The Silver Metal Lover(16)

“Oh. Hallo. This is Jane.”

“James?”

“Jane. Can I speak to—”

“No. He’s in the shower.”

Austin sounded like a fixture, despite the seance, if a not very happy one.

“Is that a woman?” Austin demanded.

“It’s Jane.”

“I thought you said James. Well, look, Jayven, why don’t you call later. Like next year?” And he switched off.

As a matter of course, then, I dialed Chloe, but she didn’t answer. I looked at Jason and Medea’s number, but didn’t dial it.

My mother called me on the internal phone.

“I’ve run your tape, Jane. It’s rather vague. What did Clovis do?”

“He had another seance.”

“And this disturbed you.”

“Only because he plays with people like a cat.”

“Cats don’t play with people. Cats play with mice. The seance table is rigged, I seem to recall.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“The spirit world can be reached, under the correct circumstances,” said my mother.

“Oh, you mean ghosts.”

“I mean the psychic principle. A soul, Jane. You mustn’t be afraid to use the correct terminology. A released soul, unattached to the physical state, and which has lived through many lives and a diversity of bodies may sometimes wish to communicate with the world. There was a great incidence of this at the turn of the century, for example, prior to the Asteroid Disasters. A theologian notes a connection. Clovis shouldn’t be meddling with table-tappings.”

“No, Mother.”

“I’ve left you some vitamins in the dispenser. Robot three will give them to you when you come down.”

“Thank you.”

“And now, I must get ready.”

Having avoided her for hours in terror of giving away my awful secret, I was now stricken with horror.

“Are you going out?”

“Yes, Jane. You know I am. I’m going upstate for three days. The Phy-Amalgamated Conference.”

“I’d—I’d forgotten—Mother—I really must speak to you after all.”

“Darling, you’ve had all day to speak to me.”

“Only four hours.”

“I really can’t stop now.”

“It’s urgent.”

“Then tell me quickly.”

“But I can’t!”

“Then you should have spoken earlier.”

“Oh Mother!” I burst into tears. Where did so many tears come from? A lot of the human body is water. Did I have any left?

“Jane, I’m going to make an appointment for you with your private doctor.”

“I’m not ill. I’m—”

“Jane. I will take half an hour away from my schedule. I will come up to your suite now, and we’ll talk this through. Do you agree?”

Panic. Panic.

The door opened, and my mother, already burnished, pomaded, glittering, stepped through. An abyss gaped before me. And behind me. I could no longer think. I’d always, always leaned on my mother. Was anything so perverse, so precarious, so precious I couldn’t share it with her, especially now she’d wrecked her schedule for me?

“As precisely as you can, dear,” said Demeta, beckoning me into her arms, into La Verte, into bliss and anchorage. “Now, does this have anything to do with Clovis?”

“Mother, I’m in love!” I tumbled against her, but not too hard. I could tell her. I could. “Mother, I’m in love.” No, I couldn’t. “Mother, I’m in love with Clovis,” I shrieked.

“Good Lord,” said my mother.





* * *




It was almost six P.M. when I did what, of course, I had been bound to do virtually from the start. My mother had at last gone, and I had plunged deep in my lagoon of guilt because I’d lied to her this terribly, and—much worse—made her late. She really is so concerned to do the best for me. It’s her grail, or one of them. Luckily, I was able to plaster over my lie very swiftly. “I know Clovis is M-B and will never return my feelings,” I’d said, again and again. “It’s just a silly crush. I’ve done what you taught me, and gone through my own psychological motivations. I’m almost over it. But I had to let you know. I always feel better when I tell you things.” Oh, how could I cheat her of the facts like that? Why should I have felt so sure I mustn’t reveal the truth? Eventually she mixed me a sedative and she left me. The sedative was whipped-strawberry flavor and I was tempted to drink it, but I didn’t. Quite suddenly, about ten minutes after I heard the Baxter rumble up out of the roof-hatch, and the Vista had stopped vibrating, what I had said about loving Clovis abruptly struct me as hilarious, and I howled with laughter, rolling all over the couch. It was, possibly, the stupidest thing I could have come up with, even in sheer desperation. One day I might tell him, and Clovis would howl, too.

When I stopped laughing, I keyed the alcohol dispenser and got it to pour me one of the martinis my mother likes. I had another bath, and put on a black dress, and plugged in the hairdresser unit and let it put rollers in my hair. My face in the mirror was white, and my eyes, too dark to be properly green, were almost black I don’t like makeup, actually. It feels sticky on my skin and sometimes I forget I’m wearing it and rub my hand over my cheeks and smear my rouge. But there was a lot of mascara left on I hadn’t taken off last night or cried of this morning. It’s supposed to be runproof, and it partly is I tidied it and added some more, and crayoned my mouth Autumn Beech Leaf. I drank the salty martini, pretending I liked it, and the hairdresser took out the rollers and brushed my hair, and I painted my nails black. All of which, in a way, tells you what I was about to do.