not having been cunning enough to dump her with the kid rather
than vice versa. The band fell apart but you got work as a mixer,
Nightshift Childcare put Tom in their playpen for half your salary,
and somehow there was time to fuck the non-separatist radical
feminists. Time passed. You didn’t ever have to think about what
you’d do with your life, it did it all by itself, it just happened and
happened and happened. Look where you are tonight. Surprised?
Disoriented? Why? Your little boy has grown up. It was either that
or prepubescent death, and how likely is the latter? Did you expect
some kind of literal cycle, did you think that you would be the one
who was fourteen and fucking beautiful Zoe when sufficient time
had passed? Oh no. You’re one turn up the spiral staircase away
from that, Danny.
‘W hat does your father do, Zoe?’
‘I don’t have a father.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘No.’
No? W hat does that mean?
‘I guess most families are single-parent nowadays,’ said Danny,
fairly sure that it wasn’t true. ‘Like me and Tom.’
Zoe smiled. ‘I don’t have any parents at all. I’m a robot.’
The way she smiles, the things she says
57
Tom looked down at the table, then burst out laughing. Zoe
started, then Danny joined in. It didn’t seem all that funny, but Tom
started them off again whenever they flagged. He stood up, then
knelt on the floor, hands on stomach, tears streaming from closed
eyes. Danny put him in a loose headlock, tried to wrestle him over,
but then Tom opened his eyes and Danny shuddered, seeing his
face melting from misery and pain. Tom was sobbing, shivering,
choking on his tears, trying to say something.
‘Hey,’ was all Danny could say. ‘Hey.’ He would have held him
against his shoulder, but not in front of Zoe, now silent. Danny
didn’t look at her, couldn’t look at her, felt the position of her face
just out of his vision and blushed at the necessity not to look at her.
Tom was suddenly six years old, waking from a nightmare about
dead people who ate his arms, leaving him with hands on his shoulders like stunted wings. Danny had caught the dream from the description, and had a much nastier version.
Tom ran out of the room.
Danny stayed on the floor, not looking at Zoe, listening to Tom
throwing up. Zoe touched his shoulder, and his spine tingled. He
stood up.
‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I think Tom was pretty worried about how
you’d take it. I told him a hundred times that you wouldn’t mind,
but he’s got himself all worked up into a nervous state. I’m glad you
came home early, otherwise he might not have told you for months.’
Danny turned to face her. ‘It’s not funny. How old are you, anyway? Does your father know you’re screwing my son? W here does he think you are now? Are you on the pill? How many other boys
are you screwing? How do I know you haven’t got VD? How old are
you, anyway? Do you know it’s a crime to seduce a minor? You slut,
why couldn’t you leave him alone, he’s just a kid, can’t you tell? Just
because he’s six feet tall. He’s emotionally immature. He never had
a mother. Oh, you slut. How old are you?’
‘I’m six months old.’ Zoe took her head off and placed it on the
kitchen table. Danny curled up and started whimpering. Tom
walked in and yelled, ‘Put it back on!’
Danny closed his eyes, and remembered curling up on the
kitchen floor when he was four or five. His mother had screamed at
him for some reason. Everybody else in the family had gone into
the lounge room to watch television; they’d closed the door and
they’d turned off the kitchen light. The floor was cold. Danny had
known that nobody was watching him, that he could uncurl, stand
58
Greg Egan
up, and go and lie in his warm bed, or even swallow his pride and
join the others in the lounge room, where there was a fire. But he
had stayed curled up on the cold floor in the dark, planning to sleep
there, to stay there on the floor with
