“You can tell a lot about people by what they fear.”
“What frightens you?”
Josh took his time to answer. Alfred guessed nobody had asked him before. “Loneliness.”
He couldn’t laugh. “Good choice.”
Far too soon, CER wanted him back. Alfred worried Malik had been stirring, but Josh assured him it was normal procedure. “I’ll only be gone a few days.”
They were staying at Piri, a rocky island floating off the continent, famous for the oldest clock in the world. Josh loved watching the blacksmith automaton strike its anvil at midday. He was collecting stories of robots around the world: the iron tiger that mauled a soldier, the crapping duck, the exotic who bested a dictator at chess. Strictly speaking he didn’t count. The tyrant slashed the robot’s throat and got soaked with blood. A human chess master had been inside all the time.
Alfred liked to remember these trifling details, these small pleasures, because they belonged to the time when Josh was innocent. Afterwards was anything but simple.
The hub bringing him back docked in the afternoon. Alfred spent an hour deciding which jacket to wear, which cufflinks. Even waiting at the docking bay he couldn’t keep still.
“Lord Langton!”
Somebody windmilled her arms: Pip. Her face eclipsed by sunglasses, hair in a hundred braids. Beside her - oh, he’d never get used to it. A slender figure stepping down in tailored trousers and an open necked shirt. Fair hair spilling into his eyes, the turn of golden elbows and wrists.
“Alfred!” Josh cleared the steps and embraced him.
“This one’s missed you,” Pip said. “Talked about nothing else.”
“Hardly,” Josh objected.
Arms around his waist, that searching gaze. Alfred dreaded wrinkles and broken veins. What did the ancients say? ‘To love when you’re old is a grave misfortune’? No shit. Especially when you’re an weathered crock in love with an immortal boy.
“Like the cuff links,” Josh went on. “Are they new?”
“Bought them last week,” Alfred mumbled.
Josh broke away. “D’you want to come out with us, Pip?”
“CER want me back. I’ll think of you as I cross the Joop.” The ghost of a wink. She tripped back up the steps, waving.
“She’s fantastic, isn’t she?” Josh said.
“Marvellous.”
A delicious breeze blew across the island. Josh hurried to the edge of the beach and paddled, coaxing Alfred into the sea for the first time in years. They built a lopsided castle that crumbled into the sand. Street dancers whirled them into their giddy beat.
“Everything’s so bright,” Josh said. “I never realised how many colours there were.”
The flutter of his breath, scented with rum cocktails. The laughing eyes, lanterns in the china face. He spun on the cobbles like a firefly. “I can eat a full dinner now!”
“What are we waiting for?” Alfred cried. “Let’s celebrate!”
He was never sure afterwards where the restaurant was. Somewhere on the seafront with a lavish menu. You watched the chefs prepare the meals. Sitting beside a tinkling fountain, they drew one pair of eyes after another. Alfred thought nothing of it, but when he heard a sun baked woman sniff, “Such a waste,” he realised. People thought they were a couple!
Certainly Josh had never held his gaze as he did now. The artificial’s hand lingered as he showed him how to use the fish forks, his foot nudged his beneath the table. They told stories of their time apart, shared their portions. They laughed at the restaurant’s cats: their shameless begging, how they curled up in alcoves. Sometimes they lost their train of thought and simply looked at each other, knuckles touching.
CER had given Josh something to test, a small furry robot that looked like a sloth. “It’s called a spurgle.”
“What does it do?”
“You can teach it a thousand words. It’s the must have toy this year.”
They poked it and it purred. Though they tried the non sequiturs in their phrasebook, it wouldn’t repeat them. Alfred spidered his hand across the table. The spurgle shrieked and hid in Josh’s pocket.
“It’s a wuss, whatever it is.”
A waiter came by with a basket of chocolate turtles. “Your fortune, gentlemen?”
Alfred didn’t believe in such crap. Josh took two.
“Look at the icing! Seems a shame to eat it.” He undid his scroll. “A kiss from the man of your dreams. Must’ve mixed us up with another table.”
Alfred doubted it. A trio of waiters watched slyly - and a diner in the corner, who’d eyeballed them since they came in. “Mine says Look before you leap.”
It was the point in the evening where, if Josh had been human, he would have made a move. There were plenty in his repertoire. Stroking his fingers as he passed a napkin, laying a hand on his knee, feeding him sweetmeats -
“What do you want for dessert?”
Lips parted, a slender thigh pressing between his. If a human looked at him like that, he’d take him to bed. He imagined Josh moaning softly beneath him, spreading his thighs –
Alfred pushed back his chair. “I need a smoke.”
He stalked the jetty, clenched his knuckles until they popped. He’d taken this perfect evening and soiled it. He sucked the smoke into his lungs and ordered himself to be calm. Be friendly, normal. Josh need never know.
“Alfred! Help me!” The shouts came from behind the restaurant.
He pelted into the alley. A pipe dripped gutter water onto the bins, cats foraged. The grease ball he’d seen earlier was on his knees, trousers at half mast. Something squirmed beneath him.
“Keep still, putza!”
Alfred’s body understood before his brain. He seized the man by his neck. “Get your balls off him, you evil piece of shit.”
As the man tried to wrench free, Alfred pitched him at the wall. When the bastard swore, he flung himself on him. He’d forgotten how invigorating violence could be. He stamped on his nose, breaking it, before returning to Josh.
At least he’d prevented the worst. The artificial was shaken, asking terrified questions. “You might have killed him!”
“D’you know what he wanted to do?”
“I’m cold. Take me home.”
The attacker dragged himself along on his belly, making wet bubbling noises. Alfred might have let it go; Josh didn’t want the police to be involved. But the creeper had to make one last jibe. “Have a go too. I won’t tell no one.”
Alfred placed Josh on top of a barrel. “Wait here.” He grabbed the attacker by his legs and raced to the edge of the jetty. When he fought, Alfred plunged his head beneath the water. He held it there until he started to thrash, yanking him out by his scruff.
“Listen to me,” he whispered. His fingers put pressure on the man’s windpipe. “If you come near him again, I’ll saw off your cock and make you eat it.” He dumped him onto the boards.
Josh sat on his barrel, seeing nothing. Alfred lifted him up. “Come on, lad. Let’s get you home.”
He ended up carrying Josh the two and a half miles to their apartment. He grew inexplicably heavy; Alfred had an irrational fear he’d come apart and shower the street with cogs. As he nearly dropped him for the tenth time, the clouds parted and unleashed hot, stinging rain.
The wet clinging rock, the fossil fresco - they were home. Sliding Josh further up his back, he set foot on the stairs. The light was on in the living room. Alfred tried to think. He and Josh were always bickering about lights. While he switched them off, Josh turned them back on with his nose. Perhaps it was because the lights were always blazing at CER.
He fumbled with the card key. Putting Josh over his shoulder, he picked up the doorstop and tested its weight. Sidling along the wall, he charged into the living room. Michael Derkins slouched asleep in an armchair, toes poking through his socks.
Now that mystery was solved, he focused on Josh. Tranced and groaning, he was in a bad way. Alfred plumped th
e cushions and lowered him onto the sofa. The bathroom was next door. He found fluffy towels and Josh’s blue pyjamas, laid them out. After a feud with the taps, he got the water to a manageable temperature and ran it to the brim.
Bath time was so much a ritual of Gwyn’s stays as a kid - testing which toys could float, her conviction a monster lived down the toilet - he might have been at home. Raising his eyes to the doorway, he half expected to see her dragging her toy rabbit.
Instead it was Derkins, eyes bugging. “Chuffing hell!”
Glimpsing himself in a mirror, Alfred echoed it. Cuts on his forehead and lip, wild beard, shirt spotted with blood. To think he’d dressed up! “Sorry, Michael. I haven’t time. Some fucker forced himself on Josh.”
“Where -”
“I’ll see you in the morning. I want to get him settled.”
An example of why Derkins was the finest human being he’d met: he nodded and drove away.
Josh came round. Alfred helped him up and led him to the steaming bath. As the artificial undressed, he mentally garrotted the attacker: the little body was scratched and sore. He looked away while Josh washed himself.
“We can go to the police -”
Josh shook his head. “Don’t be silly. They don’t care about artificials.”
“CER -”
“I don’t want anyone to know.”
Alfred gave up. “I’ll make food. Is broth okay?”
He dried Josh and put his pyjamas on for him, taking him through him to the living room. He heaped a blanket around his shoulders and brought in the broth. Josh stared into it, the spoon dangling from his fingers. It was only by coaxing his mouth open that Alfred managed to get any food inside him. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” he said at last.
Josh had shut down. Lifting him with his good arm, Alfred bore him off to bed. He sat with him, filled with impotent rage. He kept seeing Josh’s horror when he laid into the attacker, but what else could he have done?
The small face clenched. Only meaning to comfort him, he took one of his hands in his - then, daring, bent and kissed him. His lips were so soft and warm -
Josh wasn’t conscious, what the hell was he thinking? Hating himself, he started to get up. Fingers tightened on his wrist.
“Don’t go,” Josh whispered.
“I won’t.”
Alfred held him into the small hours.
As the weeks wore on, Alfred grew concerned. If they could have talked, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but Josh remained mute. He cleaned his wounds, had an oil bath, rubbed himself till he gleamed. Alfred worried incidental things might act as triggers, but he faced sea food and other connected elements with equanimity.
Two nights later, one of the coast’s formidable storms lashed out. The wind bellowed through the cracks, the surf smacked the cliffs. Since sleep was impossible, Alfred lifted the blind and watched. He wasn’t surprised to hear the floorboards creak.
“Josh?”
“How did you know?”
How indeed? He’d developed hyper awareness where the artificial was concerned. He sensed him across a crowded room, in the darkest night. “Because.”
“Can I get in?”
Two friends sharing a bed. Nothing wrong with that, was there? He moved up to give Josh room. “Can’t you sleep?”
“The storm. You see -”
“You don’t understand how they happen?” Alfred chatted him through the explanation. “A thunder ball burned down Langton police station once. Lem Carstairs hasn’t been the same since he was struck by lightning.”
“I read it was sorcerers having a duel.”
Alfred chuckled. “Nanny used to say it was giants bowling.”
“All this rocking doesn’t feel safe.”
“The houses on the island are fitted with shock absorbers. They’re sturdier than you’d think.”
They saw out the storm together, Josh clutching him at the louder claps. As it blew itself out and the flickers of lightning died, they realised how close they were.
“Uh, it’s three forty -”
“Can I stay?” Josh asked in the same breath.
“Of course.” Alfred tried to sound bluff and overdid it. As Josh whispered, “Good,” and settled in the hollow of his groin, he wondered how he would survive the night. Go to sleep, think chaste thoughts. Ignore the delightful body pressed against your erection.
The next morning they woke instantly, as though someone had thrown a switch. They were reluctant to leave their mutual warmth.
“Hello, sleepyhead,” Josh said.
“Hello yourself.”
“That’s the best sleep I’ve had. You don’t think? -”
Alfred could hardly refuse. “For the foreseeable future.”
So every night, circumstances permitting, Josh slept in his bed. There was never a point where it stopped being weird, but if these were the conditions of their friendship, he accepted them.
The second change was towards the end of the week. The old Josh had been into everything. This one followed him like a sheep, not caring one way or another. They’d gone sailing, normally something he enjoyed, but he sat on the deck in a miserable huddle. His camera hung around his neck, unused. When they came home, Josh went onto the veranda. After an hour Alfred wandered out to see what he was doing. He was staring across the bay, collar up.
“Will you teach me to fight?” Josh asked.
“What kind?”
“Everything.” He gritted his teeth. “I want to protect myself.”
He wasn’t sure what to make of Josh’s new hobby. Derkins was anti - “It’s like loosing a sonic weapon on the population -” but he couldn’t be with Josh all the time. There were too many shysters about.
“We’ll start with classic stuff,” Alfred said. “Some moves look fancy but don’t work in practice. Never take a knife to a fight, they’ll turn it against you.”
Alfred was no slouch in combat, his body was a tapestry of past battles. Yet the artificial disarmed him every time.
“You’re not throwing this, are you?” he asked, a flicker of the old Josh in his eyes.
“Why would I do that?” Alfred groaned.
Since he was only human, he set up an assault course around the garden. Josh practised every morning, working his way around the blocks and targets. He’d pummel the wood until it splintered, his fists a flurry. His time improved by a few seconds every day.
Watching these displays, Alfred’s mind turned on the one question he had sworn he would never ask. What would become of Josh?
He knew. The fact he had always known, long before his feelings shaded into love, didn’t soften the blow. CER’s robots had a shelf life. They’d trundle on five years, the acme of achievement. Along would come a newer, slicker robot and they’d get bunged on the scrap heap. Gussy had shown him once - “ the robot graveyard”, she called it. Scenes washed up from his imagination: Josh left to rust, to die, fully conscious in a sea of broken bodies.
There was only one way out. Someone would have take a fancy to Josh, someone with a clean bill of mental health. Wake up and smell the engine oil: no one would give him to a functioning alcoholic with trauma. They’d want somebody rich, influential, female. Same sex love might be tolerated, but it wasn’t respectable. His visions went from the general to the specific. An ageing vamp like Lois Putnam, snaring Josh in her brassy hair. A shy ingénue, unable to speak to a real man. A harpy with impossible standards. He’d burn out within a month.
He couldn’t help him, or save him. He could only watch.
Perhaps Josh sensed his distress. After a week of this - rising early, hours of practice, a tussle where he demonstrated everything he’d learned - he cracked.
It started with a prop. Josh was bored with chopping blocks, so Alfred rigged up a punch bag on the veranda. “Focus,” he said, as Josh stared at it. “Picture your opponent.”
The fists whirled so fast you couldn’t see them. An alien savagery lit his eyes.
“J
osh?”
Hundreds of blows landed on the punch bag. It split, showering the planking with peas.
“Stop!”
The rope snapped, sending the bag crashing to the floor. Josh was upon it, face contorting.
Alfred dragged him off. “Josh. Look at me.” A spasm passed through the small frame. Josh lifted his eyes.
Alfred never wanted to see an expression like that again. As though everything he cherished lay in the dust, as though nothing was left. He pulled Josh into his arms, as he would if anyone he loved was suffering. “Tell me what’s going on. Please.”
“The Code -”
“Fuck the Code!”
“I feel so - broken. I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”
“You’re not broken. Got that? You’re Josh, and you’re amazing.” Alfred held the singular little face. “You can always talk to me.”
“You don’t know what it’s like -”
“It won’t go away overnight. I should know.” As Josh stared, appalled, he nodded. “It was a long time ago but I still remember.”
They took their tea in the garden, beneath the jasmine arch. You could see people winding their way up the cliff, the fishermen bringing in their smacks.
It started innocuously. Josh laid his first olive aside with a grimace. “Tastes like posh soap.” It didn’t stop him from polishing off his cheese. “Must’ve been a mouse in a past life,” Alfred teased.
All the same, there was a wrong note. Josh was trying too hard, like an imitation of how Alfred expected him to behave. So when “What happened?” came, he was prepared.
“It was a man I - lived with. I asked him to leave. He didn’t take it well.”
It had been more than that, much more, but he wasn’t sure what he was allowed to tell Josh. It’d mean unpicking his and Ken’s relationship: its grubby beginnings, his great betrayal, the Event. No one could say he hadn’t been punished.
“Is that why you have bad dreams?”
“Do I?” Alfred never remembered them.
“Sometimes you start fighting and shouting, but you can’t wake up.”
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Love and Robotics Page 19
