The Soul Shadow and Other Tales of Tomorrow

by Linda Talbot

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  Rollo, The Labour Saving Lover

  "Rollo. Scheduled to walk, draw and make dresses," Delia read. The robot creaked faintly with expansion in the heat of the department store.

  "I want one to do the housework," Delia, a darkly decisive woman fond of wearing canary yellow, pointed out petulantly to her husband Ray, who reluctantly met the blank gaze of the robot.

  "Trust a man to overlook that," continued Delia.

  "I'm sure it can be trained," replied Ray dubiously. He did not trust the being's bland indifference, suggesting a reluctance to respond to authority. Ray's caution had increased since his hair had conspicuously thinned and although generally benign, when agitated, his squat figure appeared to inflate.

  But Rollo was duly delivered on approval and propped awkwardly in the hall until Ray returned from work.

  "It takes up enough room," he complained, shrinking again from the vacant eyes that seemed, nonetheless, to mask some secret intelligence. Ray studied the instructions, intermittently prodding Rollo in places that should respond. But the robot remained mute and motionless.

  Ray was about to admit defeat when Rollo gave a low groan and shot one arm abruptly up above his head. Ray leapt back, brushing an antique vase from the table. It shattered on the Italian tiles.

  "It'll smash the place up!" Ray predicted, "Send it back."

  "YOU did that," pointed out Delia, envisaging Rollo handling the hoover with alacrity and flicking the duster with a flourish. But Rollo, now in motion, floundered, his legs moving stiffly towards the door. His right arm knocked a fruit bowl off the table and oranges rolled under the sofa.

  His eyes glinted, focusing at random. He crashed into the wall and, leaving a long gash in the wallpaper, crumpled onto the carpet.

  "That does it - it's faulty. Send it back!" cried Ray, retrieving the oranges and aghast at the ruined wallpaper.

  "We must be doing something wrong," Delia persisted, helping Rollo to his flat feet. Ray imagined a malevolent gleam in the robot's eye, as patiently, Delia readjusted his flailing limbs, re-read the instructions and lifted a yellow lever in the small of his back that Ray had overlooked.

  As if charmed, Rollo aligned his untidy arms and legs, held up his head and in three seconds, strode purposefully from the table to the television set.

  Ray found this even more alarming. Rollo had acquired a cold efficiency; a clear sense of intention into which Ray read defiance.

  Rollo was kept in the cupboard under the stairs, from where in the early hours, Ray claimed came murmurs and a restless shuffling.

  "Mice," said Delia.

  "It needs programming to do the housework," she insisted next day, as she heaved the hoover around as usual. But when Ray looked up from his paper, Rollo was standing, arms by his sides, in the doorway of the cupboard.

  "How the devil?" began Ray.

  "I must have knocked him when I got out the hoover," said Delia. Rollo appeared to be watching the hoover with interest as though confronting a rival.

  "Let's see if he can hold it," suggested Delia. With growing unease Ray saw her lead the robot to the centre of the floor and close his stiff fingers round the handle. As if he had been hoovering since his manufacture, Rollo began to push, applying the right degree of pressure and covering the carpet in seconds.

  "Good lord, you may have something here after all," admitted Ray, not overlooking however, the sly light in Rollo's eye.

  "He stays then?" asked Delia.

  "He stays," agreed Ray reluctantly.

  It was a simple step from carpet cleaning to the kitchen sink. Rollo broke a saucer when he tried to pick up the crockery in his slippery hands. So Delia fitted him with rubber gloves.

  Ray brightened as he cleaned the lawnmower, envisaging long summer days in the deckchair while Rollo cut the grass and perhaps, with practice, weeded the borders.

  Ray was away from nine until six each day, so Delia had ample opportunity to indulge her work plan for Rollo. She hid broken ornaments and retouched damaged paintwork. But Rollo was increasingly responsive. Although she knew it was an illusion, he appeared to await her instructions and showed every sign of listening to her words as she adjusted his mechanism.

  Each evening Ray tried to look Rollo squarely in the eye but could barely meet the robot's gaze. Ray imagined him harbouring some secret to do with what happened when he was away. No amount of reasoning would banish this fanciful belief.

  Delia too had the uncanny sensation during the day that Rollo was not merely responding to the push of buttons and the pull of levers and she was convinced when one morning, while mastering the dusting of awkward corners, Rollo took the dirty duster to the open window and shook it.

  When Rollo had finished cleaning the two rooms, he sat uninvited with Delia on the sofa. She leapt to her feet as his right hand briefly brushed her left arm; a mechanical error, she reassured herself, but on looking into Rollo's eyes she thought she saw a fleeting look of lust. Hastily, she programmed Rollo to return to the broom cupboard. But his right arm rose and rested with deliberation round her shoulders.

  "Rollo!" she exclaimed, alarmed now, and ran from the room, slamming the door. When she mustered courage to go back in, Rollo, to her relief, was sitting stiffly in the same position; his right arm raised in mid air.

  Reassured, she readjusted him and obediently he rose and returned to the cupboard. But throughout the afternoon Delia remained uneasy; her eyes repeatedly returning to the broom cupboard door which was still ajar.

  Ray offered to do the washing up after the evening meal, rather than listen to the regular splash and clink from the kitchen as Rollo rhythmically doused the dishes.

  Delia smiled, delighted at the twofold domestic improvement, but each morning was increasingly wary on setting Rollo in motion. She was careful not to sit on the sofa and urged Rollo promptly back to the cupboard on completion of the chores. But two days later, as he was about to slide back between the hoover and the paint pots, he turned suddenly and planted his cold lips on Delia's.

  She screamed, pushed him into the cupboard and slammed the door. She heard a clunk as he collapsed, then, barely audible, a sound uncannily like a chuckle.

  She did not tell Ray, still doubting the incident had happened. The next morning she turned the key firmly in the lock of the cupboard. Soon, however, she would have to take out the hoover and tried to put the moment from her mind. Throughout the day, as she passed the cupboard door, she thought she heard occasional clanks and once - a low laugh.

  That night Delia could not sleep. Convinced she was suffering some form of derangement, she wondered how best to deal with it. Ray snored. Delia did not hear Rollo come into the room. For some minutes he stood motionless in the doorway. Then with a cold purpose, grown from an inexplicable possessiveness, whose human essence filtered through his mass of microchips, dials and levers, he moved to the bed and fastened a harsh, mechanical hand round Ray's throat.

  Delia did not even hear her husband die, but the next moment recoiled in horror as the same hand closed on her breast.

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