“Gabriella, look at this.”
She appeared from his left, having taken a more circuitous but clearer route, and knelt down beside him. He was slurping at a palmful of water.
Gabriella cupped her hands and brought some water to her lips. “What have you done? You’re bleeding,” she said and took out a handkerchief.
“I’m fine,” he protested, but allowed her to wet the cloth in the pool and carefully wipe his face.
There was a little love seat beside the brook, carved out of oak. They clasped hands without thinking and sat for a while, lulled into a quiet reverence. Mayflies were hovering over the pond, tempting the silent predators beneath the surface.
“They are of the order Ephemeroptera,” Adam said after a time.
Gabriella opened one eye, smiling. “What?”
He pointed. “From the Greek Ephemeros, meaning ‘short-lived wing’.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The mayflies; they only live for between a half hour and one day … depending on the species that is.”
She stared at him. “One day? That is so sad.”
“I suppose it is.” He pointed at the water. “Look! Brown trout I think.”
“Oh yes,” said Gabriella, noticing the sleek shapes suspended in crystal. “How do you know all this stuff?”
“You need to in my occupation.”
She stood up and dusted herself down. “Which is?”
“I’m a biological engineer.”
Gabriella pulled a face. “Oh I see. So I should be impressed?”
He grinned. “I would be.”
“Do you live nearby then?” Gabriella asked.
“No, never been here before. Just visiting. And you?”
She opened her mouth to speak and then paused. Adam saw something move in her eyes, confusion perhaps, like fish startled in muddy water.
“Vengo … er, I come here often.”
They went back to the track and walked into the heart of the wood. Adam pointed out a red squirrel clinging to a high branch, explaining to Gabriella the rarity of the species. They sang ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ and ‘Chim Chim Cheree’, and didn’t meet one other person all morning.
They came to a clearing with a giant oak tree standing in it. Clumps of daffodils had sprung up in the splashes of sunlight. Gabriella came up behind Adam and wrapped her arms around his waist. He felt her breasts spreading against his back.
“This is nice,” she breathed into his ear.
He shivered and his stomach tensed. “Yes it is.”
Adam opened the hamper and laid out a red chequered blanket in a pool of sunshine. Gabriella kicked off her shoes as she stepped onto it. “Undo me.”
His hands were shaking as they unzipped her dress, as if this were the unveiling of a sculpture he had commissioned someone to carve and he was embarrassed by how much he had paid for it. The dress fell and Gabriella was naked underneath. She let her hair down and turned to Adam, and before he could think of something clever to say, she was undoing his shorts. He kicked off his shoes and threw away his tee shirt as they fell onto the blanket in a clumsy frenzy.
It was over very quickly and they parted without meeting each other’s eyes, rolling away like children giving up at playing mums and dads, embarrassed at how much they had revealed of themselves and how little it added up to. For a couple of minutes Adam lay on his back, unable to move, feeling prickly waves of embarrassment roll through him.
Gabriella crawled over on her elbows and kissed his cheek. “Do you want to have another go?”
He did.
Afterwards, she fell asleep in the crook of his arm and he followed her, soothed by the hammering of a green woodpecker and the soughing of the wind through the treetops.
When he woke, she was already sitting up. “You snore, Bucko,” she said.
“What? No way!”
“Do so!” She offered him a bottle of water.
He took a sip, watching the swing of her breasts as she plated some food for him.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, stunned at his own words.
“Er … yes, probably,” Gabriella replied.
They both began to laugh, as if unsure if this were reality or a play they were practising.
Gabriella picked a dripping bottle of champagne from the basket, loosened the wire cage at its neck and thumbed the cork. It looped into the treetops with a hollow pop.
“I can’t believe how forward I was earlier.” She shook her head in disgust as she poured.
“You did take me by surprise.”
“Do you think I’m easy?”
“No, of course not … Well, a bit.”
She kicked him, spilling a little champagne on the blanket. “You bastard! I thought you were the one, too.”
“Did you?”
“Well, maybe.” She looked at him coyly. “I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be fantastic if we brought our children here one day and told them all about how we first met? Not how easy I was, though, of course.”
“No, we couldn’t tell them that. It would scar them possibly … probably.”
“We will have a girl and a boy: Jane and Michael.” She cut him a slice of apple pie and handed it to him.
He popped a forkful into his mouth. The filling was sweet and mushy and slightly odd tasting. “Why Jane and Michael?”
“Jane and Michael from Mary Poppins?”
“Oh, of course.”
“It’s not your favourite film, is it? You just fancy Mary Poppins.”
Adam put his plate down and raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, you got me!”
Gabriella shuffled closer. Adam shivered when her shoulder hit his and watched his goose bumps spread onto her skin. How quickly they had fallen into this easy intimacy. It disturbed him for some reason. It was exhilarating, but there was something underscoring the frivolity, something he hadn’t bargained for. He felt angry about this elusive irritation and was angry about feeling angry.
“I fell for you the moment I looked up from those damned ants earlier,” Gabriella said. Her voice sounded weary.
“Same here. Weird isn’t it.”
She rested her head upon his shoulder. “There will be more than just today wont there?”
“I promise.”
Her arms clung tighter around him. “That’s a piecrust promise: easily made, easily broken,” she said.
Adam turned and began nuzzling her neck, feeling aroused again by her vulnerability. He found her mouth and pushed her to the ground.
The blanket was in shadow when Gabriella slipped her dress back on.
“Is it time to go already?”
“Yes, baby.”
“Let’s stay a bit longer,” he tried.
She turned away from him and reluctantly, he zipped up her dress.
“We’ll have to make a move. My mum will be wondering where I am. I bet Phil has rung to tell her I didn’t turn up today.”
When they came out of the trees, it was to a meadow which mirrored the one Adam had strolled across that morning. The sun, which had been so strong back then, was now just a warm kiss on their cheeks. A line of trees was silhouetted against the tangerine glow at the horizon, like a strip of intricately cut, black card laid over a wash of paint.
They came to a high, perfectly trimmed hedge with a door handle sticking from it. Gabriella went to open it and Adam grabbed her arm.
“Don’t you want to get out of here with me?”
A look of utter confusion came over Gabriella’s face. “I … no, por favor, no se puede!”
“Come on! Quickly!” He grabbed her hand and tried to drag her back towards the wood. But from somewhere nearby there came a hissing sound,
short and sharp, and Adam felt a small prick of pain in his thigh. His legs buckled immediately, as if the bones had been snatched from them. He tore weakly at the cold grass, wondering how it had all gone so wrong.
“I’ll come back, I promise.”
Gabriella’s startled face appeared above him, blocking out the night sky. Her lips moved soundlessly into darkness.
The young man who entered the room was hairless and brusque. His grey shell suit whispered as he sat down. He began tapping at the console in his hand and gave a narrow smile.
“Okay, Adam, all the prelims are done. I will now just confirm the details of the Lovelyday™ you have purchased. You have chosen the LateMay bracket.” The man stopped tapping and looked up. “Please confirm vocally.”
“Oh, sorry. I mean yes.”
“You have chosen Newforest Biome.”
“Yes.”
“You have chosen Gabriella, with the Mary Poppins scenario you came up with yourself.”
“Er … yes.”
“You’re unsure?”
“No, no, it’s fine. Where is she from?”
“She’s Peruvian. Why?”
“No reason. Just curious.”
Don’t worry about the language and dialect. We will give her one to match yours; she doesn’t speak good English as it stands.”
Adam shrugged. “Of course, she doesn’t look like Mary Poppins either but she is so pretty.”
The man ignored the observation. “Your Lovelyday™ lasts for approximately ten hours, commencing at ten a.m. Biome time, three a.m. Lunar, and finishes at eight p.m. Biome time, one p.m. Lunar. You have thoroughly acquainted yourself with the rules of your engagement once inside the Biome?”
“I have.”
“As previously explained, if there is any transgression at any time, your Lovelyday™ will be terminated and you will be removed from the Biome immediately. The company is licensed to use extreme force against customers if they are seen to be using unprovoked or unnecessary violence against any employee of Lovelyday™ Inc. You have seen examples in digital format of what is and isn’t permissible?”
Adam winced at the memory. “Yes I have.”
“Are there any questions?”
“Will Gabriella be aware of who I am at all?”
“No. The magic of first love would be marred somewhat.”
Adam couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
The Lovelyday™ agent placed his hand console on the grey desk and cracked his knuckles. It was as if he had been given one genuine smile at birth and had had to make it last a lifetime; he shaved off another sliver and offered it to Adam.
“We use a process called mental delineation. We sketched your requirements, as close as we could manage, into Gabriella’s mind. Today, you are exactly what she wants, so it’s real love she produces.”
Adam was feeling a little hot. He unbuttoned his collar. “And tomorrow she will fall in love with someone else?”
“That’s right. Her memories of the day are wiped each Biome evening. She is unaware of the Biome or why she is really here until her contract is up for renewal. To her, life is the meadow, the wood and all that happens there. All the girls and boys who work in the Biomes sign up for this when they come to us.”
“Sure,” Adam said, but he felt unsure and it must have shown on his face.
“You’re a long way from home,” the man said with surprising gentleness.
“Yes, it’s a strange feeling sometimes.”
“That’s why we are here. Our Biomes are little pieces of earth. They keep people like you sane and happy while you are here, so RKK get their Helium Three and earth gets some much-needed energy.” He stood up and offered Adam his hand. “You’ll have a Lovelyday™ with Gabriella. I know first-hand.” He winked and Adam grinned, drawn into the show of machismo.
“I hope you’re right. It’s taken me a month to save for this, even with my staff discount.”
The man looked unmoved. “Have a Lovelyday™, Adam.”
“I’ll try. One more thing,” Adam said as he was leaving.
“Yes?”
“That mental delineation process you mentioned?”
“Uh huh.”
“Do they use it on you as well?”
“Very good, Adam. I like it,” but he had already put the smile away.
The old man placed his hands against the cold metal and pushed. The door shifted fractionally. He stepped back. Across the hall, the sound of cheap air filters throbbed from behind cracked, dented doors identical to the one in front of him. Wails of torment echoed along the long, dim corridors, fluctuating in pitch and volume so much that it was impossible for him to pinpoint their source. He took an unwanted breath of damp wall linings and dried urine, and then nodded to the man he had paid to accompany him that day. “Tom, give me a hand here.”
The big man moved away from the wall where he had been resting his broad back and put his shoulder onto the door with some force. It pinged open and clapped against the internal wall. He caught it as it came back and ushered the old man in.
The room was in darkness, save for a small fire which flickered against the metal floor. The woman was huddled up next to it like a tumble of kindling that refused to burn. The old man crouched down beside her and stroked her head, waving forward his minder who flicked on a hand light. Tom trained the light on the woman’s sunken features as the old man studied her. His voice shook with emotion. “Gabriella, it’s me, Adam. I found you … I found you.” He stepped back and his companion gently picked the woman up and put her over his shoulder.
Two rat-faced men confronted them at the entrance to the apartment run.
“Hey! Who you got there?” The first one said and pulled out a rusty knife. “You can’t take our ladies. We need–”
Tom shifted the woman a little on his shoulder and his free hand brought the blunt nozzle of a gum gun into the talking man’s face. The smell of heated plasteen filled the air and the man fell to the ground without a sound. His partner ducked past them and disappeared into the corridors of the main complex.
“I’ll get her hooked up,” the big man said and carried the woman out.
Adam watched the man on the floor scrabbling at his sealed face in a futile attempt to make an airway. He waited until the man’s feet had stopped drumming and spat on him as he left the building.
Tom was putting the woman in an emergency gurney and playing with the settings.
“How is she?”
“Severely malnourished and has wet beriberi by the looks of it. Put it this way, I wouldn’t take her dancing tonight.” Tom pushed her into the back of the vehicle and they set off.
The two men sat in silence as they drove through the long, sterile corridors. Occasionally, they passed the homeless, who huddled around tiny paraffin cubes and pleaded for help as the car cruised slowly past. Beside them, through long windows, Adam could see the silver ash of the moon’s surface, piled into ugly heaps by reckless developers. Around the seals in the glass, there were cracks here and there, growing unnoticed by those they threatened most.
“How long do you think these windows will last, Tom?”
The driver took one hand from the wheel and scratched at his temple. “Don’t reckon it matters to these poor bastards. They’ll still be here when the day comes.”
“It’s a mess.”
“We always make a mess, given the chance.”
The old man nodded. After a while, he said, “I helped build the Biomes.”
“That so? Must’ve been, what … twenty years ago?”
“Twenty-three.”
Tom raised his eyebrows. “They’re ruins now.”
“Once they realised it was possible to configure a mind to fall in love … well, there’s
a bigger market on earth.”
“Lovelyday™ Incorporated,” Tom announced, in the style of the ad. “The company that retired Cupid.” He slapped the steering wheel, impressed with his impersonation, then flicked his head toward the rear of the vehicle. “So who is she? An employee?”
“Yes. I became a bit obsessed. They terminated my contract and sent me home.”
“And you decide to come back now, when everyone who can is leaving?”
“My aunt died last year, left me some money. For once, I didn’t put it in my veins … not all of it anyway.”
Tom made no comment.
“I always was awkward,” Adam added.
“Awkward and stupid mostly sleep together.”
Gabriella had improved a little by the time they got back to the small apartment Adam had rented. Tom considered the extra money he was given with an unexpected solemnity.
“It’s all I have,” explained Adam.
“It’s plenty.”
“Where are you from, Tom?”
“Houston.”
“Are you going back there?”
“Someplace else I reckon.” Tom offered his hand and they shook on it. “The last shuttle goes at the end of the week.”
“We’ll hang around here for a bit I think. She wouldn’t survive the trip home.”
“Or the stay,” Tom concluded and let himself out.
Adam went into the kitchen and prepared the picnic hamper. He dressed Gabriella before she woke and fitted some cheap sim-shades over her eyes. He put the other pair on, carried Gabriella into the recreation room and laid her on the white, cushioned flooring. The simulation was called Wildwood and was all he could afford.
When Gabriella woke, she sat up unsteadily and looked around. Dappled sunlight came through the leaves of a majestic, old, oak tree. It danced across her face as the branches rustled in the slight breeze. A bee droned past and she reached for it weakly.
“A la casa?” she asked.
“Yes, home.” Adam came across the clearing and sat beside her. “Gabriella, it’s me: Adam … Do you remember me?”
She stared blankly at him for a moment, “Cabrones!” she said and then continued looking around the wood.
The Dreams of the Black Butterfly Page 6