CHAPTER 13

DECEMBER




         ‘It's for you Spiderman.’
         Helen Rowe shrugged her shoulders and made a mystified face as she handed the phone to him. The whole office, indeed the whole plant, had got hold of his nickname. The catering assistant at the party must have been one of the girls who had watched him trying Gibbet. He had thought her face was familiar. Now he was notorious. The story had gone round the plant within twenty four hours and had grown somewhat in the telling. The height of the wall had increased from thirty to sixty feet, the rough sandstone blocks had become as smooth as glass and he had not lay-backed along the rafter projections, he had dangled from them, swing from hand to hand like Tarzan.
         When he wasn't ‘Spiderman’, he was ‘The Milk Tray Man’. One of the girls on the assembly line, urged on by a backing group of giggling colleagues, had buttonholed him in the corridor and told him that she ‘just loved Milk Tray’ and would he please deliver a box to her that night. As the group disappeared into a lift one of her pals shouted ‘And don't forget the Diamonds!’
         He took the phone. It was a woman's voice. English? Scottish? He was not quite sure. A nasal upper crust voice with just a hint of Scottish vowels.
         ‘Hello? Is that Allan Fraser? This is Dianne. Dianne Halpern - we met at my father's party. Yes. I was wondering. We are having a little get together tomorrow night and I wondered if you were free. Just a few friends. You are? Oh Good. Shall we say eight o'clock? You will find us easily enough won't you. Just drive down the .... What's that. You don't have a car? ... and you can't drive .... Christ!’
         The sophistication had slipped for a moment and then recovered.
         ‘ ... How quaint!’
         She seemed to have her hand over the mouthpiece but he could still hear some talking, or was it shouting, going on at the other end. Then she was speaking again.
         ‘That's all right. I've made arrangements. Daddy'll give you a lift.’
         As he put the phone down Helen said ‘Was that Dianne Halpern?’
         He nodded. ‘My God!’ said Helen. ‘The lad is about to enter the lioness's den.’
         He wondered if he could have refused but both Helen and Rosa told him not to be ridiculous. Of course he had to go. The whole office expressed an opinion. Jack made as though he was eating a cockroach sandwich. Masood beamed, rolled his eyes and made motions with his hands as though stroking a bosom.
         The following day Allan brought his good suit to work in a suitcase tied to the back of his bike. He had spent the previous evening with a nail brush getting rid of the mud stains from the trouser legs and pressing it as best he could with the ancient iron heated in the open fire. Throughout the day he had a series of phone calls from Halpern's secretary to arrange, re-arrange and re-re-arrange the time at which he was supposed to present himself at Halpern's office. But the appointed hour duly arrived.
         Halpern emerged from his inner office with two brief cases, stopping with the door open, giving final directions to someone inside. ‘I want the Sellbourne meeting set up for Thursday ... Cancel everything else that day .... Who? ... No put him off .... I must have a clear twelve hours ... Get the letter to Johnston away tonight and .... Yes .... Yes include that .... No .... Tell George I must have it Wednesday noon at the latest .... Oh .... You're here ....’
         He had looked round and seen Allan. ‘I've been told I'm to give you a lift or something.’ Then he was talking back into the room again. ‘Ok Angela ..... That ok? ..... Good ..... Good night.’
         He turned back to Allan. ‘Here. Make yourself useful.’ And he held out one of the briefcases which was stuffed until it was almost spherical. He still had another thinner case in his hand and then as Allan took the fat one from him he bent down inside the door and picked up his portable microcomputer.


*      *      *      *      *

         ‘This wasn't my idea,’ Halpern said. His eyes were intent on the road ahead. He seemed to have an aversion to dipping his headlights. ‘I'm just the foot soldier who does what the General commands. Are you dining with us?’ and then with resignation he added ‘I don't suppose I will ever understand my women folk.’
         Later he said ‘Have you thought about the idea of transferring to head quarters?’
         Allan knew it was politic to be enthusiastic. ‘I am very interested, but I am also interested in the work I am doing with Dr. Telman.’ There was a pause and then Allan added ‘But of course my real interest is in the work I was doing at University. I would like to go on with that.’
         ‘What exactly are you doing with Dr. Telman these days?’
         ‘I'm helping with a project on speech processing.’
         ‘And what you were doing at University?’
         ‘Proof of program correctness. I'd like to try my ideas on the operating system for the new Labyrinth.’
         Dangerous ground, but Halpern knew where his interests lay - suspicious if he hadn't plugged his own interests. And that tape recording. Halpern might already know about the project. From the date on the cassette he had worked out that it had been recorded on the day he had had supper with Rosa and Maurice. It could of course have been an office conversation or it could have been made as Rosa put the idea of the project to him.
         Halpern said ‘So you're interested in the Labyrinth .... bloody fool! ... sorry, not you ... that car in front ... that's good, but if you want to do well in this company Allan you will have to learn to adapt. Every newly graduated PhD wants to carry on with their thesis work. They would be no bloody good if they didn't ... What the hell do they think they're doing? ... ’
         He changed down, swung out and accelerated the Merc past the object of his wrath.
         ‘ ... but the ones who are most useful to us, soon realise that the universe doesn't revolve around them and their ideas. There are a million things to be done before the launch of the Labyrinth. Not just the operating system to be written and tested. When MCI puts a new chip on the market it gives the user a complete package. We don't dump it on the users and leave them to develop their own software....’
         Breaking. Turning left off the main road. The car behind breaked too. The horn blast dopplered down an octave as it swept past. Narrow road now. Trees on both sides.
         ‘ .... The Labyrinth is going to be THE strategic technology for the next two decades. We have advance orders for it from a hundred companies who are developing products based upon it. And that doesn't take into account the products we are basing on it...’
         They came over the crest of a hill fast. Allan's stomach levitated.
         ‘... We even have advance orders for the Galaxy range of computers that will use it. It is going to be everywhere Allan. It will be big in the defence industry. We may be phasing out the old range of nuclear weapons - blunt instruments of mass destruction - but the emphasis is now switching to super-smart weapons, weapons that can select their targets. We'll almost have them flying through key-holes soon. The great emphasis will be on intelligent recognition of visual and sound patterns....’
         Maybe Halpern was practicing a sales pitch or an after dinner speech.
         ‘... The Galaxy-Superwarp will have multiple Labyrinths. It will be the number cruncher and it is going into twenty or thirty countries all over the world. It will handle economic models. Think on it. At long last the world will have the economies of the world harmonised. No more unexpected slumps or booms triggered by one country doing something unexpected. Business confidence needs stability Allan and we will give it to them. We will even handle their electoral procedures. Democracy is spreading like wildfire hand in hand with market economics...’
         Allan had read stuff like this in leader columns, or was it in `Spitting Image'? They had slowed down, turning again on to a quiet road with overgrown verges.
         ‘...There will be a piece of the action for you too Allan if you want it and are up to it. But you must adapt and be ready to throw your weight behind the projects the company has identified as important and at the time the company needs them. It's team work now that counts Allan. There really is no place for the brilliant individualist any more. Think on it Allan. A move to South America would be a good career move for you.’
         The old MCI `first-name' habit. Or was it a disease? Silence for a while and then Halpern said suddenly.
         ‘That was quite a stunt you pulled at the party the other night.’
         ‘I'm sorry Sir,’ said Allan. ‘I had no idea what room I was climbing into.’
         ‘Mmm,’ said Halpern ruefully. ‘I suppose I asked for it. My wife and daughter were highly amused. In fact everyone seems to think you were the star of the show. My secretary asked me yesterday if I was thinking of installing a better burglar alarm system. She was smirking all over her face.’
         ‘I'm sorry,’ said Allan. ‘I didn't mean to embarrass you.’
         They were pulling in between the gate pillars. Gravel crunched. The stone lions again. A small corner of an Ayrshire field that is forever Trafalgar Square.
         Carrying the heavy briefcase he followed Halpern and stepped into an American soap opera - the kind with lots of oil money sloshing about, where people got shot and came alive again thirty two episodes later. Big hallway, wide staircase - just waiting for Scarlet O'Hara to be carried up it.
         ‘Dianne will be somewhere,’ Halpern said. He took his case and disappeared upstairs. Allan waited, hands in pockets, then with hands out of pockets. Loud pop music upstairs. He sat on a carved wooden chair. A door banged and female laughter came from a passageway beyond the staircase. Dianne appeared. She had changed her hair. She was a blonde now. Pink dungarees. The trouser legs were rolled up to just below her knees. Nice calves. Bare feet. Tanned. He stood up. When she saw him she stopped as though surprised. Her hand went to her mouth and she bit the back of her wrist for a moment. Then she gave a start. ‘Allan! How nice of you to come.’ She advanced with her arms out. Did he shake her hand, embrace her or kiss her? She presented a cheek for him to peck. Then she stood back and looked at him. ‘Oh my Gawd!’ she said. ‘I don't believe it. That's the same suit you were wearing the other night.’ She yelled over her shoulder ‘Stephen!’ Then went on more quietly but still forcefully to Allan ‘We're not going to Hell on Wheels, with you looking like that’ She turned and yelled again ‘Stephen!’
         The lanky youth Allan had seen at the party appeared round the bannisters at the top of the staircase. Red on white, his tee-shirt said ‘Whales are Sexy’. Dianne was studying Allan. She said over her shoulder. ‘Stephen I need access to your wardrobe.’
         ‘No Dianne. Nothing doing!’ His voice wobbled uncertainly between soprano and baritone.
         ‘Come on,’ said Dianne to Allan. She hooked a finger for him to follow and marched up stairs.

         Stephen's room was in the roof space of the house. It ran from the front to the back of the house and had dormer windows at either end where the ceiling sloped down to waist height. Half the room was filled with computing equipment. There was even a `virtual reality' nacelle and `adventure' gear - broadswords mailed fists and helmets with electronic umbilical cords. Dianne strode to the cupboards which lined the far wall. She slid open the doors and began rummaging, occasionally pulling out a shirt on its hanger and trying it against Allan's chest for effect. At last Allan was stung into a response.
         ‘I'm not sure that I want to ...’
         ‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘What do you think Stephen? No. The turquoise does not go with your eyes.’ Allan could see down her cleavage. He was glad he had had the foresight to wear tight underpants.
         ‘Not my best shirts Dianne,’ said Stephen plaintively.
         Allan said, ‘Maybe I'm not your idea of fashionably dressed ...’
         She was holding a white shirt against his chest. It had wide sleeves caught in at the wrist and a silver thread woven into it. The collar was high and flared. She was looking at the shirt, frowning.
         He said, ‘I'm not taking this lying down you know!’
         Her eye flicked up to his face and back again to the shirt. Her tongue ran round the inside of her lips trying to suppress a smile.
         ‘Well we'll just have to see if some other position suits you. Yes I think the Spanish flamenco style will do.’
         From the wardrobe she pulled out a hanger with a pair of black high waisted trousers with flares and flappy bits at the ankles.
         ‘Stevie? Are these trousers too loose for you?’
         ‘No they're a perfect fit and ....’
         ‘Good,’ She hit Allan in the chest with the hanger and trousers. ‘Try them on. Stevie's slimmer than you are,’ she said, ‘so you should bulge nicely’ and stalked from the room.
         ‘Have you played The Ivory Fangs of Dungeon Doom?’ Stephen was holding a red helmet with a spaceman visor and Norseman horns.
         ‘No I don't believe I have,’ said Allan. ‘What is it? A xylophone?’
         ‘Here,’ Stephen was offering him the helmet. It had a tail of twisted cables. ‘Sorry about the wires,’ he said. ‘I tried to get a remote sensor helmet but my father said it was too expensive.’
         At a rough guess Allan reckoned the equipment Stephen had would have bought an average family saloon. The centre piece of the set up was an MCI computer. It was the same as Allan's but a couple of points up the range. Allan had his trousers off by that time but he took the helmet and tried it on.
         ‘Just stand here.’
         He guided Allan into a structure like a round pulpit and helped him on with the gauntlets. The broad sword was only three inches long in the blade but the handle and hilt were full size.
         ‘Ok. Just wait a minute and I'll start the game.’
         There was a clicking of keys and then Allan found he was standing in a square room like a wire frame. As he raised his sword hand a wire frame sword rose before his eyes.
         ‘Point your left hand and click with your thumb to move.’
         Allan raised his left hand and pointed ahead through a wire-frame doorway structure. He brought his thumb down on a small button and found himself sweeping forwards through the doorway. The harder he pressed the faster he went. In the passageway ahead of him a green man-sized spider dropped down from above. He struck it with the sword and it vanished with a satisfying explosive noise.
         ‘Yes. Very impressive.’
         ‘That's just version two,’ said Stephen. ‘Version three has solid panels. The wire frame figures are all I can run on this machine.’
         ‘It's still very powerful Stephen. You've got about twice the power in my machine.’
         ‘You should see the one Dad's got. Its the X3 model.’
         He rattled off the technical facts like a computer magazine - its RAM size, its disc size and transfer speeds, the games it could run. Allan was still wandering around the simulated environment of the game - it was some kind of castle structure - he was despatching sundry horrors with a thrust of his trusty Excalibur.
         ‘I thought so!’
         Dianne's voice pierced the battlements.
         ‘Have you any idea how ridiculous you look standing there in underpants and shirt tails with that stupid helmet on, waggling your hand about in space?’


*      *      *      *      *

         They ate in the kitchen at an oval table of plain oiled pine. Allan sat down with care to avoid splitting the trousers and admired the row of brightly polished copper pots and pans on the wall. His crotch was uncomfortably tight. The trousers felt like the compressions suit worn by old-time diver-bomber pilots. Dianne was dealing plates on to the table top like a croupier. There were bowls of salad and Mrs Halpern brought a steaming bowl of baked potatoes. It looked as though Dianne and her mother ran the household. A female oligarchy. Stephen and his father were waited upon and ordered about cheerfully as though they were mentally handicapped. There was no sign of the ‘few friends’ Dianne had mentioned on the phone. Halpern stood at the table and applied an electric carving knife to a large boiled ham.
         ‘So where are you two young people off to?’ he said.
         ‘Hell,’ said Dianne.
         ‘Dianne Darling,’ said Eleanor Halpern. ‘I don't like you to go to that place.’
         ‘It's fine. Hell's ok Mummy. You shouldn't believe those stories. Anyway Allan will look after me. He'll see me to Hell and back. Won't you Allan? Oh, and Mummy, my Fiat's acting up. Can I take your Volvo?’
         ‘You said something about other people,’ said Allan.
         ‘Oh George and Cynthia are going on.’


*      *      *      *      *

         'Hell on Wheels' was a roller-skating disco in Ayr with a reputation for being a place where you could get a fix. Dianne said the management had invented the story to boost their popularity. She drove the Volvo estate with panache but not much skill. He shifted his position uneasily.
         ‘Are you ok in these trousers?’
         ‘Yes,’ he said doubtfully, ‘but I think I will get an attack of the bends when I take them off.’
         Dianne parked in a dark alley behind it and threw her imitation fur coat on to the back seat.
         ‘Shouldn't you put it out of sight. Someone might ...’
         ‘Daddy's insured,’ she said, slamming the door. She was wearing tiger-skin tights and matching top with about six inches of bare midrift. Her hair was combed back into a straw coloured mane.
         Hell was appropriately Stygian. Flickering crimson flames were projected upwards on the the walls behind the tables where scantily dressed demons with long red tails served coloured water for twice the price of Champagne. In the central space, black silhouetted figures gyrated on roller-skates over an underlit, fluorescent orange floor. A whirlpool of humanity. The roar of the wheels almost drowned the blare of the disco music. `Hell on Wheels' was close to Allan's idea of Hell on Earth.
         George and Cynthia were there already with another couple. In the gloom Allan never managed to work out who was who. He wasn't even sure of the gender of their companions. A waitress brought them skates and drinks. Allan asked for water. The waitress gave him a filthy look and marched off. She didn't come back.
         ‘Have you skated before?’ Dianne asked.
         ‘Not really. I've ice-skated.’
         ‘Well you're halfway there. Just hold on to me. Tightly.’
         She took his arm, wrapped it round her bare waist and snuggled up close. They plunged into the maelstrom. People were packed so closely that it was almost impossible to fall down but he managed it bringing Dianne and quite a few others crashing down beside him. After that the noise, flashing lights and congestion gave him another attack of claustrophobia so that he had to go outside for a while. He spent the rest of the evening sitting in the cafeteria near the door while Dianne danced and skated with the half-naked and ambiguous George/Cynthia person. He, she or it was tattooed or painted and wore multiple loops of gun-metal chain. Allan bought drinks for them all and got concerned about the steady disappearance of his carefully husbanded supply of bank notes.


*      *      *      *      *

         ‘So you don't like the bright lights,’
         She took his arm as the left the club, and wobbled slightly as the went down the steps.
         ‘That was the bright lights was it? They seemed pretty dark to me. Shall we walk somewhere and get a cup of coffee?’
         ‘No I'll make you coffee when we get back,’ she said slurring the words a little.
         ‘Is that wise?’
         ‘I'm never wise,’ she said waving an arm to the world. ‘Being wise is a bore, an absolute bore. Come on.’
         She unlocked the car and climbed in.
         ‘Dianne, I don't think you should drive.’
         She wound the window down and looked up at him.
         ‘If you want to stay here that ok by me.’
         She turned the ignition key. He climbed in beside her, fixed his seat belt and sat rigidly with staring eyes and feet pressed hard against the floor in front of him as the car lurched out into the street.
         When they got beyond the town limit and the street lights disappeared she was late switching on the headlamps so that for some distance they travelled in near total darkness. Several times they veered off across the central line and he made a grab for the wheel. But she batted his hand away and straightened up. And then she said suddenly ‘Ok let's stop here.’
         She pulled sharply leftwards into a long loop of lay-by which ran away from the road and down behind some trees. She parked beside a notice which said ‘No Overnight Parking’. When she switched off the headlights it was totally black. She giggled. He reached out a hand towards her and met her hand halfway.


*      *      *      *      *

         ‘You're a very surprising woman Dianne.’
         ‘You're a bit unusual yourself. You know what attracted me? The way you deflated my father. I've watched him do that so often to people. He gets them to do party tricks and humiliates them. He's a bastard really.’
         ‘Why does he do that?’
         ‘Oh, I guess it gives him a feeling of power. They say that powerful people, or people who like power are basically insecure. They have to get control over other people to make them feel secure in themselves. He does it to Mummy as well.’ She wrapped her arms round his neck. He had one arm round her and the other hand was up inside her tiger-skin top. The fur coat almost covered them both. ‘But he's afraid of you,’ she said.
         ‘I don't believe that.’
         ‘It's true. I heard him say to one of his people that - what was it - Rosa Telman was a spent force but that you were dangerous.’
         ‘Dangerous! How could I be dangerous?’
         ‘I don't know, but that's what he said.’
         ‘Who did he say it to?’
         ‘John .... Beaton or Seaton or something.’
         ‘A bug guy with white hair?’
         ‘Yes.’
         ‘That's John Seaton. He's in charge of the assembly line. Nothing to do with me. Not now they've moved me from the testing software section.’
         ‘Maybe that's why they moved you. Anyway he does think you're dangerous. So what have you been doing to him apart from climbing in through his windows and dating his daughter?’
         She undid the buttons on his shirt and clamped her mouth on his nipple exploring it gently with her tongue.
         ‘You may like to know that I consider the dating of his daughter to be the highest achievement of my entire career. Apart from that I haven't been doing anything.’
         She bit his nipple.
         ‘Ouch! Do I get bitten every time I pay you a compliment?’
         ‘No. You get bitten every time you tell a lie. What have you been doing with Rosa Telman?’
         ‘Nothing - ouch!’
         ‘Yes you have. I heard my father saying that you and Rosa were as thick as thieves.’
         ‘I haven't done anything with Rosa Telman - ouch!’
         ‘What is she like in bed?’
         ‘That is not a proper question for a lady to ask a gentleman.’
         She transferred her tongue to his other nipple.
         ‘I'm not a lady and you are not a gentleman. Answer the question, pretty boy or lose your nipple.’
         ‘Give over. That's my favourite nipple. I'm very attached to it.’
         ‘Talk!’
         ‘Rosa's nice. I like her. She and I have common interests, but it is theoretical. Sometimes we talk about it.’
         As he was talking he ran a hand down her back to her waist and over the curve of her rump. She pushed closer to him. He was short of leg room. and a twinge of cramp made him gasp. He arched his back and straightened his leg suddenly pushing hard.
         ‘What's this then - rough sex?’
         Later he could see her face. Dawn was not far away. She slept peacefully in his arms.


*      *      *      *      *

         ‘Am I going to see you again?’
         He rubbed his arm trying to restore the circulation.
         ‘If you want to.’
         ‘I do. But next time we'll do my kind of thing.’
         ‘Oh. Isn't this your kind of thing then? Are you kinky?’
         ‘No I mean the disco and that. It's not my scene really. Do you ever go walking Dianne?’
         ‘Walking! My Gawd what have I got here - a bloody PT instructor?’
         ‘Well I'll think of something. But I'll be in charge. Right?’
         ‘Oh!’ she mocked in a little girl voice. ‘How masterful you are!’
         ‘I'll phone you.’
         ‘I can't wait.’
         Pink strands of cloud were visible in the eastern sky as they pulled up at the house. He showered and changed into his suit and was asleep with his head amongst coffee cups when Halpern came into the kitchen with a corona of after-shave.