The woman in white leads me into the bedroom and switches on the lamp. Gabriella sits up in bed. She has clearly been asleep,and looks startled when she sees us. As I suppose most people would if woken in the middle of the night. Her eyes flick from me to the woman, blinking as though adjusting to the light.
“Your mother is here to see you,” the woman in white tells her.
Gabriella stares at me again, then shakes her head.
She looks confused and afraid.
Then my daughter, who hasn’t spoken a single word for ten years, opens her mouth.
The whispered words that come out of it are quiet and fragile and broken, as though it requires a huge amount of effort to speak them, but I still hear what Gabriella says.
“She. Is. Not. My. Mother.”
18BIRDY
Six months earlier
I am not a people person, and it is a relief to be back in London. Back in my flat. Back inside the life that I have built for myself since the life I knew was taken away from me. Everything that has happened over the last few days feels like a dream—the hospital, the inheritance, the grandmother I didn’t know I had, the trip to Hope Falls, the one-night stand. It’s all a bit overwhelming—even for me—but I will not let this diagnosis define me. Nobody else needs to know that I am terminally ill, that’s between me and death. It’s time to get back to reality. Back to work. Back to who I am now, not who I was then, before I knew. But first, there are some things I need to know.
I leave Sunday downstairs in the bookshop, walk along the little lane that is Cecil Court, and step into real London. I hail a black cab to Harley Street, anxious not to be late for my appointment. The fancy letter I found from Thanatos claimed to predict the exact day of my grandmother’s death. I want to know if it’s a con. And if it isn’t—which of course it is—I want to know if they can predict mine.
The receptionist knows my name before I say it, which is a tad disconcerting. I sit in a waiting room—something I am getting used to—but this is not like any of the NHS hospital waiting rooms I have spent hours in recently. This is a private clinic on Harley Streetand it looks like something from the future. Instead of dated, tired furniture and a permanent smell of bleach and despair, everything in this place is brand-new and white. The air has the calming scent of a luxury spa, and the staff all look like models, with perfect hair, flawless makeup, as though their faces have been airbrushed, and permanent white smiles.
I only booked the appointment yesterday and now I am here. The Thanatos website consisted of a landing page with the company’s name and a phone number. That was it. No details about who they are or what they do. Nothing. When I called the number, a posh female voice immediately purred that membership wasby invitation only. I didn’t ask membership of what, instead I gave her my grandmother’s name that was printed on the invitation I had found at her house in Hope Falls. Because Olivia Bird is my name too. I was put on hold for a long time. So long I almost hung up, but then a voice replaced the soothing music I’d been forced to listed to, and I swear I could hear the woman on the phone smiling as she saidWelcome to Thanatos.
I was given a different web address—something you would never find unless you knew to look—and asked to complete an online questionnaire. An hour later they called me back, offered me an appointment today, and here I am. No waiting list. No waiting. When I first found the Thanatos letter at my grandmother’s home I felt nothing but rage. I was sure that it was a con, just another—albeit elaborate—way to take advantage of the elderly. And take their money. But the anonymous voice on the phone said that there are no fees at Thanatos.
You give us your time and we tell you how much you have left.
That’s what the voice said. More than once.
As though it were a line from a script.
I might be here in the waiting room, but I still don’t believe that a company can really predict a person’s date of death. I know we live in a world ruled by technology capable of things I couldn’t have even imagined when I was a child, but this just sounds too far-fetched. A quick Google search soon proves me wrong.
There are literally hundreds of news articles about the subject. Ranging from stories about scientists using blood samples and laser beams to predict how long a person will live, to more recent AI developments involving algorithms that can guess when someone might die with a “high degree of accuracy” based on their DNA. While there seem to be a lot of companies all competing in the race to create an accurate death clock, none of the ones I have found online claim to be able to predict the exact day a person will die. A death date.
There are very few details about Thanatos online, almost none, but I found one tiny mention of it in a recent newspaper article describing it as “one of the world’s leading pharma tech companies”—whatever that means. They wouldn’t even give me an address until I completed the online questionnaire and was offered an appointment. All I had that proved this place even existed was a paper invitation and the website. Both looked stylish, expensive, and minimalistic. A lot like this waiting room.
“If you could just fill out this questionnaire, the doctor will see you shortly,” purrs the smiling receptionist, handing me an iPad. She’s young, early twenties, and dressed in designer clothes that look like they cost a week’s wages. I still can’t figure out the scam. I’ve met more than my fair share of criminals and she doesn’t look or sound like one. But shedoeslook familiar, even though I can’t put my finger on why. I think I might have seen her in a film, but that seems unlikely. I stare at the iPad in her pale, manicured hand.
“I already filled out something online—”
“That’s thefirstquestionnaire. This is thesecondone. It’s all part of the process.” She says the words slowly and kindly with a smile so strangely sincere it is unnerving. Her teeth are a dazzling shade of white and too perfect, just like the rest of her. I wonder how many questionnaires there are going to be in total as I take the iPad and start answering the next set of questions. Some of which are the same as last time, almost as though this is a test.
The questionnaire starts with the basics: name, address, age, sex, weight, height. Then there are some questions I didn’t expect and feel uncomfortable answering:
Please state your annual income.*
List names and dates of birth for all known family members.*
Any and all social media accounts must be declared below.*
Any and all email addresses (past and present) must be declared below.*
ALL questions are PART OF THE PROCESS.
*Failure to disclose any requested information terminates the process.
