‘Why’d I need to bring an overnight bag, Deet?’

  ‘Just in case, kid, that’s all.’

  ‘Did they ring you up, Deet?’

  ‘Stop asking so many questions, kid. It’s all in hand. You don’t need to worry.’

  ‘Deet . . .’

  ‘What?’

  Tarrin thought better of it. ‘Nothing.’

  He sat and waited, thinking it was odd, though, that they had only been in the city a very short while and already they had a customer. It was almost as if Deet had brought him to the city specifically for him to come to this house, on this evening.

  Tarrin felt uneasy. The new clothes felt constricting. His hands were clammy.

  A door opened and a man and woman entered. They were both tall, both well dressed and elegant. They were both on Anti-Ageing and there was no telling how old they were. They could have been fifty. They could have been a hundred years older than that.

  ‘Mr Deet . . .’

  ‘Mr Hartinger . . . how are you, sir?’ Deet stood and tried to surreptitiously wipe his hand on the seat of his trousers before extending it for Hartinger to shake.

  ‘Good to meet you, Mr Deet,’ Hartinger said, though the expression on his face and the language of his body didn’t quite live up to the warmth of his words.

  ‘And this’ll be your good lady, I’m sure,’ Deet said, proffering the hand to Mrs Hartinger now.

  She barely touched it before letting it go and murmuring, ‘Mr Deet . . .’

  ‘Can we offer you a drink?’ Hartinger asked.

  Deet could have done with a beer, but didn’t feel it was appropriate to ask for one somehow, so he just sat back down and said, ‘We’re fine.’

  But Hartinger preferred Tarrin to answer for himself. ‘And this is . . .?’ he said.

  Deet got back to his feet, realizing that he had missed out on the full introductions.

  ‘This is the kid,’ he said. ‘Kid – stand up . . .’ though Tarrin was already standing – ‘this is Mr and Mrs Hartinger.’

  ‘And you’ll be Tarrin?’ Mrs Hartinger said.

  ‘Yes,’ Tarrin nodded.

  ‘How do you do, Tarrin,’ she said. She put her hand out. He took it hesitatingly. Their fingers touched, then she moved her hand away.

  Mr Hartinger nodded to him. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘sit down. Would you like a drink of some sort, Tarrin?’

  He asked for some lemonade. He could feel Deet’s eyes boring into him. But he was thirsty, and they had offered.

  His drink was poured, and then Hartinger gave a drink to his wife and took one himself and they sat across from Deet and Tarrin, the four of them forming a square.

  ‘What would you like me to do?’ Tarrin asked. He felt the silence and their scrutiny to be oppressive.

  ‘Do?’ Hartinger said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have a repertoire?’

  Tarrin looked puzzled.

  ‘An act?’

  Mrs Hartinger smiled. ‘We don’t require you to do anything at the moment, thank you, Tarrin. At least nothing other than to be yourself. Why do you ask? What do you usually do?’

  Tarrin looked to Deet for help, but none was forthcoming. He felt himself colour with embarrassment, but he didn’t know what he was embarrassed about.

  ‘People ask me to do things sometimes,’ he said.

  ‘Tell us,’ Hartinger said. ‘For example.’

  ‘Things that boys are supposed to do.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Run and play. Go out in the garden. Climb a tree. Get dirty.’

  ‘Get dirty!’ Mrs Hartinger laughed, exchanging an amused look with her husband. ‘Get dirty! Imagine that. They pay you to get dirty!’

  Deet didn’t like the way the conversation was going. He felt out of it too, and wanted to get back in.

  ‘He doesn’t get that dirty,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, it’s all right, Mr Deet, we really don’t mind how dirty he gets. I’m sure it all washes off. It’s just . . . the idea.’

  ‘It’s what people like, ma’am,’ Deet explained. ‘What they expect in some ways. They’ve read it in the old books that boys are always up to mischief and like to climb trees and get dirty. So I say to him, “You do what people want you to, kid. We’re here to keep the customer happy. So if they want you to get dirty, you get good and dirty.”’

  ‘Hmm,’ Mrs Hartinger said. ‘And what about girls?’

  ‘People don’t expect them to get so dirty,’ Deet said. ‘In fact, they expect them to stay pretty clean on the whole. I don’t have no girls myself, but I know people in that line of business. What people expect from girls is mostly to get dressed up, or maybe do a little baking or home-making or play with dolls.’

  ‘How strange,’ Mrs Hartinger said. ‘I loved climbing trees when I was a girl.’

  ‘People don’t want things as they are, ma’am,’ Deet said. ‘They want them as they used to be in those good old days, they want things like they ought to be.’

  ‘It seems to me,’ Hartinger said, ‘that they don’t want a real child at all.’

  ‘Some truth in that, I dare say, your honour,’ Deet said. He felt that calling the customer ‘your honour’ never did any harm. ‘No, I guess they don’t want a real child, as a real child is problems and trouble – or can be. No, they just want a child for the afternoon. Just a child for the afternoon, to act like they do in the old storybooks, and then to go away.’

  ‘Well, that isn’t what we want.’

  ‘I realize that, ma’am,’ Deet said. ‘I said to the kid even before we came in here, these are people of quality and class here. They don’t want no kid for an afternoon. They either want more than that or they don’t want nothing at all.’

  Tarrin looked at Deet. He had said no such thing.

  ‘Does the boy know, Mr Deet? Have you explained it to him?’

  ‘Not as such, ma’am,’ Deet said. ‘Not as such. I thought it best to have a sit-down first and for us all to see how we liked the looks of each other and to go on from there.’

  There was a brief and uneasy silence. Tarrin felt the first deep pangs of misgiving. Hadn’t explained what to him? What was going on? What was Deet up to?

  ‘It’s all right, Tarrin,’ Mrs Hartinger said. ‘Don’t look so worried.’ She seemed to regard him with some amusement. ‘We wouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t agree to. It would have to feel right for you as well.’

  ‘Whh . . .’ Tarrin felt his voice cracking, which made him feel ashamed. He cleared his throat and began again. ‘What . . . do you mean exactly?’

  ‘Ma’am!’ Deet prompted him.

  ‘Ma’am.’

  Mrs Hartinger looked across at her husband. Tarrin looked at him too, wondering how he had found the time and the talent to not only compose music but to write a shelf-full of books and to paint a wall-full of pictures.

  ‘We’re looking for a son, Tarrin,’ he said.

  ‘Or a daughter,’ Mrs Hartinger added.

  ‘Yes. A child. And not merely for the afternoon. We know they’re expensive but, well, we have the money, and everything we need and want we have, and there’s precious little else to spend it on . . . so we thought . . . a child . . .’

  ‘We’ve looked at several,’ Mrs Hartinger said.

  ‘And some of them were promising.’

  ‘But maybe not quite what we were looking for.’

  ‘So we’ve yet to decide.’

  ‘And then, while making enquiries, we heard of Mr Deet – and yourself, of course – and so we asked him to call.’

  A strange chill went through Tarrin. It was the way they were talking about him, almost as if he wasn’t there, as though he were just another commodity, the latest in a long line of luxury purchases they were thinking of acquiring.

  They were shopping around. And he was part of the merchandise. Would they buy this model, they seemed to be asking themselves, or would they get that one? Which colour would they have it in?

  Was Deet going to sell him?

  He felt sick.

  He turned and stared at Deet, his brows arched in puzzlement and enquiry.

  Deet?

  It made no sense. Deet had always said that he was the golden goose. That you didn’t sell the goose that laid the eggs. So why had he changed his mind? Without any consultation or discussion?

  Tarrin was growing up, that was why. Another few years and he would be just like everyone else. And what then? What would he have? How would he live? Deet would abandon him. He’d be on his own.

  Deet was selling him now while he could still get a good price. Children were expensive but, plainly, the older they got, the less expensive they became, until finally they grew up and were worth nothing at all.

  Tarrin looked around the room. The Hartingers and Deet went on talking, but he wasn’t listening any more. He looked at the furnishings, the decor, the antiques, the knick-knacks. Everything was perfect. Everything was in the best possible taste.

  In a corner chair, asleep on a cushion, he noticed a large, fluffy Persian cat. It must have been there all the time, breathing so softly that you could barely hear it. It woke now and opened its eyes and stretched itself, standing on the cushion and arching its back. It was sleek and well groomed, pampered and cared for.

  That’s what I’ll be like.

  Yes. He looked at the Hartingers. They were elegant, well groomed, languid, well cared for, almost feline themselves.

  They want another cat.

  And I’m the cat they want. They say they want a real child, but they don’t know what a real child is. There’s more to it than food and warmth and shelter. That’s part of it, but only a part of it.

  It was a whole lot more complicated than that.

  The Persian cat jumped softly down from the cushion, walked across the room and climbed on to Mrs Hartinger’s lap. She smoothed its fur and after a minute or so it began to purr with contentment.

  They’ll expect me to purr too. And if I don’t, and when I don’t, they’ll be disappointed.

  Deet! I don’t want to stay here! Deet!

  But Deet just went on making small talk.

  Deet, I can manage an hour or two at a time, being what people want me to be, but I can’t do it always, not all the time, not twenty-four hours a day. I have to be myself.

  At least with Deet he could be himself. Once the day’s work was over, he could be himself again.

  I can’t be with these people, Deet. I can’t be what they want me to be: nice and clean and tidy and well behaved and no trouble at all, to purr when I’m patted, to miaow when I’m hungry.

  I’m not a pet, Deet. I’m not a pet.

  The conversation intruded into the panic of his thoughts.

  ‘Well, maybe I should leave you a while to all get acquainted,’ Deet was saying.

  No, don’t go, Deet. Don’t go.

  Then Tarrin thought of all the times he had wanted to get rid of Deet, to escape from him, for him to simply drop dead. But now he wanted to hold on to him tightly, to run with him, far from this house, to go back to the hotel and the life they knew, the Edu-Packs and the burgers and being a child for an hour or so every afternoon, and always moving on.

  ‘Why don’t you make yourself comfortable here, Mr Deet, and pour yourself a drink while we show Tarrin around the house.’

  Deet eyed the drinks cabinet optimistically. It seemed to him to be pretty well stocked, with some single-malt whiskies, the kind that would set you back a lot.

  ‘If that’s OK with you.’

  ‘Of course. Tarrin, would you like to see the house?’

  He nodded and stood up, doing what was expected. The Hartingers stood on either side of him and escorted him out of the drawing room. They began by taking him down to the basement, to show him the cellar and the old-fashioned things there. Then they worked their way up through the house. Mrs Hartinger’s arm dangled at her side, next to him. After a time he realized that she wanted him to take her hand, to hold it the way she must have thought a son held his mother’s hand.

  He didn’t want to hold her hand though. Deet had always told them that they weren’t to hold his hand. No contact. They knew that. And even if it was different this time, it still seemed false to do so, artificial. She wasn’t his mother anyway, and no amount of hand-holding would change that.

  She must have sensed his reluctance and she moved her arm away. It was early days yet. Time would make all the difference.

  ‘And this would be your room.’

  They opened the door to a room which had everything in it. It was a child’s room, painted in a pale, neutral cream colour; it was full of things to play with, books to read, a computer, a television. You’d be pampered in a room like that. It could have done for either a boy or a girl.

  ‘Do you like it, Tarrin?’

  ‘Yes, it’s lovely. It’s very nice.’

  Nice like a doll’s house, nice like a luxurious prison.

  They walked on along the corridor, then back down to the drawing room. Deet was lounging on one of the sofas now, with a large glass, half full of whisky, in his hand. He seemed quite at home.

  As they entered, he held the glass up.

  ‘I took up your offer, your honour,’ he said.

  He waved the glass, as if to say, ‘Cheers!’ and drank half of it down. He put the glass on a small table, setting it carefully upon a coaster.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘how did we all get on?’

  ‘I think we got on admirably,’ Mr Hartinger said, and Mrs Hartinger nodded. ‘Wouldn’t you say, Tarrin?’

  What could he say? That all he felt towards the Hartingers was a great, overwhelming indifference? It wasn’t that they were bad people, they were probably very nice. He just didn’t want to be with them, that was all. He wanted to go home, back to the hotel. Hotels and motels had been home for so long, they were where he felt safe, where he wanted to be. But this house seemed too clean and tidy, almost clinical and sterile. He wanted some untidiness, some dust, to see Deet’s empty beer cans on the floor.

  ‘Yes, we got on fine. It’s a lovely house.’

  ‘We like him, Mr Deet. He seems like a very nice boy – polite, well mannered, not at all loud, clean . . .’

  We’ll take it.

  We’ve given the car a spin, and we like it, so we’ll take it!

  Was that really all he was? Just merchandise, to be bought and sold.

  This isn’t right, Deet. You know it’s not right.

  The cat came up to him and would have jumped on to his lap, only he folded his arms and moved his body aside so that it couldn’t. It padded off and jumped up on to Deet.

  ‘Hey! Nice pussy cat!’

  Then Tarrin remembered the overnight bag. Deet had left it in the hall.

  ‘Pack an overnight bag, kid. Just in case.’

  Just Tarrin though. Not Deet. He hadn’t packed an overnight bag too, had he?

  He didn’t mean to leave him here tonight? Not tonight? Surely not? It couldn’t all happen this quickly, this abruptly . . .

  ‘Well, we’d be interested, I think, Mr Deet. We’d need to talk it over between ourselves first.’

  ‘Of course you would, ma’am, naturally you would. Only, if I may give a word of advice here, it might be best not to take too long on that, ma’am, as I have to tell you that there are other interested parties.’

  Deet, you’re lying again. He was trying to push the price up, maintain the interest, force a quick decision.

  But the Hartingers saw straight through him. They were too sophisticated, too wealthy, too experienced. They hadn’t made their money by being taken in by the likes of Deet.

  ‘Well, naturally, if you’ve already made other commitments, Mr Deet . . .’

  He backed off, afraid of losing the business now. ‘No, no, didn’t say that, didn’t say that . . .’

  He got to his feet. ‘Say we leave you to think it over? To sleep on it.’

  ‘Fine. Let’s do that.’

  Tarrin felt as if reprieved on the night of execution.

  ‘You’ve got my number.’

  ‘We’ll be in touch tomorrow.’

  ‘And how about you, Tarrin? Any questions?’

  ‘Yes. Did you write all these books and this music and paint all these pictures?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Life is long, Tarrin. It must be filled. For the first fifty years I was a musician, then I wrote, now I paint.’

  ‘You just learned?’

  ‘You can learn to do almost anything if you have enough time. And we have.’

  The Hartingers’ personal assistant, or butler, saw them out. Tarrin was careful to remember his overnight bag.

  ‘We’ll get the Pod,’ Deet said, plainly unwilling now to spend more money on cabs, ‘but first let’s grab a burger.’

  They walked a mile to burger country. There were no burger bars where the Hartingers lived, just quiet wine bars and five-star restaurants. Deet and Tarrin sat across from each other at a small table. Tarrin didn’t feel hungry and just picked at his meal.

  ‘What’s up, kid?’

  ‘Are you going to sell me, Deet? To those people?’

  Deet looked pained.

  ‘Sell you? Kid, would I sell you? After all the time we’ve been together? You – who’s been like my own kid to me. Would I sell you?’

  ‘You’re not going to sell me then?’

  ‘It’s not a question of selling, kid. It’s more a thing of finding you a good home now. This kind of life you’ve had, always moving and never settling, you deserve a little better than that now.’

  ‘But what about you, Deet?’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  He didn’t seem to want to talk about it, but Tarrin persisted. ‘What about the goose laying the golden eggs, Deet?’

  ‘OK, kid, I’ll be straight with you. How much longer you got? A few years, tops, and then no one’ll want you any more. You won’t be cute enough. You’ll be too tall, too grown. So what do we do? Well, there’s the PP implant which’ll keep you a kid forever, but I don’t have the money for that. So what do we do? Either we find you a good home now, or I go on renting you out till you get too big to rent out. And then what?’

  ‘What, Deet?’

  ‘Parting of the ways, kid, has to be. I can’t feed you if you’re not bringing anything in. I’m not a charity, kid. When you get too big to be rented out, well, you’ll just have to look after yourself.’

 

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