Chapter 5
Josh
‘I’ve been talking to Giles,’ Wilf says, letting me into his flat one Thursday night.
These days, he keeps a lower profile, working as some kind of lab chemist for Big Pharma, earning the kind of salary that still makes his father choke on his own-brand muesli.
‘Tea?’ Wilf offers.
‘Go on, then, if you’re having one.’
‘I’m not,’ he says mildly. But he disappears to make one anyway.
Wilf and I met at primary school. Wilf seems to think he’s still indebted to me for stepping in one day as he was being repeatedly shoved against a brick wall by a seven-year-old skinhead. But as I always tell him, anyone else would have done the same.
Perhaps we would never have become friends if that tiny bully hadn’t seen Wilf’s uniqueness as an excuse to pick on him.
But from that first encounter in the playground we have somehow felt loyal to each other in the way that animals do, sharing a bond that seems to transcend any of the usual social norms.
Wilf’s flat always reminds me of an art gallery: almost empty, save for a few prominent pieces.
Big pleather sofa, bulky hi-fi system and a huge Philips TV.
He does have all four of my books lined up on a shelf, though, which amuses me – my entry-level crime novels slotted between hefty textbooks on organic chemistry and the Riemann hypothesis.
He’s read everything I’ve ever written, usually adding his feedback to the margins of my drafts. Rachel does the same, albeit slightly more tactfully and not in all-caps and red pen. Still. I don’t mind. I’m pretty sure that, between the two of them, they have made me a better writer.
Weirdly, my fear of dying young was one of the first things I ever confided to Wilf. Or maybe it wasn’t so weird. Back then, it just felt like a vaguely fascinating fact I could tell people about myself. A kind of ice-breaker for seven-year-olds. A conversational party trick.
My mum and her relatives didn’t see it that way, obviously.
They discussed it in grave voices, usually bringing each other to tears, whenever they thought I was somewhere else in the house, or watching TV.
And it didn’t take me long to understand why.
It was alarming how quickly novelty turned into trepidation as soon as I’d given it more than a passing thought.
Whenever Wilf and I discuss it now, his brain usually reverts to its factory setting of statistical thinking.
He starts talking about probability outcomes, axioms and risk matrices, at which I mostly try to tune him out.
Because it’s clear – even with my non-understanding of probability calculus – that the chances of me beating a pattern scored into the sands of time are terrifyingly low.
Wilf returns, passes me the tea, takes a seat next to the fireplace. Outside, a biting March wind is charging the walls of the flat in rips and gusts.
‘Giles told me about your problem.’
I sip my tea. ‘That all sounds a bit STI-clinic.’
He just blinks at me.
‘Sorry – what problem?’
‘That you think you’re going to die some time within the next—’ he glances at his Casio ‘—fourteen months, two weeks and six days.’
I shiver as he says it. My own personal Y2K, still waiting for me on the horizon. ‘This shouldn’t be news to you.’
‘I meant more that it’s imminent. Anyway. I think I may have the answer,’ Wilf says, then abruptly gets up and leaves the room.
I just stay where I am, drinking my tea. I have long since stopped wondering if I should follow Wilf whenever he walks off midway through a conversation.
Sure enough, he soon returns. He stands in front of me, hands me a small plastic bag, containing two round white pills.
Gingerly, I take it. Turn it over between my fingers.
‘The illnesses that killed your relatives are age-related,’ he says.
I frown my disagreement. ‘None of them made it past thirty.’
He dismisses this with a headshake. Clearly my contribution to the conversation is not required. ‘No – as in, they all died from conditions where ageing is the primary risk factor. Cancer, neurodegeneration, cardiovascular disease, one of the hepatitises . . .’
The words boom ominously, reminding me of those old public information films that used to warn kids off attempting to climb pylons, or playing hopscotch on railways.
‘Anyway.’ Wilf nods at the bag between my fingers. ‘Take one of those, and you don’t need to worry. You’ll be preserved as you are for the rest of your life.’
My heart begins to pound. ‘Excuse me?’
‘As in, your body will stop ageing. Instantly. Thereby preventing the diseases that have so far killed off sixty-two point three per cent of your family.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘Don’t panic.’
‘I won’t, if you start making sense.’
‘In what way am I not making sense?’
‘Anti-ageing pills don’t exist.’
‘They do now. I invented one.’
I scramble to my feet, drop the bag on to the coffee table as though it burns. ‘Why are you fucking with me?’
He looks genuinely crushed. ‘I’m not.’
And this is how I know he’s telling the truth. Because in all honesty? Wilf would not know how.
We talk long into the night. Twice, Wilf’s phone rings. I know it will be Rachel. But for the first time in my life I ignore her calls.
‘How the hell does it work?’ is one of my first questions. But as soon as he starts talking about cellular senescence and mitochondrial loss and keratinocytes and nutrient sensing – then heads off on a tangent into human cell classification – I have to hold up a hand. ‘Layman’s terms. Please.’
He bristles. ‘I really hate that phrase. The science is the science. Anyway, sorry it’s taken me so long. But, as I’m sure you can imagine, it’s required quite a bit of refinement.’
My mind is swinging wildly between elation and trepidation. It’s making me feel queasy. ‘Have you got anything I could drink?’
He makes to take my empty cup.
‘No, I mean . . . beer. Or whisky. Or anything.’
He thinks for a moment. ‘I have toffee-flavoured vodka.’
At this, I have to laugh. ‘Fine. Whatever. Bring it on.’
He hesitates, nods down at the pills. ‘Are you going to take one of those? Because I really wouldn’t recommend mixing them with any form of C2H6O.’
‘Don’t be a prat,’ I mutter, the way I do whenever he feels the need to start speaking scientist.
As he heads off to the kitchen, I just sit staring at the pills. My heart rate must be nudging a hundred. Ironic, I think, if the shock of being told I could sidestep an early death might, in fact, be the very thing that ends up bringing it on.
I’m desperate to talk to Rachel. I know she would have something rational to say about all this. But, right now, my brain is still beetling with too many questions.
‘How do you know they work?’ I say to Wilf when he returns.
‘Pre-clinical trials in the lab.’ He hands me a glass containing the novelty vodka.
I take a long swig. It tastes sweet and stupid and is exactly what I need.
‘You did this for work?’
‘Technically, no. They don’t know yet. But I’m thinking about pitching it to them. I mean, I kind of have to, given I developed it out-of-hours in their laboratory.’
‘But how do you know? Like—’
‘Computer modelling. Skin cells, grown from human stem cells. The next step would be sending results to the MCA in advance of clinical trials.’
I try to follow what he’s saying. But in all honesty you might as well expect a dog to comprehend a lecture in degree-level astrophysics.
My head is swimming. ‘Wilf . . . this could be huge. Like, ground-breaking. You could make a fortune.’
He sips his insult-to-vodka. ‘I’m aware.’
I mean, he does get paid a fair whack already. We worked out once that it equated to roughly ten times my hourly rate. Still, I don’t know anyone who would turn down the chance to become a millionaire if it arose.
Outside, the weather is getting wilder. Rain is beginning to hurtle against the windows. A storm the like of which we haven’t had for years. If this flat were a boat, I’d be prepping the emergency flares.
‘So, listen. I’d be taking this before . . . it’s been properly tested?’
‘I’ve taken one.’
I stare at him, shock sinking through me. ‘What? When?’
‘A few months back.’
‘Why the hell—?’
‘It’ll work, Josh. Trust me.’
And, in a weird way, I do. I trust Wilf more than anyone else I know. Apart from Rachel, of course.
‘Just so I’m clear: I take this, then stay twenty-nine and can’t die?’
Wilf laughs into his glass, which is the vodka doing its thing, I guess.
‘Well, obviously you can die. If you walk out in front of a bus, or jump off a tall building. But stupidity aside, no. To use your phrase layman’s terms – your body won’t develop any new plaque, or blockages.
Malignancies, anything like that. You’ll be immune to illness.
So, say you take it tomorrow, and your body is healthy – that’s how it will stay. ’
‘Bloody hell,’ I breathe.
My mind races back to Rachel. To how terrified I’ve been, for so long – from the first moment we met, really – of leaving her. How exhilarating it would be, how dizzyingly fucking wonderful, to finally know I might not have to. To be able to live our lives entirely free from fear.
Wilf downs the last of his drink, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘So, do you want them, or not?’
‘Them?’
‘One for you, and one for—’
Rachel.