The One

by John Marrs

  As Kevin slept, Jade would lie beside him with her head on his stomach as it rose and fell with shallow breaths. And during the long periods when Kevin was out of action, she’d offer to help his parents Susan and Dan around the house, or drive into town to run errands for them. They taught her how a dairy and sheep farm operated, taking her out in the truck to help round up the sheep, or teaching her how to affix the milking equipment to the cows. It was a whole world away from the one she’d been stagnating in in Sunderland. But she now saw that the city wasn’t the problem, it was her. Something about the quiet farming life agreed with her, and she felt like she could finally relax into who she was.

  Jade was astonished at how close she could feel to people she had only met two weeks ago, and she desperately wished there was a way that she could remove the pain they felt as they watched their son struggle. The more time she spent around them, the more she felt that they were sanding away her rough edges.

  It also made her think of her own parents, and the sadness and frustration she’d put them through in recent years. She had spent so long harbouring this unnecessary animosity towards them for making her move back home after she left university, and only now did she understand it was for her own benefit. They were good, solid, working-class Northerners – her father a mechanic on a car factory assembly line and her mother a baker – and she had repaid their pride and values with brattish behaviour. She felt ashamed of herself.

  Like Kevin’s cancer and Susan and Dan’s pain, there was something of her own she wished she could remove too, but it wasn’t something she could ever share with her new adoptive family.

  However, as each day passed, her affection became all the more consuming.

  Chapter 44

  NICK

  ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ Alex asked Nick as they drove away from the rugby club ground in his car.

  Nick clenched his fists to stop his hands from tingling at the smell of Alex’s damp hair and recently applied aftershave.

  ‘Honestly? I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I remembered who you played for and I read up about them online, and the next thing I know, I’m waving Sally off to spend the weekend with her mum and I’m on my way over to see you play a game I don’t even understand. Have I stepped over the line?’

  ‘I should say yes, but no, you haven’t.’

  Nick was pleased to hear it. He sat and pondered his next question, trying to phrase it properly in his head before posing it. ‘This will sound really tragic but I have to ask: have you thought about me much since we saw each other last?’ He looked away and waited for Alex to reply, hoping his answer would be positive.

  ‘What, do you mean have I thought about you over the last eight days, eleven hours and, let me check, forty-seven minutes? Yeah, you could say I have a little.’

  Both men smiled.

  ‘Now can I ask you something?’ Alex continued. ‘When we spoke on the phone the first time, you told me you took the Match Your DNA test even though you didn’t believe in it. So why do it?’

  ‘My girlfriend, well, my fiancée, wanted me to. We’re getting married soon and she wanted to reassure herself we were genuinely suited.’

  Nick noticed Alex edge ever so slightly away from him when he said this, as if the news had come as an unwelcome surprise.

  ‘And when she found out that you were Matched with a guy …?’

  ‘She found it hilarious. But it was Sally who insisted I met you, which is why I made that appointment with the fake name.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just tell her to back off?’

  ‘It was important to her … I don’t really know why and I guess, even though I didn’t want to admit it, I was a little curious about you too.’

  ‘Most women wouldn’t have let us anywhere near each other, let alone encourage it.’

  ‘Sally and I have always had an honest relationship with no bullshit … We tell each other everything.’

  ‘So she knows where you are right now?’

  Nick averted his eyes. ‘I think you already know the answer to that. Where does Mary think you are?’

  ‘Out for drinks with the rugby boys after the game. She’s not expecting me home until tonight.’

  The streets of suburban Birmingham were quiet for a Saturday afternoon as Alex’s Mini Cooper made its way out towards the M6.

  ‘Where are we headed, then?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Mate, I don’t have a fucking clue.’

  Chapter 45

  ELLIE

  Tim hiked his eyebrows. ‘Are you kidding me?’ He let his body sink into the soft cushions of his sofa as he digested Ellie’s revelation – it was she who’d discovered the gene that formed the heart of Match Your DNA and had used it to build one of the world’s most successful businesses.

  Then, much to Ellie’s surprise, Tim began to chuckle, which developed into a full-on laugh. She was puzzled by his reaction and glanced at Andrei who stood in the corner of the room, hoping for reassurance, but Andrei simply lifted his broad shoulders and shrugged.

  ‘So let me get this right,’ Tim said, wiping his eyes. ‘You’re telling me that I’ve been on two dates with the person who is my DNA Match and it turns out she was the person who invented it?’

  ‘Well, discovered it is probably a more accurate description, but yes.’ Ellie nodded.

  ‘And the company? As in, the company that’s bigger than Facebook, Amazon and Apple … all that belongs to you?’

  ‘Most of it, yes.’

  He shook his head and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. ‘You couldn’t make this up.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth before now,’ Ellie said earnestly. ‘I honestly wasn’t sure how to.’

  ‘No, I get it, I really do. You didn’t trust me, and that’s fine because, given your situation, I’d probably have kept shtum too.’

  Ellie gave a nervous half-smile but didn’t appear convinced that he was OK with it. Tim placed her hands inside his, and immediately she felt that familiar sensation return. It spread throughout her body as it had when he’d kissed her on their disastrous second date.

  ‘Look, Ellie, you could be working behind the checkouts at Lidl and I wouldn’t give a flying fajita. I mean, the fact you could afford to own Lidl and still have change to buy Morrisons and Tesco doesn’t matter to me either. But you need to see it from my perspective – my first date in yonks is with the person who single-handedly reinvented the concept of dating. It’s bloody hilarious.’

  ‘So you’re not angry with me?’

  ‘No, of course I’m not. But I still don’t get why that nutter outside the restaurant threw red paint at you? We looked like we’d spent the evening clubbing seals to death.’

  Ellie sighed. She hated thinking about this side of her job. ‘Because not everyone is pleased with the consequences of Match Your DNA. While my discovery has Matched millions and millions of people around the world, it’s also broken up an awful of a lot of couples who thought they were made for each other and it turned out they weren’t. And I get the blame for that – more often than you can probably imagine.’ She paused, trying to gauge his reaction before continuing. ‘And getting to where I am today, it’s not been easy. Like most large businesses, sometimes corners had to be cut and people felt they were hurt, but it was all for the greater good to get us to where are today … I don’t want you to think badly of me.’

  ‘Can you give me a little credit to come up with my own opinion?’

  Ellie hesitated. ‘That woman with the paint … I wasn’t honest when I said I didn’t know her. Do you remember that incident in Edinburgh seven years ago when a man started stabbing shoppers in the city centre?’

  ‘Didn’t he kill, like, half-a-dozen people before the police got him?’

  Ellie nodded. ‘The killer was her son. He had mental health issues and had been living under her supervision until he found his Match. His Match was already married and, well, o
nce she learned of his problems, she left him and went back to her husband. Her Match started stalking her and then one day stabbed her to death in the shop where she worked before attacking random people. It was awful.’

  ‘And his mum blames you?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve told her – through the courts – that we can’t be held responsible for who takes the test, but she refuses to accept it.’

  Tim nodded, appearing to understand her. ‘I’m sorry for upsetting you. Let’s move on to a lighter subject. Take me back, how did you discover this DNA thing?’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ellie said, feeling more at ease. ‘It started twelve years ago when I hadn’t long left university. I was carrying out some freelance research work at a lab in Cambridge, examining the links between DNA and depression. One day I was thinking about a conversation I’d had with my sister Maggie about why she married her husband, John. She was adamant it was love at first sight, and even though they were only fourteen when they met, they knew they’d end up spending the rest of their lives together. I’m a scientist so by nature I’m sceptical about that kind of thing, but it did get me thinking – what if she was right? What if love at first sight actually exists? Perhaps there’s something tangible inside all of us that we’ve been confusing with sexual attraction. Having not experienced it myself, I couldn’t imagine how you could just look or talk to another person and immediately know they’re the one.’

  ‘This isn’t going to get too sciency is it?’ Tim laughed. ‘I failed all my exams in anything that involved Bunsen burners or dissecting frogs.’

  ‘No, I’ll keep it simple,’ Ellie said. She was used to explaining this in layman’s terms. ‘When you see someone for the first time, you know if you fancy them or not. Well, I began by looking at what it is that appeals to different people, like whether it’s their face, their body shape, how they carry themselves, etc. And then I looked to see if there was more to it than just an instant attraction … What about those people who ended up with paired with someone completely against their usual type? I wondered if there was an element, or a gene, that makes our entire body react, bypassing what our brain is telling us. Can we be intrinsically linked – scientifically – to another?’

  Tim sighed dramatically. ‘In my spare time I question how the Galactic Empire built the Death Star without the rest of the universe noticing. Meanwhile, you’re out there finding genes nobody knew existed.’

  ‘I’m sure your questions are just as important as mine.’ Ellie smiled. ‘Anyway, this is the sciency bit, so stay with me. It’s important I give you an idea of the scale of what I was up against. We have roughly 100 trillion cells in our bodies and inside each of them are two metres of DNA – if you unravelled them all, they’d stretch to the sun and back a hundred times.’

  Tim’s eyes widened. ‘I’m still with you.’

  ‘And the sun is 98 million miles away from Earth … Well, we already knew women produce pheromones and men have receptors that bind the pheromone molecules, and that can create an attraction between the two. But, I discovered that when certain people are brought together, there’s a variable gene inside us that allows both sexes to produce pheromones and have receptor genes. Two heterosexual people, two gay people – it doesn’t matter. Once the right Match is made it’s set in stone. I examined the DNA of hundreds of couples, and those who shared that same gene are the ones who’d say they’d fallen for each other the moment they met. I expanded my search globally to include thousands of volunteers in my database, and kept finding the same thing time and time again – only one other person shares that gene with you. And that person is your DNA Match.’

  ‘I thought the idea of all animals was to shag around and propagate the species?’

  ‘That’s what men like to believe. But when you break it down to basics, then yes, it is.’

  ‘But say you’re an eighty-year-old woman and your Match is an eighteen-year-old man – there’s not much propagating going to happen.’

  ‘You’re right. Every single person produces their own personal pheromone – it’s like a unique fingerprint that remains the same for the rest of your life. And it’s the luck of the draw as to whether your Match is with someone who lives in the same country or whether it’s someone in a Brazilian favela. Likewise, you could be Matched with someone around your age or be decades apart. It’s actually intergenerational Matches that have helped to cause a drop in birth rates around the world. And the gene is largely responsible for falling numbers of one-night stands and STIs.’

  ‘Maybe it’s nature’s way of balancing us out. We’re close to finding cures for cancer and AIDS, so now nature is trying to keep us under control with love.’

  ‘There’ve been stranger theories.’

  ‘So you don’t think that true love can exist between couples who aren’t pre-destined?’

  ‘No, no, of course it can. What I am saying is that my discovery can help you find that person you are linked to. Should you choose not to be with them, you can still fall in love with someone else. But I found that those who have been Matched often feel something deeper and more complete. The other person is literally their other half.’

  ‘And how did you turn all this into a business?’

  ‘Once I realised the ramifications of what it might mean, it scared me so much that I sat on it for a while. It was a huge responsibility. I didn’t want to get it wrong. Because once the news got out, I’d be changing the way people thought about their relationships for ever. It’d be like telling the world I could prove there was no God or that aliens existed – people wouldn’t believe me or they’d be scared. I got many, many scientists – and I’m talking dozens – to go over my research to prove I wasn’t a crackpot. And when every test came back positive, there was no denying it. Some old uni friends who were now hedge-fund investors helped me to register Match Your DNA as a trademark and get biological patents for Australia, Europe, Japan and the USA. And then, after an announcement in the Lancet, the story went viral.’

  ‘I think I remember reading about it somewhere but I didn’t take much notice of it at the time.’

  ‘Thousands and thousands of people did, though, and got in touch wanting to send me their DNA. We sent them testing kits so they could do it for free, but to turn it into a viable business we had to start charging for the results.’

  Tim nodded. This part he would know. ‘Do people always feel love at first sight?’ he asked.

  ‘Studies show that ninety-two per cent feel an instant, arrow-to-the-heart attraction within the first forty-eight hours of meeting. With the other eight per cent, it can take longer. But that can be down to psychological issues, anything from a mental illness like clinical depression to emotional problems like whether they have trust issues or have built-up barriers. There are a few other mitigating factors as well. People might fight those feelings, but once they’re in their Match’s presence eventually nature will always prevail.’

  ‘What about a regular person and someone with a genetic disorder like Down’s Syndrome? Can they be Matched?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be a bit … weird?’

  ‘Shouldn’t people with learning difficulties have the chance to find love too?’

  ‘Yes, what I mean is, well, what I’m saying is …’

  ‘That society isn’t ready for that yet, and yes, that’s unfortunately true. But that’s out of my control.’ Ellie was surprised that Tim hadn’t read about any of this in the news. It was something that was frequently discussed, with human rights charities constantly on her case.

  ‘We live only about fifty miles apart. Surely the chances of us being Matched must be miniscule?’

  ‘They’re not as small as you think. We found that sixty-eight per cent of people are likely to be Matched with someone in their own country. We don’t know if that has to do with the fact that hundreds of generations ago we were all more closely related – small differences in our DNA can even tell us which continent we origi
nated from. It could be that our genes are more likely to be attracted by others from a similar environment or it could be just coincidence.’

  Ellie waited for Tim’s next question. She’s anticipated he’d react like this, as many others before him had. It almost felt like she was being interviewed, but she was used to people’s curiosity and was happy to indulge Tim’s.

  ‘You mentioned how your discovery has affected so many people’s lives for the better and for the worse,’ Tim continued. ‘How do you get you head around that? If it were me, I don’t know if I could deal with the responsibility.’

  ‘It’s hard sometimes,’ Ellie admitted. ‘I’ve had hate mail and death threats from people whose partners have left them to be with their Match, and from people with no Match who think it’s my fault. For every ten Matches we put together, three regular couples will split up. We’ve put thousands of dating sites out of business across the world, but on the flipside we’ve given so much work to divorce lawyers and relationship counsellors; we’ve boosted the wedding industry as people are more willing to commit knowing they’re made for each other,’ she said, almost by rote.

  ‘So you don’t feel any kind of guilt or responsibility?’

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  Tim ignored her. ‘How do you stop kids from taking the test, or paedophiles being Matched with them?’

  ‘Each country has its own laws based on the age of consent, and here in Britain, it’s sixteen. Our servers run a search through the International Criminal Database too and warn those who get a Match if they have a criminal record. Privacy laws mean we can’t reveal the exact crime, but we are allowed to rate the severity on a scale of one to five. But sometimes people slip through the net – if they’ve never been charged with a crime there’s nothing we can do, which is why there’s about forty pages of legal disclaimers on our website. I admit, it’s a grey area and I have a huge legal team that deals with the lawsuits, but so far not one case has got past the first couple of court appearances. We’re not to blame for the results. It’d be like suing gun manufacturers on behalf of anyone who’s ever been shot. It’s not the fault of the weapon, it’s the user. I’ve provided the tool to change your life but I can’t be held responsible if you abuse it. I usually take my security team with me to avoid situations like the paint incident.’ She gestured to where Andrei still stood silently in the corner of the room. ‘But the night you and I met for dinner, I insisted on going alone. I just wanted to feel like a normal person again.’