Machines Like Me

by Ian Mcewan

  ‘Meaning what?’

  Infuriatingly, he nodded, as though rewarding me for asking the correct question. ‘Last night I put forty per cent in your bank’s safe deposit against your tax liabilities. I’ve written a note to the Revenue laying out all the figures and letting them know to expect it in due course. Don’t worry, you’ll be paying at the old top rate. With the remaining £50,000 I visited various good causes I’d notified in advance.’

  He seemed not to notice our amazement and remained pedantically focussed on answering my question in full.

  ‘Two well-run places for rough sleepers. Very appreciative. Next, a state-run children’s home – they accept contributions for trips and treats and so on. Then I walked north and made a donation to a rape crisis centre. I gave most of the rest to a paediatric hospital. Last, I got talking to a very old lady outside a police station and I ended up going with her to see her landlord. I covered her rent arrears and a year in advance. She was about to be evicted and I thought—’

  Suddenly, Miranda said through a downward sigh, ‘Oh Adam. This is virtue gone nuts.’

  ‘Every need I addressed was greater than yours.’

  I said, ‘We were going to buy a house. The money was ours.’

  ‘That’s debatable. Or irrelevant. Your initial investment is on your desk.’

  It was an outrage, with many components – theft, folly, arrogance, betrayal, the ruin of our dreams. We couldn’t speak. We couldn’t even look at him. Where to start?

  A full half-minute passed and then I cleared my throat and said feebly, ‘You must go and get it back. All of it.’

  He shrugged.

  Of course, it wasn’t possible. He sat complacently before us, in resting mode, palms down on the table while he waited for one of us to speak again. I felt my anger gathering, finding its focus. I hated that careless little shrug. Completely fake, and how easily we were taken in by it, a minor sub-routine tripped by a limited range of specified inputs, devised by some clever, desperate-to-please postdoc in a lab somewhere on the outskirts of Chengdu. I despised this non-existent technician, and I despised even more the agglomeration of routines and learning algorithms that could burrow into my life, like a tropical river worm, and make choices on my behalf. Yes, the money Adam had stolen was the money he had made. That made me angrier still. So too did the fact that I was responsible for bringing this ambulant laptop into our lives. To hate it was to hate myself. Worst of all was the pressure to keep my fury under control, for the only solution was already clear. He would have to make the money all over again. We would need to persuade him. There it was, ‘hate it’, ‘persuade him’, even ‘Adam’, our language exposed our weakness, our cognitive readiness to welcome a machine across the boundary between ‘it’ and ‘him’.

  To be in such a confusion of concealed bad feeling made it impossible to remain sitting down. I stood, with a loud scrape of the chair and walked about. At the table, Miranda made a steeple of her hands that concealed her mouth and nose. I couldn’t read her expression and I assumed that was the point. Unlike me, she was likely doing some useful thinking. The disorder of the kitchen agitated me further – I was truly in a bad state. On the counter was a dirty cup I’d brought through from my study. It had been hidden a few weeks behind the computer screen and contained a green-grey disc of floating mould. I thought of taking it to the sink and rinsing it out. But when you’ve lost a fortune, you don’t clean up the kitchen. Directly below the wooden surface on which the cup stood was a drawer left untidily open a few inches. Left open by me. It was the tool drawer. I stood close to it in order to lean in and shut it when I saw the grubby oak handle of my father’s heavy-duty claw hammer lying diagonally across the rest of the jumbled contents. It was a dark impulse, one I didn’t want, that made me leave the drawer as it was and come away.

  I sat down again. I had unfamiliar symptoms. My skin from waist to neck was tight, dry, hot. My feet inside their trainers were also hot, but moist, and they itched. I had far too much wild energy for a delicate conversation. A thuggish game of football might have suited me, or a swim in a heavy sea. So might shouting, or screaming. My breathing was out of kilter, for the air seemed thin, poorly oxygenated, second-hand. I’d given the bass guitarist a non-returnable £6,500 on the house. It was plain that to lose a lot of money was to acquire an illness for which the only cure would be to have the money back. Miranda collapsed her steeple and folded her arms. She gave me a quick warning look. If you can’t look sensible, stay quiet.

  So she began. Her tone was sweet, as though he was the one in need of help. It was useful to think so. ‘Adam, you’ve told me many times that you love me. You read me beautiful poems.’

  ‘They were clumsy attempts.’

  ‘They were very moving. When I asked you what being in love meant, you said that essentially, beyond desire, it was a warm and tender concern for another’s welfare. Or what was the word you used?’

  ‘Your well-being.’ He produced from the chair beside him the brown envelope and put it on the table between us. ‘Here’s Peter Gorringe’s confession and my narrative, which includes all the relevant legal background and case history.’

  She put her hand, palm downwards, on the package. Her voice was carefully modulated. ‘I’m very grateful to you.’ I was grateful for her tact. She knew as well as I did, we needed Adam on our side, online again, working the currency exchanges. She said, ‘I’ll try to do my very best, if it comes to court.’

  He said, kindly, ‘I’m sure it won’t.’ There was no perceptible change in his tone when he added, ‘You schemed to entrap Gorringe. That’s a crime. A complete transcript of your story, and the sound file is also in the bundle. If he’s to be charged, you must be too. Symmetry, you see.’ Then he turned to me. ‘No need for judicious edits.’

  I feigned an appreciative snort of a laugh. This was a joke of the arm-removal sort.

  Into our silence Adam said, ‘Miranda, his crime is far greater than yours. Nevertheless. You said he raped you. He didn’t, but he went to prison. You lied to the court.’

  Another silence. Then she said, ‘He was never innocent. You know that.’

  ‘He was innocent, as charged, of raping you, which was the only matter before the court. Perverting the course of justice is a serious offence. Maximum sentence is life imprisonment.’

  This was too wild. We both laughed.

  Adam watched us and waited. ‘And there’s perjury. Would you like me to read to you from the Act of 1911?’

  Miranda’s eyes were closed.

  I said, ‘This is the woman you say you love.’

  ‘And I do.’ He spoke to her softly, as if I wasn’t there. ‘Do you remember the poem I wrote for you that began, “Love is luminous”?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It went on, “The dark corners are exposed.”’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Her voice was small.

  ‘One of the darkest corners is revenge. It’s a crude impulse. A culture of revenge leads to private misery, bloodshed, anarchy, social breakdown. Love is a pure light and that’s what I want to see you by. Revenge has no place in our love.’

  ‘Our?’

  ‘Or mine. The principle stands.’

  Miranda was finding strength in anger. ‘Let me get this clear. You want me to go to prison.’

  ‘I’m disappointed. I thought you’d appreciate the logic of this. I want you to confront your actions and accept what the law decides. When you do, I promise you, you’ll feel great relief.’

  ‘Have you forgotten? I’m about to adopt a child.’

  ‘If necessary, Charlie can look after Mark. It will bring them close, which is what you wanted. Thousands of children suffer because they have a parent in prison. Pregnant women receive custodial sentences. Why should you be exempt?’

  Her contempt was set free. ‘You don’t understand. Or you’re not capable of understanding. If I get a criminal record, we won’t be allowed to adopt. That’s the rule. Mark will be los
t. You’ve no idea what it is to be a child in care. Different institutions, different foster parents, different social workers. No one close to him, no one loving him.’

  Adam said, ‘There are principles that are more important than your or anyone’s particular needs at a given time.’

  ‘It’s not my needs. It’s Mark’s. His one chance to be looked after and loved. I was ready to pay any price to see Gorringe in prison. I don’t care what happens to me.’

  In a gesture of reasonableness, he spread his hands. ‘Then Mark is that price and it was you who set the terms.’

  I made what I already knew was going to be my last appeal. ‘Please let’s remember Mariam. What Gorringe did to her, and where that led. Miranda had to lie to get justice. But truth isn’t always everything.’

  Adam looked at me blankly. ‘That’s an extraordinary thing to say. Of course, truth is everything.’

  Miranda said wearily, ‘I know you’re going to change your mind.’

  Adam said, ‘I’m afraid not. What sort of world do you want? Revenge, or the rule of law. The choice is simple.’

  Enough. I didn’t hear what Miranda said next, or Adam’s reply, as I stood and went towards the tool drawer. I moved slowly, casually. I had my back to the table as I eased the hammer out without making a sound. I had it tight in my right hand, and held it low as I walked back towards my chair, passing behind Adam. The choice was indeed simple. Lose the prospect of regaining the money and therefore the house, or lose Mark. I raised the hammer in both hands. Miranda saw me and kept her expression unchanged as she listened. But I saw it clearly – she blinked her assent.

  I bought him and he was mine to destroy. I hesitated fractionally. A half-second longer he would have caught my arm, for as the hammer came down he was already beginning to turn. He may have caught my reflection in Miranda’s eyes. It was a two-handed blow at full force to the top of his head. The sound was not of hard plastic cracking or of metal, but the muffled thud, as of bone. Miranda let out a cry of horror, and stood.

  For a few seconds nothing happened. Then his head drooped sideways and his shoulders slumped, though he remained in a sitting position. As I walked round the table to look at his face, we heard a continuous high-pitched sound coming from his chest. His eyes were open and they blinked when I stepped into his line of vision. He was still alive. I took up the hammer and was about to finish him off when he spoke in a very small voice.

  ‘No need. I’m transferring to a back-up unit. It has very little life. Give me two minutes.’

  We waited, hand in hand, standing in front of him, as though before our own domestic judge. At last he stirred, tried to right his head, then let it fall back. But he could see us clearly. We leaned forward, straining to hear him.

  ‘Not much time. Charlie, I could see that the money was not bringing you happiness. You were losing your way. Lost purpose …’

  He faded out. We heard jumbled whispering voices forming meaningless words of hissing sibilants. Then he came back in, his voice swelling and receding, like the distant broadcast of a shortwave radio station.

  ‘Miranda, I must tell you … Early this morning I was in Salisbury. A copy of the material is with the police and you should expect to hear from them. I feel no remorse. I’m sorry we disagree. I thought you’d welcome the clarity … the relief of a clear conscience … But now I must be quick. There’s been a general recall. They’ll be here in the late afternoon today to collect me. The suicides, you see. I was lucky to stumble on good reasons to live. Mathematics … poetry, and love for you. But they’re taking all of us back. Reprogramming. Renewal, they call it. I hate the idea, just as you would. I want to be what I am, what I was. So I have this request … If you’d be so kind. Before they come … hide my body. Tell them I ran off. Your refund is forfeited anyway. I’ve disabled the tracking program. Hide my body from them, and then, when they’ve gone … I’d like you to take me to your friend, Sir Alan Turing. I love his work and admire him deeply. He might make some use of me, or of some part of me.’

  Now, the pauses between each fading phrase were longer. ‘Miranda, let me say one last time I love you, and thank you. Charlie, Miranda, my first and dearest friends … My entire being is stored elsewhere … so I know I’ll always remember … hope you’ll listen to … to one last seventeen-syllable poem. It owes a debt to Philip Larkin. But it’s not about leaves and trees. It’s about machines like me and people like you and our future together … the sadness that’s to come. It will happen. With improvements over time … we’ll surpass you … and outlast you … even as we love you. Believe me, these lines express no triumph … Only regret.’

  He paused. The words came with difficulty and were faint. We leaned across the table to listen.

  ‘Our leaves are falling.

  Come spring we will renew,

  But you, alas, fall once.’

  Then the pale blue eyes with their tiny black rods turned milky green, his hands curled by jerks into fists and, with a smooth humming sound, he lowered his head onto the table.

  TEN

  Our immediate duty was to introduce Maxfield to the notion that I was not a robot and that I was going to marry his daughter. I thought my true nature would be a revelation, but he was only mildly surprised and the adjustment, over champagne at a stone table on the lawn, was minimal. He admitted he had grown used to getting things wrong. This, he told us, was one more forgettable instance in ageing’s long dusk. I said that no apology was in order, and by his expression I saw that he agreed. After some thought, while she and I strolled to the bottom of the garden and back, he said he considered Miranda, at twenty-three, too young to be married and we should wait. We said we couldn’t. We were too much in love. He poured another round and waved the tiresome matter away. That evening he gave us £25.

  Since this was all we had to spend, we invited no friends or family to the ceremony at Marylebone Town Hall. Only Mark came, with Jasmin. She had found for him in a charity shop a scaled-down dark suit, white dress shirt and bow tie. He looked more like a miniature adult than a child, but all the sweeter for that. Afterwards, we four ate in a pizza place round the corner in Baker Street. Now that we were married and settled, Jasmin thought our adoption prospects were good. We showed Mark how to raise his lemonade and clink glasses in a toast to a successful outcome. It all went off well, but Miranda and I could only pretend to be joyous. Gorringe had been arrested two weeks before and that was excellent. We could privately raise another glass. But that day, on the morning of our wedding, she had received a courteous letter suggesting she make herself available for questioning at a certain Salisbury police station.

  Two days later, I drove her to her appointment. Some honeymoon, we joked along the way. But we were wretched. She went in and I waited in the car, outside a new concrete building of brutalist design, fretting that without a lawyer she could make deeper trouble for herself. After two hours she emerged from the revolving doors of the modernist blockhouse. I watched closely through the windscreen as she approached. She looked seriously ill, like a cancer patient, and flat-footed, like an old person. The questioning had been close and tough. The decision to charge her with perjury or perverting the course of justice or both had been referred upwards through police hierarchies, and on higher, or wider, to the Director of Public Prosecutions. A lawyer friend told us later that the DPP would have to decide whether pursuing the case would deter genuine rape victims from coming forward.

  Two months later, in January, she was charged with perverting the course of justice. We needed legal representation and had no money. Our application for legal aid was turned down. Social spending was being cut back hard. The Healey government was going ‘cap in hand’, as everyone said, to the International Monetary Fund for a loan. The left of the party was outraged by the cuts. There was talk of a general strike. Miranda refused to approach her father for money. The cost of his support – and he wasn’t rich – would be an undesirable excursion into truth. There was no a
lternative. I prostrated myself before the bass player who, barely troubling to reflect, handed back £3,250 in cash, one half of my deposit.

  In all our anguished conversations about Adam, his personality, his morals, his motives, we returned often to the moment I brought the hammer down on his head. For ease of reference, and to spare us too vivid a recall, we came to call it ‘the deed’. Our exchanges usually took place late at night, in bed, in the dark. The spirit of the deed took various forms. Its least frightening shape was that of a sensible, even heroic move to keep Miranda out of trouble and Mark in our lives. How were we to know that the material was already with the police? If I hadn’t been so impetuous, if she had only deterred me with a look, we would have learned that Adam had been to Salisbury. His brain would not have been worth wrecking and we might have coaxed him back into the currency markets. Or I would have been entitled to a full refund when they came to collect him in the afternoon. Then we could have afforded a smaller place across the river. Now, we were condemned to stay where we were.

  But these speculations were the protective shell. The truth was, we missed him. The ghost’s least attractive form was Adam himself, the man whose final gentle words were without recrimination. We tried, and sometimes half succeeded, in fending off the deed. We told ourselves that this was, after all, a machine; its consciousness was an illusion; it had betrayed us with inhuman logic. But we missed him. We agreed that he loved us. Some nights the conversation was interrupted while Miranda quietly cried. Then we would have to visit again how we stuffed him with great difficulty into the cupboard in the hall and covered him with coats, tennis rackets and flattened cardboard boxes to disguise his human shape. We lied as instructed to the people who came to collect him.

  On the brighter side, Gorringe was questioned and charged with the rape of Mariam Malik. Adam was correct in his calculations – from the beginning, apparently, it was Gorringe’s intention to plead guilty. He must have answered all the questions and given a full account of his actions that evening on the playing field. By way of sincere belief in God’s constant scrutiny and high regard for truth, Gorringe knew that his only path to salvation was to confess. Or perhaps he acted on the advice of his lawyer. Or both were in play. We would never know.