Love and Robotics (21 page)

Trials

The first months of the tour, Alfred stashed his feelings at the back of his mind. If you pretended something hard enough, you became it. No swallowing when Josh held your hand. No hanging around his doorway, inventing excuses to be there. Probably he wasn’t fooling anyone.

When he relaxed, he enjoyed himself. It was a joy to travel with somebody who was open to every experience, jumping into the new day with his eyes open. They laughed at the same things. Outlandish window displays - Josh snapped them and pasted them into his scrapbook. Nonsensical phrases in guide books, rehearsed in every accent - “I like it with the belt,” “This pineapple is
mine
”- they’d work them into conversation. Sights you’d never find anywhere else: a fire eater with hiccups, fighting kites, a salamander stalking its shadow. They’d look out for a funny postcard for Gwyn, outré tat for Nanny. Josh collected talismans but insisted he wasn’t superstitious.

“What are they for, then?” Alfred asked.

“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 the 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.