The Silver Metal Lover(25)

I lay in the tub, letting the vital oils be washed from my skin, as my mother had always told me not to. (“You can put skin elements back from a jar. But nature should never be wasted, darling.”) Clovis couldn’t mean what he said. If he did, Electronic Metals would never let a faulty robot go. Or the demonstrators would have come back. Or Egyptia, if she signed, would assert her legal claim, and keep him. Or he would already be a pile of cooling clinker.

Yet even as I wept, the tempo of my tears had abruptly changed. I was now weeping quickly, and I was hurrying suddenly to get out of the bath. Hurrying as I had on the night I went to Egyptia’s party. Because somehow I already knew.

When I heard the lift again, another lift went down through my insides. When the door asked me to let someone in I didn’t stop to reason. I flung the door open. And there was Austin.

“Where’s Clo?” said Austin.

I stared at Austin. I had expected anything but him.

“Well, I know I’m beautiful,” he said.

“I thought you had a key,” I stammered.

“Threw it back in his face,” said Austin. “All that crap about a seance. Did you know that table’s rigged? Bet you did, you girl.”

“Clovis isn’t here,” I said.

“Then I’ll wait.”

“He’s gone to the beach.” Another lie. Austin believed it.

“Hope someone kicks sand in his face.”

He turned, flowed straight down the corridor and banged the button for the lift to come back. I felt guilty and glad, and the lift swallowed him and he was gone.

It was one P.M., according to Clovis’s talking clock when I switched it on. I had combed my hair for the thirtieth time. I sat in my black frock and black nails and white strained face, and gazed at the New River through the window. There were bruised-looking clouds. It might rain. I had stopped raining; my tears were dry. I made some real coffee, of which Clovis has accumulated a whole cupboard. But I couldn’t drink it. There was dust on the coffee table. Obviously the block’s automatic cleaner had remained unsummoned for days.

What was I waiting for? For Clovis to call and say he’d failed? For the door to open and Clovis to come through, shrug and say—what surprisingly he hadn’t last night—you’d better forget it, Jane. After all, it’s this fear of men thing again, isn’t it, due to your lack of a physically present father?

Last night, I had known where I was, for all of one hour. I’d known that women don’t love robots. That a doll with its clockwork showing meant nothing to me. But I hadn’t been able to hang on to that truth. For me—he was alive. A man, Clovis. Real.

I heard the lift.

Wasn’t there another small apartment in an annex at the end of this gallery? It might be the people from there.

The door seemed to tremble, ripple, as if underwater, and opened. Clovis and Silver walked through it.

Silver wore blue clothes, mulberry boots. I couldn’t stop looking at them. Then I looked at Clovis’s face. Clovis was surprised. He had been surprised, one could tell, for quite a while. He came over to me and said, “Jane, Jane, Jane.” Then he handed me a plastic folder. “Papers,” said Clovis briskly. “Duplicates of reassembly order, possession rights and receipt for cash transfer with bank stamp. Two-year guaranty, with a bar sinister on it due to incomplete check being waived by customer. And Egyptia’s signed confirmation that you have right of loan. For six months it may say, or years, or something. Egyptia is vaguely aware, by the way, of having been cheated of something, so I’m taking her to lunch, and buying her a steel-grey fur cloak. For which you’ll also owe me the money.”

“I may not be able to repay you,” I said. I was numb. Silver was standing near the door, standing at the edge of my vision, blue fire burning the rest of the room to cinders.

“See you in court, then,” said Clovis.

Inanely I said, “Austin came up. I said you were at the beach.”

“I think I am,” said Clovis. “Certainly there is a distinct notion of sand underfoot. Shifting, I surmise.” His face was still surprised. He turned from me and walked back to Silver, glanced at him, walked by him, and reached the door. “You know where everything is,” Clovis said to me. “And if you don’t, now is the time to find out. Jesus screamed and ran,” added Clovis. The apartment door slammed behind him, jarring its mechanisms. And I was alone. Alone with Egyptia’s robot.

I had to force myself to look at him. From the boots to the long legs, and across—one hand, two hands, loosely at rest by his sides. Arms. Torso. Shoulders with the hair glowing against the blue shirt. Throat. Face. Intact. Whole. Tiger’s eyes. In repose. And yet, what was it? Was I inventing it? The ghost of something, some disorientation, the look on the face of someone who has been sick and is convalescing… No, imagination.

Did he know the legal position, who owned him, who was borrowing him? Did I have to tell him?

His amber eyes went into a long, slow blink. Thank God they worked. Thank God they were as beautiful as when I’d first seen them. He smiled at me. “Hallo,” he said.

“Hallo,” I said. I was so tense I scarcely felt it. “Do you remember me?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what to say to you,” I said.

“Say whatever you want.”