The Testament of Jessie Lamb

by Jane Rogers

  ‘Isn’t it one thing to try and live differently, and quite another to volunteer to die?’

  ‘It’s the same cause.’ I stopped to look back the way we’d come. No one else had walked in that snow along the track, and we’d made two brilliant sets of footprints. I pointed them out to Dad. ‘Look. Great for anyone following us.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said vaguely.

  ‘Perfect crime,’ I said. ‘Walk with the other person to the top end of the reservoir. Kill them and take off their shoes, dump the body in the res. Then go back with their shoes on your hands making a set of tracks next to yours, as if they’ve gone all the way back with you. Perfect alibi.’

  He looked a bit surprised. ‘You’re not really serious, are you?’

  ‘About the alibi?’

  ‘About volunteering.’

  ‘Yes.’ Just because I didn’t want to drone on about it all the time. Sometimes grown ups are so pathetic, you lose all patience with them. You can be serious and then your mood can flip, and there’s something funny, you can lighten up. Adults plod along as if they’re weighted down with stones.

  ‘OK, let’s talk about the science.’

  ‘You’re not going to put me off.’

  ‘Fine. But since I do know about the science I think you deserve to go into this with your eyes open.’

  ‘Dad, you won’t lie to me, will you?’

  ‘Jesseroon.’ He put his arms around me and gave me a big hug, and quite suddenly, I was smashed by a cold wave of anxiety about the whole thing. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want him to see me cry. Dad kissed me on the forehead. ‘My poor wee nut brown maid. No lies. Just the facts, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Let’s start with artificial wombs. They were developing them before MDS, but now it’s a priority. You put an embryo in an artificial uterus, and it can be monitored and looked after in a stable environment. There’s no risk of receiving any infection from a human mother – and no woman has to sacrifice her life.’

  ‘Have they tried it?’

  ‘They’re close to a breakthrough.’

  ‘Then why is Mr Golding asking for volunteers?’

  ‘I told you, it’s in development.’

  ‘So they still might not be able to make it work.’

  ‘There are a number of strands to this, Jessie. Not only are there the artificial wombs, there are genetically modified sheep. Which is where I personally think the breakthrough will come. The sheep uterus is similar in size to the human, and there’s been some very plausible research to suggest that it might be possible to develop implanted embryos in modified sheep.’

  ‘Transgenic sheep?’ I asked him. ‘The ones that are half human?’

  He laughed. ‘Who told you they’re half human?’ According to Baz, they had these monsters at Wettenhall.

  ‘I read it somewhere.’

  ‘They’re just sheep with slightly altered genes. They’re indistinguishable from any other sheep. Just as woolly and just as dim. I know which I’d rather sacrifice, between a sheep and a girl.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to have to explain that your mother couldn’t come to parents’ evening because she was a sheep.’

  Dad laughed. After a bit he said, ‘Another angle, although no one in this country really wants to acknowledge it, is that brain-damaged or seriously disabled young women might be used.’

  ‘Why should someone who can’t choose – ’

  ‘I agree, not nice.’ There was a silence. ‘The other thing you need to think about, though, is that they’re developing better ways of helping ordinary women tolerate MDS. They’re testing cocktails of drugs which might help to delay the onset of symptoms. One day they may be able to sustain women through pregnancy without having to put them to sleep.’

  He was like a devil, tempting me.

  ‘All I’m saying is wait. Wait a year, give the boffins a chance to come up with a few answers.’

  But I know the younger I am, the better it is for a baby. Everyone knows that. I’d be trading a year of my life against a child’s whole existence. We came to the dam at the top and we had to scramble down that steep slope, to get to the path on the opposite side. The snow was really deep. I tried to step sideways for a bit then I ran in giant strides, and when I got to the path I stopped and waited for Dad to catch up. I could feel the lumps of snow in my boots, starting to melt and soak through my socks. The reservoir was black down at this end, deep and dark and peaty.

  ‘Why doesn’t it freeze?’ I asked him.

  ‘It’s moving, there’s water flowing in.’

  ‘It would be good if you could skate on it.’

  ‘Would you like to skate?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You could have lessons. We can go to an ice rink.’

  ‘They must waste tons of energy keeping an ice rink cold.’

  ‘You are a bit arbitrary, Jess. Don’t you think they use energy in SeaLife, heating and lighting all those tanks?’

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘Another thing,’ he said. ‘You need to consider the likelihood of a successful outcome. The survival of a baby.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ My feet were freezing now.

  ‘Lots of the Sleeping Beauties’ pregnancies fail. Either the foetus spontaneously aborts, or the woman develops MDS symptoms more aggressively than predicted, and the baby’s damaged – there are all sorts of things that can go wrong. But the survival rate for babies is creeping up, it’s about one in two now. Give them another year and it may have increased to two in three. Wouldn’t it be better to wait, for that reason alone? For that increase in your chances of a live birth? There’s nothing sadder than seeing these girls lose their lives for nothing.’

  ‘But 16 year olds have the best rates of all. Mr Golding told us.’

  ‘This will be a new procedure. It’s not the same as Sleeping Beauties.’

  I glanced at Dad. He was looking very carefully where to put each foot. ‘You think if I waited, I’d change my mind.’

  ‘That’s not why I’m saying it.’ He did look at me then, screwing up his eyes against the glare of the snow.

  ‘Alright,’ I said. ‘What?’

  ‘There are a lot of frozen embryos, but not an inexhaustible supply. And they are our only stock of potentially MDS-free children. So I think everyone will want to move slowly. There’ll be the initial programmes where they’ll implant a limited number of girls. But they’ll decide what to do next on the basis of the results.’

  ‘Results?’

  ‘How many children survive. If the vaccine is 100% effective. My guess is that most clinics will do one experimental batch and in nine months, when the first trials have produced results, doctors will compare and analyse those, and then embark on a second programme. Which, by definition, is likely to have higher success rates. These first volunteers, they really are the guinea pigs.’

  We both stopped walking. I was wriggling the toes on my left foot to try and get some life back into them.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’ll promise not to try and dissuade you, if you agree to dip out of this round and wait nine months for the next one.’

  ‘I’m cold,’ I said. ‘Let’s go back to the car.’

  ‘D’you want some cocoa?’

  ‘No.’ I set off fast in front of him, crunching through the snow, my eyes aching now from all the glare. I thought, when I get home I’ll sit in a hot deep bath and unpick everything he’s said. I’ll work out what to do, sensibly, on my own. I’ll make a list of questions to ask Mr Golding. I am not a child. But walking through the secret forest and trudging up all those steps, I was feeling sick and empty inside, as if all my hopes had been crushed.

  When we got into the car Dad didn’t follow the Ashton road, he turned off towards Oldham. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I’m taking you out for lunch. We won’t talk about it anymore, OK? Let’s just have a nice lunch and enjoy ourselves, Jess. All I wanted was for you t
o know the facts.’ He turned down the lane to the White Hart, which was a lovely surprise. We hardly ever go there because it’s wildly expensive. Their home-made veggie bangers and mash are one of my favourite lunches of all time, and also they have a fire so I’d be able to thaw my frozen toes. Then I began to have a little, trickling feeling of excitement, at the thought of all the things I could do if I had nine more months. Going on with college, and getting back to proper friends with Sal; making a vegetable garden with Dad in the spring; and – and Baz!

  There were only a few other people in the pub, an elderly couple and a group of businessmen having lunch. The old couple didn’t say a word to each other, and when the old man got up and shuffled off to the toilet, his wife carefully poured the clear drink from her glass into his tumbler of what looked like orange juice. She was wrinkled as a prune, with mad white fluffy hair, and when she noticed me watching her she nodded and smiled. ‘Perfect alibi,’ whispered Dad.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The pills he takes for his heart disagree with vodka. He’s on orange juice. She pours her vodka into his glass and he drinks it. She tells everyone he must have drunk hers by mistake.’

  ‘Half a glass of vodka wouldn’t be enough to kill him.’

  ‘You don’t know how many times she’s done it before.’ As if to prove him right, the shrivelled lady went off to the bar and ordered more drinks. The old man drained his glass in her absence. Dad and I giggled.

  When we got back to the house there was a nice smell of fried onions. Mum came out of the kitchen. ‘You must be frozen. I’ve made soup.’

  ‘It’s OK thanks, we had lunch at the White Hart.’

  ‘Oh.’ She stood watching us in the hall as we took off our stuff.

  ‘How’s she doing?’ Dad asked kindly.

  ‘Mandy? She’s still angry. It’s really hard, Joe.’ We went into the kitchen, and she ladled some soup into one bowl and sat at the table.

  ‘Is Caroline with her?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Yes. I had to have a breather. She spends the whole time ranting at me, because I sent that little shit packing. I’m ruining her life – ’

  ‘Look,’ said Dad. ‘Every day you get her through is a plus.’

  Mum shook her head. ‘She’s driving me mad.’

  ‘I’ll come back with you,’ he said.

  ‘Why did you go to the White Hart?’

  ‘It seemed like a nice thing to do,’ said Dad. ‘I didn’t know you were coming home.’

  Mum looked at me as if she hadn’t seen me for a while. ‘So has he managed to talk some sense into you?’

  ‘It’s OK, Cath,’ said my Dad. ‘We’ve had a discussion.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Just leave it,’ said Dad.

  I didn’t want them to start. ‘I’ll think about waiting a year, like Dad said.’

  ‘Right.’ Mum stared at Dad then bent her face to her soup. I hung up my coat and went upstairs. I needed to know there’d be a baby who was OK. I sat on my bed and looked up at the tree. I felt like a traitor.

  Chapter 21

  There was a blizzard of news about the Sleeping Beauty programmes, over the next few days – including stuff about the pre-MDS embryos. There were allegations that clinics were tricking girls into volunteering; that money was changing hands; even that girls were being kidnapped and drugged to take part in the programmes. There was a lot of publicity about the natural parents of the frozen embryos – how their rights were paramount, and how they might choose not to have their embryos used experimentally. I was watching TV to keep up with it all, and so I knew as soon as the Wettenhall film was posted.

  I checked it on the internet. It was gruesome – dark shadowy footage of a concrete building like a multi-storey car park, with hundreds of wire cages and the most pitiful creatures inside them. Terrified monkeys that clung to the bars and chattered at the camera; sick dull-eyed monkeys that rested propped in the corners of their cages, scratching feebly at scabs or at tubes that ran into their arms and legs; comatose monkeys that lay strapped down with wires and monitors wriggling out of them, their fur shaved back to reveal the raw pink skin. There were naked sheep wired up and strapped in place like astronauts in a space shuttle; cage after cage after cage, stacked high with misery. In some the animals lay sprawled in vomit, dead.

  I could see why Nat was angry. You couldn’t look at this and not be angry. You couldn’t believe human beings were responsible for this. I remembered Dad cheerfully talking about transgenic sheep, as if it was just science. Clean, tidy, painless science. Either he didn’t know what was going on, or, if he thought this was OK – well, I simply couldn’t trust him. I switched off the computer and went into the kitchen.

  I think at that point I was almost equally balanced between going ahead, and backing out. The nastiness of science, the drugs and tubes and machines, appalled me. If I gave myself up to it, I’d be no more than one of those sheep. And if, as Dad said, I might die and produce no baby – die for no reason … ugh.

  What would it be like, to die? I told myself it would be like the time before I was born, when I knew nothing, a dreamless sleep. But imagine not seeing sunlight. Not getting up in the morning and wondering what would happen today. Not feeling the soft cotton of my clean t shirt as I pull it over my head. Not getting that ache in my fingers from the cold water when I clean my teeth. Not swinging open the door of the kitchen cupboard with one hand while I press down the lever on the toaster with the other and my feet are jigging to some tune on the radio. Not seeing something bright – oh good, a flower! – in the back garden then realizing a fox has raided the bin and rubbish is spilled across the lawn and going out in my slippers to pick it up and feeling the cold damp of the grass soaking through at the edges of the soles and picking up the soggy mess and realizing that Mum or Dad has not only thrown away potato peelings which should go in the compost but also tins which should be recycled, and standing in the cold garden feeling irritated but also enjoying the fresh air on my face and the creeping chill at my feet and my head crowded with everything that’s going to happen today …

  Dying just didn’t seem possible.

  From the moment the ALF film was posted up, the news was jumping with it. The ALF claimed these animals were all part of the transgenic breeding programme. They had been doctored to make them capable of incubating human embryos. Large numbers of them had already been implanted with embryos, without the donors’ consent. People were flocking to demonstrations at the research lab – crazy numbers of people, enough to cause havoc on the motorway. There was something up at the airport as well, traffic was at a standstill all the way from Chester to Birmingham. I was staring at the helicopter views of the miles of cars when the doorbell rang.

  I wasn’t expecting anyone, I assumed it was post. But when I opened the door I had a nasty shock. Iain. I didn’t know he even knew where I lived. He’d locked his bike to the gate, and he was busy taking off his waterproofs. His face was pink and wet. ‘Hi Jess, can I talk to you for a minute?’

  I let him in with a sinking feeling. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. How are you doing?’ He dumped his cycle helmet and his wet things on the hall chair. ‘Can I borrow a towel?’

  I fetched the kitchen towel and he rubbed his face vigorously. The thought of kitcheny stuff together with his sweaty skin was disgusting. I wanted to grab the towel off him and put it in the wash. I turned quickly away into the living room, but he followed me. I muted the TV. ‘You know this is Nat’s lot?’

  ‘Yes. A happy conjunction of protests – that one and the airport. The police will be stretched.’

  ‘The YOFI airport protest?’

  He nodded. ‘Finally got off the ground.’

  I could tell he’d said it before. ‘Haha.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, sitting down. ‘It’s been hard maintaining momentum. YOFI’s very much reduced. People dipped in and then dipped out.’

  ‘I – I got fed up of all
the arguing.’

  ‘I know. I always knew you really believed in the group Jess. I was sorry you left.’ He stared at me evenly with his calm hypnotic Iain-stare, until I felt really bad at letting him down.

  ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘you need a critical mass to keep a group like YOFI going. I still believe it can achieve a lot, but not as a single group. I want YOFI to affiliate to London New World, and recruit a northern membership for them.’

  ‘That sounds good,’ I said. ‘A good idea.’

  ‘I knew you’d be pleased, because you’re a really committed person. I’ve heard what you’re doing, Jess.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Volunteering. The MDS-free babies.’

  ‘I’m not! It’s a secret.’

  ‘It is a truly heroic action. I wanted to tell you how proud of you I am.’

  Who had he got it off? Lisa? ‘Nobody’s supposed to know.’

  ‘Don’t worry, no one else in YOFI does. I’ve got a proposal to make.’

  On the TV scores of police vans were arriving, and riot police jumping out with their massive shields. ‘What?’

  ‘I want you to let YOFI handle the publicity surrounding your volunteering.’

  ‘YOFI? But I’m not even a member anymore.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Listen. The way the press are treating this is rubbish – patronising the volunteers, insulting girls who’re being incredibly brave. If we handle your publicity, I guarantee people will understand exactly why you’re doing it; that you’ve made a politically aware and responsible decision.’

  ‘But I don’t need publicity.’

  ‘Jessie, you’ll get it whether you need it or not. D’you want them putting words into your mouth, and pretending you’re some giddy young fool who doesn’t know what she’s doing? Or do you want everyone to know precisely that you care enough about the future to consciously decide on this selfless act?’

  ‘But why d’you want YOFI – ’

  ‘This could multiply the effect of your action tenfold, a hundredfold – can’t you see? Not only will you be rightly understood and respected for what you’ve done, you’ll be an inspiration to thousands of other young people, to work for world change. With you as our figurehead we can join New World from a position of strength. Members need to feel they have the power to change things. Other girls will volunteer. You’ll be their role model!’