Ark Baby

by Liz Jensen

  ‘There are three natural responses to any p-p-p-p-predicament of this n-n-n-nature,’ declared Dr Keith Eaves. ‘F-f-f-f-ight, f-f-f-f-flight, c-c-c-c-ollusion, or n-n-n-n-non-reaction.’

  ‘That’s four,’ I said.

  ‘I reckon it’s kinder to go along with it,’ said Norman. He and Abbie had taken the line – right from the beginning – that it would be unfair to burst the twins’ bubble. I disagreed; I thought it should be popped right away – if only I could pop it. I was a fighter.

  ‘Of these responses,’ Dr Eaves told us, ‘c-c-c-c-ollusion is the most dangerous.’

  ‘Hear that, Norman?’ I said.

  ‘Well, I happen to know that my wife really is pregnant,’ said Ken Morpiton, addressing the TV indignantly. ‘So what d’you say to that, Dr Eaves?’ We all exchanged a look. Ken was nuts.

  ‘I’m buggering off to my mum’s for a few weeks,’ confessed Ned Peat-Hove, taking the flight path. ‘I can’t stand it any more. All the nest-building that’s going on. The wife’s bought a buggy, and she’s knitting like crazy.’

  We all agreed – apart from Ken Morpiton – that it was exploitative of the babywear manufacturers to flood the market with all this baby paraphernalia that was going to be unusable. It’d all have to be exported to the Third World, like all that frozen beef a few years back.

  ‘It’s greed that started it,’ said Billy Clegg. We all – apart from Morpiton – agreed.

  ‘Subconscious, of course,’ I added. ‘We’re dealing with severe delusion here.’

  Ron Harcourt favoured the non-reactive approach, which Dr Eaves reckoned was the best way of dealing with the pregnancy delusion; neither confirm nor deny the fantasy. Not difficult, in his case. His Filipina, whom he’d ordered from a catalogue in the days when it was believed foreign women could be fertile in this country, was one of the few wives in Thunder Spit who wasn’t claiming to be pregnant. That was because she refused to have sex with Ron any more. He wouldn’t tell her he loved her. She couldn’t live without love. It had been a bad transaction. She was going back to the Philippines; she was fed up with him. She’d rather live in poverty with a real man, she said.

  ‘Well, what if they really do have babies?’ persisted Morpiton, shouting over the television. ‘What if the doctors’ pregnancy tests are wrong?’ I exchanged a glance with Ron. Morpiton spotted it, and swung round to poke me in the chest accusingly. ‘OK, Buck, so when did your two girlfriends last have a period?’

  This was true; the monster pack of tampons Abbie had brought remained untouched.

  ‘At least we won’t be suffering any more of that PMT malarkey,’ mused Billy Clegg. ‘But it’s funny, the way they all reckon they’re due nine months to the day after the Reward was announced.’

  Norman agreed that we were talking loony tunes. That five-million yo-yo Reward had certainly had an impact on the nation’s psycho-wotsit. ‘If you’ll pardon my German.’

  Not least in my own ménage. To celebrate the five million Euros – ten million, they reckoned, if they gave birth simultaneously – Roseblanche stole my credit card and went on a spree. Their bogus hormones had turned them into a couple of decorating maniacs, who felt the need to give my rented cottage a complete overhaul: Venetian blinds and a cloggy ochre paint-job in the downstairs loo, too close to shit-colour for comfort, peach and cranberry marble effect in the porch, reminiscent of dog-spleen, a Jackson Bollocky sort of wallpaper in the kitchen, three-piece suites with tassels and framed prints of arty-looking turnips bunging up the lounge. All my virtual Elvis concert tapes were relegated to the garage. As lust triangles go, it was expensive: within a month, they’d run me up a huge overdraft. Abbie, who took the collusion approach to their fake pregnancies, was the high priestess of taste, master-minding the whole operation from the John Lewis catalogue and cooking for the giant freezer she insisted I buy for her gals, to make honest women of them. The labour-saving device stood out in the garage, waiting to be fed with little cling-filmed dishes like a hungry gourmet animal. Meanwhile Norman would call round every day with his toolbox, exhorting me to call him Mr Fixit, and nailing me ever more securely into my coffin of domesticity. By the end of the second trimester, Thunder Spit was awash with waddling women padded with wind, cushions, or genuine fat. Rose and Blanche, who had opted for genuine fat, had swelled to such a size that they could barely squeeze through the doors; the way they shared the weight of their phantom pregnancies, it was like a triplet had joined them. They were still attractive, but only in the way that a sculpture fashioned out of pure lard might be. Like all the other hysterics in the town, they were enjoying their mock fecundity, and flaunting it. They’d all get together in a gaggle for the swimaerobics classes at the leisure centre, then converge on Pizza Hut, which had a special ‘Eating for two’ discount on pizzas.

  ‘We were born to breed,’ said Rose, as she and Blanche returned from their ante-natal session at the Baldicoot Medical Centre. There was another place that had cashed in on the crisis; it had bought St Nicholas’s Church and converted it into a surgery, where it ran both pregnancy classes and a Denial Group.

  ‘We want to start up a whole tribe,’ explained Blanche.

  ‘It’s a primal urge,’ said Rose authoritatively.

  ‘Since the time of Noah,’ added Blanche.

  A primal urge which had soon rendered us flat broke. As we neared the second trimester of delusion, Rose and Blanche kept buying things we didn’t need; endless electrical appliances – toasters, ghetto-blasters, bottle-warmers – for which Norman, the great colluder, had to come in and make a little shelf. ‘I warned you,’ he’d say cheerily, dusting down a high-chair or an ancient plastic bath-toy. ‘Double trouble!’ Then he’d leave.

  The twins’ bellies grew and grew, and eventually I was forced to vacate the emperor-sized bed for fear of being squashed to death in my sleep. I set up on the sofa-bed in the surgery, where the smell of praxin gave me queasy dreams – dreams in which the macaque Giselle would jabber at me, or whimper, or howl. Was her sudden re-appearance trying to tell me something? It was she, after all, and the terrible Mann woman, who had been the trigger for my arrival in Thunder Spit – a place of refuge, I reflected, which had quickly become a trap. I tried to analyse it. I pictured Giselle with her little upturned face and her hairy legs and her pink frock, but it still didn’t dawn on me.

  ‘A lot of m-m-m-m-men have been having anxiety d-d-d-d-dreams as we enter the f-f-final stages of the delusionary ph-ph-ph-phase,’ warned Dr Keith Eaves on Breakthrough. ‘Now I’m going to ask you to look at the c-c-c-c-components of your d-d-d-d-dreams carefully, and try to make c-c-c-c-connections. It might well be the k-k-k-key to the future well-being of your r-r-relationship.’

  Time passed; the lambing season turned to the cat-flu season and then the abandoned-dog season; as we entered the third trimester, I dreamed about Giselle with increasing frequency, and tried to make sense of it, as Dr Eaves had suggested, but was still none the wiser. Then, when I was shaving one morning and reaching for the towel, I suddenly made the connection.

  Giselle – monkeys – Eureka!

  Monkeys!

  My towel-holder! The Gentleman Monkey! Dr Ivanhoe Scrapie’s manuscript! The sketch!

  Money! How could I have been such a moron all this time?

  Thank you, Dr Keith Eaves!

  The Gentleman Monkey had become so much a part of the household furniture that I barely noticed him any more; he had become reduced to pure function. With all the upheaval over the pregnancy hysteria, I’d put Dr Ivanhoe Scrapie’s treatise to one side. Abbie had given it to me the very day the news had broken about that Gillie woman in Glasgow. I’d been meaning to do something about it and then –

  Christ. In all the madness about the twins being pregnant, I’d just forgotten about it. Now, I cursed myself for letting it slip to the back of my mind. Hadn’t I decided that this monkey might be valuable? Where had I put the treatise? Christ knew. I turned the house upside-down looking for
it, then discovered that the twins had shoved it under the kitchen sink, along with my animal-anatomy books and the bleach. I re-read it. It looked like this bloke really believed what he was saying. Just like Rose and Blanche really believed what they were saying. Not hoaxing: pure delusion. But the sketch of the Gentleman Monkey, and the claim that it was extinct – that was still exciting, as a prospect. A financial prospect. And a good reason to pack my blue suede shoes and hit the road.

  As their due date approached, I noticed with some satisfaction that the twins were finally beginning to fret about money. Perhaps it was about to dawn on them that they might not be about to get the Reward. They even began work on the genealogy chart again – a project they’d abandoned as soon as they were up the imaginary spout. It was the morning they presented me with their four-point financial plan scrawled in lipstick on a sheet of greaseproof paper that I decided that now was as good a time as any to bugger off back to London, take a break from country life, and research the Gentleman Monkey. I’d trawled the Internet for more information, but despite endless E-mails from enthusiastic primate-watchers, I’d been unable to locate anyone who knew about a creature of that name. There’s nothing like doing something in person.

  I re-read the twins’ list of objectives and sighed.

  1. Get genealogy diploma and sell roots charts to Americans.

  2. Apply for another grant increase from Dr Bugrov.

  3. Flog all our old junk at the car-boot sale.

  4. Give birth, and win ten million Euros! Hurray!

  ‘I’m thinking of going down to London,’ I said.

  ‘Fine by us,’ said Rose, holding up a little knitted jumpsuit.

  ‘Where are you going exactly?’ asked Blanche, putting the finishing touches to a mobile of dangling pastel bunny rabbits and bulbous butterflies.

  ‘To the Natural History Museum,’ I said. ‘To discover the origins of our increasingly fascinating towel-holder.’

  They looked at each other then, and made a face.

  ‘Funny, we’ve just been talking about that old thing,’ said Rose, sniggering. ‘Vis-à-vis our financial plan.’

  But she wouldn’t tell me what was funny. I went upstairs and packed my things.

  ‘Well, come straight back,’ they called after me as I left. ‘We’re due the day after tomorrow!’

  Along with twenty million other women, I thought, chucking the keys to my Nuance in the air like they do in films, but failing to catch them.

  I left with the sound of their stereo laughter ringing in my ears.

  CHAPTER 25

  ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE FUTURE

  Nature red in tooth and claw: who has not witnessed its very particular horrors? Who has not observed Mr Jaws the Beetle crunching up poor Mr Bobby Centipede alive, or Mrs Itsy-Bitsy Spider cannibalising her husband only seconds after congress, or Mr Moggy Cat (Here, Pussy, here Pussikins!) torturing and disembowelling the innocent rodent, Miss Squeaky Shrew? Call it bad design if you will, but this is life!

  So the idea of a natural carnivore such as Homo sapiens reverting to the allegedly herbivorous diet of his most ancient, primitive ancestors, on the grounds of ‘humanity’, is no more and no less than an absurd and sentimental whim. And worse, an argument without logic! Take it to its obvious conclusion, Mademoiselle Scrapie, ma petite chérie, and you will discover yourself not stepping into your vegetable patch for fear of crushing a garden slug, and holding your breath, for fear of inhaling an innocent germ! If Mr Darwin is right, then surely, the more we evolve, the more frequent, demanding, wide-ranging and imaginative should our visits to the butcher’s be! This is civilisation!

  So run the thoughts of Monsieur Cabillaud, the Belgian chef, as he stirs his pot of guinea-pig broth for Her Majesty’s luncheon. Yet he is grateful, paradoxically enough, for the illogical argument and sentimental whim that led Miss Violet Scrapie to lose her wits and boot him out of Madagascar Street. For what turn of events could have engendered a happier outcome?

  Being head chef at Buckingham Palace is not to be sneezed at. Jacques-Yves Cabillaud does not sneeze. He breathes in the sweetly scented air of simmered guinea-pig and freedom. Freedom to, and freedom from! What can be more sublime a thing than to have risen in a few short months through the ranks of Her Majesty’s servants, and now to be master of the best kitchen in the land, at a time when one of the greatest ever of Victoria’s famous feasts is en pleine préparation. Never more so than today. The Banquet approaches, and the Palace kitchen plays host to an odoriferous whirlwind of activity: filleting, sizzling, chopping, basting, kneading, and whisking in readiness for the event, which is, dear reader, none other than the Celebration of Evolution Banquet!

  Long live Charles Darwin, guest of honour and excuse for all this kerfuffle!

  Cabillaud smiles to himself. Will Mr Darwin recall him now? Will the great zoologist in whose honour the Banquet is being held, recognise in the rounded, confident form of the Queen’s head chef the vestiges of the seasick but ambitious young cook who once travelled with him on the Beagle? Unlikely, but tantalisingly possible. Darwin, after all, is an expert on the subject of evolution. And what is Cabillaud’s life-history, if not a dramatic example of personal transformation over time? What indeed is Cabillaud, dare he suggest it himself, if not a shining example of Nature’s quest for – and attainment of – perfection?

  ‘’Ere. Take zis.’ Shoving his wooden spatula at a callow sous-sous-sous-chef, Jacques-Yves Cabillaud points the minion in the direction of the steaming broth, and begins to pace the kitchen, reviewing for the umpteenth time his plans for the Banquet. There is to be a meringue castle, the preparation of which requires fifty dozen eggs. There are to be a thousand jellied eels. A tub of mongoose pâté. Five thousand oysters. Poached desert weasel. A whole field’s-worth of strawberries, to be glazed and placed inside individual puff-pastry moulds. Grilled dolphin. The biggest fruit salad ever made in the civilised world. Jackal mousse à la triomphe. Kebabbed cat. Fifteen hundred individualised amuse-gueules featuring zebra mince and coulis de tomates.

  Not to mention the Time-Bomb. The magnificent casing of which is being steered into position as we speak.

  ‘A bit to ze left!’ orders Cabillaud, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Now to ze right a little!’

  ‘No sooner said than done, sir!’

  ‘And now you will PUSH!’

  The hefty sous-chef heaves with his bristling fore-arms, and the giant clam shell – measuring a good fifteen feet across – wobbles dangerously, then topples into its pre-ordained horizontal atop the specially designed trolley. Jacques-Yves Cabillaud surveys the clam, a big rocky bowl of calcium deposits, with the critical eye of a connoisseur. It is rumoured that this clam once housed a pearl, a pearl so extraordinary that it has been squirrelled away to a secret pearl room, to which only the Royal Hippo has the key. But Cabillaud doesn’t give a hoot about the pearl. It is the shell that is his concern – and its safe arrangement on the trolley.

  Why, dear reader?

  Because it is to become part of his greatest work of culinary art to date – a work so ambitious that it will eclipse even the glory of his published tome, Cuisine Zoologique: une philosophie de la viande, that’s why!

  The bristle-armed sous-chef now stands back, sweating, and awaits further instructions from his master.

  ‘Now you will scrub it clean until it is gleaming!’ commands Cabillaud, patting its bumpy surface. ‘Until I can see my own face in it!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  Everything about the Time-Bomb must be perfect. Including its delicate mechanics. When Cabillaud had first heard of the extraordinary Mechanical Millipede, he sent out search parties to locate its engineer, an acknowledged genius.

  ‘’E must ’elp me,’ Cabillaud insisted.’ ‘’E will understand. Only ze best minds in ze ’ole country can do justice to my idée.’

  It was in this spirit of culinary idealism that the engine
er, Mr Hillber, of the Travelling Fair of Danger and Delight, was eventually tracked down, lured away from his regular work in exchange for a fat fee, installed in the servants’ quarters, and roped into Cabillaud’s grand plan. A major ingredient of which – the giant clam – now stands before Cabillaud, its rocky exterior about to receive the scrubbing of its life, its delicately coloured inner shell hidden, but gleaming with promise. The promise of secrets. The promise of a surprise within a surprise within a surprise.

  ‘What’s for pudding?’ Cabillaud used to ask his mother as a boy.

  ‘Wait-and-see pudding,’ the reply always came.

  Amid the clatter of pots and pans, and the hiss of fragrant steam, Cabillaud is once again eyeing the clam critically. It suddenly reminds him of his unhappy days of seasickness and seaweed aboard the Beagle, and he shudders.

  ‘All zis seaweed must vanish completely!’ he commands. ‘If zer is one sing I ’ate and detest, it is ze seaweed!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  Kashoum, kashoum, kashoum, goes the wire brush, as scraps of stinking weed, along with rotting mussels, limpets and barnacles fall to the floor. Kashoum, kashoum.

  Yes: the Time-Bomb requires extraordinary levels of commitment, negotiation, inspiration, technique, fervour, and plain honest elbow-grease. Pistons have been discussed at length, ink diagrams sketched on linen tablecloths, pros and cons weighed, decisions reached, abandoned, and resurrected; promises made and reneged upon; plans hatched and scuppered; hair torn out, nails bitten, brandy drunk, sleep lost, and floors angrily spat upon. Vive la création!