She was about to launch into a speech when her watch flashed, signalling she had a Zingo voice message. When she tilted her wrist, she saw it was from Ollie.
‘I have to check this,’ she said, standing. She left the rooftop and hurried downstairs so she could hear Ollie away from the din of the bar.
‘Sorry for the silence. I haven’t had reception,’ her husband’s recorded voice said. ‘The mine has gone into lockdown and they won’t tell us why. I’ll try to call you later, but I don’t know what I’ll be able to say.’
She called him immediately but his line was engaged.
Adelaide texted Martin: Gotta go. Thanks for the drink. She no longer cared about Darren.
As she made her way home, she could feel the beginnings of cramps in her back. She arched her spine to combat the tightening. She was unlocking her front door when Ollie’s name lit up on her phone. She answered on the first ring.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘It was the craziest thing,’ Ollie said. ‘They drove us out to the testing station in the middle of nowhere for a virus test. They wouldn’t let us leave. We had to spend three nights in a remote, makeshift clinic and I didn’t have my charger. There was no explanation.’
‘They’ve never done anything like that before, have they?’
‘Never. And get this – the guy who did the test was a military doctor.’
‘What?’
‘Since then, it’s been impossible to get a phone signal.’
‘I can’t believe they isolated you for three nights.’
‘I kept demanding to be able to call you, but they invoked the Contagion Act.’
The words filled Adelaide with dread. ‘National security.’ She bit her lip, thinking again about the case in Darwin.
‘Hey.’ Ollie’s voice was gentle. ‘Don’t worry, everything seems to be back to normal now, apart from the connectivity issues. But that’s not that out of the ordinary. How was your week?’
Adelaide told Ollie about the meeting at Jeremy’s and how she had rewritten the speech. As they spoke, the claws of pain that had seized her back loosened their grip.
‘I wish you weren’t so far away,’ she said. ‘I’d feel so much better about all of this strangeness if I could just see you.’
‘I know. Me too. But remember why we’re doing this.’
‘Cyprus.’
‘Yes. Love you, miss you,’ he said.
‘Miss you too,’ she said, and then the line went dead.
*
The next morning, Adelaide messaged Martin to say she wanted to work remotely and headed to Charlie’s, jogging, then running as she got closer. Ollie’s mention of the Contagion Act, a law designed to protect the nation against biothreats, had filled her with a sense of urgency. She had to tell Charlie about the mystery virus testing in the desert and Darwin too. She needed to know if he’d heard anything. But when she tried the chain on the wire gate, she found it locked. Alarmed, she grabbed hold of the fence and began to climb, vaulting herself over the top. She dropped onto the other side, and made her way down the pathway, breaking into a jog as she neared Charlie’s truck. The lights were off, but she heard movement inside.
‘Charlie!’ She rapped on the window. ‘Charlie! Are you all right?’
Her friend slid open the window. He looked as if he hadn’t slept. Adelaide gasped. Behind him, shelves had been smashed. Pots upturned. The place had been ransacked.
‘Charlie, what happened?’
‘They raided me,’ he said, looking around at the destruction, still in shock.
‘Are you okay? Did they hurt you?’
‘No, they didn’t hurt me. They just wanted all my food. They told me they’d let me off with a warning if I gave them everything I had and the names of my suppliers.’
‘Did you do it?’
He shrugged, looking guilty. ‘I had no choice. They invoked the Contagion Act.’
9
Emily
In the days after Dougal died, Emily kept her curtains drawn, but the light slanted in through chinks in the fabric and gaps under the doors. She hid from it, sick with sadness, on the heavy red couch that had become her life raft in the aftershock. It had a dark wooden frame upholstered in a thick rose brocade the colour of claret. She clung to its familiar bulk, and spent her mornings curled up in the indentation that had been worn in long before she owned it. As the sun travelled across the sky over the course of the day and the blades of light came in at her at different angles, she shuffled to another part of the house, retreating from them like a wounded vampire.
The funeral was scheduled for July, exactly one month after Dougal’s death certificate had been signed. In the meantime, Emily had to isolate because she had been exposed to Epsilon. She couldn’t have visitors. She received messages and phone calls, but no flowers. An amber alert had warned the post office not to deliver anything to the flat lest the mail carrier pick up a rogue Epsilon spore on his shoe or shirt and convey it to everyone on his route. Cut off from the world, Emily prowled around in the shadows of their home, semi-nocturnal and mauled by grief.
Her moods were turbulent. Sometimes she would hug one of Dougal’s shirts to her chest, trying to recapture the sensation of having him close. Other times, the horror of what had happened would hit her like a high-speed train: blinding, crushing, unstoppable.
In rare moments of clarity and industry, she would sit at her desk by the window to close accounts and finalise bills. People always complained about the paperwork that attended death, but Emily was grateful for the tasks. She would strike a line through an item on her to-do list and think, at least I can do this for him. Funeral arrangements had to be made. She selected songs she knew he would have liked to have played. With tears rolling down her cheeks, she chose the friends who would be best to speak. Then, depleted, she returned to her spot on the old red couch and covered herself with a blanket.
As she languished in her flat, Emily wished, for perhaps the second time in her life, that she could call her mother. She needed Jean’s stoicism and her carbon-rod core to keep her upright. She imagined Jean sweeping around the flat in one of her black velvet jackets with gold tassels, refusing to let Emily wallow, and bossing her into action so that she would at least brush her teeth. Brush her hair. Dress in clothing that wasn’t elastic-waisted.
‘We have to put on a good face for the world,’ Jean would have said.
Instead, Emily lazed until mid-morning, wrapped in a knitted blanket on the couch, and stayed up late playing solitaire. She couldn’t sleep in their bedroom. She could barely set foot in there. As the clock hands crept towards midnight, the questions would start. Would Dougal have made it if she hadn’t gone to work that day? Should she have taken him to hospital the moment he got sick? Was it her fault? Had he been taken from her because she didn’t deserve him?
When she did sleep, she had nightmares about the Pure Movement. After the sun went down, images from their protest signs came to life. The worst was a jellybean-shaped foetus in its ghostly sac, which was being punctured by a weapon that was half syringe, half machine gun. Its nozzle dripped with blood and mechanical cells that ran in every direction, like ants whose nest was on fire. She’d jolt awake, gasping and crying.
*
A week after the worst night of her life, Emily was sitting at her desk answering a condolence email from Dougal’s boss when she saw her neighbour Ralph Taylor’s car pull up. The doors flew open and his three daughters tumbled out onto the footpath, as if from a clown car, lugging sports bags and backpacks. The littlest was wearing gumboots and a tutu. Ralph looked up to Emily’s window and waved, smiling. She raised her hand and curled her fingers, trying to remember, is that how you wave? Ralph’s smile fell and he lowered his hand, understanding. He gave a sympathetic nod.
Later that day, there was a knock on the door. When Emily answered it there was nobody there, just a casserole and a plate wrapped in a beeswax sheet. She lifted a corner and saw chocolate brownies covered in 100s and 1000s. Taped to the wax covering was a note in childish lettering that said, Freckle slice always cheers us up and we hope it cheers you up too. Love from your neighbours, Sybilla, Matilda and Cecilia Taylor.
The note was decorated with three wonky drawings of white doves, each slightly better than the last, like a triptych from a parenting manual that charted a child’s development. Emily had such manuals piled up next to her side of the bed, bookmarked and underlined. She tried not to think about the fact that she no longer needed them as she carried the food into the kitchen, took a bite of a slice and stuck the note to the fridge with a magnet. The drawings reminded her of another task she had been avoiding. She sighed. The deadline was bearing down on her, so she picked up her phone and dialled.
‘Welcome to the Well-Born clinic, how may I help you?’ Corinne’s voice floated down the line.
‘Hi, Corinne, this is Emily Monahan.’
‘Oh, hello, Mrs Monahan, we’re looking forward to seeing you again on Wednesday. What can I do for you today?’
‘Actually, I’m calling to cancel our … my appointment.’
‘Oh dear. With only two days’ notice, I’m afraid I have to charge your credit card for the consultation, as per our terms of service. Are you sure you have to cancel?’
Corinne’s voice was firm but kind. The query was routine for her. For Emily it was the gravest question she’d faced in her life. A lump formed in her throat as visions of chaotic family ecstasy flitted through her mind: a toddler running headlong into a flock of pigeons at a park; sudsy baths with plastic ducks; spoons being made to impersonate aeroplanes at dinnertime, carrying cargoes of pureed vegetables.
Emily swallowed. ‘Yes. I have to cancel.’
‘Would you like me to reschedule?’ Corinne asked, pert and sunny.
‘No.’ Emily closed her eyes. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘I have an opening on Friday,’ Corinne offered.
To avoid further probing, Emily told Corinne what had happened. It was the first time she had spoken the words out loud since the awful day of calls when she’d had to notify Dougal’s parents, his work, their friends and her own family.
‘I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing,’ Corinne replied softly. ‘I could tell he was a good man who loved you very much.’
This simple observation hit Emily like bullet striking bone. She braced herself against the kitchen bench. All she could do was nod and squeak in response. ‘Mm-hm.’
‘I’ve removed you from Wednesday’s list and of course I’ll waive the cancellation fee,’ Corinne said.
‘Thank you.’
‘Of course. Mrs Monahan …’ There was an awkward pause. ‘When a patient decides not to continue with our services, we ask them … in the gentlest way possible, to honour the agreement not to disclose any procedures you learned about inside the clinic. I don’t mean to be tactless, but it’s policy to remind people of the contract they signed.’
‘Oh.’ Emily was taken aback. ‘No, of course I won’t say anything.’
‘Thank you. I’m so sorry that this has happened.’
