Goldsmiths - University of London

The trouble starts just as dessert arrives. I get a txt from Mum: “Maxi attempting suicide!” linked to a voice³. Now, I'm used to Maxi the wonder cat's “suicide attempts”. I've got a pottle of herring from the deli that ought to sort him out when I get home, but for now I'm ignoring him: my filter's blocked 30 messages in the last two hours. I carry on talking to &rea and despatch a busy signal to Mum. While the window's open, I check the ingredient list for my strawberry profiteroles for anything that might aggravate my allergies. It looks clear, but I check a few user reviews, anyway.

&rea stops in mid-flow. “Are you all right, ®inald?”

“Just a text,” I say. I rewind the last half a minute of conversation in a tiny nearby window while I spoon a chunk of profiterol into my mouth – we are still talking about Fight Club. “I think it's Brad Pitt.”

I watch her face as she checks my answer against the online sources, and she seems satisfied. “Oh, solid.” she says. “That was quick.”

“I actually know it. I saw it at a flashscreen in Greenwich park in June. It's still quite fresh in my real memory.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“It's a little incoherent in that fin de siecle way,” I answer, with a little bit of Quintaro's swagger, “but done with a lot of brio.” I have a review online that opens with that sentence, so I know that when she searches to find where I get my opinions from, she will see that I am spinning my own line⁴.

“Yes,” she says, her focus drifting as she reviews my comments. “I agree, I find the Hollywood acting style confusing. The histrionic performances, as much as I love them, make it hard to take the films seriously. You should try pre-WWII cinema – flat, bad sound, black and white – it's like watching an abstract in monochrome.”

“Wow, can you even watch that stuff without hyperlinks?”

“Oh, yes! I watched Camille with Greta Garboon a flat screen in the ICA. Garbo is extraordinary, like an animated illustration. I gave up on the plot and just loved up the lush, illuminating radiance.” She quotes directly from a text review she'd posted a couple of years back, and by the time she gets that far, I have it open and am scanning it through.⁵

Over coffee, another txt from Mum: Maxi isn't going to commit suicide, he's on his way over.⁶ I check his RFID and his tram is already trundling up Oxford Street.

This is the first date I've had in six months, and I'm desperate to make a good impression. In the couple of hours since I met her in the real world, I've decided I really like &rea and already have us married, divorced, joined in polyamorous union (perhaps with Ma~a from the Pizza Bomb, I haven't entirely given up on her) and bringing up kids in the Realm. Occasionally, I die romantically young. I can see all this disappearing (perhaps apart from the dying young bit) with the arrival of Maxi.

The situation with &rea is also a little delicate as re. the wonder pets. Her family owned a wonder dog, who'd run wild with the Hell Hounds and even threatened her mother's life⁷. I read her blog over the couple of days before our meet up, and there's a lot of confessional stuff about it. I've no doubt she's done the same with me, and knows all about Maxi, but it's clear from her blog that it's something she doesn't like talking about, and so I've been avoiding the topic. Unfortunately, the topic itself is on its way here, right now, on a tram from Croydon.

I run a snap poll via my anonymous account at WhatWouldYouDo? The voting quickly shows a two-to-one preference for option one, bugging out.⁸ “&rea,” I say quickly, “about wonder pets.”

She flushes, and looks away; there's stuff you put on your blog, and stuff you talk about and I am breaking that boundary way too early.

“Look, I'm sorry, but I've got to tell you about Maxi –”

“It's okay, I understand. Let's try and forget them for tonight, it's not a topic that makes me happy.”

“I appreciate that, &rea, but unfortunately he's on his way here.” At that moment, Maxi noses through the cat door into the restaurant and it’s too late. A wonder monkey in a dinner jacket approaches him and I hear the distinctive asthmatic growl of his vocoder ask for my name.

She recoils – “On his way here?” – and then she sees Maxi. Maxi has never been an attractive cat (although I can remember a very cute kitten when I was eleven). He has a barrel-shaped body of gristly muscle, supported on four spindly legs that end in quite delicate paws. His flat face is snubbed around a scar that he gained early on in one of his periodic disappearances. His calico coat is short and coarse, with patches of pink here and there where it has thinned or been scarred through one of his numerous, mysterious accidents and illnesses.

“Well, more accurately, I guess, well, this, Maxi, is my cat.”

&drea offers Maxi a tense smile. “Hello,” she says, “you must be Maxi. Why don't you join us and have something?” She's trying to be nice, assuming the best despite all she must have read about him.

He arches his back and and hisses at her. “Get lost, bitch.”

“Maxi! What are you doing here?”

“I had to see for myself, see who you were leaving me for.”

“I'm not leaving you, Maxi.”

“You are, I know you are. I've heard you talking about it with Mummy.”

Dear God, what is he going to say? “This isn't the time or place for this conversation.” Around us, the other diners are beginning to notice what's going on. People are taking surreptitious glances and their wonder pets are growing restless. I get a poke from the restaurants customer feedback message board. A poll started by someone called @ila is taking votes on whether we're disturbing the atmos⁹. I feel like I'm going to cry – I'd love it if, just for once, it was me that got to give someone that appalled, condescending look.

“Maxi, I'm not going to put up with this behaviour,” says &rea, which is fair comment and good for her for standing up for herself, but my heart sinks because I know it's not going to help matters at all.

Maxi spins round to face her, claws peeking out from his little white paws. “Shut it, dog-killer. Yeah, I've read your blog. What are you going to do about it?”

“Maxi, let's go.”

But it's too late. Maxi is a tightly wound spring ready to release his anger right on schedule, like an alarm clock going off. He struggles up from the chair and takes a step onto the table towards her. “How many others were there? Planning something similar for me, are you?” Before I can grab him, Maxi launches himself over the table right at &drea, shrieking, “Are you?”

She deflects him with remarkable aptitude, but his claws rake down her arm as he flies off her. She shouts “Bloody Hell!” Maxi crashes into the table top sending cutlery, glasses, plates and the unfinished desserts flying. Guests and pets all around us start up from their meals and conversations and stare openly at us, words and cutlery paused before open mouths and curious eyes. A couple of wonder dogs start barking and the wonder monkey waiter scampers away to the service bus to call the human maitre d. &rea gathers up her coat and bag, shaking her head and with, I think tears in her averted eyes.

The maitre'd comes to the table. “Is everything all right?”

“I'm sorry,” I say, “I'm just leaving.” &rea is on her way out the door as I swipe my pass across the table with one hand and scoop up Maxi with other. He pulls the cloth away in his claws, scattering the plates glasses and cutlery still further, and we march out under the gaze of the murmuring diners and pets, his body is as rigid as a frozen leg of lamb under my arm.

We catch her pulling on her coat on Mortimore Street outside the restaurant. “I'm sorry &rea, let's have coffee soon.” I open a calendar query, but all her time is logged as pending.

“I've got to go,” she says.

“Please, I can work this out.”

“Sure, I'll poke you.” She walks away in the direction of the Hackney tram, leaving me alone with Maxi, who is suddenly repentant and pliable, even purring slightly, adding a pathetic asthmatic hiccough to his vocoder. “I'm sorry, Reggie,” he moans, “I haven't had a happy day. Can we go home?”

I walk down Oxford Street to Croydon the tram stop, setting my blink-through filter to the highest level to avoid all the ad pokes from the shops on the way. I txt Mum that we'll be home soon, then send her a snap of the cat drowsing over my shoulder and drooling on my good shirt. This isn't the first time Maxi has embarrassed me, and I have long resigned myself to the fact that it won't be the last.¹⁰

We get back to the building, glowing orange tonight, and take the stairshift to our unit. Mum is listening to music – Turandot – without her sightlink on. Eighty-six and almost totally blind, she navigates her practised route around the flat like an antique tram, stopping at the stations afforded by her sightlink where she can do her knitting or plug in a book to read. She lives a solitary life, with just me and Maxi, and occasionally tea with her friend Sonya (83) or Wanda (74) the retired health visitor who, still pops round Thursday mornings with a priest-like dedication to her duties. Mum's spent the last decade or so making a family tree, generations going back six generations and forward to the grandchildren that my brothers and sister have provided. Through the sightlink she can log into the version uploaded on FaceSpace, linked up with the the millions of other amateur genealogists all over the world, a rolling wave-front of descendants gradually mapping relationships across the nations and continents going back generations.

She turns in my direction when I come in. “Oh, hello, love, how was dinner?”

“It was okay.”

“When are you seeing her again.”

I shrug, “I dunno. Maxi kind of killed the moment.”

“Ah, puss,” says Mum, reaching out and I lower the sleeping cat into her arms. He stretches languidly without waking up, purring roughly.

“Did you get the fruit loaf?”

“Sorry, Mum, I forgot. Look, I'm gonna crash, will you be okay?”

She gives Maxi an affectionate ruffle and says, “We're fine. I'm sorry Maxi spoiled your night out. He's a special cat.”

“Yeah, he is. Night Mum.”

“Night dear.”

I slope off to my room. I surf in a half-hearted way mulling things over. Maybe I just expect too much out of life. I see other guys and they have everything I want. Is it really too much to expect to have found someone to care for at the age of 37? My RSS pokes me: &rea's added a post. My heart beats hard. I'm not ready to check the post yet, so I put on a mix of miserable stuff I've made for these nights and take a shower. Afterwards, I dictate most of this post into my note space. Reviewing the clips as I go, I suppose the early part of the date was OK – I was reasonably charming and she was quick and witty. In fact, we had a couple of good hours before Maxi arrived.

So, feeling a little tickle of hope, I check &rea's post: it's a short note declaring that she has gone into the Legendary Realms. I settle into my chair and log on, clicking through the servers until I find Marvella's ID in the users window. I join the game and find her in the Dragon's Horn Inn, seated at a table, reviewing her inventory. I greet her in txt, and she skypes me, “Hi ®inald.”

“Hi &rea.” I slide Quintraro the Arch Druid's emotional display up to emphatic: “&rea, I'm really sorry about Maxi.”

“It's okay. As soon as you told me, I should have bugged out.”

“Did he get you?”

“Yeah, a nasty one on the arm.”

“Oh, man, &rea, can we...”

“Look, Quintraro,” she says, “There are new lands opening in the west beyond the setting sun. What do you say we throw our lot in together and travel west for adventure?”

Momentarily, it annoys me that she leaves the subject hanging, until it occurs to me that she hasn't left it at all. “Okay, Marvella,” I say, “You and me. Let's go.”