“Everything’s on the chair.”
Josh opened the heavy canvas bag and rifled through. “Uh -”
“Don’t say you’re not impressed.”
He lifted out a crossbow. “In what scenario will we need this?”
“Protection?”
“Can’t we take Puss?”
Alfred’s eyebrows were semaphores. “You want to sneak up on the Toaster with a lion?”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“There’s a shortcut to the cemetery. Come on!”
Some ideas slot seamlessly into place. A combination of luck and planning means everything works out and you look back with pride. Others unravel, making you wish you’d never had them. The night of the Larch Toaster belonged to the second category.
Josh wasn’t cold, but he was uncomfortable and restless. Perhaps this tree hadn’t been the best hiding place. One false move and they’d plummet into an open grave.
Alfred obviously thought the same. “What are we doing up here?”
“They won’t see us amongst the foliage.”
“Couldn’t we have gone behind a headstone?”
“It’s the best vantage point -” He registered Alfred’s averted eyes. “You’re not scared of heights?”
“No,” he said, too quickly to be convincing.
“Your voice goes up an octave when you lie.”
“Thanks, Mr Tactful! I’m not, just wary. They’re so rickety and - high.”
Josh touched Alfred’s wrist. It nearly caused a conflagration; he was lighting up to calm his nerves. The snuffed pipe dropped into space.
They ran through their list of waiting games - I Spy, Twenty Questions, Thumb War. Josh doubted the Toaster was going to show up. It was twenty three forty by his estimation.
“Bet he’s croaked,” Alfred said. “Talk about selfish.”
“What makes you think it’s a man?”
“Can you see a woman doing something this naff?”
Alfred had a theory the Toaster was a traditionalist: “He’ll do it on the last stroke of twenty four, mark my words.” Either he hadn’t received the memo or his watch was fast. It was twenty three fifty seven when they heard an effortful creak on the other side of the cemetery.
Josh focused his vision. Whoever it was had a scarf pulled up over their face and they were walking gingerly. Something sloshed in their pocket.
“Got you,” Alfred whispered.
“There might be an innocent explanation -”
“If my auntie had balls, she’d be my uncle.”
“I daresay she would.”
The oak hung directly above Larch’s grave. Josh could read the inscription. He knew the writer’s fame was posthumous, but it was a drab memorial. ‘EA Larch 1832 - 1871’. No ‘Grievously Lamented’ or ‘Departed This Life,’ though you’d hope he had.
The Toaster knelt, tracing the letters with their fingers. “Thank you for everything,” a voice murmured, more masculine than otherwise. Alfred dug Josh in the ribs, grinning ear to ear. Humans loved being right, perhaps because it didn’t happen very often.
Josh launched himself from the tree, pulling on Alfred’s leg. He came down too, yelling in astonishment. Though perhaps he had the best of it: while Josh struck his chin against the headstone, closer than he wanted to be to a slug, Alfred’s fall was broken by the Toaster. That gentleman wasn’t too pleased to have sixteen stone of explorer land on top of him. He lay wheezing in the mud, trying to get up.
“That didn’t go according to plan,” Josh said, and “You can say that again,” Alfred grumbled. Out of the murk a third voice asked, “Lord Langton?”
“Are we speaking to the Larch Toaster?”
“If I say yes, will you get off?”
“Why not?”
Alfred heaved himself up, Josh helped the Toaster to his feet, and they sat on the headstone. As the Toaster snapped on a flashlight, Josh gasped. With his pinched features, bulging eyes and oily hair, he looked uncannily like Larch. Alfred clocked the resemblance too.
“Do you want something to drink?” the Toaster asked.
“Thought you’d never ask.” The kit bag contained three tumblers. Josh rolled his eyes as Alfred gave himself a generous helping. “Good stuff. Too good to waste on a dead man.”
“But you said -” Josh began. A flash of blue eyes stopped him.
The Toaster fidgeted. “I’m sure Larch wouldn’t mind a libation -”
“They don’t call you the Toaster for nothing!” Alfred chinked glasses with Josh, then their new acquaintance. “Didn’t the great man say, ‘Give me a drink, a girl and a song/And nothing that follows can ever be wrong?’ Always thought that sounded dodgy but, you know, values dissonance.”
“I don’t recall that one,” the Toaster said.
“I thought a fan like yourself would know every line. I remember reading about someone who was so obsessed with a writer, she paid a thousand Q for a shopping list. Yet you’ve honoured his death every year for the past thirty years. Funny, that.”
“What are you inferring?”
“I’m not implying anything.”
Josh read the man’s body language. He put his hands on the Toaster’s shoulders and watched his face. “There never was an EA Larch, was there?”
The man was racked by painful sobs. It was only as he stopped hiccupping and Alfred passed him a handkerchief they made out what he was saying. “Thank Thea, thank Thea.”
“He’s mad,” Josh whispered.
“No, he’s gone sane,” Alfred said. Raising his voice, “Tell us in your own words. It’ll go no further.” He refilled the tumbler and put it into the Toaster’s hands.
“No.” His voice, weak at first, steadied. “There’s no E A Larch. Or, rather, whoever’s under that stone isn’t the E A Larch. Oh, it’s such a relief to tell someone!”
“Why did you make him up?” Josh asked.
“My father was brilliant. Have you any idea what it’s like, being related to a genius but ordinary yourself?”
“Yes,” Alfred said. Josh poked him.
“He was the headmaster of a boys’ school; not nearly good enough, but he had a temper and offended people. His real work was resurrecting late, great playwrights. I wasn’t good at anything. I squeaked through my exams, got a job as a clerk. If he thought of me at all, it was as his bitterest disappointment.
One night I was caught in a storm. I’d had a long, demoralising day at work - my supervisor hinted that if I made one more mistake, they’d let me go. I seriously considered standing out in the fields and getting hit by lightning. But I couldn’t do it.
I took a short cut through the cemetery. I don’t know why this stone caught my eye. It’s not big or grand, it doesn’t have an epitaph. Looking at it, the craziest scheme came into my head. My father only respected dead writers. What if I invented one?
At last I’d found my true calling: forgery. Once I’d written a piece and treated the manuscript, you couldn’t distinguish it from the real thing. I banked on my father’s vanity - whatever my shortcomings as a writer, he’d be so keyed up, he’d ignore them. If I’d been sensible, I’d have made Larch a minor poet, but I couldn’t resist experimenting. I created a back story -”
“I wondered when we’d get to that,” Alfred said. He must have found the pipe; smoke rings drifted into the trees. “Was Laura fictional too?”
“No, she was a girl at work.”
“She inspired your best stuff.”
“I never told her. She disappeared after a few months; rumour had it she’d married one of my colleagues. He didn’t deserve her. Years later I learned she’d died. My heart went with her.”
Josh and Alfred reached for the same arm to comfort him. He pulled away, wincing.
“Did your father find out?” Josh knew the answer. It was in the tight, strained lines of the Toaster’s face.
“Can’t get anything past you, can I? One terrible day, thirty years ago. He turned up unannounced - there was a manuscript s
oaking in the sink. I’ll never forget his face. That evening he had a heart attack. He died the following week.”
“Then you began your toasts.”
“Yes. I wanted to undo the harm I had done.”
Nobody spoke. The Toaster’s conscience was purged. Josh wondered what they should do. Lying was wrong, he’d known that from his earliest moments. In the normal scheme of things he would be punished - but Alfred blew a raspberry at the normal scheme of things.
“We won’t judge you,” Alfred said. (“Says who?” “Shut up, Josh.”) “You’ve done your penance.”
The Toaster shook their hands - “Thank you, bless you -” and hurried down the path. An arthritic sound from the gate and he was gone.
“There’s gratitude for you,” Josh said. “Are we really letting him go?”
Alfred threw up his hands. “Who has he harmed? Don’t say his dad. Parents who don’t accept their kids are scum.”
“His readers. He deceived them.”
“Does it matter who wrote something as long as people enjoy it?”
“I suppose not,” Josh said doubtfully.
“You don’t get my slide rule, by the way.”
“Bother! So unrequited love can happen.”
Alfred looked down from his great height. “Don’t doubt it.”
Beginnings
Alfred was up a ladder in the hall, his arm in the grandmother clock. It had been breaking down for months. It began by striking the wrong time in falsetto; now the clockwork knights who came out and duelled had gone haywire. The idea was the heroic “western” knight should decapitate the swarthy “eastern” one - Nanny always complained how racist this was - but the Jarkan knight whizzed round and popped back inside like a hyperactive mouse.
He and Gussy used to sit on the stairs and watch the battle. She cheered on “Sir Anastasia”; he had a sneaking affection for the little Jarka. Josh liked the clock too. Sometimes they played a game of guessing which hour would strike next. He’d caught him opening the case to watch its workings. Maybe he could donate it to CER.
Hopefully that would do the trick. He adjusted the weights, stood back and closed the face. Time to see how Gwyn was getting on with her packing.
“Are you sure you want to live on campus?” he’d asked. “You get some right scrotes in halls.”
“The whole point is the experience. I’m twenty five, not eight.”
“I thought the point was another degree.”
“You know what I mean.”
To be fair he’d spent his undergrad days getting entangled with unsuitable older men; the degree had been incidental. Gussy ribbed him mercilessly about his Second. It wasn’t until his dad revealed he’d only gained a Third that he stopped feeling inferior.
A house without Gwyn. Like many topics that affected him, he struggled to articulate it. He only knew that as he saw more things disappear from her room, a treasured chapter of his life was coming to an end. Oh, they’d still go to classical concerts (his choice) and agricultural fairs (hers). They’d pick up clapped up junk and get it to work. They’d drink each other under the table, tease each other. But it wouldn’t be the same.
Why was he sitting on top of the ladder? He climbed down and kicked it away. It was only then he realised the speakertube was pealing. He picked it up. “Chimera.”
“Is Josh there?” No salutation, no niceties.
“Who is this?”
“Dr Fisk. Is Josh with you?”
“He’s well camouflaged if he is.”
“Have you seen him recently?”
“Not for a week?” No wonder he was going round the bend with boredom.
“Lady knows where he’s got to. Thank you for your time -”
“Josh is missing?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Apparently Josh had been “moodish and difficult”, asking provocative questions and refusing to wear the clothes they’d laid out for him. He’d been late for a shoot and barely spoken, answering only yes and no. He had a session with Malik but sketched throughout, putting the sheets down once the hour was up. “You’re the psychologist,” he’d said.
Alfred suppressed a smile. “What does he do in the evenings?”
“How should I know? Sometimes he goes to the pictures with Pip Profitt.”
He made a mental note to speak to Pip. “Can’t you find him another flat? He must think a bomb’s going to whistle through the window any moment.”
“You might have pots of money to splash around, but we’re not so lucky. It was a mistake to let him live alone. Clearly it’s fed his ego and made him dissatisfied -”
“Where’s this ego everyone keeps harping about? He’s completely selfless, if you ask me. It’s not unreasonable to want things humans take for granted -”
“He’s not human. I care for him, but it’s fantasy to pretend he’s anything more than a machine.”
Alfred wondered if he’d ever have a conversation with Josh’s doctors without wanting to brain himself, or them. “Josh is missing,” he reminded her.
“He was giving a tour today,” the parched voice continued. “Three hundred school children. He was in the middle of answering a question when one of the children flicked ice cream onto his scarf. I thought he was going to hit him, but he said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ He walked out before anyone could stop him.”
“Which scarf was it?”
“A gaudy silk thing with clocks on it. Far too poofy.”
“I gave him that.” Josh was very attached to his possessions - unsurprising when he had so few. “Nobody’s seen him since?”
“Pip’s tried his flat. I thought he must be with you.”
“When was this?”
“Thirteen o’clock. It’s most inconsiderate.”
She dropped out. Did CER only hire the socially inept? Perhaps they’d spent so long working with machines they’d forgotten how to interact with people.
His hand felt wet. He glanced down and saw he’d caught it on the clockwork; it was bleeding onto the carpet. Hand bandaged, he hurried upstairs and knocked on Gwyn’s door. She was lying on her bed, playing games on her powerbook.
“I wouldn’t ask normally,” he said, “but I don’t see what choice we have. Josh has wandered off. He wouldn’t come here without a message so he must still be in Lux. Could you run me down there?”
Picking up on Alfred’s anxiety, Gwyn drove faster than usual. There were complications - toll bridges, accidents, the Mayor painting out the signs - but he didn’t grumble.
You really have changed, she thought. All thanks to an insipid little robot. She liked Josh, but in an impersonal way. If she put her arms around Puss, she had a good idea what she was thinking. With Josh there was always that wall - the sense that while the wheels were grinding, nothing of value was coming out. While Alfred felt this queer devotion ...
He liked waifs and strays. If somebody was weak or friendless, he saw it as his duty to help them. Once she’d admired this impulse - another reason why she loved him more than anybody in the world. In recent years she’d grown to resent it, partly because she suspected she was another charity case. Yes, she might have a special place in his heart, but if he helped any old bugger, it wasn’t very flattering, was it?
They followed the untidy scrawl into the city centre. Lux never felt real to her; it made her think of a girl with too much makeup. She knew it best on veebox: heritage sites, the Forum in session, anything ugly tidied away. Yes, there was Jerry Etruscus, but even the handsomest face could sprout a cold sore.
Alfred called it “down town” with an eye roll and a shrug. He’d developed that knot in his neck, the frown lines on his forehead. Not everything had changed. He was still happiest amongst real fields and skies.
“You’re going the wrong way.”
“What?”
A hundred vixes were blaring. One swerved past and scratched the Mirage’s paintwork. She noted the plate. “Close your eyes,�
�� she ordered.
Alfred obeyed. She shot down several backstreets, hitting something. She didn’t look. “Are you alright?” she asked him.
“I don’t have time for headaches.” He opened his eyes. “Arcadia Row? How did we get here?”
“I know a few short cuts.” While other girls memorised song lyrics and dances, she knew every road and every service dock in Lila.
“Ever thought of becoming a fly driver?”
“Having the same conversation with tons of people? I’d go mad.”
Completely without warning, somebody stepped out in front. She braked so abruptly, she bashed her head against the control panel, Alfred against the ceiling. She caught a glimpse of silk scarf and billowing coat.
“Wasn’t that Josh?”
Alfred would never behave like normal people. He was getting out of the vix in the middle of rush hour, ignoring the sirens. “Catch you later,” he mouthed.
Great. Now she’d have to find somewhere to tether. It was hard work, having a nutter for an uncle.
Alfred didn’t notice which building it was until he came to the ticket booth. The lighting, the shoals of schoolchildren, guides dressed like skippers. Lux Aquarium. He’d come here on rainy days when his parents were visiting the capital. Nanny invented voices for each creature when he was little, making up stories about their lives under the sea.
Electric jellies. Dart fish swimming in formation. That repellent thing they claimed was a mermaid. The khala squid. Bottle noses bopping a ball between themselves. Of course there were differences. The stingers weren’t in an open top tank after several fatalities and the guides were robots with names like Emmy and Carrie. Where was the cuskor eel? He scoured the depths of its tank but it was nowhere to be seen.
“You might have a long wait.” Josh was leaning against the rails. He’d turned the scarf inside out but the pink stood out against the silk.
Alfred clapped his hand to his forehead. “You read my article.”
“Yes.” Josh wouldn’t look at him.
“Was that why you visited me in the first place?”
“Yes.”
“And why you asked those questions - Josh, I’m so sorry.”
Love and Robotics Page 15