Perfect People Read online

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ John said.

  Nodding like some kind of automaton, Saul Haranchek turned back towards the door. ‘OK, right—’

  Interrupting, John said, ‘Saul – look, I don’t mean it that way, it’s just – I guess – I’ve blown my chance of tenure, right?’

  His phone was ringing again.

  ‘You want to take that?’ Haranchek said.

  John answered it, in case it was Sally Kimberly. It wasn’t. It was a woman called Barbara Stratton asking if he could do a quick down-the-line radio interview. He told her again more politely than he felt that he couldn’t, and replaced the receiver. ‘I’ve been an idiot, Saul,’ he said.

  ‘Is it true what I read? Did you and Naomi really go to Dettore?’

  The phone was ringing again. John ignored it. ‘It’s true.’

  Haranchek put his hands on the top of a chair-back. ‘Oh boy.’

  ‘Do you know something about him?’

  ‘He was right here at this university back in the eighties for a couple of years. But no, I don’t know anything about him – only what I read – and now he’s dead, right?’

  ‘Yes. Do you have a view on his work?’

  ‘He was a smart guy – had an IQ that was off the scale. Having a high IQ doesn’t necessarily make you a great human being, or even a good one. It just means you can do shit in your head that other people can’t do.’

  John said nothing.

  ‘Look, it’s none of my business. I’m rude to ask about it. But the real problem is, John, that this article doesn’t do your credibility as a scientist much good – nor our department, by implication.’

  ‘The truth is not at all how the paper put it, Saul. You know how things get distorted. Papers love to claim that science is more advanced than it really is.’

  His colleague looked at him dubiously.

  ‘You want me to resign? Is that what you’re saying?’

  Haranchek shook his head adamantly. ‘Absolutely not. No question. It’s unfortunate timing – let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Saul,’ he said. ‘Is there anything I can do to salvage my tenure chances?’

  Haranchek glanced at his watch. ‘I have to get back to the meeting.’

  ‘Apologize for me, will you, Saul?’

  ‘You got it.’ He closed the door.

  John stared down again at the note from Sally Kimberly. Although angry at her, he was even more angry at his own stupidity. He’d been nice to her, opened up to her in the hope she would do a good piece on his department. Why the hell hadn’t he remembered the world didn’t work that way?

  He got himself a coffee then sat down. Almost immediately his phone rang again. It was Naomi and her voice was very small and quavering. ‘John, have you seen the news – in the past half hour?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Why, what it is?’

  ‘Dr Dettore. He was killed by religious fanatics – they’re claiming responsibility, saying Dettore worked for Satan. They’re called the Disciples of the Third Millennium. They’re saying they put a bomb on the helicopter. And they’ve announced that anyone tampering with genetics will be a legitimate target. I’m really frightened, John.’

  27

  In the small editing suite, Naomi sat watching the rough cut of the first episode of the new series on disaster survivors she had been hired to promote and then left to drive home.

  She needed to concentrate, somehow to blank out the news about Dr Dettore, blank out her anxiety over the child growing inside her and blank out her suspicions that John had slept with the bitch reporter Sally Kimberly.

  And blank out the looks she got from everyone she worked with. She wondered which of them had read the piece or heard about it. Some of them must have, for sure, but no one said anything to her, and that made it worse. Lori was the only friend who contacted her. ‘Darling, what amazing news!’ she said, her voice different to usual. Still as bubbly as ever, but today almost too damned bubbly, as if it was an act, as if she was doing her best to mask distaste but not quite succeeding. ‘You didn’t tell us!’

  It seemed that in the past two days her entire world had been turned upside down. She was having a girl, not a boy. Dettore was dead. Fanatics were making threats. Her face was on the front of America’s biggest newspaper. And she could no longer trust her husband.

  She wished desperately she was back in England. Back with her mother and her sister. John always talked about marriage being a wagon-train circle you formed against the outside world, but he was wrong. Your flesh and blood were that wagon-train circle. They were the people you could trust. No one else. Not even your husband.

  She remembered a poem she had read a long time ago, which said home was the place where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in.

  That’s where she wanted to be now. Home.

  English home.

  Real home.

  ‘Shit.’ She braked sharply, bringing the elderly Toyota to a halt by a fire hydrant, and stared in horror at the sight greeting her. Cars, news vans and news trucks were parked along the tree-lined street either side of their house. A small crowd of people stood on the grass verge brandishing cameras and microphones.

  She was surprised to see John’s Volvo already in the narrow carport. It was twenty past six. He was never normally home before eight at the very earliest. The reporters surged across her path, closing in around her like pack animals as she turned into the drive and pulled up alongside John’s car. As she opened the door, voices were yelling at her from all directions.

  ‘Mrs Klaesson!’

  ‘Hey, Naomi – look this way!’

  ‘How do you feel about carrying the world’s first designer baby, Mrs Klaesson?’

  ‘Will Dr Dettore’s death have any affect on—’

  ‘What is your reaction to Dr Dettore’s death, Mrs Klaesson?’

  She pushed her way through, tight-lipped, and made it to the porch. As she pulled open the fly screen the front door opened. She stepped inside and John, wearing shorts and a singlet, slammed it shut behind her.

  ‘Get rid of them!’ she said angrily.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He gave her a kiss but she turned her face away so sharply he barely touched her cheek.

  During the morning, the rain had cleared up and it was a hot Thursday afternoon, with the forecasters predicting a scorching weekend. John had switched the air conditioning on and the interior of the house at least felt pleasantly cool. Stirring music was playing loudly, Mahler’s Fifth – John liked to immerse himself in music when he was troubled.

  ‘Just ignore those bastards,’ he said. ‘They’ll get bored and go away. We mustn’t let them get to us.’

  ‘Easy to say, John.’

  ‘I’ll fix you a drink.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to drink.’

  ‘OK, what would you like? A smoothie?’

  Something in his voice and his expression, some boyish naivety, reached out and touched her, reminding her of one of the many things she had always loved about him. He could infuriate her, but he could instantly disarm her, too.

  They just stared at each other. A couple lost. A couple under siege. Anger wasn’t going to get them anywhere. They couldn’t row, they could not be divided right now. From somewhere they had to find the strength to deal with it.

  ‘Great,’ she said, more calmly. ‘Do that. Something without alcohol that will get me smashed. I’m going to change.’

  A few minutes later, wearing just a long T-shirt, she peered out through the blinds. Some reporters were chatting, some were on cellphones, a couple were smoking. A cluster of them were sharing out what looked like burgers from a large carrier bag. You bastards, she thought. Can’t you just leave us alone?

  Out in the hall, the music was playing even louder now. Above it, she heard the rattle of ice cubes coming from the kitchen, and walked through.

  John was standing close to the sink, barefoot. He had a cocktail glass out, a bo
ttle of vodka, a jar of olives, and a bottle of dry Martini, and was jigging the silver cocktail shaker hard. He hadn’t heard her come in.

  She saw a single cube of ice lying on the floor, knelt and picked it up. Then, quite spontaneously, she crept up behind him and rammed it down inside the back of his shorts, pressing it against his buttocks.

  He shrieked, dropping the shaker in shock, and spun round, straight into her arms. ‘Jeez!’ he said. ‘You scared the hell out—’

  She had no idea what was inside her head, suddenly she just wanted him, now, this minute, absolutely desperately. Pulling his shorts down over his knees, she knelt and took him in her mouth. Gripping his buttocks, she held him firmly for some moments, then slid her hands up his lean, strong body, hearing him gasp with pleasure now, feeling his hands pushing through her hair, grappling her head, desperately turned-on herself, aching for him.

  She tilted her mouth up, stood and kissed him hard on the lips, put her arms around his neck then slowly pulled him down, onto the floor, on top of her. They rolled, kissing furiously, each fuelled by the other’s crazed turned-on desire, John naked now, tugging away at her clothes, then he was above her, entering her, forcing himself in, feeling him pushing, feeling his huge – wonderful – gorgeous – incredible – thing – sex – filling her, filling her body.

  She pulled him even harder into her, gathering him tighter and tighter against her, pushing back against him as he slid deeper and deeper in, heady with the scents of his skin, his hair, his cologne. They were safe like this, totally safe, inside their wagon-train circle here, no longer two people but one, solid, incredible, beautiful rock. She murmured, almost delirious with pleasure, as he gripped her with his arms, thrashing her body against the hard tiles of the floor, pressing deeper and deeper inside still, until both of them began to judder together. She heard him crying out and clutched him still tighter, whimpering with pleasure, wanting this moment to last, to never end, wanting them to stay locked, to stay as one body, one rock, forever, right to the end of time and never move.

  Afterwards they lay back on the floor, looked at each other, grinning and shaking their heads. It had been that good.

  28

  Later, the house was filled with the sweet smells of burning charcoal and hickory chips. John, out on the deck, was fiddling with the barbecue. Two thick tuna steaks he had brought home were lying in a marinade on the kitchen table. Naomi was mixing a salad, and feeling a rare moment of tranquillity. Peace inside herself. All her fears locked away – if only for a few fleeting moments – in another compartment.

  Got my life back.

  The phone was ringing for about the tenth time. John, prodding the coals with a toasting fork, didn’t react. She debated whether to let it go to the answering machine, then suddenly wondering if it might be the Dettore Clinic, picked up the cordless receiver and pressed the switch.

  ‘Hallo?’

  She was greeted by the hiss of static.

  ‘Hallo?’ she said again, her hopes rising that it might be the ship-to-shore phone with a bad connection. ‘Hallo? Hallo?’

  Then a woman’s voice, American, unfriendly with a hard Midwest twang, said, ‘Is that the Klaesson home?’

  ‘Who is that calling?’ Naomi asked, on guard suddenly.

  ‘Mrs Klaesson? Am I speaking with Mrs Klaesson?’

  ‘Who is speaking, please?’ Naomi said.

  More insistent now. ‘Mrs Klaesson?’

  ‘Who is that, please?’

  ‘You are evil, Mrs Klaesson. You are a very evil woman.’

  The line went dead.

  Naomi stared at the receiver in shock. Then, hands trembling, she switched it off and hung it back on the wall. She shivered. It suddenly felt as if the sky had clouded over, but through the window the strong evening sun was printing sharp, clear shadows like stencils across the yard.

  She was about to call out to John, then held back. It was just a crank. A nasty crank.

  You are evil, Mrs Klaesson. You are a very evil woman.

  The woman’s voice echoed in her head. Anger clenched her up inside.

  ‘It’s ready,’ John said ten minutes later, presenting Naomi at the candlelit table on the deck with her favourite dish, and slicing it open to show it was cooked exactly the way she liked it, seared on the outside, pink in the centre.

  ‘Tuna goes on cooking after you take it off the heat, that’s what people don’t realize; that’s the secret!’ he said proudly.

  She smiled, not wanting to tell him that the smell was suddenly making her feel sick, and that he told her the same thing every time he cooked tuna.

  He sat down opposite her, spooned (his secret recipe) mustard mayonnaise onto her plate, then helped her to salad. ‘Cheers!’ He raised his glass, sweeping it through the air is if it were a conductor’s baton.

  She raised hers back, touched his glass, her head swimming with nausea, then ran to the bathroom and threw up.

  When she came back he was sitting waiting, his food untouched.

  ‘You OK?’

  She shook her head. ‘I – I just – need—’

  Peas, she thought, suddenly.

  She got up again. ‘Just need something to settle—’

  She went into the kitchen, opened the freezer compartment and took out a bag of frozen peas and carried it back out to the table.

  ‘You want peas? Want me to cook them for you?’

  She tore open the pack, separated one pea from the frozen mass and popped it in her mouth, letting the ice melt, then crushed the pea between her teeth. It tasted good. She ate another, then another, and felt a little better. ‘These are good,’ she said. ‘Eat yours, don’t let it spoil.’

  He reached out a hand and took hers. ‘Remember, women get cravings during pregnancy; maybe that what’s happening.’

  ‘It is not a craving,’ she said, more irritably than she had intended. ‘I just want to eat a few frozen peas, that’s all.’

  The phone rang. John stood up.

  ‘Leave it!’ she snapped.

  He looked startled. ‘It might be—’

  ‘Leave it! Just leave the bloody phone!’

  John shrugged and sat back down. He ate some of his tuna, and Naomi broke off and chewed more peas, one at a time. ‘How was your day?’ he asked.

  ‘Lori rang. She’d read the piece.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Why the hell did you have to tell that woman, John? The whole city knows; the whole of America knows – probably the whole bloody world knows. I feel like a freak. How are we ever going to bring our child up normally out here?’

  John looked at his food in awkward silence.

  ‘Maybe we should move, go to England, or Sweden, just go to some other place.’

  ‘It’ll calm down.’

  She stared at him. ‘You really think that? You don’t think Sally Kimberly – and every goddamn television station and radio station in the country – hasn’t got a date marked down in their diary for six months’ time, when the baby’s due?’

  He said nothing. In his mind the question was swirling, Who the hell are the Disciples of the Third Millennium?

  There were all kinds of fanatic groups out there. People who believed their religious convictions gave them a right to murder. And he was thinking about the faces of his colleagues earlier this morning. The enormity had only really struck him today. He and Naomi were doing something the world wasn’t ready for. It would have been fine if they’d kept it a secret.

  But now the genie was out of the bottle.

  A car door slammed. Nothing unusual about that, except—

  Both of them heard it. Sensed something.

  More press, probably.

  He got up from the table and crossed the hall to the living room, which looked down onto the street, without switching on the lights. Through the window he could see several news cars and vans still out there. But there was a new vehicle among them, a plain grey van with no radio, television or newspaper insigni
a, parked right outside the house, beneath a street lamp. It was old and tired-looking, with a dent in the side, and dusty. The rear doors were open and three people stood behind it, a man and two women, unloading something that looked like wooden poles. The small gaggle of reporters still out on the sidewalk had made a space for them and were eyeing them warily.

  John felt a prick of anxiety.

  The man was tall and thin, with long grey hair pulled back into a ponytail, and shabby clothes. The women were shabby, also. One, also tall, had long, lank brown hair, the other, plump and short, had her hair cropped, almost a crew cut. They raised their poles in the air and now he could see they were placards.

  They formed a group on the sidewalk, each of them holding a placard aloft, but he couldn’t read the wording.

  Somewhere in his study, he remembered, he had a pair of binoculars. It took him a few minutes of rummaging through the chaotic jumble to find them. Pulling them out of their carrying case, he went back into the living room and focused on the placards.

  One read, SAY NO TO GENETICS.

  Another read, TRUST IN GOD, NOT IN SCIENCE.

  The third read, CHILDREN OF GOD, NOT OF SCIENCE.

  Then he heard Naomi’s voice, trembling, right behind him. ‘Oh no, John, do something. Please, do something. Call the police.’

  ‘Just ignore them,’ he said, trying to sound brave, not wanting her to see that he was as disturbed by them as she was. ‘Bunch of loonies. That’s what they want: publicity. They want us to call the police, cause a confrontation. Ignore them; they’ll go away.’

  But in the morning the protesters were still there. And they had been joined by a second vehicle, an ancient, very battered green Ford LTD station wagon with darkened windows, and two more very tough-looking women holding placards.

  ONLY GOD CAN GIVE LIFE.

  ABORT SATAN’S SPAWN NOW.