THINK the unthinkable. It is 2007. Against the odds, Severino Antinori,
Panayiotis Zavos and Brigitte Boisselier have prevailed. There are clones,
everywhere.
As we slowly get used to the sight of mother/father accompanied by infant
replica, moral panic against the Mini-Me is giving way to very concrete
psychological problems.
The clone counsellors, as they are known in the trade, struggle to keep up
with demand from anxious parents鈥攁nd a few precocious children. One of the
most pressing problems they face is Fragile Childhood Syndrome.
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This is a typical case. Tom, 41, has been living with Margie, 40, for 15
years. After a serious illness, Margie finds that she just can鈥檛 get
pregnant.
They think about adoption or using a donor egg, but are both so desperate to
have their 鈥渙wn鈥� child that the day Antinori introduces the first clone to the
world they are trawling the Web to find the best remortgage deal on the house so
they can afford a place on the waiting list.
They are shortlisted early because they look good on paper: middle-class
professionals, good health, nice home, and so on. Margie鈥檚 egg is
used鈥攑lus a cell from Tom鈥檚 thumb. Apply semi-proven technique, and along
comes Dominic, all present and correct and with the right number of fingers and
toes. The spitting image of Tom, too. Margie and Tom are delighted鈥攁nd
very grateful.
Everything goes well for the first few months. But after a year, Margie
confesses she still doesn鈥檛 feel attached to Dominic: he looks so unlike her.
She was expecting a sense of otherness, but this is too much.
Rationally she knows that even 鈥渙rdinary鈥� pregnancies can produce a child who
is born looking exactly like one parent鈥攁nd who stays that way. Four years
later, she is still working at it in the hope that it will all come right in the
end.
Tom, however, has been having the opposite problem. Dominic鈥檚 鈥渞eplicant鈥�
look is giving parenting a dangerously surreal edge, and by the boy鈥檚 fifth
birthday Tom is close to breakdown. Despite every attempt to 鈥渕ake it
different鈥�, Tom is convinced that Dominic is reprising his own awful childhood.
He also believes that he feels every pain inflicted on Dominic, and is prone to
bursting into tears when Margie tells their son off.
Dominic is seriously fed up. He has had the 鈥渟ecret鈥� of his birth endlessly
rehearsed in front of him, and after asking all the predictable questions at age
four, he is now just plain bored. He is becoming afraid of Margie because she
seems so aloof鈥攁nd is upset by Tom鈥檚 weird behaviour.
Worse, he has started doing things he doesn鈥檛 really want to do just to avoid
being anything like his father. Which shows how far off the wall Tom must be
because Dominic makes a point of adopting the style of any macho type he happens
upon. And Tom is a frail, fairly intellectual indoors type.
The clone counsellors decide to ask Dominic what he would like.
Plastic surgery, he says, sulkily. Then a sudden thought cheers him up. 鈥淚
know what I鈥檇 really like,鈥� he beams. 鈥淐an I go and live with Aunty Nory?鈥�