Chemical Secret by Tim Vicary. Part 4.
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Chapter 4 | The seals
A few months later, John invited Mary to a meal in the new house. It was a difficult evening. He had never invited anyone to their old flat, and the children’s friends never came for meals. The new house was very untidy, and John was nervous about the food. He and Christine cooked a chicken because they thought it was easy. But the chicken was tasteless and the rice was too soft.
Mary smiled, and pretended not to notice. But the evening went badly. Christine was angry with her because she tidied up the kitchen, and Andrew was angry with her because she didn’t want to watch TV. Both the children went to bed early, and thought about their mother.
But Mary came again, on a Sunday, and John took them all out in their new boat. That was much better. Mary didn’t know how to sail, so the children had to tell her what to do. She did what she was told, and seemed to be happy. John sat at the back of the boat, and watched his children quietly. He felt proud of them. And he thought they were proud of him too. The first time Mary and the children laughed together, John felt a big smile come onto his face.
It was a beautiful, sunny day in the middle of May.
There was a good wind, and the sailing was fun. The boat sailed fast, over small, white-topped waves. The sky was blue and clear. They sailed down to the mouth of the river, where there were lots of small islands and sandbanks.
‘Look, Dad, quick! Over there! What are they?’
Andrew pointed excitedly to one of the long, low sandbanks.
‘Seals,’ said John. ‘Haven’t you seen them before?’
‘No,’ said Andrew. ‘Only in films. Not in real life.’
His face was shining, excited, happy. ‘Do they really live here?’
‘Yes. It’s a group of seal families. The mothers come here every year to have their babies.’
They sailed closer to the sandbank, until they were about twenty metres away from the seals. Wet, shiny, seal mothers lifted their heads and looked at them with their blue eyes. The baby seals were drinking milk from their mothers, climbing over them, and playing in the shallow water. Then a big father seal lifted his head and stared angrily at them.
‘I think they’re beautiful,’ said Mary. ‘I never knew they lived here, so close to the town. It makes me feel really happy, just to see them.’
‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it?’ said Christine. ‘I think nothing can be really wrong with the world if they can live here, all by themselves, with no one looking after them.’
‘Yes,’ said Mary. ‘And they’re really beautiful, too. Look, did you see that little one, playing on his mother’s back? I wish I could do that!’
John smiled, as he watched Mary and his children laughing and talking together. He thought the world was a good place, too.
5 | The new experiment
A few days later, John asked Mary to look at another experiment. He took her into a long, quiet room at the back of the factory. The room was full of the noise of small animals.
‘I’ve been testing the waste products,’ he said. ‘Here, look at this.’
He gave her a sheet of paper. ‘Some of these rats have had the waste product in their food and drinking water. There’s no real problem yet. One or two have become ill, but not many. There’s nothing very serious.’
Mary read the results carefully. She didn’t like this kind of experiment, but she knew it was necessary. And John was right; no rats had died, and not very many were ill.
‘So what do you want to show me?’ she asked.
‘This,’ he said. He opened a box by the window. ‘These ten rats have had the waste products in their drinking water for two weeks now. I gave them a lot – five parts per million. They’re going to have babies today. If the babies are OK, we’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘Oh, John,’ she said. ‘What an awful thing to do!’
‘I know, I know,’ he said. But he wasn’t listening.
‘Look,’ he said excitedly. ‘Some of them have been born already!’
He lifted some of the baby rats out of the box and looked at them through a magnifying glass.
‘Oh, dear,’ he said at last, sadly. ‘Perhaps there is a problem. Look!’
Mary looked through the magnifying glass. She began to feel ill. There was a long silence.
‘There certainly is a problem!’
Mary’s voice sounded loud and high in the quiet room. She stared at the small animals under the magnifying glass. ‘Baby rats with no eyes, no ears, six legs! Oh John! John! What have you done?’
He looked at her strangely. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it? But I had to know.
And remember, Mary – their mothers have had five parts per million of these chemicals in their drinking water for two weeks. That’s a lot – much, much more than we’re putting in the river.’
Mary looked away from the rats. She remembered the beautiful afternoon that they had spent with John’s children, sailing on the clear blue water. ‘John, these waste products are dangerous!’ she said. ‘We’ve got to stop putting them in the river!’
‘Of course, of course.’
John put his hand on her arm, to comfort her. But it was the same hand – the hand that had held the rats. ‘Of course we’ll stop it, if we need to, Mary. The company can build machines to clean the waste products. I’ll start my report for David Wilson next week.’
‘But… ‘ She turned round to face him. His hand fell from her arm. ‘Don’t you think we should stop making the paint now, John? Perhaps it’ll take years to build those machines, and we’re putting the chemicals into the river right now!’
A shadow crossed his face. His eyes looked at hers, then away, out of the window.
‘I… don’t think we need to do that now, Mary. We’re putting very little into the river at the moment. And the company will build those machines, won’t they?’
She remembered her long years of work, the hundreds of unsuccessful experiments. She touched his hand, and smiled. ‘I hope so, John,’ she said. ‘I really hope so.’
She turned, and went quickly out of the room.