Tanith Lee a to Z, page 74
The funny thing is, I can’t explain this, but there was something – something really awful about this mark. It sounds crazy and you’ll think I’m a proper dope. You know what an imagination I’ve got. You see, it looked to me like a funny sort of animal – a sort of snake thing, with hands – and a face. And the oddest part of all, it was in just this place that it looked as if it was sitting square on Gordon’s shoulders with its tail coming down his collar, and its arm-like-things round his throat, and its face pressed close his, as if it loved him and would never let go.
Zelle’s Thursday
Thursday was rather difficult. In the morning the children attacked me again, which was a pity, they’d been quite reasonable since that incident in the spring.
The trouble began because of the myrmecophaga, which had climbed up into one of the giant walnut trees on the west lawn. In the wild state, this species doesn’t climb, but genetic habilitation sometimes causes sub-aspects, often feline, to establish themselves. Having climbed up into, or on to, or out of, various objects, the myrmecophaga then tends to jump. This, in a heavily-furred, long-clawed animal weighing over two hundred and ten pounds, cannot always be – ignored.
I ran down across the lawn to the tree.
Angelo was still standing under it when I arrived.
‘Angelo,’ I said, ‘please stand away.’
‘Why,’ asked Angelo, ‘are you calling me “Angelo”? It’s Mr Vald-Conway to you.’
‘Of course, if you prefer. Please do stand away, Mr Vald-Conway.’
Angelo, who is currently twelve years and three months old, will one day be handsome, but the day has not yet come. He gazed up into the tree and casually said, ‘Oh, look, Higgins is up there.’
‘Yes, Mr Vald-Conway. That’s why I’m suggesting you should stand away.’
At that moment Higgins, (the myrmecophaga), lurched forward on his powerful furry wrists, two branches broke, and showered us with green walnuts. I was poised to pull Angelo from danger, but presently the spasms of movement ceased. Angelo said, admiringly, ‘What a mess you’re making, Higgins.’
(Angelo is at the age of taking pleasure in the damaging of his father’s property. In the case of property of his mother’s, he is more ambivalent.) Angelo stared up at the hugely draped coal-black shape of Higgins.
‘Isn’t he a beauty.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘Mr Vald-Conway. Higgins is a fine example of a myrmecophaga.’
‘You can stop calling me Mr Vald-Conway. That’s what you call my father. And why do you call Higgins that? He’s an ant-eater.’
‘I shall try to remember.’
‘Are you smarting me?’ Angelo asked suspiciously. He is extremely sensitive. ‘You just watch that.’
‘I meant, Angelo – (?) – that I’ll try to remember you’d rather I referred to your pet by the common term.’
‘Well … Just watch it anyhow.’
Ursula, Mister and Madam’s daughter, had meanwhile appeared on the lawn. She is two years and five months older than Angelo, a tall slender girl, like her brother having the black hair and black eyes of Madam Conway. She had been on the games court and had a racket in her hand.
‘There’s Higgins in the tree,’ said Ursula, ‘and there’s Jelly underneath.’
‘Don’t call me Jelly,’ snarled Angelo.
‘And the Thing,’ added Ursula. She sank down under the combined shade of the walnut tree and Higgins, ‘Thing, go up and get me some iced lemonade. I’m dry as an old desert.’
Precisely then, Higgins jumped. It was an especially spectacular launch, and may have been occasioned by a flea, as he was due for a vacuuming.
I saw at once that the climax: of his trajectory would be Ursula. She too seemed to have deduced this, for she started a frantic roll to avoid him. I dashed forward, swept her up and deposited her on the grass three metres away. Higgins landed, and for a moment looked stunned and partly squashed.
Then he glanced about at us in slight surprise, shook himself, back into shape, and began to groom twigs and walnuts from his fur.
Angelo ran forward and clasped Higgins, who began idly to groom him also, then lost interest having refound his own tail, always a time of inspiration.
‘You tried to upset him –’Angelo cried at me, nearly tearful. ‘You wanted him to fall hard and get hurt.’
‘If you think that falling on your sister would have made for a softer landing, I doubt it.’
Ursula screamed: ‘What do you mean, I’m bony or something? You rotten Thing.’ She slapped me in the face. Though I saw the blow coming, it obviously couldn’t harm me, and I judged, perhaps wrongly, she would be relieved by delivering it.
‘I meant,’ I said, ‘that the animal might have crushed your ribs. Only something bone-less could act as a break-fall for sucha large –’
‘And you nearly dislocated my pelvis, dragging me like that. You pig! I could have got out of the way –’
‘Not quickly en –’
‘You just wanted to bruise me. Look! You’re horrible. You’re OBSCENE –’
And Ursula flew at me and began striking me with her racket, which all this while she had held on to.
Angelo with a wail tore over and joined in enthusiastically.
As they punched and whacked and kicked, Higgins curled up in a ball, wrapped his groomed plume of a tail around himself, and contentedly fell asleep.
I was vacuuming Higgins that afternoon when Mr de Vald came to me in deep distress.
‘My God, Zelle. I don’t know what to say.’
‘I’m still under guarantee, Mr de Vald. There won’t be any charge. Most of the damage was external and took only half an hour to put right. The internal damage is being repaired even now, as I work.’
‘Yes, Zelle. But it’s not that. It’s the horror of it, Zelle.’
‘Which horror, Mr de Vald?’
‘That they could do – that such a thing – children of mine.’
‘It’s not entirely uncommon, Mr de Vald, in the first year or so.’
I had by now switched off the vacuum, and Higgins was recovering from the swoon of ecstasy into which he falls when once the vacuum catches up with him, since at first he always runs away from it. While I had watched them going round and round the pavilion on the east lawn, I removed the last of the debrasion mask from my cheek. Actually, the cosmetic renewal of my face, arms and shoulders had taken longer than I’d said, for I’d tried to relieve Mr de Vald’s mind.
‘You see, Zelle,’ said Patrice de Vald, sitting down beside me on the steps of the pavilion, ‘it’s the trend to violence I abhor.’
‘Please don’t worry, Mr de Vald, that anything they do to me they might ever be inclined to do to a fellow human. It’s quite a different syndrome.’
‘Syndrome. Christ, my kids are part of a syndrome.’
He put his blond head in his lean hands.
(Higgins, annoyed at the vacuum-cleaner’s sudden lack of attention, stuffed his long tube of black velvet face into the machine’s similar slender black tube. It has occurred to me before that he thinks certain household appliances to be (failed, bald), myrmecophagae.)
‘You see, Zelle. I want you to be happy here.’
It’s useless to explain that this terminology, or outlook, can’t apply to me.
‘Mr de Vald, I’m perfectly happy. And in time, Angelo and Ursula will come to accept me, I’m sure.’
‘Well, Zelle, I just want you to know, the house never functioned so elegantly. And my partner, Inita – she’s sometimes reticent about these things … But she thinks that, too. It’s so much better to have you in charge than a – just some faceless –’ he broke off. He blushed. Trying to be tactful, he always came around to this point, exaggerating what he meant to avoid.
Higgins withdrew his face from the face of the vacuum cleaner.
‘Here, boy,’ said Mr de Vald jollily.
Higgins gave him a look from his onyx eyes, and shambled off across the lawn towards the lake. In the wild, myrmecophagae have limited sight and hearing, but the habilitation reorganises such functions. Higgins has twenty-twenty vision and can detect one synthetic ant falling into his platter at a distance of two hundred metres.
‘Guess he didn’t hear me,’ said Mr de Vald. He looked at me, his own eyes anxious and wide. ‘All I can do about the brats is to apologise. They’ve been punished. I’ve vetoed those light concerts in town they’re both so keen to visit.’
It wasn’t up to me to advise him, unless he asked for advice.
But now he added meekly, ‘Do you think?’
‘Mr de Vald, as the property of yourself and your wife, of course you could say that any damage to me must be punishable. On the other hand, half the problem arises because your children can’t quite accept, as yet, that I’m no different than – say – that vacuum cleaner.’
‘Oh, Zelle.’
‘Technically,’ I said, ‘there’s nothing to choose, except that I am entirely self-programming, autonomous, and, therefore, ultra efficient. That I look as I do is supposed to make me more compatible.’
‘Oh and Zelle, it does. Why, our house parties – And the number of people who’ve said to me, who’s that pretty new maid, how on earth can you afford a human servant, and so cute – just as though you were – I mean that they thought you were – weren’t –’ he broke off, red now to the ears. ‘You think I shouldn’t punish Ursula and Angelo. Just explain it over to them. That you’re – not –’
‘That I’m just a machine, Mr de Vald. That I’m not a threat. That if they would try to think of me more on the lines of an aesthetic, multi-purpose appliance, this fear they have of me would eventually fade.
‘I guess you’re right, Zelle,’
My smiling circuit activated.
He dreamily patted my no-longer-broken shoulder and went slowly away across the lawn after Higgins, who never quite allowed him to catch up.
By the drinks hour, every hit of me was repaired, outside and in. I was on the terrace, supervising the trolleys and mixers, and the ice-maker. Mr de Vald had driven over to the airport, and there was some tension, as Madam Conway, who had been away on her working schedule, was returning unexpectedly.
The children had reappeared on the east lawn, cooler at this time of day, and were sitting near the pavilion looking very subdued. Sometimes I detected – my hearing is as fine as Higgins’ – Ursula’s voice: ‘Mother said she’d bring me the new body cosmetic. She did. But will she remember? I wonder how many paintings she sold? If she got het up, she’ll have forgotten the body cosmetic. I don’t want to look like an old immature frump all the time.’ Angelo, who was being restrained, only spoke occasionally, in monosyllables, as for example ‘Red light. Looking forward. Knows I was.’ Higgins had fallen in the lake during the afternoon, and was being automatically dried in the boating-shed.
Presently the car appeared in the ravine, rounded the elms, and curved noiselessly up on to the auto-drive. Here it began to deposit Madam Conway’s thirty-five pieces of luggage in the service lift.
Inita Conway came walking gracefully over the lawn with Mr de Vald, raising one hand languidly at her children. Ursula evinced excitement and rushed towards her mother. Angelo rose in a sort of accommodating slouch designed to disguise concentrated emotion.
Inita Conway wore golden sandals, and her black hair in the fashionable spike known as the unicorn. Ursula exclaimed over and examined this with careful admiration, ‘lo, mumma. Did you sell a lot of paintings? Why are you home so soon? I’m glad you’re home so soon. Did you bring my body cosmetic?’
‘Yes, Ursula, I brought your body cosmetic. Your tidy’s carried it up to your room.’
‘Can-I-go-and –’
‘Yes, Ursula,’
Ursula bolted.
Angelo approached his mother and said, ‘Hi, Dad’s vetoed the concerts.’
‘So I have heard. And I heard why.’
Angelo lounged by the drinks table, which the organizer was now setting out. He kept putting his hands down where the organizer was trying to lay tumblers, so that it had to select somewhere else,
‘You’re home early, motherrr,’ slurred Angelo, ‘Whysat?’
‘To catch your father out,’ said Madam Conway, She looked at me and said, ‘Zelle, I want you to come up to my suite after drinks, I have three original Sarba shirts and some things for Ursula, They need to be sorted before dinner.’
Then turning to Patrice de Vald she snatched him into a passionate embrace that embarrassed Angelo and apparently embarrassed also Mr de Vald. ‘Darling. Have you missed me?’
‘I always –’
‘Yes, but in the past, you were lonely.’
Mr de Vald looked terribly nervous. There was no reason that I knew why he should be, but sometimes the communications between these two partners are so complex, and have so many permutations, that I can’t follow them. Their relationship seems to be a little like chess, but without the rules.
There was a dim uproar from the boating-shed.
Madam Conway disengaged herself from Mr de Vald’s uneasy arms. ‘I suppose that’s that bloody ant-eater up to something.’
She downed her drink, a triple gin-reine, and took a triple gin-colada. She beckoned me towards the house. As we went along the terrace, she called back, ‘Oh, Patrice, someone’s coming to dinner. A young designer I met.’
Haying killed the automatic drier, Higgins burst from the shed and pounced along the lawn, his fringed coat now fluffed and shaking like a well-made soufflé.
‘Bloody animal,’ said Madam Conway. ‘I’d have the damn thing put down if it weren’t for the Animal Rights regulations.’
‘Angelo would be distressed,’ I said. ‘He’s very fond of his pet.’
‘Yes, we’re very fond of our pets, Zelle, By the way, I didn’t think you offered advice unless asked.’
‘I was not, Madam Conway, offering advice.’
‘You mean it was just a casual human comment?’
‘An observation, Madam Conway.’
‘What else have you observed, Zelle?’
‘In what area, Madam Conway?’
‘Well, I realize you have to study us all minutely. In order to fulfil our wildest dreams correctly.’
The house door opened and we stepped on the moving stair. (As we rose past the windows, I noticed Higgins was in the lake again.)
‘For example,’ said Madam Conway, as we entered the elevator for her suite, ‘what have you found out about Patrice’s wildest dreams? Anything I ought to know?’
‘I’m sorry, Madam Conway. I don’t understand.’
‘I’ll bet.’
We entered the suite. It is white at the moment, with touches of purple, blue and gold. Inita Conway, with her slender coffee body and two metres of inky hair, dominated every room, even the bathroom, which was done in dragons.
‘You see, Zelle, dear,’ said Inita Conway, ‘I happen to know what goes on in a house once your sort of humanoid robot is installed.’
Her luggage had arrived, and I saw that the suite tidy had already begun to unpack and service the Sarba shirts. I had not therefore really been summoned for this task.
Instead it seemed I was being attacked again. And that this was rather more serious than the assault instigated by the children.
‘Well,’ said Madam Conway, ‘Go on, deny it,’
‘What do you wish me to deny, Madam Conway?’
‘That you’re taking my partner to bed.’
‘Exactly, Madam Conway, I deny it.’
She smiled. Throwing off her clothes she marched into the shower. A dragon hissed foam upon her. She stood in the foam, a beautiful icon of flesh, and snapped, ‘Don’t tell me you can’t lie. I know you things can lie perfectly damn well. And don’t tell me you’re frigid. I know everyone of you comes with sex built in –’
‘Yes, Madam Conway, it’s true that my model functions to orgasm. But this is only –’
‘I can just imagine,’ she screamed, turning on another dragon, ‘what erotic pleasures have been rocking the house to its core. If the bloody automatic hadn’t picked up my return flight number, I’d have got here when you weren’t expecting me. Caught the two of you writhing with arched backs among the blasted Sarba sheets I bought that bastard last trip –’ A third dragon rendered her unintelligible if not inaudible. She switched off all three suddenly, and coming out before the drier could take the jewels of water from her skin, she confronted me with one hand raised like a panther’s paw. ‘You – you trollop. I know. Couldn’t help it. He made you. Oh, I’ve heard all about it. Men get crazy to try you. The perfect woman, Hah!’
‘I have to warn you,’ I said, ‘Madam Conway, that I’ve already had to facilitate quite extensive repairs to myself today, and although the guarantee may cover further wilful damage, during the same twenty-four hour unit, I’m not certain of that. If you wish, I can tap into the main bank and find out.’
‘Oh go to hell you moronic plastic whore.’
‘Do you mean you’d prefer me to leave your suite?’
‘Yes. My God. You and that ant-eater. I’d put the pair of you –’
Although she told me, I did not grasp the syntax.
The dinner guest, Madam’s designer, arrived late, in the middle of the argument over Ursula’s body cosmetic. Mr de Vald insisted that his daughter had used too much of the cosmetic and looked like a fifty-year old. (In fact, Ursula looked about nineteen.) Madam Conway laughed bitterly and said that a woman needed every help she could get with all the competition around. Angelo was sulking because his mother hadn’t brought him anything back from her trip; he had earlier requested her not to, on the grounds that being given presents was for girls and babies.
The fourth argument over the cosmetic was in fact a second instalment of the second argument that had taken place since the start of the meal. The first and third arguments, though having differing pivots, actually concerned Inita Conway’s guest, who had seemed to fail to call.
