Eric Brown - Kéthani

I pulled Lucy to me—she seemed no more than a bundle of skin and bone—and could not stop myself from crying. “I love you,” I whispered.

“Love you, too,” Lucy replied, then said, “Now that I have the implant, Daddy, will God love me as well?”

I lay her down, gently, and smiled. “I’m sure he will, poppet,” I said.

Later, as she slept, I stroked her hair and listened to the words of the rhyme in my head: Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go…

I made my way downstairs. Marianne was in the kitchen, washing dishes.

I leaned against the jamb.

“You’ve made the right decision, Marianne.” I said.

She turned and stared at me. “You don’t know how difficult it was, Daniel,” she said, without meeting my eyes, and turned back to the dishes.

I said goodbye, left the cottage and drove home.

Lucy went downhill rapidly after that.

The next time she stayed with me, she spent most of the entire three days in bed, listless and apathetic, and too drugged up even to talk much or play games. I told her that she was ill but that in time she would recover, and she gave a brave smile and squeezed my fingers.

During the course of the last two weeks, Marianne and I took time off work and nursed Lucy at home, looking after her for alternating periods of three days.

At one point, Lucy lowered the book she was reading and stared at me from the sofa. “If I die,” she said, “will the aliens take me away and make me better again?”

I nodded. “If that happens, you mustn’t be frightened, okay? The Kéthani will take good care of you, and in six months you’ll come back home to Mum and me.”

She smiled to herself. “I wonder what the aliens look like?”

Two days before Lucy died, she was admitted to Bradley General, and I was with her until the end.

She was unconscious, and dosed with painkillers. She had lost a lot of weight and looked pitifully thin beneath the crisp hospital sheets.

I held her hand during the first day and well into the night, falling asleep in my chair and waking at dawn with cramps and multiple aches. Marianne arrived shortly after that and sat with Lucy. I took the opportunity to grab a bite to eat.

On the evening of the second day, Lucy’s breathing became uneven. A doctor murmured to Marianne and me that she had only a matter of hours to live.

Marianne sat across the bed from me, gripping her daughter’s hand and weeping. After an hour, she could take no more.

She stood and made for the door.

“Marianne…?” I said.

“I’m sorry. This is too much. I’m going.”

“This is just the start,” I said. “She isn’t truly dying, Marianne.”

She looked at me. “I’m sorry Dan,” she said, and hurried out.

I returned to my vigil. I stared at my daughter, and thought of the time, six months away, when she would be returned to me, remade. Glorious years stretched ahead.

I thought of Marianne, and her inability to see it through to the end. I was struck, then, by an idea so terrible I was ashamed that it had occurred to me.

I told myself that I was being paranoid, that even Marianne could not do such a thing. But once the seed of doubt had been planted, it would not be eradicated.

What if I were right, I asked myself? I had to be sure. I had to know for certain.

Beside myself with panic, I fumbled with my mobile and found Khalid’s number.

The dial tone purred for an age. I swore at him to reply, and at last he did.

“Hello?”

“Khalid, thank God! Where are you?”

“Dan? I’m just leaving the hospital.”

“Khalid, I need your help.” I explained the situation, my fear. “Please, will you come over?”

There was no hesitation. “Of course. I’m on my way.” He cut the connection.

He seemed to take aeons to arrive, but only two minutes elapsed before his neat, suited figure appeared around the door. He hurried over, concern etched on his face.

“I need to be sure, Khalid. It might be okay, but I need to know.”

He nodded. “Fine. You don’t need to explain yourself, Dan. I understand.”

He moved around the bed, and I watched in silent desperation. He pulled something from his inside pocket, a device like a miniature mobile phone, and stabbed a code into the keypad.

Then he glanced at me, stepped towards Lucy, and applied the device to the implant at her temple.

He read something from the tiny screen, and shock invaded his expression. He slumped into the seat which minutes before my wife had occupied, and he said something, rapidly, in Urdu.

“Khalid?” I almost wept.

He was shaking his head. “Dan, it’s a fake.”

I nodded. I felt very cold. I pressed my hands to my cheeks and stared at him. I wanted to throw up, but I hadn’t eaten anything for half a day. Bile rose in my throat. I swallowed it with difficulty.

“Khalid,” I said. “You’ve got to help me.”

“Dan…” It was a plea to make me understand the impossibility of what I was asking him.

“How long does an implantation take?” I asked. “Thirty minutes? We have time. If you can get an implant, make the cut…” I realised, as I was speaking, that I was weeping, pleading with him through my tears.

“Dan, we need the signatures of both parents. If anyone found out…”

I recalled, then, the consent form that I had signed two weeks ago. My heart skipped at the sudden thought that there had existed a form bearing both our signatures… But for how long, before Marianne had destroyed it?

My mobile rang, and I snatched it from my pocket. “What?”

“Mr. Daniel Chester?”

“What do you want? Who is it?”

The woman gave her name. I cannot recall it now, but she was a police officer. “If you could make your way to Hockton police station…” she was saying.

I laughed at the absurdity of the situation. “Listen, I’m at Bradley Hospital with my daughter. She’s dying, and if you think for a second that I’m leaving her—”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Chester. We’ll be over right away.” She cut the connection. It was evidence of my agitated state that I managed to push the call from my mind.

I sat down and gripped Lucy’s hand. I looked up, across the bed at Khalid. I said, “What’s more important? Your job or Lucy’s life?”

He shook his head, staring at me. “You can’t blackmail me, Dan. Marianne doesn’t want this. I’m not saying that what she did was right, but you’ve got to understand that there are laws to obey.”

“Sod the fucking laws!” I yelled. “We’re talking about the life of my daughter, for Chrissake.”

He stared at his clasped hands, his expression set.

I went on, “If this were your daughter, in this situation, what would you do? All it would take is a quick cut. Replace the implant with a genuine one.”

He was shaking his head, tears tracking down his cheeks.

“For Chrissake,” I hissed. “We’re alone. No one would see.”

“Dan, I’d need to do paperwork, make a requisition order for an implant. They’re all numbered, accounted for. If one went missing…”

I stared at him. I am not proud of what I said then, but I was driven by desperation. “You could replace the genuine implant with this fake,” I said, gesturing towards Lucy.

He stared at me in shock, and only then did I realise what I’d asked him to do.

He stood up quickly and strode to the window, staring out into the night.

I sat by the bed, gripping Lucy’s hot hand and quietly sobbing. Minutes passed like seconds.

“Mr. Chester?”

The interruption was unwelcome. A small, Asian WPC stood by the door. A constable, who appeared about half my age, accompanied her.