‘No, of course not,’ Elizabeth cried.
‘If my husband had his way he’d be over there now sorting out your son and I wouldn’t stop him. You tell him that. We’re not taking this to the police for Eloise’s sake. She can’t bear the thought of making a statement. But if I see him here again I will go to the police.’
‘I understand,’ Elizabeth said feebly. ‘But when was all this supposed to have happened?’
‘Saturday evening. My husband and I were away for the weekend and Eloise stayed at home to look after our cats. She invited Jacob here so they could talk and hopefully sort a few things out. He attacked her in her bedroom and kept her prisoner for three hours. He did unspeakable things to her. Sexual things, perverted things she can’t bear to talk about. Eventually she escaped and locked herself in the bathroom. She told him she’d phone the police if he didn’t leave. He didn’t know her phone wasn’t with her, and he cleared off.’
Fear gripped Elizabeth and she swallowed the bile rising in her throat. Jacob had returned home in the early hours of Sunday morning after, he’d said, failing to patch up his differences with Eloise. Was it possible he’d done these unspeakable things to her? Surely not, but then Eloise wouldn’t make it up, would she? ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Elizabeth said lamely, her voice faltering. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’ll be those drugs he’s hooked on. But that’s your problem. If he comes anywhere near my daughter again he won’t know what’s hit him. We thought you were good people with your husband being a reverend. Just goes to show.’ And the line went dead.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In the outpatients department of the transplant centre, Jacob was waiting for his biopsy. The other tests had already been completed and he’d agreed to wait until the surgeon was free. Some of the last test results were giving cause for concern so it was important the biopsy was done as soon as possible to check for signs of rejection, the doctor had stressed. Rosie sat beside him, holding his hand and offering words of comfort and encouragement. When he’d told her how much he hated having the biopsies and had missed one she’d immediately offered to take time off work to be with him. As a thank-you he said he’d take her out for dinner afterwards now he had some money in his bank account.
‘The only time I’ve been in hospital,’ Rosie said, making conversation as they waited, ‘was when I had a very high temperature as a toddler. But I don’t remember it.’
‘Lucky you,’ Jacob said. ‘I’m pissed off with hospitals – when I was ill and then the transplant.’
‘But it’ll all be worth it in the end,’ she reassured him. ‘Do you know who the donor was?’
‘No.’ He checked his phone again, turning it slightly away from her so she couldn’t see the screen. He was hoping for a text from a new dealer, but it hadn’t been as easy to find one as he’d thought. They all seemed to be working for and controlled by Chez’s boss; apparently it was his patch. However, this text wasn’t from a new supplier but from his mother. ‘Fuck,’ he said out loud.
Rosie looked at him, slightly startled. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked gently, touching his arm.
‘Just a bit of bother from my ex.’
She removed her hand, a little hurt, then chided herself for feeling jealous. Of course he was going to have an ex, probably lots of them. He was an attractive guy, and she reminded herself that she too had a past, and not one she was proud of. She now felt a complete fool for allowing Shane into her life and letting him treat her as he had, but he’d had a rugged charm at the start. A bit like Jacob, she thought, but no, she mustn’t think like that, she mustn’t let the past ruin her future. As her mother had said, she had to put all that behind her, learn a lesson, move on and find a decent chap. There had been no sign of Shane since the accident, and Rosie was beginning to feel less and less worried about the thought of him resurfacing. She might tell Jacob about Shane one day, if they started seeing each other regularly, but not yet. Guys didn’t like lots of heart-rending revelations – too much too soon.
Her phone bleeped with an incoming text and she had no problem in showing Jacob. Look after him. He’s really cute. Eva xx. She laughed as she showed him the screen.
‘Cute!’ Jacob replied indignantly. ‘Cute is for rabbits.’
‘Oh, you know what she means.’ Smiling, she texted back: Don’t worry. I am xx.
Rosie had to remain in the waiting area while Jacob went in for his biopsy. She passed the time by flicking through the old magazines scattered on the table, and texting Eva, who was on a late lunch break. She sent her a photo of where she was for Eva had never been in a hospital transplant centre and was as impressed as Rosie. Once Jacob had had the biopsy a nurse came out and said the procedure had gone well and she could go and sit with Jacob in the recovery room if she wished. She showed Rosie the way. Jacob had been given a mild sedative and instructed to rest for an hour, and have the wound checked by a nurse before he could go. Rosie sat beside him on the couch and held his hand as Jacob yawned and grumbled. He found the whole process irritating and boring, he said, but Rosie thought it was exciting, a bit like the hospital programmes she watched on television. She sent Eva a selfie.
When the hour was up, the nurse came in and said that really the doctor had wanted to see Jacob to discuss the results of the blood and oxygen level tests – the results of the biopsy wouldn’t be back from the lab for a few days – but he’d been called away to an emergency.
‘So you go and enjoy your day,’ the nurse said. ‘We’ll phone you if there is anything untoward. Otherwise assume the test results are normal.’
As Jacob and Rosie strolled away she linked her arm through his and the nurse remarked quietly to her colleague, ‘That’s not the same girl who used to visit him in hospital, is it?’
‘No. Just shows what a new heart can do!’ They laughed.
Outside, Jacob called a cab rather than use the bus to take them into town to the restaurant he had in mind for wining and dining Rosie. He liked to arrive in style and wanted to impress her.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table in the rectory, head in her hands and a glass of water at her side, willing herself not to be sick again. She’d vomited straight after the call from Eloise’s mother and then every time she thought about what the woman had said the bile rose to her throat. There was nothing left in her stomach but she dry-retched over the sink. Animal, she’d called him. He’d beaten and raped her daughter, darling Eloise. It was almost impossible to believe such things about her own son. In the past she’d wondered how the parents of murderers and rapists felt, and now she knew. Assuming of course it was true and Eloise hadn’t made it all up. But why would she? She couldn’t imagine a reason for Eloise to invent something like that, and to some extent Elizabeth blamed herself. She’d persuaded Jacob to go to see Eloise. She’d even lent him her car.
She hadn’t telephoned Andrew yet, although she desperately needed to share this, but she wanted to hear what Jacob had to say first. Perhaps there was a different version that would make Jacob less culpable. But what could possibly mitigate and explain what Eloise’s mother had said? If Eloise had changed her mind at the last moment about having sex, or Jacob hadn’t stopped when she’d asked him to, it still wouldn’t account for the bruises on her face or cut lip, or her being kept prisoner for three hours. She’d tried phoning Jacob but he hadn’t picked up so she’d texted asking him to phone her, saying only that Eloise’s mother had rung her, upset and angry. He hadn’t replied; she didn’t think he would, and while she hated to admit it, this seemed to confirm his guilt. ‘It’s the drugs,’ Eloise’s mother had said. But Elizabeth knew that Jacob’s behaviour had started to change even before he’d begun smoking cannabis.
Picking up her glass of water, she slowly stood and went into the study where she switched on the computer. While she waited for it to load she sipped the water and thought of Andrew, who’d dismissed the article she’d found and agreed with Dr Shah that it was
press sensationalism. But if she could find more concrete evidence perhaps he’d start to understand and believe her. Then of course if wouldn’t be entirely Jacob’s fault, and telling Andrew what he’d done to Eloise might possibly make it that little bit easier. If there was another reason.
The Windows screen appeared and Elizabeth pulled her chair closer and googled: personality change after a transplant. Sometimes new searches revealed fresh information and she began scrolling down, opening the various web pages. There were lots of ‘true’ and ‘real-life’ stories that had been reported in newspapers and magazines relating how kidney, cornea, liver and heart transplants had transformed the recipients’ lives so that they were able to see for the first time in years, climb a mountain, canoe, or run a marathon. But these weren’t the type of changes Elizabeth was interested in. She was looking for changes in personality, not quality of life and accomplishments.
She continued down the page, found the article she’d shown Andrew, reread it and moved on. She found another web address that looked hopeful, opened the page and read a similar story. This woman claimed to have experienced changes in her likes and dislikes after receiving a new heart. It cited another article and she clicked on the link to it. This article was five years old and gave an account of a woman who believed she’d taken on some of the characteristics of the donor after a kidney transplant when her taste in the arts had become more highbrow. She’d begun reading Dickens and Shakespeare and listening to Beethoven and Bach, much to the amazement of her family, when previously she’d been a fan of Mills & Boon and pop music. But a doctor quoted said many people develop more sophisticated tastes in middle age so the fact it happened straight after the transplant was likely to be a coincidence.
She found another article that examined other similar claims and read the account of a young woman who said she’d felt more masculine, assertive, and tougher after receiving a heart from a man. But of course Elizabeth realized that this could easily have been suggestion – she knew the donor was a male in his twenties and subconsciously had started behaving as she perceived him to be. Then she found a harrowing account of a man in Germany who’d committed suicide five years after receiving an organ transplanted from a man who’d also committed suicide. They’d both hanged themselves. Could that too be a macabre coincidence? Apparently it could. The journalist pointed out that the most common method of committing suicide in men is by hanging. It seemed there was a plausible explanation for all of these accounts.
Elizabeth continued reading. There were a surprising number of such stories online, but she had to admit some were fanciful even to her, and she was desperate to discover proof that Jacob wasn’t to blame for his behaviour. According to the parents of a child who’d received transplanted lungs, their son had begun talking to the dead boy, calling him by his name. Another family in India believed their daughter had taken on the personality of the donor so much so that she’d been reincarnated. A woman in America claimed that the identity of her donor came to her in a dream with such clarity and detail she was able to trace the donor’s family, who confirmed all she knew about their dead son.
Then suddenly, to Elizabeth’s small delight, she found an article that quoted research rather than narrative recollections. The first was a small sample of fifty-five adults in America who’d received transplanted organs. She read that 95 per cent of them hadn’t experienced any personality change after the transplant, but 5 per cent had, which was significant. Elizabeth sat upright in her chair.
These post-transplant changes included changes in food preferences, music, sexual orientation, art, hobbies, and general disposition – the recipient becoming happier, more thoughtful, more confident and so on. Some of the subjects had also reported that some situations and places they’d never known had unaccountably become familiar to them – like déjà vu. But the researchers were quick to point out that these were anecdotal verbatim accounts and couldn’t be independently corroborated. Even so, it gave her hope. It had been an objective piece of research and the article referred to another study in Asia. Elizabeth clicked on the link. Unfortunately, this sample was even smaller, only ten people, yet two had reported some change in personality. Again, there was the usual rider that the accounts couldn’t be independently substantiated. It seemed no respectable researcher wanted to stick their neck out and risk being laughed at. Further down the page she found a quote by a spokesperson for UK Transplant who said that while they were aware of the reports of changes in personality of some transplant patients, there was no evidence to support it.
But on the third page of web addresses, Elizabeth found a thesis by a PhD student entitled: Changes In Personality After Transplant: The Cellular Memory Phenomenon. Her heart skipped a beat. So it had a name: cellular memory. She took a sip of water while keeping her eyes on the screen. ‘The cellular memory phenomenon (CMP), while still not fully scientifically validated, is supported by several scientists and physicians,’ the article began, which was news to her. So some scientists did recognize its existence! She wished she’d known that and had been better informed when she’d spoken to Dr Shah.
The thesis continued: ‘CMP hypothesizes that behaviours and emotions can be passed from a transplant donor to the recipient through memories stored in the neurons of the organ.’ Then there were pages and pages of research data which she pored over at length, trying to make sense of it. While much of the scientific terminology was beyond her the message was clear. Cellular memory had been observed in laboratories using various organisms – bacteria, yeast cells, amoebas, plants, and worms. It had therefore been proven that it was possible to pass on cellular memory in lower life forms. It just hadn’t been proven in humans yet.
Flushed with hope, Elizabeth read on and tried to understand the explanation of the chemical and biological processes that had made this possible, but it was very difficult without scientific knowledge. It seemed that multicellular organisms could change their genetic programme in response to stimuli, and remember their origin in the recipient or host, even many cell divisions later. It was to do with DNA proteins – the building blocks of life which she’d heard of – the blueprint of who we were, so that each cell, each strand of DNA, molecule of protein, contained not only our physical being but our personality. It was incredible but it made sense. Why shouldn’t molecules contain the blueprint of who we were as a person as well as the colour of our hair and eyes?
The second part of the thesis reported the student’s carefully researched case studies – a cohort of 102. He’d traced the recipients and had interviewed them in person if they’d reported any personality change after their transplant. He’d then interviewed the donor’s family or friends to validate the claims made, and all of them could be substantiated to some extent. And it wasn’t only organ transplants that produced these results, but transplants of corneas, blood, and bone marrow. Heart transplant patients reported the biggest changes and seemed to be most susceptible to cellular memory, possibly because of the ‘huge mass of combinatorial coded nerve cells’. His thesis concluded by saying that the whole ethical debate on transplants needed to be reopened as the existence of CMP meant that elements of a person’s character – even their soul – could be transplanted along with the organ.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jacob felt his date with Rosie had gone OK. His only slip-up had been when she’d asked him where he’d got his money from and he’d been about to say, ‘None of your fucking business.’
He’d stopped himself in time but not before Rosie had seen his expression change, harden into a flash of anger. She’d looked scared and had made a flustered apology. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s none of my business. That’s what comes with working in a bank and dealing with people’s finances all day.’
‘No problem,’ he said, resuming his composure. ‘You weren’t to know it’s a bit of a touchy subject for me. You see my gran died recently and left me the money in her will. I’m pleased she did but at the same time I feel guilt
y for accepting it. Can you understand that?’ He was impressed by the ease with which the lie had tripped off his tongue.
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, immediately relieved and smiling. ‘But you mustn’t feel guilty.’ She reached for his hand across the table. ‘Your gran wanted you to have that money, so she’ll be happy knowing you’re enjoying it. Will you be able to buy a new car now?’
‘I’m thinking of it. Perhaps you’d like to come with me some time and help me look?’ Full marks, Jacob. Well done mate. It was the right thing to say. He could see how chuffed she was to be included in his plans. It didn’t take much to keep a woman happy.
‘Yes, I’d like that,’ she said, gazing into his eyes. ‘Let me know when you want to go and I’ll book a day off work.’
The only other glitch, well, disappointment really, was that she hadn’t invited him back to her flat after the meal. He’d thought that half a bottle of wine and as much sweet-talking as he could muster would have done the business. But when he’d said he’d see her home she’d looked embarrassed and said she hoped he understood but she needed to take things slowly after a previous bad relationship. Not too slowly, he thought, while nodding sympathetically. He hadn’t invested all this time (and money) to wait months to get his leg over. He needed a place to stay and Rosie’s flat ticked the boxes: central, no bills, and with the bonus she’d be out most days working. But he’d hidden his anger this time and had flashed her a little-boy pout of disappointment. Then he’d done the gentlemanly thing and had walked her to the bus stop, where he waited until the bus arrived before catching a cab home.
At 5 p.m. Elizabeth would normally have been taking Mitsy for a walk before starting the evening meal, but now she sat in the living room at the rectory, on edge, phone in her lap, waiting for a reply to her email. With the student’s full name and university on his thesis she’d found him relatively easily on Facebook. She had then messaged him to say she had to speak to him urgently about his PhD research and could he send his number, or if he didn’t want to give it out could he contact her? She’d included her mobile number. She hoped David Burns would take her message seriously and not think she was a nutcase stalking him on the internet. She’d message again if he didn’t reply. She had to speak to him. It was crucial.