CLONER : a Sci-Fi Novel about Human Cloning (A Captivating Story about Reproduction Outside the Womb and Identical Humans) (18 page)

‘It really has got late,’ Betsy Beste was worrying. ‘I’m sorry I can’t stay to help you bathe them, Lisa. Mandy’s got her new boyfriend coming round. I promised to give them supper.’

‘Don’t give it a thought, Betsy. Geraldine and I can manage perfectly well, can’t we, Gerry? The triplets are one year old! And I’ve only got to give them a quick wash,’ Lisa said, shunting her foursome upstairs with Betsy’s help. ‘They won’t need anything more to eat.’

‘I’ll help Matthew put his gear away,’ Geraldine announced, her back turned to Lisa.

‘And I’ll make sure the kitchen’s clear for you,’ Betsy was reassuring her. ‘Shall I just help you undress them and pop them in the bath?’

Within minutes the little boys sat, all four of them, in the bath together. A flotilla of plastic ducks swam between them. Lisa caught her breath as she looked at her family. Four enchanting little boys, perfectly formed, lively, bright.

‘Aren’t they a picture?’ Betsy was kissing them goodnight, wiping away a circle of blackberry jelly smeared round Janus’s mouth. ‘And Sebbie will help you, Lisa,’ Betsy went on. ‘He’s always so good with the babies.’

‘Seb help Mummy,’ he told Betsy solemnly. ‘Help Mummy with more bwothers.’

‘Brothers, Seb.’

‘Bye-bye, Sebbie; bye-bye Jansy; bye-bye Jeffers; bye-bye Jiminy,’ Betsy called gaily, retreating backwards through the bathroom door. They all waved back at her, splashing their hands, then raising them again.

Lisa knelt on the bathmat and started to bathe her children. She sponged squirming healthy bodies, enjoyed their beauty, their energy. Only Janus seemed rather plump and puffy. She made a note that she would cut down on the amount of cereal she gave him.

There was no sign of Geraldine, she noted irritably. Taking her time seeing Matthew off, presumably. How could she have allowed herself to be conned like that by the girl?

‘Sebbie, you come out first.’

He splashed the water harder, hitting his flat palm against it.

‘Come on, darling. You’ve got to be a big boy today and help Mummy get the triplets to bed. Okay?’

He splashed his hand one more time, then dutifully got up and let Lisa lift him out. Standing beside the bathtub Lisa’s heart turned over again as she thought of the many times her little Seb had had to take second place in the last year.

‘You sing
Baa Baa Black Sheep
to Jeffers while I get Jiminy dried,’ she went on, rubbing the towel round Seb and brushing his hair.

‘Bababababa,’ Jeffrey joined in.

Lisa laughed at her little singing baby. ‘Geraldine will be with you in a minute, Seb.’ She brushed his teeth, then took the trouble to pull up the stool and sit him on her lap and sing a little song to him while watching the triplets splashing in the bath.

Pyjamas on, Seb ran into the guestroom now turned into the night nursery. Lisa could hear him tumbling on the double bed as he waited for her to bring Jeffrey in for him to sing to.

‘Gerry,’ she called.

There was no answer.

‘Gerree!’

She should have known Geraldine would be chatting up a good-looking young man like Matthew. She knew perfectly well the girl was man-crazy. However much Alec had denied it, hadn’t she seen her fluttering her eyelids at him, wiggling her hips?

Lisa brushed the thought aside. It was time to get the triplets out of the water. She couldn’t wait for ever, and they’d be getting cold. It really shouldn’t be impossible. Jeffrey first, towel him down and get him ready for bed. Then take him quickly through to the triplets’ room to be with Seb.

‘Come on now, Jeffers.’

The little boy laughed at her and clapped his hands. She couldn’t resist clapping with him, encouraging him. He was just as delightful as her Seb, she thought sunnily. Jeffrey was the one who liked to sing, Janus the one who used his strength. And little Jiminy always had a smile, and waited patiently while his stronger brothers clamoured for attention. So alike, and yet so different. Lisa rumpled Jeffrey dry on her lap, then slipped his nappy and red pyjamas on. Bouncing him up and down in time to his singing, she carted him off to his cot.

‘Can we play on the bed?’

‘No, Seb; it’s already late. Jeffers will need to calm down now. Bring him a rattle if he starts to cry.’

Her ear, attuned to noises in a room she wasn’t in, had heard odd sounds. There was an ominous sort of gurgling as she left the bedroom and started back along the hall. She began to sprint, suddenly aware that even a moment’s inattention could result in a drowning. Fear gripped her. She’d forgotten to let the bath-water out.

‘Geraldine!’ she shouted on her way. As she approached the bathtub she could see Janus - he was so much bulkier than the other two, no one could possibly mistake him now - leaning on top of James. The child was romping, over-excited by the party. He’d no idea how strong he was, how heavy, compared to his delicate brother.

As soon as Janus was aware of Lisa he turned around and looked up at her, big blue eyes wide, rubbing his wrist. He began to cry, but Lisa, worried about James, ignored him.

James surfaced upright as Janus leaned back and Lisa snatched him out of the water and on to her lap. She didn’t even stop to drain him, nor to take time to grab his towel. Holding him upside down, she saw some water coming out of his mouth, just a few drops. He appeared to be breathing normally, apparently none the worse for his tumble under water. Lisa glanced briefly at Janus, still rubbing his wrist. The silver bracelet was, she saw, cutting deeply into him.

That’s what it must have been. The poor little mite was in pain. The bracelet was too tight on him, she could see the flesh oozing round it. He’d hauled himself up because the bracelet hurt, and so pushed Jiminy under the water. The little silver fetters were beginning to bind. Lisa decided the time had come to take Janus’s bracelet off, otherwise it might actually stop the child’s circulation.

Leaning over, her lips brushing the top of Jiminy’s head as her arms embraced him protectively in his warmed towel, Lisa leaned down and unlatched the bracelet on Janus’s wrist. The deep red weal where it had been made her feel guilty that she’d left it for so long. It wasn’t really needed any more. She wondered how Meg had the heart to insist on Phyllis’s brace when it was clearly hurting the child. Worried what Frank would say. It had crossed Lisa’s mind before that Meg was oddly nervous of going against Frank’s wishes.

Janus smiled radiantly at her and splashed the water again, enjoying the expanse of bath all to himself. Lisa pulled out the plug and heard the gurgle of draining water.

She returned to James now wriggling on her lap. Nothing, apparently, was wrong with him. He gulped a little more water out, sneezed once or twice, then seemed to settle down. She readied him as quickly as she could. Dare she risk leaving Janus on his own? Surely he couldn’t come to harm now she’d almost drained the water.

‘Geraldine!’ she hollered again. Only the draft of the open front door and the sound of Duffers running in and out. There was no way she could get hold of the girl. ‘Seb,’ she called. ‘Come and take Jiminy for me, will you?’

He was still singing at the top of his voice.

‘Seb!’ she shouted, louder now. But James began to cry, and Janus to splash the water swirling away into the drainage hole, threatening to wet Jiminy’s pyjamas. She stood quickly with James in her arms and rushed him to the bedroom. ‘Play with him, Seb,’ she said, laying him on the double bed. ‘You can have a game with him while I dry Jansy.’

The one-year-old twined his arms around her neck, blew bubbles at her. Unwillingly she freed herself from him, tickled his chest, prattled to him and turned away. As she walked rapidly back along the corridor she heard loud slaps in the bathroom, shrill shrieks. Janus was an unusually rowdy baby.

She reached the door, exhausted, took a deep breath and leant against it. As she stood she could just make out the back of Janus’s head. Surely he’d been further down the bath? He really needed to be watched.

She froze. As she looked further along the bath she could see another child, his back towards her, turning to face her. Two babies in the bath, splashing the remnants of the water.

‘Jiminy!’ she cried out. The sound came out like a choke, strangled at birth. ‘How could you possibly get back in here?’ she whispered to herself as she leant back against the door. The scene in the nursery last year came back again full force.

The tots just burbled at her, clapping their hands, squeaking delight. Lisa gaped at the two children, then hurled away towards the triplets’ room. The suppressed memory was beginning to take hold and bring waves of panic.

‘Baa baa black sheep, Have you any – ’

‘Seb!’

He turned from the bed he was sitting on with James, in blue pyjamas, lying by his side. He was hugging his brother with his teddy.

‘Where’s Jeffrey?’

Seb glanced at her and started singing again. Lisa turned unwillingly towards the three cots lined up at the far end of the large room. Two empty. The third had a one-year-old, standing, clutching the bars, his red pyjamas intact.

She whirled around to look at Seb and his other brother. They were still on the double bed, James’s head on a large pillow, his blue pyjamas covering him.

Gulping for breath, Lisa dashed back to the bathroom. She could hear the splattering as she ran, and a peculiar sort of rattle - an odd, unusual noise - between the grunts of babyish effort.

She forced herself to look towards the bath and shuddered, noting that the child turning to look and smile at her was similar to the Janus of earlier on, like him but slightly different. As her eye went down his body along the bottom of the bath she gagged. The second baby was leaning forward, his back rounded, his face down. He seemed to be slumped there, inert.

Her heart thumped crazily as she swooped towards him and pulled his shoulders back. The eyes stared at her, just as blue as her triplets’ eyes - but lifeless. Horrified, she dropped the body back. The other child - Janus? W
as
he Janus? - had begun to cry, his arms stretched out towards her.

Lisa wilted on to the stool and laid her head against the bath edge. Was she overdone? Her imagination raised to fever point? Alec was right, she’d have to get more help. He’d warned her she was overdoing things … She must be hallucinating.

The crying baby in the bath grasped at the handgrip and hauled himself up to standing. Lisa could see that an oddly yellow liquid was clinging to him. One of the plastic ducks, its head partially blocking the outlet, must have been the reason for some water remaining in the tub. But why was it this odd yellow colour?

‘Jansy?’

The child was crying, catching hold of her, grasping at her clothing, hoisting himself up to her. And then she understood that he’d changed. He’d become smaller - thinner! That’s exactly what she remembered from last year.

A tiny hand grasped a finger, curled his own fingers around hers. She looked at his left wrist. There was no bracelet on it, and what had been puffed flesh around a deep red line just a few moments before was now quite smooth, with no sign of a ridge. The little head, its wet curls twining into ringlets, turned innocent blue eyes towards her.

‘Mumumum,’ he babbled, his hands imploring her to mother him, his lips curved upward.

His skin, Lisa noted as though she were an onlooker, detached, watching from afar, was beginning to crinkle. Presumably the effects of the long time he’d spent in the water.

‘Mumumum,’ his lips pleaded with her, small hands held out to her. Maternal instinct stirred within her. He was her child, her baby. He needed her. Whatever had happened, he was her flesh and blood, a part of her. Avoiding the inert body in the bath, Lisa lifted the baby blabbering at her and wrapped him in his towel.

She turned to see a small hand, limp and flaccid, peeping from below the body in the bath. So poignant, so like her other children. Her heart leaped up, choking her windpipe.

One hand hovered towards the shape, then recoiled. Panting with fear Lisa put forefinger and thumb down and felt a little leg. Moist skin. She let go and retched, then knew she had to overcome her horror, to act responsibly to preserve her family. She had to
know
.

She held Janus against herself, stood up, and stared, disbelieving, at the contents of the bath again. A one-year-old baby, hunched face down in the tub. Gold curls were massed, matted, on the back of his head, looking exactly like her triplets.

Keeping her eyes on Janus, Lisa tipped the little torso back, leaving the body lying face upturned. She began to focus on him from the legs upwards: a boy, exactly the size and development of Janus, though thinner. Janus was thinner now, she remembered with a shudder. Large blue eyes open, vacant: Janus, her mind signalled again, then turned to the living image on her shoulder, gurgling at her. The eyes in the bath were not remotely like the gleaming piercing penetratingly intelligent eyes of her first triplet. There was no spark at all.

It couldn’t be true. Her mind simply refused to accept the evidence of her eyes. Was it a waxen effigy? Had the conjurer played a fiendish trick on her? Almost laughing now she bent again to touch the body and found it all too fleshy. It was a real body. The unmoving body of a baby boy who looked exactly like one of her triplets. Except that he was dead; quite dead.

An inkling of her own, her children’s, mortality coursed through Lisa, caught at her throat, her limbs. She could not cope with this, could not breathe. She’d have to leave this room, this witness to the terrible events which made the future of her family look bleak and hollow. Head spinning, a pain across the eyes scratching at her, she heaved for air, unable to breathe normally. Without a backward glance she carried Janus to the nursery, instinctively pulling the bathroom door shut behind her.

Depositing him on the double bed she snatched up James and placed him in the cot lined up beside his brother Jeffrey. Two infants in two cots. The third one - he looked like Janus - on the bed; Seb singing.

Rubbing the third baby with the towel, shaking powder frenziedly around, she counted time and again. Two babies in the cots, one on the bed. Three infants: her triplets.

She was exhausted, must have seen double in the bathroom. Smiling now, scolding herself for being foolish, she cuddled the child in his towel, cooing to him, feeling him wriggle against her restraining arms, nestling him to her.