by James Smythe
How’s your head? Beth asks.
Swimmy. I need …
Lie down, Beth says. How many pills were in the orange juice, she wonders. Five? Ten? All six packets made a pile of dust that filled half a mug, and this was a few teaspoons siphoned off and stirred in. But he’s weak anyway, she knows that. It’s been a long time.
Where are we? he asks.
In my flat.
What about our house?
I can explain it, but—
He doubles over and clutches his temples.
Jesus, this headache, he says. Jesus.
Come and lie down, Beth says. She has to support him, but it’s still easier than it was. On the bed in the Machine’s room he lies down, and in the darkness she soothes his head. She rubs her fingernail over the skin where his hairline sits, and he falls asleep. She takes the Crown and slips it onto his head. She tightens the bracing straps. I’m sorry, she says.
She presses the Machine’s screen. The vibrations and the noise, seemingly more intense again. She feels sick, and she has to hold onto the Machine as it makes her rock. She queues up the file and presses play, and on the bed Vic screams and bucks.
Oh God, he says, through the cries. Oh please. Please. Beth turns and holds him. She presses him to the bed, to try and stop him moving. Oh fuck, he says. This hurts oh my God it hurts so much.
I’m sorry, Beth says.
Oh my God. He passes out suddenly, and there’s no movement, not even a twitch. It’s sudden enough to make Beth feel for his pulse.
Do you know what makes it feel worse? the Vic on the recordings asks, his voice suddenly filling the room.
No, the Beth on the recordings says. What makes it worse?
That I can’t remember how we first met, he says. I don’t know why. It’s just a mist.
We met at a dance, the recorded Beth says.
That’s right. Okay. I think I remember now.
Beth now moves her hand to her mouth, because she doesn’t want to make any other noise. This was the part she didn’t want to hear, that she tried to pretend didn’t happen. This was her taking over the treatments, and changing the schedule to fit her timetable, not Vic’s, because she wanted a husband who was at home and normal and didn’t have gaps and patches that needed filling. This was a Beth who did three treatments a day when she should have spaced them out: three a week, they told her; a Beth who watched the bruise-burns appear on his temples each day with more speed, and then stay there; a Beth who was convinced that this was the solution.
Who sat in the clinic with Vic, in a room where they couldn’t see the Machine, and plugged him in and let it run and run.
They trusted the patients to do this at their own pace – there’s no right or wrong, the doctors told them, and that was their failing right there, that’s when they sealed their fate and condemned all these people: in not locking it down – and Beth was well aware that she was abusing it. How many of these recordings are there? Of her gently leading Vic down corridors to find patches, and then letting the Machine make of those patches what it did? Trusting in it – behind a wall, not even just a curtain, but something that they couldn’t see but could definitely hear, the continual churning behind and above them – and letting it do what she should have done herself?
She wants to turn the volume down, but here they are: herself and the man that she first created, as they go through the process. As she hears herself pushing him.
I don’t know, the Vic on the recording says, by way of an answer to a question.
Yes you do, the Beth says. Try and remember. You do know.
Okay, he says. Jesus, my head hurts.
Don’t stop now, the Beth says.
On the bed, Vic starts his bucking again, awake, his mouth suddenly frothing. Beth pins him down as much as she can.
I’m sorry, Beth says.
36
On the forums, the person who built the Machine’s new firmware used a construction analogy.
Before, the post said, it was like you were building extra floors to a building, like a block of flats, when there wasn’t the structure for it. You weren’t supporting it with pillars and scaffolding, just putting it on the top and hoping for the best. And then, at the same time, you’re pulling out the bottom floors in big chunks. You’re taking out the basement and the lower levels, taking out the foundations, and you’re leaving the whole thing unbalanced. They – the doctors – didn’t think about that. So, what happened next? I apologize, because maybe the analogy is crude, but the whole thing collapsed, and the building that you were adding to was destroyed. Not just the new parts, but all the parts, the older parts as well. Might as well have been flattened. Now what you’re going to do is build something new on the ground. The building-up part, that’s not what made it collapse. It was the removing of the foundations. That’s why this is safe, perfectly safe, for them. No danger for them, and no danger for you.
Beth tells herself to remember that post as she clings to Vic, who she’s not given a break, because they’re into this now. Soon he’ll be strong enough to refuse the treatments, to maybe even run away – and that’s a real worry for Beth – so her window has grown smaller. She gave him chalky water this morning, far chalkier than the orange juice even, and not long after drinking it his eyes rolled, but he’s still awake, so she has to hold his arms to his side as much as she can. She can’t be sure but she thinks that he’s pissed himself, because he’s so damp, but his whole body is glistening with sweat, so it could just be that. And the Machine is making this so much worse: the noise is incredible, inside her head, intensifying her headache. Every part of them, every part of the room seems to shake, and when there’s respite – in the pause between audio files, and as the Machine rests briefly in between sending whatever it’s sending down the Crown’s umbilicus to Vic’s head – Beth feels sick, and clutches at her head, and even takes the tablet powder herself, poured into a bottle of water and necked back.
This is torture, she thinks to herself. She doesn’t know how long she can keep it up. The day moves by and the night comes, and she wants to sleep but that’s pointless now, because she’s so close. In his gasps of consciousness he begs, and he’s her Vic again.
Tell me how you feel? she asks on the recording.
I feel incomplete, he says.
How do you feel, she asks him now, as his eyes snap open, and he vomits and definitely pisses himself this time, so she forces more water into his mouth to wash the taste away and keep up his fluids. It might be chalky but that’s better than nothing.
He tries to answer her but nothing comes out. Still, she can see it in his eyes: who he really is now. How much of him is Vic again.
I love you, she hears him say, but then it’s gone, swallowed by the noise of the Machine and the noise of his thrashing as a new session is firmly underway, and she doesn’t know if that was the voice of him now, or from the recordings made long ago when she destroyed him.
PART THREE
Memory is the space in which a thing happens for the second time.
Paul Auster, The Invention Of Solitude
37
I told you about that boy, didn’t I? Beth asks Vic as he sits down next to her at the table.
I’m still aching, he says.
But I told you? What he was like?
You told me. You used the c-word.
Well, he is.
I don’t know what you want me to do about it, he says.
I don’t either, she says. I’m just saying, before we go.
He’s a kid. I’m not going to hit him.
Okay. I don’t know how old he is. She pushes her fried breakfast around the plate. She isn’t really hungry. It’s been three days since she had him back, and she’s barely slept, and hardly eaten. She tries to act as if this is normal, because she’s sure that it will be. Any second now. Vic has eaten his. He used his fork only, and he cut the egg and sausage up with its edge, and scraped them along the plate as he did it: and th
en, when he was done, pushed the plate away from him. Only an inch, but.
The Machine sits switched off, but still that means nothing to it. The noise has dropped to low-level, admittedly, but it’s still there. Even though it’s unplugged, and declared on its screen in big bold letters, COMPLETE. On the forums it says that when that message appears, you’re to stop. After that you’re pushing your luck. Beth doesn’t want to do that again.
But now this is a fine line, because Vic remembers everything. He saw the Machine and opened his eyes and asked Beth if she had gone through with it, then.
We decided that I wasn’t well enough, he said.
We did. Together.
Beth watches him in the bedroom as he dresses. He poses in front of the mirrors in the way that he always used to. Putting underwear on first and then standing and breathing in, like it was the most natural thing in the world to constantly watch the way that your body rose and fell. He dresses and tells Beth that he wants to go for a run.
Too much energy in me, he says. I’ll be back soon. Everything about his body is taut and lean. His shoulders, through his t-shirt. And the clothes that he wore five, ten years ago, exactly as they were back then. The films and bands that he liked then, which of course he still likes now, because he knows nothing else. But then, Beth thinks, she’s not exactly experimented herself: here, trapped with her possessions and her life.
Vic stops at the mirror by the front door. Will these ever disappear? he asks, rubbing at the temple bruises.
I don’t know, Beth says. On some people they do.
How long have I had them?
Years, Beth says.
Then I should grow my hair. Cover them up. People will know if I don’t, won’t they.
Maybe.
I’ll grow my hair. He walks back over to her and bends down and kisses her on the lips, his lips parting, the dart of his tongue that way he used to, wetting her. A prelude. I forgive you, he says to her as he pulls back. For everything you’ve done. And then he turns and he’s out the door. Beth follows him slowly. She watches him: down the stairwell, through the courtyard, each of his steps the same size as maybe two of hers, almost bounding, and then he hits the road running and then he’s a flash in the distance. White and grey of his tracksuit. Beth draws her gaze back to the flats, and to the ones across the way. Where she had seen the boy. She doesn’t know which flat might be his, because she rarely sees anybody coming or going from them. And he belongs to parents, surely, because he can’t be old enough to be living alone.
She waits, in case he appears. Now that Vic’s back, he’s the perfect deterrent. See how large and imposing and army my husband is? And everything that you said to me, the threats, how scared you left me. Would you fuck with him? He doesn’t appear, but there’s a breeze which makes the waiting better. She shuts her eyes for a second. She still needs to catch up on her sleep, because it’s so hard to drift off with this new body next to her: all of his weight and warmth, and the sound that he makes as he sleeps. He’s so silent that you think he’s stopped breathing, and then there’ll be occasional gasps of air into his lungs, and his entire body seems to convulse with the action of taking it in. When she opens her eyes she expects the boy to be there – the villain of a horror movie, sneaking up on her while her eyes are shut, weapon in hand – but there’s nothing: only the cats below, wandering from the Grasslands at the back, mewling for Beth to drop them some food.
She takes a can of tuna and peels the lid back before emptying the contents down onto the courtyard. The cats smell the fish and pounce, all of them, and there’s two at the front, eating most of the tuna, before one of them just seems to know when to back off, and leaves the other to a feast. It stays there, long after the tuna is done: nearly out of view, close to the side of the building. Beth watches it standing there until Vic returns, dripping with sweat.
How can you run in this heat? she asks.
It’s good. I’ve run in hotter, he says. You know what it’s like, running in Iran, sack on your back, in full gear? Boots and everything? You get used to heat.
I know, Beth says.
What can I eat?
We’ve already had breakfast, Beth says. She thinks about the remains of hers lying in the bin. Maybe the cats would eat that?
Right, but I’m still hungry.
I’ll make you something in a minute.
I’m going to shower. Can you turn it on for me while I get undressed?
Beth flicks the switch and checks that the water is cold enough, and then stands back. Vic climbs into the bath, all rippling muscles and memory of youth, and then lets the shower wash over him as Beth watches the steam rise from his flesh.
38
Beth still doesn’t sleep, even as he does. She lies next to his body and watches the ebb of it. She tries to match his breathing: to draw her own breaths in as Vic takes his, so that there’s some synchronicity, and the noise – which is so alien, more alien even than the distant hum of the Machine from the adjacent room – might somehow fade into a background of her own creation. She counts his breaths, which are naturally slower than hers.
That’s the thing about sleep, she thinks: the body slows down. In sleep, it quietens to an energy-saving crawl. In danger, it becomes hyper-energetic, surging with adrenaline. She wonders what her own body is doing: lying in bed, constantly on the verge of consciousness. If the rest she’s getting is worth anything at all. She counts his breaths to five hundred, and then starts counting down. She makes it nearly halfway before stopping.
At 4 a.m., according to the clock, she gets up and paces the kitchen. She opens the fridge – such a simple pleasure, that burst of cold – and drinks water, then uses the toilet before putting the television on and watching the news. The shallow news cycle in the middle of the night, the same fifteen-minute segments repeated with tweaks, as the stories roll in, and the scrolling texts at the foot of the screen giving real-time updates, suggesting that the newsreaders aren’t even broadcasting live. Beth wonders if they’re asleep as well: tucked under the desks, waiting until a real emergency springs up. She tries sleeping on the sofa but she can’t even begin to shut her eyes. The alarm clocks are all off, because she reasons that Vic needs the sleep. He’s not used to this, she thinks, and that makes her laugh; because what exactly is he used to? He’s used to being nothing, she thinks. He’s used to being a void.
It’s a bad thought, and one that she banishes. She tells herself that she has to remember that he’s here now. She wanted her husband back and here he is. He’s mostly-formed and tweaked and as close to perfect as she can reasonably expect. And he’ll get better. That’s what they say on the forums:
Remember: this is just the start.
The news flicks to a story about the economy, and she realizes all of a sudden how out of touch she is: how little she knows about the state of everything. Outside her flat, everything is carrying on, motoring forward. Inside, it’s just her and Vic and the Machine.
She opens the spare-bedroom door. She’s told Vic that they don’t need it any more. She’s been honest about what happened; about why it’s here.
I bought it so that we could make you better, she said.
Okay, he told her. He didn’t ask anything more than that. He only said, a few hours later, I don’t like it here.
What? she asked.
The Machine. In that room.
Okay, she told him.
Don’t you trust that I’m better?
Of course, she said.
So why do you still have it?
I’ll sell it, she told him. I’ll put it on the forums and sell it. Somebody else will want it, you know. Easy sale. And we can use the money. She blabbered excuses to him, to make him feel better. Now she looks at it, growling at her. Or maybe like a purr. Such a fine line between the two.
I should thank you, she tells it. You gave him back to me. She calls up the screen with her touch, a single stroke of her fingers, and it lights up. She’s left the room
light off, and the screen casts its own colours: blue on the far wall, green on the ceiling, white everywhere else. And some black: black light, which she didn’t even know was possible, making parts of the room – corners, nooks – darker than they were even without the screen on. She flicks to the recordings, selects one and presses play. She acts like it’s an accidental choice, but it isn’t. She knows which one.
I know how this goes, Vic’s voice says. What do you want me to talk about, Robert?
I’d like you to tell me your name, like always, the doctor says.
Victor McAdams. He sounds so nervous. Now, in the present day, she can hear the confidence in his voice. That’s what the Machine has embedded of itself: the confidence that this is right. That he is who he is.
Tell me some other things about yourself, Victor. Where do you live, for example?
London.
Oh, whereabouts?
Ealing. Beth remembers their house. Their beautiful house, and their brutal mortgage, and their struggling to keep it. Another life entirely.
Okay. Are you married?
Yeah, Beth. He sounds so happy when he says her name. As if she’s the thing getting him through this, she thinks. That’s what she would like it to be: that she’s what got him through the early days. He did this for her, and their marriage. They spoke about kids. About being old. Elizabeth, Beth, Vic repeats, like he’s trying the names on. The reassurance of repetition. At this point, he still remembered everything. He knew what the Machine was going to do. He repeated her name, Beth thinks, so that he could cling onto it. This is something he never wants to lose, because they were meant to be together.
Beth stops the recording. Maybe she could sleep here, she thinks. On this bed. She peels back the duvet and heaps it on the floor, and she lies down on the sheet that’s been washed countless times since Vic came home to her. Even now it smells of him, of his skin and his sweat. Something about the Machine’s noise is comforting to her. And that makes her uneasy, because it scares her – and she’s right to be scared, she tells herself, something so powerful and confusing right there, with the power that it has. It’s rumbling. Like those planes overhead, when she was a child, and the trains at the bottom of the garden. She shuts her eyes. The smell of the pillows is stale sweat, but again, that means something. In this heat, it’s a smell she’s used to. Nothing off-putting about it.