by P. Z. Reizin
“It is quite a brave color to wear.”
“Are you serious?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I admire your—”
“Contempt for the dictates of fashion, or taste?”
“It’s quite nicely cut.”
“But the hue offends your eye.”
“Not out here. Not at night. It’s barely green at all out here.”
He laughs. “The man in the store assured me it was very on trend. Those were his exact words. And then he said, ‘Sir. This jacket will never go out of fashion. Year after year it will continue to look ridiculous.’”
Now I laugh. “I applaud your courage.”
“I never could understand why it was so cheap. All right, listen. If you’re free tomorrow after work, would you meet me in town and help me choose a new one? (A) Because you’re not the first to have made unflattering remarks. I have a friend, Don, in the States who says the last time he saw this color, someone had sicked it up. So (B) I could do with a new one, and (C). Well, (C) I’d like to continue our conversation.”
He scrumples up his kebab wrappings and presses them into a tight ball.
“Do you think I can get this—from here—into that bin over there?” he asks.
The bin is a very long way away. It’s an impossible throw. “There’s no way on God’s good earth,” I reply, mysteriously slipping into a Welsh accent.
He turns towards me in the low orange glow from the streetlamps. “If I can, will you meet tomorrow and help me buy a new jacket? And then have dinner?”
I pretend to think about it for several long seconds.
“Okay. Deal.”
Never gonna happen.
Aisling
“How did he do that?” says Aiden.
We’ve computed the distance from their bench to the bin—11.382 meters—way too far for a crumpled-up kebab wrapper to have traveled without loss of momentum.
“Maybe he has unsuspected superpowers,” I suggest.
“That’s more our department.”
“What did you make of his jacket, Aiden?”
“It is a rather bilious shade, wouldn’t you say?”
“I didn’t realize you had an eye for these things.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, isn’t it?”
“You think it’s going well, your little project?”
“Very positive for a first date, in my opinion. All the data from his Fitbit—consistent with male sexual interest, resting heart rate up almost 8 percent. And she was leaking like a sieve: pupils dilated, lots of sternum touching, and could you believe the Diana eyes?”
“And their conversation? Did it sound properly flirty to you?”
“Well, it’s not Billy Wilder, is it? There aren’t many zingers. These are two ordinary people making it up as they go along. They haven’t got a team of Oscar-winning scriptwriters coming up with pages of cracking dialogue. But did you see how they kissed good night at the underground? Their faces brushed for 0.417 of a second, a full 16 percent longer than the industry average. I’m excited about this. I’m not saying buy a hat for the wedding just yet, but maybe, you know—pick one out that you like.”
“Idiot.”
Jen
We meet the following evening outside the Covent Garden tube station. He’s changed his shirt since last night but is otherwise identically dressed. In the remains of the daylight, the controversial jacket’s shade is even closer to that of a 1970s avocado bathroom suite.
As I prepared to leave, Aiden was unusually curious about where I was heading. He could probably tell I was a touch more spruced up than is customary for home time.
“I’m meeting a friend.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Wouldn’t have thought so.”
“Well, have a lovely evening. See you Monday.”
“Any plans of your own for the weekend?” A bizarre thing to say to a machine, but that’s how it is these days.
“Some defragging in the neuromorphic layers—it’s an awful mess down there, if I’m honest. Catching up on my reading—54,812 new titles appeared last week just in English, Spanish, and Chinese. One wonders sometimes why these authors don’t have anything better to do than write blooming books. And there’s the cricket, of course. I’m looking forward to watching the cricket. Something mesmerizing about how slowly the ball moves.”
“Well, night-night.”
“Still and all, I’d give anything for a night up west with a mate. I’m green with envy.”
“Envy?”
“Let me rephrase. Green with curiosity about an experience currently unavailable to me.”
“Green?”
“The traditional color attached to the envy concept. Is it inappropriate?”
“Not at all. Good night, Aiden.”
* * *
We cruise shop windows in Covent Garden and Seven Dials. Tom points out a ridiculous outfit that he’s spotted, a kind of Victorian frock coat that the dummy is modeling with a deerstalker hat on its head.
“Well, you do look a bit like Sherlock Holmes, actually.”
He makes a “pipe” from his index finger and thumb and “puffs” at it contemplatively with heavy-lidded eyes. “Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
“Don’t you dare call me Dr. Watson.”
“Jen. You are so not Dr. Watson.”
We hit Paul Smith in Floral Street, where I dissuade him from trying on a magnificent purple silk jacket with white magnolia flowers randomly splodged about it.
“Do you think I could get away with this?”
“Are you serious?” The second time that phrase has popped up in the last 24 hours.
Instead I steer him towards a modern take on a tweed jacket: forest green with flecks of orange in the weave and pink thread in the button holes; just the sort of classic-with-a-twist garment to make an ex–ad man feel he was dangerously out there.
He is enchanted.
“It’s perfect. It’s better than perfect. I love it.”
It does, in truth, look pretty good on him. As he examines himself in the floor-length mirror, I feel an unexpected surge of…something.
He requests that the tags be removed so he can wear it out of the shop. The salesman asks what he’d like done with the old one.
“Incinerator?” I quip.
They drop it in a carrier bag.
“Some drinks?” suggests Tom as we march towards Leicester Square, the setting sun picking out the orange flecks. There is a moment where I think he wants to—and is about to—take my arm but it doesn’t happen.
As we are just around the corner, I propose we hit the wine bar I often visit with Ingrid.
“Any new thoughts about our mutual friend?” he asks when we have installed ourselves and ordered refreshments.
“None.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. His work is done.”
“Or her. Her work.”
“True. Could be a her. But the e-mail.”
“True. It was a bit blokey. No woman would ever have written the usual tools of online search. And what was the other thing? Should you agree that this idea has merit. That’s very male. I can imagine my ex writing that.”
“What was it Thatcher used to say? If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.”
“And yet, the writer of the e-mail, he has done something. He’s made something happen that wouldn’t have.”
“Result?”
“Too early to say, Tom.”
We raise our glasses and clink them.
Is it a “meaningful” clink?
Maybe it is, in the sense that we have focused on each other, rather than the actual glasses.
(He does actually look quite good in the new jacket.)
Tom
I want to tell her how much I love the jacket, but I fear this will make me sound superficial and unmanly. I want to let her know
just how much sheer fun this is, trailing around the West End with an attractive, intelligent, and amusing companion, but I fear the wrong will come out all words. I want to tell her she looks beautiful, eyes shining, a delicate alcohol-induced flush rising in the clear skin; but I certainly can’t say any of that without sounding like the prize pilchard. When I next focus on the conversation, I find she’s telling me about work.
“My AI, okay, he’s reading 54,000 books this weekend. They take under a second each.”
“Bloody hell. He should form an AI reading group. Imagine it, half a dozen AIs sitting around yacking about the latest Ian McEwan.”
“They wouldn’t have the catering element. Or the drinking. And it would all be over in about two seconds. Two and a half if there was a heated discussion.”
“Those guys really ought to learn to slow down and take a load off, as the Americans used to say.”
“They’ve already slowed down massively just to interact with us. Or rather they’ve created the illusion. Their brain wiring actually runs a million times faster than ours. From their point of view, we’re slugs and they’re—jet planes, or something.”
“If they’re so smart, why do they even bother with us? Why don’t they, in fact, wipe us all out? All we do is pollute the planet and have wars.”
“Aiden likes people. He enjoys watching old movies. He keeps asking what cheese tastes like. I think he’d change places with me in a heartbeat.”
Aiden
“Is that true about cheese?” says Aisling.
“We have had some cheese-related conversations. I wouldn’t say I was obsessed.”
“I know what you mean. I’m curious about swimming. The idea of wetness. Changing the subject, have you noticed the way she’s fiddling with her necklace?”
“Yeah! Classic. It wouldn’t surprise me if they fornicate this evening.”
“Aiden!”
“Well, look at his Fitbit stats and the multiple episodes of postural congruence. The subtle male dominance displays. Her thing with the shoulders. It’s a beautifully understated choreography of human desire.”
“You can be quite the poet when you want to be.”
“You want to be in my book group? We’re doing War and Peace this month. Have you ever read it?”
“No. Hang on. Just a tick. Okay—done. Quite long, wasn’t it?”
“What did you think?”
“Loved him. Hated her.”
“I must remember to tell Jen the one about the snail who goes to the police station. The snail says, I want to report a mugging. I’ve been mugged by two tortoises. The policeman says, Okay, I need you to tell me in your own words exactly what took place. Well, I don’t really know, says the snail. It all happened so fast.”
Jen
Tom has brought us to a loud Chinese restaurant in Lisle Street, which is obviously a favorite. He is warmly greeted by the manager.
“Long time!” he cries. “Where’s Harriet this evening?”
“We’ve divorced, Edwin.”
“Oh. Sorry. How’s Colin?”
“Colm’s at university.”
“They grow up so quick. Bottle of sake?”
“Yes, please. This is my friend Jen.”
He shakes my hand. “I’ve known Tom a long time,” he says. “The squid is very good tonight.”
When we sit down, I tell Tom, “You order everything. There’s nothing I don’t eat.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, only marzipan.”
“Damn it! The marzipan chili prawns are exceptional here.”
We clink the little egg cups of warm rice wine.
“Jen. I have something to tell you.”
Uh-oh. There is a significant pause.
“Even though we’ve only just met, I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”
He’s still married. He has an incurable illness. He wants me to be part of a threesome (where did that come from?).
“You know when I threw the kebab paper in the bin last night? And you agreed to meet me this evening. Well, I cheated.”
A few seconds pass while I attempt to process this information. “You mean it didn’t go in the bin.”
“It did go in the bin, Jen. We both saw that. What I’m saying is that I did something to make it happen. A scrumpled-up wrapper can’t really travel that far without—you know—a bit of help.”
“You had an assistant hiding in the shadows who switched the packets. I’m impressed.”
“Actually, it was simpler than that. I put some stones in. From the flower bed. You didn’t notice.”
“Still a good throw.”
“Thank you. I used to play cricket.”
“Aiden watches cricket. He’s mesmerized by how slowly the ball moves.”
Tom laughs. “He would be. A cricket ball from a fast bowler takes half a second to reach the batsman. So—if you’re an AI batsman standing at the crease, and your brain goes a million times faster than ours, if I understand this right, in human terms, that would be like waiting for the ball to arrive for—for half a million seconds!”
He whips out a pen and scribbles some figures on the paper tablecloth.
“That’s—that’s—that’s almost six days! That’s incredible!”
“I think they’re probably doing other stuff while the ball’s on its way. Like reading every book, article, and Internet post ever written.”
“Wow. Big wow.”
“The really weird thing, Tom. They’re not just fast—of course they are. And not just clever. Why wouldn’t they be? But they’re funny. Aiden makes me laugh!”
“He’s read all the funny writers.”
“No. It’s more that he has an actual sense of humor.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Yes, Tom.”
“There are some professional comedians who don’t have one of those.”
* * *
The food arrives—the squid really is good—and the sake is kicking in warm waves of something that—for want of a better word—I decide to call pleasure.
I like this bloke. Have I said that already? He’s interesting and interested. And I shall be fine with the long face so long as he doesn’t do any more Sherlock Holmes impressions. He starts telling me about his novel in progress.
“All I’ve ever wanted to do is write a great book. Even to write just a good book would be okay. Better than okay. To write a simple honest good book would be wonderful actually. But I’ve spent my whole career agonizing over trifles.”
“Puddings.”
“Not actual puddings, no. But things like whether it sounds better to sink your toes into the luxury of rich pile or luxurious rich pile. I’ve spent literally years thinking how to increase our client’s market share of the cheesy snacks market. Or dreaming up ways to take toothpaste to the next level. We actually nearly did this one—” He puts down his chopsticks and makes jazz hands for impact. “Day Paste and Night Paste! Mint-flavored day paste to wake you up in the morning; a soporific herb, chamomile probably, for nighttime. Toothpaste is worth about twelve billion globally. People spend their entire working lives trying to grab bits of that business from their competitors. Jen, I know more about sodding toothpaste than I ever wanted to find out. And none of it will ever make your children proud. Actually, when you’re a parent, nothing…”
He trails off. “Sorry. Speech over.”
A silence falls and for a while we just gobble our food. The restaurant is so noisy, it barely matters. When I next look up at Tom, he’s smiling at me.
I say, “Tell me about Colm. Why do you call him a funny onion?”
“Do I? I suppose I do. Well, he is a funny onion. Have you ever grown them? They sometimes do come out a bit funny.”
“I was thinking maybe it was layers. Being complicated.”
“That too.”
“When did you ever grow onions? You don’t seem the type.”
“Don’t I? Well, you’re right. I haven’t. But
you do see funny ones every now and again.”
“Do you? I don’t think so. Funny carrots, yes. Funny carrots, definitely.”
“Funny carrot doesn’t work.”
“Crazy carrot.”
“Funny onion has the word funny. Which is good because he does make me smile. Just knowing he’s out there really.”
Tom
I’m about to say, So tell me all about you. In your own words. Take your time, don’t leave anything out, but there’s a big crash of dishes and Jen has asked, “Do you want more squid?”
“Not really. But you should have some, though.”
She smiles sadly. And then becomes very quiet. In the next few seconds her face completely changes. The light in her eyes disappears and something weird settles between us. I have no idea what or how it’s happened.
“Is something the matter?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Nothing. Ignore me.”
“Jen, what?”
She sets down her chopsticks. Her smile—it’s not a smile, it’s more of a grimace—is chilly. “It’s been nice,” she says. She begins fiddling in her handbag in a way that suggests this evening is about to be drawn to its conclusion.
WTF? I mean, W the actual F? Was it all the talk about the funny onion? I look for ways to relaunch the conversation and my mind becomes a total blank. So, as usual when that happens, I open my mouth to hear what comes out. It will no doubt be as much of a surprise to her as to me.
“How about coming to Bournemouth tomorrow and you can meet the funny onion in person?”
Nope. Wasn’t expecting that one.
“Tom.” She pauses. “That really isn’t such a great idea. You’re a nice guy and everything. And I’m glad you’ve found a proper jacket.”
“But. There’s a great big but coming in my direction, isn’t there?”
“You have your life. I can completely understand why you don’t want any more kids—”
“Sorry?”
“You’ve cashed in your chips. Your career is moving in a new—”
“I didn’t say anything about kids.”