Love and Robotics (18 page)

“I suppose he never did it again?”

“No, he just hid them better. Dad brought me here when I was sixteen - bought me my first pipe and matches.”

Alfred didn’t say - how could he? - he’d always found these places arousing. Perhaps it was the blend of smells: the cracked leather armchairs, the musk of the incense, the nuttiness of the tobacco, the piquant sweetness of the tester wines. He thought of the flocks of men who must have been here over the years: some furtive as though they were buying pornography, others striding to the counter and bellowing their order.

He thought of the act of smoking: taking the stem of the pipe between your lips, weighing the mixture, the arduous business of lighting up and finally tasting it - drawing it into your lungs with a satisfied sigh. So many flirtations started this way: an attractive stranger asking if you had a light, shielding them from the wind in a doorway, your heads close together, lighting it for them if it went out. Passing a cigarette damp from your lips to theirs -

“Look!”

He was transported from the memory of dripping doorsteps and smoky kisses to the present day, Josh tugging his sleeve. They were standing in front of a cabinet of esoteric booze. “This one’s three hundred years old!”

Alfred read the label. “It’s from the airship Vendetta. Captain Brady’s last stand.” As Josh looked bemused, “You’ve never heard of Captain Brady? What
do
they teach you in that gherkin?”

He whispered the story: a tale of espionage and double crossing, bravery in the face of certain death. Brady refused to give up, despite being hopelessly outnumbered, fighting with six harpoons sticking out of her chest. The enemy captain was so impressed she wanted to give her a hero’s burial, but they were weeks from the nearest air dock. It was then a skipper recalled they’d received a consignment of rum -

“Captain Brady’s in that rum?”

“She’s had plenty of time to marinate.”

“That’s disgusting! Oh, well. I’ll try anything once.”

Alfred was tempted to crack it open outside, but the Forum had brought in laws about drinking in the street. They were still talking about Brady as they took a fly to Margravina Road: her other campaigns, her bigamous marriage to a diplomat’s husband.

“I prefer my heroes like that,” Josh said. “Being virtuous is all very well, but you wouldn’t want to go for a drink with them. Captain Brady sounds like a laugh.”

Other than new windows and a patch of paint that didn’t match, you would never have guessed Josh’s flat had been bombed. Alfred poured two tumblers of rum and lit a pair of incense sticks he’d picked up.

“I like that. What’s it called?”

“
Eastern Promise.
Better known as joss sticks.”

“Josh sticks,” Josh giggled. “What are we drinking to?”

“We’ll be drowning our sorrows if they say no, but I don’t think they will. What would people rather hear about, a celebrity who sits at home doing crosswords or one who travels the world?”

“I like crosswords.”

“CER is a business. It has to get people’s attention or it loses funding.”

“Sounds very cold blooded.”

“No. Pragmatic.”

Josh filled another glass, spilling a little. “To friendship.”

“To adventure.” They clinked glasses and drank. “I say, steady on. Do you drink this hard normally?”

A smile of endearing idiocy floated across the artificial’s face. “Never been ‘runk. This is really int’resting.”

“Oh, gods. This is seventy percent proof and you’re guzzling it like lemonade.” Alfred helped Josh to his feet. He fell against him, giggling. “You can’t go to CER like this. Some chaperone I make.”

He got him onto the bed on the third attempt, tucking him in. All he could see were stray curls and a nose peeping out.

“Do you think C’pt’in Brady’s in that stuff? Tastes nice if she is.”

“Go to sleep. You’ll feel like death in the morning.”

Alfred was in the bathroom, splashing his face, when Josh called to him. He was sitting up in bed, sleepy and delirious. “I wanted to thank you.”

“What for, giving you your first hangover?”

“My life was so boring before I met you. Lonely, too.”

Alfred swallowed. “Feeling’s mutual. I have to go. Gwyn’ll wonder where I am.”

Next stop CER. Time to sober up.

Epiphany

Gwyn was driving Alfred home. He’d fumed half the journey, ignoring her attempts at conversation. At last he opened up.

“Patronising bint,” he grumbled. “Malik, I mean. She claims she’s an expert in robot psychology yet says Josh doesn’t have a mind!”

“At least she’s letting him go.”

“She made such a fuss, anyone would think -” His pipe froze midway to his mouth. A haunted look came into his eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you alright?”

“Please, no,” he groaned softly.

They reached the first of Chimera’s gates. He unbuckled his vix belt and went to climb out.

“What are you doing? It’s pouring!”

“I feel cooped up. I could do with the walk.”

“If you insist.” Baffled, she watched him lope down the lane.

Alfred walked in an attempt to shake it off, rain soaking his hair and clothes. Could he get away with yelling in the middle of the fields? Probably not, it’d look odd. Though that was the least of his problems.

Take a deep breath. Better. Though it wasn’t. It only delayed acceptance of the inevitable, around the corner of every thought he had.

I’m in love with Josh.

He hadn’t intended to string the words together. Ogling was bad enough - the pathetic fantasies of a sad, sex starved old git - but at least he would never have felt impelled to do anything.
This,
on the other hand -

He’d been in love before, he knew the shape and colour of it. It’s a frightening experience even in ordinary circumstances. You’re offering yourself to somebody else, giving them the power of God over you. It’s the greatest glory if they accept, the greatest curse if they don’t. This was nothing like ordinary circumstances. This was a love that, if discovered, could destroy him. Society decreed he couldn’t touch Josh, just as he realised how desperately he wanted to.

An image of his friend burned behind his eyelids. “My life was so boring before I met you. Lonely, too.”

I can never tell him. It’s the only way to keep him safe.

When he went into the kitchen an hour later, Nanny dug out the biscuit tin. “You’ve realised, then.”

“How did
you
know?
I
didn’t know.”

“Shines out of you like a beacon.”

“What should I do? We’re going away together!”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Something wise.
I
think I’m a freak. Like that man who fell in love with his vacuum stick.”

“There’s the official line, where I say it’s a Transgression and paddle your bum. You’re too big for that, so here’s what
I
think. You only live once. Whatever you do, I’ll support it.”

“Aren’t these biscuits thirty years out of date?”

“The roughage’ll do you good.”

Cancelling the tour was never an option. After taking Gwyn to campus, he invited Josh over for the last few nights.

The artificial liked the parts other people regarded as chores, like labelling luggage and booking the voyage. Packing became a game: Josh timed how long it took to find a certain item or put things in alphabetical order. When Alfred was ready to blow his top, they went for a walk, or down the Hanged Man for a pint. Harry Bailey cheerfully ignored the ‘No Robots’ law.

He wondered why robots were stereotyped as binary spouting bores. Whether it was stories about the Pond or everyday life as the face of CER, Josh made him rock with laughter. His impressions and storytelling were faultless. “A cow! On the
roof
!” Or “I stepped on some
bread!
”

A few evenings before they went away, they were winding down in the library, reading
Explorers of our Times
. Of course it was interrupted every few pages, Josh wanting to know if this or that fact was true.

“They were all killed by the same curse?”

“They’d been cracking tombs for years, why would that one be different? Winston - the leader - didn’t die for twenty years. That’s a patient curse.”

“Maybe it was saving him until last.”

“You read too many thrillers.”

Josh was a great admirer of Lewis Sinclair, Alfred’s mentor. Of course he received the sanitised version of his exploits. Lewis’s sex drive had been as florid as his moustache - there was barely a peccadillo he didn’t take up. He retired on the proceeds of his masterwork,
The Gardens of Pleasure
.
The copy in the Chimera library was dedicated: ‘
Dear Rusty, Thanks for your assistance
with pages 60 - 70.’
  Of course he didn’t let Josh near it.

“Don’t puff this up expecting an adventure,” he warned. “I’m getting on a bit.”

“Stop fishing.” Josh swatted him.

Alfred tried to hide the blush creeping up his neck. His friend had become more demonstrative lately. Before the epiphany he’d barely noticed. Now every touch, every smile burned.

“What happened?” Josh asked, nodding at his book. They were lounging on the rug, Puss between them.

“Some are dead. Lewis”- carried off by syphilis. “Fitzroy blew her brains out. Killin was sectioned in ’49. Vita faked her death; now she lives in a lighthouse. Some vanished into thin air. We’re an unlucky breed.”

“You’re glad to be going back,” Josh said, surprised.

“That’s wanderlust for you. You stifle it with respectability but you always jump at the call.”

“Is that why you never married?”

What a question. What was he going to say? “It’s too much, asking somebody to trail after you,” he managed.

Josh went on pushing. “You’re retired. You’d make a good husband -”

“Women don’t do anything for me.”

“But - you must’ve -”

“Drop it.”

Now Josh would think he was crossed in love and pining away, romantic little sod. He could never admit the only person he wanted was next to him on the hearthrug.

“You’re ignoring me, aren’t you?” the artificial asked after a tense silence.

“No. Thinking.”

“What about?”

“Give a man space, will you?”

“When you’re grumpy your eyebrows meet in the middle -”

“Leave the quack psychology to Malik.”

“Bet I can make you smile.”             

Alfred realised what he was doing: tickling his back. “That’s cheating.”

“Better than being all forehead.”

“Stop, it’s hard to breathe. Your turn.”

“No point.” Josh twisted away.

“Ah, you can dish it out but you can’t take it?”

“Pip did it and I didn’t feel a thing -”

“Got you!” Alfred tickled his hands.

Sure enough, Josh reacted. He moved convulsively, eyes shut. As Alfred’s fingers moved to his wrist, he let out a loud, erotic moan.

“Ssh!”

“I can’t help it.”

He did it again. Alfred imagined Nanny in the kitchen, pausing mid knit to grin at the ceiling. Josh was starting to pant.

“Stop it!”

“Make me.”

Josh pinned him to the rug. When Alfred tried to stop him groaning again, he bit his finger. They stared at each another, breathing hard. Alfred felt his colour rising, not to mention something else.

There’s an unwritten law that if a situation is already embarrassing, a whole new dollop of shame can be scooped on top. Michael Derkins gawped in the doorway.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything -”

You couldn’t have asked for a better assistant. Beneath the bushy hair, chunky glasses and bandy legs was a true and honest friend. Alfred had known this for thirty two years. Due to some oversight, Derkins and Josh had never met. Therefore his first sight of the artificial was him writhing on top of Alfred, fingers in his mouth. They scrambled to their feet. Alfred retreated behind the desk for decency’s sake.

“This is Josh Foster,” he said. “He’s travelling with me.”

Derkins’s eyebrows shot into his hair. “
The
Josh Foster?”

“The very same.” Josh gritted his teeth.

“Josh, Michael Derkins. My old friend and PA. He’ll be popping by now and then.”

“How long have you two - ?”

“A year,” Josh said.

Alfred closed his eyes. He sensed Derkins’s jaw descending. “Josh, we’ve a lot to discuss. If you could - ?”

“Of course. Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking Derkins’s hand. He closed the door behind him.

“Don’t start,” Alfred warned.

Derkins looked back at the door and whistled. “You’re a sly one.”

“It’s not what you think -”

“Pull the other one! Of course, you do know he’s a robot?”

“I’d noticed.”

“Oh, good. I thought I’d check before things got awkward. It doesn’t bother you?”

“It did last week. Now it’s simply irksome.”

“Only - the legal situation -”

“I don’t think anyone’s better placed to know what happens when you get jiggy with a robot. Can we talk about something else?”

Derkins frowned. He couldn’t bear sarcasm, finding it unnecessary and rude. After two minutes of poker faced silence Alfred gave in. “Sorry, Michael.”

“Okay, that’s cleared the air,” Derkins said. “Shall we get coffee and biccies?”