Laura

Laura eases herself into what she’d always thought of as Gideon’s old bomb of a car, without really noticing it. She’s only recently learned it’s a 1970s Monaro GTS. A prize. Red, of course. Weren’t all Monaros red back then, acid red? Picardy Red, Gideon corrects.

Where’re we going?

He’s fiddling with the radio. Doesn’t answer. She glances behind her and sees a wicker basket on the back seat, a linen cloth across the top of it. Something smells delicious. Warm pastry and cinnamon. Comfort food.

OK, so we’re taking a picnic. Where?

He smiles across at her. Not far. If Avril calls, you’ll be no further from the hospital than if you were at home.

He takes a turn, away from the highway, and Laura settles back in the seat. The sun, the motion of the car, the smell of cinnamon—soporific at another time. But Laura’s fidgety, unable to relax.

Another turn, a slip road.

What’s bothering you, Dr Ellery?

She blinks. Uncanny. She glances quickly at him and then at the narrowing road ahead.

Genetics.

Hmmm? He’s frowning, quizzical.

Gideon, is there … is it possible there’s a gene for heroism?

~

It’s Laura’s kind of picnic. Olive bread, cheese, ripe pears, an apple tart. A half-bottle of Pinot Gris. Glass each, he says.

She looks out over the falls, noisy with last month’s rain, while Gideon reads the pages from Meggie’s kist. Finally, he puts the sheaf on the blanket, face down.

It’s a horrifying story, what the old man did, but your grandmother’s message to you—it’s beautiful, Laura.

She scratches at the grass with a twig, not trusting herself to speak at first. And then she looks up. I’m not even sure there IS a message, or if it’s just the unburdening of some shameful secret. A stab at absolving family sin, perhaps.

He shakes his head. There’s a stab at forgiveness there, Laura. Forgiveness is always beautiful, don’t you think? And, undoubtedly, there’s love.

Laura looks away. But you see what I mean?

That it’s some family legacy thing? From a biological perspective, no. Although there’s an anti-Darwinist defiance in the idea that I rather like.

What d’you mean?

Well, Darwin’s theory of natural selection is premised on self-preservation—to maximise the passing on of one’s genes and, hence, one’s genetic stake in the future.

She shifts restlessly and he waves a hand.

Sorry, you know that, of course you do. Well, the old man’s superstitions about letting the sea ‘have its prey’ can be restated in the most basic Darwinian terms: survival of the fittest. You don’t risk saving someone else at a cost to yourself. Meggie’s resolve to do the opposite is biologically anarchic. He taps his chin with two fingers and smiles. Yep, I reckon Allee would have liked that.

I never thought I’d hear a biologist rejecting Darwinism.

Not rejecting, just acknowledging its reductiveness. Evolutionary biologists will tell you it’s a whole lot more complex. Even old Darwin himself suspected that. And you know what? One of the things that stumped him most was altruism. He just couldn’t account for it. Why do certain animals sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the group? Insect workers that devote their lives to the queen. A species of monkey that warns others of the approach of predators, making itself the vulnerable one.

He pours the last of the wine into Laura’s glass.

Well, the old man toed the Darwinian line, she says grimly. No problem with pesky altruism there.

Are you going to give the pages to Avril?

Mmm, she says, frowning. I don’t want to, god knows, but I will. There’ve been too many secrets in this family. She hugs her knees, rests her chin there. And anyway, she’d never forgive me if I didn’t. Meggie’s real to her, you know? There’s a connection there … something …

Gideon’s quiet for a moment, and then he looks up at the sun. The old man—you know, I wonder whether the whole thing was rather bewildering for him.

You’re defending him?

Hardly. But imagine what it must have been like in 1905, a whole way of life sort of … collapsing. Suddenly you’re shunned for upholding beliefs your people held for generations.

Laura swirls the wine in her glass without tasting it. So you don’t think there’s a gene for it? This pointless self-destruction, I mean.

I don’t think there’s a gene ‘for’ most of the things that get trotted out as genetic these days. He counts off on his fingers. Gay gene. ADD gene. Fat gene. Huh. Forget individual variations in biochemistry; forget interactions with the environment, the social world. History. Chance. Choice. Forget the plasticity of living things. It’s about as simplistic as the fishermen’s superstitions—and look, they evolved as just a way of explaining the natural world.

He pauses. Laura says nothing.

Comes down to this: something to blame, something to point the finger at, something we might be able to ‘fix’. It’s not only reductive, it’s bad science. He lowers the cheese knife he’s been waving around and shrugs, sheepish. Ah, see, lecturing again. You shouldn’t have got me started.

He uses the knife to slice a pear, offers a wedge to Laura.

To get back to your original question: no, I don’t think you’ve passed on to Cooper some altruistic death-wish gene. That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it? Look, leaving aside the question of compassion—which is what I think of when your grandmother speaks of ‘not standing by and doing nothing’—sacrifice is kind of hardwired into our culture.

She picks at the pear, peeling off bits of skin.

All those men who went to war, like your grandfather. Both of mine, too. A lot of them were just kids, thought they were off to see the world, but many of them understood what they were doing and were ready to die for their country. Who can say where a conviction like that comes from?

Well, there was a lot of social pressure on them, she says slowly. But patriotism … I guess it’s a kind of cultural inheritance. Like religion. And superstition, for that matter. Tribal. What was that term Dawkins invented for ‘cultural genes’?

Memes, you mean? Gideon snorts. Now, if you want reductive …

But it’s uncanny. I can’t get past it. This, this LINEAGE. Meggie, Steven, my mother. And now Cooper, ignoring everything he’s been trained to do, going back into that house when he knew …

Laura! There’s no issue of lineage here. What about you? You’ve never—he splays his hands, palms up, mock dramatic—I don’t know, thrown yourself in front of a mad dog to save a snail, have you? Seriously, your son wasn’t listening to some ancestral voice in his head. He was doing his job. And saving a child’s life.

He wasn’t doing his job, Gideon. That’s just it. He didn’t know where the girl was. He didn’t even know if she was actually in the house. He just ran into the fire, blind.

Gideon’s voice is low. You don’t know that.

Laura’s silent, crumbling a piece of bread between her fingers.

Look, Cooper may have acted a bit recklessly, he continues. He probably did. But if he’d followed the rules, that little girl would be dead. Simple as that. Like Brukie’s Sandy. He looks at her over the tops of his glasses. Laura, if he’d followed the rules, he’d have done just what the old man did.

She stands abruptly, jolting the glass, spilling wine on the blanket.

Gideon joins her at the water’s edge.

He nearly died, she shouts above the noise of the falls. And now he’s got so much ahead of him. He’ll be struggling for the rest of his life.

Yes. But never underestimate the capacity of the individual not just to adapt to change, but to flourish. It’s one of the truly wondrous tendencies of the living world.

She’s quiet as they walk back to gather up the picnic things, hands deep in the pockets of her coat.

A small self-conscious laugh from Gideon. Hey, I’m sorry, that sounded a bit trite, but I was speaking as a scientist, not trying to trot out some new-age spiel.

So tell me, as a scientist, what do you make of my grandmother wanting to atone for the old man’s sin?

Oh god, Laura, I can’t explain the impulse to save another person’s life, regardless of risk, any better than Darwin could, or Allee, either. But your grandmother … His voice softens. I reckon she was a strong, intelligent, compassionate human being and it doesn’t surprise me the least bit that she responded intuitively to a child in danger. If you want to talk lineage, I can list a few things you’ve inherited from her. And passed on to Cooper.

She shuffles her feet, looks down. Offers him a peppermint.

But I reckon you’d just be embarrassed.

~

There’s something I want to show you on the way home.

He presses ‘play’ on the CD and she closes her eyes. David Bowie. ‘Life on Mars.’ Always surprising, Gideon.

They pull up in the driveway of an old weatherboard house.

Where are we?

Lucy’s house.

She raises a brow.

A friend. She’s at work. I asked her to let me know if they came this year … Well, come on, it’s easier just to show you.

He gets out and she reluctantly follows, murmuring in protest when he unclips the latch on the side gate.

It’s OK, he says, grabbing her by the wrist. Lucy knows we’re here.

Then why are you whispering?

They are now round the back of the house. An old-fashioned garden of fruit trees and flowers and little paths of broken bricks. He puts a finger to his lips and leads her towards a tree densely leaved in orange and brown. Odd. An autumn tree. In early spring?

He stops, whispers again. So they don’t fly away.

A hush of recognition that the leaves are not leaves. They are quivering, minutely fluttering, alive.

Oh, Gideon …

Thousands, there must be thousands of Monarchs clustering on the spreading branches of the loquat tree.

I don’t believe it!

I know. Incredible, isn’t it?

She is drawn forward, stepping cautiously. Bunches of butterflies are hanging like tiny bats, the colour of fire. I’ve seen photographs of those forests in Mexico where they fly every year to overwinter, but never here.

They’ve been hibernating for a few weeks. Just now beginning to awaken, getting ready to mate.

But …?

Don’t know where they’ve come from. Or why here. You’re right, you never see them aggregating like this in Perth. Apparently not anywhere in the West. But they’ve been coming to Lucy’s loquat tree for three years now.

Has she told anyone about this? The museum?

Monarchs are an introduced species, Laura. The museum’s not as interested in them as you are. He grins. And now the novelty’s worn off, Lucy’s only mildly interested herself. Reckons she’s done her bit for science by telling me.

Laura feels the kinesis, the collective energy of all those tiny flutterings.

There’s a Mexican legend about the overwinterers, she remembers. They say they’re the spirits of dead children returning home.

She stretches out her palms towards the light, the warmth of that pulsing life.

And you have no idea why they come?

He shrugs. Absolutely baffled. But then, that’s biology for you. Another grin. Never underestimate the element of chance.