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“UNCLE RICHIE, LOOK at this one!”
Only Lena called him Richie. He wished he were a Richie in some ways, but the name never really fit him. Same way some people were Andrew and never Andy. He couldn’t carry off that level of informality, he never had. Perhaps, it was how his parents had brought him up. And what they’d have thought of the spray-on outfit Lena was suggesting he buy for her, God alone knew. If she went home in it, Rachel would kill him. Was there a word to cover Best-Uncle-Whilst-Being-Worst-Brother-Ever?
He loosened his tie and cocked his head to one side in a way he hoped indicated quizzical disapproval. Then a flicker in the corner of his vision made him stop. He raised a finger to Lena and turned slightly to square up to the window of the shop to the side of him. The dress was astonishing. It was a full-length dress, so out-of-fashion these days, but this one had layers and layers of holo-projection over a plain white shift. Currently running on its advertising cycle was a waterfall. At the bottom of the window was a sign reading: “Shout me a new look and I’ll change!” He felt Lena at his shoulder.
“Booly!” she grinned. Richard rolled his eyes inwardly. It was pre-teen speak for good. She acknowledged the sign with a tilt of her head, “Think it works?”
Richard shrugged. He had also noticed the price, which was sat on the floor neatly written in a cursive hand and eye-watering.
“Forest!” said Lena. The water fell away and when it had, autumnal leaves were falling gently in the clearing of a beautiful forest, the likes of which were tricky to find in real-life England anymore.
“Wow,” she was open-mouthed. The dress interpreted her request, with a montage of large bright eyes with expanding pupils, open mouths and the word itself in a thousand different fonts.
Then the requests came thick and fast: stars, volcanoes, squirrels and finally, “Nothing!”
The dress promptly disappeared, not even a mannequin was visible beneath it, the two of them gazed instead at the back of the shop window.
“I. Have. To. Have. That. Dress.”
“Mmm, hmm,” Richard was already at the controls of his arm-pad, searching for the RFID tag of the shop and enacting the kind of expensive security protocols that still came as standard in a job in the Navy.
The window made a cheery crescendo of notes and rose accordingly. The other side of it, was of course, nothing like a shop at all. Sat on a lilac velvet cushion in a small gunmetal alcove was a flat white box. Lena held her hands intertwined in front of her, “Go ahead,” he said. Instead, she pivoted smoothly and wrapped him in an enormous hug. He tried to smile, extricate himself and make a noise to indicate urgency of the window closing.
“Oh, sorry,” she said and grabbed the package, beaming.
His arm pad buzzed: a timer. “We should go and eat,”
“Could I get changed into this, first?”
“Sure, I don’t know where though.”
“Isn’t the ship near here?”
“Yes? Oh no.”
“What Uncle Richie? Aw come on, let me see her again? Please?”
The thought of exposing her to the miasma of swearing that currently engulfed the ship was not appealing. If she went home with a newly expanded vocabulary Richard would again be lynched after having worked so hard to find a suitable gift.
“Could we not find a public bathroom?”
“What with all the druggies and the streeto-s?”
“In a restaurant—"
“You know how much room there is in those places. After you having spent so much money on my present, I don’t want to wreck it on the first outing. Come on, Uncle Richie, I’ll be good, I promise I won’t touch anything, pleee-ease.”
Richard huffed and turned in the direction of the mooring bays.
“Thank you, thank you thank you thank you!” She was nearly hopping as she fell into stride alongside him.
The trip to the dock was a maze of security doors, Lena kept up with the enthusiasm of one not yet eleven.
At the final door, a more substantial bulkhead plastered with security warnings was matched with a porthole to see through to the bay beyond. This was how Richard stepped to one side and avoided collision with a woman coming out in grey overalls and a bandana. She was brandishing a particle wrench, almost didn’t acknowledge them at all, and stomped off into the port.
“Grumpy,” said Lena.
“Stressed,” replied Richard, frowning. He glanced through the doorway to check for other cross engineers. “Mind the step,” he said over his shoulder. He saw the ship and sighed. It was still the same uninspiring grey metal hulk he’d left this morning. He puffed out air from the corner of his mouth, like a pipe-less Popeye, “Here she is, the freshly named RSSV Bonington.”
Lena nearly tripped headlong onto the dockside, she recovered, frowning at Richard. But when she craned round him to see the ship, she beamed from ear-to-ear.
