Lust Or No Harm Done

Michael rubbed his eyes. Was there a chair? He needed to sit down. 'I know what the chicken's answer would be.'

Ebru shook her head. 'But you don't, Michael. You can't know. That is the whole difficulty.'

She took him by one arm, and spurred by her example, Shafiq took the other. They led him hobbling back to the soon-to-be-emptied office where he could sit down.

Michael slumped into his chair. 'We're real,' he said. 'We can't undo what we've done.' He surveyed the filing cabinets, the dark PC screens. 'That's what makes us real.'

Part III. What do you want for Christmas?

For a while, Michael stalled.

The project wound down. The results were conclusive. The learning process caused a range of chemical changes in nerve cells. The pathway of that chemical change through the brain was common. Some neural pathways for learning about light seemed to be pre-established, at least in chickens.

Michael began work on a small, publishable paper, for a respected scientific journal. He let Emilio go to his new job early. Shafiq was fine; he simply went back to his agency and a new post. Geoffrey Malterton at the Council found another project that could use their facility. He was pleased: he would end up being the lab's new Director, not Michael. It was left to Michael and Ebru to turn out the lights on the lab one last time, and share a quiet drink at the Pineapple.

Michael still had his teaching once a week, which was a living, not a calling. He explained the basics of neurology to students for whom it was not a calling either. It was a way of increasing their earning potential. They argued with him about each and every mark on their phase tests and worked out from their percentages so far whether or not getting an A on the final test would make any difference to their overall grade. If it wouldn't, then they would stop studying.

Christmas came, full of tinsel and loneliness. The students left for home, except the ones who had no home. They stayed on in student accommodation playing disconsolate dance music.

Michael went home for the holidays. His mother had gone back to Sheffield ten years ago and lived in a terrace house near where the city ended abruptly in green. She had her garden and her friends. She was 63, an age when it is still insulting to be described as spry.

His mother had come into her own. She made an effort. Her hair was dyed a believable shade of ash; you could see she had once been pretty and elegant, though there was also now something firm around her outlined eyes. She was good with a screwdriver and hard on building contractors. She was confident in life.

She greeted Michael without fuss, kissing him on the cheek and patting his arm. 'You've lost weight. It suits you.' She didn't get that stricken 'are you eating?' look. She just said, as she would to one of her mates, 'You fancy something to eat?'

'Yeah sure, a cheese sandwich or something. I can make it.'

'Go on then. You'll find all the things in the usual place. You can make me a cup of tea while you're at it.'

When he came back with the tray, she already had the Christmas cards out, ready for signing. She didn't believe in this nonsense of sending everything months in advance. You did your Christmas cards at Christmas.

'You forgot the spoons. It's all right, my turn.' She stood up and came back with spoons and a white envelope.

'You haven't been ringing me, and it turned out you even moved without telling me, you daft pillock. So I knew something was wrong that you weren't telling me, so I wrote you this.'

She put the letter next to the tray. 'Go on, have your tea. You can read it later, after the cards.'

There were fewer and fewer cards each year: one to their cousins in New Zealand; one to his mother's best friend Beryl now in Canada; one to the Blascos in San Diego. They were an isolated family. They only had each other.

'In the old days, people didn't move about so much, I suppose. There were more of you around it seemed. Are you on this e-mail? Because I was thinking it's probably a good way for me to keep in touch. Could you set me up on it?'

That would indeed be something good to do with the long and sometimes pointless days of Christmas. 'Sure could.'

In fact, it would be great fun, and it solved the problem of what to buy his Mum for Christmas instead of a scarf or chocolates.

They did the cards, and she brought out the roast chicken, with its clogged brand-name stuffing, and both of them ate hardly anything.

'So are you going to tell me what's wrong? You've broken up with Philip.'

'Broken up with everything. I um, forgot to apply for the grant, so the project ended.'

'So you're at a bit of a loose end. Shall I tell you what the letter says, save you reading it?'

'OK.'

'It goes like this. The worst things that happen to you in life turn out to be the best things. Like your father. He left me on my own and I thought, I'll never cope. But look at me now. And then I got that phone call from him telling me that you were gay and you'd done something terrible. But he wouldn't say what it was, except that he was plainly going to blame me. Well, that gave me the chance I'd been waiting for. I finally stood up to the man. I just told him. It isn't your fault; and it's not mine either so don't go putting all the blame on me. It's just who our Michael is, and what of it? I've known for ages, it's no news to me. And you should have known too, if you had your eyes open.'

Michael chuckled. 'What did he say?'

'Nothing he could say; it was all true. He said, You're right, Mavis. I felt sorry for him by the end of the conversation.'

'I sometimes think I killed him.'

Mavis wiped crumbs off her knee, sniffed and said, 'So what was it then? This terrible thing you did?'

Michael thought, then answered, 'I made a pass at him.'

His mother nodded once, downwards. 'People don't die from having a pass made at them, Michael.'

That tickled Michael and he chuckled. 'No, I guess not.'

'He didn't have himself sorted. He was all front.' Michael saw his father's face, big and needy. 'I look at it this way. Because of all that, you knew that I knew. You didn't have to spend twenty years screwing up your courage to tell me. I could just ask you straight out if Phil was your boyfriend and make up the double bed. Speaking of which, have you found yourself someone a bit more down to earth now?'

'No. No one.'

'Sorry for prying. Mother's prerogative. Anyway, you'll be all right, Michael. You're smart. You work hard. You're a kind person. I've known you since you were born. You'll be fine, love.'

That was indeed what the letter said. That night in bed, Michael read the letter over and over. When he was young, his mother was always telling him to be careful. Now she was telling him to be brave.

How could I tell you, Mum, about the miracle? Could I say: I have the power to generate flesh from dream? Would you think I was crazy? Or am I just underestimating you again? What would you say?

Michael's head unconsciously adopted the slightly sideways bolshiness of her enquiring position, and his eyes took on her slow burn.

And he knew she would say: 'So how is all that any different from wanking?'

He thought and answered her: 'You can touch them. And they have minds of their own.'

'So how is it any different from the real thing?'

Michael thought again and said, 'It's safer.'

He saw Mavis chortle, just before she stood up to take out the tea things. 'You mean like trainer wheels on a bicycle. They'll have to come off sooner or later, love.'

Finally, Michael folded the letter away and snuggled down under the duvet that smelled of fabric conditioner. He felt safe and warm, like a child, which is what Christmas is for. He leaned across and snapped off the light.