Appliance Read online

  J. O. Morgan

  * * *

  APPLIANCE

  Contents

  1. Bring it Inside

  2. One Way

  3. First, Man

  4. Trial & Error

  5. Grail Quest

  6. A Misunderstanding

  7. Last Suppers

  8. Home Help

  9. Cut Out

  10. A Clear Path

  11. Further, More

  About the Author

  J. O. Morgan is a Scottish author. His 2018 work Assurances, looking at the RAF’s early involvement with maintaining the nuclear deterrent, won that year’s Costa Poetry Award. He has been twice shortlisted for both the Forward and the T. S. Eliot Prize. Appliance is his second novel.

  By the Same Author

  Natural Mechanical

  Long Cuts

  At Maldon

  In Casting Off

  Interference Pattern

  Assurances

  The Martian’s Regress

  Pupa

  and this is only the start of what they’ll do,

  soon nothing they propose will be beyond them

  GENESIS 11:6

  and with a quaint device

  the banquet vanishes

  THE TEMPEST 3:3

  1. Bring it Inside

  THE UNIT itself resembled nothing quite so much as a large grey refrigerator, an imposing foreign model, with one thick door below and one smaller above, each curved like the roof of a car and each with a long chrome handle; except that the lower handle was secured with a heavy padlock, and the upper handle was not to be touched unless the green light on top of the unit was lit. Because, quite unlike a refrigerator, the unit had an array of three small differently-coloured bulbs cresting its glossy top; and the weighty control box, bolted to the side of the unit, with its cold-cathode display and raised rubber keypad, was not a thermostat.

  It was Friday evening when four well-dressed men from the institute arrived to angle and wheel and steady the machine on its trolley, out of their old blue van and up the garden path, to be inched through Mr Pearson’s front door.

  They took every care with this delicate operation. They were in no hurry. They checked and rechecked the dimensions of the open gate, tying the wrought iron back with garden twine. They examined the rough concrete of the path for dints and cracks. They laid long planks over the front steps. They wiped the sweat from their palms on cotton handkerchiefs. Then all four men held very tightly to the tall grey box as it was rolled up and into the house, as though to let it fall, even for it to be bumped or scratched, would be a catastrophe, would spell the end of the world.

  Mr Pearson did not take part in proceedings other than to clear the hallway of likely obstacles while explaining to his wife that yes, they had indeed asked his permission, and that yes, he knew exactly what to expect and that he’d fill her in on the finer details in due course, once the unit was properly installed.

  Mr Pearson did not work in the same department as these other men. Mr Pearson had been specially chosen. Mr Pearson and his wife were to be entrusted with this machine, this prototype, for just a few days, while certain basic tests were carried out. They would themselves take part in these tests. Mr Pearson had been issued with detailed instructions. Plus, in stark comparison to the many other employees, Mr Pearson lived reasonably close to the institute, and this it seemed made all the difference.

  The unit came to a rest in the kitchen. There was no obvious place for it to stand so it jutted awkwardly into the middle of the room. It couldn’t be set flush against the wall because of the stiff cabling that ran out from the back and because it was deemed sensible, at least for the test period, to keep all sides of the unit unobstructed and freely accessible. The singular cable was as thick as a baby’s forearm and sheathed in soft brown rubber. It was screwed in place on the unit by way of a tough plastic collar, with the cable itself trailing from the kitchen, down the hall and on out through the front door’s letterbox.

  Having assessed the machine’s stability, and having plugged its spindly power lead into the nearest wall socket, the four men departed, leaving Mr and Mrs Pearson to consider this new addition to their kitchen furniture.

  An amber bulb glowed softly from the top of the unit. Mr Pearson didn’t know quite what this signified but stood with his hands in his pockets, beaming at the machine.

  Mrs Pearson stood behind him with her arms tightly folded. She did not smile.

  ‘And what are we meant to do if we need to go out?’

  ‘Hmm?’ Mr Pearson did not take his eyes from the machine.

  ‘And there’ll be a fine draught too, what with that letterbox stuck open all night.’

  Mr Pearson took a slow step back and sat down, still beaming.

  ‘If this thing works like they say it will—’ He wagged a finger at the cumbersome machine. ‘My my. Well. Indeed. This is going to be something. Really something.’

  Mrs Pearson sighed and sat down beside her husband.

  ‘You never said this is what they were working on.’

  ‘I didn’t know a thing about it. Nobody knew. Not us lot in Personnel, at any rate. It’s to be expected. The only thing we all know for sure is that we never really know what they’re working on. And if by chance we ever get to know then we’re sworn not to let anybody else know. I had to sign some sort of form to say so.’

  ‘That’s as may be.’ Mrs Pearson glanced towards the kitchen window. ‘But I never took such an oath. And now what am I to say when people ask about the unsightly cable sticking out our front door? Because they will ask. It goes right down the front path. And how much further on after that? Well, I imagine all the way to the institute, too. That’s a good quarter of a mile, at least. There will be all sorts of gossip when folk see it coming right up into our house. And I’m no liar. I don’t have the patience for it. So when they do ask—’

  Mr Pearson got to his feet once again, his hands back in his pockets. He strolled slowly round the machine, examining it from every angle.

  ‘They’ll have that all figured out, I expect. All sorted.’ He stooped to inspect the cable’s connection point. He put out a hand to check the coupling was secure then remembered himself and drew back. ‘They’ll have put out some sort of notice. Spoken to those who need speaking to.’ He waved his free hand dismissively, then returned it to his pocket. ‘They’ll have warning signs up. No tampering. Danger of death. Sizeable penalties. You needn’t worry about anything. I’ll wager you won’t even be asked.’

  His circuit complete, Mr Pearson came back to sit beside his wife. He opened his mouth to continue with his reassurances but at that moment something changed. The amber light on top of the unit winked out. One moment more and the red bulb came on.

  Mr Pearson stood immediately, the knuckles of his fist against pursed lips. His wife, too, slowly rose to stand beside him.

  For a while neither of them moved and nothing further happened with the machine. There had been no sound, no warning tone, just the languid shift from one bulb to the other, a soft red light now glowing on the two expectant faces.

  After a while Mrs Pearson’s shoulders sagged.

  ‘Do you think that’s it done, then?’

  ‘Shh!’ Her husband motioned sharply with his hand.

  Mrs Pearson dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘I mean, do you think something’s come through? Do you suppose whatever it is is in there now—deprocessing, or whathaveyou?’

  ‘What? No. It’s—I don’t know.’ Mr Pearson rummaged in his inside jacket pocket and brought out a fold of grey printed papers, typed up for him that afternoon using both black and red ribbons. He ran his finger down the list of instructions. ‘Ah.’ He tapped the pages. ‘It’s locked in.’ He rechecked the relevant line
. ‘Yes. A red light means it’s locked in. That’s all.’ He carried on reading. He nodded. ‘Yes. It’s automatic, see? They’ll be doing something their end. And so at our end we do—nothing. Yes. For now we—we just wait.’ He looked up again and smiled.

  Mrs Pearson gave a small weary moan and walked away towards the sink. ‘Well, I’m not wasting any more time hanging about. It’s your work after all. It may not be your job, mind, but it’s your responsibility. So it’s likely you’ll be the one to—’ She took a large saucepan from the rack and began filling it with water. ‘Are they paying you extra for this? You’d better be getting something. We’d better be getting something. For the inconvenience, I mean. Here for the whole weekend is what they said. What if we’d had guests? They never asked. And don’t say they told you it’d be a privilege. If it’s work it should be paid. And in any case what are the dangers? Being tested like lab rats, we are. Did they even try to provide any assurance it was all perfectly—’

  Mrs Pearson dropped the heavy pan. It fell with a dull clatter back into the sink. The water jumped, slopping out over her apron and splashing to the floor.

  Her hands had instinctively shot up to cover her ears. Yet the noise that made her do so had already stopped. All that could now be heard was the water running cold into the basin.

  Mrs Pearson’s mouth was fixed wide, ready to cry out. Her eyes were screwed small in further readiness for whatever might come next.

  But nothing came next.

  Turning about she saw how her husband too had both hands clapped firmly over his ears, his body bent double as he tightened into himself.

  The noise hadn’t lasted long, barely more than a second, having stopped as abruptly as it had started. For all its loudness it didn’t actually hurt to hear it, but it was deeply unpleasant. Like the air was being scratched at with steel claws and torn apart, ripped suddenly open with the force of a hurricane and then just as forcefully snapped shut.

  Mrs Pearson had an urge to vomit. She imagined her husband probably felt the same, though he’d never admit it. But in the new silence the sickening sensation quickly faded. Already Mr Pearson had straightened up and thrust his trembling hands back into his pockets. He gave his wife a brave and knowing look as if to say, you see? As if he had been wholly right in his predictions. But Mrs Pearson could still detect the grimace her husband was suppressing behind his tight-lipped smile as inwardly he shied from whatever new unpleasantness might follow.

  Then the red light blinked off, its glow diminishing within the bulb, and, after the briefest of pauses, as though the machine were doing one final rapid check of itself before proceeding, the green light came on.

  Mrs Pearson cautiously uncovered her ears. With a tentative hand she screwed the cold tap off, tight, before coming over to stand beside her husband.

  ‘Do you suppose that means—’ She stood with her shoulders a little hunched, drying her fingers on the corner of her apron.

  Mr Pearson had resumed his easy stance, his muscles slowly relaxing, though his breath for the moment was stilled within his throat and all he could do by way of response was give a few short nods.

  ‘So, how do we—’ Mrs Pearson viewed the machine suspiciously. ‘How will we even—know? For certain, I mean.’

  Mr Pearson opened and shut his lips, fishlike, as he stared at the machine. Then he dug for his printed papers and consulted them closely. His hands were still trembling. He stepped forward. He glanced down once more, checking the instructions, before reaching up and grasping the top handle. It bent back easily on its hinge as he pulled it and, with a low soft clunk as the inner lock was released and the suck of plastic beading coming unstuck, the upper door opened and was allowed to swing freely outwards.

  The compartment it revealed was a lot smaller than expected. The unit behind the door was mostly solid and of the same painted-grey as the rest of the machine, but with a hollow at its middle hardly big enough to house a box of eggs. This interior space was curved and its walls were lined with what looked like many tiny light bulbs, densely packed. They were of clear glass but with no visible filament, only a darkened centre, like a thousand fish eyes with large soft-edged pupils, or like a wall of hardened frogspawn.

  A curved patch of these bulbs also centred the inside surface of the door so that when the unit was closed they would nestle into the hollow and complete the sphere. But for now that hollow was opened up. The bulbs lay dull and silent. And lying upon them, at their very middle, was a small white plastic spoon.

  It looked to be of the same sort Mr Pearson encountered daily, when lunching at the institute canteen. He reached out to take it.

  ‘Don’t!’ His wife smacked his outstretched hand away. ‘It’ll be hot, or electrified, or—something! You don’t know.’

  Mr Pearson consulted his notes carefully and shook his head. He reached into the compartment. He touched the spoon. It moved, squeaking lightly as it scraped against the delicate glass of the bulbs. Mr Pearson lifted it out. He looked at it in wonder. He showed it to his wife who bent her head in close to see that it was indeed a small white plastic spoon. Mr Pearson turned it over in his hands. He smoothed his thumb into its bowl. He felt along its edge for the rough seam of its moulded plastic. Then, carefully, deferentially, he placed it back into the glass-eyed hollow of the machine and began to shut the door.

  ‘Won’t they want to send something else through? Shouldn’t we keep that one out in case they get, you know, muddled up?’

  ‘No.’ Mr Pearson spoke very gently, almost in a whisper. ‘No, it’s not like that. Not at all. Now we get to—’ He eased the door closed, the glass bulbs creaking as they slid over each other to fit snugly in place. ‘Now we send it back.’

  He shuffled round to the side of the machine, his head bowed, his notes clutched tight in one hand, a stiff and purposeful finger pecking cautiously at the keypad.

  ‘And you know just how to do that, yes? You’re sure you actually know?’

  Mr Pearson remained silent, focused on his task. His eyes flicked between the narrow display screen and his typed instructions. His lips moved noiselessly as he read the numbers back to himself, ensuring they matched. He hesitated, his finger above the button, ready to transmit. It was all just a little too easy, a little too straightforward. He smiled. Of course it was easy. The whole point was that it should be easy. That was the very reason they were giving him the opportunity to test such a device, from his own home, without supervision. He pressed the button and stepped back. The green lamp went out. The amber light came on.

  At once a dreadful knocking began. A rapid internal hammering. Mr and Mrs Pearson looked at each other in alarm and then at the machine.

  ‘Check your notes!’ Mrs Pearson prodded her husband. ‘See if that’s normal, before this thing explodes and ruins our kitchen!’

  The notes were duly checked. There was a frantic turning of pages.

  The rattling and drumming noises continued, the different rhythms overlapping and warping, interfering with each other. There was a sound as of suction pumps, as of creaking pipes, a deep pulsing and surging.

  ‘It says—it says that’s normal.’ Mr Pearson tried to appear relaxed, despite having to raise his voice above the racket. He forced a fresh smile to reassure his wife. ‘It says we’re to expect a slight audible disturbance. It’s part of the whole, you know—the analysis procedure. It must be—yes, it needs to be thorough.’

  ‘And how long would you say this thoroughness lasts exactly?’

  Mrs Pearson was not in the least reassured. She had covered her ears again, but it made little difference, the sound seemed to get right inside her.

  Taking small backward steps she retreated to the other side of the kitchen. Her husband followed suit, on the pretext of not wanting to shout, though when at length he opened his mouth to speak the knocking abruptly stopped. They both glanced at each other, then back at the unit. The amber bulb was still lit.

  Mr Pearson put his hands to his ear
s also. There was the feeling that anything might now happen, and without clear warning.

  But nothing did. The machine remained silent and still.

  Mrs Pearson dared, tentatively, to uncover her ears.

  ‘Well, I can tell you, I don’t much feel like cooking any more. Not with that thing in here, about to go off who-knows-when. It wouldn’t be safe, putting the hob on. Who’d ever want to live with such a thing? It’s disconcerting, to say the least. It’s ugly too.’

  ‘It’s only a prototype. I’m sure once they’ve sorted out the mechanics of the thing it won’t sound anything like it does now. They’ll fix that. They’ll smooth it all out. And I’m not especially hungry anyway. A sandwich or some such will do me just fine.’

  Mrs Pearson set to, preparing them both a simple cold supper, though she didn’t like having to cross near the machine to get to the larder.

  Mr Pearson sat himself at the table. In this apparent new calm his eagerness had returned.

  ‘Bit of a marvel though, wouldn’t you say? This’ll be the start of a new era. This is the future, right here in our kitchen!’

  ‘I don’t really see what difference it’ll make. Sending disposable spoons.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be daft. Spoons is only for testing. Simple things, see? One small item at a time while they make sure it’s properly, you know—calibrated or whatnot. You need to think bigger than that. The machines they have at the institute are—well, I’ve not personally seen them, but I’ll wager they’re pretty enormous. And just you imagine a big foreign factory with whole warehouses devoted to sending their goods out like this. You could have a new load sent every second. Just like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Like lightning. Arriving at its destination in an instant. All ready for use.’

  ‘Not likely.’ Mrs Pearson glanced at the amber light. ‘Not if you have to wait this long each time you send anything.’ She set down two full plates and seated herself at the table.