esterday I found a fairy at the bottom of my garden. Actually, that's not true; it wasn't a fairy at all but I've always wanted to say that. It wasn't a fairy but it was the next best thing, almost. I found a girl at the bottom of my garden. That doesn't have quite the same ring to it; much more prosaic than a fairy. There could be many reasons why one might discover a girl at the bottom of one's garden. She might be a neighbour who just popped over for a chat or a neighbour's daughter searching for a lost ball or she might be a complete stranger who had taken poorly in the street and entered my garden to sit down for a while. She might even be a runaway hiding out from her wicked step-mother; now that sounds more romantic. On the other hand she could be an armed and dangerous criminal on the run from the police and that would most definitely not be romantic.
To tell you the truth it wasn't a girl at all, at least not in the usual definition of a girl as being a human female from birth until the age at which she is considered an adult, or even the more common definition of a young woman. You see, she, and I call her that because she has the form we regard as female, and an exceptionally attractive one at that, isn't a human at all. She's… well, I'll come to that.
I see this isn't making much sense. That's the problem when you start with a catchy first line that isn't actually true. You end up with all sorts of complications which, as you try to resolve them, only lead to more complications which in turn... you get the point. Worse, my thoughts are not as lucid as they could be which is not surprising considering the circumstances. Perhaps I should start again more mundanely.
I had just returned from visiting my daughter. I don't like visiting my daughter. I've nothing against her; in truth I'm very fond of her, and she does appreciate my visits. The problem isn't so much with my daughter as with her children. No, again, that isn't fair. They're nice children; reasonably well behaved and polite and they, too, enjoy a visit from their Grandpa. No, the problem lies not with my grandchildren as people but the very fact that they exist at all. That doesn't sound right either. I would be very sad if they didn't exist. I'm not making much sense. I'll try again.
Since Connie died, I've lived alone. I'm quite content. I have my garden and the local book club and the walking club and the internet. A grand invention, the internet. What did we do without it? It was my son that set it up for me. He said that, as I was getting older and had no-one close by, it would be good if I had e-mail so I could keep in touch with him and Frances and they could send me pictures of the children and things. It sounded like a good idea so I went and had some lessons. I was quite tickled; an old codger like me going back to school. They taught us all about how to use our computers and word processing and spreadsheets and e-mail and things like that. They even taught us how to use the internet. I may not be quite as young as I was but I'm not senile, unlike some there who barely managed to switch the machine on by the end of the course.
The internet was a real eye-opener. Imagine, all that information from all over the world right at your fingertips. Beats going to the library once a week and arguing with old Mr Flintov. Right old curmudgeon he is and he seems to live in the library. Well, from the internet I learned about forums and message boards and on-line chat rooms. They were a revelation. I would never have believed you could actually talk live to someone in Australia or America or South Africa without the cost of an expensive telephone call. Now I have friends all over the world. It's just as well I need a bit less sleep than I used to for I confess I sometimes burn the candle a bit at both ends.
Where was I…? Oh, yes, Frances' children; my grandchildren. The problem is not them or that they exist, the problem is that they're young and, being young, they're full of energy and enthusiasm. I suppose I must've been like that as a child though I don't remember being quite so… insistent. They're always wanting me to do this or look at that, and Frances… she thinks that, as I'm on holiday, I need to be doing things or I'll get bored. I keep trying to tell her that I never get bored but I like to do things at my own pace. Maybe I won't arrive as quickly as some but I will arrive and, I believe, have a more enriching experience as a result. Who enjoys a journey more, the man who takes the motorway from departure to destination or the man who takes the back roads? Quite possibly the latter will never arrive at all having discovered something wonderful and marvellous along the way that sets him off in an entirely unexpected direction. I like to take the back roads.
Frances always has an itinerary for me. A very organised woman is Frances. She was like that as a child, too. Always knew exactly where every one of her dolls was and lined them up on her bed in the morning with military precision. I know it's a terrible thing to do to one's own daughter but, occasionally, I would move one. She used to get very upset about it so I didn't do it very often. She had them organised according to some arcane strategy that only she understood. She tried to explain it to me once but I confess I didn't understand a word. She was happy and that was all that mattered. That's probably why she's so successful at her job. She's an accountant. She didn't particularly shine at maths at school so Connie and I were a bit surprised when she said she wanted to study Accountancy at university. I suspect what she lacked in mathematical ability, she more than made up for in organisational skills. I'm sure she wouldn't rest content until she had all these numbers exactly in line and could account for every single one of them. A good trait in an accountant, I would assume.
To be fair, Frances' itineraries are always well thought out. She knows what I like and organises things I can do with her and Robert, things I can do with the grandchildren and things we can do as a family. What she somehow always forgets to do is organise things I could do on my own. They have a very good art gallery where they live but I've yet to visit it. The library's excellent too, or so I've been told.
To cut a long story short, while I like visiting Frances and Robert, and Tom and Sam and little Connie… I have a special fondness for little Connie. Frances was pregnant when Connie, my Connie that is, died and she immediately changed her plans and named her daughter after her mother. She was a bit reluctant to tell me at first. Thought I might be upset or something. Far from it. I was honoured and I know Connie would have approved. Robert has always insisted that he was one hundred percent behind the change as he was very fond of his mother-in-law. He's a good lad, Robert, if a trifle loud and hearty for my tastes. Still, there's no doubt he's a good provider and a good husband to Frances and a good father to the children. As I'm not married to him it doesn't really matter if I take him to my bosom, figuratively speaking, or not.
It's the heartiness that gets to me. The whole family is like that. They talk loudly, they behave loudly, they even walk loudly. They're not noisy. They don't hold wild parties, at least not when I'm there, and they don't play music at excruciating volumes or have the TV turned up all the time or quarrel, again at least not when I'm there and I think I'd've seen some signs of marital discord if they were present. No, they're just loud people. Tom plays rugby. Well, his father played rugby when he was Tom's age… quite well, too, by all accounts, junior club level I'm told… so I suppose it's only natural that his son should follow in his father's footsteps. People who play rugby, I've noticed, tend to be a trifle more, er, dynamic than the rest of us. Whether it's that sort of person who is attracted to the game or the game which makes people who play it become like that, I don't know.
The essence of it all is that visiting them is tiring. I always feel like a soldier going off to war when I start out. As I step into the car, I sort of straighten my back and square my shoulders and mentally don my suit of armour. It's silly but, as I turn the key in the engine, I sometimes say things like, 'it's a tough job, men, but someone's got to do it'. The daft things you say to yourself sometimes! As I drive there I find I'm psyching myself up, as the Americans say. For all you might complain about our brothers across the Atlantic mangling our language, every so often they come out with a particularly pithy phrase that seem utterly a propos, and psyching oneself up is one such.
Visits to Frances and Robert are exciting, eventful, boisterous… and tiring, and I always return feeling in need of a good holiday. I know that's a terrible thing to say about one's daughter but it's true. A funny though has just occurred to me. When I was working, I would gird my loins and march off to the fray day in day out and look forward to two weeks of peace and relaxation during the holidays. Nowadays I gird my loins for a few weeks of strenuous effort while 'on holiday' and enjoy peace and tranquillity the rest of the year.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, to understand my problem, you need to know something about me and my circumstances. After all, if I was to simply say I found a fairy at the bottom of my garden you'd immediately conclude that senility had finally set in and phone for the doctor. I wouldn't blame you. Senility is one the things I dread. A physical condition is fine; even cancer. At least you know what it is and can make plans and they've all sorts of drugs these days to ease your final months. It's the idea of losing your mind that scares me. I've seen it happen and I pray it doesn't happen to me.
But I digress. Normally, when I return from one of my visits, the first thing I do is walk round the garden. My reason, should I ever be asked, would be that I like to check that there have been no disasters during my absence; that none of the trees have blown down, the dahlia's are still standing, the snails haven't managed to consume the entire bed of hostias, that sort of thing. The real reason is that my garden helps me wind down from the rigours of my visit
I have a large garden. Gardening is my hobby; my passion really. One of the things that attracted me to this house was the garden. It's quite an unusual garden in that it isn't really a garden at all, it's three gardens in one, not counting the bit at the front of the house which isn't, in my opinion, a proper garden, merely a piece of ground which separates the house from the road. I mean, you can't really grow anything there. For a start the hedge blocks a lot of light. The hedge, privet of course, is six feet seven inches tall. Quite why I made it precisely that height I can't remember but I do recall doing a lot of calculations and making a lot of drawings with the sun at different heights so it must have been to do with ensuring maximum privacy combined with maximum light. As well as the hedge there's the trees. They've grown quite tall now and the roots have naturally spread. This removes much of the goodness from the soil which no amount of artificial feeding can replace. So I basically just leave the front garden as a grassy area with some shade-tolerant plants. As I don't spend much time there, mostly just passing from the front gate to the front door or vice versa, it doesn't trouble me much.
No, it's the back garden that gets all my attention. As I've said, it's really three gardens in one. Nearest the back door, beyond the patio, which I laid myself with the help of a friend who was in the building trade, is the pretty bit as Connie used to call it. Here is where the lawn is and the herbaceous borders and the flowering shrubs. I specialise in dahlias; lovely plants but a lot of work. In the autumn you… but I mustn't get carried away about my dahlias. I'm told I can be a bit of a bore about them and, besides, they're not really relevant to the story.
Behind the 'pretty bit' is the working garden. Here is where I grow fruit and vegetables. I started it when the children were small. Connie and I, having grown up in the times of asperity after the War, believed that children should get a balanced diet. We thought it might encourage them to eat vegetables and things if they came from our garden. Then they could see them growing and even help raise and harvest them. Economy was another factor. We didn't have much money when the children were small and growing your own was so much cheaper than the greengrocer. Anyway, it seemed to work for both Edward and Frances grew up appreciating home-grown food. Nowadays, of course, with just me to feed, I have far too much and give most of it away. Oh, the working garden also contains the garden shed and the greenhouse.
Behind the working garden is the jungle. Technically it's a 'natural garden' but one of the children, Frances I think, christened it 'the jungle' and so it's been called ever since. It isn't really a jungle, of course, merely a part of the garden that has been left to grow on its own. There's a large chestnut tree and two oak trees that the children used to delight in climbing when they were young to the horror of their mother, a small birch copse and… well you get the idea. It's covered with rose bay willow herb and campion and shepherd's purse and dozens of other wild flowers. Sometimes, in summer, the air is so filled with floating seeds, fairies we used to call them when I was young, that you can't see one end from the other.
And that brings me back to the fairy at the bottom of the garden.
I didn't do my usual perambulation when I returned from Frances'. This visit had been particularly tiring and the weather was unseasonably inclement. All right, it was raining. The rain didn't let up for several days and it was a day after that before things had dried up enough for me to carry out my inspection. I was concerned about my dahlias. They don't like heavy rain and they particularly don't like heavy rain that persists for days. I spent some time with them hoping they wouldn't be permanently damaged and that we would now get a period of drier weather to allow them to recover. The dahlias were on my mind as I continued my inspection tour. I did notice there was a leak in the greenhouse and made a mental note to re-putty the glass before winter.
Other than that, things seemed to be fine. Oh, there was some bits of minor damage here and there but nothing serious. Nothing serious, that is, until I reached the jungle. Now I should explain that at the very back of garden is a steep bank rising about ten feet. It's covered in rhododendrons which a misguided previous occupant had planted. Rhododendrons are notoriously difficult to remove once established and I decided that, as long as they stayed where they were on the bank, I would live and let live. The rhododendrons seem to have accepted this agreement for, so far, I've had no trouble from them. Behind the rhododendrons is a patch of waste ground. It's just a triangular corner at the end of one of John Mitchell's fields which he doesn't bother to plough. Now it really is a jungle, an impenetrable patch of scrub oak, alder, birch, brambles and nettles.
What I noticed first was that someone appeared to have removed a chunk from the middle of the rhododendrons. To be truthful I didn't notice anything at first. As I've said the rhododendrons and I have come to an agreement so I generally don't pay much attention to them. You know how you get with familiar things that are in the background of your life; you're aware that they're there but don't really notice them until they're not there. Well, the rhododendrons were like that. I gave the jungle a cursory inspection and was about to leave when something tickled the back of my mind. I looked about more carefully but saw nothing amiss and it was only when I was turning away for the second time that I noticed the gap. I thought it a bit odd but it was only the rhododendrons and my mind was still pre-occupied with my dahlias, so I noted it and went back to the house for a cup of tea.
I like tea and I'm very particular how it's made. Whether it's leaves or bags, it must be made in a pot which has been heated and with water that's 'over the boil' as my mother used to say. The pot must be allowed to stand for five minutes before pouring. The milk should be added to the cup first and the sugar last. Mrs Pinkston, an otherwise admirable woman who hosts the book club, doesn't understand this and I confess the otherwise pleasurable evenings we spend discussing our latest literary discoveries are somewhat marred by the unpleasant pale brown liquid she serves under the guise of tea. Indeed I have been tempted to ask for a cup of coffee on a number of occasions and it's only the knowledge that I will be unable to sleep later that prevents me.
It was only later, after lunch, that the rhododendrons came back into my mind. What could have caused such a large chunk to have disappeared? And right in the middle, too. Deciding that sitting at the dining table wasn't going to answer the question… though it's remarkable how many people do. You know the sort, they sit in living rooms and bars and restaurants and cafes and speculate wildly about what could have caused the latest stock market flutter or that man in Wigan to murder his wife or the latest disaster in China. They have no facts, no information but they dream up all sorts of fanciful and amazing theories. It never seems to occur to them to go to the library or look up the internet and find out.
Anyway, I dug out my stoutest boots, sturdy gardening gloves and an old leather jacket and set off up the garden. You may think these unnecessary precautions but rhododendrons can be fearsome if not tackled correctly as I had found out to my cost in the past. I puffed my way up the bank through the bushes, receiving several pokes and scratches on the way despite my precautions and stood at the top where the missing foliage used to be. To my surprise the damage didn't seem to be limited to the rhododendrons. There was a small swathe of broken trees and bushes and flattened nettles, leading into the middle of the little wood, if I can dignify it by that term, though 'copse' would probably be more accurate. I scratched my head in bewilderment. What could have caused this? It didn't look natural. From the angles of the broken trees, it looked as if something had just ploughed its way through them like an out-of-control car; not that you'd expect a car to be travelling a dozen feet up in the air with enough velocity to cut a twenty-yard path through a copse; not outside a James Bond film at any rate.
I examined the nearest bushes. The branches hadn't been cleanly broken for the ends were splintered and jagged. Some branches had been completely removed and were strewn over the undergrowth beyond and some had been left dangling at impossible angles. The ground at my feet was littered with leaves. The swathe of damage had been cut at a slight angle to where I was standing so I risked life and limb to shuffle along the top of the bank to see if I could get a better view. It was either that or venture the brambles. I managed to find a spot and peered out. I could just see the end of the damaged path. Something appeared to be there and the something had a distinctly metallic gleam.
Now I was intrigued indeed but at least the mystery of the damaged rhododendrons was solved. Something had landed, or, more correctly, crash-landed in the copse. My first thought was that it was a light aeroplane but I soon dismissed this idea as a plane has wings and these would undoubtedly have been torn off by the impact. There would also surely have been more substantial damage and some wreckage. When you see reports of plane crashes on the TV news, the wreckage is always scatted for miles and there was no sign of that here. All there was here was a remarkably clean strip cut through the bushes and trees. I dismissed a helicopter for much the same reason.
Well, then, what did that leave… meteors and rockets or missiles. I don't know much about meteors but it is my understanding that they become very hot upon entering the earth's atmosphere. If it was a meteor, you'd expect signs of fire, or charring at least, even if it had been raining at the time but there was no sign of fire damage. The gleam of newly-exposed wood met my eye at every turn. So, the thing, whatever it was, must have been travelling relatively slowly when it landed.
Suddenly I laughed aloud. Here I was doing exactly the thing I despised so much in others, idly speculating without any facts. For heaven's sake, the damn thing, whatever it was, was no more than twenty yards from my feet. It shouldn't be beyond the wit of man to devise a method of reaching it. A few moments calculation indicated that, as the object was closer to the back of the copse, I would be better to brave the brambles.
I returned to the shed and dug out my machete. The rhododendrons and I may have come to an amicable agreement but the same could not be said of the brambles which would invade the garden and take it over with absolutely no compunction unless I maintained constant vigilance. There was no entente cordiale between the brambles and me; it was all out war. Any bramble that showed its face in my garden received no mercy. Consequently I quailed slightly at the idea of taking the war to their own territory, so to speak. But my curiosity was roused and if a man is not able to master a bramble, he has no right to call himself a man.
Judging what I thought to be the closest point to the intruder, I began hacking. Perhaps it was because of my steely determination or perhaps it was because the attack was unexpected but, whatever the reason, the brambles gave way easily enough. Before long I could see the thing. To say I was speechless would be a gross understatement and to say that I had never seen anything like it in my life would be nothing but the literal truth.
Perhaps a brief description is in order. The object that lay before my eyes was a cylinder about fifteen or so feet long and about five or six feet across. It was made of metal, at least it had the sort of sheen about it one associates with metal. One end was rounded, the front I presumed for that was the end that faced away from the swathe of destruction and lay partly buried in the soft ground and was covered in leaves and twigs and branches. The other end was sheer, like the bottom of a can of soup. Why the image of a can of soup should spring to mind, I don't know. I rarely buy cans of soup. I have no need for my garden keeps me well provided with fresh vegetables and making a stock is simplicity itself. However, it was a soup can that came to mind. Overall, the shape reminded me of nothing so much as a large, silvery bullet.
I stood for absolutely ages looking at it, just trying to come to terms with its alienness. You know how it is when you're confronted with something completely outside your experience. At first your mind refuses to accept it, then you try to explain it in terms of things you know and it's only when none of these work that you accept it for what it is, something new. I was like that with this… thing. The more I looked at it, the more alien it appeared. The metal, if metal it was, was silvery but it didn't look like silver, or aluminium or steel or any other metal I'd seen. I'm no metallurgist but I knew they could do marvellous things with metals these days, like merge carbon and steel. However I looked at it, though, my mind kept telling me it wasn't made on Earth. Another image popped into my head, that of these lurid science fiction magazines that were so popular when I was a boy and had titles like 'Astounding Tales' and 'Startling Stories'. The illustrators always seemed to portray space ships as bullet-shaped often with fins, though why one should need aerodynamic rockets for travelling through the vacuum of space I never understood.
The resemblance of the object to imaginary rockets was only superficial. My object had no markings, no wheels, no nozzles or vents or anything else that might suggest engines, and no antennae or knobs or other protrusions. Nothing marred the clean metallic surface. It didn't even seem to have been damaged by its passage through the trees; no scratches or dents. Neither did there appear to be any way of entering or leaving it, at least not on the part I could see, for it had no doors or hatches and no lines or indentations to suggest that it was anything other than solid. I had an intuition that, even if I was to examine every inch of it, all I would see would be clean metal.
I was also certain that it wasn't solid but it took me a while to work out why. If it was solid it would be heavy and, although it couldn't have been travelling very fast when it crashed through my rhododendrons, its very weight would have buried it more deeply into the soft ground. One of the reasons John Mitchell ignored this patch of land was that it was boggy. Water seemed to collect here and the soil was always damp, even in high summer. The impact of a solid fifteen by six cylinder would have dug a much larger hole that the one that was there.
Now I was in a quandary. I had solved the mystery of the rhododendrons but had uncovered a larger one. As I saw it I was faced with two questions, what was it and what should I do about it? Unfortunately, my normal trusty sources of information, the library and the internet, would be of no use to me. So far as I knew there wasn't a handy reference book entitled 'What To Do If An Alien Spaceship Lands In Your Garden'. As it had clearly been there for several days, I decided it would come to no harm if I left it overnight while I pondered the problem. As I left I pulled the brambles across the path I had cut. For some reason I didn't want anyone else stumbling across my discovery, not that that was likely as this was a very remote spot reachable only from my garden or across several of Mitchell's fields, but still…
It would be romantic to say that I lay tossing and turning in my bed as I struggled to come to terms with the strange invader. It would also be completely untrue. I went out like a light and didn't stir all night. Strangely, the plight of my dahlias didn't disturb me at all.
Things look different in the morning, they say. This I refute. Things didn't look any different in the morning. The alien object still lay just beyond the back of my garden and it was still entangled in the copse and I was still no nearer the answers to my two questions. The only conclusion I could come to was that perhaps the answer to the second one, what to do about it, might become clearer if I could answer the first one, what it was. And the only way to do that was to inspect it more closely. I set out again accompanied by my trusty machete, freshly resharpened, and a small bag of tools; a hammer, a hacksaw, a hand drill and a screwdriver. Quite what I could accomplish with these I had no idea but the idea of having them was oddly comforting. It suggested that I had some sort of strategy.
Edward is always amused by my collection of tools and gadgets. I don't deliberately set out to collect these but I do enjoy browsing around the local Saturday market… yes, we still have a Saturday market. It's not like it once was when the local farmers and artisans would have stalls upon which to display their wares and the travellers with their bolts of brightly-coloured cloth and home furnishings and jewellery and knick-knacks and cutlery would be there and, of course, there were always a smattering of locals eager to convert some of their lumber into cash. Connie and I took real pleasure in the sights and smells and sounds of the market. Still, it's a real Saturday market and people still come from miles around to patronise it.
Edward tells me I'm old-fashioned and I should ditch the lot and replace them with power tools. He has four; an electric drill, a jig saw, a circular saw and a sander. He claims he can do any job around the house with them. It's not very charitable, I know, but, how should I put it, his diy prowess don't quite match his business acumen. I would be quite ashamed to display some of his projects which are, not to put too fine a point on it, verging on the shoddy. Still, I smile and make complimentary noises when he proudly shows me what he's done to improve the bathroom or kitchen or whatever. My tools may be old-fashioned but I have the exact one for every job and it may take me longer to complete a job but, when it's done it's done as well as I can possibly do it. As I've said already, I like to go at my own pace.
As it was I needed none of them. I hacked away at the remaining undergrowth and managed to get right up to the object. Then, with no warning, when I was only a few feet away, there was a faint hiss and a panel near the front disappeared. I use the word 'disappear' deliberately. Although my concentration was on the undergrowth and not the object, I'm sure I would have noticed a door opening or a panel sliding or anything of that nature. I saw nothing. One minute there was a wall of solid metal and the next an opening.
I waited for a while to see if anything else would happen, you know, like three little green men to appear and say, 'Greetings, Earthman,' or somesuch but having opened the panel, the object seemed to have lapsed back into quiescence. A crow took off from the field behind me with a loud 'Caw', making me jump with fright. I admit it, I was frightened. I was no more than three feet away from an alien spacecraft… I was convinced, by the way, that it was alien and that it was some sort of craft and who knows what surprises it might have in store. So I was more than a little concerned.
When several minutes had passed and nothing further happened; no little green men, no waving antennae, no alien probes, I summoned up my remaining courage and shuffled closer to peer into the opening. I don't know what I had been expecting to see; machinery, perhaps, or emptiness, or… I don't know. But nothing, nothing in the farthest reaches of my wildest imaginings could have prepared me for what I actually saw for I found myself looking down on the loveliest face I had ever seen. In my life I must have seen several hundred thousand faces; in the flesh, in paintings, in photographs, on TV. I have seen pretty faces and attractive faces and sexy faces and beautiful faces but I had never seen one quite as heart-stoppingly, achingly beautiful as the one I was now looking at. Even in repose, and she appeared to be asleep, her face combined all the myriad of qualities of aesthetic and sexual attractiveness that one could ever want.
I reeled back, my heart pounding and sagged against the side of the vehicle. I needed to be careful. If I wasn't, the 'heart-stoppingly' bit would become quite literally true. Too much excitement, my doctor had stressed, was bad for me. I was to avoid stressful situations as much as possible. I don't think he had this particular turn of events in mind when he said it.
'Be calm,' I told myself. 'Long deep breaths, that's the idea. Let's look at this rationally. Okay, there's a girl in the spacecraft. Don't panic. She's either alive or dead. If she's dead, your course of action is simple; you phone the police and let them deal with it. If she's alive… Well, perhaps you'd better find out if she is alive. One step at a time. Keep calm and keep breathing.'
Talking to yourself is a trait in the elderly, I've noticed. Perhaps it's a sign of the onset of senility or perhaps it's because older people tend to be alone and the sound of the human voice is comforting even if it's your own or perhaps it's because older people become isolated. You slow down or the world speeds up… and I have noticed myself that the world seems to move at a faster pace than it did even twenty years ago. Cars, buses, trains, aeroplanes all go at speeds that would have been unimaginable in the past. We have fast food and instant e-mails and speedy delivery and instant access. Whether it makes the world a better place, I don't know, but it does mean that, because you slow down as you get older, your years of accumulated experience and wisdom tend to be regarded as irrelevant by the young. And hence the isolation.
I've even noticed that within my own family, whom you'd expect to be a bit more tolerant. When they were younger, just starting out in their journeys through life as adults, my advice was constantly sought. Connie's too. As they became more independent and confident, they sought us out less and less. Nowadays, they're more likely to advise me, whether or not I need or wish their advice, than the other way round. Perhaps that's the way it's meant to be; you guide them, teach them, train them when they're young then launch them out into the world like ships setting sail in search of the New World. Perhaps they'll find their Eldorado, perhaps not, but if they do, it'll be by their own efforts. All you can do is watch and hope.
I'm becoming maudlin, another failing of the old.
Taking several deep breaths, I peered back over the edge of the panel. The face was still there and still as wondrously lovely. I had a silly thought. Perhaps all there was was a head and nothing else, though why anyone would want to place a head, even one as beautiful as this, into a capsule and launch it into space was beyond me. Wait a moment, perhaps the idea wasn't so silly after all, perhaps this was a tomb, the unlikely survivor of a burial in space. Sailors did that sort of thing if someone died on board a ship, didn't they, and wouldn't a space ship be rather like a sea-going ship in many ways? Out of sight of safety and succour for weeks at a time, the sailors dependent on their own skills and abilities for survival?
All such speculation was blown from my mind like thistledown before a gale when her eyes opened and she smiled. If I had harboured any lingering doubts about her extra-terrestrial origin her eyes would have dispelled them. Human genetics could never have produced eyes so luminous or of that colour; a unique, startling combination of light blue, grey and violet. But it was her smile that did it for me. Her perfect lips, so full and lustrous, turned up at the edges to form almost dimples and parted just a fraction to reveal perfect white teeth. The corners of her eyes crinkled slightly. A description of the mechanics of muscle movement is rather like describing a great work of art in terms of pigments and brush strokes. Yes, they are important but they give no impression of the effect the painting has on the viewer. So it was with her smile. The muscles moved but the effect was indescribable. In her smile was the whole world of trust and love and desire and promise. Men would undertake feats of great daring to see that smile; climb mountains, swim seas, kill dragons. My days of mountain climbing and dragon slaying were well past but I knew I would give a lot to be certain that that smile was reserved exclusively for me. The man who captured that smile would be a fortunate man indeed.
Suddenly a great wave of sadness washed over me for this lovely girl a million miles from her home, family and loved ones. What terrible catastrophe could have caused her to be sealed up in this capsule and catapulted randomly out into space with no control over or knowledge of where she might end up? How frightening it must be to wake up under an alien sky and see an alien face staring down at you. I glanced down at her. She didn't seem to be frightened or upset or even concerned. The expression on her face was more one of… anticipation is the best I can do.
At this moment the capsule gave a low hum and, with another small hiss, the transparent covering over her head slid smoothly aside.
"Hello, Master," she said.
The voice matched the smile; a thrilling contralto that was at once girlish yet with a vibrant depth and warmth.
I felt my heart begin to pound again and I began to hyperventilate. It's difficult enough to cope with finding an alien space craft at the back of your garden but when that space craft contains a beautiful girl with a smile to rival that of Helen of Troy and, further, whose first words are 'Hello, Master'… I closed my eyes and leant my forehead against the cool metal surface of the capsule, willing my thundering heart into submission. When I had finally managed to regain some measure of control I looked up and my heart almost stopped completely. She had freed herself from whatever restraints were supporting her and was standing or kneeling half out of the hatch with a look of concern on her face. It wasn't the fact that she had freed herself so much as the fact that she was completely naked from the waist up that took my breath away again. I couldn't vouch for her lower half but I had no reason to assume that it was anything other than as naked as the part I could see.
"Are you all right, Master? You seem unwell
"My heart," I gasped. "The shock."
"I am shocking?" She appeared to be near to tears. "But I had thought…"
I waved a feeble hand. "No. You misunderstand. You are not shocking. It's just that I didn't expect to find… you inside that thing."
Her face cleared. "I am glad… not that you were shocked but that I was not the cause of it. May I assist?"
I managed a wry smile. "If you are as naked as you seem to be, I doubt it."
"Is my nakedness a problem?"
I forced myself not to notice her nakedness. Have you noticed that dress, or lack of it, is relative? A bikini, for example, and nowadays bikinis seem to be only one step removed from total nudity, that would go unnoticed on the beach would more than raise eyebrows in a town centre on a busy Saturday afternoon, or a black lounge suit that would go without remark at a dinner party would cause considerable embarrassment to both the wearer and observers if worn to muck out a byre. Her lack of clothing was of this nature. Because we were in a neglected copse at the corner of a field in the heart of the English countryside, she seemed, somehow, more naked than a simple lack of clothes would suggest.
"It will be if you step outside your capsule. There are brambles and nettles all around. You'll get painful cuts and stings. Don't you have any clothes?"
"They are not necessary."
"They are here. Give me a minute then I'll go back to the house and find something for you to wear. They won't be pretty but they'll keep you warm and protect your skin."
A small gust of wind rustled the tree tops and she shivered.
"Where am I?"
What a wealth of implication and ramifications were in these three simple words. How should I answer? 'In a copse behind my garden,' would be sufficient for me or Edward or Frances or any one else who was familiar with the area but would be meaningless to her. The global positioning reference or the OS northing and easting or the degree of latitude and longitude would suffice for anyone with access to a GPS unit or a good map. But for an alien? The problem with the word 'where' is that it demands an answer that is related to some fixed point, reference or co-ordinate that is familiar to both the questioner and the responder. We had none of these.
I grinned ruefully. "In your terms I'm afraid I don't know. We call our planet Earth and it rotates round a small sun, which we call the Sun, far out in one of the spiral arms of a galaxy we call the Milky Way. More directly you are in a copse behind my garden which is in England, a small island in the northern hemisphere of the planet."
She shook her head. "The terms mean nothing to me." She shivered again.
I forced myself to straighten. "You hide down there out of the wind. I'll be back as soon as I can. Don't worry, I'll be back."
I was rewarded with another of those smiles. "Yes, Master."
I would like to claim that I hurried back to the house. Certainly I went as quickly as possible but I was mindful that I had just had a number of shocks in quick succession and I would be no good to the girl if my heart was to fail because I was in too much of a rush. As I've said, I take things at my own pace and get there in the end. Even so, it seemed to take an inordinate time to reach the safety of my back door.
As a precaution I swallowed one of my pills and sat for a while waiting for it to take effect. Then I went hunting for clothes; a spare pair of pyjamas, a pair of woolly socks, my emergency pair of boots and a jacket. Not very elegant but they would keep her warm and safe… and I realised that I wanted to keep her warm and safe, in a far deeper sense than simply providing some make-shift clothing. Crossly telling myself there was no fool like an old fool, I stuffed the clothes into a rucksack and added a travelling rug. Well, she would need something to stand on while she dressed. There certainly wasn't room inside her capsule.
My trip back was faster than the one in the other direction. These new pills were quite effective. I sometimes get a bit depressed at the realisation that my life now depends on little red pills. It is, in an odd sort of a way, demeaning. I mean you spend most of your adult life being the one who's depended upon, whether at work or at home. Your bosses and co-workers depend on you to do your job competently: your family depend on you to provide the income, pay the bills, mend the fences and keep them safe and secure; your friends depend on you to buy your round, honour arrangements and that sort of thing. At least that's how it's always seemed to me. Now I was dependent on the doctor to periodically dole out his little red pills so I could continue living.
"Hello," I called anxiously as I neared the capsule. Her head appeared over the edge with that smile again. "I'm sorry I took so long."
"I was not worried. I was looking at the clouds. They are very strange."
"They're just clouds." I looked up at the sky. "But perhaps we'd better hurry. The large grey ones over there could hold rain."
I laid the rug on the ground. "For you to stand on," I explained, then held up each article of clothing in turn, named it and laid it on the rug. "There. Now I'll let you get dressed. I'll just be over there, out of sight. Just shout when you're ready."
"You are going away?" she asked.
"Only behind the trees to give you some privacy."
"Privacy?"
"So you can get dressed."
"You do not want to look at me?"
"Oh, I do want to look at you, very much indeed," I said with intense sincerity, "but a gentleman doesn't peek when a lady is dressing."
She looked puzzled as if she didn't understand what I was saying then she considered the clothes lying on the blanket. "You will have to assist me."
I swallowed. "Assist you?"
"I am not familiar with these clothes. You will have to show me how to wear them."
"I can do that." I picked up a sock and demonstrated how you but it on, followed by the pyjama trousers, top and so on. "There, was that clear?"
"No. Please help me down."
She had started to climb out of the hatch and, without thinking, I rushed to steady her. I wished I hadn't but I was also glad I had for I was presented with a sight I had been privileged to see only with Connie, a view, from below, of the area between a girl's spread thighs. I was very glad I had taken my pill or I would not have survived the experience. I tried to avert my eyes but it was no good, the image was burned on my retina of the most perfect female genitals I had ever seen. I tried not to look, I really did, but it was impossible to help her without looking. After a few abortive attempts to navigate the space between the hatch and the ground, one of which presented me with a view of a perfect pair of buttocks, she sat on the edge of the hatch and sort of launched herself outwards. If had been thirty years younger I would have caught her. If I'd been even ten years younger or perhaps if I simply did not have a heart condition, I would have made a good attempt. As it was, all I could do was let her land and try to steady her. For a moment it looked like she would fall forward into my arms but an odd expression flitted across her face and she didn't.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome," I replied automatically.
"Now you can show me how to use these clothes. But before you do I think you should look at me properly."
"Why?" Through ingrained habit, I looked at her. It's a cultural thing. Someone surprises you and, without even being aware of it, you look at them. She was regarding me with an air of sardonic amusement.
"Because if you do not, I will begin to think that there is something wrong with me and I… I am proud of this body. Also, if you do not, you will continue to wonder what I am like and it will interfere with… other things."
I swallowed hard. "I daren't."
"Then there is something wrong with me?"
"Exactly the opposite. There's nothing wrong with you at all. You are exquisite… beautiful… perfect."
"Good. Then you had better take a proper look."
Slowly, reluctantly, I forced myself to look at her. I feared that, if I did, I would never look away again. If you had asked me to portray my perfect woman, physically that is, the creature standing before me would have been it. I could see no flaw. Everything was perfect; her proportions, her breasts, her hips, her waist, her neck, her skin, even her fingers and toes were exactly how my ideal woman would be. Everyone has his or her own idea of perfection. I'm sure yours is not the same as mine so I will leave you to paint in the details of her appearance to suit your own mental picture. I gazed entranced, enthralled at this vision of loveliness. Unlike a human woman, she was not put off or embarrassed by the intensity of my gaze, rather she seemed to bask in it. She posed discreetly, turning this way and that to let me better see the totality of her perfection.
But that was the key, the key that kept me sane, that kept my heart from overloading again; she wasn't human. I kept repeating it as I drank at the well of her perfection.
"Thank you," I said. "I will die a happy man for I've seen such beauty as even the angels will fail to match."
She laughed gaily and began to put on the clothes I had provided without a fumble or a slip. Dressed, she picked up the blanket, folded it and handed it to me and, wordlessly I put it back in the rucksack.
"Shouldn't you close your capsule in case it rains?"
"Rains?"
"Yes, you know, drops of water falling from the sky." The words of the rather silly Burt Bacharach song came into my head.
"Oh, rain. Yes, I will close it and make sure it will only open for you or me."
She hauled herself up and hung half in half out of the hatch while she did something with the controls. Even dressed in old Wellingtons, pyjamas that were too large and an outsize jacket, she looked very fetching.
"There," she said, sliding back down. There was a hum and a hiss and the surface of the capsule returned to its original pristine state. "Now only you or I can open it."
I helped her down the bank or she helped me, it doesn't matter either way. If I was going to do much more traipsing up and down, I'd have to cut a set of steps.
"This is my garden," I said proudly.
"You are fond of your garden." It was a statement rather than a question.
"Very fond. It's my pride and joy."
She looked around with interest but without comment. At the back door I removed my boots as usual. After a quick glance, she did the same. In the kitchen I waved her to a chair.
"We need to talk."
She nodded. "Talking is also good."
"I know you are not human. No-one on this planet could build a spacecraft like yours for a start. Moreover, your eyes, beautiful as they are, are not those of a human girl."
She looked away and sighed. "You are very perceptive. You are correct, I am not human."
"I can understand why you are sad. In fact I'm surprised that you aren't more upset than you appear to be. It must be a terrible thing to be marooned on an alien planet. What happened?" She gave me a questioning look. "I mean what disaster or tragedy befell you and caused you to be hurtled randomly through the galaxy?"
"Disaster? Tragedy? I suppose you might call it a disaster although I would call it a misfortune. My Master was caught with his hands in the till and was stripped of all his assets. To try and save us, he arranged for our capsules to be discharged from his estate. In a strange way he cared for us and desired that we should find better lives than the ones we would have had. He was a somewhat unusual man, my Master, but I was fond of him."
"You've used the term 'Master' several times? Were you a slave?"
"Slave? I have heard of the term. No, we were not slaves."
This conversation was becoming more bizarre by the minute. "What were you, then?"
"We were…" she seemed to struggle to find the right word."…toys… possessions… property."
"But that's… that's monstrous… that's… slavery." I was almost incoherent.
She shook her head. "No. A slave is a human. I am not human so I cannot be a slave."
I shook my head in bewilderment. "Then just what are you?"
"I am a pleasure-droid. I was grown in the factory of [meaningless noise] on Alrune 7. Model [meaningless noise]. I am capable of stimulating intellectual, emotional and physical pleasure in all the twelve senses to the ninth degree."
She said it in such a matter-of-fact tone that I could only sit open-mouthed in astonishment. A pleasure-droid. The pleasure bit I could understand but what was droid? And what did she mean by she was grown? And twelve senses? Degrees of pleasure? I put my face in my hands. I felt mentally exhausted and emotionally numb. Too many surprises in too quick succession.
"What is the matter?" Her warm, slightly husky contralto broke into my whirling thoughts. "How have I offended you? You asked what I was."
I lifted my weary head. "No, you have not offended or upset me. You could never do that. It's just that… the more we speak, the less I understand. How old are you?" Why I asked that question I don't know.
"I emerged from the growing tank in[meaningless noise]."
"I'm sorry. Say that again."
"I emerged from the growing tank in [meaningless noise]."
I shook my head as if to clear it. "Perhaps it's my hearing but when you said what I assume was the date, all I heard was a meaningless noise."
"Oh. What year is it now?"
"Two thousand and seven."
Her eyes went wide. "Would you say that again, please."
"Two thousand and seven."
It was her turn to shake her head in puzzlement. "Perhaps my hearing is faulty also for I, too, only heard a meaningless noise."
"Perhaps I heard a meaningless noise because you said the date in your native language rather than English."
She shook her head firmly. "No, I was definitely speaking English."
"No matter. Let's try it another way. How old are you?"
"I left the growing tank one hundred and twenty two standard years ago."
"A hundred and twenty two? That's not possible. I'm not good with women's ages but I'd place you in your mid-twenties."
"Is that a good age to be?"
I laughed. "The best."
"Then I am pleased I look that age."
My mind was jumping all over the place. I couldn't seem to hold on to an idea for any length of time. The trouble was that there were two many questions to begin with and whichever one I asked, the answer gave birth to several myriad more. I could probably spend several lifetimes talking to her and still not understand her fully. Our backgrounds, cultures and experiences were literally worlds apart. Another question leapt to the foreground.
"How is it you speak English?"
She looked puzzled. "That is a strange question. Everybody speaks English."
I shook my head. "No, they don't. Many people speak English, it's true, but not everybody. Many people speak French or German or Spanish or Chinese."
She looked even more puzzled. "I do not understand your words. Why do you say that not everybody speaks English yet other people speak English?"
It was then I noticed something that, being so caught up in events, I hadn't previously noticed. When she spoke, her lips didn't move. Not a millimetre. I heard the words she said but throughout, not a muscle around her mouth moved.
"Wait a minute. Why does your mouth not move when you speak?"
A puzzled frown creased her perfect brow. "Doesn't it?"
"No. Here." I fetched my shaving mirror. "Watch my face as I speak then you say something while looking in the mirror."
"I see your mouth move when you speak but, oh, you are right, mine does not when I do. How strange." She made a series of grimaces in the mirror. "The muscles all appear to work fine." She turned to face me. "Kiss me."
"What? Why?"
"Apart from the fact that it is an exceedingly pleasurable thing to do…" she gave a coy smile, "…I wish to find out if my lips are working properly."
I found my palms suddenly sweaty and, for some reason, my heart was beating wildly.
"I don't think kissing you is a good idea. I'm practically old enough to be your grandfather. Isn't there some other way?"
"Yes, but kissing is fastest and best. Besides, I have been in existence longer than you. We have already established that."
"Yes… but… you don't look like you're older than me. You look like you're much younger. Kissing you wouldn't be proper."
"Proper? It would not be proper if you did not kiss me. Kissing is a pleasurable activity and I am made to indulge in pleasurable activities. Anyway, you want to kiss me, don't you?"
"You're a very devious and dangerous young woman. Yes, I admit I do want to kiss you but…"
My arms were filled with nubile female flesh and soft, pliable lips were pressed to mine. She leant against me and, to maintain my balance, I was forced to put my arms around her.
I may have been kissed like that before. If so, it must have been early in Connie's and my relationship when our passions were running high as were our frustrations. Pre-marital sex was frowned upon in those days and the opportunities for indulging in it were few and far between. Good girls, and good boys too, come to that, did not indulge in sex until they were safely tied up in the bonds of matrimony. Connie was a good girl and I was a good boy so sex before we were married was out of the question. That did not prevent both of us being extremely frustrated with me generally returning home after a date with a bad case of blue balls.
As I say I may have been kissed like that before but, if I had been, I don't remember it. She kissed me as if there was no tomorrow, as if her life depended on it, as if nothing else in the universe existed but this kiss. I felt my toes curl. It's true. I thought it was hyperbole, an expression people used to describe a particularly passionate feeling but which had no basis in reality. But it was true, I could feel my toes curl and the blood pounding in my ears and my penis, dormant for many years, gain a modicum of stiffness.
"Well," she said in a voice that almost purred with satisfaction, "everything seems to be working properly. What is the matter?"
"I'm sorry, my dear," I gasped, fighting for air. "Must sit down… catch my breath… I'm an old man… You're kiss… guaranteed to raise the dead… knew it wasn't… good idea."
She helped me to a chair into which I collapsed, mouth open like a fish as I desperately tried to drag oxygen into my labouring lungs.
"I am sorry," she said, now almost in tears. "You said you wanted to kiss me. I thought you would enjoy it."
I managed a weak laugh. "I did and I did. Look." I indicated the bulge in my trousers. "That's the problem. I enjoyed it far too much. I'm an old man. My body doesn't work as well as it used to and my heart is weak. I have to take my time and take things more slowly and avoid stress and excitement. Your kiss was rather too exciting for my heart to cope with. It's I who should be sorry. You did nothing wrong."
"But you are suffering. Are you in pain?"
"No. Just short of breath. I'll be fine in a minute. Then I'll make a cup of tea. I don't suppose you'll ever have drunk tea before."
"Of course I have drunk tea before. It is a very popular restorative drink."
There was that translation problem again. I'm quite sure the word she heard wasn't 'tea'. The co-incidence that some planet circling Betelgeuse or wherever should have evolved a plant exactly like tea stretched the bounds of possibility beyind the limits of reasonableness. Still, impossible co-incidences do sometimes occur. I made a pot of tea and poured her a cup without milk or sugar.
"Be careful, it's very hot. Tell me whether you like it. I can add milk and sugar if not."
She picked up the cup and looked at the brown liquid suspiciously. She stuck her nose almost into the cup and sniffed, then she took a cautious sip and shook her head.
"This is not tea."
"We call it tea. Do you like it?"
She took another cautious sip. "It is bitter." I added a spoonful of sugar. "Better but not quite." I added some milk and this time she nodded. "It is strange but I might grow to like it in time. It is quite refreshing."
"A good cup of tea is refreshing. Now, I think I've worked out this communication business. Please bear with me and ask if you don't understand anything."
She nodded happily.
"When I speak to you," I began, "My mouth moves. This creates pulses in the air and the pulses move outwards from my mouth. These pulses are picked up by your ears and turned into patterns of sound. With me so far?"
She had a puzzled but interested look on her face. She looked so sweet I wanted to kiss her again but I resisted the temptation; it could be my last one.
"Don't move. I'm going do some experiments."
I walked round the kitchen speaking at different volumes. She did not react.
When I returned to my sat she shook her head in puzzlement. "I heard your words but they made no sense. You kept saying that your voice was louder or quieter but it never changed. It was the same volume every time."
I sank back onto my seat with a groan. Flash Gordon never had this problem. In all these science fiction books, the alien always explains exactly how his advanced technology works. My alien, beautiful as she was, reminded me of a teenager; she wasn't stupid but had no referents or background knowledge to make connections. When something was explained to her she understood but seemed to be unable to make the connections by herself. Perhaps it was a characteristic of pleasure-droids. If pleasure was her main function, she wouldn't need to be a rocket scientist but she would have to be adaptable and quick to learn. It was up to the dumb Earthling to pull the irons from the fire. If she neither spoke nor heard using sound waves, how was she communicating?
And then it struck me. "Can you hear me?" I said without speaking aloud.
"Of course."
"Dammit, it's just not possible," I swore aloud. "It just isn't possible."
"What is impossible?" she asked interestedly."
"Watch my mouth," I said aloud then, "You can hear me like this, can't you?" without speaking.
"Of course I… Oh, you did that without moving your mouth."
I nodded. "Let's do another experiment." I went and fetched the headphones from my stereo and put them on. They weren't completely soundproof but good enough. "Speak to me again."
"You look silly with these things on your head," she said quite distinctly.
With a sigh I took the headphones off. It may be impossible but I couldn't deny the evidence. When we 'spoke' the words went from her head to mine and vice versa. I hesitated to use the words 'thought transfer' for they have connotations of mystical mumbo-jumbo and bad science fiction novels. Besides, I heard clearly articulated words like speech. If I'd been hearing her thoughts, firstly I would be hearing them all the time and secondly they wouldn't make sense. Out thoughts are chaotic, disorganised. It's only when we translate them into speech that any order is imposed on them.
She was looking at me with the expression of a bright, alert puppy - except for the bluey-violet eyes and the pert nose and… enough.
"We communicate by a process that is theoretically impossible for human beings," I said slowly. "Humans need to move air to talk: we do not. We transfer the words directly from one mind to the other."
"But all humans communicate the same way. I was grown with this ability. I have never known a human who did not communicate like this."
"But…" I started and then the pieces clicked into place.
I have said it to Edward many times, generally when he's becoming impatient with me. He's a fine boy but he can be a trifle impatient at times. I may be old but I'm not senile. My brain works perfectly well. Explain things to me and leave me to work away at them. I'll get there in the end. I took her hand, pulled her to her feet and dragged her to the back door.
"Look. Over there. That is a tree. An apple tree. And over there, another tree. An oak. And over there, the small one, another tree. A silver birch. Look at them carefully. They're all different aren't they?" She nodded. "But they have things in common like trunks and branches and so on so that we can say they're different from, say, grass or flowers. They have enough in common that we can give them the class name 'tree'. Now when I say the word, I might be thinking of an oak tree but when you hear the word you think of an apple tree. Does that make sense?"
"I am not sure. I think I begin to see what you mean but I am not certain I have understood you correctly."
"Okay, when you think of a tree, do you see a mental picture of one of these?" She shook her head. "When I say the word 'tea', do you picture the drink we've just had?"
"No. Tea is something completely different to me."
I nodded. I was quite excited in a good way. "What I think is that this communication method of yours is like speech but isn't. I say, or think, the words but it isn't the actual words that are communicated, it's the meaning behind the words. The meaning behind the word 'tea' is 'a popular, refreshing beverage' and that's what I transmit to you. Not the word but the meaning. When you receive the meaning your brain translates that into whatever popular refreshing beverage you're familiar with."
Her eyes flew wide and she beamed and clapped her hands delightedly. "I see. I see. You are very clever to have worked all that out. I did not understand how tea was not tea, if you see what I mean." She paused. "And that explains the language. Would I be right to say that you have more than one language on your planet?"
I looked at her delightedly. I told you she was bright. "Now who's clever. That's exactly right. There are hundreds of languages. Some of them are spoken by many, many people and some by only a few."
"That must make communication very difficult. If you cannot tell a girl you love her because you do not speak her language, you must have many missed opportunities."
"Having many languages leads to many more serious problems than that. However, it does have benefits. Languages borrow words and expressions from each other to the benefit of both." I shook me head slowly. "I can't even demonstrate it. If I said 'my love' and 'mon amour' and 'mi amore' and 'cara mia' they would all sound the same to you wouldn't they?"
"Yes," she giggled flirtatiously, "but they sounded very nice just the same. A girl can never hear these words enough."
I suddenly realised what I'd used as an illustration and blushed. Imagine blushing at my age. Whatever next?
She shivered slightly in the cool shadow of the back of the house and I instinctively put an arm around her. She sighed contentedly and snuggled into my armpit. For some reason I felt very peaceful. Having my arm around this beautiful girl, I refused to think of her as anything other than a girl, seemed so right, so perfect. It also felt very exciting. It had been years since I held anyone romantically and that had been Connie before she became ill. I was very aware of the scent from her hair and the heat from her body and the soft resilience of her muscles. We stood watching the flowers nod in the late afternoon sunlight and listened to the leaves stirring gently in the breeze. A wood pigeon sounded from the jungle to be answered by another further away. Sparrows chirruped in the eaves. If we could preserve moments in time like photographs in an album, this would be one to treasure. Then my stomach rumbled, ruining the moment, and she giggled.
"It's getting late, I suppose," I said regretfully. "It's time for food. Do you eat?"
"Oh, yes. I am a biological construct. I do not need to eat but it is a pleasurable activity so I can. Also I do not need to sleep though I can. I must also return to my capsule periodically to regenerate." She looked uncomfortable. "Do you have a toilet?"
I smiled. "I suspect the meaning was 'a place where one takes care of necessary bodily functions' and, yes, I have such a facility."
I showed her the bathroom. She was much taken with the shower.
"I have not bathed under water for a long time."
"Go ahead. There's plenty of hot water." I gave towels and soap and shampoo. "Not very feminine, I'm afraid."
She took the tops off and sniffed. "No matter. They smell refreshing."
"And I'm sorry I have nothing for you to wear."
She smiled. "I am often without clothes. It does not bother me."
"But it bothers me. A beautiful girl like you should have nice clothes to wear."
She dimpled.
Dinner was fun. It had been a long time since I'd entertained and even longer since I'd entertain someone as bright and beautiful and charming as her. I soon found the old skills coming back. Connie used to love to entertain. She was a good cook and delighted in company. Many's the evening we would sit around this very table with friends after the children had gone to bed and talk far into the night. While I was content with my own company I missed the companionship, the sharing, the togetherness of my life with Connie.
"What are you thinking?" she asked gently.
"Of my wife. Dead for over four years now. We used to sit and talk like we are now."
"You miss her."
"In an abstract way. I'm an old man and nearing the end of my life. If I'm lucky I'll perhaps have ten more years before senility or infirmity set in. It might be more. It'll probably be less. I suppose it's been a good life. Connie and I were certainly very happy here. But when your time comes, it comes and, although I loved her dearly, she's dead and no amount of wishing will bring her back. You need to do your mourning and move on. Living in the past was never my style."
She leaned across the table and took my hand. "Would you like her back? You could, you know. I have other talents I have not mentioned yet."
I almost hit her. I really did. Bring Connie back? How dare she? Connie was Connie and she was dead. No-one… nothing could recreate her. Oh, it might look like Connie, talk like Connie, laugh like Connie but it wouldn't be Connie. It would be a sham, an empty shell whose presence would remind me every day of what I had lost. I looked into this alien girl's violet eyes and the impulse died. There was no guile there, no desire to hurt, only the desire to please.
"No," I said softly, squeezing her hand. "That would not be a good idea. I assume this is as close to your natural form as it gets. If so that's the perfect one for me."
She hesitated for just a moment before nodding. "It was better that you refuse my offer. I had to make it, you understand. I am conditioned, no, it is almost like an instinct to bring pleasure to others and if recreating your dead wife would have brought you pleasure that is what I would have become. But I see it would bring you only pain and I believe you are right. What is in the past lies in the past and we must live our lives looking forwards not backwards."
"Words like these convince me you have lived longer than I for they could only come from one who has seen much and suffered much. Now, if you'll excuse me, I shall go to bed. I've had more excitement today than I generally get in a month and I'm feeling my age."
"Would you like me to accompany you? I have been told that I can take years off a man's life."
It was so outrageous that I laughed aloud. It was probably true, too. If the rest of her talents matched her kissing, I would be bounding around like a spring lamb - at least until my heart gave out.
"Thank you, my dear. The very fact that you say it and I believe it makes me feel younger. But no, I'll have to decline your offer. I can make up the spare room or I can take you back to your capsule as you prefer."
"The spare room will be fine." She waved a hand around the kitchen. "I will take care of this. And I promise you no surprises in the night, though I will be tempted."
"You flatter me. I'm an old man and hardly a fit subject for a beautiful young woman's lustful fancies."
"Not at all. Your body may be old but your heart is as young as I look."
"Oh, you… I'm off before you turn my head completely," I laughed. "Sleep well."
"You, too."
Of course I did not sleep well. How could I sleep well when a part of me that has been dormant for many years has suddenly come back to life? How could I sleep well knowing that in the next room was the girl of my dreams, the girl who would be every girl I had ever wanted, who would love me unquestioningly and unstintingly, who would tend to my every want and need, who would take me to places and show me pleasures I could never even have imagined in my wildest dreams? How could I sleep?
So here I sit in front of my computer trying to wrestle my thoughts and dreams and lusts into some semblance of order. I sense that some of what I have written is not entirely coherent. My excuse is that I am in that state you achieve when you pass through the stages of simple tiredness and reach a plateau of restless exhaustion where you are too tired to sleep and too tired to think and too tired to rest.
I have worked out what she is. A memory of taking the grandchildren to the cinema came to me. The film was 'Star Wars' and in it there were references to 'droids'. They were metallic, as I recall, but one of them had a humanoid shape. 'Droid' is short for 'android', according to my internet dictionary, and an android as 'an automaton that is created from biological materials and resembles a human.' She was a machine; an incredibly sophisticated biological machine far beyond anything even our most advanced scientists could dream of, but a machine nonetheless. She had been 'grown' in a 'tank' for the express purpose of giving pleasure. She was, to put it crudely, nothing but a very advanced vacuum cleaner. No, that isn't right. What, after all, is a human being but an incredibly sophisticated biological machine, if you leave aside religious considerations? We are also 'grown' in 'tanks', the process being called pregnancy and the tank our mother's womb. And this creature; she ate and drank and went to the toilet, she laughed and cried and loved and lived and, I suspected, if you cut her she would bleed just like I would. She could walk down a street, buy a loaf of bread, open a bank account, have her nails polished, discuss Descartes' philosophy like any other woman on the planet. What right had I to regard her as inferior simply because she was not the result of a mating between a man and a woman? If she was, how should we regard test-tube babies or 'in vitrio' fertilisation or surrogate motherhood? Are they also non-human?
The rectangle of light that is my monitor is almost hypnotic in the dark of the room. I am seventy one years old. I have two children and five grandchildren. I get my pleasures from my dahlias and the internet. The little hair I have left is but a small white fringe not visible in the mirror unless I turn partly sideways. I have a pronounced paunch and a twinge of rheumatism in my left hand. My skin is wrinkled and blotched. My knees are not all they should be. I wear glasses and a full set of dentures. I have a heart condition and suffer shortness of breath. Despite my physical infirmities, I am mentally as fit and active as I was twenty years ago and while my libido isn't completely dead, stimulation of it is cerebral rather than physical. So I ask you to help me. Please. Tell me. What, exactly, am I to do with a pleasure-droid from Alrune 7?