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  Ferris looked wounded but quickly recovered. ‘I have brought you a sample.’

  Mrs Ritz snatched the dish and held it up to the light – quite empty.

  ‘If this is a game, Ferris, then it is not amusing,’ snapped Mrs Ritz. She tried to take the lid off the petri dish but it seemed stubbornly closed.

  ‘It’s not a game, Mrs Ritz,’ replied Ferris, ‘you said we should bring a sample from home and I have. It’s bubonic plague. I probably wouldn’t be opening it if I were you.’

  ‘Of course it isn’t bubonic plague, you stupid child.’ She had tried to fit the edge of a biro into the side of the lid and it began to give a little. She looked at Ferris for a moment and was about to send him to the headmaster but there was a hue of honesty which emanated from his glowing rat-like features that gave her cause to feel slightly less sure of herself.

  ‘How could you possibly have put bubonic plague into this petri dish?’ Now the biro lid was wedged behind the lid and she pulled at it angrily.

  ‘My dad – my dead dad – was a microbiologist for the Ministry of Defence and he used our garden shed as a laboratory. The big black lead-lined case said that this was bubonic plague but I suppose you might be – ’

  The lid popped open and a hundred billion tiny kisses exited the petri dish in search of a party.

  *

  The school had never had cause to call in a HazMat team before and it would be fair to say that the half mile cordon and enforced disinfection and hospitalisation of every child and teacher did reduce the popularity of their ordinarily well attended ‘bring and buy’ sale to an all time low.

  Worst of all, Mrs Ritz was compelled to amend her hitherto pristine CV with the words ‘an uninterrupted teaching career of twenty years during which I have achieved three national distinctions and almost no children have been infected with the black death’.

  Ferris’ subsequent essay titled ‘How Small-minded Bureaucrat Obsession with Health and Safety is Shackling our Schools’ was shredded in front of the entire assembly and Dorsal Grellman was permitted to dangle him from the picture window of the science block by his nose.

  *

  After what became known as ‘the least successful chemistry project in the history of schooling,’ Mrs Ritz and the headmaster agreed that giving Ferris an ‘open brief’ on such occasions had been decidedly ill-conceived. The school year progressed and Dorsal was allowed to perpetrate almost unendurable malfeasance upon staff and children alike on a daily basis. Ferris had begun following Mrs Ritz home and posting love letters through her front door but after her husband set their two attack Dobermanns on him, all was peaceful and as it should be. It was the kind of peace experienced, for example, just before a plasma storm engulfs and destroys mankind’s biometrical system causing the decimation of the human race.

  Over the months, Mrs Ritz had seen the ragtag group of random children in her chemistry class grow to become a slightly older ragtag group of random children. It was therefore with lowered defences that she set them a project for the spring holiday titled ‘create a science experiment to demonstrate to the class’ (to which was hurriedly added) ‘not involving weapons grade biological components.’

  Mrs Ritz was pleased to see the children return after the break laden with a treasure trove of uninspiring and tedious experiments such as ‘does an orange sink or float’, ‘seed germination’, ‘stabbing a potato with a matchstick’ and ‘making a snowflake’.

  Daniel and Ferris arrived slightly after Jeremy Frapper had demonstrated ‘how to bend a straw’ and they were carrying something large and rectangular cloaked by an old curtain. Mrs Ritz observed them with a degree of trepidation normally reserved for an Apollo pilot who has noticed that a piece of critically important spacecraft has dropped off just after leaving the orbit of the earth.

  ‘What is this?’ demanded Mrs Ritz.

  ‘An old fish tank,’ replied Ferris, pulling back the curtain to reveal an old fish tank.

  ‘And why did you involve Daniel in this project, Ferris?’

  ‘He had an old fish tank, Mrs Ritz,’ replied Ferris.

  ‘And that was his sole contribution to this project?’ asked Mrs Ritz.

  There was a moment of silence, something passed between Daniel and Ferris, a sense of recognition of a creative role that was beyond words, akin perhaps to that played by Covington for Darwin or Eddington for Einstein.

  ‘I helped him carry the fish tank,’ said Daniel.

  ‘I see,’ said Mrs Ritz, who did not see. ‘And what exactly do you call this project Ferris, because to me it looks like a sort of…’

  She looked more closely at the contents of the fish tank, at the device that was now flashing with purple and orange lights. It reminded her of photographs she had once seen of a laboratory in – where had it been…?

  Chernobyl, recalled Mrs Ritz.

  ‘Cold fusion,’ said Ferris. ‘I call it cold fusion.’

  ‘Cold fusion,’ said Mrs Ritz. A bead of sweat appeared from nowhere and dripped off the end of her chin. She peered through at the interior of the grubby fish tank once again. This had become more difficult because stress was causing her left eye to open and close randomly.

  ‘A theoretical nuclear reaction that occurs at relatively low temperatures under certain specific laboratory conditions,’ explained Ferris.

  ‘Except of course it isn’t theoretical any more because, well, because Ferris has made it happen,’ added Daniel.

  Mrs Ritz called upon all the child handling techniques learned in twenty long years at the coalface of lower league schooling. She knew exactly how to address this situation professionally and in a child-centred manner, which would meet the needs of the young person involved from both a teaching and an interpersonal perspective.

  ‘Like fuck you have,’ she said, shoving Ferris in the face, ripping the lid from the tank and grabbing hold of what seemed to be a dirty fish tank pump with some fairy lights strapped to it but was in fact the first low-temperature atomic deuterium reactor ever created by the human race.

  Ferris pulled Daniel back behind him as soon as he saw what was about to happen which, given that he was only the size of an ample otter, afforded little protection.

  To say Mrs Ritz was vaporised would be an over-simplification of what was a complex series of subatomic chemical reactions, all of which occurred within milliseconds. Safe to say that nothing remotely Mrs Ritz-like remained, other than her left ear lobe, which proved to be stubbornly indestructible and was therefore the subject of much excitement in the scientific community for many years to come.

  Being coated with your chemistry teacher was not a moment which edified Daniel’s scholastic experience but it did provide him with a sense that life was and would continue to be a meteor-storm for which he had no umbrella.

  Chapter 17

  It was the summer of 1964. Lyndon Johnson was in the White House, Elvis Presley’s magnum opus Kissin’ Cousins was packing out British cinemas, mankind was five years away from setting foot in the Sea of Tranquillity and Felicia Freeziwater was a liar.

  Felicia’s husband, Jaques, pushed his chair away from the dining table, took off his horn-rimmed bifocals, folded them with deliberate precision, put them into their red leatherette case, put the case on the smoked glass dining table, moved his dinner plate minutely in a clockwise direction, lit up a cigarette, inhaled languorously, exhaled with Shakespearean bravura, ran his fingers through his lustrous flaxen hair, moved his dinner plate minutely in an anticlockwise direction, put out the cigarette, interlaced his fingers, sighed and fixed his wife with the look of monumental disappointment normally reserved for a kitten which has just shat on your foot.

  Felicia picked up his glasses case, walked over to the oven, opened the door, set the grill temperature to 250 degrees, put the glasses case into the oven, closed the door and returned to her seat.

  ‘It isn’t possible for a three-year-old child to do that,’ squinted Jaques.

  ‘I
t fucking well is and she fucking well did,’ replied Felicia.

  ‘Let’s just say for a second she managed to work out how to break into our car, hot-wire it and get it started just like you say she did, how exactly do you suggest she managed to reach the foot pedals and steer it for three miles to the park? She’s only two foot nine inches tall?’

  Felicia peered over Jaques’ shoulder to the crime against humanity which was their stainless steel framed, maroon, corduroy and pine settee where their daughter ‘!’ nestled expressionlessly stroking their dog, Sir Laurence Olivier, a French bulldog, which she had dressed up like Queen Elizabeth the First.

  ‘Don’t look at me, I am so ashamed,’ thought Sir Laurence Olivier.

  ‘!’ was putting the final bow into Sir Laurence Olivier’s wig and was not listening to their conversation in a way which made it obvious that she was listening to their conversation.

  ‘Why don’t you ask your daughter, Felicia?’ asked Jaques, once again demonstrating eloquently the reason why stepchildren experience childhood on the margins of a family and sometimes drift off the page altogether.

  ‘!’, who was now not listening intently, began to paint Sir Laurence Olivier’s claws cobalt blue.

  Felicia pulled Jaques’ tie out from his suit jacket, picked up a carving knife, hacked it off just below the knot, popped it on top of the bubbling cheese fondue, stirred it around carefully with a fondue fork, removed it and plastered it, still steaming hot, back on to Jaques’ shirt.

  ‘Is that a no?’ asked Jaques.

  ‘Our daughter does not answer questions because questions are green and she does not like the colour green,’ replied Felicia. ‘You know that.’

  ‘I like parks,’ said ‘!’.

  ‘Parks are green,’ said Jaques trying to reduce the sneer from his already nasal intonation but not trying very hard.

  Felicia walked over to her daughter and sat down beside her.

  ‘!’ shifted down the settee, bringing Sir Laurence Olivier, fifty-five tiny bottles of nail polish, five carrier bags full of bows, rags, scraps of material and a pair of red silk ballet pumps which she kept by her side at all times, just in case.

  ‘How did the car get to the park, sweetheart?’ asked Felicia.

  ‘!’ looked at Sir Laurence Olivier.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ thought Sir Laurence Olivier. ‘It wasn’t my idea, it was hers. It’s always her idea. Whoever heard of a dog driving a car?’

  ‘Whoever heard of a dog driving a car?’ asked Felicia.

  ‘Exactly,’ thought Sir Laurence Olivier.

  ‘Well?’ asked Felicia.

  ‘Dog,’ said ‘!’

  ‘Alright, alright, I only did it the once,’ thought Sir Laurence Olivier. ‘She told me I had to. It would never have entered my mind. Think of the insurance premium, I told her, but she wouldn’t listen, “park” she said, “car” she said and before I knew it, I was driving down the A6, listening to Desert Island Discs and trying to think of the best way to avoid the lunchtime traffic.’

  ‘So that’s settled then, it was the dog. Perhaps we should get him a provisional driving licence?’ said Jaques.

  ‘It might be an idea,’ thought Sir Laurence Olivier.

  ‘This isn’t working,’ said Felicia. ‘You knew about ‘!’’s issues when you married me. She hasn’t changed.’

  ‘No, but you have. Last week you claimed she re-carpeted the spare room,’ said Jaques.

  ‘!’ looked at Sir Laurence Olivier again who tried not to catch Felicia’s eye.

  ‘I know you’re her mother but I didn’t marry her, I married you.’

  Felicia gently reached out to touch her daughter’s hand but ‘!’ flinched away. She yearned to be able to hold ‘!’ in her arms, perhaps she could show her daughter what love felt like outside the glass cube ‘!’ had constructed around herself.

  ‘You did marry us, all of us, me, my little girl, my dog. Can’t you see how much damage you are doing to her, to all of us?’

  ‘I think you were damaged long before I came along.’

  Felicia lifted her hand to stroke her daughter’s amber curls but ‘!’ withdrew to the very corner of the settee ensuring that Sir Laurence Olivier was always between her and her mother, between her and the rest of the world. The dog leaned over and licked ‘!’’s face and she played with his ears.

  ‘She lets the dog touch her,’ said Felicia, more to herself than to her soon to be ex-partner.

  ‘!’ let the dog touch her because she knew that the dog would never hurt her. It was all that she really knew for sure, everything else, her mother, her father, the concept of truth (which was orange), time (which was purple) and love (which was the shape of a dog) were all, would always be, nothing more than an ever-shifting, ever-metamorphosing construct to be worn and put aside but never quite abandoned, like a pair of red silk ballet pumps.

  Chapter 18

  When did the patina of world-weary contempt oxidise onto M’s DNA?

  If we abseiled down his evolutionary chain would we find a banshee curdling and cursing within his mother’s womb?

  When he was six, M hid in open sight. He wrote the word ‘invisible’ across the knuckles of his hands and if he was spoken to he would bring them up to cover his face. It was as if his hands were the curtains to a theatrical performance to which he had never been invited.

  In the years before he shot his father almost completely dead, M was a very different entity – insubstantial, opaque. He was cowed because he had no template for self-respect, he was a child who had no access to childhood.

  If this was a form of reactive depression (and that was a label that stuck for a while) then it was a manifestation of the world into which he had been unwittingly plunged. It was a world that began and ended each day in turmoil and from which school was a hollow respite. His father surrounded him, screaming down his blood vessels into his brain, swallowing him, consuming him, excreting him.

  Can we have empathy for the effigy of the demon if we know that it is fashioned by the cruelty of the stonemason’s hands?

  *

  ‘What is this evening supposed to be?’ asked ‘!’, now an awkward eighteen-year-old girl, with only the most tenuous grasp of reality, who occupied the edge of the high-backed restaurant chair opposite M. M was also eighteen and pretending to be a man but he was convincing no one.

  ‘Because if it is a date of some sort,’ she added, ‘then you really ought to start speaking.’

  ‘!’ surveyed M as if he was an archaeological relic recently unearthed from the sands of the desert. His face was hewn from the finest uncertainty, his eyes were the embers of recently extinguished coals, his mouth was a reminder that better times lay just out of reach. This was a slim M, a lithe M, even muscular in patches, it was an M who offered aggression in the guise of vulnerability.

  M fixated upon the blood red cotton tablecloth tracing a solitary vascular thread as it pulsed along its singular course. From time to time he flicked his eyes up at the smile that sat across from him. It reminded him of two stars smashing into each other in the far corner of a distant galaxy. Years later, when love had gone the way of the other dinosaurs, he still felt the same way when she smiled.

  They both reached for the single menu that had been abandoned in the centre of the table at the same time and their fingers collided and recoiled.

  ‘Don’t touch,’ said ‘!’, examining her hand as if she was searching for a bee sting that had just been lodged in it. ‘I cannot be touched.’

  Given that this was a blind date arranged by their respective consultant psychiatrists, romance was probably unlikely. Survival would have exceeded most expectations. That being said, one would have hoped that ‘electively mute’ and ‘unable to withstand any physical contact whatsoever’ might have been mentioned at some point in the matching process.

  ‘Have you ever heard of the child who lived in a bubble?’ asked ‘!’.

  M fulminated. All the words h
ad fallen out of his mouth with the sound of the bullet he had fired entering his father’s skull. He had searched for them amongst the thoughts which had tumbled out of his father’s brain like bloody thorns but they were lost, he assumed, forever.

  He shook his head.

  ‘When my mother was born,’ ‘!’ explained, ‘she was allergic to the world. The Spartans would have had a simple solution, but her parents objected to her being left on a mountainside for the wolves. A scientist in Namibia, Professor Lazarus, had come up with a form of somatic gene therapy which had been successfully used in clinical trials on gazelles and in the absence of any conventional alternative they agreed to let him try it on my mother. A temporary habitat was created – a small bio-globe in her parent’s home in the expectation that she wouldn’t see out her first year, but she stubbornly refused to die. She kept on growing and growing and they kept adding to the globe until it had taken over their entire home like a giant gerbil run. Everything that went into that globe had to be washed in immuno-therapeutic antigen and this was very expensive and very time-consuming. My grandparents tried to find a way to love my mother but she, quite literally, never touched them. In desperation they went to see Professor Lazarus and he told them what they had known in their hearts on their darkest days; not only was my mother healthier than they were, there was no prospect of her imminent death. Worse still, according to Professor Lazarus, she might never die.

  ‘Eventually, bankrupted and emotionally barren, my grandparents did what any responsible parent of a fifteen-year-old adolescent in a bubble would do – they tied themselves to a grand piano and launched themselves off the top story of the third highest building in Dartford, whilst playing a duet. They took out the bassoon section of the Save the Children marching band. Everyone had an entertaining death that day.

  ‘My mother became something of a minor celebrity and was supported by a combination of charitable donations and media endorsements. At the age of twenty, with nothing on her horizon other than the outlines of boats she could never bring in to focus, my mother wrote off to a sperm bank in Portland, Oregon. She chose a donor from the list, who claimed to have a Postgraduate Masters Degrees in Psychology and Law and in four weeks she had inseminated herself. It was nine months later, on the day I was born, that she discovered that her donor had in fact been the subject of twenty years of psychological study and that the reference to law was as a result of those studies having taken place in a maximum security psychiatric unit in Sing Sing prison.