Luke’s own tiny fingers curled around it, gripping it for several seconds. It was one of the most amazing sensations John had ever felt in his life.
‘See that?’ he whispered to Naomi.
She smiled, and nodded
Luke continued to hold his finger for several seconds, before releasing it. Then John leaned down and stroked each of their faces, one with each hand. ‘Daddy and Mummy are with you,’ he said. ‘How are you doing, little angels?’
Phoebe opened her eyes suddenly, and in the same instant, Luke opened his. It was uncanny, he thought, how they always seemed to open them at the same time. Both of them were watching him.
‘Hallo, Luke. Hallo, Phoebe. Hallo, darling angels,’ he said, shifting his position, encouraging them, as both sets of eyes tracked him. He saw the curl of a smile on both their lips and smiled back. Then he leaned forward and pinged the taffeta cord of Luke’s rattle. Both pairs of eyes remained fixed on him, but they stopped smiling.
He pinged Phoebe’s rattle, hoping to encourage her to reach up and touch it herself. But like her brother, she lay still, just observing him. Then after a few moments, as if they had grown bored, both babies closed their eyes in unison.
Naomi turned and walked back out of the room. John followed her, gently pulling the door to behind him, and leaving it slightly ajar.
As his footsteps retreated down the stairs, the eyes of both babies opened in unison. Just a brief flicker, then they closed again.
42
‘So congratulations, John,’ Carson Dicks said, raising his glass. ‘Here’s to your first few months.’
John rarely drank at lunchtime. He never usually even went out for lunch, preferring to eat a sandwich at his desk. But today Dicks had wanted to discuss the design of an experiment with him, and had driven him to a nearby pub.
A short, tubby man in his early fifties, with a crop of wild, fuzzy hair, an unkempt beard, and glasses as dense as the bottoms of wine bottles, Carson Dicks was any cartoonist’s dream caricature of a mad professor.
John raised his glass. ‘Cheers!’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
‘ Skal! ’
John grinned. ‘ Skal! ’ Then he drank a mouthful of the Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.
‘So, how are you finding life at Morley Park?’
He detached some of his sole from the bone with surgical precision. ‘I’m very happy. I have a great team, and the place has the academic feeling of a university but it doesn’t seem to have the politics of one.’
‘Exactly. That’s what I like. There’s some, of course, as there is in all walks of life. But here it doesn’t interfere. We have this huge diversity of departments and research, but there’s a great sense of unity, of everyone pulling together, working towards common goals.’ He paused to fork an entire battered scampi into his mouth, then continued talking as he chewed. ‘We have the pursuit of science for Health, for Defence, and for the far more intangible – and of course debatable – Greater Good. ’ He gave John a knowing look.
‘And how do you define the Greater Good?’ John asked, suddenly feeling a little uncomfortable.
Dicks swilled his mouthful down with some more wine. One shred of batter dangled precariously in his beard and John found himself watching it, waiting for it to tumble.
‘It’s something we haven’t talked about. A lot of people here did read that unfortunate interview you gave in the States. But of course, being British, no one wants to embarrass you by raising it.’
‘Why didn’t you mention it before?’ John asked.
Dicks shrugged. ‘I was waiting for you to do that. I respect you as a scientist. I’m sure you wouldn’t have done anything without a great deal of thought and investigation.’ He broke off a piece of his bread roll and buttered it. ‘And of course, I know the press must have got it wrong. Designer babies aren’t possible, not yet, are they?’ With a broad grin he again stared hard at John, as if for confirmation.
‘Absolutely; they got it wrong.’ John gave a hollow, phoney, uncomfortable laugh.
‘How are Luke and Phoebe?’
‘They’re terrific.’
‘And Naomi?’
‘She’s exhausted. But she’s happy to be back in England.’
They ate in silence for some moments, then Dicks said, ‘If you ever did want to talk about anything, John, in total confidence, you can always come to me. You do know that, don’t you?’
‘I appreciate it,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
Dicks picked up his glass again. ‘Do you remember something Einstein said, back in the 1930s? Why does science bring us so little happiness?’
‘And did he have an answer?’
‘Yes. He said it was because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it.’ Again he gave John a penetrating stare.
John looked down at his food, then fingered his glass, tempted to drink more to alleviate his awkwardness. But he was already feeling a little light-headed from the first glass, and he was determined never to make the mistake of opening up to anyone again, not even to someone he could trust as much as Carson Dicks.
He reminded himself, as he had to frequently, why he and Naomi had made the decision they had. And he thought of the two beautiful children they had now brought into the world. Two children who would never have been born if it hadn’t been for science.
‘Einstein was wrong about a lot of things,’ he said.
Carson Dicks smiled.
43
John felt decidedly unsteady as he walked back from the car park with his boss, hands in his pockets and his coat buttoned against the March wind. He entered the shabby lobby of the tired red-brick building, four storeys high, known simply as B11, that housed the Artificial Life Centre.
He’d broken his resolution to have just one glass with Carson, and they’d managed to get through two bottles between them, followed by a brandy each. Somehow, through the haze of alcohol, they’d managed to crack the design for the experiment John would spend the next three months on. He wasn’t sure how Carson had been able to drive back, although the man had always been a heavy drinker, so maybe it affected him less.
‘It’s Caroline’s birthday next weekend,’ Dicks said. ‘We’re having a little dinner party on Saturday – are you and Naomi free?’
‘Sounds good – I’ll check with my social secretary!’ John said. ‘Thanks.’
The paintwork was peeling, there was a row of Health and Safety Executive notices stuck to the walls, a yellow radiation warning sign, a poster advertising a concert, another advertising a car-boot sale, and a list for names for a three-day coach visit to Cern in Switzerland.
Ignoring the slow and decrepit lift, both of them climbed the four flights of stairs. At the top, Carson Dicks put an avuncular arm around him.
‘I mean what I said, John. If there’s anything you ever want to talk about, I’m here for you.’
‘I appreciate it. You’re a brick.’
‘I’m just glad to have you on my team. England’s lost too many good scientists to the States in the past fifty years. We’re lucky to have won one back.’ He gave John a reassuring pat and headed off towards his office.
John walked along the corridor and entered lab B111-404, a long room filled with computer workstations,
