Authors: Peter James
‘And yet he persuaded you to have twins?’
‘He said nothing about us having twins,’ John repeated. ‘It wasn’t until Naomi was advanced in pregnancy that we discovered she was carrying twins. All the modifications we selected were of a very minor nature. We wanted to ensure our son would be reasonably tall. That he would have good eyesight, good hearing. We accepted an option that would enable him to get by on less sleep when he was older. Another that would give him more energy from less nutrition.’
‘And we agreed also to allow some enhancement to his learning abilities,’ Naomi said.
‘Less sleep,’ the psychologist said. ‘Enhancements to the children’s learning abilities. And now you are concerned because they seem to be up during the night, trying to learn more? What did you expect was going to happen?’
‘Not this,’ Naomi said. ‘We just wanted to give them a good start in life. We never intended turning them into—’
The psychologist waited patiently as Naomi bit her tongue.
‘Freaks,’ John said. ‘I think that’s the word my wife doesn’t want to say.’
‘That’s how you are beginning to view your children, Dr Klaesson? As freaks?’
‘Not freaks in – I guess – in a
circus
sense of the word. I mean in the sense that they are different to other kids. Almost – like – wired differently.’
‘I think they
are
wired differently,’ the psychologist said.
There was a long silence, then the psychologist continued. ‘If I’m going to be able to help you, you are going to have to be totally honest with me from this point on.’ She fixed her eyes on each of them in turn. ‘I want you to tell me – when you went to Dr Dettore – was he offering you some kind of a standard package?’
‘In what sense?’ Naomi replied.
‘In the sense that he had some kind of a deal that he offered to his patients – clients?’ She raised her hand and ticked her fingers in turn. ‘A certain IQ, a guaranteed height, specific sporting skills – did you get the feeling there were certain things that he could do that all went together?’
‘No,’ John said. ‘We had a huge amount of choice.’
‘Too much choice,’ Naomi added. ‘It was overwhelming.’
They took it in turns to go through as much of the list of options as they could remember. When they had finished, the psychologist turned to her computer screen for some moments. Then she leaned back in her chair and looked thoughtfully at John and Naomi.
‘I’ve been doing some research. Since I saw you at the end of last week, I’ve heard by phone or email from twenty-six child psychologists – all of whom are seeing children who were conceived at Dr Dettore’s offshore clinic.’
‘I thought this information is confidential,’ Naomi said.
‘It is,’ the psychiatrist replied. ‘And that’s why the people I contacted spoke to the parents about sharing the information and allowing me to make contact with them.’
She glanced back at the screen, then, putting her hands on her desk, leaned forward. ‘All the children are twins, and in each case this was a surprise to the parents. All have identical advanced intelligence, advanced looks for their age, and identical behavioural problems to Luke and Phoebe.’
John and Naomi said nothing for a full minute, both of them absorbing what Dr Michaelides had just told them.
‘Are you suggesting they are clones?’ John asked, feeling the sudden tightness of panic in his throat.
‘No. I had several of the parents send me photographs because I did wonder that. None of the children look the same.’ She smiled. ‘I see a lot of parents and children, and I can assure you that there are many very clear points of physical resemblance between yourselves and Luke and Phoebe.’
‘Thank God,’ Naomi said.
‘The same intelligence, the same advanced looks, the same behavioural problems with all the twins – how can that be?’ John asked. ‘We only selected a specific number of options – other parents will have made different choices – some a lot more radical than ours. How can the children all be so similar?’
‘Maybe for the same reason that you all wanted one child and ended up having twins?’ the psychologist suggested, with a quizzical expression.
Naomi stared back at her. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘That perhaps Dr Dettore had an agenda of his own, is what Dr Michaelides is implying,’ John said.
Naomi nodded. ‘You know, deep down I have felt that ever since they were born.’
‘Your Dr Dettore seems to have a pretty ruthless reputation among scientists,’ Sheila Michaelides said. ‘You just have to read some of his press interviews over the years to see a man with complete tunnel vision and no regard for medical ethics, nor any of his critics.’
‘You think he used Naomi – and dozens of other mothers – as a kind of unwitting
host womb
for an experiment?’
‘It is a distinct possibility, I’m afraid.’
John and Naomi looked at each other, both momentarily lost for words.
‘But this shouldn’t affect your relationship with your children,’ Dr Michaelides went on. ‘Even if their genetic make-up isn’t how you ordered it, they are still your children, your flesh and blood.’
‘Where do we go from here?’ Naomi asked grimly. ‘Into some tunnel of perpetual social experiments? Are Luke and Phoebe going to become lab rats to a global bunch of shrinks and scientists?’
‘What about the whole
nature versus nurture
argument?’ John said. ‘Dr Dettore told us that whatever we did with the genes of our child – children – that would only ever be a small element of it. He said the major part of shaping a child would always be down to us as parents. If we love them enough and care for them enough, can’t we in time influence them and shape them? Won’t it be my wife and I who matter more to them, in the long run, than anything Dr Dettore has done?’
‘Under normal circumstances I would agree with you to a considerable extent. I talked to you last week about
epistemic boundedness
, the way that humans are hardwired, and the limits of normal human brainpower. But the manipulative behavioural patterns of your children suggest that normal restraints of human existence are just not there. Your children at the age of three are showing characteristics I would expect to find in adolescents five times their age.’
She twisted the cap on a bottle of mineral water and filled a glass on her desk. ‘The most important thing for any parent is to
connect
with their child. To establish a bond. It seems to me that’s what you don’t have and it’s what you’re seeking. Is that a fair comment?’
‘Yes,’ Naomi said. ‘Absolutely. I’m their servant, that’s all. I wash them, feed them, clean up after them. That’s all I’m able to do – and it’s all they seem to want me to do. The other day Luke cut himself – but he didn’t come to me for a cuddle, he went and showed it to Phoebe. He never thanked me when I put a plaster on it.’
‘I think it might be helpful for you to speak to some of these other parents, very definitely, if they are willing.’
‘Are there any others in England?’ Naomi asked.
‘Not that I have discovered so far. But there must be quite a lot more out there that I haven’t heard about.’
‘I’ll speak to any parent, anywhere in the world,’ Naomi said. ‘Willingly.’
The psychologist drank some water. ‘I’ll see what I can arrange – but I must warn you, don’t set your hopes too high on getting any magical answers. All the people I have spoken to tell me the parents are in the same situation as yourselves.’
‘Have any of these children killed their pets, like Luke and Phoebe did?’ John asked.
‘I haven’t had in-depth discussions with many of them,’ she said. ‘But a pair of twins in La Jolla, Southern California, strangled the family’s pet spaniel after their father had complained about its incessant barking. They thought their father would be pleased that they had solved a problem for him. A pair of twins in Krefeld in Germany cut the throat of their family cat after their mother had screamed when it brought a mouse into the kitchen. I’m afraid it seems that the inability to distinguish between what is alive and dead may be a common trait. It’s not that they are wicked in any sense – more that they have a wholly different value system. What you and I think is normal, they can’t see.’
‘But we must be able to educate them, surely?’ Naomi said. ‘There must be ways we can deal with them as parents. That’s what you have to show us.’
‘I think it would be very helpful to speak with other parents,’ John said. ‘We should take her offer up, hon. I think we should talk to as many as possible.’
‘You obviously have happy, successful children, Dr Michaelides,’ Naomi said. ‘You probably can’t appreciate how – so – so bloody
inadequate
. That’s what I feel. So empty. It’s like I’m just some discarded container they hitched a ride in. I want the babies I gave birth to back, Dr Michaelides, that’s what I want. I want my children back, not as freaks, but as
children.
That’s what I want from you.’
The psychologist smiled at her sympathetically. ‘I understand; it’s what any mother would want. But I don’t know that I can give you that. Before you can move forward in your relationship with Luke and Phoebe, your goals are going to have to change. We’re going to have to do some redefining.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘In the first instance, it might help for you to stop thinking of them so much as children, and more as
people
. You hired a children’s entertainer for their birthday party, right?’ She stared at them.
‘You think that was a mistake?’ John asked.
‘I think you are going to have to change your mindsets totally. If you want to connect to them, it may be that you’ve got to start treating them as if they are teenagers, because that’s how old they are intellectually.’
‘What about their childhood?’ Naomi said. ‘And what teenager is going to be interested in them? This is just – I mean—’ She shook her head in despair. ‘OK, I know there have been child prodigies who have gone to university as young as twelve, but you read about them years later, and they’re usually burnt out by thirty. What you are telling us is that we should tear up the rule books.’
‘Mrs Klaesson,’ the psychologist said, gently but insistently, ‘there are no rule books to tear up. I’m afraid you and your husband threw them all out of the window the day you went to Dr Dettore.’
Staring through the car windscreen at the sodden countryside, Naomi thought, glumly,
January
. Those flat weeks after the Christmas decorations had come down, when all the joy seemed to have gone from winter, and you still had February ahead of you, and much of March before the weather started to relent.
Two o’clock; already the light was starting to fade. In a couple hours of it would be almost dark. As John swung into their drive, the Saab splashed through a deep puddle and water burst over the windscreen. The wipers clouted it away. Naomi stared at the stark, bare hedgerows. A hen pheasant scuttled forlornly along the grass verge, as if it was a toy with a battery that was running down.
The cattle grid clattered, then the tyres scrunched on the gravel. John halted the car in front of the house, between Naomi’s grimy white Subaru and her mother’s little Nissan Micra.
With the wipers stopped, the windscreen quickly became opaque with rain. Naomi turned towards John and was alarmed by how bleak he looked. ‘Darling, I know I’ve been against having anyone in to look after them, and last week I totally rejected Dr Michaelides’s suggestion that they go to some special school – but after seeing her again now, I feel differently. I think she might be right, that they need specialist care – nurturing – teaching – whatever they want to call it.’
‘You don’t think that’s admitting defeat?’ John said.
‘Us letting ourselves get down about Luke and Phoebe would be admitting defeat. We have to stop feeling we’ve failed in any way. We have to find a way to turn their lives into a positive for them – and for us.’
He sat in silence. Then he touched her cheek with his hand. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I really do love you. I’m sorry for all I’ve put you through.’
‘I love you, too. It was your strength that got me through Halley.’ She smiled tearfully. ‘Now we have two healthy children. We – we’ve—’ She sniffed. ‘We have to count our blessings, don’t you think?’
‘Sure.’ He nodded. ‘You’re right. That’s what we have to do.’
Ducking their heads against the rain, they hurried in through the front door. Peeling off her coat, Naomi called out, ‘Hi! We’re back!’
John could hear voices, American accents. He wrestled himself out of his wet coat, hung it on the stand, then followed Naomi through into the living room.
Her mother was sitting on the sofa, in an Arran sweater way too big for her, working on a tapestry in front of the television. An old black-and-white movie was on, the sound turned up almost deafeningly loud, the way she always had it.
‘How did it go?’ her mother asked them.
‘OK, thanks,’ Naomi replied, turning the volume down a little. ‘Where are they?’
‘Playing on the computer upstairs.’
‘Anybody call?’ she asked.