by Amy Lilwall
Then Emma came along.
They could quite easily shut her up. She was pretty much alone in London, apart from the lot at the LOG, Hamish, her parents who kept calling her by her brother’s name…
Michael clicked his fingers from somewhere down by her ankle and Emma smirked as she bent to pick him up. Not quite alone… Now he would care if anything happened to her. She sat him on the desk and he looked at her, swinging his trousered legs.
‘Any ideas?’ She slouched forward to peer at him.
Two claps. No.
She imagined her Michael kidnapped or locked away somewhere and how frightened he would be; how frightened she would be… That’s exactly what would happen if ever she were ‘dealt with’. Especially if she were taken by surprise. The obvious thing to do would be to sit tight and keep quiet about the whole thing. What if he hadn’t even taken her? Ha! But then again… Her head whirred this thought around and brought it back to the starting position: what if he had and something happened to her? What if she died because he’d done something silly like tread on her or forget to feed her or… Emma breathed deeply and sat up straight. What a ridiculous thought, nobody died just like that. She smiled at Michael. Of course they did. She sighed. A big bird swooped down behind her eyes, plucking Blankey out of danger before soaring with her towards Mrs Lucas.
‘Family’s important, isn’t it?’
One clap, yes. Then Michael lifted a finger and aimed it at Emma. She was his family.
She snorted out a smile. She was his family; but… Was that something he’d remembered or something he’d learned? ‘What would happen to you if I got taken away?’ said her mouth.
He stopped playing with his buttons and stared at her, his eyebrows rearing upwards at each other, his chin pulling his mouth open.
‘No, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I was just being silly… We won’t lose each other again.’
The mouth smiled. The eyebrows lowered. Michael turned to lie on his belly, pushed himself onto his knees, then his feet. He stuck his arms out and wobbled, mouth open in the shape of a giggle, before tapping one foot clumsily on the desk. Swirls of twinkles blew into the air, spiralling in swooping flocks. He turned to her and clapped.
‘Not again?’
He clicked his fingers crazily.
‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘Playmate!’
The swirls descended and fused together to make the glowing outlines of three faceless virtual littlers; two green, and one blue. They twirled and jumped to the other end of the desk. Michael ran after them.
‘You’re a lot of help,’ she said, letting her chair spin so she was facing a vintage Plexiglas magic eye wall-hanging. A Labrador and a bone would protrude from its zigzaggy configuration whenever the searcher let their eyes glaze over it. Her one book, the notebook her father had told her to look after, was hiding behind it, wrapped in cellophane to trap its smell, and as she thought of it her nostrils filled with the earthy whiff of inky paper, her eyes imagining the sketches of a tiny girl, the recipes for arctic roll and blackcurrant coulis; the changing of handwriting, the sellotaped bunch of golden dog hair, the list of names: Bonbon, Jinx, Blankey, Fola, Mop, Note and Lamb… The book-smell curled through her limbs, into her fingers and the soles of her feet, a whole cabinet fattened with shiny book spines grew in her mind, as 2D as the bookshelf wall-coverings libraries used to decorate their empty corners. He turned from his books, his latex gloved hands clasped in his lap and asked her why she was feeling trapped. Surely she had more options.
She rubbed her head, as this new thought rose from its bank and galoshed through all the other thoughts, pulling a little boat behind it.
He told her that nothing could be done about it now; that she should get into the boat.
She told him that it had been too long.
He told her that the boat would protect her as long as it was night-time, and she could think about all of this in the morning.
She pulled herself out of clonings, bereaved families and complete disappearings, and flopped into the boat.
He told her not to worry, that everything she told him was confidential, and that he would never let anything happen to her.
She sat in the boat and let this sentence push her hair back from her face and rub her cheek with a soft thumb. His littler, Jinx, stood on one leg in her glass tank. She put her arms in the air so that her elbows made right angles to her body, then wiggled her bottom. Emma giggled as Jinx swapped legs and did exactly the same wiggle, both she and Jinx forgetting about that past life, read about and cried over through paragraphs snatched angrily from Isabel’s thoughts then scratched onto the pre-printed lines. That had been about a week before her heart had gulped at the mention of Blankey’s name. ‘You remember Mrs Lucas? Well, the couple next door found Blankey…’ She thought she would pass out; found Blankey what? ‘Utterly charming. They want to adopt,’ the other continued. She breathed out a smile. ‘I’ll take a look at the file,’ she’d said. A young couple, interesting… ‘What do they do for a living?’ she’d asked, looking them up before the other had time to answer.
‘Librarian. Psychologist.’
‘A librarian psychologist?’
The sales rep had wrinkled her forehead for a moment before grinning. ‘That’s not a thing.’
Emma lifted an eyebrow. ‘Go and interview them, will you?’
Ten days later, Hamish Wix and Susan Marley had their interview. ‘Make sure you push for two,’ Emma reminded, ‘I don’t want them split up.’
‘Why not?’
She thought on her feet. ‘It would be interesting to see how two progress together.’
‘Two littlers means two sales.’
‘I’m more interested in product development than sales…’
‘It’s gonna be tough to sell two.’
‘They’re both at work all day, play the loneliness card.’
The sales reps, robots that they are, did exactly that. And came back with a full report. Emma read it, recalling the lines of the notebook as she did. She – Susan – liked to bake. He – Hamish – liked to read. They’d wanted a child, but weren’t having much luck. They would have liked to move to the country, one day… ‘Did they seem to be in love?’ she’d asked.
‘Of course!’ the sales rep gushed. ‘Well… She did.’
Hmm, she’d thought, maybe they would fit the bill. But… She’d wanted to meet them, even one of them, just once, just to reassure herself that she’d made the right decision and not messed it up like before. Stupid Emma. No, no, not at all like before. And this would definitely be the last time, the very last time she’d target a family. The most important one yet. So three days later, Emma booked her first appointment to see Dr Hamish Wix, to check up on him, to get a feel for him, but found herself frowning at the end of their hour. He was a tough cookie to crack. So she bugged his office and booked a follow-up session.
Then another.
And another.
And a few more, after the adoption.
Now, looking back at her desk, she leaned forward in her chair to touch the icon marked ‘Ψ’ that rotated in the air. She scanned the list of recorded conversations until she got to one of her own that she’d revisited many times. ‘Everything that you tell me is confidential… I’m never going to let anything happen to you,’ said the recording that she’d played and replayed and re-replayed…
Waking up in her chair, four hours later, that sentence was the first echo of the dream she’d just had, where she lay on her belly in a boat on a lake lapping silver against Hamish’s galoshes. Everything you tell me is confidential, it began. Sitting up straight, she looked towards where the icons had been floating; Michael and his virtual friends slept in a bundle just next to her handbag. Confidential… Hmmm… Confidential. She looked over her shoulder and husked: ‘Coffee.’ That’s what she would do; she would have a coffee and wait for the morning-time normalness to cage up all of the anxiety bats and lovey-dovey doves that the night had l
et fly around her brain. Daylight would help her make a sound decision.
She held out her arm and took the coffee from the little glass tongue that zjwoomed out of the machine, closed both hands around it and held it under her nose; wouldn’t he be obliged to tell someone? They had rules like that, apparently. Rules that cancelled out the confidentiality clause, like if a patient confessed to murder or something… But she hadn’t murdered anyone. And anyway, he said that he would never let anything happen to her; surely that meant, well… Did it really, though? Did it really? Just book the appointment and go; who says that you’re going to tell him anything? Emma let go of one side of her coffee and tapped her wrist. ‘Number for Hamish Wix,’ she said.
* * *
Goggles. No goggles. How on Earth did this concern him? If he were a student, involved in a top government project, and he didn’t feel he could do his work because he’d been without goggles for three days, would he really bring it up to the project manager? Dear oh dear, this was a government-funded project – no! A UN-funded project, yet the staff that had been offered to him were all students working for a pittance. He didn’t care if it looked good on their CVs! He could not give two hoots about their silly CVs! What he needed was someone who would take on this project without tittle-tattling about every little uncrossed ‘t’. ‘It’s really unfortunate,’ the student had said, ‘that the lab goggles have to be changed, as they haven’t been changed since 1995; did that not get picked up during the audit?’ He had replied to the student that upgrading the goggles might be a nice little job for him. ‘Yes, but what are we supposed to work with in the meantime? I, for one, care about my eyes…’ he’d said. ‘No eyes, no career!’ he’d said. Bloody jobsworth, what on Earth had he been working with that could have blinded him – eh? Any substance that was capable of blinding him was unlikely to be sharing a fridgeful of embryos. Was he worried about falling on a test tube at the wrong angle? ‘Rules are rules,’ he’d said. ‘And paying attention to them means that we all stay safe.’
A tubby gentleman joined him as he waited for the lift. A tray of hot drinks wobbled between his hands. They nodded at each other.
But the best bit had been: ‘What if I wipe my eyes absent-mindedly? I could contaminate my eye and the sample. Ha! If you can’t be responsible for your own hand, you’re probably in the wrong game. Of course, not all of them were so vocal. Some of them were all wide-eyed and frightened. But then, obviously, those ones were totally incompetent. They just could not work independently. For how long had he put up with this? Three months? Three whole months of spoon-feeding; and every single day of those three months he’d told himself that he was sure, he was sure that if he got rid of the lot of them he would have enough money to employ a real scientist. Someone with experience, knowledge and subtlety. Someone who could keep their gob shut in the interests of scientific progression. He had known so many people like that before. Aaaahhh, before… Right. Good. The lift. Honestly, if people would just send it back up again then he wouldn’t have to wait an eternity for it. He got into the lift with the tubby man and eyed his beaming moon of a head. The man stared out of the side of his eyes while his coffee cups juddered in their cardboard hollows. Everything had become so silly and strict. Pfff… This really was becoming an enormous problem. He would suggest it, he would simply suggest it; how could they say no? Maybe he would offer a couple of internships just to butter the spinach a little. Just to show that he did give at least one hoot about their CVs. After all, there was always room for someone to ‘witness’ that all was indeed cricket. And to make the tea. He needed someone. Definitely needed someone. Oh dear. Was he being spoken to? ‘Sorry?’
‘Are you… You are, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Well, I know I am.’
‘I knew it!’
‘Right… Good.’
‘I had a feeling you were. In fact, I knew you were.’
‘Why would you doubt that I was? Do I keep flickering in and out of visibility?’
Reg blinked, looked at his coffees then back up to the man. He opened his mouth but the man started to speak again.
‘Sorry. I’m a bit grumpy today, I’m afraid.’ He smiled. ‘Who do you think I am?’
‘Dr Mark Hector.’ Reg glanced at his tray of two lattes and one cappuccino to make sure that the lift hadn’t sloshed any rivulets into his caramel criss-cross nappage or broken the beams on his cinnamon sunshine. It hadn’t. Good. It never usually did, but it was always best to make sure.
‘In that case, yes, that’s definitely me.’
Reg looked up, definitely who? Oh yes! ‘Right.’
‘Do you know my work?’
‘Erm… No…’ The lift juddered as it stopped at the ninth floor. Reg checked his coffees again. ‘I mean… You’ve been on the telly but that’s not how I know who you are.’
‘Oh?’
‘Actually, you used to work with one of my friends.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Well, when I say work with…’
‘A scientist?’
‘Yes.’
‘Interesting. Who is that?’
‘Erm… Drew Mahlik.’
The doctor looked up to the right and made a clicking noise with his tongue.
‘Do you remember?’
‘Just about. Was it a while back?’
‘About fifteen years, I think.’
The doors opened again at the fifth floor. ‘Hold the door!’ someone called from the corridor. Reg went to put his elbow out but that was just impossible. The tray would have tipped up completely. He looked at his other elbow then up at Dr Hector who was still looking to the right and making clicking noises.
‘Mahlik. Drew Mahlik.’
The doors closed just as a hand appeared in front of them.
Reg cleared his throat. ‘That’s right. Drew Mahlik. Tallish. Very blonde. Slim.’
‘Going up!’ said the elevator lady-voice.
‘You know, I’ve seen so many faces over the years.’
‘Of course.’
‘—.’
‘Weren’t we going down just a minute ago?’
‘Hmmm?’ The doctor put one finger in the air. ‘Was it the ex-dancer?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Drew Mahlik. Trained in classical dance, if I remember rightly.’
‘Yes, that’s it!’
The doors opened and closed at the sixth floor but nobody entered the lift. ‘Going down.’
‘Took me a while… Funny the details you remember… But it’s all as clear as day now. Drew actually had quite a lot of responsibility.’
‘Oh yes, I know.’
‘So how do you… Do you work in the building?’
‘No, I…’
‘I have a feeling I’ve seen you before.’
‘Well, yes, you probably have. I’m the owner of the librette just around the corner.’
‘The what?’
‘Librette. A library and a launderette.’
‘Oh. Innovative.’
‘Yes. Flick ’n’ Spin. You must have seen it? We do coffee as well.’ Reg nodded towards his tray. ‘And cakes.’
Dr Hector flipped back the cover of his tablet and was sliding through screens with his thumb, stopping once to lick it then realizing that that wouldn’t work and so wiped his thumb on his lapel before continuing.
‘I’m quite often here,’ Reg went on. ‘Your lot have their white coats service-washed. That’s how I met Drew. Back in the day when we were just a launderette…’
‘I’ve just pulled up the file; there we go! Ah yes… I know that face. We were working on something similar to what I’m doing now, actually. Probably my first project, now I come to think about it.’
‘Oh, really?’ The doors opened at the fourth floor. ‘This is me, I’m afraid.’
‘Me too,’ the doctor grinned with his mouth but not with his eyes. ‘I’ll walk with you.’
‘Erm… Okay then.’
‘They’re not suppos
ed to leave the premises, you know.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The white overalls. We have a team that wash them properly here.’
Reg glided along the corridor. Now he controlled the floor, the floor did not control him. Wash them properly. Ha! The word made him suck his teeth. ‘Even the students’ ones?’
‘Ah, no… Now you come to mention it, I don’t think we wash student coats; no.’
‘Because Drew was a student at the time. That’s good to know, though, because if a non-student comes in with their coat I’d probably be wise to refuse them.’
‘You would indeed.’ The doctor put one finger in the air. ‘Erm…’
‘Because who knows what they’ve been working with during the day.’ The doctor stopped at his office and held the door open for him. Reg smiled a ‘thank you’ then wondered why he’d followed him in.
‘Nothing too dangerous.’ The doctor thought of that prat and his bloody goggles. ‘We’re not that kind of lab.’ He brought the other hand up and steepled his fingers together. ‘So…’
‘Erm.’ Reg looked from the desk to the window then to the door. The old fellow obviously wanted to chat. Maybe he was feeling the pressure of being on the telly. He put his coffees down on the desk. Reg had once heard a story about a celebrity who poured his heart out to a complete stranger. The coffees would stay hot for another two minutes or so. ‘Unlikely they’ll come to me, though, if they can get it done for free in their own building.’
‘You’d think so… Where was I?’ The summit of the steeple rested for a moment on the doctor’s nose. ‘Oh yes! Would you…’
‘Reg, by the way.’
‘A pleasure.’ He took a deep breath and tried again. ‘Do you…’
‘The brother of Watty. Drew’s other half.’
‘Oh, I see.’ They knew each other well. They were family. ‘You met Drew through, er, Watty, is it?’