Scared to Live

9

Below the hill, most of the fields at Bridge End Farm were still good grazing land. But much use that was to anybody now.

According to Matt, he would soon be a glorified park keeper instead of a farmer. Without headage payments, there was no way he could raise sheep, for a start. In future, British lamb would cease to exist, and everything the consumer bought would be flown in from New Zealand. It would happen the same way it did with Brazilian beef and Danish pig meat, he said. Countryside Stewardship schemes were all very well. Maintaining the landscape and conserving biodiversity? Fair enough. But Matt was baffled that the country didn’t see any value in an ability to feed itself.

Ben drew his car into the yard in front of the farmhouse, trying to imagine the place empty and deserted, cleared of its animals. Not just a silent spring, but silent all year round.

Bridge End had been one of those traditional mixed farms that had once characterized British agriculture. Animals were fed with crops grown on the farm, and in turn they fertilized the fields with manure for the next crop. For Ben and Matt, growing up on the farm, it had seemed such a logical and natural cycle that they assumed it would go on for ever. But even by the 1990s mixed farms had already become a quaint eccentricity.

Perhaps his father wouldn’t have cared too much. Joe Cooper had never really been interested in the farm. True, he had occasionally rolled up his sleeves to help. With his shirt open at the neck, he would reveal a rare, vulnerable flash of white skin and a proud smile at working alongside his two sons. It was one of the abiding images that Ben still carried — though, at the time, he hadn’t thought of his father as remotely vulnerable. Like the farm, it had seemed that Sergeant Joe Cooper would go on for ever.

He’d been trying to train himself to remember those happier images, instead of the one that had tormented him for years: the bloodied body on the paving stones that he’d never actually seen. Some of the youths responsible for Joe Cooper’s death were already back out in the world at the end of their sentences. Two years for manslaughter, that was all. First-time offenders, of course. Ben knew he was bound to run into one of them some day soon. It was probably futile to hope that he wouldn’t recognize them.

‘Bad do about that family in Edendale,’ said Matt when he greeted his brother in front of the house. ‘The fire, I mean.’

‘Yes, really bad.’

‘Are you working on that?’

‘We don’t know if it was malicious or not yet.’

‘It’s not good when kids are involved, whatever it was.’

Matt removed his boots and stripped off his overalls in the porch. A tabby cat immediately jumped up and inspected the overalls to see if they’d make a decent bed.

‘Actually, I was down at Foxlow earlier,’ said Ben. ‘We had a shooting.’

‘Oh, I heard,’ said Matt.

‘Did you?’

‘It was Neville Cross who found the body, wasn’t it?’

‘Well, not quite. But he made the call.’

‘Neville’s the NFU rep, you know.’

‘So the farmers’ grapevine has been busy, has it?’

‘Something like that.’

Matt stroked the cat absent-mindedly. His hand was huge, so it covered the animal’s head completely. Only its ears protruded, trembling with the vibration of a deep purr.

‘Come into the office, Ben. There’s something I want to show you.’

‘Is there room for two people?’

‘As long as you don’t mind sharing your breathing space with a smelly old dog.’

The farm office was cramped and untidy. It was the aspect of the farm that Matt paid least attention to, because it meant being indoors. Occasionally, Kate came in to help out with the paperwork and sort the mess into some kind of order, so they muddled through year by year, driving their accountants up the wall. ‘I’m a stockman, not a filing clerk,’ Matt would say. But deep down, he probably knew that this failing was the reason he was doomed. These days, farmers had to be business managers and entrepreneurs above anything else, if they wanted to survive.

Matt eased himself on to the office chair in front of the computer. He was filling out so much as he got older that he looked too big for the desk, like an adult sitting in an infants classroom.

‘I’ve been looking at the internet,’ he said.

‘Blimey, we’re going to have to watch you. At this rate you’ll be catching up with the twenty-first century.’

Matt scowled. ‘Most of it is a load of crap.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘In fact, I’ve never seen such crap.’

‘You have to learn how to filter out the rubbish to find the useful stuff.’

‘I’m a livestock farmer, so I know what crap is.’

‘Yes, Matt.’

Ben perched on the arm of a deep armchair. The chair itself was already occupied by an aged Border collie called Meg, who didn’t even bother opening an eye. She was there by right, and wasn’t moving for anybody. Ben wouldn’t have dreamed of booting her off.

Matt booted up and frowned at the screen as he waited to enter his password. ‘I’ve got something I want to show you.’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve been looking at ideas for diversification again? What is it this time — rock festivals? You’ve got the fields, and the mud.’

‘That’ll be the day, when I let thousands of hippies camp on my land.’

‘It worked for Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.’

‘No, it didn’t. He had riots between gangs of rival jazz fans.’

Ben laughed. ‘What is it, then?’

‘It isn’t about the farm at all,’ said Matt gloomily, still staring at the screen.

Realizing that he wasn’t even denting his brother’s morose mood, Ben leaned forward to see what he was looking at. He’d brought up a website that must have been bookmarked in his favourites, because he hadn’t used the keyboard to type out a URL. Ben was surprised that Matt even knew how to do that.

‘It’s an article I found about schizophrenia,’ said Matt. ‘Well, to be more exact, about its inheritability.’

For a moment, Ben was thrown by the word ‘inheritability’. It was an expression he was accustomed to hearing from Matt, but strictly in relation to livestock breeding. Was a high-yielding cow likely to produce offspring that were also good milk producers? What percentage of lambs sired by a Texel ram would have the same muscle ratio? That was inheritability. Genetics played a big part in breeding animals for desirable characteristics. But schizophrenia? It didn’t make sense.

‘What on earth are you trying to tell me, Matt?’

‘It was something I heard one of the nursing home staff say, before Mum died. It hadn’t occurred to me before, and nobody ever mentioned the possibility. Not to me, anyway. I don’t know if they mentioned it to you, but you never said anything.’

‘Matt, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘It occurred to me that it might be like other conditions. Do you remember that family of Jerseys that were prone to laminitis? It was passed on from one generation to the next, and we never could breed it out. We had to get rid of them all in the end.’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘Well, according to this, schizophrenia is hereditary, too.’

‘What?’

‘Ben, it’s for the sake of the girls as much as anything. I need to know what the odds are — the chances of schizophrenia being hereditary. Will you read it?’

Almost against his will, Ben ran his eyes over the text on the screen. It has been verified that schizophreniaruns in a family. People with a close relativesuffering from schizophrenia have an increased chanceof developing the disease. Parents with schizophreniaalso increase the chances of passing the disease to theirchild.

He straightened up again. ‘I don’t want to know this, Matt.’

‘There’s more. Read the rest of it.’

‘No. This is ridiculous.’

‘I’ll print it out for you. You can read it later.’

‘I don’t want to read it later, thanks. I can’t understand why you’re doing this, Matt. What’s the point?’

‘What’s the point? It says that members of families vulnerable to schizophrenia can carry the genes for it, while not being schizophrenic themselves. They’re called “Presumed Obligate Carriers”.’

‘Matt, you don’t know anything about this stuff.’

‘I’m trying to find out. Look, there’s a bit of research here that talks about anticipation.’

‘What?’

‘The progress of an illness across several generations. They studied families affected by schizophrenia and found that, in each generation, more family members were hospitalized with the condition at an earlier age, and with increasing severity.’

‘And your conclusion, Doctor …?’

Matt pressed a couple of keys, and the laser printer whirred into life. He turned to face his brother.

‘My conclusion is, I reckon my kids could be eight times more likely than average to have schizophrenia.’

Ben shook his head. ‘It’s still a small chance, Matt. We were told that one in every hundred people suffers from schizophrenia. So even taking heredity into account, that’s only a maximum risk of, what … eight per cent?’

‘It’s a bit less than our risk, admittedly.’

‘Ours?’

‘Yours and mine, little brother. The children or siblings of schizophrenics can have as high as a thirteen per cent chance of developing the disease.’

Matt took a couple of sheets off the printer, stapled them together and held them out to his brother. Ben didn’t take them.

‘You actually believe all this stuff?’

‘Look at it, won’t you?’

But Ben shook his head and sat back down on the arm of the chair. Meg groaned and looked up at him accusingly with one tired eye. She was a dog who liked peace. Raising your voice in her sleeping area just wasn’t on.

Matt held up the pages again. ‘They think some families might lack a genetic code that counteracts the disease. You know, I’m wondering now if Grandma had schizophrenic tendencies. She had some strange habits — do you remember? But everyone in the family used to talk about her as if she was only a bit eccentric.’

‘I do remember her being rather odd, but that doesn’t mean a thing. It certainly doesn’t mean you’ll pass something on to the girls.’

‘You know, I’m trying to picture it,’ said Matt. ‘I can see myself, forever on the lookout for early-warning signs in Amy and Josie. It would be sensible, in a way — early intervention and treatment would result in the best prognosis. But what kind of effect would it have on the girls if we were watching all the time for telltale signs?’

Ben wasn’t sure who his brother was talking to now. He might as well be alone in the office with the dog.

‘Sometimes, I’m stopped cold by the thought that one of the girls could grow up to be like Mum. I might end up being afraid of my own child. At other times, I imagine what a relief it would be if my children turned out to have any other problem at all but schizophrenia. I feel as though I might be able to make some kind of deal with God.’

‘You don’t believe in God,’ said Ben.

‘No, I don’t. But it doesn’t stop me. It’s the idea of a bargain, playing with the percentages. I go over and over the figures in my head. Chances are, I say to myself, both the girls will be fine. And genes aren’t the only factor. Schizophrenia is only about seventy per cent inherited — which means thirty per cent is due to environmental factors, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘So if we knew what other factors could influence people … If we knew, we might be able to create a different environment, so the genetic switch wouldn’t be flipped.’

‘Matt, you’re making far too much of this. You said yourself most of what you find on the internet is rubbish.’

‘“Crap”, I said. A steaming pile of cow flop, if you like. But not this. You know this isn’t rubbish, Ben.’

‘You’re worrying about nothing. Your children are perfectly OK.’

Ben’s attention was caught by a movement outside. The window looked out on to the narrow front garden and the farmyard beyond. His youngest niece, Josie, was sitting on the dividing wall.

‘That’s what I’m worrying about,’ said Matt.

Ben tapped on the window so that Josie looked up, and he waved. She giggled, waved back, then blew him a kiss.

‘There is absolutely nothing wrong with Josie,’ he said. ‘Or Amy, for that matter.’

‘Do you remember before she started school, Josie had an imaginary friend? She used to say her friend was with her, and talked to her all the time.’

‘For God’s sake, every child has an imaginary friend at that age, Matt.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘That’s because you had no imagination.’

‘Thanks.’

Turning back to the window, Ben saw Josie poke her tongue out at him, perhaps because she’d lost his attention for a moment.

‘Does she still have that imaginary friend?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Matt. ‘Josie doesn’t mention her any more, not since she started school. But that might be because she realized other people found it odd, so she stopped talking about it.’

‘Or it might be because she has real friends now and doesn’t need the imaginary one.’

‘Do you think so, Ben?’

‘With the best will in the world, it was a bit lonely up here for Josie when Amy was already at school and she wasn’t.’

‘Time will tell, I suppose,’ said Matt. ‘But I have to find out the facts. It was me who made the decision to have children. Well, me and Kate.’

‘Have you talked to Kate about it?’

Matt ran a hand across his face. ‘I need to know what to tell her first.’

‘When you were looking up all this information on the internet, did you come across any advice? What do they say you should do?’

‘Talk to a psychiatrist.’

‘And that’s what you’re going to do, right?’

Matt sighed. ‘According to some of these websites, the genetics of mental illness will be much better understood in twenty years’ time. But there isn’t much chance of research having practical applications within five years — when it would be useful to me. Or useful to you, Ben.’

‘I’m not planning on having kids any time soon.’

‘You’re past thirty. You won’t want to wait that much longer. Men have a body clock, too.’

‘If you say so.’

‘What about that girlfriend of yours?’

‘Liz? We’re just … Well, we’re just going out together, that’s all.’

Matt raised his eyebrows and gave him a sceptical glance.

‘What?’ said Ben.

‘Nothing. I just think you’ve been different since you got together with her.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

His brother snorted. ‘Be that as it may. In the end, Ben, you’ll have to face the fact that no one can tell you whether a child of yours will be healthy, or vulnerable to schizophrenia.’

‘That’s one thing I’m not going to worry about,’ said Ben firmly.

A few minutes later, he left his brother in the office and went out into the passage that ran through the centre of the house. When he was a child, the passage and stairs had been gloomy places. He remembered dark brown varnish, and floorboards painted black alongside narrow strips of carpet that had lost its colour under layers of dirt.

Things were very different now. There were deep-pile fitted carpets on the floor, and the walls were painted white. Or maybe it was some shade of off-white. Kate would know the exact name from the catalogue. The wood had been stripped back to its original golden pine and there were mirrors and pictures to catch the light.

Reluctantly, Ben turned and looked up the stairs. At the top, he could see the first door on the landing, the one that had been his mother’s bedroom. After the death of his father, she had gradually deteriorated until the family could no longer hide from each other the fact that she was mentally ill.

Isabel Cooper had been diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia, and finally the distressing incidents had become untenable, especially with the children in the house. Ben shuddered at the memory. He never wanted to witness anything like that, ever again.

On a Monday night in October, Matlock Bath’s Derwent Gardens were deserted. There was no one to be seen on the paths between the flower beds and the fountain, no one near the bandstand or the tufa grotto. The sycamores along the riverside were turning golden yellow. Their leaves drifted across the paths, undisturbed by passing feet.

At the far end of the gardens, past a row of stalls under striped awnings, was a temporary fairground. An old-fashioned waltzer and a ferris wheel, a train ride, a set of dodgem cars, all silent and still.

A figure approached from the direction of the Pavilion, a man in an overcoat, walking along the river bank, past the jetty where boats were tied up ready to take part in Saturday’s parade. He wandered apparently aimlessly, kicking at tree roots, making the fresh, dry leaves crackle under his feet.

He passed the waltzer and ferris wheel and found himself near a small hut that served as a ticket booth for the rides.

By the door of the hut, he stopped. There was no one visible in the darkness inside. But still he kept his eyes turned away, gazing up at the tower on the Heights of Abraham, high above the village. That was the place he’d rather be, surrounded by rushing air, with the wind loud in his ears. But the hilltop amusement parks had closed for the day.

‘It’s done, then? All over with.’

He froze. The whisper might have come from the hut, or from the river bank behind him. Or it might have been inside his head.

‘Yes, all over,’ he said.

Beyond the hut, he could see the dodgems lurking in the gloom of their wooden circuit, like a cluster of coloured beetles. There was a Rams windscreen sticker on a Leyland truck, backed up on the other side of the circuit. One of the operators of the fairground must be a Derby County fan. He wondered if the truck contained the generator that ran the cars, bringing life to the beetles, making them crackle and spark.

‘You’re evil, aren’t you?’

‘Am I?’ he said.

‘Really evil.’

He was distracted by the sound of the fountain splashing. A spray of water caught by the breeze spattered on to the rose bushes. Tip-tap, like tiny footsteps.

‘I’m not listening any more.’

Laughter swirled in his mind, making him shiver. ‘Too late.’

John Lowther pulled his overcoat closer around his shoulders as he walked away, scuffing his feet in the leaves. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do next. And he wasn’t at all sure about the voice, that awful disembodied whisper. It had sounded like the voice of a child.