Love and Robotics (27 page)

It was best to stay out of Ken’s way when he was like this. Alfred picked up a guidebook and tried to interest himself in the contents. Seconds later there was a howl of rage from the bathroom. Ken marched in, holding a lizard by its tail.

“This little fucker was swimming in my shaving mug. Ha bloody ha. Glad you find it funny.”

He left at noon. Alfred swam, dozed, wrote postcards. Free for the first time in months, he could be idle. He grilled lamb and peppers for supper. Ken didn’t show. He waited a few more hours and ate it himself. He wouldn’t worry. He’d probably been held up at the Centre.

The card clicked in the door at three in the morning. He sat up in bed.

“
Hell-o
, dearest!” Ken stumbled over a foot stool. He’d changed into a sports jacket and tight velvet trousers. Pulling clothes.

Alfred shook his head wearily. “Is that why I’ve let a good dinner go to waste? You getting your end away?”

“Ssh,” he tittered, “we’ve got company.”

A striking young man lingered by the door. He had brilliant eyes and a nervous smile.

“He’s a cop,” Ken whispered. “Do you think he’s brought his nightstick?”

Alfred knew what he had in mind, but he wasn’t in the mood. He pulled on his dressing gown and went into the courtyard. He tried to play solitaire, but the rude deck kept reminding him what was happening indoors. Grizzled lovers fondled youthful beloveds, coaxed out erections. A goat man who needed no help in this department, looking smug.

Half five. They must have finished by now. He let himself in, planned to do what he usually did. Sleep on the couch. Drink enough that when he woke and Ken’s pickup had gone, he could pretend it was a dream.

Only it didn’t work out like that. The stranger put his hand on the small of his back. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.”

Ken surfaced from beneath the sheets. “Sorry for any twattishness.”

Before long he was grinding into Ken’s taut white buttocks, driving them further into the toned brown ones of their guest. “What’s his name?”

Ken shrugged. “Boo,” their visitor moaned. “Dan Boolaky.”

Alfred knocked into Ken and Ken into Boo, like a sweaty game of dominoes. Giggly and exhausted, they fell asleep.

Ken had an early start. “I’ll leave you two to amuse yourselves.” He slapped Alfred’s bum. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Doesn’t leave us with much,” Alfred said. He’d already gone.

“You didn’t want to do that last night, did you?” Boo asked.

“Hmm?”

“It’s okay. I’ll go.”

Alfred hated being alone. There had always been someone to keep him company - Gussy, Ken, Nanny. With the Centre swallowing Ken’s time, what was he going to do all day?

“This probably sounds weird,” he said, “but could you spend time with me? I don’t know anyone in Talos.”

Boo broke into a grin. Alfred imagined the lure of those eyes across a bar and saw why Ken had been snared. “I’d love to.”

Over the next few weeks Boo became a fixture. Alfred wondered if he was a mostly straight man satisfying his curiosity; there was none of the competitive bitchiness, the “Is he, do you think?” conversations he had with other gay men. They talked about everything else. Their families, their careers, politics - the usual stuff.

Boo was only five years younger but it became a running joke. Kid, Alfred called him, baby, joking that while he was earning his colours in the Lila Force, Boo was in the nursery. He had a disarming naivety, a faith in his fellow man that was astonishing in a copper. He’d never had a serious relationship. He even looked young, the seductive eyes clashing with the sweet face.

Through Boo, Alfred learned to love Talos. He taught him the island’s peculiar dialect, full of twists and traps. He’d cook delicacies, confide that while he was in the police like every Boolaky for generations, he wanted to open a bistro. They’d take their bikes out and explore. “Where’s your twin?” Ken asked whenever Alfred came in.

It was on one of these excursions they discovered a bay at the edge of the island. “How come I’ve lived here all these years and never knew this existed?” Boo asked.

“We should grab supplies, make a day of it -”

The words died in Alfred’s throat. They were on an overhang of cliff, admiring the beach. A man had wandered into view, beefy and stark naked.

“What the - ?” Boo nearly fell off his bike.

“Lone exhibitionist?” Even as he said it, men of all ages and physiques were coming out of the woods.

“A nudist beach, here,” Boo babbled. “I mean -”

“More than that,” Alfred said cheerfully, as groans and expletives broke out. “Fancy a look?”

He whipped off his clothes and began the descent. Boo hesitated but desire won. Despite the panorama of lifting flesh, he could only look at Alfred. He took his hand and pulled him down.

“What if somebody asks to join in?”

“I’ll vet him. If he’s any good -”

The rest was lost in an enthusiastic rugby tackle. One of the many ways Boo showed his youth was how he made love. You had to tell him to slow down, take his time.

They were blissfully engaged, Boo moaning and cradling Alfred’s head, when panic rippled across the beach. “Police!”

“Shit!” Boo sat up. “If they catch us, I’m done for.”

Most of the exit points had been cut off. Linking hands, they pelted into the trees, narrowly missing a team of uniformed men with flashlights. They found a stone shelter and ducked inside. The absurdity of their situation hit them. They held each other and howled. The shared moment turned to ardour. Rather than the rough and tumble of earlier, this was slow and sensuous.

“I love you,” Boo whispered as dusk approached.

Alfred had done many things he wasn’t proud of, but using Boo was in the top three. He knew he was being cruel but couldn’t help himself. It was such a tonic being adored. Boo had never been in love before, and he had the honour of being his first.

If Ken had shown any jealousy, he would have ended it. He wondered if that was the true incentive. Bar the odd facetious remark and request to watch, he acted like it was beneath his notice.

“How can you stay with him?” Now that he knew Ken better, Boo loathed him. “If you were mine, I’d shout it from the roof tops.”

Sadly love doesn’t work like that. We ignore the good ones and go for the awkward customers.

Alfred thought enough time had passed that it wouldn’t be an issue. Ken was dead, Boo had recreated herself. He had Josh, their almost relationship. But as she glided into the bar and said, a laugh in her voice, “Welcome to my domain,” he knew that the years apart didn’t make any difference. “Who’s your friend?” she asked.

Introducing his two dearest friends was excruciating. He hoped she’d pick up on the tension, she used to be a cop, but Josh’s non human status served as protective covering. It was so unfair. In her previous incarnation Boo was a work in progress; now she had the body she had always wanted, she was miraculous. Any man would count himself lucky to have her.

“I don’t see myself as gay or straight,” she used to say. “I like people.”

That had never been true. She liked only one man - him. Alfred didn’t know if his nerves could stand it. One unrequited love was enough amongst a group of friends.

They had intended to stay for a few days. Somehow the days became weeks, then a month. Alfred knew what it was. Boo had a talent for making you feel at home: domesticity as provided by an intelligent, sensitive woman who understood exactly what you needed. He wished it could be enough.

He’d grown dozy and ineffectual. Archos demanded to know why he hadn’t made any headway. He expected Josh to ask why they weren’t following their plan, but he was besotted too. His sketchpad bulged with Talos scenes, he was on speaking terms with the locals. He spent his afternoons with Manny the bartender, learning to mix cocktails. Josh idolised him, copying his drawl and quoting his opinions.

It made Alfred jealous. Although “Josh’s room” was as fictitious as other rooms with that title - come bedtime, they’d press together in the soft, sleepy dark - they kept their distance in public. It’d be bad taste, flaunting their relationship at Boo.

There’s a special kind of intimacy that comes with sleeping with someone. Josh would lie tucked against him, head over his heart; Alfred longed to trace the frowning face. Sitting at his desk, writing
Dispatches
, he swivelled to look at him, felt the familiar tug.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I know it’s crazy. I want nothing more than to look after you. To be at your side by day, worship your body at night. If I can’t have that, I’ll be your friend.”

Josh stirred. “Where are you?”

“Here, dear heart.”

“Will you read me what you’ve written?”

“When it’s finished.”

As he read Josh made suggestions. His advice was always sound. “Come to bed,” he’d say at last.

The tickle of hair, the torment when Josh brushed areas that couldn’t help but respond! He loved him, found him jaw achingly attractive, but put him in certain scenarios and his mind rebelled. He couldn’t picture the artificial going down on him or being bent over a bed. He felt shameful just thinking it.

Josh was the only man he’d wanted to marry. He couldn’t imagine a finer ambition than to win, and keep, his love. When he was volatile, Josh talked him down. When he needed inspiration, he held his hand. Alfred would go anywhere with him, let him do anything. No union was intimate enough for what he wanted.

Reason won. Keeping his hands off was not only sensible, it salvaged his pride. Any sign Josh didn’t feel the same way would break his heart. It
could
be he had feelings, and had learned to hide them, but far likelier he didn’t care about the love of a disfigured, cantankerous, lecherous old sinner.

“Why do you like it here?” Alfred asked one night, when Josh couldn’t sleep. “There’s nothing to do.”

“It’s the kind of life I’ve always wanted. You, me, a place like this.”

Alfred swallowed. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t like it too, but it’s not practical.”

“CER wouldn’t like it,” Josh said dully.

There were lots of things CER wouldn’t like. They wouldn’t like how they slept entwined, Josh in the briefest boxers, Alfred in a flamboyant dressing gown. Or that he’d been given a latest model beebo, intended for the artificial. Josh said he liked his old one, and they could call each other wherever they were. The dainty apparatus got lost in his huge mitt; he looked like a gorilla using a calculator. Or the expression that came into Josh’s eyes sometimes. It was a gaze with intent, with heat.

Boo suspected nothing. She’d joke at how inseparable they were - “Here’s your robot buddy,” - but never completed the equation.

One evening Alfred and Boo were sitting on the terrace. Manny had taken the evening off for a fete. Josh, thirsty for local colour, had gone too. They lounged in their rockers, drinking tisanas.

“So.” This was her favourite opening. Alfred wondered if they didn’t have a series of talks but a continuous conversation. “How are you? Still with your beloved tyrant?”

“Ken’s dead.” It came out quieter than he’d intended.

She touched his hand. “I’m sorry. If you are.”

“I was a howling dervish at the time. But honestly, it’s a relief. He was never happy - ”

“How did it happen?”

He recovered the old lie. “Cancer. A few months before Gussy.”

“I wish you’d said. He wasn’t my favourite person, but you must’ve seen something in him. ”

“Everything went crazy. He was my entire world. I didn’t know who I was without him.”

“Do you know now?”

“I’m getting there.”

She yawned, stretched. “Funny how things work out.”

“Hilarious.”

“I mean, there you were, freaked out by bots, and now you have a robot companion. It’s sweet.”

She didn’t mean ‘companion’ in the euphemistic sense. She meant the tidy, efficient sorts who mopped up incontinent grandpas and played board games.

“I’ve got a headache,” he said bluntly. “I need an early night.”

Up in his room, he looked long and hard in the glass. Yes, the blast had left him bedizened with scars and the stroke had taken its toll. But he’d never dreamt that people looked at him and Josh and saw a patient and his carer, a functional and - come out and say it - an invalid.

He must have been sitting in a torpor. The next he knew, Josh had let himself into the room and put his hands on his shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“Josh,” he asked, “do I look old?”

“Of course not, you big lummox.”

Alfred leant into him gratefully. “Thanks. That’s what I needed to hear.”

Alfred had wondered how Boo managed to break even. Yes, the bar had a bohemian charm with its stencilled walls and tinkling lamps, swings instead of stools, but where did it fit in such a deprived area? The drinks menu was stocked with craft ales and fancy cocktails. Kyrans drank to get drunk and didn’t care how they got there.