A Longer Journey

Learning

Sue need not have worried. I took charge almost from the start.

“Now you hear me count fifty,” I would instruct her.... “Now you tell me sixty.... Now you tell me a letter to practise.... Now you say words to write....” She even seemed to enjoy our lessons, especially once I could look in the books and see for myself what my next tasks should be.

Josie saw us working once or twice, and volunteered to hear me read a story. She listened with perfect politeness and didn't try to help me too much, but something in her face as she said “What good reading” afterwards provoked me.

“I can read better than you,” I told her.

She smiled, and waited for me to get angry. I need to learn to do that, I thought, but for the moment I was too cross to keep my dignity.

“You read horrible! You say the long words nasty. You say the shouting words flat!” (Of course I was still used to my father's reading. He had read with an understated sense of drama that steered well clear of staginess, and every reader after him, to this day, sounds either ranting, expressionless, singsong or hammy.)

“I'll try to read long words like you do it,” she said sweetly, holding out her hands for the book.

I couldn't read long words yet. I flung the book to the floor, and Sue looked anxiously across to us from the table where she was ruling my lines. There was no point in telling her Josie was naughty, because Josie hadn't done anything. I picked up the book, tore some pages and dropped the whole thing into the fireplace. That made them both jump and flap like chickens.

I recollected, aloud, that I had seen Josie grinning like a loony when the baker's delivery boy whistled at her. Josie smacked me round the ears, but now I smiled serenely. I had learned her lesson, proving I was every bit as clever as she. One day I would beat her at reading and writing too. There was no real danger of Sue reporting the incident to my aunt. Sue was terrified of her.

Sue could not be faulted on my progress, nor my general behaviour except for a growing propensity to dismantle clocks and lamps for my own scientific purposes. I would like to imagine that Sue drew easy enough wages for the next three years. I hope so. Josie and I were now friends, in that we knew how to irritate one another but also formed an unspoken treaty: I was not to refer to the fact that Aunt Emily considered Josie unsuitable company, and Josie was not to hit me with any implement other than her hands.

A doctor from Great Ormond, not Harley Street, must have visited at about this time. He made notes on my appearance and requested a photograph of me. He decided I had unusual physical resilience, unique to his knowledge; I was of perfectly normal mental abilities and should be treated (his tone was slightly impatient) “just as you would treat a normal child.”

“His appearance...” Aunt Emily demurred.

“Is certainly unusual, madam, but quite clearly not unattractive. Actually somewhat artistic. A remarkably handsome and very healthy boy.”

I was growing up. I had reached my teens, and there were very few things I felt afraid of any more. Down the road there lived a fierce dog that had once made me cry by its barking behind the hedge, and now as I walked past I didn't even jump at the sudden noise.

This dog did actually get out to chase and maul our postman, who was half-carried bleeding into our house for aid. The doctor was reluctant to have him moved immediately, so he stayed for several weeks under my aunt's determined hospitability and Sue Mossman's expert care. As he got better he regaled me over and over with the tale of the “Mad Dog”. The tale grew in drama and violence at each telling, but that was the way I liked it, so I made no remark.

I was sorry for our gardener, d**k Meldrew, when he was sent with a note for the people at the Mad Dog's residence, and I quite eagerly offered to take it in his stead. The Mad Dog was in a hastily-built kennel run between the house and garage. He took me for a burglar, of course, and was yelling for my blood. I dropped the note through the door without ringing and deliberately approached the enclosure. I bent forward and glared at the dog, opening my big eyes wide at the same time as lowering my eyebrows over them.

It worked. The dog stopped barking and backed away. I opened the gate and went in, walking slowly after him while he whined and tried to hide. Someone had run out of the house, waving his arms and shouting that I was an i***t, but I gave a cheerful wave as I left the enclosure and bolted its gate.

I laughed to myself almost hysterically all the way back to my own room. In front of my mirror I threw a swagger. I was a man! This meant—and the pit of my stomach dropped suddenly—that I had to do something about Aunt Emily. A young man's aunt does not look past his face with a pained frown and refer to him as “the child”. A young man strides around (I tried the swagger again) and his aunt looks at him admiringly (my imagination wavered, but I tried the big-eyed frown, and it helped).

During the night I worked out my plan.

These days I breakfasted regularly with my aunt. She should address me in her usual manner, and I would preserve a dignified silence. Eventually she should show peevishness or at least ask me why I hadn't answered, and I would gravely explain that, as I was no longer a child, I could not reasonably be required to answer to the appellation. I fantasised, briefly, about offering to call her “old woman” if she persisted in calling me “child”, but even in my imagination I quailed at this.

However, I was almost sure, very nearly ready, and in fact more than half confident enough, to begin hostilities on the morrow.

I overslept and was late to breakfast. Aunt Emily was the one who preserved the dignified silence. When I apologised, petulantly, for my tardiness, she inclined her head in acceptance and turned her eyes back to a letter she had received by the morning post. I fidgeted about as I ate, trying to cue her to speak to me, but she merely raised her eyebrows and lowered her eyes at the same time, an expression that indicated mild dissatisfaction but no intent to pursue the matter.

After breakfast, as I excused myself, it was, “Mossman, see that the child does not sit up late in the evenings. He does not appear well-slept.” And Sue apologised most assiduously for what had nothing to do with her!

I turned back. “Sue sent me to bed at my usual time, Aunt Emily,” I began angrily.

“Dear me, child. Your demeanour is most untoward, quite hectic. Do go and lie down. Mossman, see that his curtains are drawn.” And she swept out of the room.

A young man is easily baffled.

A young man is also determined.

My next attempt had not to involve Sue. Whenever I was not specifically expected to be with Sue, I put myself in my aunt's way. I would be reading a learned book, or looking earnestly at her collection of Bible illustrations by different artists, and I would ask her questions. I designed my questions either to indulge her expression of personal opinions, or to puzzle her on matters in which she had no curiosity (or no wish to satisfy mine). “Why did Bible people have to have long hair?” “If metal is really solid, how does electricity go through it?” “Why is Miss Keith all friendly to Mrs Broadley when she doesn't like her?”

I wondered what opportunities I could pull out of the morning Aunt Emily had appointed to meet with her attorney. She met with him every month or so, regarding her financial estate. Her deceased husband had owned and sold a bank, and she now held shares in a wide variety of industries and inventions. They would meet in the library room, and he would lunch with us afterwards.

I went into the library immediately after breakfast, settled myself almost invisibly into a wing-backed chair. I would be in the way in her meeting, and if I felt brave enough I would ask the attorney, in her presence, if he knew of anyone who could teach me about money and inventions, as I was 13 and still didn't go to school. I waited.

It seemed the agenda had already been broached in the sitting-room: “...Some long-term shrinkage, of course, only to be expected in light of the recent Depression over there.”

“Distressing,” I heard my aunt saying, but she sounded more bored than anxious.

“Which brings me to the point, Mrs Wychworth: that we should diversify still further. A broad portfolio, you know, the best security.”

“Certainly, Mr Hurst.”

I frowned. It had never occurred to me that my aunt found these meetings onerous.

“I have some excellent opportunities to invest in a very fast-growing industry. Tobacco. Very good predictions for at least the next twenty years.”

I nearly laughed aloud. Fate had handed me a better chance than I had imagined. I knew my aunt's views on smoking. She had actually financed a tract on the evils of tobacco. I stood up quickly, before my aunt could progress from shock through moral repugnance to speech. I had to speak first.

“Aunt Emily,” I began, wide-eyed. “I don't like that.”

Now she had to make a detour to disapprove of my being there, but that was a milder disapproval and one that I should now ignore.

“Smoking isn't nice,” I said, shaking my head vigorously. Sometimes you win more power by coalition that battle, and this was going to gain me useful ground; I could feel it.

“Child, Mr Hurst and I are in conference,” Aunt Emily told me.

I hesitated, but pulled myself together. “I can talk, too, if you like,” I offered, quickly pulling up a chair. “I want to know about money shares. But I don't want us to buy tobacco. It's not Christian. The Lord never smoked.”

“The Lord never had the chance to trade with South America, young man,” Mr Hurst retorted with a twinkle of the eyes.

Aunt Emily drew herself up and half-closed her eyes. “Mr Hurst, my nephew is right, young as he is. I will have no interest in tobacco.”

“Oh, come come, madam, the use of tobacco is hardly a vice.” (I think he smoked.) “Ask any doctor. The fragrant smoke guards against infections of the lungs, it induces calm and content, it will almost certainly prove to prolong life and good health.”

My aunt, I was glad to see, had no immediate answer. It is hard to contradict the advice of learned men of medicine.

“It induces—A Free and Careless Deportment on the Part of Young People,” I stated, almost breaking into giggles at my own audacity. I was quoting verbatim from the tract that I had seen on my aunt's escritoire. (Quite contrary to its intention, this very tract had convinced me to start smoking as soon as I had opportunity, for there was nothing I desired more than a Free and Careless Deportment.)

Having established my place in the discussion, I sat chiefly in silence while Aunt Emily detailed the attorney to extend her interests in chocolate (“very nutritious indeed, Mrs Wychworth, flesh-forming, and milder on young teeth than many other confections”), medicinal drugs (“so necessary, especially in the tropics”), and a variey of new patents such as the electric typewriter (“unproven, Mrs Wychworth, but certainly, if you say so”).

My aunt, I found, was as much alarmed by my demonstrations of maturity, as she had been impressed by my rapidly-designed sentiments. But the thin end of my wedge was in, and I slowly advanced it. I could go out walking by myself. I could attend a Sunday school class and become acquainted with suitable companions. Of her own accord Aunt Emily stopped calling me “child”; she tried “nephew”, but I offered to let her call me “Junior”. With a shudder and to all appearances a silent prayer for preservation from such barbarities of language, she capitulated, and managed, on occasion, to address me as Methusaleh. When Sue Mossman began to take over various duties from the ailing housekeeper, I waited until the Vicar was visiting and then asked for the tutor I had been promised more than three years previously—and I got him.

His name was Mr Thomas, and he lived in four nights a week and spent Saturdays and Sundays with his brother in London. His brother, mysteriously, was called Mr Smith, and when I met him he was simply introduced to me as a scientist.

Mr Thomas was very pleased with me as a student. He carried a cane, as a traditional tool of his profession; he would certainly have used it had I lacked curiosity or ability to learn, but he never minded my arguing a point with him. To me he seemed a thoroughly old-fashioned teacher in his single-minded determination to impart learning—and yet at the same time his thinking was very modern: he belived in knowledge not so much as a preservation of culture but as a power to save the world. Medicine would cure every conceivable disease, including old age; technology would free men and women from meaningless drudgery; education would release the poor from unproductive habits; governments run along scientific lines would improve the lives of whole populations....

In Europe, scientists had conducted experiments on heritability and control of good and bad characteristics in plants, animals and finally humans. Based on what Mr Thomas had said about governments harnessing scientific knowledge, I wondered for some time whether the principles of eugenics had his approval. I felt a vague aversion to the idea myself, but was reluctant to open a subject that I did not understand well enough to support my own opinions should we differ. There were some hazy undeniables: that if a government had knowledge and powers to improve life and health for the next generation then that government is morally obliged to do so. Also that the needs of an entire society are greater than the wishes of individuals, and that liberties must be fenced by laws.

Every few generations, every century or so, the same philosophical conflict will re-emerge: the rights of the individual versus the protection of society; and people like me will hesitate, not for apathy but in doubt of how to frame their arguments convincingly. In the 20th century there were economics, population and eugenics. In the 21st century the chosen battleground is child protection: forced vaccination in America, state parenting in Scotland, micro-chipping children in various countries. In the 22nd century it will be something else: the ownership of genomes perhaps, or the replication rights of people and machines. Who decides the boundary between civil liberty and law? Governments will always think it is their role to decide, but theirs is an automatic conflict of interest, the hidden motive of extending their own powers beyond what the problem requires.

How much of my mind Mr Thomas knew, I couldn't say, but for some reason he actually encouraged me to read one article that claimed science should emulate and improve upon evolution. Just as natural selection might cut defective members out of the genetic pool, so society should aim to encourage those of healthy physique and desirable characteristics to have children—and should as far as possible discourage the proliferation of undesirable characteristics, for instance mental instability, criminal tendencies, s****l deviation or physical deformity. The same article also predicted that, in some far distant future, scientists might be able to modify people genetically for various useful purposes.

“Your response,” he said when he knew I had finished reading.

“It reminds me of when we read about Ancient Sparta,” I said vaguely, and waited. By way of support to its main premise, natural selection, the article had cited mongolism as a genetic deviation to which nature had reduced the ability to breed. I was wondering if anyone had ever told Mr Thomas that I had been a mongol. If he was in agreement with the article and aimed to convince me, it did not seem likely that he would knowingly point me to an article that could give me personal offence.

“Very good, very good,” Mr Thomas said in surprise. “An unexpected but possibly valid connection. Remind me. What were our thoughts on the methods employed by Sparta in engineering the population towards military superiority?”

“They left the weak babies out for the wolves. They sent little boys out to survive by banditing. They didn't do gentleness or sympathy.”

“That is what we read,” Mr Thomas chided me. “What were our thoughts?”

“Some people think the Spartans were admirable.”

“Now, now, Thulie, with your shield or on it. State your opinion firmly, then stand by it unless and until convinced otherwise.”

“It was cruel. It was—limited, and it limited people. It was only some people's idea of what's best, and nobody got to choose how to live or bring up their children. It was a waste of people's lives that weren't talented in the military way.”

“A fair enough argument. And I agree with you.” He shook my hand.

Aunt Emily happened also to see the article I had been reading, and immediately requested Mr Thomas to remove all such material from my curriculum. I think he tried to protest that I was not reading it in order to agree with it, but she inquired, coldly, what could be the point in reading it in that case.

I did not hear his reply, but I did hear her following remark: “My nephew's unfortunate mother studied genetic improvement. It did not serve her well. The whole idea is irreligious in the extreme. Science is a laudable pursuit but must be kept in its place.” I reflected that all three of us could actually be in genuine agreement on something, and yet not on the same terms. It amused me to imagine how many people could theoretically be on the same side and yet still disagree in motive, in how they discussed it and how they interpreted one another.

Not then but later on, I remembered my aliens. I did not yet know what they had done to me, but I had been told many times about how I was as a young child and how I had changed; and from the first I had connected this change, slow as it was, with the incident beyond the garden gate. The promise, “to run, to talk, to fly like a bird and to be happy”, echoed in my mind again.

If anyone had been altered genetically, edited by science, I was that person. What had been the motive of it? Could it be sheer benevolence towards me, or had the aliens had “various useful purposes” of their own? Mended as I was, could I now “breed” if I married a girl, and did I want to?

Had my aliens done right or wrong to me? I liked being able to run, to talk, to think and imagine, or whatever was meant. And yet I had the strange sensation of having forgotten something—left something behind that I might need—something like that. It was a decidedly uncomfortable feeling, but I could not quite place it.