The Artificial Wife

by Rachael Eyre

  I laid my hand over her chest, over her clockwork heart. “I love you.”

  Her foot found mine and cradled it. “I love you too.”

  After we'd made love, anything seemed possible. When we emerged from my room hours later, flushed and euphoric, Elle knocked one of the uglier lace plates from the shelf. There was no struggle, no invisible bar. It fell and broke with a tinkle.

  We stared at each other. “Do you think …?”

  Sunset had been and gone - we wandered through a still, shadow draped house. My hand stole into hers; she gave it a squeeze. As we reached the front door, she flung it open dramatically. She took a step out onto the lawn, then another. She turned to me, her smile dying on her lips.

  She'd told me about the pain when she followed Robert into the garden, but I hadn't expected anything as violent as this. Molten agony pulsed behind my eyes, wrapped a vice around my forehead. My knees sagged.

  “I can't,” I moaned.

  A small full moon hung overhead. It looked down with a crooked smile, seeming to mock my efforts.

  “C’mon, love.” Elle was back at my side, her hand on my arm. “You can do this.”

  I protested, kicking up the stones. The pressure was remorseless. Every step was like walking on swords. Thankfully the street was deserted; who knows what we must've looked like.

  “You want to know the truth, don't you?” she asked.

  “Of course I do!” I exclaimed.

  “How can you go to Ms Adelaide’s if you can't even leave the house?”

  The night grew colder and darker. There came a point when the pain hadn't necessarily lessened, but I had gone past caring. I clutched Elle, put my foot down, tripped.

  No wonder I'd fallen. I'd walked straight into a lamppost. I stared at the flashing green bulb, slack jawed. Elle crowed: “Told you so!”

  “Self praise is no recommendation!” It blurted out. “Shit. I sound like Ms Adelaide.”

  “You'll be seeing her tomorrow.” With the sleaziest of smiles, “Fancy another round?”

  When I'd imagined sex, I'd always thought of something that was done to you, something you endured. How could I think otherwise, listening to Robert’s protracted effort and Elle’s silence?

  All through that night, I learned what proper love making, not sex, meant. It was a mutual voyage of discovery, a constant dialogue. Kissing, whispering, touching and tasting - that was only part of it. The true meaning lay in Elle’s tenderness and courtesy, the longing in her eyes as I climbed up her body.

  Though I tried not to think of Robert, he was the ghost at the feast. Today was only possible because of his absence. Once he was home, we would be back in our designated boxes. As she lay sleeping beside me, I tried to envisage a future where we could be together. Without him.

  There was no exit.

  ***

  Elle shook me awake the next morning. “Up you get, tiger! Show time.”

  I stuck my head under the pillow and grumbled. “It's not light yet!”

  She wasn't having any of it. “This was your idea. Don't chicken out now.”

  So I grudgingly took a lukewarm shower and dragged on my smock. It looked unsightly but I never wanted to see the party dress again, never mind wear it.

  Elle was wearing a bizarre jumble of clothes: her scarlet gown with one of Robert's wax jackets, rubber boots and a rucksack on her shoulder. I tried to take a peek but she pulled it shut. “You'll know soon enough. Let's go.”

  The familiar tension started as we walked down the hallway, but now I could bear it. Holding her hand, my eyes screwed shut, I followed her out of the front door. There was one last push, like a cork popping from a bottle, and it ceased. I opened my eyes.

  It was our street by day, familiar but not. I couldn't get over the noise. Vixes turning in their drives, cats brawling, distant sirens. And the smells! I didn't know if I should gulp them up or wrinkle my nose. Elle strode at my side, calm and assured.

  “Try not to stare,” she murmured. “Act like everything's normal.”

  It was good advice, though I couldn't help spotting things I didn't know existed, like bins that crunched up your litter and holographic billboards. I stopped to talk to a pair of functionals and she waved me away. “They're not like us, they're only machines! Don't draw attention.”

  We already had. I'd noticed a few people looking at us curiously or hiding smiles. Now a man with luminous blond hair and a ticked suit approached. “Are you gels collecting?”

  Elle really does have an answer for everything. “Nope, just on day release,” which made him scurry to the opposite side of the road. As soon as he had gone, she said, “That was close. We need to get rid of these clothes.”

  I thought she meant shove them into one of the alarming bins, but wouldn't that attract more attention? Fortunately she didn't mean anything as drastic. After we'd walked another block, she stopped. “Here we go.”

  We were outside a black and white timbered building with porthole windows, at odds with the modern yet rundown street. Three brass balls hung from the front. Elle nudged the door and it jangled.

  The interior was cluttered with an extraordinary array of junk: rusty musical instruments, motheaten furs, switched off bots. Elle gravitated towards the clothes racks and started to pick her way through. “Good stuff, this.” She soon found an outfit she liked: blue canvas trousers, a black winged top, a studded leather jacket and crimson thigh boots. She wasted no time going behind a screen and trying it on.

  She came out and twirled. “You look like an avenging heroine,” I said.

  She struck a pose. “I feel like one. Now you.”

  It might sound pathetic, but my voice trembled. “I've never chosen my own clothes.”

  I didn't know where to start. Ruffled blouses, diaphanous skirts, patchwork scarves, more of the canvas trousers. I sensed Elle’s growing impatience and selected a grey sweater dress, lacy tights and purple boots.

  “Don't forget a coat,” she mumbled. We didn't feel the cold but humans would. I snatched at a mustard trench coat; it smelled faintly of cigar smoke but was otherwise in pristine condition. It was the most frivolous thing I'd worn - I felt like I was in disguise.

  Elle sauntered to the counter, the boots adding three inches to her height and many more to her confidence. “Please can we …” Her voice died.

  The woman at the counter was our neighbour. Her hair was out of curlers, she was dressed in green tweed with a pearl brooch, but she was instantly recognisable. Her gaze sharpened. She knew us too.

  “Good morning,” she said briskly. There were other customers waiting, she didn't want to make a scene. “What can I do for you?”

  “These.” Poor Elle gestured at our outfits, completely flustered. “We can pay -” and she handed over Robert’s cash tot.

  The woman went through the transaction, stealing sideways glances at us. It was so unfair! There was no point in pressing on, she'd be straight on the speaker stick to Robert.

  “Thank you,” Elle whispered as the payment went through. I tugged at her arm. I was desperate to leave.

  “You're welcome,” the woman said. In an undertone so only we caught it, “Nice to see you out and about. Whatever you do, don't go back.”

  ***

  We powered across the city, our nerves jagged. We didn't talk about what had just happened, though I wished we could. How much did our neighbour know, or think she knew? Could she be in a position to help us? We took turns carrying the rucksack, bulkier with our clothes stuffed inside.

  “If we get the derdyt now, it'll take about an hour. We can get off and go through the woods.” Elle had it all mapped out.

  We plunged into the underground, the heat hitting us in the face. The noise and crush of bodies was overwhelming. I kept my head down, clung to her. One terrifying moment a man stepped between us and forced us apart. Heart ratcheting, I stared wildly around. All I could see were strangers, multiplying by the dozen.

  “Summer!” She wa
s back, clasping my hand and kissing it. “Don't scare me like that.”

  After we watched it make a few stops and figured out what to do, we climbed on board. She warned me to sit down and hang on, and I'm glad she did. It took off with such a lunge, I'm surprised my neck wasn't broken.

  The din was deafening. I held on for dear life, hating every moment; Elle watched the tunnels fly by with frank curiosity. I realised then that a man was encroaching on my space and had been for some time. Snaggle toothed and grimy, he wasn't the most alluring of sights.

  “You don't say much, do you?” he said. “What's your name?”

  I refused to make eye contact.

  “Give us a smile,” he persisted. “It might never happen.”

  Elle tore her eyes from the window and saw what was happening. “Leave her alone.”

  I snuggled against her, my head on her shoulder.

  “You dykes or something?” I didn't know what the word meant, but he spat on the floor. His hair was crumbed with flakes of yellow dandruff and an angry spot throbbed on his chin.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.” As he continued to goggle, “Take a picture, it lasts longer.”

  One of the passengers laughed. A woman sitting across from me winked. He slouched off, muttering obscenities.

  The rest of the journey was mundane. I took out the map and tried to focus, anything was better than the sickening lurch of the derdyt. I attempted to impose the symbols on the landscape I’d known, but all I could see were green triangles marching down the page.

  Elle nudged me. “We’re here.”

  I've never been so relieved in my life; I tripped going up the stairs into the open. As we passed through the checkpoint and into the countryside, I groaned aloud.

  I'd thought I would know the place if I saw it again. Either my memories were tinted by nostalgia or it had altered past recognition. The woods were stark, forbidding - the kind that teem with wolves and outlaws. The ground was sodden, practically colourless.

  Elle sensed it too. “Shit.” She rocked on her heels, her hands in her pockets. “Now what?”

  After everything we'd been through, we couldn't give up now. I took a few steps, concentrated. Perhaps it was a case of looking at it in a different way. I isolated each of my senses, magnified them.

  Sight: the fields, dreary now winter was drawing in. Sound: subdued bird song, the derdyt howling below. Smell: beet -

  “Elle,” I said, “I think we’re getting warmer.”

  She understood at once. She didn't talk, didn't question, just followed me over the boggy earth. It had the consistency of suet pudding, slurping and sucking at our boots.

  We trailed the trees as they straggled downhill, a far cry from their summer splendour. Everything was like that - a dark, dour ghost of the landscape I remembered. I shivered despite my coat being buttoned up.

  “Something very wrong has happened here,” I said.

  Elle was practically standing in my shadow, her teeth chattering. It had to be bad, to unsettle her. A dip and we were staring at the drive at Ms Adelaide's.

  It gave me the strangest sense of dislocation, being outside looking in. It was surrounded by a high stone wall, mounted by disapproving lions. It looked every inch the expensive girls’ school, which was after all its public face.

  “Ms Adelaide’s Finishing School,” Elle read, snorting. “Didn't people wonder why it was so quiet?”

  “Ms Adelaide hated noise. She thought it was vulgar.”

  Now she mentioned it, it was unnerving. We waded across the drive - I didn't remember it being this mushy - and struggled to climb the steps. We managed it on the third try, holding on to each other.

  I reached up and rapped the door knocker. No response.

  “Maybe we should go round the back,” Elle said. “I mean, this can hardly be regular, old girls showing up.”

  My unease increased. I should be able to hear something - laboured piano scales, the drone of rote learning, the commotion when a visitor came up the drive. There was nothing. Every window was tightly shut, with a furry green texture like the inside of a bottle. I started to be afraid.

  Elle knocked this time, so forcefully I expected her to bring the building down. The same chilly silence.

  “Screw this. I'm going in -” and she pushed the warped door hard. It gave way, showing us into the hall.

  Now I knew the natural order had been upset. Ms Adelaide always kept the front door locked - she made sure we saw her doing it, and patted her pocket to reinforce the message. “You don't want to go out there, girls,” she'd say in a tone of infinite regret. “Terrible things happen to friendless young ladies. I can keep you safe.”

  I remembered the hall being panelled with ebony, the only relief being the peacock wallpaper halfway up the wall. It was the room the visitors saw us in, to display us to our best advantage.

  No one would think that, looking at it now. The sleek surfaces were cracked and rimed with mould, the wallpaper hung in filthy strips. And the smell! I've never known anything like it.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Elle was up on the stairs, wanting to explore. The carpet squelched beneath her feet. It was like walking on lichen. I didn't want to go with her, it could mean nothing good, but I couldn't let her wander off by herself.

  The further we went, the worse the odour became: rotten, but also like something fermenting. The walls, carpets and furniture were scarcely recognisable, it was as though they were trying to liquefy, return to nature. Elle tried to turn on one of the lamps but it sizzles out.

  “Ms Adelaide?” My voice was weak and instantly stifled - not even an echo. It was a dim winter’s day; before long we wouldn't be able to see.

  “Let's try one of the classrooms,” I said, sounding braver than I felt.

  What I really wanted was to pelt downstairs and never return. Though Elle seemed equally spooked, she fumbled with the rusted handle and opened the nearest door.

  My knees gave beneath me. At first I couldn't process the full horror of what I was seeing - and then, once I realised it was true, the nightmare was real, I sobbed.

  It was a room I'd sat in hundreds of times, taking dictation. The girls were at their desks, for all the world as though they were in class - but every last one of them was dead.

  I know this must sound ludicrous. They were artificials, how could they die? But you can tell the difference between a robot that's switched off - “standby,” humans call it - and one that's damaged past repair, never to live again.

  Glassy eyes were fixed upon the blackboard, as though that might hold the answer. Their hair and clothes were sopping wet, as though they had been dredged up from the ocean. They were tainted, corrupted - several of their faces had succumbed to fungus. Elle bent to look, horrified but fascinated at once. Even though her pale hair was tarnished and her skin decaying, I knew the girl at the first desk, her placid sheep’s smile. Rosalie.

  “Gods, I can't bear it,” I cried. If I stayed, started putting names to those poor, ruined faces, I would go mad. I rushed out of the door and stood gasping against the wall.

  “How? How could this happen?”

  “You might well ask,” said an old, grainy voice from somewhere in the shadows. We both jumped.

  The only colour was her hair, up in a glacial beehive. The rest of her was swathed in funereal black, down to the jets at her throat and fingers.

  Ms Adelaide.

  ***

  Ms Adelaide took charge, as she always did. After the briefest of acknowledgements, like she was presiding over a garden party, she marched us to her office.

  I'd expected further destruction. In fact it was in a much better condition than the rest of the school. There were damp patches on the walls and ceiling, but otherwise this shrine to wealth and status was the same as I'd last seen it. I saw the smooth moon face of the clock, remembered my fallen friends upstairs, and nearly choked on my hatred. Elle and I sat on a decrepit fawn sofa while Ms Adelaide perc
hed regally in her chair.

  “Tea?” she asked.

  Yes, even in this toppled empire, with the bodies of the dead strewn around us, she served tea. Watching her stir the brew and sniff the steam reminded me powerfully of someone, but whom?

  “I'll be mother,” she smirked, pouring it into finicky cups. It was then I saw it: Robert. They had the same utter ruthlessness and invincible belief in their superiority. All this time I'd regarded her as a place of safety, when she could give him a run for his money.