Taylor Five

by Ann Halam

  Pam’s hand slapped, crack, across Tay’s cheek.

  Tay staggered back, holding her face, staring at her gene mother in horror. Everyone else went very quiet. Chen came forward and took Uncle by the hand. “Come on,” he said in a subdued voice, “come on, old boy, let’s go.”

  The crowd broke up. Pam got hold of Tay’s arm and marched her back to her cabin, sat her down on the bunk, and went and shut the door. Tay set her teeth and glared. She felt stupid and childish and ashamed but she wasn’t going to show it.

  For a moment Pam said nothing. She seemed to be forcing herself to calm down.

  “Tay,” she said at last, quietly. “You have to stop talking like that.”

  “Like what?” demanded Tay.

  “I am not angry with you. I understand what happened. I understand that you just want to go home and there is no home for you to go to. You’re desperate about your mum and dad and Donny, and I can’t help you because I don’t know how, and then I said you had to go to Singapore and leave Uncle. I don’t blame you for trying to jump ship. It was my fault. I said the wrong things. I’m not used to being a mother. But you have to stop talking like that about Uncle.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Saying he’s not an animal.”

  “Why do I have to stop telling the truth?”

  “Because it’s not the truth! Uncle was brought up by humans, and he’s very different from a wild ape. He does things no wild orangutan would think of doing. But he’s not a human being. Tay, don’t you realize . . . ? This is a hideously dangerous situation for the apes. The People’s Army rebels burned the reserve to get rid of the foreigners. They’re extremists. But there are ordinary people in Kandah, plenty of them, who think it’s wrong that the orangutans have, or had, a great big reserve of forest that no one else was allowed to touch. If word gets out—and people do talk, even Lifeforce staff—that Lifeforce has ‘done something’ to make orangutans as intelligent as humans, if they think we want the apes to have human rights, what do you think will happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll tell you. The way things stand, we might get the reserve back, or another reserve. We won’t if the local people think we’re putting the apes on a level with human beings. Do you want the orangutans to lose one of their last protected homes? Is that what you want? Think before you speak!”

  “You’re trying to put me off,” said Tay coldly. “But every word you say makes me more sure I’m right. Uncle is not an animal. He’s a person, and you know it. I told you about the way he was. I told you about him talking to me, and reading—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. This is ridiculous. Tay, listen to yourself!”

  “I know you’re lying. I bet Lifeforce made Uncle the way he is for an experiment and then dumped him in the refuge, just the way you had me made and then dumped me. I was bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, but you didn’t want me. You say you love me, but I know you’re lying, because I know you’re lying about Uncle.”

  “Tay,” said Pam in a different voice, “I would not lie to you.”

  “If I had to be a clone, why couldn’t I be a wanted baby, even if I was only wanted to make my sister well. That would be better than being just an experiment. I’m not a girl to you. I’m an experiment like, like Frankenstein’s monster!”

  Frankenstein’s monster . . . Frankenstein’s monster. Tay felt as if she’d smashed through a great sheet of glass. She felt as if she’d vomited a great mouthful of poison. She had said it at last. She had said the words. Experiment. Monster. The cabin was spinning. Her arms and legs were shaking, she could hardly stand—

  “All right,” said Pam quietly and sadly. “If that’s the way you feel, I don’t think there’s anything I can say. I won’t try to change your mind. But you must listen to me about Uncle. You were under enormous stress, and he was your only companion. He gave you all he had to give. But are you sure you’re remembering things clearly? Don’t torment yourself, imagining things that aren’t so.”

  “I want you to get out of my room. If I’m allowed to be alone.”

  “Good night, Tay,” said Pam. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

  Tay had jumped to her feet when she was yelling. When the door closed behind Pam, she took the blue pocket Shakespeare from the drawer of her bedside table and lay down on the bunk, hugging it to her chest. It was her talisman, her proof of the reality of what she believed. Maybe Uncle didn’t read, maybe he had only turned the pages, but he was no different from a human being in his mind and feelings. She was sure of that.

  But most of all: she was sure that Pam Taylor was lying.

  Cold chills went down her spine. She had shrieked out the things she’d been thinking, but now the truth of it sank in. Pam is lying to me. She’s never lied to me before, not about the clone project or anything, but she is lying about Uncle. I can feel it. I can feel it in my bones, in my heart—

  Had Uncle been an experiment, like Tay?

  Unwanted, experiment. Her throat was tight with tears. Her whole world was crumbling. I can’t help Uncle, she thought. I’m useless. I should just give up. There’s nothing, nothing I can do.

  The next morning she made no apologies. She didn’t ask to say goodbye to Uncle, that would have been a sham. He was going to be in a zoo, and she was going to be in hateful England. . . . She didn’t even tell Pam what she’d decided about England, she just said she’d realized she needed help. She would go to Singapore and see the counselor.

  a Lifeforce helicopter came to the Marine and Shore for Tay. She took with her only her rucksack, holding a few borrowed clothes, the tattered pocket Shakespeare and a piece of yellow blanket. Pam was there to say goodbye, trying to make peace and saying this was for the best. Tay gave her a brief, polite hug. As the helicopter rose, she looked back and saw the coast of Kandah unfolding and spreading, until she could see across the savannah to the dark green tapestry of the forest, where the smoke of the great fires lingered. She knew she was leaving forever—but for the first time in many days her face didn’t feel stiff and tight from the effort of not crying. She felt calm, and maybe dead inside, but she wasn’t going to think about that.

  I can’t get you away from them, Uncle, she thought. I can’t save you. I have no power, and maybe you’re better off if people think you’re just an animal. You’ll forget me.

  She was to stay at Rei Van der Hoort’s house, an old Chinese mansion near the big wild park at Bukit Timah, in the center of the island. Aunt Helen was there to meet her when she arrived. They had tea together—Tay and Aunt Helen, and Rei and Rei’s husband, who was a banker; a big, quiet man with a kind smile. Everyone made polite conversation—as well as people can when the thing that has brought them together is something so terrible.

  After tea Rei showed Tay and her aunt to the room that would be Tay’s and tactfully left them alone. It was a lovely room, cool and airy: decorated in Chinese rose and green, with a high ceiling and a balcony overlooking the garden. Slatted shutters kept out the sun, but the glass doors to the balcony were open.

  “Are you staying here as well?” asked Tay awkwardly. She wasn’t sure.

  Aunt Helen was a pale, earnest woman, dressed in summer holiday clothes that didn’t match the shocked and solemn expression fixed on her face. “No, dear. The company’s put me up in a very nice hotel. Taylor, love, I’m so glad you changed your mind. Your home really is with us. Your uncle, and Lewis and Marcie, are all agreed. I’d like you to come back to Southampton with me right now. I mean, as soon as we can arrange it.”

  Tay had told the adults her decision as soon as she arrived. She had wanted it to be settled. . . . Lewis and Marcie were Tay’s cousins, both of them older than Tay. She’d met them twice. Once on the three-week holiday in England which she and Donny had both hated and another time that she didn’t much remember, years ago, when the Walkers lived in Geneva.

  “Oh. But—I can’t leave until I know what’s happened to Mum and Dad
.”

  “I know how you feel, dear. But we’d be in constant touch, and you could come out East again straightaway as soon as there was any news. It’s not as if money’s a problem. . . .” Her voice trailed away, her eyes looked very sad. Tay guessed she had been told that there was little hope that Ben and Mary were still alive.

  “Okay.” Tay’s face was feeling stiff again. “Whatever you like.”

  Aunt Helen came over and took Tay’s hands. “It doesn’t make any difference to us that you are . . . you know, a special test-tube baby. Mrs. Van der Hoort explained it all and it doesn’t matter. It’s not your fault. You’re Ben and Mary’s daughter as far as I’m concerned, and we want you with us. We’ll look after you and give you a normal life. You can go to Marcie’s school, you’d be in the year below her, and no one will know—”

  “Thanks,” said Tay. “I’m very grateful, I truly am. But I’d like to rest now.”

  Aunt Helen mopped her brow and looked at the shuttered balcony doors with a shudder. “It’s not the heat,” she said. “It’s the humidity. I’d never get used to the humidity, it drags me down. . . . Don’t you want the air-conditioning on, dear? Well, I suppose you will be all right here for the moment, but if you want to come to my hotel, you just tell them so. The company has a responsibility to you, poor girl. Don’t you think you should close those windows? There are all kinds of nasty bugs out there.”

  “I don’t mind the heat. I’ll shut my windows at night. Thank you for everything, Aunt Helen.” Her aunt made a sort of half approach, as if she’d have liked to kiss Tay: but Tay just stood there, so Aunt Helen smiled weakly and left.

  At dinner the atmosphere was more normal because Aunt Helen had gone and the Van der Hoorts’ children were there. They were subdued, out of respect for the awful events in Kandah, and because of Donny, but they weren’t completely solemn. After the meal Tay tried to escape straight back to her room. Rei Van der Hoort caught her on the stairs.

  “Tay, please, talk to me for a moment. Are you sure about this? You know, Pam was expecting to take care of you if—if anything ever happened to your parents.”

  Tay knew that Pam Taylor was her legal guardian if her parents were dead. But Pam had dumped Tay once, she could easily do it again. “I don’t think she’ll mind. Pam’s got her important work, and I want to make a new start.”

  “But Tay, you mustn’t give up hope. We don’t know anything yet.”

  Tay just looked at her. She couldn’t put the truth into words, but they both knew it.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want be rude, but I want to get away from Lifeforce.”

  “I’m . . . I’m beginning to think Pam was right,” said Rei. “We should have come clean from the start. You should have known. Now this trouble comes, and the secret you’ve just learned makes everything worse for you.”

  “Pam didn’t want the clones to be a secret?”

  “She thought we should have told the world when you were born. She said that way the media storm would be long over by the time you were old enough to care.”

  “I don’t understand why you didn’t,” said Tay. “Why do something so spectacular, and then keep it a secret?”

  “To protect you. I was born in Japan, Tay, but I am half Korean. I know how hard it is for a child to be an outsider. We didn’t take the step we did for the publicity—”

  “I’ll always be an outsider.”

  “Not in my house,” said Rei. “Here, you are family.” Tay saw that there were tears in her eyes. The chief of Lifeforce too was haunted and struggling with grief. Rei laid a hand on Tay’s arm. “There’s one thing, Tay, I must ask you. Has anybody else asked you this? Did Clint give you anything to take away from the refuge? He may have given you a disk? Or he may have hidden something? It’s important. Do you remember?”

  Tay shook her head. “He didn’t give me anything.”

  Rei nodded and sighed. “Ah, it was just a hope. . . . Tay, I suppose you’ve told Pam what you decided about England?”

  “No,” said Tay indifferently. “You tell her, if you like.”

  In the morning a driver came to fetch her. The grown-ups had thought the counselor ought to come to the house, but Tay had wanted the sessions to happen somewhere impersonal. The counselor’s office was on the forty-sixth floor of the shining, gold-glass Lifeforce Asia tower, near Keppel Quay. It was a spacious room, with a desk and filing cabinets at one end, paintings on the walls, and a sofa and armchairs by the windows overlooking the city. Tay found herself sitting in a peach-colored chair, facing a small, plump woman in a smart suit and a ruffled blouse whose name was Dr. Rosetta Soo-yin.

  Tay didn’t know what to say. How do you talk to a counselor?

  “Don’t worry, Tay,” said Dr. Soo-yin. “I know you don’t really want to be here. You’re doing it to please people. We’ll see how it goes, eh? I will ask you questions, and you will try to answer—if you feel like answering. That will give a structure to the session, and make the time go by. Maybe, when you know me a little, you will want to talk.”

  “All right,” said Tay.

  They started off with very obvious things that the counselor must already know. How long had the Walkers been in Kandah? Did Tay like living in the forest? Tay couldn’t bear to talk about the refuge, or Mum and Dad, and talking about Donny choked her up, so she just answered yes and no. It was easier when they moved on to the future. She didn’t mind telling the doctor that she wanted to go to England, that it would be a new start. She’d prepared herself for that part. They got round to Tay’s shopping list. There were so many ordinary everyday things that she had lost when the refuge was destroyed. She would have to replace them.

  “I’m going to need some money,” she confessed. “I only have a few dollars in my pocket-money bank account. I know I have a trust fund, does that mean I can get some cash now?”

  “That won’t be a problem, Tay. Did no one ever explain the money to you?”

  “Well, yes, Mum and Dad did. . . . I know I’m supposed to have money for later. But if it’s, like, payment for being a clone, I don’t want it. I just need some money for now, and I’ll pay the company back—”

  Her face had started to feel tight again. She’d thought she was safe, talking about shoes and towels, a hairbrush and a new phone. Now she was seeing the refuge clearing the way it had been after the fire, all burned, looking like an alien planet: and remembering the Walkers’ ordinary belongings, those innocent helpless things, all gone. Dad’s breakfast mug. Mum’s clothes, the tree frog Donny made—

  She stared at the carpet, her face stiff as a wooden mask.

  “Tay,” said Dr. Soo-yin gently, “I know it hurts very much. And I know that you are a strong, brave girl, and you will conquer this pain, just as you conquered all the dangers and the ordeals of your escape. You have done so well. Everyone you know, everyone who cares for you, is very, very proud. But listen to me, because I am older and maybe I know something about sorrow. If you fight and conquer the pain, you could be the loser in that victory.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “There’s something I want to suggest. There’s a medicine I can prescribe, because as well as being a psychologist I am a doctor—”

  “I don’t want tranquilizers. Or sleeping pills. I’m all right.”

  “It’s not a tranquilizer, or a sleeping pill. It’s something that will very specifically help you to deal with painful memories—”

  “I suppose you want me to forget about Uncle,” said Tay wearily.

  Dr. Soo-yin’s prettily made-up face did a double take. She looked bewildered, and then she said, “Ah, you mean Uncle the orangutan? The refuge mascot? I know he was with you. A truly faithful friend, and a great survivor like you, Tay. Why would I want you to forget about him?”

  “Because I’ve been saying he behaved like a human being.”

  “Hmm. Human? Well, the red apes are highly intelligent. Clint Suritobo used to say maybe more intelligent t
han anybody knows, because we are social animals and they are solitary and we don’t understand them. I’ve heard Clint talk about his area of study, it is fascinating. Your parents were also very experienced—”

  “I know,” said Tay. Her face was getting tighter and tighter.

  Dr. Soo-yin suddenly looked hesitant, as if she’d slipped out of the doctor role. . . . “Tay, since we are talking about Clint and the apes . . . Clint was with you, wasn’t he, all the time at the beginning of your escape?”

  “He saved our lives.”

  “Did he . . . did he give you anything to carry? Or maybe take something important with him and hide it from the rebels?”

  “No,” said Tay blankly. “We took food and water. There was no time, and Clint was hurt. We didn’t think about anything else. May I go now, Doctor? Or do I have to stay for the whole hour?”

  Dr. Soo-yin didn’t look offended. “Of course you can go. The session is for you, not for me. Maybe we will talk for longer next time. But I’d like to explain to you a little more about the medication I could prescribe—”

  Something broke down in Tay. “I don’t want you to give me your drugs.” She could not stop herself, she was on her feet, she was shouting. “I don’t want to lose my painful memories. The pain is all I have left. Don’t you understand? The pain is all I have left!”

  “That’s all right, Tay,” said the counselor gently. “That’s all right.”

  Tay hated the pretty little lady at that moment. But what she hated most was the feeling that Dr. Soo-yin was glad that she had made Tay break down: as if that was just what she had wanted.

  Tay went shopping with Rei Van der Hoort. She didn’t see much of her aunt because Aunt Helen didn’t like to leave her hotel, not even to visit air-conditioned shopping malls. That was okay: they’d be seeing enough of each other soon. She went swimming, in her new swimsuit, in the Van der Hoorts’ pool and lay beside the gleaming water, listening to the Van der Hoort kids at play; and to the insect sounds in the garden, the “nasty bugs” Aunt Helen had hated, that meant home to Tay. . . . She kept half hearing Donny’s voice, yelling as he bombed off the diving board: but she tried to tune it out.