Perfect People

53

It was a gloriously warm Saturday afternoon, three days after their visit to Dr Talbot, and almost certain to be one of the last summer days of the year, Naomi thought.

She was standing on a stepladder in the orchard, holding a plastic bucket half full of plums. Through the branches of the tree she watched Luke and Phoebe a short distance away on the lawn. Earlier they had been splashing about with John in the tiny inflatable pool he had set up for them. Now they had brought out their Barbie Prince and Princess, and just about every stuffed animal they had, arranged them in a semi-circle and were serving them afternoon tea from the toy set.

Phoebe was being Mummy, pouring the tea, while Luke passed around the plate of plasticine cakes. They appeared to be chatting happily to each other and to their toys, which she was pleased to see. Normally they only ever seemed to chat to each other when they were alone in their bedroom.

A wasp buzzed around her face and she flapped it away, then reached towards a whole clump of beautifully ripe Victorias. She’d been on edge since their session with Dr Talbot. John had been thrilled that the psychiatrist thought they were so smart. She had been less enthusiastic; it reinforced her suspicion that John and Dr Dettore had agreed on more things than she had been privy too. Maybe even to having the twins?

She was increasingly worried, too, about how everyone commented that the children looked so much older than their age, despite that original warning from Dr Dettore that this might happen.

Whatever the truth, I love you, darlings. I will always love you – just as much as you let me.

With luck it would be warm enough tonight to have drinks outside. They had invited Carson and Caroline Dicks over for one of John’s Swedish crayfish evenings. Keeping his traditions was important to John and she always found that rather quaint, if somewhat contradictory in a man who believed so much more passionately in the future than in the past.

Climbing back down from the ladder, she knelt to pick up some windfalls. She liked it in here, in the dappled sunlight and the shade; it was like being in a secret world. It reminded her of when she was a child, and how she loved to hide in secret places and spend hours on her own. Then, flapping away yet another wasp, she carried the almost full basket over to John and the children.

He was sitting at the wooden table on the terrace, a copy of Nature magazine in front of him, staring down at Luke and Phoebe with a strange expression on his face. He was holding something in his hand that she thought for a moment was his camera, but then, looking again, realized was a tape recorder. He was aiming it at Luke and Phoebe. All part of his obsession with logging and recording almost every moment of their childhood, she thought.

‘See these, Luke, see these, Phoebe?’ she said, breezily.

Neither child seemed aware of her. Luke was talking to Phoebe, his speech sounding more fluent and confident than usual. Phoebe responded, equally chattily. Then she turned to her pink, floppy-eared elephant.

‘Obm dekcarh cidnaaev hot nawoy fedied oevauoy.’

Naomi frowned, wondering if she had heard correctly.

Luke responded, ‘Eka foe eipnod hyderlseh deegsomud.’

Then Phoebe said, ‘Olaaeo evayeh gibra snahele.’

Naomi looked at John who raised a finger, signalling her not to disturb them.

They continued speaking in this strange language for several minutes, oblivious to Naomi, chatting busily away to each other and their toy guests. Then, suddenly not wanting to hear any more, Naomi went inside, to the kitchen, and set the basket down on the table, feeling very disturbed in a way she couldn’t quite get her head around.

It wasn’t baby-talk, it was as if they were communicating in a proper language, speaking it fluently. As if, somehow, this language had ramped Luke and Phoebe’s conversational skills up a whole notch.

They were still playing, still chatting, she could see them through the window, although she couldn’t hear them from here.

John’s voice startled her. Right behind her, suddenly. ‘Have you ever heard them speaking like that before?’

‘Never.’

He pressed a button on the recorder.

‘Obm dekcarh cidnaaev hot nawoy fedied oevauoy.’

‘Eka foe eipnod hyderlseh deegsomud.’

‘Olaaeo evayeh gibra snahele.’

He paused the tape. ‘I don’t recognize the language at all,’ he said.

‘It’s not some variation of Swedish?’

‘No.’ He played it for a few more moments.

‘Children make up languages,’ Naomi said. ‘It’s in all the books I’ve read – something that twins do quite often. You know, like secret languages?’

‘Idioglossia,’ John said. His voice sounded detached and distant.

‘ Idioglossia? ’

‘Invented speech.’

She picked up a printed napkin, refolded it and set it back down on the table. ‘Is it a game, John? Just a harmless game? Or-’

‘Or?’ he prompted.

She refolded a second napkin. ‘Are they doing it so they can say things they don’t want us to hear?’

He smiled. ‘At twenty months, I don’t think they are old enough to be quite that devious.’

‘Don’t you? Are you sure about that?’

Their eyes met in an uncomfortable silence.