The SDF team now had a transgenic female-to-male mouse (only one so far) with testes that produced sperm. There was something wrong: s/he still wasn't fertile. But the pace was heating up. Everyone was anxiously shadowing the work of the Melbourne team, their closest rivals. The team leader Down Under was a man called Pat McCreevy, an old sparring partner (or professional enemy) of Nirmal's, which made the race edgy. . . A new postdoc had come to Leeds Parentis, a young woman called Meg Methal, who was a union activist. She told Nirmal that Anna could make better money for shorter hours doing piecework in a clothing sweatshop and that he ought to get Parentis to pay her a fat royalty for the work she'd done on speeding up the machines. Nirmal considered these jokes in poor taste.
"You shouldn't let them brainwash you," insisted Meg, as she and Anna worked side by side. "I know how it works and it's all one way. Old Nirmal expects total loyalty from you, you won't get any bloody thing back from him, and I'm not being sexist. I've had women bosses, they're just the same—"
Anna let the chatter wash over her. She had been looking at DNA samples from the Cameroon pregnancy clinic. Just out of curiosity, she had decided to find out how they would react to her Transferred Y sequence probes.
It was there.
Impossible as it might seem, this young Cameroonian woman and her female fetus, chosen at random, seemed to have the Transferred Y chunk of bases, harmlessly inserted into a non-coding sequence on one of their X chromosomes. The hair on the back of Anna's neck prickled and tried to stand. What could it possibly mean?
"You say something?"
"Nothing, just muttering to myself."
Defy Nirmal? Demand more money and better working conditions? No thank you! Meg Methal was right, no doubt, but following her banner would be far more costly to Anna's career than the dominion of an autocratic boss. Besides, since the day he gave her back her honor, Anna had begun to feel for KM Nirmal exactly the loyalty that the feudal society of lab science demanded. She was a samurai, she must serve some lord or other. When SDF was in a less intense phase, she would talk to Nirmal again about Transferred Y. She knew he would listen. Until then, she bowed to his will.
Andantino
i
Wol and Rosey's birthday-Millennium-house party was held on Beevey Island in the Thames Estuary, in a Victorian gothic pile called Carstairs Lodge, which sat among the reed beds like an uprooted public library set down on an alien planet. The island was a bird sanctuary; when the Lodge wasn't being rented no one lived there except the warden. It was the second week of January, and the weather was not propitious. When Spence arrived, on the Saturday morning, rain was lashing the estuary, and there was half a gale blowing. Wol had come over in the birdman's launch to fetch him—along with Yesha Craven, Simon's girlfriend, who'd also been unable to make it for Friday evening. The shore party returned at an awkward juncture. Persons unknown had made a private midnight feast out of birthday delicacies, and Rosey had just discovered the depredations: missing bottles of Veuve Cliquot, nothing left of the pate de foie that was meant to go with the braised quail, the frozen soft fruit for Wol's famous pavlova vanished. There was no sign of Anna Senoz in the old fashioned kitchen. Spence scanned the faces, wondering if it were possible he didn't recognize her.
"Fucking outrageous!" yelled Rosey. "What kind of friends did I invite—"
Nobody was owning up. Those trying to get their breakfast moved about with cowed heads and lowered eyes, while Rosey turned her wrath on poor Wol, who would just have to go back over the river and go shopping—
"Look, Rosey," countered Yesha, bravely. "It isn't so bad. We'll survive—"
"That's not the point! The point is the disgusting, anti-social, intolerable—"
"I don't think I can get the man to take the launch out again," pleaded Wol. The island could be reached by car at low tide, but that wasn't any use at the moment.
Anna, with Simon Gough, walked in on this scene, dripping hard.
Spence received her arrival like a shot of liquor, like an infusion of warmth in his soul. Her nose was red. One black, soaked curl streaked her right cheek. He was both glad and sorry to note that she was wearing pants. He hoped she was the same Anna, knew he was a different Spence. If he'd timed things better he might have copped a hello how are you hug. Too late now.
"Hi Spence," said Simon, "Dig the dreads."
Anna smiled. "Hi, Spence."
She and Simon and Yesha exchanged glances and retreated together into the hall. And that would be the pattern, Spence realized, of this weekend that was already half over. Confusion: social blur with people he didn't know any more, no chance of making contact with the only person who mattered.
* * *
Simon and Anna had been early risers. In this gathering of smart, Bohemian young Londoners, a northern-nerds-in-suits camaraderie united them—though Simon had given up his doctorate and was now rich, working as a systems analyst for a power company. They had set out into the wind and rain, nerdishly determined to see the sea, since they were at the seaside, but had been driven back. In these conditions Beevey Island was no beauty spot. There was nothing out there but a waste of shingle, reeds, and brambles.
"I'm fucking glad it wasn't me got at the champagne," said Simon. Tall Yesha squeezed her palms across his rain-silvered head, shaking rivulets from her fingers. Anna remembered her from third year, when she'd been living in the house where Simon had his strange glass studio. She was from Birmingham; she'd been doing Media Studies. Now, according to Simon, she was into Modern Dance. She was immensely thin, muscular, and chic: almost as scary-looking as the Londoners. But her smile was full of unassuming friendliness.
"Fuck, yes. I'm terrified of Rosey."
"What about our Spence with dreadlocks," said Simon. "Hey, d'you think it's true about him being gay? Ramone says it's definite."
"What?" said Anna. The rabid one had arrived at the river pier in a very fancy gun-metal Porsche, with Daz and Tex, Daz's comicbook-artist boyfriend; a monkey on a lead and a parrot in a cage. She seemed to be in an angry phase: she was ignoring Anna. "How would Ramone know that?"
"Well, he's been living in Morocco. Didn't you know? Been getting the occasional email from him, from the weirdest places. You don't go to Tangier to pull birds, do you?"
Spence came out of the kitchen. "We need to dry off," said Yesha, hugging Simon. "Catch you later, Spence. Nice to meet yer." The couple hurried away upstairs.
The stained glass in the stairwell caught a fugitive ray of sunlight. Clear amber, from robes of an allegorical figure called Harvest, gleamed in Anna's eyes.
"Hey, Anna. I'm ridiculously pleased to see you."
She nodded. "You too. I mean me too. I'm all wet. I'd better go and change."
* * *
Saturday night was riotous, the banquet so splendid even Rosey forgot her losses. Anna slept well, eventually. When she woke it was bright daylight. She lay listening to the shouting of the gulls outside her window and thought she was in Regis Passage again. So Spence was gay now. Simon's cheery deduction seemed like settled fact, like something she had always known. Oh well. Thank God she'd found out before she made any dumb moves. It was still good to see him again: good to see they all, in spite of the whacking price tag. . . Rosey and Wol had always been expensive company. Veuve Cliquot, my God: and she would have to pay her way. Couldn't bear not to.
She went down to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. No one else was stirring. The Common Room, a huge cavern next to the kitchen, was strewn with remnants of the night's revels: a grey funereal mound in the log-burning fireplace; glasses, smeared plates on the long table; overflowing ashtrays. By the double-glazed French doors that overlooked the estuary stood a battered grand piano, open. Someone had been playing Gilbert and Sullivan.
Anna had gone to bed at four, after dazedly helping Wol to finish the crossword in a copy of the Telegraph that they'd found in the log basket. She remembered strains of the chorus of the peers from Iolanthe, rising to
her attic. She tried the keys: looked inside the piano stool and discovered an album of easy classical pieces. As she started to play carefully and slowly, someone opened the door of the room. Presumably the person retreated, because Anna felt nothing but quiet behind her. She finished her piece, turned, and stretched: and Spence was there, curled sideways in an armchair, watching her. He smiled. She started to play again, remembering Spence's inimitable laziness—
"How's Cesf ?"
"He's okay, I guess. I've been away you know, but Mom sends me bulletins. He's slowing down a tad. Getting kind of elderly." Spence's voice took a downward turn; it was a sore point. Why can't pets live forever?
"We're none of us getting any younger."
He laughed, as she had meant him to. The mean age of the Carstairs party was around twenty-three and a quarter. For the second time she reached the repeat of the phrase, so obvious and yet so tender, that led to the final resolution. There. Not good, but better.
"What's that called? It's lovely."
"It's by Mozart. Andantino, K236. I did it for a grade exam."
"I never knew you could play the piano."
"I can't, not really. I had lessons for years, but I haven't practiced in ages."
"Play it again?"
"Okay."
It was hard to believe that he had not seen her since they'd kissed goodbye, the night before she left for Greece with Daz. He had known that he still desired her, in theory. He had not known that he'd feel like this: that his breathing would slow and his mind grow quiet, simply because she was there. He felt like the Manchurian Candidate, as if someone had spoken the magic word and plunged him into a hypnotic trance. But what could he do? Not a thing, probably.
"What did you do for the actual Millennium?"
Anna shrugged. "Nothing much."
She had seen the new era in with Graham and Roz and Shannon and their friends. They'd gone out to cheer the municipal fireworks and returned to watch some of the wave of tv excitement passing round the world.
"Me neither. Did you think it was important?"
"Well, yes I did," said Anna, still playing. "For about a minute and a half. I thought maybe the heavens would open and God would say, come on you lot, time's up. But then I got over it."
He laughed. She remembered it had been easy to make him laugh—
"Did you enjoy yourself last night?"
"I suppose."
"I was proud of you, the way you tackled those charades."
"Oh, I was drunk," she said. "I don't remember much about it."
The music finished. Spence sat up. "It's not raining. I was thinking of taking a walk, to freshen my hangover. D'you want to come along?" At that moment, malignly on cue, in walked Ramone, with Tex the fake cowboy in tow.
"Hi there," said Ramone. After one mean glance she turned her back on Spence. "I'm glad you're not doing anything, Anna 'cos Tex wants to draw you. It won't take long."
"Got my sketch pad right here," drawled the cowboy, holding up an A4 cartridge pad. "Anyone have a pencil? Piece of charcoal from the fire would do fine." His little blue eyes roved insolently over Anna. "I can take her right here."
Spence had been wondering what he was supposed to do about the guy with the fake accent. Was it a joke? Was "Tex" on the run from the law? His amusement flipped, in an instant, into hatred. He stood up, feeling an urge to punch Ramone's hired gun in his smug, blond, stubbly, undercut jaw—
"Stay where you are, Anna," ordered Ramone. "Tex can have Spence's chair. Did you say you were going for a walk, Spence? I'll come with you."
Ramone and Spence walked out into the chill and fair morning. A track of packed shingle ran round the island, crossing the Carstairs Lodge approach. They followed this, the breeze in their faces. "It's turning out nice," said Ramone, with a baleful sideways grin. "This place used to be used to fatten up cattle, that's why it's called Beevey Island. Can't imagine it, can you? Are you pissed off with me? I hope I didn't interrupt anything."
She looked far more different than Anna. She had a prison crop with scarlet stencils, tight black jeans and a Celtic knot tattoo around her throat. But coming back to old friends is like watching trees grow: she was still Mr Toad in petticoats, his bad fairy.
"Why, gee no, Ramone. Interrupting what? What could have given you that idea?"
"Ha."
He had determined to march her right round the island (he had no idea how long this would take), in revenge for his lost chance. Ramone had other plans. As soon as they were out of sight of the house she sat down with a thump on the shingle, among the blue prickly weeds, the shards of bleached wood, the lumps of tar that looked like ancient shit. A flock of handsome black and white birds with orange bills rose from the foreshore and belted off across the sky.
"I've seen you looking at her," she said. "Oh yes. And her looking back. While the rest of those fuckers are yakking over the swanky food, you two have something much hotter going on. Don't think no one notices. It's touching. Like Alan Bates and whatsername in Far From The Madding Crowd. Whenever you look up, I will be there, and whenever I look up, you will be there."
Spence stretched himself out, after checking for oil turds. "Julie Christie. I didn't think she made a great Bathsheba. Too blah-pretty. I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen or spoken to Anna since my Exchange year. There's nothing going on."
"Yeah. Sure. How do you find her, anyway. Think she's changed?"
He thought about it. "Older," he reported, prosaically. "Poised. Lot more of what she had, which is the kind of confidence that doesn't have to push or yell or stick itself in anyone's face. I think she's been doing things that have proved to her that she's the person she hoped to be."
"Hnnph." Ramone poked Spence in the ribs with a piece of driftwood. "You think Anna is self-confident? You are so wrong. I'll tell you what Anna is like. She's an over-intelligent, literal-minded good girl. She believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Ten Commandments. She tries to be legal, decent, honest. . . and when she runs foul of the real world that expects her to turn her girly trick and take the money, she blames herself and tries harder. I'll tell you something, Spence." Another jab in the ribs. "You think I'm a pathetic raving in-your-face maniac, but I'm okay. It's women like Anna who suffer for being born female."
"Is that a fact?"
Ramone picked shreds of tar from the grain of her weapon. "It's a fact. You know, much as I despise my parents, I owe them. I've come to see they gave me something money can't buy. No one ever gave my Dad any shit and got thanked for it. When anyone insults me, I don't wonder where I went wrong. I smack them in the mouth."
He had never heard Ramone speak about her family. "Do you have brothers and sisters?"
"Several, my mum's favorite occupation was natural childbirth. They're all pigs."
He studied one of the glaucous blue-leaved shore plants, a thing so thorny and hostile you could read the cruelty of its environment written there, as if in mirror writing. "Did your Mom used to give your Dad shit?" he asked, casually. "Did you and the other kids?"
Ramone laughed. "Fuck off, Spence."
She continued her tar picking. Spence pictured Anna as a Dorothea Brooke, a highbrow young goddess hellbent on abnegation, taken in by some Victorian ideal of a woman's noble destiny. It fit ominously well. Had she found her Mr Casuabon, her worthless idol? Maybe she had. Maybe she was at this party on a handmaiden's weekend off. More birds passed over: big geese flying in formation, their wings making an exhilarating noise. They both looked up, faces briefly transfigured.
"Why'd you come back from Morocco for, anyway?"
"I got a job offer, working on the net: decided to take it up."
"Groveling to the bosses after all, eh? So now you're going to make your fortune."
"Nah. The only things on the net that make money are gossip, genealogy, and porn: the good old meat and potatoes."
Ramone smiled bitterly. "I noticed that. The mediation is coded female. I proph
esied that. D'you remember an essay I wrote, in first year?"
"Urn, no." He decided, since he was trapped like this, to make use of her. "Is it true about Anna and Charles Craft? Wol tells me they were an item, in final year."
Ramone gave him a strange look, dull and deep.
"Something happened to Anna," she said at last. "No one knows what. She was her favorite lecturer's pet. She was supposed to get a first, she had a prime postgrad place with her name on it. Straight after finals she headed off to Manchester. None of us heard from her for months, and she didn't get that great a degree. Then she reappears working for a baby-farming outfit (and I know she would never do that of her own free will) and doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone she ever knew. Daz kept trying to get her to come to London, but she wouldn't. I used to write to her from Paris. The only answers I got were fucking little good girl thank-you notes so I gave up. It was me who put Wol and Rosey up to asking her here. We didn't think she'd accept. Didn't you know about any of this, Spence?"
He shook his head. "Me, I know nothing."
"Thought you didn't. Knowing won't help though. You're not going to score. She's off sex. I know. I knew the moment I saw her."
Spence sighed in exasperation. "Knock it off. I don't have a relationship with Anna, except that she's an old friend I like and admire. But if I did I don't see how it's your business. What's Anna to you? You have a love-life. . . You and Daz and that revolting cowboy comic-artist. A hot threesome, I hear. Isn't that enough?"
Ramone grinned slowly. "Oh, more than enough: believe it. But you want Anna, so do I: and I'm going to win. Forget Charles Craft, Spence. I'm your rival, and the prize is Anna's soul." Glaring at him, she flung her piece of driftwood—obviously meant to represent Spence's chances in this imaginary contest. It should have plunged hopelessly into the sea: but Ramone could not throw, and the breeze was against her. It landed by Spence's feet.
Gwyneth Jones - Life(2005) Page 12