Misspent Youth

58. DYING LIVE

SUE, ALISON, AND ANNABELLE WALKED into the study with Tim. Even though Tim thought he’d prepared himself for the moment, he was scared by the sight of his father.

Jeff was sitting at one end of the couch, wedged up into the corner. A thick rug was wrapped around him, as if it was holding back the cold of midwinter. The study heating was on maximum, turning the air to a sweltering fug. It didn’t make any difference to Jeff; he was shivering beneath the blanket.

He broke off from the monologue he was delivering to the camera and smiled up at his son. “Hello, Tim.”

“Hi, Dad.” He so much wanted it to come out casually, as if he’d just got back from school to ask what was for supper. Instead, it seemed to get blocked in his throat, choking him. He gripped Jeff’s hand with its icy sickly white skin. “What’s happened?”

“Poor Tim.” Jeff smiled gently, which showed up the dark circles around his eyes. Annabelle sat on the couch beside him and laid an arm on his shoulder, fussing with the blanket. She kissed his brow, like a priest bestowing a blessing.

“Something this big, it’s too much for hints and allusion, isn’t it,” Jeff said. “We need to have it spelled out. That way someone else takes the blame, there’s no guilt for guessing right.”

“Dad, please,” Tim pleaded.

“It doesn’t work, son. As I’ve just been telling my viewing public.” He tipped his head to the camera. “Rejuvenation treatment is a load of crap.”

“But you’re young!”

“I’m dying, Tim. There’s some kind of flaw in the mitosis process. They can bring my body back down to twenty again, but after that something in the treatment disrupts natural cell division. They’re not sure what, unfortunately, but no doubt they’ll solve it in time.”

Tim started sobbing. “That can’t be right. They must be able to do something.”

“No escape, son. This is something that time doesn’t forgive.”

“Why did they give it to you in the first place?” Tim cried. “If it doesn’t work, why did they tell you it did?”

“Because that’s what Europe is, and this treatment is Europe. Once something so grand, so powerful has been set in motion, then it cannot be allowed to fail. I will just be a small sad glitch along the route of progress to success. That’s how Lacey and his kind would want to portray me. They’ve invested too much of themselves in this now; their association is total. My death will help the project to its final goal, so they would want to say with their solemn eulogies.”

“They lied!”

“Of course they lied. They’re politicians, it’s what they do.”

“But they’ve killed you.”

“Yes, Tim, but it wasn’t a cheap death. Not for them, and not for me. Especially me. I was free at the end of my life. Free from age and all its horrors. Free to enjoy life the way only the young can. That was such a beautiful gift to own. You know what? If they’d told me straight, that it was a massive gamble which I might not survive, I’d still have gone for it. I’d still have wanted these last few months this way and no other. I have absolutely no regrets. Except for you, Tim. You’re the only victim in this, and that’s my fault.”

“No. You’re dying! You can’t die, Dad, you can’t. You’re my dad.”

“You live on in the minds of people, those who love you, those who knew you.” Jeff chuckled, the old roguish predator briefly shining out through the decaying flesh. “Which means I’m going to be the most alive corpse on the planet. Everybody knows me.”

“I don’t. Not really.”

“You do, Tim, better than anyone after what I did to you. I still hope that someday you’ll forgive me for that.”

“I do. Really, I do.”

“Annabelle is pregnant. She’s having our daughter. Did you know that?”

“Yes, Dad. I know.”

“You’re going to have a sister, Tim. Look after her. The world is going to become very chaotic over the next few years, I suspect. She’s going to need a lot of help growing up. But don’t you give up university.”

“I won’t, Dad.”

“When my daughter asks about me, when she wants to know what her father was like, what will you tell her, Timmy?”

And a quarter of a billion people heard Tim say: “I’ll tell her that I loved you, Dad.”