‘Essentially, yeah.’
‘Using human stem cells? I mean, aside from anything else, ethically, that’s absolutely—’
‘I know. Ethically appalling. Probably illegal. So he hasn’t told his work yet. And he might not, either. Which means we have to keep this between us.’
She nods, slowly. ‘But if they’ve not been tested on animals, or humans, they’re essentially unsafe.’
I just have to come out with it. ‘This could be my one shot, Rach. It’s like looking at... a winning lottery ticket. Or a reprieve from death row.’
‘Maybe. If you needed one.’ She speaks softly, then picks up the bag, turns it between her fingers. ‘But you can’t risk taking an untested pill.’
‘A pill that means you never get old is the Holy Grail. It’s what every scientist dreams of inventing. If Wilf can somehow get around being sued, or sent to prison, or struck off the chemists’ charter or whatever it is they swear allegiance to, these pillscould realistically hit the market in five to ten years. Everyone will want to take one.’
She shoots me a faint smile. ‘Everyone?’
‘Wouldn’t they?’
A tiny headshake to confirm – though of course I should have already known – that she wouldn’t be among them.
I try again. ‘This pill could save my life.’
She swallows, hard. ‘But it could also kill you. Medication goes through rounds and rounds of testing for the very reason that one person... I mean, yes, Wilf is scarily clever. But he can’t know everything.’
‘Can we at least talk about what we do next?’
Her face softens, and she reaches out, grips my hand. ‘Of course. Of course we can. God, I can’t imagine how impossible this decision must seem.’
I feel my shoulders sink in relief.
She looks down at the bag again. ‘How many do you have to take?’
‘Just one. That’s all you need.’
‘Then why do you have two?’
I clear my throat. ‘Wilf thought it might be best if we both—’
She drops the bag as if it’s stung her, eyes abruptly wide. ‘I’ve never done drugs, Josh. I don’t even like taking painkillers.’
‘I know. But maybe we shouldn’t think of them as a drug.’
In the low light, her brown eyes look almost as if they are burning. ‘Okay. Then how should we think of them?’
‘A chance to save my life.’
9.
Rachel
August 1980
The thing I remember most starkly about my mother was the void of her gaze. How she would look almost through me, more Victorian portrait than person. So different from Dad, to whom emotion was like good music, to be enjoyed and responded to, impossible to switch off.
Back then, Mum was a roving reporter for a local paper, which meant she always had an excuse to escape me and Dad at a moment’s notice.
She and I had never bonded in the way society seemed to deem we should. She appeared committed, in fact, to maintaining the distance that had existed between us for as long as I could remember. So when that summer work trip she went on, the year I turned ten, transpired to be our permanent parting, I wasn’t surprised, or even particularly upset. It felt less like a loss than a lifestyle change I could fairly easily adapt to.
But it wasn’t quite that straightforward, of course. In the wake of Mum leaving, the difficulties came not so much from her absence as from what it implied. I began feeling scrutinised, sensing that people were judging me harder than they were my mother. Perhaps they were even thinking,How bad must you have been, for your own mother to walk out?
