Scared to Live. Stephen Booth

classroom.

      ‘I’ve been looking at the internet,’ he said.

      ‘Blimey, we’re going to have to watch you. At this rate you’ll be catching up with the twenty-first century.’

      Matt scowled. ‘Most of it is a load of crap.’

      ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

      ‘In fact, I’ve never seen such crap.’

      ‘You have to learn how to filter out the rubbish to find the useful stuff.’

      ‘I’m a livestock farmer, so I know what crap is.’

      ‘Yes, Matt.’

      Ben perched on the arm of a deep armchair. The chair itself was already occupied by an aged Border collie called Meg, who didn’t even bother opening an eye. She was there by right, and wasn’t moving for anybody. Ben wouldn’t have dreamed of booting her off.

      Matt booted up and frowned at the screen as he waited to enter his password. ‘I’ve got something I want to show you.’

      ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been looking at ideas for diversification again? What is it this time – rock festivals? You’ve got the fields, and the mud.’

      ‘That’ll be the day, when I let thousands of hippies camp on my land.’

      ‘It worked for Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.’

      ‘No, it didn’t. He had riots between gangs of rival jazz fans.’

      Ben laughed. ‘What is it, then?’

      ‘It isn’t about the farm at all,’ said Matt gloomily, still staring at the screen.

      Realizing that he wasn’t even denting his brother’s morose mood, Ben leaned forward to see what he was looking at. He’d brought up a website that must have been bookmarked in his favourites, because he hadn’t used the keyboard to type out a URL. Ben was surprised that Matt even knew how to do that.

      ‘It’s an article I found about schizophrenia,’ said Matt. ‘Well, to be more exact, about its inheritability.’

      For a moment, Ben was thrown by the word ‘inheritability’. It was an expression he was accustomed to hearing from Matt, but strictly in relation to livestock breeding. Was a high-yielding cow likely to produce offspring that were also good milk producers? What percentage of lambs sired by a Texel ram would have the same muscle ratio? That was inheritability. Genetics played a big part in breeding animals for desirable characteristics. But schizophrenia? It didn’t make sense.

      ‘What on earth are you trying to tell me, Matt?’

      ‘It was something I heard one of the nursing home staff say, before Mum died. It hadn’t occurred to me before, and nobody ever mentioned the possibility. Not to me, anyway. I don’t know if they mentioned it to you, but you never said anything.’

      ‘Matt, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

      ‘It occurred to me that it might be like other conditions. Do you remember that family of Jerseys that were prone to laminitis? It was passed on from one generation to the next, and we never could breed it out. We had to get rid of them all in the end.’

      ‘Yes, I remember.’

      ‘Well, according to this, schizophrenia is hereditary, too.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Ben, it’s for the sake of the girls as much as anything. I need to know what the odds are – the chances of schizophrenia being hereditary. Will you read it?’

      Almost against his will, Ben ran his eyes over the text on the screen. It has been verified that schizophrenia runs in a family. People with a close relative suffering from schizophrenia have an increased chance of developing the disease. Parents with schizophrenia also increase the chances of passing the disease to their child.

      He straightened up again. ‘I don’t want to know this, Matt.’

      ‘There’s more. Read the rest of it.’

      ‘No. This is ridiculous.’

      ‘I’ll print it out for you. You can read it later.’

      ‘I don’t want to read it later, thanks. I can’t understand why you’re doing this, Matt. What’s the point?’

      ‘What’s the point? It says that members of families vulnerable to schizophrenia can carry the genes for it, while not being schizophrenic themselves. They’re called “Presumed Obligate Carriers”.’

      ‘Matt, you don’t know anything about this stuff.’

      ‘I’m trying to find out. Look, there’s a bit of research here that talks about anticipation.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘The progress of an illness across several generations. They studied families affected by schizophrenia and found that, in each generation, more family members were hospitalized with the condition at an earlier age, and with increasing severity.’

      ‘And your conclusion, Doctor …?’

      Matt pressed a couple of keys, and the laser printer whirred into life. He turned to face his brother.

      ‘My conclusion is, I reckon my kids could be eight times more likely than average to have schizophrenia.’

      Ben shook his head. ‘It’s still a small chance, Matt. We were told that one in every hundred people suffers from schizophrenia. So even taking heredity into account, that’s only a maximum risk of, what … eight per cent?’

      ‘It’s a bit less than our risk, admittedly.’

      ‘Ours?’

      ‘Yours and mine, little brother. The children or siblings of schizophrenics can have as high as a thirteen per cent chance of developing the disease.’

      Matt took a couple of sheets off the printer, stapled them together and held them out to his brother. Ben didn’t take them.

      ‘You actually believe all this stuff?’

      ‘Look at it, won’t you?’

      But Ben shook his head and sat back down on the arm of the chair. Meg groaned and looked up at him accusingly with one tired eye. She was a dog who liked peace. Raising your voice in her sleeping area just wasn’t on.

      Matt held up the pages again. ‘They think some families might lack a genetic code that counteracts the disease. You know, I’m wondering now if Grandma had schizophrenic tendencies. She had some strange habits – do you remember? But everyone in the family used to talk about her as if she was only a bit eccentric.’

      ‘I do remember her being rather odd, but that doesn’t mean a thing. It certainly doesn’t mean you’ll pass something on to the girls.’

      ‘You know, I’m trying to picture it,’ said Matt. ‘I can see myself, forever on the lookout for early-warning signs in Amy and Josie. It would be sensible, in a way – early intervention and treatment would result in the best prognosis. But what kind of effect would it have on the girls if we were watching all the time for telltale signs?’

      Ben wasn’t sure who his brother was talking to now. He might as well be alone in the office with the dog.

      ‘Sometimes, I’m stopped cold by the thought that one of the girls could grow up to be like Mum. I might end up being afraid of my own child. At other times, I imagine what a relief it would be if my children turned out to have any other problem at all but schizophrenia. I feel as though I might be able to make some kind of deal with God.’

      ‘You don’t believe in God,’ said Ben.

      ‘No, I don’t. But it doesn’t stop me. It’s the idea of a bargain, playing with the percentages. I go over and over the figures in my head. Chances