Love and Robotics (68 page)

              “She’ll learn I’m human soon enough.”

The year Gwyn turned six was the year CER was founded. It had taken three years to build; now, gazing at the eight hundred foot edifice, Alfred felt awe.

“My life’s work,” Gussy said. She’d wept as she tapped in the foundation stone.

“Why that design?” Alfred asked. “Looks like a giant bogey.”

“Ken’s compensating for something, aren’t you, darling?”

“He most certainly is not.”

“What’s compensating mean?” Gwyn piped.

“Don’t think about telling her,” Lucas spat.

Couldn’t the man lighten up? This was the greatest day of Gussy’s life and he’d sat through it looking like he could smell a fart.

“Shut up, Lucas,” everyone chorused, Gwyn included.

Ken had been restless for some time. CER was booming, selling every kind of robot. He felt the original point of his work had been lost. “I want to make a proper artificial person,” he said. “As close to flesh and blood as possible.”

Gussy persuaded Alfred to fund this as a sideline. She and Ken would build the robot but the interface was by a rising star, Julia Fisk. Alfred spent the next few months hanging around CER, looking after his investment. Dr Fisk remained elusive - apparently she was shy - though her bratty nephew was always there, getting in the way. The kid was always asking precocious questions or bugging him for his autograph.

Following Gussy, watching her glow, Alfred wished he could feel more involved. He watched the new life form take shape. It resembled a six foot muscular man with Ursan features. He didn’t feel anything about it. It was an idea, a piece of furniture.

“What are you going to do once you’ve turned it on?” he asked.

Gussy and Ken exchanged glances.

“You haven’t a clue, have you?”

“Bite me,” Ken said. He did.

“I need to speak to Julia,” Gussy said. She always left when they were intimate.

The day the robot was activated, everybody from CER crushed into the Think Tank. Alfred was near the front, Gwyn at his side. He glimpsed the odd face he knew from dinners. Fisk’s nephew behaved for once, tortured into a suit and tie. The sainted aunt was a tall plain woman in a twinset, instantly forgettable.

Ken switched into compeer mode. “This will go down in the annals of history. The first artificial with a fully functioning brain -”

“I need a wee,” Gwyn hissed.

“Never has a project boasted so many fine minds at the peak of their powers -”

“I can’t hold it in!”

Alfred elbowed through the audience, pulling Gwyn by her sleeve. Of course Fisk’s nephew stuck his ankle out. Gwyn bunched her fists before deciding it didn’t do to deck him. Fisk claimed he was gifted, probably in the special sense. Fourteen should not act like five.

By the time Gwyn had been to the loo and he’d had a smoke, the historic moment had passed. They sneaked back in, the crowd too rapt to notice.

Looking at the robot, Alfred had a sense of deep uncanniness. Blue eyes rolled in a flawless, stupid face. Everything about it was wrong, from the way its hair hung in unmoving curtains to its stance. It was as though his father’s corpse had got up and started shuffling about.

He didn’t reach the window in time. All he could hear was the creature’s tinny, maddening voice, saying, “Hi, I’m Guy ...”

Alfred wondered if anyone else had found themselves in this position: funded a project only to be overcome with nausea when they saw it. He’d dismissed that first time as a bug, but it happened whenever he saw Guy. The clamminess, the creeping feeling beneath his skin, the urge to vomit.

Ken thought he was putting it on. “For Thea’s sake, get a grip.”

“Get somebody else.”

“Who? That tit of a Mayor?”

“Look at the state of me!”

“When I think of everything I’ve done for your family ... I’m not asking for much.”

“I don’t want to be the uncle of robotics. I
hate
robots!”

There it was, the unvarnished truth. Yet robots were Ken’s passion. So if he hated them -

“What do you expect me to do, choose between you and my work?”

It hadn’t been right between them for a while. He’d come back from his last trip weakened by fever. A few times he hadn’t been able to maintain an erection. He tried explaining it was temporary but Ken sulked and swore.

It was obvious he was having an affair. He had explosions of rage, attacks of contrition. At least if he shouted Alfred could shout back. He couldn’t cope with unwanted gifts and touches.

“This isn’t working.”

Ken seized his hand. “I didn’t mean it. I love you.”

“I’d rather we broke up and stayed friends than hated each other.”

“Do you hate me?”

“Of course not. But I might if we carry on like this.”

Ken moved into another wing of the house, Gussy’s guest. Alfred expected him to flaunt the new boyfriend. He didn’t. Perhaps there hadn’t been one. It wasn’t his business any more.

It was a month after their separation. Alfred was in the library, reading his mail. Letters from fans, Vita extolling the marvels of husband number three. There was a timid knock at the door.

“Come in.”

Jamie from the plantation dithered in the doorway. A nice lad, with a tendency to blush as red as his hair. He had a pleasant foxy face with the beginnings of stubble.

“Come on in. Sit down.”

He wouldn’t stop jittering, even once Alfred poured him a brandy.

“I -” He took a sip, coughed and downed it. “I was on my way home when I noticed a light in the greenhouse. First I couldn’t see no one. I thought it was a power surge. Then I saw the Professor. He was sat on one of them benches, smilin’ extra friendly like. ‘Hello, Jamie. Do you want some marzipan?’ he says. I don’t like the stuff but it seemed rude to refuse. ‘Why are you all the way over there?’ he says. ‘Keep me company.’”

Alfred bristled. Jamie misunderstood.

“That’s what I thought. There’s been talk about him likin’ young men, and I didn’t want to. I sat down, half a foot away. He budged up so he was on top of me. I tried to get up, he grabbed my arm -”

“Did he hurt you?”

“I don’t know!” The poor kid was flustered. “He was breathin’ all heavy like, sayin’ he’d seen me around. Then he says -”

“What?”

“‘Get your cock out.’” He was scarlet.

Alfred had expected something of the sort. To think he’d have the
audacity
to do it with his staff -

“I swear I didn’t do nothin’ -”

“You were right to tell me.”

“I can’t work here no more, expectin’ him to pop out -”

“I’ll see to it.”

He couldn’t find Ken in his usual haunts. His big monkish bedroom, toxic with fag smoke. His lab, in more dirt and disorder than he remembered. He wasn’t in his study or the billiard room. At a loss, Alfred wandered onto the grounds.

There was no way he could stay at Chimera under the circumstances. Surely Gussy would understand -

A laugh. He ducked behind one of the statues. 

“You know what Nanny says,” Gussy said. “‘If you can’t say anythin’ nice -’”

“‘Shut your hole and close your mouth’,” Ken finished.

He sprawled with his head in her lap. There was something extraordinarily intimate about the pose, the softness of Gussy’s eyes as she played with his hair.

“What if Lucas sees?”

“We’ve nothing to be ashamed of
. I
think he’s drilling that harpy in his office.”

“Mavis? They’d bore the pants off everyone. Mediocrities together.”

“Well, when mud meets fire ... Pity the kids take after him.”

“I used to have high hopes of Gwyn, but she’s so lazy. No ambition. She’d like nothing better than to loaf around here the rest of her life.”

“We know who to blame for that.”

“
Ken.”

“It’s true! ‘Exploring all corners of the globe’. Everyone knows that means ‘shagging across continents’. I’m lucky I never caught anything.”

“Kitty -”

“You know I’m right. He’s never had a proper job because he’s never grown up. He probably grew that beard to look more like an explorer.”

“No, he did it to annoy Uncle Bloom.”

“See? A perfectly sensible, adult reason. You know something? I’m
glad
I’m out of that. Apart than the sex -”

Gussy clapped her hands over her ears. “That’s my brother you’re talking about -”

“- which was magnificent, like being impaled on a humongous spear,” he continued, “it was too much work. You try talking to someone with a log between his ears!”

Alfred slid down the side of the statue. He stared at the signet ring Ken had given him for his last birthday.

“We can’t all be genii.”

“He sees himself as this bohemian, but he’s essentially a straight man who likes cock. He doesn’t want a
man
. He wants a fluffy little waif who’ll worship the ground he walks on.”

Alfred coughed. At least Gussy was abashed. “Alfie -”

“It doesn’t matter.” He addressed himself to her. “Tell Ken he’s no longer welcome here. I can put up with backstabbing, but feeling up the staff is really not on.”

“Who -”

“Jamie Tate.”

She pushed him away. “Oh, that’s sick!”

“He’s twenty four hours to go.” He pulled the ring from his finger. “Give him this.”

He turned to go
. I will not cry, that’ll be playing into
his hands. I will not cry
... “Oh, Gussy?”

“Yes?”

“Gwynnie
is
special. She’s my niece. That makes her the most important girl in the world.”

Gussy was away, giving a paper at a conference. If only she had stayed. If only she’d been able to soothe Ken, calm him down.

He hadn’t taken the time limit seriously. Why would he? There was a suitcase outside his room but the lab was still like an alchemist’s cave.

Alfred couldn’t relax. He’d had a long chat with Vita - “It’s not you, you’re lovely. He’s a pervy wiggy ingrate -” which cheered him up. He was pottering around the Observatory when he heard an unsteady foot on the stairs.

“Tolmash?”

“Tolmash not home.” The voice was Ken’s but the delivery wasn’t.

He hauled himself up the last few steps, wearing only his dressing gown. Yes, he’d been drinking, but there was something else. The vein in his temple stood out.

“Ken, you look awful.”

“You think you’re so perfect. Can’t take criticism -”

“Let’s sober you up -”

“Think you’re the big ‘I am’.” A snigger. “But you can’t get it up.”

Alfred tried to squeeze past. Ken pushed back. He overbalanced, knocking over a model of the planets. He felt blood on his face.

Ken was looking at him in the oddest way. Perhaps it was the sight of him on the floor, legs akimbo. “I’ll teach you respect.”

Alfred wondered afterwards if, by fighting back, he made it worse. He shoved the unyielding body from him, butted him in the stomach. Ken raked his nails down his face. Drink and madness made him strong.

“Are you going to play nicely?”

Alfred couldn’t see through his tears as his face was forced against the carpet. He didn’t need to. He knew how Ken looked transformed by lust. Now, as he took what should only be given in love, all he felt was pain and humiliation. He was saying things he used to say during sex -“Are you having fun?” “Fuck me like only you know how.” To his disgust he responded.

Afterwards he lay shaking on the floor, holding the shattered model. He tried shifting onto his side but it hurt too much. He felt as though something had broken inside him. He couldn’t even weep.

Ken was thoughtful, tranquil. Putting his dressing gown back on, he smoked and stroked Alfred’s hair. You’d think it had been a satisfying, mutual act. “See?” he murmured. “You’ve still got it.”

Alfred retched. He didn’t know how he would make it downstairs. His thighs were slippery and bruised. He felt between them and retched again.

“Is everythin’ alright?” Nanny trudged up the stairs. “Oh, the planets! Lady C loved that model -”

She saw Alfred. She seized the window pole and knocked Ken over the head with it. He landed on the floor, unconscious. “Thank you,” Alfred whispered.

She helped him to his feet. “I always think somethin’s up if I haven’t seen you in a while,” she said. “Let’s get you sorted, you big puddin’.”

Though Nanny insisted he should go to the police, Alfred refused. She, Tolmash and Bill were the only ones who knew. Bill prowled the grounds with his revolver, vowing to put a bullet through Ken’s brains.

Sometimes he felt as though it was still happening. He’d break down, suffer black outs. He drank too much. He put on weight. He lost interest in anything outside Chimera. The Adventurers tried to entice him on another fling, but that man was dead. He couldn’t bear being around Gussy. She’d prattle about robotics, loving her fulfilled life, and he hated her. He wanted to say,
There’s something you don’t know,
but how could he?