In the Flesh - a short story by Brian Stableford In the Flesh
a short story by Brian Stableford
Martha was in the middle of icing Jennifer's birthday cake when the doorbell rang. She wasn't making a very good job of it, but until the doorbell rang it hardly seemed to matter. Once the doorbell had rung, of
course, interrupting her in mid-squeeze, the fact that it was a bit of a
mess suddenly became the fault of whoever was at the door and an occasion
for resentment. She cursed under her breath as she moved into the hall, wiping icing off her fingers with the hem of her apron.
When she opened the door and saw that it was a boy in his early teens the
curse rose to her lips again--but it died when she realised that the boy
was wearing dark glasses.
It was a sunny day, in spite of being Friday the thirteenth. There was no
reason why a boy his age shouldn't be wearing dark glasses--but the fact
remained that he was wearing dark glasses.
He was also carrying a small parcel, about five inches square and two deep. The wrapping-paper enclosing the box was glossy, the colour of red
wine. It wasn't wrapped in pink ribbon, tied with a bow, just sealed with
sellotape--but it still looked suspiciously like a present.
"Yes?" she said, trying hard to sound neutral, if not actually pleasant.
"Mrs Mortimore?"
"Yes." Martha was still trying to sound neutral, but even she could hear
the note of anxiety in her second yes. She told herself that there was nothing to be scared of--but she had told herself that far too often for
the telling to have any effect, even though it had nearly always been true.
The boy shifted slightly; he was embarrassed too. So he should be, Martha
thought. If being a fourteen-year-old boy isn't enough to cast you into a
Hell of permanent embarrassment, what is? She tried not to look at the dark glasses but she couldn't do it.
"I don't know if Jennifer's mentioned me," the boy said, in the slightly
fluty tone of a child who might have been slow to learn to talk. "My name's Carl Ulick."
Martha didn't have to ask him to spell it. Jennifer hadn't "mentioned"
him. Jennifer hadn't "mentioned" anyone at all. Jennifer found it absurdly
easy to keep secrets.
"I'm afraid not," she told the boy.
Because she knew that it wasn't what he wanted to hear she had no difficulty in keeping her voice straight, but she couldn't help feeling that she was a bit of a bitch for being able to find satisfaction in the
imparting of bad news. She knew that she couldn't keep the conversational
initiative for long, though--that ominous package he was carrying, all done up in fancy wine-coloured wrapping, gave him the advantage. He lifted
it up slightly to draw her attention to it, although there wasn't any need.
"I've brought her a present," he said. His fluty tone made the words trip
lightly from his tongue, as if he might have been anybody bringing a gift
to anyone.
"A present," Martha parried, hopelessly.
"A birthday present. Today is her birthday, isn't it? She's sixteen, I believe." The tone was more anxious now, and Martha knew exactly why.
Carl
Ulick couldn't be absolutely sure that it was Jennifer's birthday. He couldn't be absolutely sure that she was sixteen. He probably hadn't even
been absolutely sure that her name was Jennifer until Martha had let the
name pass unchallenged.
On the Net, Martha knew, people lied. They lied about everything. On the
Net you could change your name, your sex, your age, your state of mind and
your state of being. Carl Ulick might have been tap-tap-tapping at Jennifer for years, with Jennifer blink-blink-blinking back as fast as she
could flutter her eyelashes, but for all Carl Ulick really knew, Jennifer
might be an incontinent old man with emphysema and a sick sense of humour.
Didn't they have a saying nowadays? The truth is in the flesh. Oh yes--the
truth was in the flesh all right. The truth of Jennifer was flesh through
and through. Frail flesh.
As it happened, though, it really was Jennifer's birthday and she really
was sixteen. This was the thirteenth of the month, and it was Friday.
Poor
Geoff would be stuck on the M4 somewhere near the junction with the M25.
Come four o'clock on a Friday all the trouble in the world was focused on
the junction where the airport traffic met up with the commuters streaming
out of London, and this was the thirteenth: Disaster Day. Poor Geoff, late
for his daughter's birthday. If no one else complained about the higgledy-piggledy icing he would. He had no idea--no idea at all.
"Mrs Mortimore?"
The troubled gaze of whatever was behind the dark glasses was boring into
her. For all she knew, Carl Ulick had eyes like Superman's, able to see right through her apron and her blouse, her bra and her breasts, all the
way to her beating heart. It has to be gold, she thought, with all the vitriol flowing through it. But she was being unfair to herself.
"I'm sorry," she said, rallying. "That's very kind of you, Carl. I'll give
it to her." She stuck out her hand with all the parental authority she could muster, even though she knew full well that he wasn't going to hand
it over.
"I'd like to give it to her myself, if I may," said the boy, disguising his adamantine stubbornness with all the politeness a boy his age could muster. "I've come quite a way, you see."
Martha had always known that the greatest advantage of the Net was its vast range. On the Net, you could talk to people in Timbuktu and Tokyo as
easily as people in the next street. In the Global Village, everyone was a
neighbour--which meant that no one you knew was likely to pop round for a
cup of sugar. The downside was that if anyone ever did take the trouble to
call, they'd expect the kind of welcome that befitted someone who'd come
"quite a way".
How much, Martha wondered, has she told this boy? Which lies need protecting? Am I supposed to let him in, just like that? How am I supposed
to know, when she hasn't taken the trouble to tell me? "Really," she said,
without moving aside to let the boy into the house. "Where from, exactly?"
"Oxford," he replied.
In Global Village terms, Oxford was practically next door. Why couldn't the silly little slut make friends in Adelaide or Vancouver? Martha thought--but she immediately felt ashamed of having called her daughter a
slut, and then felt more deeply ashamed as she realised that it might have
been a Freudian slip. People had sex on the Net, or so it was said.
They
tap-tap-tapped and blink-blink-blinked all kinds of dirty stuff to one another, working themselves up to....
"Well, that's very thoughtful of you," Martha said, severing her own train
of thought with calculated brutality, "but you really should have phoned
first. Jennifer's asleep, I'm afraid, and she really isn't able to receive
visitors even when she's...."
"She told me not to," Carl Ulick said, wincing slightly as he realised that impatience had made him interrupt. "Phone, that is. I would have....only she told me not to. She invited me. I was hoping...."
"That she'd told us," Martha finished for him, feeling that her golden
heart might be slowing in its paces--but the obligation to continue the scrupulously polite conversation still remained.
"Well, she didn't," Martha continued. "I think she knew well enough that
we wouldn't--couldn't--have allowed it. We have to be very careful, you see. Everyone agrees that it's better for her to be at home than permanently in hospital, but we do have to be very careful. She had no right to ask you to come." It sounded feeble even to her, in spite of the
fact that it was true. Unfortunately, the gaze of whatever was behind
those dark glasses was still boring into her like an electric drill.
"I understand how you feel," the boy lied. "You don't have to worry, Mrs
Mortimore--I really am a friend. I know all about Jennifer's condition.
I'm not going to be surprised, or horrified. I've been helping her, you see--ever since she got the eyes. It was easier for me. I got mine when I
was three, and the visual cortex had plenty of time to adapt to the interface. I didn't even have to learn, not really....but they put me through the programme anyway. Jennifer has a much more advanced model, of
course. I almost wish I could trade mine in, but the adaptation's set now.
I really have been able to help her, to talk her through. I know she can
do even better than she has, Mrs Mortimore. I know how much the human brain can do, under the pressure of necessity."
The torrent of words left Martha numb. She hadn't even attempted to follow
the meaning of the sentences, although she had heard every word. She had
been too busy thinking: I have to let him in. I can't say no. I have to let him in. She told herself again, truthfully, that there was nothing to
be afraid of, but she still couldn't quite accommodate the fact.
"You'd better come in," she said, colourlessly. She let him past and closed the door behind him. He waited politely until she ushered him into
the living-room. He sat down on the sofa, in response to another gestured
invitation. There was nothing wrong with his common-or-garden eyesight, whatever else his shades were hiding.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" Martha asked.
He wanted to refuse, and nearly did, but he obviously came to the conclusion that it was best to play it by the book in the hope of smoothing things over. He wanted everything to go well. He wanted everyone
to be happy. He wanted the moon on a stick, and he probably had the means
of getting it, even though Jennifer had a much more advanced model.
"Please," he said.
"I'm afraid you'll have to wait until my husband gets home," Martha said,
seizing the only initiative that remained to be seized. "When he comes...well, perhaps...." She left it at that. Carl Ulick nodded politely, as befitted a boy who'd just sat down on someone else's sofa in
someone else's living room and accepted a cup of tea.
Martha left him there, and hurried to the kitchen.
As soon as she'd plugged the kettle in Martha whipped the phone from its
cradle and stabbed out the number of Geoff's mobile. He answered immediately--which was ominous in itself. Martha listened for the sound the engine made when the Helvetia was bombing along in fast-moving traffic, like a squadron of bumble bees at the bottom of a well, but she
couldn't hear it.
"Where are you?" she demanded, without preamble.
"Stuck just west of junction eight. Accident. Bastard must have turned
sideways or something--only one lane left. Yellowjackets in sight, but they're filtering half a dozen at a...."
Martha wasn't interested in technicalities. "How long?"
"I'll still be early," he protested. "I left at three, as promised. Not my
fault if..."
"There's someone here," she told him, trying to keep her voice down in case Carl Ulick could hear her over the hiss of the kettle.
"What kind of someone?" Geoff made no attempt to hide his exasperation.
"A boy. He says Jenny invited him. He's brought her a birthday present."
There was a pause. Geoff always made a point of pausing when someone told
him something he didn't want to know, to give the impression that he was
deep in thought. It was a habit he'd picked up at the office.
The kettle switched itself off. Martha wondered whether to get the teapot
out of the cupboard under the sink, but decided not to bother. It was only
a boy, after all. She did fetch cups down, though, putting aside the mug
she usually used for herself. She flipped a teabag into each cup and poured the water on.
"Okay," said Geoff. "You tell him Jenny's asleep. You take the present off
him and tell him that we'll give it to her when she wakes up. Thank him kindly, give him a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive and tell him we're
sorry."
Martha reached back up to the cupboard to get the chocolate digestives.
"I've done all that," she said, witheringly. "He isn't going to go.
He's
wearing dark glasses." She realised as she said it that it sounded ridiculous, as if dark glasses were the mark of a race apart--a race which
couldn't be subjected to the pressures of everyday etiquette. Except, of
course, that it wasn't as ridiculous as it sounded, because people who wore dark glasses for the reason that Carl Ulick was wearing dark glasses
really were a race apart, and because her own daughter was a member of that race apart, and because that really did mean that the pressure of everyday etiquette wasn't adequate to get the boy out of the house and away before Geoff got home.
Martha took advantage of deep-thought-pause number two to agitate the water in the cups and press the bags against the sides to make them yield
up their treasure.
"She invited him, you say?" Geoff asked. It wasn't so much a comment, more
a punctuation mark to signal that he was still thinking hard.
"So he says," Martha agreed, unable to stop herself from adding: "She would, wouldn't she? Not tell us, I mean."
"Its okay," Geoff said. "Maybe. No need for....well, what I mean is, maybe
we should just accept it as normal. I mean, it is her birthday and she is
sixteen, and....well, hell, just wait till I get there, okay. Don't do anything. Just hang on. It's no big deal."
Martha hoped that he could perform better than that in the office. If
he
couldn't people must fall about laughing every time he launched himself into one of his pregnant pauses. On the other hand, if he could perform better than that in the office he wouldn't still be in the office.
Anyone
who was anyone these days used a home-based workstation. The only people
who still set out every weekday morning to run the gauntlet of the M4
were
salesmen, delivery boys and people too stupid to get fully to grips with
the new technology.
It's all right for people like Carl Ulick, she thought. Born blind and probably born deaf too, he's still a child of the twenty-first century.
He
grew up with it all, when it wasn't just his visual cortex that was nice
and pliable, ready to adapt. I was born in 1980 and never laid a finger on
a keyboard until I was in Miss James's class, by which time I was a fully-fledged technophobe. Geoff's five years older than me, and never got
closer to IT than his playstation. We're dinosaurs. Jenny's may be the last generation to suffer what she's suffering, but we're the last generation to suffer what we're suffering. All wrecks together.
"Thanks a bunch," she said aloud, as Geoff bid her goodbye without giving
her time to formulate a proper reply, pretending that he had to put the mobile down and get stuck into some serious driving. She knew that the phrase had be
en out of date since she was a child, but it was still stuck
in her mind, still likely to come through in her private thoughts, because
her brain simply wasn't adaptable enough to discard it.
Martha hung up the receiver and fished the teabags out of the cups. She put the saucers on the tray with the milk jug and the sugar-bowl, then placed the cups carefully upon the saucers. Then, fully armed for the fray, she set off for the living-room, wishing she had married someone with more sense and better genes--and regretting, even more, that she hadn't been born with more sense and better genes herself.
"I was just icing Jennifer's birthday cake when you rang the doorbell,"
Martha told Carl Ulick, making the point that Jennifer did have birthdays,
and parents who cared about them--parents who made an effort, in spite of
the fact that they hadn't actually bought her a present this year.
There
was no way of knowing what Jennifer might have told the boy, but he could
see for himself how things were, how neat and normal the house was, how decently aproned and ever-dutiful Martha was.
"Don't let me keep you," the boy said. "I'll be okay."
Martha wanted to take advantage of the invitation to retreat but she didn't dare. If she'd gone back into the kitchen she'd have been safe from
conversation, but not from embarrassment. The problem was that he would be
okay, that in a sense he wouldn't even be here. His body would be sitting
patiently on the sofa but his eyes would be looking out upon some other world entirely--a world that was exclusive to him and his kind: the empire
of the blind. He had been helping Jennifer to find her way within it, to
make the journey that was far more difficult for her because her visual cortex had become set in its ways while she could still see out of her own
eyes.
"That's all right," she said. "It won't take a minute, once Geoff's home.
He's stuck on the motorway. An accident."
"I'm sorry," he said, probably referring to the accident rather than Geoff
being stuck.
"The roads don't get any better," she said. "Ever since I was your age they've been saying that the day of the commuter is dead, but it doesn't
seem to make a jot of difference how many people work from home. It's partly the airport, of course. We signed a petition against the sixth terminal, but no one ever takes any notice of petitions." The more she talked the easier it became. Now that she was sitting down, sipping tea,
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