Scanlon was away for a week: a round of Midday Shows, Late Shows, Face-to-Face Interviews and Personal Appearances in the southern capitals. Halfway through the week — a week which I wanted to set aside for collecting my thoughts, and deciding my long-term Scanlon policy — Tad summoned me to the Sixth Floor:
‘Don’t tarry. It’s eureka time, chérie.’
I found him in the Cell Lab, bent over his binocular microscope. No opera could be heard, for once he was working in silence. He beckoned urgently, keeping his eyes glued to the twin eyepieces. I sat opposite and bent to the accessory eyepiece.
‘What am I looking at?’
‘Dr Hollis Schultz. Or part thereof.’
‘Which part?’
‘One gut cell.’
I stared into a round, illuminated field. Two columnar cells, mirror images, were fused at the waist by a narrowing thread of cell substance.
‘Two gut cells,’ I corrected him.
He lifted his eyes from the binoculars; I lifted mine. He shook his head from side to side, smugly, silently.
I asked the question: ‘You mean you’ve done it?’
He rotated the lenses: ‘Come up to higher magnification. Take a look at the genes.’
We bent again; there could be no mistake: each half cell contained a half set of chromosomes. Twenty-three singles.
‘How long can it survive? Any idea?’
‘A few days, with luck. I’ve frozen the division before the final tearing of the cell envelope. I’m trying a new culture medium — Scanlon suggested the mix. Something they used with the Tiger.’
‘He didn’t mention anything to me.’
‘Maybe he had other things to talk to you about.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
He laughed, teasingly: ‘Don’t be coy. I think it’s sweet.’
I interrupted: ‘I’d better ring the White House and give our esteemed leader the good news.’
Tad twiddled his lenses again: ‘I took the liberty of ringing already.’
‘When?’
He bent his face to the microscope, hiding his expression: ‘Just now.’
‘Before or after you rang me?’
‘After, of course.’
This mollified me a little, but only a little.
‘What did he say?’
‘He’s on his way over. Don’t be angry, chérie — Hollis is always up here, poking around. Can’t seem to stay away from the place.’
‘I never see him in my Department.’
‘He and Scanlon are pretty thick. Maybe it’s some American thing. They shut themselves away in Scanlon’s office for hours. I don’t know what they talk about all day … Basketball, maybe.’
Hollis Schultz arrived within minutes, with Mary-Beth in tow: beaming, offering congratulations. They both spent time peering through the microscope under Tad’s supervision.
Hollis lifted his eyes first: ‘So where to now, Mara? We can use this to fertilise Mary-Beth’s eggs?’
‘It’s not that simple. I didn’t expect your genes to be ready for months.’
He wasn’t listening: ‘We want to get this thing moving. A.s.a.p.’
Mary-Beth bent elegantly over the microscope, one hand holding back her hair. She was wearing a simple black skirt and poison-green blouse. She was wearing … Whenever Mary-Beth Schultz finds her way into these pages those words seem to write themselves. I couldn’t help but notice her clothes. And remember. I could probably describe her wardrobe on each of the dozen or so occasions I met her, at times even her complete wardrobe, underwear included. Various pastel-green, lace-trimmed things were folded neatly on a side chair later that morning as she lay on my examination table.
There was nothing much to note: normal pelvic dimensions, no organ abnormalities.
‘There is one thing that worries me, Mara,’ she said, fully clothed again. ‘One thing I want to ask.’
‘I don’t think this is the time, sweetheart,’ her husband said.
I interrupted: ‘No. Feel free to ask.’
She glanced at her husband, then spoke her mind: ‘What are the chances of some sort of birth defect?’
‘Small. But tests can be done at an early stage. If there is anything wrong …’
‘I couldn’t allow an abortion,’ Schultz interposed.
‘All this is hypothetical,’ I said. ‘There is no guarantee that we can do it. We still have to get a full half set of chromosomes out of those cells upstairs, and into your egg. If the technique works — I stress if — your main worry will be choosing the sex of your baby.’
They glanced at each other, surprised.
‘Girl,’ said Mary-Beth. ‘Girl first.’
Schultz appeared disconcerted: ‘I naturally thought — seeing you were using my cells — that the child would be a boy.’
I shook my head: ‘There has to be a choice. No way of avoiding it. You understand that each gut cell is split in two: creating, in effect, one male and one female sperm cell. One X, one Y.’
Schultz rose and walked to the window and turned, mildly agitated. I was surprised that it mattered so much to him.
‘A girl,’ Mary-Beth was saying, using a pleading, mock-little-girl tone herself. ‘Please.’
‘We’ll think about it.’
‘Please, honey.’
Schultz shrugged: ‘okay, a girl,’ he said, and his wife reached out and squeezed his hand.