Gene Genie

Lynette Lowthian

Description

DO YOU EVER ESCAPE EMOTIONAL SCARS HANDED DOWN BY YOUR PARENTS?CAN YOU CHANGE THE PATH OF DESTINY? It's 1978. The winter of discontent brings Britain to its knees, the world's first test tube baby is born...and the Sex Pistols play their last gig together. In a downbeat London suburb, teenager Emily Enderbie gives birth to twins, Annie and Bea. Separated at birth in shocking circumstances, the girls face very different futures. Raising vital questions about family, identity, pain and loss, the book explores the way the past stalks the present and the enduring heartache passed from one generation to the next.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 06 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781398469686
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Gene Genie
Lynette Lowthian
Austin Macauley Publishers
2023-01-06
The Gene Genie About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Part 1: The Past Imperfect Chapter 1: Toby Summerfield, 2013 Chapter 2: Emily Enderbie’s Memory Book, 1978 Chapter 3: Norma Enderbie, 1978 Chapter 4: Emily’s Memory Book, 1978 Chapter 5: Norma, 1947 Chapter 6: Emily’s Memory Book, 1978 Chapter 7: Norma, 1951 Chapter 8: Emily’s Memory Book, 1978 Chapter 9: Norma, 1960 Chapter 10: Emily’s Memory Book, 1978 Chapter 11: Toby, 1978 Chapter 12: Julia Howard, 1978 Chapter 13: Julia, 1959 Chapter 14: Sara Kaplinski’s Story, 1941 Chapter 15: Sara, 1941 Chapter 16: Sara, 1948 Chapter 17: Emily’s Memory Book, 1978 Chapter 18: Norma, 1978 Chapter 19: Sean Howard, 1978 Part 2: Double Lives Chapter 20: Julia and Sean, 1978 Chapter 21: Julia and Sean, 1978 Chapter 22: Julia, 1979 Chapter 23: Julia, 1985 Chapter 24: Julia, 1985 Chapter 25: Sean, 1989 Chapter 26: Beatrix Howard, 1989 Chapter 27: Beatrix, 1994 Chapter 28: Bea, 1995 Chapter 29: Julia, 1995 Chapter 30: Emily’s Memory Book, 1978 Chapter 31: Emily’s Memory Book, 1979 Chapter 32: Norma, 1979 Chapter 33: Extract from Emily’s Memory Book, 1979 Chapter 34: Norma, 1983 Chapter 35: Extract from Emily’s Memory Book, 1988 Chapter 36: Annie Enderbie, 1989 Chapter 37: Annie, 1992 Chapter 38: Annie, 1996 Part 3: Shadow of a Doubt Chapter 39: Annie, 2013 Chapter 40: Annie, 2013 Chapter 41: Annie, 2013 Chapter 42: Toby, 2013 Chapter 43: Toby, 2013 Chapter 44: Sara, 2013 Chapter 45: Bea, 2013 Chapter 46: Emily, 2013 Chapter 47: Bea, 2013 Chapter 48: Annie, 2013 Chapter 49: Toby, 2013 Chapter 50: Annie, 2013 Chapter 51: Annie, 2013 Chapter 52: Toby, 2013 Epilogue: Toby, 2013
About the Author
Lynette Lowthian has worked as a journalist and editor all her professional life, and she also teaches creative writing and journalism. She’s met and interviewed an incredibly diverse range of people in her career—from politicians, authors, actors and TV personalities to families in crisis and campaigners for disability rights. ‘I’m obsessed with people, what haunts them, what drives them and why they do the things they do. And I love to write about them,’ she says. The Gene Genie is her first novel, and she’s now at work on her second.
Dedication
To Rob – thanks for everything you do, but especially for giving so generously of your time in editing and proofing my first novel and for encouraging and believing in me throughout.
Copyright Information ©
Lynette Lowthian 2023
The right of Lynette Lowthian to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781398469679 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398469686 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2023
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ®
1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Part 1 The Past Imperfect
Chapter 1 Toby Summerfield, 2013
It’s one of those midsummer evenings special to London, when hot sun filters through dirty city air to form a gauze of golden motes. For Toby Summerfield, it is an evening redolent of the past.
Toby sits in his north London garden scanning The Ham and High. Not a newspaper he habitually reads, but he has an affection for it, for giving him a job when he was just another graduate who thought he could write . God knows, as editor-in-chief of the foremost liberal left-leaning daily in the country, he should read all the newspapers he can, if only to keep an eye on the competition. His wife Clara does a great job in keeping him abreast, especially of the human-interest stuff. After a week of print, he’d sooner get out his headphones and listen to music.
He’s not much interested in what The Ham and High has to say about national politics: he can pretty much pre-guess it. He shuffles through to a page of local stories. His go-to pub is getting a makeover and will be closed for the summer. A girl at his son Theo’s school has won a national handwriting competition. Local residents are up in arms over their rubbish collection being cut. All of mild interest, but Toby’s keen editor’s eye is drawn to a name in the lead story, a report of a domestic incident not far away in West Hampstead.
The name in the story is Enderbie and it turns Toby’s mouth dry. There’s no mistaking the name and its unusual spelling, with the unexpected ‘ie’ at the end. Toby senses a rising anxiety in his chest and his vision waves and blurs as he reads on.
From The Hampstead & Highgate Express, October 22, 2013
Mystery surrounds the identity of an assailant, following an incident in a house in West Hampstead this week.
After an alert, paramedics arrived at the scene to find two women, believed to be identical twins. One had received a serious blow to the head and was unconscious. She was taken by ambulance to hospital in a critical condition. The other woman, described as ‘uninjured’, is unable or unwilling to verify her identity. Police were called to the hospital to interview both women, but no further information has been released as yet.
Jasmine Poole, who lives next door to the house where the suspected attack took place, told The Ham and High: ‘I moved in three months ago. Anna Enderbie and her partner and child live next door. They seem a pleasant enough couple, though I only pass the time of day with them. Just a normal happy family. One thing I do remember as odd. I was in the front garden not long ago and Anna came out of her front door. Her beautiful black hair had been dyed bright honey-blonde. It gave me a shock, but to be polite I called out “like the new hairdo.” She stared back at me as if she’d never seen me before in her life. It’s not like Annie to ignore people. I’m wondering now if that was the other twin. I wasn’t aware Anna had a twin, let alone an identical one.’
Police are unable to comment until investigations are complete .
Toby believes himself to be a mild-mannered man. In editorial meetings, he doesn’t bang his fist on the table and insist: he listens. When his son steps out of line, he doesn’t shout and order: he reasons. Not a man to make a fuss. So, in his usual manner, he quietly folds the newspaper, removes his Panama and reading glasses and places everything neatly on his deckchair. He doesn’t cry out for his wife, or falter, as he crosses his lawn in long strides, to reach the dim recesses of the house.
In the little cracked mirror in the cloakroom, he peers at his face. It has squared out: gone are the planes and hollows of boyhood, replaced by the surplus skin and air of complacency of a moderately long life, lived well. Staring intently at his fallen face in the mirror, Toby lets out a silent howl of anguish. For what he loved and lost. For the deceptions and lies. And for the babies, stolen from him, that he would never hold.
Chapter 2 Emily Enderbie’s Memory Book, 1978
Dear reader
My babies have taken over my life. I’m only just 18, it’s not fair. One is tough enough, but twins are crazy bad luck.
I’m going to write everything down because I haven’t got anyone to talk to. My mother has barely spoken to me since I fell pregnant. She and my father think I’ve brought shame on the family.
So this will be my Memory Book. Or it could be a diary. It can actually be whatever I want it to be. I’m not sure anyone will ever read it. If by chance you’re reading it now, you’ll already know that it’s a ring binder with a sticker saying ‘Emily Enderbie’s Memory Book’ on the front and a stars and planets design. I was thinking of ‘reaching for the stars’ or something corny like that. I might put it in a box and make it a time capsule when I’m done with it. Or there again, I might hide it under the bed or behind the wardrobe and someone will find it in about the year 2000! Whatever, I’m sure if I write down all the stuff that’s going around in my head, I’ll feel better.
I guess my bad luck began when I was born. I’ve read books about girls raised on farms, with ponies, a big garden and lots of brothers and sisters. No such luck for me. I’ve lived in 101 Elm Avenue, Tooting Bec all my life. It’s a narrow terrace and though there are only three of us—well, five now, if you count the twins—everywhere you go, you’re squashed in.
Let me tell you a bit about the inhabitants of number 101.
My dad is Clive—I call him creepy Clive, though not to his face. I prefer to call both my parents by their real names, not mum and dad. It makes the gulf between us feel bigger, which is fine by me. Truth is, they’re nothing like my idea of a mum and dad. Clive is a skinny little man with a gnome-shaped head and wire specs. Small he may be, but he’s got a loud mouth, a big temper and a high opinion of himself. He’s a mechanic so, as he loves to point out, he’s more than a cut above someone like me who has never worked in a proper job at all.
One thing I’ve always wanted, along with a pony, a brother or sister and a big garden, is the sort of mum you can have a heart-to-heart, or even just a laugh, with. I’ve tried so hard to get Norma to do girly things with me. But it’s as if someone switched off her inner light bulb. Some people might call her strong and silent, but to me