Beth carries the note around with her as if it has a special meaning, but keeps it either in her hand (where it scrunches in on itself) or in the back pocket of her shorts (where it attempts to smooth itself out again). She thinks about it as she feeds Vic his lunch of apples and pineapple and tinned peaches, mixed down in the processor, like this is some fad diet, and when they resume their sessions in the afternoon she sits and reads it over as Vic listens to himself talking about his training. These sessions are the worst: the ones that have only to do with his army background, that she listens to because they’re there.
Am I being selfish? she asks him in their fourth session of the afternoon, pausing the playback for a second. Would you even want this, if it was offered to you?
The Machine’s noise is something that should be ruinous. It should destroy her, to hear it, because it’s so pervasive and so intense. There’s no escaping it when the Machine is working, or even when it’s idle. And she’s felt it shaking a few times before, but now, as she sits at the foot of the bed, she could swear that the vibrations from it are coming through the carpet. She climbs off as Vic talks about the speed with which he can strip and clean and rebuild a rifle, and she lies on the floor with her head on its side to see if the carpet is actually trembling, as she suspects. She feels it in her face: that slight tickle, like pins and needles.
When the fifth session is over she takes the Crown off and puts it back in the dock. She doesn’t unplug the Machine, because the hum when it’s on standby is almost comforting, she thinks. She wonders if Vic likes it. If it’s reassuring. She hauls him to the bathroom again, and makes him a dinner of spaghetti hoops on two slices of mushed-up bread, and puts him to bed, making sure that the bed is dry (which it is, as the heat pretty much ensures that anything left for half an hour bakes itself dry). She gives him water, but not too much.
Shower in the morning, she says. He shuts his eyes without her having to tell him to, but that might just always be the way he’s done it. When he’s tired, he knows.
She sits on the sofa with Laura’s note in her hand and pulls the laptop out and starts to flick through her usual forums. She searches to see if there’s anything about Machines vibrating, and if that’s a side effect of the custom firmware. She’s become an expert on these things, she thinks. Ten years ago, firmware wouldn’t have even been a word to her. When that search throws up nothing she searches for threads on The Positives, the name they use for those carers who’ve successfully brought people back from vacancy. There are six on her main forum, the one where she actually has a username and a login, and they were the only six people people she knew of who had managed to get hold of Machines. She was lucky number seven. The firmware was all programmed by the first one, and he shared the wealth. Swedish, lost his wife in the same war as Vic fought in, and he was desperate, because he didn’t have money. And their government banned the Machines; his chance of anything happening of its own accord was slim to none. She sends him a question.
How long did it take for your wife to become herself again? (Recognizably.)
Beth presses SEND and waits for a reply.
The users of the forum are dedicated and passionate, and they’re all willing to help. The users say that you don’t know what families of the vacant are going through until you go through it yourself; the only people who can help are those who feel your pain. It’s a motto of the forum-goers. Beth sits and rubs the sides of her head, where the headache has set in – like spending too much time near a photocopier, and so intense, concentrating on this, putting all the tension into her head and her jaw, making her bite down on nothing, making her tense her entire face over and over, every muscle in it – and she’s thinking about the ibuprofen when the reply comes.
Hi there! It was exactly two weeks after we started. We took it easy because I was sacred.
Beth thinks that he means scared, but she could be wrong.
I did not want to hurt her. So it was two weeks before she said something that was exactly her. But she made noise that she was getting better before that, and so I persevered. Are you going to be hopefully joining the club of the rest of us? Because we can give you any more help, if you need it. Just say the ask. Smiley face.
Beth doesn’t reply. She thinks about it – she types a reply, which she deletes twice – and then shuts the laptop. She still has the note, and she reads it again: Laura’s handwriting, which now looks over-rehearsed to her, as if she wrote this once on another sheet and copied it out, like writing letters to relatives when she was a child. And the words: suggesting that she needed help or advice. That she wasn’t entirely sure of what she was doing. It’s an intrusion by somebody on the outside, someone who was barging in where she wasn’t wanted. She hasn’t been through this pain, and she can’t understand it, so she can’t expect to help.
Beth puts the TV on and then mutes the sound and leans back. She shuts her eyes. That’s all it takes.