Beneath The Skin

“Always. That would be great.” I quickly gave him my address and phone number before he could make an excuse. Then I added: “By the way, my flat’s a complete tip.” I looked around. “I mean, really a tip. And my name’s Nadia, Nadia Blake.”

“See you later.”

TWO

Less than half an hour later, he knocked on the door. It was almost insanely convenient. He was like one of those handymen my dad’s always going on about, who used to exist in the great old days of lamplighters and chimney sweeps. He was the sort of person who comes straight around to your house and fixes something. Even better, he wasn’t really from the old days. He wasn’t one of these middle-aged men in a uniform who calls you madam and has a clipboard and a van with the name of his company written on the side and then gives you an invoice at the end for an amount that makes you realize it would have been cheaper to replace the toilet rather than have it unblocked.

He was just one of us, except a bit younger. A bit younger than me, anyway. He was tall, casually dressed in sneakers, gray trousers, a T-shirt, and a battered jacket that must have been hot in this tropical weather. He had pale skin, long dark hair that reached his shoulders. All-right-looking, and not actually tongue-tied at all, like computer nerds are supposed to be.

“Hello,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Morris Burnside. The repairman.”

“Fantastic,” I said. “Fantastic. I’m Nadia.”

I showed him inside.

“Burglars?” he said, looking around.

“No, I told you on the phone it was a tip. Doing a cleanup is at the top of my priority list.”

“Can’t you take a joke? I think it’s nice. Lovely big doors leading out into the garden.”

“Yes, very horticultural. The garden is also on the list. A bit lower down.”

“Where’s the patient?”

“Through here.” The offending machine was in my bedroom. You actually have to sit on the bed to operate it. “Do you want some tea?”

“Coffee. Milk, no sugar.”

But I hung around, waiting for his response to my problem. In a perverse way, it was like going to the doctor with some small ache. If it turns out to be something reasonably serious, you feel quite proud, as if you’ve offered the doctor something worthy of his attention. On the other hand, if you turn out to be almost not ill at all, you feel rather ashamed. I wanted to have a healthy computer and yet at the same time I wanted to have something that provided a challenge for Morris the Nerd and made his journey worthwhile. It wasn’t to be.

He took off his jacket and tossed it on the bed. I was surprised. I expected thin, stringy arms, but they were muscled and sinewed. He had a large chest. This was a man who worked out. With my five-foot-nothing height and general wispiness, I felt puny next to him.

“Space Buddy,” I said.

“What?” he said, and then looked down and smiled. “My shirt? I don’t know who makes these slogans up. I reckon it’s a computer in Japan where somebody joined up the wrong wires.”

“So,” I said. “As you can see, it’s just frozen. Usually I can just tap on the keyboard and in the end something will happen, but I’ve bashed and bashed and nothing has any effect.” He sat on the bed and looked at the screen. “I mean, it says that there’s a type-eighteen error, as if that means anything to anybody. I was wondering whether it would just be best to pull the plug out and try to restart it. But maybe that would damage it.”

Morris leaned forward slowly. With his left hand he held down several of the larger keys on the left of the keyboard, then with his right hand he pressed the Return key. The screen went black and then the computer relaunched itself.

“Is that it?” I asked.

He stood up and grabbed his jacket.

“If it happens again, press these three keys together and the Return. If that doesn’t work, there should be a little hole at the back of this unit.” He picked it up and blew some dust away. “Here. Push a matchstick in. That will almost always work. If all else fails, pull the plug out.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said breathlessly. “I’m just hopeless with this stuff, I feel very bad about it. One day I’ll learn. I’ll go on a course.”

“Don’t bother,” he said. “Women aren’t meant to know how to operate computers. That’s what men were invented for.”

I was in a bit of a rush because I had to get my stuff together, but I didn’t feel I could just push him out the door.

“I’ll get you the coffee,” I said. “If I can find it.”

“Can I use your bathroom?”

“Yes, it’s through there. Can I apologize in advance for it?”

“How much do I owe you?” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” Morris said. “I wouldn’t take your money for what I did.”

“That’s ridiculous, you must have a call-out fee.”

He smiled. “The coffee will be fine.”

“How are you going to make a living if you go around doing things for nothing? Are you some kind of mahatma?”

“No, no, I do lots of computer stuff, software stuff, some schools, whatever. This is just a hobby.” There was a pause. “What do you do?”

I always had a sinking feeling when I had to launch into this particular explanation.

“It’s not exactly a job, and I wouldn’t portray it as a career, but just at the moment I’m working as a sort of entertainer. Children’s parties.”

“What?”

“That’s it. Me and my partner, Zach-I mean my business partner-we go to parties and do a few tricks, let them stroke a gerbil, tie some balloons into shapes, do a puppet show.”

“That’s amazing,” said Morris.

“It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s more or less a living. Hence the need for keeping accounts, et cetera, et cetera. And I really am sorry, Morris; I don’t feel good wasting your time like this. I don’t expect you to be amused by my impersonation of a helpless female.”

“Couldn’t your boyfriend fix it for you?”

“What makes you think I’ve got a boyfriend?” I said with a slightly sly expression.

Morris went red.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said. “I just saw the shaving foam in the bathroom. Extra toothbrush, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, that. Max-i.e., this person I’ve been involved with-left some stuff behind when he scarpered a couple of weeks ago. When I get around to my clear-up, all that will be right at the bottom of the bin bag.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I didn’t want to get into all that.

“So my computer is fully functional,” I said brightly, finishing my mug of coffee.

“What is it? Three years old?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It used to belong to a friend of a friend.”

“I don’t know how you can use it. Isn’t it like walking through a swamp wrapped in cotton wool?” Morris said. He looked at it with narrowed eyes. “You need some memory. Faster hamsters. That’s what it’s all about.”

“I beg your pardon? Faster hamsters. What are they?”