The Complete Roderick

fiction writers or maybe the people who want to freeze other people into peopie-sicles and store them — for a price. And imagine that, asking ice to pay for itself. Yet one more ingenious way to package and market the future.

‘So what’s left? The mind? Not even a ghost in a machine any more. Now the mind is just something you improve by reading condensed books and listening to distilled records, everybody now knows the mind has secret powers and you can write off to California to unlock, get rich through safe hypnosis in your spare time. The soul? That’s now just one more brand of saleable music, money seems to make everything more real, doesn’t it? Money is more alive than we are. No wonder kids have started calling themselves robots, they know what’s expected of them. It’s a robot world.’

‘A robot world?’

‘Sure, any decent machine can get in on the ground floor, work its way up, become President — one or two made it already. A robot has plenty of native advantages to start with: never wastes time, no personal problems, never picks nose in public. Winning combination there.’

Roderick opened his eyes. ‘What makes you think a robot would want to get ahead? Couldn’t it just enjoy being alive?’

‘Let me read you something, friend.’ Allbright took down a slim volume and read aloud:

‘“Jack keeps one hour. The policeman develops all pages. Some sister is offended. Jack’s nurse offended all reasons. A few fat pilots warded off more vegetables.” They call that computer poetry. Poetry? I wonder. Sounds like something Swift cooked up at the Academy of Lagodo, just keep flipping through the combinations and watching nothing much come up. Does this computer know it’s writing poetry, and not just figuring a payroll or firing off a missile?’

Roderick opened his mouth to reply, but no reply came. Allbright picked up his heavy briefcase and shuffled to the door. ‘I mean to say, if that stuff is poetry, then sex with a vibrator must be love.’

The door closed behind him, then opened immediately, letting in a slice of light, piano chords, and a stumbling couple.

‘Oh! Excuse me!’ Judi Mazzini let out a yelp of laughter as she steered the man in dark glasses, turning him around and leading him out as though he were blind.

Mrs McBabbitt lived high in a glass tower by the river. Roderick had not kissed her in the taxi and he did not kiss her in the elevator.

‘Come on in, Roddy, have a drink or something.’

‘Thanks, I’ll come in but I — nice apartment.’ There was a bowl of yellow roses on a round table, and next to it, a picture of Mr Kratt. ‘But who, this can’t be Mr McBabbitt, this—’

‘No, an old friend, an old friend. He well stays here sometimes. You might as well know he pays for this place, he kind of owns me. I never usually bring anybody here, only I don’t know, tonight I just felt — anyway, you’re different. You don’t really want anything, do you?’

‘Well I — well I—’

‘I don’t mean you’re like queer, you just seem to not want anything. You seem like — chaste.’

‘Ha. What er happened to Mr McBabbitt, if you don’t mind my asking?’

‘Him? Oh, he’s Doctor McBabbitt, he was my plastic surgeon. Or you could say I was his showcase. He tried out everything on me, damn near everything. All those years, all those years…’

‘Pain,’ said Roderick softly.

‘Pain, oh sure, not that that mattered so much. People put up with pain at the dentist, it all depends on what you want out of life, I wanted beauty. All I ever wanted was beauty, so I married him. I picked him because he was the best. Very best.’

They sat together on the sofa, leaning together stiffly as she wept.

‘Oh this is stupid, stupid, I’ve got nothing to cry about. He was the very best, he still is. I mean he had style. He didn’t get all his ideas from movie stars and strippers, he used to look at paintings a lot too, Old Masters and that. Like one guy, I think it was Corpeggio, anyway he painted this beautiful woman and when some French prince got hold of it he took a knife and cut the painting all to pieces. Only somebody secretly got them all and put it back together, all but the head. They had to paint a new head. You know, Dr McBabbitt liked his work because he got to be both people, you know? The painter and the guy with the knife. You know?’

She jumped to her feet and smoothed the black velvet. ‘I feel lots better now. You want a coffee or anything before you leave?’

XII

America come alive!

Grab on to a brand new day!

‘—Good morning, Mr and Ms America, I’m Jeb Goodhart—’

‘—and I’m Brie Wittgenstein, bringing you the early news update—’

‘Good God, what? What’s it?’ Indica fought for consciousness, for some clue to this booming, blustering confusion in which giant orange faces grinned and bellowed at her from across a room of the wrong shape. She seemed to be ten feet from the floor, and there was a large spider on her pillow.

‘—says it’s the most severe quake in Ruritania since nineteen—

Dr Tarr’s head appeared from under her bed. ‘Morning! Sleep all right?’

‘What? Yes I but I just what I — bunk beds? Where are we?’ ‘Ha ha, don’t you remember? This is my old frat house, Digamma Upsilon Nu.’

‘Your old, why should I remember your old — ?’

‘No, but don’t you remember the snowbank? We skidded into a big snowbank? And I went for help while you stayed in the car?’

‘I remember you telling me not to go to sleep.’ The spider on her pillow became a contact lens, glued in place by a false eyelash. She rescued it. ‘That pissed me off, because I’d already taken my two Dormistran, how could I stay awake?’

‘Yes well see we turned out to be only a mile from my old frat house here, whereas almost sixteen miles to my place with god knows what damage to the front end of my — wait a minute, you took sleeping pills? On the way to my place? If you I mean thought it was going to be that bad, why bother coming? I mean—’

‘Hey kids, does your Mom buy you Flavoreenos? My Mom does and I really love her, because Flavoreenos are corn-style flakes in 26 delicious flavours! Have you tried cherry cola? Chili dog? Chocolate sardine parfait? Mmmm, I get a new flavour every morning, because my Mom loves me and I love Flavoreenos!’

‘Okay okay maybe I was a little nervous but anyway here we are in bunk beds does it matter? And do we need that TV on with all that, that wall projection kids with orange hair eight feet tall eating blue goop Jesus Jack I don’t feel so well.’

‘Just um trying to catch the weather, new antifreeze account I—’

There was a knock at the door. Tarr answered it to a burly young man with a flat nose. ‘Brother Tarr? I’m supposed to give you your bill here. Uh, here.’

‘What’s this? Looks more like somebody’s bill for a week at the Waldorf — wait a minute, what’s this item here, fifty bucks for snow, what’s that supposed to—’

‘Bathtub fulla snow, Brother Tarr. Just like you ordered. We filled it while you was asleep.’

Just like I — wait now, hold on — fellas, no, hold on—’

Three other burly young men came in, seized Tarr and carried him struggling into the bathroom. After a few shrieks and shouts, a dozen guffaws, the boys came out, blew kisses to Indica and left. A minute later, Tarr came out grinning, naked, towelling himself. ‘Ha ha, damn it, I forgot what great jokers the brothers can be.’

‘Yeah very amusing.’ She turned to the TV.