“Hey, it wasn’t that bad while it lasted.”
Sue glanced around at the big bed that they’d shared all too briefly. “All four nights of it.”
“I don’t regret it.”
“I do. I kidded myself that it meant something. That it might be the start, not the finish.”
“It still could be. We’re grown-ups, we can work round Martina Lewis.”
“And Nicole? And Patrick?”
“We were good together. You know it.”
“In bed, yes. But be honest, Jeff, what else is there? Don’t you want someone you can talk to about your work? Someone who’ll be sparky and intellectual, and challenge your ideas, and appreciate them. I can’t even spell quantum mechanics, Jeff.”
“Don’t do that, not ever, don’t sell yourself short.”
“I’m not. That’s what makes this the hardest part of all. I was just a shadow of a person when you met me; I had no self-esteem, I couldn’t look after myself, I was a complete and utter mess. Well, I’ve grown up from that silly little girl, Jeff. I’ve learned how to be a fully fledged modern bitch, which is the only survival trait that counts in this world. I can swim with the sharks now, and they’ll be the ones who get scared when I’m in the water. What I cannot be is your trophy wife, not anymore. It didn’t matter before, when there was no sex. But now there is, and I’m not going to wait loyally at home while you shag everything in a skirt so you can try out your new body. And I know enough about men to know how strong that temptation is for you. So the way we are today just can’t exist. That was my mistake, I fooled myself into believing it could out of pure sentiment. Sex stopped me thinking straight; but then I never claimed to be that smart.”
“All right,” he said, though it was a bitter defeat. “So where do we go from here?”
“The way we always said we would. I kiss you and Tim good-bye, and that contract we signed takes care of me financially.”
“Just like that?”
“Don’t go all sullen on me. Let’s see if we can prove Billy Crystal wrong. I’d like us to stay in touch; Tim, too, if he’ll ever speak to me again.”
“You’re his mother.”
“I know.”
He found it hard to believe they were being so casual about an event so enormous. “So, when will you go?” he asked unsteadily.
“My bags are packed.”
“All of them?”
She smiled at the involuntary high note of surprise in his voice. “No. Enough clothes for a week or so. I’ll collect the rest later, when I’ve found somewhere to live.”
“Aren’t you going to use the flat?”
“I will to start with. But I want somewhere of my own eventually.”
“Ah. Right. Have you got somewhere in mind?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of friends down in London. Or maybe I’ll make a clean break. Cornwall is lovely these days, almost the same climate as the Mediterranean used to have.”
“What about your mother?”
Sue’s brittle cheerfulness faltered. “I don’t know. It depends where I end up. I’ll have to have her close by, and I don’t suppose the location matters to her.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to give it one last try?”
“Don’t be so gallant. You know this is the only option.”
“So who gets to tell Tim?”
“I suppose we’d better do it together.”
27. FLAKY TRACY AND THE BIG LIE
THE BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES promised such a thing was impossible for the whole of the noughties. Slick, smartly dressed public relations officers ridiculed the crusty Greenpeace protestors on television news and discussion shows, while smooth corporate vice presidents stood up in front of Westminster’s Parliamentary select committees and explained in big technical buzzwords exactly why gene seepage was not going to happen.
It did, though. Foreign genes carefully spliced into crops to produce higher yields, or fungal resistance, or immunity to disease, or to harden them against insects, somehow managed to migrate across the species barrier. Most of the new mutations were subtle, not even visible outside of a DNA test. But the ones that the eye, and more important the camera, could see, were often spectacular. Cowslips with hand-size scarlet flowers. Rye grass two meters tall. Nettles with buddleia cone flowers. Honeysuckle with peapods.
Individual specimens would turn up one year, to be surrounded by camera crews and protestors, and eventually a police cordon. Freaks and one-offs, the company spokesperson would announce, sterile and worthless; only to find next year that a hundred more specimens had germinated. Between 2015 and 2020, if you believed the burgeoning datasphere news streams, the triffids had finally arrived in force. By the time Tim was born, it was old news. Increasingly sophisticated GM sequencing techniques had finally inhibited ninety-nine percent of gene “jumps.” Nature had culled the truly invalid mutant varieties, leaving hardy strains that were here to stay.
Of all the mutants rooting down in Europe, elephant keck, as it had been nicknamed, was the most prolific and obvious. Ordinary keck that had picked up a growth gene intended to increase cereal crop size, it plagued every hedgerow and verge across the continent, with stems burgeoning to between two and three meters high, then sprouting an umbrella of grubby white flowers on spindly stalks. Coarse floppy leaves protruded underneath these canopies, a dusky green stained with cabbage purple along the stalks. They cost councils and farmers a fortune to chop them down along the roads. Elsewhere, they went unchallenged.
That included the Exton estate, a couple of miles down the road from Empingham. It was a huge domain of arable land, crossed with public and private paths that had been tarmaced for the tractors and other farm machinery. The total absence of traffic made it a long-term favorite for hikers, dog walkers, and fitness fanatics.
The exercise regimen that the Brussels University Medical Centre had given Jeff assumed a modest climb back up the performance graph to full fitness. Looking at the outline, he wasn’t entirely sure what kind of level they envisioned raising him to. Olympic qualification standard, apparently. He hadn’t followed any of it with blind devotion, although he’d stuck to their basic requirements. That meant a twice weekly jog, accompanied by four Europol team members, who had no trouble at all keeping up with him (including the female officers).
This morning he’d suggested that Tim join him. After some coaxing the recalcitrant boy gave in and agreed. Jeff was thankful for that: it was a way of spending time with his son, without the two of them sitting together at the table in the kitchen and trying to fill the awkward silence with labored conversation. Tim hadn’t taken Sue’s departure well, dealing with it the only way he knew how, by retreating back into his sulky shell.
There wasn’t anything to see on the jog; as soon as they cleared the meadowland around Exton itself, the ubiquitous elephant keck rose up on either side of the tarmac, then drooped overhead. It didn’t quite form a tunnel, leaving a ragged strip of bright turquoise sky directly above.
“How are you coping?” Jeff asked after ten minutes. His wrist strap monitor showed a heart rate of 141, and he was barely sweating. Not bad for a seventy-eight-year-old.
“Okay,” Tim wheezed. He was red-faced, breathing heavily.
“Good.” Jeff slowed the pace. “How’s school going?”
“Dad!”
“All right. Shit. Sorry.” He stopped running, and put an arm around Tim’s shoulder. There was a moment when he thought the boy would shrug him off. It passed. “I know this isn’t fair. It never is.”
“I can’t believe she just left like that.”
“It’s not her fault, Tim. You know that. It was me.”
“But…”
