dramatic shock.”
I watched the instant toast rising from the hot plate, and I saw two silver eye-sockets with wheels turning.
“No, I didn’t give you enough Serenol,” said Clovis, as I wept.
I had told him everything, sitting on his couch, giving a performance Egyptia might have envied.
“I’m surprised you went as far as you did,” Clovis now said, handing me a large box of tissues, and removing the jumping toast from the floor. “Timid little Jane, confronting the might of Electronic Metals Ltd. What was the name of that prat?”
“Sw-Sw-Sw—”
“Swohnson, that’s right. I’m quite looking forward to meeting him.”
“What?”
“What?” Clovis copied my astonishment.
“Clovis, I can’t go back. I can’t do anything. I told him I was under eighteen. I haven’t enough money. And my mother wouldn’t—”
“It’s too boring to explain twice. Follow me.”
Clovis walked back across the main living area and dialed a number on the videoless phone, turning up the sound reception as he did so.
I stood where he had in the servicery doorway, and presently I heard Egyptia’s sultry, seductive, sleepy voice.
“Good morning, Egyptia.”
“Oh God. Do you know what time it is. Oh, I can’t bear it. Only an idiot would call at this hour.”
“An idiot would be unable to use the telephone. I take it you were asleep.”
“I never sleep.” She yawned voluptuously. “I can’t sleep. Oh Clovis, I’m terrified. Too terrified ever to sleep. I have a part. Theatra Concordacis are doing
“I’m going to buy you a lovely, lovely present,” said Clovis.
“What?” she demanded.
“Jane tells me you’re hooked on a robot.”
“Oh! Oh, Clovis, would you? But, no. I can’t. I have to concentrate on this part. I have to be celibate. Antektra was a virgin.”
“I’m happy to reveal I don’t know the play.”
“And Silver—he’s called Silver—he is the most wonderful lover. He can—”
“Please don’t tell me,” said Clovis. “I shall feel inadequate.”
“
“Everybody, apparently, loves him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran for Mayor next year. Meantime, they’re dismantling him at E.M. Ltd. in a hellish basement that also produces a sideline of meat pies.”
“Clovis, I can’t follow you.”
“It seems you did something to the metal-man. His clockwork has ganged agley. He’s for the chop. Or the pie.”
“I didn’t do anything. Do they expect me to pay for it?”
“I’m paying. For possession. In your eighteen-year-old name. At a reduction, if I play my cards right. Faulty goods.”
“Clovis you
“Then you can loan him to Jane until you’re free. Just to keep his hand in, if you’ll excuse the expression.”
“Jane wouldn’t know one end of a man—”
“I think she might. Might you not, Jane?”
Egyptia fell silent. I had turned to glass, immovable, easily broken.
“One hour,” said Clovis. “The Arbor side of the bridge.”
“I’m not going to the Arbors. I’ll be mugged and raped.”
“Of course you will, Egyptia. Wish on a star.”
Clovis killed the line. He dialed.
“Electronic Metals? No, I don’t want the contact department. I want somebody by the avian name of Swohnson.”
He waited. I said, “Clovis, they won’t,” and stopped because Swohnson’s voice came on the line and my whole body withered like an autumn leaf. I sat on the floor and put my head on the wall, and the Serenol swam over me.
Out of the haze I heard Swohnson start to wither too.
“How do you
“My spies,” said Clovis, “are everywhere.”
“What? Er. Look here—”
“I don’t happen to use a video.”
“It’s that—ah—that darn girl. Isn’t it? And you’re another rich kid—”
“I am another very rich kid. And I advise you to calm down, my feathered friend.”
“
“Swan,” said Clovis clearly, “son.”
“It’s spelled S.W.O.H.,” exclaimed Swohnson.
“I don’t care if it’s spelled S.H.I.T.,” said Clovis. “I’m calling on behalf of the lady who hired your ballsed-up, badly-made substandard rubbish the night before last.”
I got up and went into the green bathroom, and ran a tub. I couldn’t bear to listen anymore.
About fifteen minutes after, as I lay there in the water, Clovis knocked on the door and said,
“You’re a rotten audience, Jane. Are you all right? If you’ve slashed your wrists, could you hold them down in the bath and try not to mark the wall covering? Blood is very difficult to clean off.”
“I’m all right. Thank you for trying.”
“Trying? Son of the Swohn is pure cast-iron jello. I’m assuming, by the way, you’ll pay me back in hard cash as soon as you can wring Demeta’s blessing from her. Then we can edge Egyptia out of the picture, too.”
“They won’t let you,” I said. Tears ran in the water. I was a bath tap, which nobody could turn off.
“Why am I doing this?” Clovis asked someone. “Moving heaven and Earth to get her some run-down heap of nuts and bolts that will probably permanently seize up as it walks through the door? Or at some other, more poignant, crucial moment. Oh, more! More! Sorry, honey, my spring’s bust.”
He went away and I heard the shower sizzle alive in the mahogany bathroom.
A timeless gap later, I heard him go out of the apartment, whistling. It isn’t true what they say about male M-Bs. At least, Clovis can certainly whistle.
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
