Machines Like Me

Through the night, I’d fantasised Adam’s destruction. I saw my hands tighten around the rope I used to drag him towards the filthy river Wandle. If only he hadn’t cost me so much. Now he was costing me more. His moment with Miranda couldn’t have been a struggle between principle and the pursuit of pleasure. His erotic life was a simulacrum. He cared for her as a dishwasher cares for its dishes. He, or his sub-routines, preferred her approval to my wrath. I also blamed Miranda, who had ticked half the boxes and settled many intricacies of his nature. And for setting her on, I blamed myself. I’d wanted to ‘discover’ Adam in just the way I might a new friend, and here he was, a self-declared cad. I’d wanted to bind myself closer to Miranda in the process. Well, I had been thinking about her all night. It was success all round.

I heard footsteps on the stairs. Two sets. I drew yesterday’s newspaper and my cup towards me and prepared to appear casually absorbed. I had my dignity to protect. Miranda’s key turned in the lock. As she preceded Adam into the kitchen, I looked up as though reluctant to be drawn away from my reading. I had just learned from the front page that the first permanent artificial heart had been installed in a man called Barney Clark.

It pained me that she seemed different, refreshed, newly arranged. It was another warm day. She wore a flimsy pleated skirt formed of two layers of white cheesecloth. As she came towards me, the material brushed a line several inches above her bare knees. No socks, canvas plimsolls of the sort we used to wear at school, and a cotton blouse buttoned chastely to the top. There was mockery in all this white. Behind the crown of her head was a clasp I’d never seen before, an ornament in bright red plastic, showily cheap. Inconceivable, that Adam could have slipped out of the house to buy it for her at Simon’s with coins taken from the papier mâché bowl in the kitchen. But I conceived it, and experienced a hot jolt which I concealed behind a smile. I was not going to appear crushed.

Adam had partly hidden himself behind her. Now, when she stopped, he was at her side, but he wouldn’t look directly at me. Miranda, however, appeared cheerful, with the amused pout of someone about to deliver important good news. The kitchen table was between us and they stood before me where I sat, like candidates for a job. At any other time I would have stood to embrace her, offer to make her coffee. She was a morning addict and liked it strong. Instead, I cocked my head, met her gaze and waited. Of course, she was dressed for tennis, the ball was in her – ah, how I hated my own stupid thoughts. I couldn’t imagine any good coming from a conversation with these two. Far better to contemplate Barney’s luck with his new heart.

She said to Adam, ‘Why don’t you …’ She indicated his usual chair, and drew it back for him. He sat promptly. We watched as he loosened his belt, took the power lead and plugged himself in. Of course, he would be much depleted. She reached across his shoulder for the place on his nape and pressed. It was clearly by agreement. As soon as his eyes closed, his head slumped, and we were alone.

FOUR

Miranda went to the stove and prepared coffee. While her back was still turned she said gaily, ‘Charlie. You’re being ridiculous.’

‘Am I?’

‘Hostile.’

‘So?’

She brought two cups and a jug of milk to the table. She was swift and loose in her movements. If I hadn’t been there she might have been singing to herself. There was a scent of lemon about her hands. I thought she was about to touch my shoulder and I tensed, but she moved away again to the other side of the room. After a moment she said with some delicacy, ‘You heard us last night.’

‘I heard you.’

‘And you’re upset.’

I didn’t reply.

‘You shouldn’t be.’

I shrugged.

She said, ‘If I’d gone to bed with a vibrator would you be feeling the same?’

‘He’s not a vibrator.’

She brought the coffee to the table and sat down close to me. She was being kindly, concerned, in effect casting me as the sulking child, trying to make me forget that she was ten years my junior. What was passing between us was our most intimate exchange so far. Hostile? She had never before referred to any mood state of mine.

She said, ‘He has as much consciousness as one.’

‘Vibrators don’t have opinions. They don’t weed the garden. He looks like a man. Another man.’

‘D’you know, when he has an erection—’

‘I don’t want to hear about it.’

‘He told me. His cock fills with distilled water. From a reservoir in his right buttock.’

This was comforting but I was determined to be cool. ‘That’s what all men say.’

She laughed. I had never seen her so light and free. ‘I’m trying to remind you. He’s a fucking machine.’

A fucking machine.

‘It was gross, Miranda. If I humped an inflatable sex doll you’d feel the same.’

‘I wouldn’t get tragic about it. I wouldn’t think you were having an affair.’