AVIGAIL ACCEPTED THE cup of tea that was being offered. It came with a plate of custard creams and chocolate bourbons. They were making an effort.
‘So few people consider adoption these days,’ the manager was saying.
Avigail hadn’t told her that she was not considering adoption herself either. She was here for research. It was a new way in, a problem people hadn’t started talking about yet. And to FullLife it was nothing but a way to placate their opposition. The new biotech and the old religions working together, now there was a contradiction.
As far as she’d been able to discover, FullLife were donating used pouches and managing the birthing process on the condition that various churches and some of the more progressive pro-life groups covered the cost of care for the children. That wasn’t where it had started though. To begin with, FullLife had needed to run clinical trials to test their early-stage transfer process and women considering abortion had been offered a new choice.
‘We don’t like to call ourselves orphanages,’ the manager continued. ‘That implies a tragedy, where there has been none.’
‘I see.’
‘We are saving lives, as you know. And we are called care homes, because we offer home and care.’
Avigail was planning to get some photos, find the saddest, scrawniest child and make sure the scandal of the care homes was plastered on the front page of every newspaper. Surely people would start questioning the pouch if they knew FullLife had been producing these children then leaving them out here to live where no one would have to look at them. Surely people would see this was wrong.
‘Would you like to have a look round the dormitories, and see the canteen?’
‘Absolutely.’ Avigail stood, leaving the biscuits untouched.
‘Let’s start with the nursery.’
She was surprised, but shouldn’t have been – of course they would be delivered here as soon as the birthing process was finished. Still, she gasped when she saw the room. Flooded with light, painted pale green, and the music …
‘The synthetic milk is an absolute godsend,’ the manager was saying. ‘FullLife provide the various mixes – each variety has everything the babies need – and you’d be surprised how quickly they develop a taste for their favourite type. Marvellous, when you think about it.’ She chuckled, picking up one of the babies, who was awake and wriggling, then offering him to Avigail, who shook her head and stepped away. She didn’t want to hold these pouch babies – she wanted to stop this from happening. But she hadn’t found her angle yet.
‘What about the older children?’ she said. ‘How do you feed them?’
‘Oh, don’t worry, they’re all very healthy and well nourished. It’s not the food that’s a difficulty, it’s the space.’ She pointed towards the window and Avigail followed her there to look out. ‘Our new building site.’
Beyond the edges of the grassy field behind the care home she was standing in, more areas had been sectioned off with wire fencing, and a series of cabins were already positioned for construction workers and on-site management. They were building more.
‘My God, how many children are there?’ Avigail said.
She stepped back and felt her leg brush against something. Or someone. A child had wandered in from the dormitory opposite. The manager started to usher her out of the room, muttering something about the naptime supervisor, but Avigail stopped her.
‘What’s your name?’ she said, kneeling down to be at the same height as the toddler standing in front of her. She had wide green eyes and olive skin and skinny arms, and she reached out a finger to touch Avigail’s brightly coloured dress. ‘My name’s Avigail,’ she said. ‘Do you want to tell me your name?’
The little girl shook her head and backed away.
‘It’s OK,’ Avigail found herself saying. ‘It’s OK, you can tell me your name.’
The manager touched Avigail on the shoulder to get her attention, and she stood up.
‘We let them choose their own names,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, the babies are anonymous when they arrive here, you see, and it gives the children a sense of identity to choose their own names when they’re ready.’
‘Identity?’
‘Or control, if you prefer … She can come with us, for a few minutes.’
Avigail looked at the little girl, who was watching with her back pressed against the wall. She felt a surge of anger at the pouch, at that awful synthetic milk, at every way in which women had stopped being mothers.
‘Where are the pouches kept? Before the birthing process, I mean.’
‘There’s another building for that,’ the manager said. ‘Couple of miles from here. But they get the very same nutrients as everyone else. FullLife deliver fresh bags twice a week, and take away the old ones for recycling. This way.’ She was walking through the corridor now, pointing in to the dormitories, each with around ten beds, some occupied by napping children, and each with plenty of toys, plenty of heat. Avigail followed close by her side, passing room after room after room. ‘FullLife give them all the same check-ups, too. Completely for free, of course. It’s quite wonderful.’
The little girl was walking along behind them, holding on to Avigail’s dress – now and then Avigail felt a tug on the hem as the girl’s small legs struggled to keep up.
‘Imagine, in the past, how parents could be a terrible influence during pregnancy,’ the manager was saying. ‘Especially the ones who were considering abortion. Think of all the things unborn babies could be exposed to – alcohol, toxins, cold, hunger … Now, not only can we offer life, but every baby in the pouch has everything it needs.’
‘She’s not shy,’ Avigail interrupted, and the manager stopped mid-stride. ‘She’s following me around. So why won’t she tell me her name?’
‘Oh, she hasn’t chosen one yet,’ the manager shrugged. ‘She doesn’t like to speak at all. We don’t know why.’
Avigail felt her throat clench, but she wouldn’t cry. Not here. She would not show this little girl any useless pity; she’d show her something better.
She knelt down and beckoned her closer, pushed her hair back from her face and smiled until she got a smile in return. ‘Of course you don’t like to speak,’ she said, with a wink. ‘I bet you’d prefer to shout.’
Eva watched the first few reports on her computer at home that afternoon. How Rosie Bhattacharyya had arrived at the birthing centre shortly after noon – she must have just missed her, thank God – how they’d chosen the main public centre rather than the more exclusive private options because of the history of their family.
She was irritated and impatient. There was something new happening at FullLife, and she wanted to find out what it was. Quentin had seemed nervous, sure, but not dishonest – if anything he’d seemed shaken up and ready to talk. It made sense that her mother had known him. He must have been a good connection at FullLife, especially if he had feelings for her. Presumably they weren’t reciprocated – she’d never heard her mother mention him. She’d never asked her to contact him, or tell him about her illness.
A bulletin announced there was going to be an exclusive. Tomorrow morning, the first interview with the new parents. Piotr Filipek gives one of his famous ‘interviews at home’. Trust Piotr to be on the front line. She hadn’t been that far off, then, thinking he might have been outside FullLife that morning – it was just that he didn’t even need to be in the press huddle. Maybe he hadn’t changed at all in the past six years. She shook her head, but she was paying attention now, whether she wanted to or not.
Then came the next news cycle. She was expecting an announcement about the birth but instead they just talked about the arrival in more detail: Holly wearing a floral dress – for the love of God, who cared – the pouch being carried into the building by the father, Kaz. At this point she was annoyed enough to stand up and switch off the computer, only then leaning against the table and counting to ten.
How ridiculous, this business with the dress. She remembered it from before – it was a part of the history now. Holly and her bright floral dress. As if that said anything. As if it meant anything.
Her phone started ringing. She stared at the screen, but didn’t answer.
The point was, women should never have had to change anything about themselves. A dress wasn’t going to make it OK that they did. The technology had been invented too soon. It had happened too fast. Like an industrial revolution bringing progress on one hand and destruction on the other.
So there was inequality at work – improve the legislation, and enforce it. That was a much simpler solution than an external womb for heaven’s sake. Why not try that first? It was as if the science had raced past the common sense, past the socio-economics of the problem. If women were being subject to prejudice, denied promotion for having had a child – or for the potential of having a child in the future – then the prejudice should be removed. Obviously.
How was that not obvious to everyone else?
Of course men and women were different. What was wrong with men and women being different? You didn’t need to make them the same, you just needed to treat both with the same respect. When a child was born, men and women should be given equal parental leave, take the same responsibility for raising the child, and so be treated with the same respect. That was how she would have done it, if she’d been able to. Although there were people – her mother included – who thought even that was too far. Why should men get parental leave? she’d say. Let them work, and let us women give birth. We should be paid to raise our children for as long as we want to – and then employers should give us back our jobs at the salary we’d have had if we’d never left.
She could see her mother’s point, but Eva knew some battles were impossible to win. Their society was still based on capitalism, whatever else had changed.
She looked down at the number on her phone. Shook her head. It was the second time he’d called today.
After all these years, she still knew his number. You can delete someone from an address book but you can’t delete them from your memory.
It was an interesting coincidence that he should be phoning now – on the day that she met James Quentin, on the day she realised there might actually be a story, some kind of story, that she wanted to be reported. It was too soon, though. She needed to talk to James again. Quentin. If she knew anything about Piotr, it was that he would have his facts – and they were rarely the facts she wanted. So she needed to have hers ready. She was pacing around the room, circling the piano as she began to organise her thoughts, to make a plan of action. But first, she was going to go for a run. It was starting to get dark, and it was cold out, and she didn’t care. She was going for a run, then she was going to do some research. And tomorrow she was going to find out what the hell was going on, and tell the world.
Piotr woke up with a start. He was on the sofa. His head was on Sweet Potato’s cushion. The cat herself was nowhere to be seen.
When had he fallen asleep on the sofa?
Sitting up, looking towards the window, it was clearly the middle of the night. London never got properly dark, but there was a lull, a couple of hours when you could almost believe that the city was sleeping. Piotr didn’t like being woken during the lull. He stretched, trying to feel each muscle all the way down to his toes, then stood and started walking to the bedroom.
On the table, his phone was lit up.
He had a message.
Sitting back down he opened it. Blinked. Read it again.
We have work to do. Tomorrow evening. My place.
He looked, confused, at the phone, at his hands. Then down at his feet. He was wearing his Friday socks: red and blue stripes, with a black heel. He was fairly sure he wouldn’t have been wearing his Friday socks if he had actually been dreaming. In his dreams, he was usually more suave than that.
I have no idea what’s going on, he thought.
I have absolutely no idea what is going on.
And then: shit.
Tomorrow.
His Friday socks were thrown in the wash, along with most of his clothes, which were all dirty. The spider’s web now reached pretty much to the floor. It was almost destroyed with the whack of a book before he changed his mind, put on some bright yellow Marigolds that he found under the sink, climbed onto the sofa, gently removed it from the ceiling, and then trailed it out of the window to flutter, slowly, to the ground. If there were spiders in there somewhere, at least they would have a fighting chance.
Now, he was going to go out for a run. In the middle of the night. And then he was going to have a shower. And then – then – he was going to try to figure out what the hell was going on. Because there were three women he was going to see tomorrow: Rosie in the morning, with her new baby and her innocent smile, Holly Bhattacharyya with her proud stare, and now Eva – Eva in the evening, with her opinions and her ideas and her spiky hair and her voice. God, he missed her voice. And he knew without a doubt that he wanted to hear whatever it was that she had to say.
James woke before his alarm, the kind of waking that won’t allow you to go back to sleep again, and lay still for a while, the unease making him search for nightmares that he couldn’t remember. He thought he’d dreamed that something awful had happened, though as he ran through every member of his family, he knew they were safe and sleeping soundly. The guilt, he thought, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, was probably due to missing dinner last night – well, not so much missing the dinner but having to lie as to the reason. Was that it? He sat up silently so as not to wake Julianne. His feet found their slippers, tucked halfway under the bed. He was glad. The floor was cold.
He could see their point, the directors, which was why he was going along with it. There would be panic that could damage lives – if people stopped trusting the pouch then it would change everything. All he needed was a little more time. To think that, just yesterday, he’d almost spoken to Avigail’s daughter about what he was working on. As if he could have a normal conversation about his work and she would just understand that it had to be kept secret. That she might thank him. Had he really imagined she might appreciate what he was doing?
Ridiculous, really, when Avigail would have been horrified and certainly wouldn’t have kept it secret. He would have told her, inevitably, and she would have told everyone – he’d never been able to stop himself. He’d been young and naive, but even so, it was absurd the way his words just tumbled out as soon as he saw her. He’d never understood why, had only realised that he had to stop seeing her, had to distance himself from the only woman who got so completely under his skin. Julianne, though – he looked at her, still fast asleep, the duvet bunched around her face but pushed off her legs – Julianne would probably keep the secret if he asked her to. What he was worried about was that if he told one person, he would tell more. He had to keep his silence. And he found it easier, nowadays, to hide the truth when he needed to. Where had he learned to do that? It was one of those slow changes in his character that he’d have resisted had he been aware of it, but having only just noticed how easily he lied to her it was already ingrained. He would have found it more difficult to tell her the truth.
But why? She would have understood. She loved the pouch, and he was trying to save it. That’s what he was trying to do. Save it.
If only it hadn’t been Holly Bhattacharyya’s great-grandchild.
He shook his head, disgusted at himself, and brushed his teeth vigorously. Toothpaste mingled with blood in the basin, and he swished it away with the cold tap, splashing the water onto his face as well. And then he looked up.
There was no mirror above their basin, just a wall of pale blue tiles. They’d done the work themselves, he and Julianne, one weekend a few years ago – toasting their success on the Sunday night with a bottle of wine – and he’d gone into work late the next morning, hung-over and happy. It had been a long time since he’d done that.
He went back to the bed, and knelt down by Julianne’s side. She stirred, stretched a bare leg beyond the mattress.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, keeping his voice quiet, barely louder than a breath.
She said some words that weren’t words, just the made-up noises of sleep, as if she was talking to him in her dream. He picked up his bag and keys, closed the door quietly behind him and headed for the Tube.
Eva arrived in front of the cafe to meet Quentin. The image of herself yesterday, sliding in a heap to the pavement, was like a half-memory that she was pleased not to remember too well. On the way there, she’d passed a gleaming department store that had police tape zigzagged across its side door. There’d been another break-in. And there were teenagers on the Tube, whispering angrily about something. She’d been in a daze for too long, but she was wide awake now. And she wanted answers.
That morning she’d listened to the radio with half her concentration – background noise while she made coffee, swirled honey in yogurt. Then she’d listened with full concentration to news about a celebrity marriage and the sports results and realised, when they came to their chirpy conclusion, that something was missing. So she’d searched online for news of the Bhattacharyya baby, expecting the sites to be full of details, name, weight, hair colour. Nothing. A few sites carried a cursory message, hidden far from the home page, about the family requesting privacy. Now, all of a sudden, that family wanted privacy? No. There was only one reason to avoid saying anything – only one reason she could think of for FullLife to pass up the opportunity of this much publicity. Something had happened. For the first time, she saw a shadow falling over their flawless success. And stepping outside, she saw the same shadow falling over their flawless society.
She marched into the cafe, first again, and selected a different seat today – a table at the back, where they could remain unseen, where their voices would be masked from the rest of the room by the grind and whir of the coffee machine. Her eyes scanned the room then she reached into her bag and pulled out the paper from the train. She was planning to look for any more news of the ‘NaturalBirth’ plan. Whatever that really was.
The editors had managed to fill ten pages without saying anything at all: a new housing development had opened its beige show home, cinemas were screening Hollywood blockbusters and old winter classics, shops were advertising expensive perfume and bright toys. The paper felt flimsy beneath her fingers, slippery from its gloss coating. But there it was, a small advert – eighth of a page, they really were trying to stay below the radar – carrying the FullLife logo and a list of their health-care plans. And buried in the middle was the new NaturalBirth plan. Unlike the FullBirth plan, which was still top of the list. To the side, a man and woman carrying matching pouches with all the latest accessories, dressed in complementary designer labels: Pop duo prepare for twins.
The picture was far more obvious, more eye-catching, than the list of health-care plans. The pouch was still top priority, that much was clear. She flicked through the rest, scanning over colour photos and well-spaced text, but there was nothing in there about Rosie Bhattacharyya. Maybe Piotr had wangled the exclusive in print as well as online. It wasn’t that she wanted him to fall apart without her, she just hadn’t expected …
The bell over the door jangled, brightly. She looked up, but it wasn’t him.
He was late, which was making her suspicious, and she was in no mood to be patient. In her mind he was definitely Quentin again, not James. She stood up and asked for her coffee to go.
It had turned into one of those bright, crisp winter days that suited London so well, the spires catching the light on their tips like beads of water on needles. The bare trees had ice on their branches. She liked trees better without their leaves, preferred frost and brittle bark to the restful greens of summer. With the same determination she’d had when leaving the cafe, she pushed the large, revolving glass door of the birthing centre and marched, eyes diverted from the tower of baby photos, straight up to reception.
‘I’m here to see Dr Quentin,’ she announced loudly.
The young man on reception had been looking at his phone, smiling – perhaps messaging someone – but if she’d waited she would have risked appearing nervous. He started clicking through the bookings to check her appointment but, of course, could find no section for Dr Quentin. The reception desk only directed people to the medical doctors who performed monthly check-ups and delivered newborns.
‘I know my way,’ she began saying.
He was flustered. ‘Just give me a minute …’
She regretted not making straight for the lift now, seeing if she could outrun him, though she had no idea how to get to the restricted research labs. She’d always avoided this building. Stupid – she should have been studying it, learning her way round for when she needed access. That’s what her mum would have done.
‘I’ll just … let me just …’ he was saying.
He reached for the phone. Well, she thought, perhaps Quentin would actually give her access – he was the one who had suggested meeting, after all. Behind the reception desk, a wall-mounted screen displayed the latest FullLife advert.
She waited. Her eyes fell to the pouch the receptionist was wearing – still small, in the first trimester. Brand new though, with all the expensive extras, audio adapter, portable nutrient feed, the smart-cover that expanded with the pouch itself. FullLife made sure their staff had the best of the best, no used pouches for them. She peered at his mobile and saw he’d been looking at an ultrasound. He’d been smiling at his baby.
‘There’s no answer,’ he said, looking up. ‘Would you mind waiting …’
He gestured over to the comfy seats that lined the edges of the lobby.
She nodded, selecting a seat as near to the lifts as possible. They all faced the display, the thousands of photographs of newborn babies delivered here. Exactly what she’d wanted to avoid. But she couldn’t help it, she started seeing their faces, their curled hands, those little hats in colours selected to match the pouch they’d been carried in. She stood and stepped closer, drawn in against her will. Some of their faces were scrunched up against the world, others’ eyes wide and alert, eager to see. Some had their mouths open in a wail but many looked content, peaceful, sleepy. There were babies with dark brown eyes and blue eyes and hazel-green, blonde hair and tight black curls, lying on saris and knitted blankets and grandparents’ knees. Suddenly it hit her again, as a punch to her chest.
She heard the smooth swish of a lift opening and turned, blinked. He looked pale. Head down, he rushed towards the emergency exit that she was fairly sure no one was supposed to use.
Eva swallowed, tried to push her feelings away and took a deep breath. Now was not the time to fall apart. The receptionist was talking on the phone, stroking his pouch with every few words. She turned and without rushing, without making a sound, walked towards the emergency exit Quentin had disappeared through. He’d left the door slightly ajar. She pushed it. He was about three steps to her left – she could only see his back. He was leaning into the corner, his head hanging low, his hands pressed against the wall above his head. By his feet was a puddle of vomit, the liquid sparkling where it caught the sun.
‘Please no …’ he was saying, over and over again.