White Teeth

ask Millat about his. He’s the descendant of-’

‘A great revolutionary. So I’ve heard. I wouldn’t take any of that seriously, if I were you. One part truth to three parts fiction in that family, I fancy. Any historical figure of note in your lot?’ asked Marcus, and then, immediately uninterested in his own question, returned to his search of filing cabinet number two.

‘No… no one… significant. But my grandmother was born in January 1907, during the Kingston-’

‘Here we are!’

Marcus emerged triumphant from a steel drawer, brandishing a thin plastic folder with a few pieces of paper in it.

‘Photographs. Especially for you. If the animal-rights lot saw these, I’d have a contract out on my life. One by one now. Don’t grab.’

Marcus passed Irie the first photo. It was of a mouse on its back. Its stomach was littered with little mushroom-like growths, brown and puffy. Its mouth was unnaturally extended, by the prostrate position, into a cry of agony. But not genuine agony, Irie thought, more like theatrical agony. More like a mouse who was making a big show of something. A ham-mouse. A luvvie-mouse. There was something sarcastic about it.

‘You see, embryo cells are all very well, they help us understand the genetic elements that may contribute to cancer, but what you really want to know is how a tumour progresses in living tissue. I mean, you can’t approximate that in a culture, not really. So then you move on to introducing chemical carcinogens in a target organ but…’

Irie was half listening, half engrossed in the pictures passed to her. The next one was of the same mouse, as far as she could tell, this time on its front, where the tumours were bigger. There was one on its neck that appeared practically the same size as its ear. But the mouse looked quite pleased about it. Almost as if it had purposefully grown new apparatus to hear what Marcus was saying about him. Irie was aware this was a stupid thing to think about a lab mouse. But, once again, the mouse-face had a mouse-cunning about it. There was a mouse-sarcasm in its mouse-eyes. A mouse-smirk played about its mouse-lips. Terminal disease? (the mouse said to Irie) What terminal disease?

‘… slow and imprecise. But if you re-engineer the actual genome, so that specific cancers are expressed in specific tissues at predetermined times in the mouse’s development, then you’re no longer dealing with the random. You’re eliminating the random actions of a mutagen. Now you’re talking the genetic program of the mouse, a force activating oncogenes within cells. Now you see, this particular mouse is a young male…’

Now FutureMouse© was being held by his front paws by two pink giant fingers and made to stand vertical like a cartoon mouse, thus forcing his head up. He seemed to be sticking out his little pink mouse- tongue, at the cameraman initially and now at Irie. On his chin the tumours hung like big droplets of dirty rain.

‘… and he expresses the H-ras oncogene in certain of his skin cells, so he develops multiple benign skin papillomas. Now what’s interesting, of course, is young females don’t develop it, which is…’

One eye was closed, the other open. Like a wink. A crafty mouse-wink.

‘… and why? Because of inter-male rivalry – the fights lead to abrasion. Not a biological imperative but a social one. Genetic result: the same. You see? And it’s only with transgenic mice, by adding experimentally to the genome, that you can understand those kind of differences. And this mouse, the one you’re looking at, is a unique mouse, Irie. I plant a cancer and a cancer turns up precisely when I expect it. Fifteen weeks into the development. Its genetic code is new. New breed. No better argument for a patent, if you ask me. Or at least some kind of royalties deal: 80 per cent God, 20 per cent me. Or the other way round, depending on how good my lawyer is. Those poor bastards in Harvard are still fighting the point. I’m not interested in the patent, personally. I’m interested in the science.’

‘Wow,’ said Irie, passing back the pictures reluctantly. ‘It’s pretty hard to take in. I half get it and I half don’t get it at all. It’s just amazing.’

‘Well,’ said Marcus, mock humble. ‘It fills the time.’

‘Being able to eliminate the random…’

‘You eliminate the random, you rule the world,’ said Marcus simply. ‘Why stick to oncogenes? One could program every step in the development of an organism: reproduction, food habits, life expectancy’ – automaton voice, arms out like a zombie, rolling eyeballs – ‘WORLD DOM-IN-A-SHUN.’

‘I can see the tabloid headlines,’ said Irie.

‘Seriously though,’ said Marcus, rearranging his photos in the folder and moving towards the cabinet to refile them, ‘the study of isolated breeds of transgenic animals sheds crucial light on the random. Are you following me? One mouse sacrificed for 5.3 billion humans. Hardly mouse apocalypse. Not too much to ask.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Damn! This thing is such a bloody mess!’

Marcus tried three times to shut the bottom drawer of his cabinet, and then, losing patience, levelled a kick at its steel sides. ‘Bloody thing!’

Irie peered over the open drawer. ‘You need more dividers,’ she said decidedly. ‘And a lot of the paper you’re using is A3, A2 or irregular. You need some kind of folding policy; at the moment you’re just shoving them in.’

Marcus threw his head back and laughed. ‘Folding policy! Well, I suppose you should know; like father like daughter.’

He crouched down by the drawer and gave it a few more pushes.

‘I’m serious. I don’t know how you work like that. My school shit is better organized, and I’m not in the business of World Domination.’

Marcus looked up at her from where he was kneeling. She was like a mountain range from that angle; a soft and pillowy version of the Andes.

‘Look, how about this: I’ll pay you fifteen quid a week if you come round twice a week and get a grip on this filing disaster. You’ll learn more, and I’ll get something I need done, done. Hey? What about it?’

What about it. Joyce already paid Millat a total of thirty-five quid a week for such diverse activities as baby-sitting Oscar, washing the car, weeding, doing the windows and recycling all the coloured paper. What she was really paying for, of course, was the presence of Millat. That energy around her. And that reliance.

Irie knew the deal she was about to make; she didn’t run into it drunk or stoned or desperate or confused, as Millat did. Furthermore, she wanted it; she wanted to merge with the Chalfens, to be of one flesh; separated from the chaotic, random flesh of her own family and transgenically fused with another. A unique animal. A new breed.

Marcus frowned. ‘Why all the deliberation? I’d like an answer this millennium, if you don’t mind. Is it a good idea or isn’t it?’

Irie nodded and smiled. ‘Sure is. When do I start?’

Alsana and Clara were none too pleased. But it took them a little while to compare notes and consolidate their displeasure. Clara was in night school three days a week (courses: British Imperialism 1765 to the Present; Medieval Welsh Literature; Black Feminism), Alsana was on the sewing machine all the daylight hours God gave while a family war raged around her. They talked on the phone only occasionally and saw each other even less. But both felt an independent uneasiness about the Chalfens, of whom they had gradually heard more and more. After a few months of covert surveillance, Alsana was now certain that it was to the Chalfens Millat went during his regular absences from the family home. As for Clara, she was lucky to catch Irie in on a week night, and had long ago rumbled her netball excuses. For months now it had been the Chalfens this and the Chalfens that; Joyce said this wonderful thing, Marcus is so terribly clever. But Clara wasn’t one to kick up a fuss; she wanted desperately what was best for Irie; and she had always been convinced that