Why such madness? They called it patriotism. England for the English! John Bull bread at John Bull prices. The truth was other; the Corn Laws are for the benefit of fat gentleman farmers in England, at patriotic liberty to charge what they like for their corn. Thus they maintain their fortunes by starving women and children and by ruining working men. Such is that which we call government in England.
Well said, my love! said Shelley, heartened to see something of my natural sensibility appear before him. And it is true that I sat up in bed.
But what has happened to provoke this violence? I asked.
He came and sat on the edge of the bed.
He said, A meeting was called of the men and women of Lancashire to hear the radical orator Henry Hunt speak to them. The demands were to repeal the Corn Laws, so that honest men and women might eat as well as work, and to petition for an end to rigged parliaments, where MPs are elected out of the favouritism of the gentry and the aristocracy. The great manufactory towns and cities have no true representation.
That is correct, I said, for the wealth of England is shifting from the land to the towns, and yet these swelling numbers in the manufactories have no voice of their own, and none to speak on their behalf.
Indeed, indeed! said Shelley. It says so here, exactly that, in the newspaper. And according to the reports here (he held up the paper, for the print is small, and his eyes are weak), the meeting saw a great crowd – upwards of 100,000!
100,000! I said.
Yes, yes, he replied, and by all accounts sober and neatly dressed and orderly.
Then what was the provocation? I said.
Ah, well, said Shelley, instead of recognising the force of the protest, the magistrates sent in militias and, worse still, the dragoons on horseback with sabres, to break up what they called ‘the mob’, though all reports say the protestors were as calm as a church service.
This is wickedness, I said. And not wickedness of the people.
Shelley examined the newspaper: fifteen or twenty people were killed. Hundreds injured. It would appear that the dragoons particularly ran at the women.
Brave men! I said.
Shelley said, There has been a great outcry against the treatment of the protestors. The government is blaming them, and taking no responsibility for the actions of the Manchester magistrates, or for their own actions, that have led to this protest. Yet the outcry cannot be quieted. The very stones cry out!
Is it the beginning of revolution in England? I said.
I do not know, said Shelley. We shall have more news.
Would that my mother had seen this, I said. She would have travelled to Manchester.
We could return to England, said Shelley. To join our force to the protest.
I am pregnant, I said.
He took my hand. I know …
And then he said, Please come back to me, Mary. You are the soul of my Soul.
I held his hand, so pale and thin and long. That hand on my body, that hand in my hair, that hand feeding me cheese (my craving when I am with child), that hand writing out poems. His hand with the ring on his finger that tells the world he is my husband.
I have not left you, I said. (But it is not true.)
We can go to Florence, he said. Begin again.
We are always beginning again, I said. And do we leave a dead child behind in every place?
He jumped off the bed, covering his face, pacing to the window. He threw back the shutters. The light seemed to shine through him, spirit that he is.
Stop it, Mary! I implore you! Get up. Wash your face. Write! Write!
He strode back to me, took both my hands in his, and kneeled by the bed. My love, let us go to Florence. Our new baby will be born there.
In winter, I said.
In winter, he repeated. (Pausing, pausing.)
Then he said, If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
All those things we did. I rose. I had the servants soak the bedding in salt water. I bathed. I sat at my desk with a jug of wine and I inked my pen.
Frankenstein was published last year in England, and has had some success. It may live on. The strange part is that his face is in my dreams too. Victor. The Victor with no victory. Was it a coincidence that I wrote only of loss and failure?
I have been with Shelley for five years. During four of those years my children – surely the fruit of our life together – have been born and died. Is it punishment, after all, for the way we have lived? Outsiders and strangers.
My mother was not afraid to be an outsider. Yet she longed for love.
I have love, but I cannot find love’s meaning in this world of death. Would there were no babies, no bodies; only minds to contemplate beauty and truth. If we were not bound to our bodies we should not suffer so. Shelley says that he wishes he could imprint his soul on a rock, or a cloud, or some non-human form, and when we were young I felt despair that his body would disappear, even though he remained. But now all I see is the fragility of bodies; these caravans of tissue and bone.
At Peterloo, if every man could have sent his mind and left his body at home, there could have been no massacre. We cannot hurt what is not there.
Imagine if there was no ‘there’ there? If we were the pure spirit of eternity, not bound to the wheels of death or time?
What if my Willmouse had been a spirit, able to put his body on and off as he pleased? No infection could have taken him. Our bodies could be like suits of clothes, while our minds run free. Where, then, would death find a home, if not in us? In my dreams my children call to me to come with them, just one turn more down the dark corridor. And I would go but for this life I carry.
A little patience, and all will be over.
My mother’s last words upon her deathbed.
In Florence we lodge in a fine house. Shelley is reading The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, by Clarendon, and Plato’s Republic. He is eager for a Republic of England. He never gives up his optimism – and I once shared it – now it seems to be that in the battle between good and evil, evil wins. Even our best endeavours turn against us. A loom that can do the work of eight men should free eight men from servitude. Instead, seven skilled men are put out of work to starve with their families, and one skilled man becomes the unskilled minder of the mechanical loom. What is the point of progress if it benefits the few while the many suffer?
I said this to Shelley as he read aloud, and frankly there is a limit to being read aloud to, especially when there is no wine in the house. The servant let the flagon fall off the donkey. Or she stole it.
I said to my husband, The many or the few?
He looked up. He ceased to read aloud. Mary! You have held me there. I am writing a poem about Peterloo. A poem of revolution and liberty and I want it read to men and women everywhere who are brave enough to demand freedom.
Have we got any cheese? I said.
My poem is called The Masque of Anarchy, said Shelley. Do you know what I read about myself in the library today? In the Quarterly Review? They had it just in from England. I was sitting in the English section, near that large woman with small eyes who goes to church every day and stares at us in the market. She was reading the Review also …
Mr Shelley would abolish the rights of property. He would overthrow the constitution … no army, no navy, he would pull down our churches, level our Establishment, marriage he cannot endure, and there would be a lamented increase of adulterous connections …
He recited from memory his list of misdemeanours. Finally he exclaimed, I would never pull down a church! I adore churches. It is what happens inside them that I detest.
Read to me your poem, instead of this recital of fear and envy from others, I said.
My poem is not ready, he said, but you have given me my best lines! Oh, Mary, do you remember, for I remember it, like a dog who scratches in despair on the door of an abandoned house where his master once lived, do you remember that summer in Geneva, when we worked together
? You had begun writing Frankenstein, and oft we talked late into the night. Oft, I read to you from a new poem. We were happy.
Willmouse was alive, I said dreamily (for I did remember; how could I forget?).
Were we different then? he said. Are we those people?
He raised himself from his armchair and kissed my forehead.
Read to me, I said.
And so he began to read The Masque of Anarchy. And I listened to his voice going in and out like the sea, and I wondered, what will become of the human dream? Will we see it end in pain and despair? Will we be free from the brutality of this life? By some artful intelligence find a better way?
‘Let the horsemen’s scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.
‘Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of an unvanquished war…
Shelley paused, writing with his pencil. I am putting in your lines, he said, modified to my purpose. This will be the final stanza.
‘Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.’
We are many, he said. Many Shelleys, many Marys. Many stand behind us tonight in spirit, and we shall do the same when we are done here. The body that must fail and fall is not the end of the human dream.
The human dream …
The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
Emily Dickinson
The steel box stood on the steel table.
Talking Heads! said Ron. I love that band. True Stories! Fantastic album. Did you see the movie? That fat guy who comes on singing ‘I’m wearing fur pyjamas’. That’s me.
There have been a number of talking heads in history, said Victor. That is, in the history of the human imagination. One of the strangest is attributed to the natural philosopher and part-time alchemist Roger Bacon. In the late 1200s, it seems he made a bronze head that could speak.
What did it say?
Very little: Time Is. Time Was. Time is Past. Then it exploded.
Time wasted, if you ask me, said Ron. My girls can talk a lot better than that – and they’ve got the health-and-safety Kitemark. Don’t want your dick blown to bits, do you?
RON! said Claire. What did we agree about coarse and crude language?
Sorry, Claire, said Ron, contrite. Prof, I didn’t introduce you yet – this is Claire, my new business partner and the love of my life. Claire, this is Professor Stein. He’s a genius.
Thank you, Ron.
I’m putting a new bot into production called the Christian Companion. Claire has already emailed every evangelical church in the USA. We’ve had a fantastic response, haven’t we, Claire?
Yes, we have! said Claire. The narrow road can be a lonely life. Jesus himself had his Mary Magdalene.
Didn’t they have loads of children when they ran away to France? The Jesus and Mary Chain? Like in The Da Vinci Code? said Ron.
Theirs was a pure union, said Claire. Don’t believe everything you read in Dan Brown.
Nice idea though, said Ron. Better than dying on the cross.
RON!
I mean, from Jesus’s point of view …
Jesus died for our sins, Ron.
I know he did, Claire. I hear you. I’m just sorry he didn’t make it to France.
Victor said, There are some theologians – as well as Dan Brown – who believe that Jesus had another life – a life that included children.
Jesus never, ever had sex, said Claire.
Are you sure? said Victor.
Positive, said Claire.
But Claire, said Ron, with our Christian Companion, I thought we agreed we were leaving the back and front holes open and fully vibrating? And the mouth …
We are, said Claire. Individual use is up to the individual.
Phew! said Ron. I’ve just put in an order for 20,000 God-bots. I don’t want to be stoppering up 60,000 holes.
RON!
Sorry, Claire. You’re the boss of my soul but business is business. Hey, Prof! Have you got a contact at the Vatican?
I’m afraid not, Ron. Besides, I thought you weren’t interested in making boy-bots?
I wasn’t, but that was because of the thrust. The new ones I have in mind aren’t for the ladies. They are Service Bots. For the clergy. As long as the bum-hole is deep enough …
RON!!!!!
We have discussed this, sweetheart, said Ron. We agreed it would help vulnerable young people.
I just don’t like talking about it with someone I’ve only just met, said Claire.
Oh, you can say anything to the prof, said Ron. He’s a scientist.
Why don’t we all have a cup of tea? said Victor. And then I must attend to my head.
It’s a bit weird, said Ron. A head in a flask on the table. But this whole place is a bit weird.
The four of us were in the tunnels. The electrical supply was erratic that morning – bursts of jagged white illumination from the swinging lengths of strip lighting, then the insect-buzz of current fault and the on-off-on-off of now you see it, now you don’t as we were split second in darkness, split second in cavern-light that seemed to watch us, not light us.
Claire was looking at two enormous generators the size of steam engines. Why are they called Jane and Marilyn? she asked.
The men who worked here during the Cold War named them after Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, said Victor. If you walk around here there are quite a few faded posters of 1950s movie stars.
They had amazing bodies back then, said Ron. It all went wrong with Twiggy. I blame crispbread.
Quite right, Ron, said Victor. Changes in diet can be blamed for most things. It will be interesting to see how non-biological life forms find ways to ruin themselves. It won’t be sugar or alcohol or drugs.
I thought AI was going to be perfect? said Ron.
Who knows? said Victor. What have humans ever created that is perfect? We start with the best intentions …
You’re selling this a bit differently than usual, Victor. This isn’t your TED talk.
Victor shrugged. We shall find out. In any case, could it be worse than human? I read today that humans have wiped out sixty per cent of animal wildlife since 1970. In Brazil we have a dictator posing as a democratically elected president who is opening up the Amazon to commercial interests. Human beings really don’t have a better chance than AI. We are too late for anything else.
What about the bloke in the box? said Ron. Isn’t it too late for him?
The steel box stood on the steel table like the last challenge on a TV game show. Open the box, Victor.
I have something for Jack, if I succeed. Would you like to see?
Victor disappeared into one of his anterooms. Rooms I have never been invited into. Rooms like Bluebeard’s chambers. One will be the smallest door with the bloodied key. But which one?
Victor returned with what looked like a cross between a puppet and a robot. The cylinder base ran on wheels. Above was a body with arms and a head. The whole thing was about 2 feet tall.
Jack was a small man, said Victor. I think he will like this. It’s his new body.
You putting his brain in that? said Ron. It’s like a toy for kiddies.
Not his brain. His brain is wetware. I won’t need it when I have uploaded the contents. The brain is packaging. Think of yourself as data, Ron. Your data can be stored in many containers. At present it is stored in a large meat-safe.
Thanks, said Ron.
What I want to do is allow Jack to move around. One of the challenges of uploading a human is the shock they will experience at being out of a body. A body is what we know.
I am not following this, said Ron.
Think of it this way, said Victor. It is time for you to die. Your body is worn out. I upload your data – the sum of who you are – and now you are a file on my computer that says RON LORD.
I won’t like it, said Ron.
You will like it better than being dead, said Victor.
I won’t know I am dead, said Ron.
Pay attention. Once you are pure data you can download yourself in a variety of forms. A carbon body will allow you all the independence you once enjoyed, but at super-strength and super-speed and without fear of injury. If your leg falls off we will fix you another one. If you prefer wings, we can give you a super-light shell and off you go.
Now, said Victor, would you like to put on protective clothing and come with me? It is cold next door. I am going to open the box.
We look like butchers in a cold-storage unit. Masks, goggles, gloves, insulation.
We follow Victor down a passage. Why do the lights here swing from side to side like a madman’s manacles? Is this our own private Bedlam? Hidden, secret, unlawful, harbouring what we should not know?
It is as if Victor reads my thoughts.
He said, Do not be alarmed by the slight feeling of seasickness. It is as though we are in a submarine. The city above us is moving and rocking and we sense it. Our air and electricity are dependent on generators and ventilators. This is a life-support system.
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