The Assistant

by S. K. Tremayne

  Hmm. There are a few examples of Electra and her friends behaving unexpectedly, or even peculiarly: but nothing anywhere as specific, and menacing, as what is happening to me, so directly, so intimately: as if Electra can see deep into my head, like there is something uncanny in those dark machines, an inhuman knowledge. Making me spooked, in my own home.

  Not knowing what else to do, I helplessly pick up my phone: a reflex reaction. Then I stare at the screen, bewildered: the phone says I have twenty missed calls. From my mother. In the last hour.

  My phone has been on the whole time. It is not on mute. Yet I missed them all.

  Twenty?

  5

  Janet

  Janet Ferguson was calling for her dog to come in from the cold.

  ‘Cindy, come on, it’s freezing. You’ll die out there.’ Janet gazed across the frosted grass of her back garden. Where was she? It was hardly a vast, stately acreage of meadows. This was a suburban back garden, darkened by winter, just large enough for a small family: attached to a house designed for a small family. Indeed, now that this small family was gone, and Robert was long dead, and Jo and Will had grown up, Janet had often thought of selling. Moving somewhere else entirely, a one-bedroom flat somewhere central, or out of London altogether.

  Thornton Heath depressed her these days, with its tatty signs, and faded cafes, the sudden outcrop of Polish, Romanian, Somalian, Bulgarian shops where she didn’t understand the food, the accents, the people, much as she smilingly tried to fit in. It was an outlying suburb of London that never quite made it, never got gentrified, never got fashionable attention, yet never got quite so rundown the government was prepared to spend money.

  It was time, surely, for Janet to make the same move as her friends and neighbours. Yes she would lose the much-loved garden with all its memories. And so be it. Cindy would have to put up with it. Restrictions. Life was all about increasing restrictions. Janet put up with her pacemaker, and monthly visits to the hospital, because that’s simply what you did. Life slowly constricted around you, like a snake that would ultimately kill you. And one day you went into a hospital, and you never came out.

  Like Robert. Dead at his own hand, in his early forties.

  She remembered the lingerie he’d stuffed in the car exhaust, so he could fill the car with carbon monoxide.

  ‘Cindy!’

  Janet could hear the dog. Right at the end of the foggy, white-frosted garden, probably digging up some old bones, or boots. The radio was calling it the coldest start to January in decades, and likely to get worse. Janet remembered when she was young, the bitter winter of 1963, when it was like this: it kept getting colder and snowier – on and on until March.

  But Cindy, it seemed, was determined to have her fun, whatever the weather. And now Janet’s phone was ringing, and vibrating, on the sink.

  Closing the kitchen door, Janet reached for her mobile.

  ‘This is Janet Ferguson.’

  ‘Mum. What the hell is wrong?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Her daughter’s voice was urgent.

  ‘Twenty calls. What’s the matter, Mum? Are you all right? You called me twenty times?’

  Janet frowned, puzzled.

  ‘No, dear. I never called you. Not once.’

  ‘But my phone says you did!’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that.’

  ‘Twenty times, Mum. It says it right here. Missed calls. Twenty! I was worried about you!’

  Unsure what to say, Janet gazed out at the garden. Cindy was chasing a football. A very old, half-burst, dog-chewed football, muddy and mouldy in the murk. Janet remembered Jo and Will playing with it, alongside their father. That long ago. Oh, too long ago. All dead now, that old life was all dead. Where did it go?

  She returned to her daughter, and this stilted conversation.

  ‘Look, darling, it’s nice you’re worried, but I am fine and I’m not going to suddenly call you twenty times in one morning, for no discernible reason.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I mean, Jo: we speak about once a week, when you remember to ring me? Not twenty times a day.’

  It was a tiny barb, but it was designed to sting. Judging by her daughter’s pause, it had done the job. The silence was long enough to be properly awkward. Janet felt obliged to fill it.

  ‘Isn’t is possible, darling, that your smartphone is playing up? I don’t know why you have those things, dear. Cameras, music, notebook, all in one little machine – what if you lose it? It’s your whole life.’

  ‘Everyone has them, Mum. Look, Mum, are you sure you didn’t call me?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘OK, sorry, Mum. I just, I don’t … Ah. Ah. Perhaps my phone is on the blink. Like everything else in this place.’

  Janet shrugged, not knowing how to respond. She opened the kitchen door to let the dog come in, shivering snowflakes. As she bent to pat the damp dog, she looked at the kitchen shelf and the framed pictures of her two children, and her lovely grandson Caleb. Then Jo at her graduation. Smiling and confident. The old Jo.

  There was something different in her daughter’s attitude this afternoon. Jo was normally so outgoing, can-do, optimistic. Today she sounded vulnerable. Needy. Agitated.

  ‘Jo … are you all right?’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘You sound nervous. Are you OK up there, the new flat, Tabitha, everything?’

  ‘Yes, yes of course, why yes, I’m fine. Fine. Absolutely fine. We’re all fine.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes! The flat is gorgeous, I love Camden, it’s got a brilliant buzz. The park is around the corner. I can walk to Soho. It’s much better than NW Tundra.’

  The answer came far too quickly. Something was definitely wrong.

  ‘Well, that’s good, that’s nice for you … Hey. You know I got a visit from Simon the other day?’

  Another stiff pause. Janet could picture her daughter’s surprised face.

  ‘Simon? My Si? Simon Todd?’

  ‘Yes, dear. He does come and visit, sometimes he brings Polly and the baby, so I can see little Grace.’

  Her daughter said nothing, Janet sensed a pang of envy, down the line. She hurried on,

  ‘I mean, his own family still lives down this way, you do remember that? His mum and dad? The Todds around the corner on Lesley Avenue? They’re practically the last people I know from – from the old times. And we’re still friendly, so he pops by.’

  ‘You mean … my ex-husband is secretly visiting you?’

  Janet felt her impatience rising at this.

  ‘Goodness! It’s not some dark secret, Jo. I always liked Simon, we always got on well. He was a decent husband to you. You know I think that. I always thought that. In fact, I wondered …’

  ‘Whether things would have been different if we’d had kids? Yes, I know, Mum.’ The sharpness in Jo’s voice was undisguised. ‘You’ve told me several thousand times. Well, I decided not to. And now he’s got one with Polly, so that’s fine, isn’t it? Perhaps you could adopt her as your grand-daughter, since I’m probably not going to give you one, and little Caleb is on the other side of the world.’

  This time the barbs stung the mother. Jo was clearly envious, and she was clearly hurting.

  Janet sighed, heavily.

  Jo got in first.

  ‘Oh God. Look. Sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped. Sorry, Mum. I’m so sorry! It’s nice that Simon comes to see you, and Polly, and Grace, and everything, that’s nice of him, I should come more often myself.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I know it’s a long way.’

  ‘No, it’s not good enough, Mum, I am sorry, I promise I will come over, at the weekend.’

  Janet’s witty, bouncy daughter sounded as deflated as that ancient football in the frozen garden. Feeling emboldened, by her concern, Janet decided to reach out.

  ‘Do you mind my asking something?’

  A pause.

  ‘Go ahead, Mum.’

  ‘Why
didn’t you want children, Jo? Simon was so keen to be a dad, he told me that many times, and he was devoted to you. And I know this led to your divorce, at least in part.’

  ‘We talked about this; I’d have been a crap mum.’

  ‘Was it only that, dear?’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Well, last time he was here, we got talking about kids, and Simon hinted that you had worries, about … About …’

  It was so difficult to find the right words. Stiffening herself, like the frosted spears of long grass at the end of her garden, Janet carried on: ‘Well, Simon told me you were worried about your father. That any children you had might inherit those genes. Late-onset schizophrenia. Like Robert. He said you were sometimes worried that your kids might get it, or that you might get it and leave your kids without a mother. But you shouldn’t—’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘You mustn’t, dear. You mustn’t let that fear dominate your life. It’s not going to happen. When poor Robert went … you know …’

  ‘Mad? When Dad went mad?’

  ‘Yes, when your poor father went mad, the doctors looked into all this: there is no history of it on any side of his family, no suggestion of a genetic cause. He was unlucky, that’s all.’

  Jo answered, her tone calm. Even cold.

  ‘Eighty per cent of schizophrenia is linked to genetic causes.’

  ‘Yes, but not in his case!’

  Janet realized she was raising her voice. She rarely did this with Jo. What was happening between them? She couldn’t remember a mother–daughter phone call as awkward as this, not for a while, not since the divorce. She loved her daughter. She and Jo had a good, honest relationship, even if she sometimes felt a bit neglected. At least Jo did ring, once a week; Will rang once a month, at most. Five minutes of small talk from LA, telling her about Caleb, and that’s your lot.

  ‘Jo, you sound strained.’

  ‘I told you, I’m fine, Mum. Just worried about stuff. Sometimes.’

  ‘Stuff?’ Janet persisted. ‘What kind of stuff?’

  ‘Just, y’know, stuff. The existential pointlessness of life. The eventual heat death of the universe. Reality TV.’

  Janet allowed herself a chuckle. This was more like the usual Jo. She sighed with relief.

  ‘OK, well, if you’re sure you’re all right. Do come down at the weekend. We could have a spot of lunch?’

  ‘I will, Mum. I am genuinely sorry I snapped. And I suppose I have been a bit stressed. I keep trying to write these scripts, find a way out, but it’s hard. I’ll end up paying rent for ever.’

  ‘Ah. I wish I could help, Jo. I wish I had bought this house when we had the chance. Then at least you’d have something to inherit, but when Robert—’

  ‘It’s OK, Mum. It wasn’t your fault. Ah. Anyhow, I’ve got to go, got to go. OK. Bye, Mum.’

  Her daughter sounded distracted. As though someone unexpected had walked into her flat.

  Janet said goodbye. They ended the clumsy call. Janet put the phone down on the kitchen table. She stared at those photos on the kitchen shelf. Jo and Will. Next to them stood Robert, as a young man. Mid-thirties. Handsome. Jo and Will certainly got their good looks from him, not from herself. In the photo, Robert was smiling. Entirely sane. Here in the next photo he was in the living room, sitting on the floor with Jo and her childhood friends: Billy, Ella, Jenny, Neil, teaching them all to draw and write and paint. Paper and crayons everywhere, a happy childhood mess. Probably this was about a year before the serious symptoms.

  Even now the memories grieved her. Tremendously. The slow remorseless damage his insanity inflicted on their lives, which eventually drove Robert to gas himself in the family car.

  Janet could remember the specific day – the specific moment – when she first realized something was truly wrong. When she could no longer deny, or ignore, or pretend he was only a bit eccentric, or stressed.

  It was so long ago – several decades – yet the memory was vivid.

  She had walked from this kitchen into the living room to watch the evening news. Robert was sitting on the sofa, staring at the TV screen. The screen was black, because the TV was unplugged. Yet they never unplugged the TV. She went to plug it in but as she bent down, he shouted, ‘No, no, don’t do that, Janet! Don’t plug it in! Don’t plug it in!’

  Perplexed, she had sat down next to him and asked. ‘Why not? Why can’t I plug it in?’

  ‘Because it’s talking to me,’ he said, frowning deeply, ‘the television is talking to me.’

  6

  Jo

  The Flask, Highgate. Of course, that’s where we’d go to celebrate Tabitha’s return from Brazil. A quaint, wooden, stained, rickety, middle-class, roaring-fire-and-mulled-wine kind of pub in the nicest part of Highgate, and, it so happens, approximately two and a half minutes’ walk from Arlo’s gorgeous eighteenth-century house with the Damien Hirst spot paintings in the hall. He reserves the best art for his living room, or drawing room, or ballroom, or seventeen-hectare underground sculpture garden, God knows. I’ve only been invited to Arlo’s house once, saw little more than a kitchen as big as my mum’s entire home, and even then I think Arlo would have preferred me to enter by the tradesman’s entrance, or some special tunnel for proletarians.

  Traitor’s Gate.

  And now I’m in Arlo’s local pub, standing alone. I am several minutes too early. I was so keen to get out of the flat. In case the Assistants turned on me again. If they are turning on me, and it’s not me doing it to myself.

  Don’t think about it.

  As I wait for everyone else to arrive, I stare at some luridly antique prints on the panelled pub wall. They show famous executions in the area, men hanging from gibbets, cheering crowds. One of the hangings seems to be taking place on top of Primrose Hill. Three men are dangling in a row, barefoot and dancing, grasping at the noose, obviously dying. The engraver has gone to great lengths to get the details of the throttled faces right: the boggling eyes, the protruding tongues, the gruesomely happy, popcorn-munching reactions of the audience.

  My research hasn’t told me this. Primrose Hill was a place of execution? The dying, horrified face of the man on the left, apparently biting his own tongue off, as he is slowly asphyxiated, stares directly at me. Right at me. Like it knows. He knows. Who knows?

  I am not my father.

  Am I? I remember my dad before he lost himself: he was extrovert, full of humour. A frustrated artist who ended up imprisoned in minor accountancy: so he lived, and found joy, through his family. Dad was always ready to have fun, to make me laugh, to chase me round the apple tree pretending he couldn’t catch me. I called him the Ticklemonster and he called me Jo the Go because I could run so fast. He liked to play with words, he liked to play with life. So perhaps I take after him rather than my cautious, conservative mother. Which says?

  My anxious, fumbling thoughts – ready to plunge into something worse – are interrupted.

  Arlo is at the bar. He gazes at me, blankly confident, arrogantly possessive. I am in his bar. His local. To celebrate the return of my friend, my flatmate. Why did we have to come here?

  Because he’s Arlo Scudamore. He is in control. I think he also controls Tabitha. He knows I think that. He also doesn’t apparently care what I think, whether I am hurt or happy, as he is still so bitter about my critical article on the tech giants, where I quoted him as a source supposedly without his permission. He did give permission, he simply didn’t like what I wrote. He claims the article stymied his previously meteoric career. God, I hate his stupid posh-yet-hipster accent. He thinks I’m common? Fuck him. Simon once described Arlo as ‘psychotically ambitious’ and I’ve never forgotten that: it was so accurate.

  Stepping around the bar, I say,

  ‘Hello, Arlo! Lovely to see you.’ And give him a quick double non-kiss air-kiss.

  ‘Ah, Jo. Hello, so glaaaad you could make it!’

  He returns the duo of non-kisses. I had no idea socia
l greetings could be this insincere.

  ‘Where’s Tabs?’

  ‘Vaping outside, swathed in perpetual smoke like some hydrothermal vent.’

  Who, or what, is a hydrothermal vent? I have no idea. He probably said it to make me feel insecure. So we are stuck, in a corner of the Flask. Just me and him and rows of glittery obscure new artisanal gins on the mirrored shelves behind the bar, and the deeply sinister prints of the local executions on the wall, and a lovely roaring woodfire in the mighty hearth. Waiting for everyone else to arrive.

  ‘Everything OK at, uh, work? Facebook?’

  This is probably the most irritating thing I could ask him. Which is possibly why I ask it. He does the same to me all the time. Needling Arlo at least takes my mind off my own deepening vortex of worries.

  ‘Work? Oh, superb. I’ll be leaving in a week or two. For the start-up.’ His smile is so icy it could kill wintering songbirds at twenty metres. ‘Ah!’ The smile becomes brighter, warmer, even real. ‘Here’s Jeremy. Lex! Rollo.’

  Rollo.

  Rollo.

  Arlo has an extraordinary number of posh, pink-faced friends with names that end in O. Hugo. Rollo. Theo. Rocco. Orlando. Otto. I think Otto is a ‘Von’ as well. They are all stupidly rich. Dutch bazillionaires. French bankers. Film directors. Venture capitalists investing in Arlo’s Big New Thing, which is all to do with Artificial Intelligence and FinTech, and other stuff I Officially Cannot Understand. I know some of these guys by sight, but they barely know me. I am clearly only here because of Tabitha. If I am lucky, one or two university friends that me and Tabs share might show up, diluting my social isolation.

  But as I have recently confirmed, to my own dismay, most of my friends now live out of town.

  ‘Jo!!’

  Ah. A slender blonde girl tucking a vape in her chic denim jacket is smiling, broadly, my way.

  ‘Jo! Darleenk!’

  She does a heavy, fake, theatrical German accent when she’s in a good mood.

  ‘Heyyy, Tabs! You didn’t get eaten by jaguars!’

  My friend skips towards me and gives me a big big hug and a kiss where her lips actually touch my skin. I realize, with a hidden but painful cramping sensation, how much I’ve missed physical interaction. No one has touched me in days, let alone hugged or kissed me.