Machines Like Me

Two against one. Sensing we were about to make a great mistake, I started the engine and turned onto a slip road that brought us to a new miniature roundabout, and beyond it, an entrance marked by two red brick pillars and a sign, St Osmund’s Close. The houses were identical, large by modern standards, each set in a quarter-acre plot, with a double garage, and constructed of brick, white weather boarding and much plate glass. The closely mown and striped front lawns were unfenced, American style. There was no clutter, no kids’ bikes or games on the grass.

‘It’s number 6,’ Adam said.

I stopped, cut the engine and in silence we looked towards the house. We could see through the picture window into the living room and the backyard beyond, where a clothes-drying tree stood bare. There was no sign of life here or anywhere else in the close.

I was gripping the steering wheel tightly in one hand. ‘He’s not in.’

‘I’ll ring the bell,’ Miranda said as she got out of the car. I had no choice. I followed her to the front door. Adam was behind me, rather too far back, I thought. On the second ring of the ‘Oranges and Lemons’ door chimes, we heard footsteps on the stairs. I was now standing close by Miranda’s side. Her face was strained and I could see a tremor in her upper arm. At the sound of a hand on the latch, she took a half-pace closer to the door. My hand hovered near her elbow. As the door opened, I feared she was about to leap forward in some wild physical assault.

The wrong man, was my first thought. An older brother, even a young uncle. He was certainly large, but the face was gaunt, hollow in the unshaven cheeks that already showed vertical lines each side of his nose. Otherwise, he looked lean. His hands, one of which gripped the open door, were smooth and pale and unnaturally large. He looked only at Miranda.

After the briefest pause, he said in a low voice, ‘Right.’

‘We’re going to talk,’ Miranda said, but there was no need, for Gorringe was already turning away, leaving the door open. We followed her in and entered a long room, with thick orange carpeting and milky white leather sofas and armchairs arranged around a two-metre block of polished wood on which stood an empty vase. Gorringe sat and waited for us to do the same. Miranda sat opposite him. Adam and I were on each side of her. The furniture was clammy to the touch, the smell in the room was of lavender polish. The place looked clean and unused. I’d been expecting some variant of a single-man’s squalor.

Gorringe glanced at us and back to Miranda. ‘You’ve brought protection.’

She said, ‘You know why I’m here.’

‘Do I?’

I saw now that there was a scar, three or four inches long, a vermilion sickle shape on his neck. He was waiting for her.

‘You killed my friend.’

‘What friend is that?’

‘The one you raped.’

‘I thought you were the one I raped.’

‘She killed herself because of what you did.’

He leaned back in his chair and placed his big white hands on his lap. His voice and manner were thuggish, self-consciously so and not convincing. ‘What do you want?’

‘I heard you want to kill me.’ She said it jauntily and I flinched. It was an invitation, a provocation. I looked past her to Adam. He sat rigidly upright, hands on knees, staring ahead in that way he had. I shifted my attention back to Gorringe. Now, I could see the puppy beneath the skin. The lines, the hollow, unshaven skin, were superficial. He was a kid, possibly an angry kid holding himself together with his laconic blocking answers. He didn’t need to respond to her questions. But he wasn’t cool enough not to.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I thought about it every day. My hands around your neck, squeezing harder and harder for each of the lies you told.’

‘Also,’ Miranda continued briskly, like a committee chair, working her way through a typed-up agenda, ‘I thought you should know what she suffered. Until she didn’t want to live. Are you able to imagine that? And then what her family suffered. Perhaps it’s beyond you.’

To this, Gorringe made no reply. He watched her, waiting.

Miranda was gaining confidence. She would have mentally rehearsed this encounter a thousand times, through sleepless nights. These weren’t questions, they were taunts, insults. But she made them sound like the pursuit of truth. She adopted the insinuating tone of an aggressive cross-examining barrister.