photo with a pencil. '1962, Wilkins won the Nobel in medicine with Crick and Watson. But no sign



of Wilkins in the photos. Just Crick and Watson. Watson and Crick. History likes lone geniuses



or double acts. But it's got no time for threesomes." Marcus thought again. "Unless they're



comedians or jazz musicians."



"Spose you'll have to be a lone genius, then," said Me cheerfully, turning from the picture and



sitting down on a Swedish backless chair.



"Ah, but I have a mentor, you see." He pointed to a poster-sized black and white photograph on



the other wall. "And mentors are a whole other kettle offish."



It was an extreme close-up of an extremely old man, the contours of his face clearly defined by



line and shade, hachures on a topographic map.



"Grand old Frenchman, a gentleman and a scholar. Taught me practically everything I know.



Seventy-odd and sharp as a whip. But you see, with a mentor you needn't credit them directly.



That's the great thing about them. Now where's this bloody photo



While Marcus scrabbled about in a filing cabinet, Me studied a small slice of the Chalfen



family tree, an elaborate illustrated oak that stretched back into the i6oos and forward into the



present day. The differences between the Chalfens and the Jones/ Bowdens were immediately plain.



For starters, in the Chalfen family everybody seemed to have a normal number of children. More to



the point, everybody knew whose children were whose. The men lived longer than the women. The



marriages were singular and long lasting. Dates of birth and death were concrete. And the Chalfens



actually knew who they were in 1675. Archie Jones could give no longer record of his family than



his father's own haphazard appearance on the planet in the back-room of a Bromley public house



circa 1895 or 1896 or quite possibly 1897, depending on which nonagenarian ex-barmaid you



spoke to. Clara Bowden knew a little about her grandmother, and half believed the story that her



famed and prolific Uncle P. had thirty-four children, but could only state definitively that her own mother was born at 2.45 p.m.



14 January 1907, in a Catholic church in the middle of the Kingston earthquake. The rest was



rumour, folk-tale and myth:



another man & Great-great-great-Grandma (Lady The?) & Great-great-great-Grandfather



another man & [Way Back When-Lord Knows]



Old man Bob [Hoi heap of time]



[Way Back When-Lord Knows]



I I I | ^ I



Great-grandmother Great Uncle P. Great Auntie Great Auntie Great Auntie



Ambrosia Bowden [iSpoish- i96oish] Meeshell Lavinia Patricia



[iSpoish-ipsoish] & God knows how & some no-good Si Captain Charlie many women raggamuffins



"Whitey' Durham [i88oish-Lord Knows]



Grandmother 34 children. unknown unknown 3 kids



Hortense Bowden Amongst them, issue issue



[1907- ] Auntie Susie, Bobo,



= fm. 1947] G-man, Delroy,



Darcus Bowden Bigface,



[1910-1985] Lady Penelope



Clara Bowden = Archie Jones [1955- ] [1927- ]



fm. 1975]



Irie Ambrosia Jones [1975- ]



Key



& = copulated with % = paternity unsure ? = child's name unknown G = brought up by grandmother



"You guys go so far back," said Irie, as Marcus came up behind her to see what was of interest.



"It's incredible. I can't imagine what that must feel like."



"Nonsensical statement. We all go back as far as each other. It's just that the Chalfens have



always written things down said Marcus thoughtfully, stuffing his pipe with fresh tobacco. "It helps



if you want to be remembered



"I guess my family's more of an oral tradition said Irie with a shrug. "But, man, you should ask



Millat about his. He's the descendant of-'



"A great revolutionary. So I've heard. I wouldn't take any of that seriously, if I were you. One



part truth to three parts fiction in that family, I fancy. Any historical figure of note in your lot?"



asked Marcus, and then, immediately uninterested in his own question, returned to his search of



filing cabinet number two.



"No ... no one .. . significant. But my grandmother was born in January 1907, during the Kingston '



"Here we are!"



Marcus emerged triumphant from a steel drawer, brandishing a thin plastic folder with a few



pieces of paper in it.



"Photographs. Especially for you. If the animal-rights lot saw these, I'd have a contract out on



my life. One by one now. Don't grab Marcus passed Irie the first photo. It was of a mouse on its back. Its stomach was littered with



little mushroom-like growths, brown and puffy. Its mouth was unnaturally extended, by the



prostrate position, into a cry of agony. But not genuine agony, Irie thought, more like theatrical



agony. More like a mouse who was making a big show of something. A barn-mouse. A



luwie-mouse. There was something sarcastic about it.



"You see, embryo cells are all very well, they help us understand the genetic elements that may



contribute to cancer, but what you really want to know is how a tumour progresses in living tissue,



I mean, you can't approximate that in a culture, not really. So then you move on to introducing



chemical carcinogens in a target organ but Irie was half listening, half engrossed in the pictures passed to her. The next one was of th same mouse, as far as she could tell, this time on its front, where



the tumours were bigger. There was one on its neck that appeared practically the same size as its ear. But the mouse looked quite pleased about it. Almost as if it had purposefully grown new apparatus to hear what Marcus was saying about him. Irie was aware this was a stupid thing to think about a lab mouse. But, once again, the mouse-face had a mouse-cunning about it. There was a



mouse-sarcasm in its mouse-eyes. A mouse-smirk played about its mouse-lips. Terminal disease?



(the mouse said to Irie) What terminal disease? '.. . slow and imprecise. But if you're-engineer the actual genome, so that specific cancers are expressed in specifictissues at predetermined, times in the mouse's development, then you're no



longer dealing with the random. You're eliminating the random actions of a mutagen. Now you're



talking the genetic program of the mouse, a force activating oncogenes within cells. Now you see,



this particular mouse is a young male .. ."



Now FutureMouse(c) was being held by his front paws by two pink giant fingers and made to



stand vertical like a cartoon mouse, thus forcing his head up. He seemed to be sticking out his little



pink mouse-tongue, at the cameraman initially and now at Irie. On his chin the tumours hung like



big droplets of dirty rain. '.. . and he expresses the H-ras oncogene in certain of his skin cells, so he develops multiple



benign skin papillomas. Now what's interesting, of course, is young females don't develop it, which



is .. ."



One eye was closed, the other open. Like a wink. A crafty mouse-wink.



'.. . and why? Because of inter-male rivalry the fights lead to abrasion. Not a biological



imperative but a social one. Genetic result: the same. You see? And it's only with trans genic mice,



by adding experimentally to the genome, that you can understand those kind of differences. And



this mouse, the one you're looking at, is a unique mouse, Me. I plant a cancer and a cancer turns up precisely when I expect it.



Fifteen weeks into the development. Its genetic code is new. New breed. No better argument for a



patent, if you ask me. Or at least some kind of royalties deal: 80 per cent God, 20 per cent me. Or



the other way round, depending on how good my lawyer is. Those poor bastards in Harvard are still



fighting the point. I'm not interested in the patent, personally. I'm interested in the science."



"Wow," said Me, passing back the pictures reluctantly. "It's pretty hard to take in. I half get it



and I half don't get it at all. It's just amazing."



"Well," said Marcus, mock humble. "It fills the time."



"Being able to eliminate the random .. ."



"You eliminate the random, you rule the world," said Marcus simply. "Why stick to oncogenes?



One could program every step in the development of an organism: reproduction, food habits, life



expectancy' automaton voice, arms out like a zombie, rolling eyeballs "WORLD



DOMINA-SHUN." "I can see the tabloid headlines," said Me.



"Seriously though," said Marcus, rearranging his photos in the folder and moving towards the



cabinet to refile them, 'the study of isolated breeds of trans genic animals sheds crucial light on the



random. Are you following me? One mouse sacrificed for 5.3 billion humans. Hardly mouse



apocalypse. Not too much to ask."



"No, of course not."



"Damn! This thing is such a bloody mess!"



Marcus tried three times to shut the bottom drawer of his cabinet, and then, losing patience,



levelled a kick at its steel sides. "Bloody thing!"



Me peered over the open drawer. "You need more dividers," she said decidedly" title="ad.坚决地，果断地">decidedly. "And a lot of the paper you're using is A3, a 2 or irregular. You need some kind of folding policy; at the moment



you're just shoving them in."



Marcus threw his head back and laughed. "Folding policy!



Well, I suppose you should know; like father like daughter."



He crouched down by the drawer and gave it a few more pushes.



"I'm serious. I don't know how you work like that. My school shit is better organized, and I'm



not in the business of World Domination."



Marcus looked up at her from where he was kneeling. She was like a mountain range from that



angle; a soft and pillowy version of the Andes.



"Look, how about this: I'll pay you fifteen quid a week if you come round twice a week and get



a grip on this filing disaster. You'll learn more, and I'll get something I need done, done. Hey? What



about it?"



What about it. Joyce already paid Millat a total of thirty-five quid a week for such diverse



activities as baby-sitting Oscar, washing the car, weeding, doing the windows and recycling all the



coloured paper. What she was really paying for, of course, was the presence of Millat. That energy



around her. And that reliance.



Me knew the deal she was about to make; she didn't run into it drunk or stoned or desperate or



confused, as Millat did. Furthermore, she wanted it; she wanted to merge with the Chal fens, to be



of one flesh; separated from the chaotic, random flesh of her own family and transgenically fused



with another. A unique animal. A new breed.



Marcus frowned. "Why all the deliberation? I'd like an answer this millennium, if you don't



mind. Is it a good idea or isn't it?" Me nodded and smiled. "Sure is. When do I start?"



Alsana and Clara were none too pleased. But it took them a little while to compare notes and



consolidate their displeasure. Clara was in night school three days a week (courses: British



Imperialism 1765 to the Present; Medieval Welsh Literature; Black Femin ism), Alsana was on the sewing machine all the daylight hours God gave while a family war raged around her. They talked on the phone only occasionally and saw each other even less. But



both felt an independent uneasiness about the Chalfens, of whom they had gradually heard more



and more. After a few months of covert surveillance, Alsana was now certain that it was to the



Chalfens Millat went during his regular absences from the family home. As for Clara, she was



lucky to catch Me in on a week night, and had long ago rumbled her netball excuses. For months



now it had been the Chalfens this and the Chalfens that; Joyce said this wonderful thing, Marcus is



so terribly clever. But Clara wasn't one to kick up a fuss; she wanted desperately what was best for



Irie', and she had always been convinced that sacrifice was nine tenths of parenting. She even



suggested a meeting, between herself and the Chalfens, but either Clara was paranoid or Irie was



doing her best to avoid it. And there was no point looking to Archibald for support. He only saw



Irie in flashes when she came home to shower, dress or eat and it didn't seem to bother him whether



she raved endlessly about the Chalfen children (They sound nice, love), or about something Joyce



did (Did she? That's very clever, isn't it, love?), or something Marcus had said (Sounds like a right



old Einstein, eh, love? Well, good for you. Must dash. Meeting Sammy at O'Connell's at eight).



Archie had skin as thick as an alligator's. Being a father was such a solid genetic position in his



mind (the solidest fact in Archie's life), it didn't occur to him that there might be any challenger to his crown. It was left to Clara to bite her lip alone, hope she wasn't losing her only daughter, and



swallow the blood.



But Alsana had finally concluded that it was all-out war and she needed an ally. Late January



'91, Christmas and Ramadan safely out of the way, she picked up the phone.



"So: you know about these Chaffinches?"



"Chalfens. I think the name is Chalfen. Yes, they're the parents of a friend of Irie's, I think," said



Clara disingenuously, wanting to know what Alsana knew first. "Joshua Chalfen. They sound a nice family."



Alsana blew air out of her nose. Till call them Chaffinches little scavenging English birds



pecking at all the best seeds! Those birds do the same to my bay leaves as these people do to my



boy. But they are worse; they are like birds with teeth, with sharp little canines they don't just steal,



they rip apart! What do you know about them?"



"Well.. . nothing, really. They've been helping Me and Millat with their sciences, that's what she



told me. I'm sure there's no harm, Alsi. And Irie's doing very well in school now. She is out of the



house all the time, but I can't really put my foot down."



Clara heard Alsana slap the Iqbal bannisters in fury. "Have you met them? Because I haven't



met them, and yet they feel free to give my son money and shelter as if he had neither and bad



mouth me, no doubt. God only knows what he is telling them about me! Who are they? I am not



knowing them from Adam or Eve! Millat spends every spare minute with them and I see no



particular improvement in his grades and he is still smoking the pot and sleeping with the girls. I try



and tell Samad, but he's in his own world; he just won't listen. Just screams at Millat and won't



speak to me. We're trying to raise the money to get Magid back and in a good school. I'm trying to



keep this family together and these Chaffinches are trying to tear it apart!"



Clara bit her lip and nodded silently at the receiver.



"Are you there, lady?"



"Yes," said Clara. "Yes. You see, Me, well .. . she seems to worship them. I got quite upset at



first, but then I thought I was just being silly. Archie says I'm being silly."



"If you told that potato-head there was no gravity on the moon he'd think you were being silly.



We get by without his opinion for fifteen years, we'll manage without it now. Clara," said Alsana,



and her heavy breath rattled against the receiver, her voice sounded exhausted, 'we always stand by each other ... I need you now."



"Yes .. . I'm just thinking .. ."



"Please. Don't think. I booked a movie, old and French, like you like two thirty today. Meet me



in front of the Tricycle Theatre. Niece-of-Shame is coming too. We have tea. We talk."



The movie was A Bout de Souffle. 16 mm, grey and white. Old Fords and boulevards. Turn-ups



and handkerchiefs. Kisses and cigarettes. Clara loved it (Beautiful Belmondo! Beautiful Seberg!



Beautiful Paris!), Neena found it too French, and Alsana couldn't understand what the bloody thing



was about. "Two young people running around France talking nonsense, killing policemen, stealing



vehicles, never wearing bras. If that's European cinema, give me Bollywood every day of the week.



Now, ladies, shall we get down to business?"



Neena went and collected the teas and plonked them on the little table.



"So what's all this about a conspiracy of Chaffinches? Sounds like Hitchcock."



Alsana explained in shorthand the situation.



Neena reached into a bag for her Consulates, lit one up and exhaled minty smoke. "Auntie, they



just sound like a perfectly nice middle-class family who are helping Millat with his studies. Is that



what you dragged me from work for? I mean, it's hardly Jonestown, now, is it?"



"No," said Clara cautiously, 'no, of course not but all your auntie is saying is that Millat and Me



spend such a lot of time over there, so we'd just like to know a bit more about what they're like, you



know. That's natural enough, isn't it?"



Alsana objected. That is not all I'm saying. I am saying these people are taking my son away



from me! Birds with teeth! They're Englishifying him completely! They're deliberately leading him



away from his culture and his family and his religion '



"Since when have you given two shits about his religion!"



"You, Niece-of-Shame, you don't know how I sweat blood for that boy, you don't know about '



"Well, if I don't know anything about anything, why the bloody hell have you brought me here?



I've got other fucking things to do, you know." Neena snatched her bag and made to stand up.



"Sorry about this, Clara. I don't know why this always has to happen. I'll see you soon .. ."



"Sit down," hissed Alsana, grabbing her by the arm. "Sit down, all right, point made, Miss



Clever Lesbian. Look, we need you, OK? Sit down, apology, apology. OK? Better."



"All right," said Neena, viciously stubbing out her fag on a serviette. "But I'm going to speak



my mind and for once just shut that chasm of a mouth while I do it. OK? OK. Right. Now, you just



said Irie's doing tremendous in school, and if Millat's not doing so well, it's no great mystery he



doesn't do any work. At least somebody's trying to help him. And if he's seeing too much of these



people, I'm sure that's his choice, not theirs. It's not exactly Happy Land in your house at the



moment, is it? He's running away from himself and he's looking for something as far away from the



Iqbals as possible."



"Ah ha! But they live two roads away!" cried Alsana triumphantly.



"No, Auntie. Conceptually far away from you. Being an Iqbal is occasionally a little suffocating,



you know? He's using this other family as a refuge. They're probably a good influence or



something."



"Or something," said Alsana ominously.



"What are you afraid of, Alsi? He's second generation you always say it yourself you need to let



them go their own way. Yes, and look what happened to me, blah blah blah I may be



Niece-of-Shame to you, Alsi, but I earn a good living out of my shoes." Alsana looked dubiously at



the knee-length black boots that Neena had designed, made and was wearing. "And I live a pretty



good life you know, I live by principles. I'm just saying.



He's already having a war with uncle Samad. He doesn't need one with you as well



Alsana grumbled into her blackberry tea.



"If you want to worry about something, Auntie, worry about these KEVIN people he hangs



around with. They're insane. And there's bloody loads of them. All the ones you wouldn't expect.



Mo, you know, the butcher yes, you know the Hussein Ishmaels - Ardashir's side of the family.



Right, well, he's one. And bloody Shiva, from the restaurant he's converted!"



"Good for him," said Alsana tartly.



"But it's nothing to do with Islam proper, Alsi. They're a political group. And some politics. One



of the little bastards told me and Maxine we were going to roast in the pits of hell. Apparently we