Her heart was tripping spikily now, instead of the satisfying rhythms of a well-paced walk. The unsteadiness in her knees made them feel more degraded than ever. No! This was ridiculous. She would not become frightened of this place, she could not permit it.
She looked around again, this time more directly, searching the gaps between the trees and the undergrowth. There was nobody there. Perhaps that was the problem? Her precious imagination was filling in the blanks. Oh, the irony, she was forced to admit. So, should she go back to the concrete path, out in the open? No, goddammit, much better to push past this silliness, to employ a distraction technique.
Yes, keep thinking, Eloise, keep thinking. That’s always your shield. (Anything but admit to your vulnerability.) Look for hard evidence, not for those creepy occultists from the hill. Listen for realistic clues and natural movements, not for the wandering phantoms of every regretted decision. Make a positive plan.
Eloise resolved to look into some local self-defence classes. And to bring her phone with her next time, along with its ill-fitting earphones, much as she resented how modern life had conjoined humanity to this devilish device. Music might have helped her right now. Or not? Would getting lost in melody only expose her to whatever (harmless thing) was making those noises? She wished for a Bluetooth speaker instead, the kind she loathed having to listen to anywhere public, but especially anywhere that ought to be peaceful. She fantasised for a moment about a blast of wailing guitar and some thrumming bass… a Celtic war cry, a rebel yell.
The thought amused her, sanding the splintered corners from her fears. It also reminded her about a set of exotic experiments conducted by a physicist in Japan who had played either uplifting or angry music to snow crystals as they formed in the lab. The flakes that were treated to the arias made more beautiful, intricate symmetries, while the metalheads became all deformed and chaotic. She wondered if perhaps the fellow had been trying to prove a point to his teenage children, but it was an interesting exercise and one whose observations came as little surprise to Eloise.
She’d once had a flatmate so fond of playing AC/DC at absurd decibels, despite her pleas, that she’d briefly but alarmingly contemplated a violent resolution (a brutal bout of PMS not helping the matter). Now she understood the false courage it had afforded him and was inclined to be more sympathetic.
Music. Such a fascinating field for investigation, with all its mischievous and measurable effects upon the human brain. Eloise eagerly consumed anything published on the subject. If it hadn’t been genetics, it would have been neuroscience. She was fascinated particularly by those tiny cerebral clusters responsible for states of ecstasy and excitement, for good or bad.
It seemed ungrateful to question their purpose but they had been the source of so much human happiness and also of so much madness, so much danger. Perhaps that same arrangement of neurons that brought her to tears during the duet from The Tales of Hoffmann also made men kill each other for the love of a woman, or persuaded religious and nationalist cults to go to war? Of course she knew that the primary function of such excitement would be to stimulate reproduction, but even so, did such altered states also make life worth living, or create experiences that were worth dying for?
Eloise preferred those studies that suggested the human brain was wired more for kindness than for killing (admittedly less so when the override switch of starvation came into play). Yes, it was a remorseless kind of resilience and adaptability that had enabled the species to survive – and a simple need for movement that had spurred the earliest of neural systems – but it was sociability, surely, that had encouraged the hominin brain to keep growing. The forming and maintaining of relationships. And the bigger and more complex that set of relationships, the more Homo sapiens intelligence evolved to keep up.
We came together to make love, to make music, to make exchanges through trade. To create common cultures and beliefs, even before the age of agriculture. It seemed to Eloise that such acts of communion must be in our best interests, in every way.
She believed that it was only after the emergence of land ownership and hierarchy that the joy of ceremony was tamed and turned into organised religion, ruining everything. But this deep need in humans for connection and redemption, the need to help, to give thanks and to supplicate remained a powerful instinct. Eloise acknowledged that she was more often drawn to those such as John, those who had chosen a life of service to all of this over more traditional advancement, ambitions or desires.
As she emerged on to a wide-open and sunlit pathway (with some relief, though proud that she’d maintained both her wilder route and her willpower) Eloise pondered a familiar personal paradox. If someone had asked her whether she would rather be stuck in a lift with, say, the Dalai Lama, or with one or two of the more famously aggressive atheists in her community she couldn’t help thinking that she would choose the former, if only for the kindness of that smile, the lightness of that giggle and the calm quietude of all that ‘mindfulness’. But would she, could she, ever admit that out loud and among colleagues?
*
She has walked through many days that seem to her as though they must be the same day, but she knows they cannot be. She looks for any change to mark and to remember, the shape of something, the feel of something else. Along the way, in the repetition of steps, she has come into a walking trance and imagines that her own thoughts weave together with the thoughts of everything that lives, perhaps with everything that exists. She becomes, for a moment, an empty vessel, a hollow bone.
She remembers now the quiet talk among the few within her grandmother’s trust, of times such as these, journeys such as these in other days long dead. She realises that all of this has happened in its own way many times before. That the earth would shrug and change its face, and all that was to be done was to live as long as the living would allow and to keep moving, keep changing with it.
At least it has been easier going across this flat expanse of former grassland. Are they nearing the coast at last? Then she trips on something and the surprise shakes her out of her timeless thinking. The loose stones now under her feet signify the trials she will soon face. The earth has risen. Should she scramble up over the steep hills ahead or try to find a way around? No, she senses that this way will lead eventually to a shoreline. It will be tiring and perhaps even dangerous if black ice sticks to the smoother surfaces but she also knows that this kind of cracked and curling high ground can hold hidden treasures. Better to find food and firewood, however, before attempting it.
She sees no clues of any meal that will be easy. No larger prey left here. Surely something lives in the warmth and damp underground? This is ideal earth for burrowers. Yes, there, the tell-tale sign of droppings. Only a few small pellets, but fresh. Is there time enough to find the opening of the warren, to set a snare and wait? But she is not alone in her plan to raid the shelter of those that dart and dive, fast and agile, those too small for spear or arrow. They have other enemies. Sly, cold and slithering. Less worthy of the feed than her. She knows that this is an unworthy thought but the times have led to it. There. There! The ripples of its limbless sliding are drawn into the loose top sand.
She follows the sweeping lines, they are new. And now she sees a little sand-rat, mouth full of young grabbed up by their hairless scruffs, running, finding its mark, disappearing below. The snake has seen it too, tasted it upon its tongue, and it follows. This one will not distinguish between young and old. It can fit through their tunnels, corner them. It will stay as long as it can be filled. Leaving nothing, no hope of another cycle of living.
Its prowess is worshipped by some, but not by her kind. There is fear, for sure, but there is also respect. This is an ancient thing, a thing that can dream a path through adversity and survive in strange, sleepy ways that others cannot. A thing that can shed its own skin when it no longer serves and when it is time to grow again. The slider will surely not taste as nice as the little runner but, this way, both she and the burr
owing sand-rat can win.
*
On coming home from the heath, a workout that had been as invigorating mentally as energetically, Eloise went directly to her desk to type up the letter to Darwin she’d begun to compose on her enforced jog down the hill, away from the cold stares of that circle. (Were they still up there on the hill or had they spread out? She had twitched at the suggestion of any beige-clad human she had spotted on the way home, accessorised in red or otherwise.) Enough of that and back to work. She wanted to capture her thoughts from the heath in a more concrete form, before the cognitive re-set of a hot shower and an icy rinse. Eloise was feeling both inspired and unsettled. So many things were playing on her mind.
Dear Charles…
(She felt familiar enough now to abandon formality, especially with no living readership to rebuke her.)
… I wonder whether you would worry as much as I about where we are headed, about the risks, about the ethical quagmire? As in your day, there are many who feel deeply threatened by our work and by what it might mean. The dangers could loom from many directions.
My good friend John (I have mentioned him before) raised these anxieties for me again in our last conversation, along with the spectre of eugenics. Of course, I utterly reject every horror committed in the name of genetic purity and foolish notions of superiority, from the concentration camps to those enforced sterilisations of the ‘feeble-minded’ in the US last century. And if I’m honest, I’m apprehensive about how some of the work I’m doing now might be used in the future, the idea of engineered enhancements or misuse for personal or national gain (as challenging as commercialised or weaponised design may actually turn out to be).
But surely we must push forward in the quest to understand and to improve quality of life, to apply our own kind of compassionate selection by choosing to edit out the damage in every affected cell before it can cause devastation? I wonder how your own intimacy with the torment of ill-health (and the worst kind of grief, the agony of a child lost) would affect your view on our present dilemmas. Perhaps it is our role to interfere, Charles, even our duty now that we have ‘evolved’ enough to do so? (Some argue that our own evolution has already been redirected by civilisation, by our self-domestication as such.)
Or should we let go, trust nature and allow her to take her long, painfully slow course, with all that cruel, ‘dispensable’ damage along the way? For as much as it can be risky, the free rein of reproduction has been the most valuable stimulus to growth, up until now. Indeed, it’s the very mutability in the risks of replication that has resulted in some of the greatest evolutionary leaps – and yes, these reproductive errors can be disastrous, but they can also be magnificent!
For example, what if we experienced another spontaneous ‘accident’ such as the complete duplication of the SRGAP2 gene? It’s believed that when this happened in some distant common ancestor it effectively doubled our brain power. How wondrous might that be? (Or how horrific, if manipulated for only the privileged few?) So, should we wait and see what evolution has in store, or should we now take up the reins and attempt to further steer the process along… and can we be trusted to get it right any more than the trial and error of nature? So much is happening so quickly, Charles.
Some international laboratories – and even a few renegade ‘Biohackers’ experimenting on themselves – are moving forward at breakneck speed with CRISPR gene-editing, despite the possible hazards and lack of agreed regulation. But how can we not explore the full potential of these new frontiers… especially when it allows us, for example, to replace the shredding skin of a suffering child?
Improving health, immunity, longevity, limiting needless suffering and premature loss of life (freeing myself and others from the shadow of what they fear to pass on), this has always been my ambition, Charles. But is there a price that must be paid either way, an equilibrium that must be maintained? Are some evolutionary sacrifices necessary, after all?
*
She finds that snake meat is surprisingly good. At first she had attempted only the tiniest morsel and then waited for most of the night, despite the pangs of complaint from an impatient belly. Anything with scales was always a risk, not only in the catching of it but in the safe digesting of it. Often colouring or patterning is sufficient warning, but sometimes, when the need is greater than the fear, the only solution is to try.
She decided that she would not take a chance on drying or smoking any of the flesh, but instead charred it all to a crisp and consumed it in one sitting. The best place to store this meal is within. She is uncomfortably full now, and so sleepy, but pleased with her own resourcefulness, with her willingness to overcome her misgivings. Now that her resistance has been mastered, now that she knows how to anticipate the creature’s rapid movement, she has found a new source of food. And while the bigger animals remain so depressingly few, the slithering and the scuttling ones are in no short supply.
14
It was not unusual for the detritus of various misplaced marketing campaigns to collect on her doormat, walked over rather than worth the effort of a creaking deep knee-bend, but something on quality lavender paper stood out from the various fast-food leaflets as Eloise arrived home. A handwritten note.
In careful, elegant script, its graphology spoke of another era of patient consideration. It was from Mrs Templeton, in the house on the corner, asking her to come and see her as soon as she could. Intrigued, Eloise walked right over but then hesitated at the door, unsure whether the old brass bell had worked or not as she’d heard no sound on pressing it.
After an impatient pause she chose the lion-headed knocker instead, which gave up a more purposeful and satisfying noise to announce her presence. Eventually, the door eased open and Eloise adjusted her gaze downward to meet the bespectacled eyes of her neighbour, who seemed so much older and shorter than she remembered.
‘Mrs Templeton, it’s Eloise Kluft, you left a note, are you alright?’
‘Yes, dear, I’m fine. I’m so sorry. It’s about the cat.’
Oh god, thought Eloise, her heart plummeting several storeys at once, although the clear, calm and remarkably youthful voice that delivered this anxiety gave little away.
‘Newton? Oh, oh, right… what’s the matter?’
‘Well, dear, when I came into my kitchen, there he was. Not a surprise to see him, he visits me often, but I knew something was wrong. He was simply lying there on my floor. He was breathing, but there was a little blood, you know, from the nether regions. I’m sorry, I don’t have your work or mobile number, so I asked Mr Singh next door to take us both to the nearest vet. I didn’t know which one you used, dear, but he’s at the Middleton. They are expecting you.’
Eloise had never liked that practice, felt they overcharged to cover the cost of too fancy premises. She had sought some treatment for Newton elsewhere when his continence issues began, and that vet’s reassurances plus a change in diet seemed to have helped, at least temporarily. He had even lost a little weight, which at the time had seemed like a good thing.
The comforts of denial, she thought now, feeling horribly guilty. Perhaps she should have spent more money on him, done more, but she had so wanted to believe that he would be fine. He was getting old, that was all. Despite her contrition (which Eloise felt must be as obvious as a hair shirt showing beneath her silk slip), the nurse at the Middleton was kind enough when she walked in, seemed to know immediately why she was there and took her in to see Newton. He was on a drip, eyes half-open, they flickered when she stroked him. Then the vet came in and all Eloise could think was that he bore an uncanny resemblance to her old maths teacher. She did not know why she found that comforting, she had never been particularly good at maths and that struggle had very nearly cost her a place at medical school.
‘Well, I’m sorry to say,’ the vet began, confirming her worst fears, ‘he’s not a well animal. Not at all.’
Eloise took in very little of what he said next, re-entering this new and unw
elcome reality only with the heavy portent of his final question.
‘So. What would you like us to do, Dr Kluft? We can run some more tests, maybe try some treatments but at his age he’s not likely to recover, I’m sorry to say. Indeed, any intervention may only stress him further, drag things out, if you know what I mean. Lovely old fellow, mind you. Well. We’ll give you a few moments, shall we?’
By the time Eloise pulled back into her street an hour later there were no parking spaces. Of course. Arsenal were playing at home. Damn, she thought, as she made a mental note to compose yet another angry letter to the council, insisting they extend the match day parking controls to these streets too. She was weary, tired of everything, all the stupid little stresses that wore away at her resilience, gnawed at her soul. She kept the engine running in the middle of the street, did not know what to do. Newton was wrapped up on the passenger seat, she had opted to bury him herself in the garden they both loved. She had splashed out on a small fox-proof coffin but had hidden that away for now, out of sight, in the boot.
After a moment there was a knock on the passenger side and she jumped. It was Mrs Templeton. Eloise leaned over and unwound the window, manual and stiff, on her beloved old Golf.
‘Pull into my drive, dear, please. Right there, behind mine, I won’t be going anywhere tonight. And then come in, dear, don’t go home quite yet. Come and have a cup of tea.’
Tea. Yes, thought Eloise, the British answer to any crisis. Tea sounded good.
She had never been inside the old corner house before, only spoken briefly at the door about this or that. It was the only detached property on their street of Victorian terraces and the only one with its own parking. They were all envious of that drive, such a valuable commodity in London.
The interior was exactly as she might have expected. Cosy but classy. Tidy, but not intimidating. Rather like Mrs Templeton. How long had she been a widow? Eloise had no idea. She recalled hearing that she was a retired teacher and several generations in the street seemed to know her very well. Her mother had known her, but she’d barely registered on the scale of awareness for Eloise. Although she’d suspected that the old lady might be one of those in the neighbourhood who fed Newton and kept him so fat and happy, she’d had no proof until now.
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