Love and Robotics (54 page)

A noise buzzed in his ear. It took a few seconds to identify it: the tube. It wouldn’t let up.

“What?”

A throaty chuckle. “Someone woke up in the bitch drawer.” Alfred.

“I didn’t know it was you. I had my bachelor party last night.”

“What was it like?”

“Simon dragged me around a gaming hall. If it wasn’t for Pip I couldn’t have borne it.”

“What did the girls do?”

“A spa day. I’d rather have done that.”

“Doubt it. You can’t keep still.”

“Maybe you’re right. Still, it was
my
night. I should’ve had a say.”

“It’s meant to be your last night of freedom.”

“I wish you could’ve been there.”

“Not my scene.”

“Wait a moment.” Josh rubbed his head. “Why don’t we have one at Chimera?”

He could hear Alfred’s grin. “Nanny can make an event spread. She loves doing them.”

“When’s best for you?”

“Three days before the wedding, maybe? Do you need to be anywhere?”

“Not that I know of. Any ideas?”

“Hundreds.”

“See you then.”

“See you.”

Bachelor Night 2

The Chimera bachelor night was on a glorious autumn evening. Josh came down on the z-bike. Alfred waited on the driveway.

“Okay,” Josh said as he raised his visor. “Could you grant me a favour?”

“You only get married once. Fire away.”             

“Will you come for a spin around the park?”

              “On
that
? You’ve got to be joking.”

              “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were scared.”

              Josh had him there. He wouldn’t have been able to resist anyhow. He looked so wicked he could eat him alive. A leather jacket and twills were mediocre on anybody else; put Josh inside them and adjectives became meaningless.

“Do I have to do anything?” Alfred asked as he climbed up behind him.

“Hold on tight.”

Alfred had time to reflect he had his arms around Josh’s waist, his face against his back, before the engine leapt into life. He wished he didn’t have to wear that helmet but never mind, he could still breathe in his cologne and - oil? Anything to counterbalance the scenery shooting past. The rank and file of trees, the greenhouses, the lake. A peacock screamed.

“Are you alright?” Josh shouted.

“Um, yes. I think.”

“You’re priceless. You charge into brawls without a second thought, but stick you on a z-bike -”

“What if it falls apart? What if
we
fall apart?”

“Your wheelchair was flimsier. You had no problems rocketing around on that.”

“I designed it! I knew how it worked.”

“You’re perfectly safe -”

“Look where you’re driving, not at me!”

Good thing he’d yelled - they braked against the wall of the stables. Shaken, they dismounted.

“What kind of maniac does that for fun?”

“I do,” Josh said obstinately. “Could do with a brandy, though.”

After half an hour’s recuperation they lay on the lawn. Alfred sensed Josh looking at him but couldn’t catch him.

“What are we doing tonight?” Josh asked.

“I thought you could help me with a pest problem.”

“More booby traps? That artist knew how to hold a grudge.”

“No, we’ve laid Vito to rest. It’s of a more supernatural nature.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff.”

“The Lady and her posse, no. Superstitions, no. But it’s stupidity not to believe in things you know exist. There’s two.”

“The two in the gatehouse?”

“I didn’t know there were any.”

“A man and a woman playing chess. She was wearing a big frothy dress, he was very tall and thin -”

Alfred swore. At Josh’s curious look, “No, not those two. The ones I’m talking about need to be fumigated.”

“But - how -”

“You’ll find out.”

It was a testament to Chimera’s women they didn’t pale or break out in a sweat when they heard the night’s itinerary. Gwyn shrugged and said, “I’ll be down the shooting range,” while Nanny’s only comment was, “Don’t forget the garlic.”

They trundled down the corridors, Puss in tow. Maybe she’d help, she had an admirable ability to sniff out ghosts. The only drawback was a putrid pheasant she’d insisted on dragging along.

“What
is
this stuff?”

Well might Josh ask. The hostess trolley had never been used for its original purpose; it was pocked with acid stains and gnaws. Now it was piled with knickknacks: a jar containing glow worms, a long black mirror, the Thingummy knight’s helmet, a coral necklace, a camera attached to a goldfish bowl and grappling hook and Josh’s fiddle.

“I thought my playing was so bad you didn’t want any more of it.”

“You never know when it might come in handy.”

“What’s the garlic for?”

              “Keeps you safe.”

              “What’s
any
of it for? Are we playing the memory game?”

              “No point, you’d win. All this is ghost hunting equipment.”

              Alfred heaved the curtains shut and dimmed the lamps. The only light came from the jam jar and Puss’s eyes, gleaming at thigh height. “Can you see?”

“Light and dark doesn’t make any difference to me.”

“Right: the middle landing. That’s where our first customer likes to hang out.”

As they came out through an archway the scent of garlic hit Alfred’s nostrils. He brought the trolley to a halt. Josh was clutching something in his fist.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t like dolls.”

Alfred didn’t blame him. Parts of  Chimera reminded him of a mad relative; this was worse than most. For the next twenty feet - packed onto shelves, displayed on stands or arranged like an audience before the play begins - were dolls. China dolls, wooden dolls, tin dolls and rag. Dolls you could keep in match boxes, dolls as tall as Nanny. Jack in the boxes and puppets, fashion dolls and collector’s items. Ninety pairs of eyes, bead and painted and glass, stared at them. He’d tried donating them to the village fair, only to come home and find them in the same place as before.

“I always think they’re going to move,” Josh said. “Maybe because
I’m
a living doll.”

“None of that. C’mon, exhibit one will be along soon.”

“You haven’t told me anything about him.”

“It’s more of an it. We might be here for some time, so let’s put up these chairs.”

“Oh, I like this. Makes me feel like a film director.”

“Makes me feel like a gnome.” Alfred lit up - anything to keep his hands occupied. “Alright. Perry.”

“You’ve given it a name?”

“Why not? Perry’s a pook, a lash out of psychic energy. He loves being annoying. Putting clocks at the wrong time, rattling plates, flooding the bathroom, that kind of thing.”

“Is this what Dr Ozols calls the phantom fairy?”

“Phantom fairy?”

“Whenever the copy functional clogs up or there’s a power cut, she blames the phantom fairy. She says it drinks her coffee.”

“Maybe it began like that. Chimera’s built on old ground - a Golfa battlefield - and it’s very suggestible. No, Perry’s more likely to’ve sprung from this joke Gussy and I used to have. We were always close - well, we had to be, out in the middle of nowhere - but she made it clear she was boss. ‘Don’t bug the staff.’ ‘Don’t make faces, you’ll stick like that.’ ‘Fancy putting this on and seeing if you can conduct lightning?’ She’d learn a new word and use it on me: ‘You’re looking very discombobulated, Alfie.’ ‘Don’t be so antagonistic.’ Nanny hadn’t time for it: ‘Clever little madams have spiders lay eggs in their tummies.’”

“You were her favourite.”

“Nanny doesn’t have favourites. - One day Gussy went too far. I can’t remember what she said, just I’d had enough. She tried to chase me but every door I went through slammed and locked itself. When she tried to be cutting after that, something happened. She’d fall over or hit her head or, one occasion, land in the lake. I said I had a guardian angel called Perry. Well, perhaps not an angel. A guardian vigilante?”

“What caused it?”

“No idea. He went quiet for years; I thought I’d seen the back of him. But the last few months he’s been making himself felt. The staff are frightened. Idgie Baker gave her notice. We need to boot the blighter out.”

He finished his smoke and went to the hostess trolley. “We need to set up the mirror, like so.” It was wedged between a pair of candlesticks, meaning it took in the length of the room. “Now this jumble.” They erected the camera, goldfish bowl and hook, putting it beside his camping stool. “Finally, the fiddle. Play something.”

“I’m terrible.”

“It doesn’t matter. Spooks are nosy buggers. Hear any noise and they glide out of the woodwork.”

Josh scraped away. Sure enough, it was agony on the ears. “I call it Toothache Sonata.”

“Never mind toothache, that’s all your wisdom teeth coming through.”

“Worst musician ever?”

“No, there was that Farvan emperor who made everyone attend his concerts. His playing was so bad it made your ears bleed.”

As he hit upon a chord combination unknown to God or woman, Josh exclaimed, “There. A flash in the glass.”

“Positive?”

“Yes, a purple streak. Look at Puss!”

She couldn’t keep still: she kept pacing and growling. She’d even dropped the pheasant.

“We’re onto something. Louder!”

The strings snapped. The bow slapped Josh across the face.

“Lousy fucking thing!” Alfred picked up a lamp but it shattered. Puss licked his hands. “Thanks for the pheasant breath. What’s it doing?”

Josh’s eyes followed Perry’s progress. “It’s a ball of light, like a firework. I never used to believe in ghosts.”

“Now is no time for scepticism!”

It capered amongst the dolls, moving their heads and arms, popping out their eyes. Heads burst like balloons.

“While I admire the sentiment, that’s making one hell of a mess. Let’s get the camera ready.” Alfred stuck his head beneath the tent and swivelled it round. “Where is it now?”

“By that big doll, the one in the yellow dress.”

“Bethany Realler than Real. Gussy got that for her birthday. We taught it every rude word we knew.”

Something landed on its shoulders. “Bum! Poo! Willy! Toilet!” it squeaked.

“Those aren’t swear words!”

“They are when you’re five. Get that hook out - on the count of three -”

All the china dolls exploded. Josh threw like a pro, a fluid movement like a shooting star. It caught hold of something and squeezed it tight.

“Stick it in that helmet.”

It didn’t want to go. They had to tug on the grappling hook to ram it in, where it gave up sulkily.

“There.” Alfred nailed it shut. “Won’t be bothering us now.”

Josh put the light on. “Oops.” They were surrounded by smithereens of china and glass, melted plastic and scorches on the carpet. 

“I’ll clear up in the morning. That was the easy part.”

The second stop was the ballroom. Pinpoints of light on the chandelier, rippling mirrors, fat cherubs on the ceiling. Alfred remembered their dance practice, the possessive stirring as he saw Josh waltz with Gwyn. The germ of his feelings, had he but known.

“Who’d haunt a ballroom?”

“This one makes Perry look like a sweetie. In life her name was Kathleen Shaw.”

“Who’s she?”

“Think back a hundred and fifty years. My grandmother was fifteen. It was a small party - there was a war on, the eligible men had been called up - with twenty intimate friends.

In every group of friends there’s somebody you don’t like. In this case it was Kathleen. She was sour, stringy and plain. While other girls might have used this as an opportunity to develop a personality, she hadn’t. She was a sneak, a spy and a bully. The other girls tolerated her as they had no choice.

Parties were pretty much the same then as they are now. My grandmother opened her presents, had her birthday tea, danced with the young men. While this was going on, Kathleen slipped off. She’d bought my grandmother a coral necklace for her present - a necklace she wanted for herself. Overcome by greed, she stole it.

Nobody knows what happened next. What
is
known is another girl ate too many ices and had to go in the next room to lie down. She screamed. Somebody slapped her face to calm her. Then they looked up. Kathleen was strung up from the chandelier, body limp. There was no feasible way she could have got up there, or that she’d strangled so quickly. Her fingers were clamped around something. When they were prised open, they saw it was my grandmother’s necklace.”

Josh poked the necklace as though it was a snake. “This one?”

“The very same.”

“Why did she keep it?”

“When she woke up the next morning it was around her neck. Try as she might, she couldn’t get it off. Nobody believed her - they thought it was a delusion. She was put in an institution when she was thirty.”

“Do you believe her?”

“Yes. My grandfather told Nanny, who told Dad, who told me. I know it sounds far-fetched but Dad never lied. When she was dying she saw Kathleen at her bedside. ‘Take it,’ she said, ‘I don’t want it.’ As she grew cold the clasp snapped.”

“If all she wanted was the necklace -”

“Ghosts aren’t happy people. Maybe they left something undone, maybe they hate the thought of not existing. In Kathleen’s case it was spite. She attaches herself to female members of the family. Mum saw her as she was dying, never mind she was on another continent. She followed Gussy in her last days.”

“But -” Josh’s eyes widened. “Not Gwyn.”

“Don’t worry, she’s okay. She’s just had to bear more losses than anyone her age should. Gussy died when she was ten; her father killed himself when she was seventeen. A few times she’s mentioned seeing a plain, freckled girl on the grounds. I’d hate it if Kathleen adopted her.”