seconds. But then the tune starts over. Much louder. Thank God Fitz’s flat downstairs is still empty, unrented. Thank God my affluent neighbours, above, are still not back from their endless holidays. Otherwise they would all surely complain as the noise gets even louder: coming from the bathroom, then Tabitha’s bedroom, the hallway, the study, booming and roaring and swirling, and I am running between them, my dressing gown flapping, shouting STOP STOP STOP, until at last every Assistant goes quiet. Quite abruptly.
Silence.
I wait. Somehow I know this is not the end of it.
I am right. I can hear voices. They are quieter than the booming music, but still loud enough, and clear. Some are male, some female, some British, some American. The Assistants are talking, to me, or to each other, or to someone else.
And the words are so strange.
Electra in the living room goes first:
‘Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.’
What?
The Assistant in the landing replies:
‘The blood flood is the flood of love.’
The living room chimes in:
‘Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children. Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.’
A smooth robotic female voice, from the kitchen, joins the chorus:
‘I am nude as a chicken neck, does nobody love me?’
I run from room to room, listening, with mounting fear, to these opaque, alarming sentences.
‘No one is here, Jo, no one is here.’
‘Unloosing their moons, month after month, to no purpose.’
‘The snow drops its pieces of darkness.’
‘Cold as snow breath, it tamps the womb—’
Now the bedroom cries out, warmly, it sounds like the voice of my widowed mother:
‘Nude as a chicken neck, nobody loves me. Nobody loves me. Nobody loves me. Nude as a chicken neck. DOES NOBODY LOVE ME?’
Enough, I am done. Forget the app – I am pulling the damn plugs, I don’t care what it does to the Assistants, the tech, the smart home, anything. There is a master switch: the fuse box …
Grabbing a chair and swinging it into the hallway, I yank open the fuse box – there’s nothing in the freezer but ice cubes, so it doesn’t matter.
‘Perfection is terrible. IT CANNOT HAVE CHILDREN—’
SNAP. There. I’ve done it. The entire flat is switched off. Everything falls silent and every light goes dark and the heating is switched off and I will freeze to death in this cold but I do not care. Creeping along the darkened hallway I push the door to my blackened bedroom, fumble for clothes in the drawer, throw on T-shirts, leggings, jumper, then I sneak under the duvet like I am trying not to be seen, and I grab a couple, no three sleeping pills from the little plastic jar on my right and I swallow the lot. And then I crunch myself into the tightest of fetal positions and close my eyes hard.
I am shivering in the cold, hiding from the darkness, cowering from my insanity. Or I am hiding from the ghost of Jamie Trewin, who waits outside my bedroom in the dark, his eyes as blank and white as wet marble.
Hey, let me buy you a beer.
I am woken by a frowning and beautiful face with pale blue eyes.
Tabitha.
She is staring at a woman wearing lots of daytime clothes in bed.
Me.
I realize I am sweating, heavily: the sheets are damp and clinging. I guess the heating is on. Winter sunshine streams through my bedroom window, because I forgot to close the curtains; I didn’t care in my blind cold panic.
‘What on earth’s going on?’ says Tabitha. ‘Sorry to barge in and wake you up like this, but, really. What did you do to the flat? What happened to the heating, the lights?’
She is in a suave, maroon winter coat, cashmere jumper, and slender jeans I could never afford. Almost military in her stiffness, yet always chic. For a moment I don’t know what to say. I look at her, as I come to full consciousness. And I wonder, for a second, how jealous I am, of her, my best friend. She’s always been that bit better than me, in every way: richer, from a much smarter home. But she is also a shade taller, and a tiny bit prettier; she was blonde and I was a redhead; throughout our twenties we subtly competed for men and she usually won. Were we competing for Jamie Trewin – was that why I egged her on, so that he would prefer me, so he would maybe come on to me?
Perhaps it is all my fault.
‘Seriously, Jo,’ says Tabs, sitting herself on the end of the bed, still frowning, ‘what the hell is wrong? I came back from Arlo’s an hour ago, and found everything off – and I mean everything. And it was freezing cold. Then I worked out someone had switched the flat off, with the fuse box!’ She shakes her head. ‘Is there a problem – you have to tell me these things.’
I order myself to sit up. In my two T-shirts and jumper. Painfully aware I must look a total state. Bed hair everywhere. Shiny with sweat. What do I say? I still can’t go near the events with Jamie, so long ago, so utterly unmentionable. And what is left? Stalling for time, I pull the jumper over my head, and off, followed by the second T-shirt. Then I come up with some fumbling answer.
‘I got confused by the Assistants. The app. Think I used the app wrong, so the Assistants turned the lights on and off.’
From the end of the bed, she shakes her head, confused:
‘Sorry? The Assistants?’
‘They were saying things. Um. Ah. Ah. And I forgot how, uh, how to, you know, talk to them, get them to do things, because, well. Because they are confusing.’
I drawl to an embarrassing halt. It is impossible to even hint at the truth without leading her straight to the crux of the matter: the Assistants are talking to me, and tormenting me, and the whole flat feels like it is alive, and using the death of Jamie Trewin to make me think that I am mad.
Alternatively, I could tell Tabitha that I am, indeed, very possibly going crazy, as I am exhibiting symptoms of late-onset schizophrenia horribly similar to those my beloved daddy experienced when he thought the TV was ordering him around, a few years before he finally did himself in.
I wonder how my friend and flatmate would react if I said all that. Tabitha already looks like a concerned nurse at my bedside. Momentarily I think she is going to put her four fingers flat to my forehead, checking for fever. Like she is my mum, and I am a kid, seeking a day off school.
Tabitha hesitates, then says, ‘What do you mean, you forgot how to control the Assistants? I’ve told you how to use the apps. Several times.’
Her voice is calm enough, but I can also detect a hint of impatience. Stern, but professional. I think it is that coat; it is so smart. Where does she buy these things?
Tabitha’s body language says: WELL?
‘What I mean is—’ It dawns on me, belatedly, that I shouldn’t say anything about the voices or the song. It makes me sound too mad. Too much like Daddy. I go on, ‘When I got back from our drinks, you know, in Highgate, the lights were flickering, and then I must have done something to the heating, it was so chilly. But I was drunk and tired – and I reckon I did it wrong. I guess I’m not used to the technology yet.’
‘OK,’ my friend