The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Chapter 46

A different party, another day. A gathering for the 106, for the elite, for the perfect. I stole one of the caterer’s badges, wore black shoes, black skirt, black shirt and white gloves, and walked in with a tray of sashimi served with green-tea powder, just as the party was getting warm.

All the perfect people, they chatted so easily, laughed so high, spoke so fair.

Hands picked treats off the tray, made by a chef flown in specially for the night, each mouthful marked with a calorie count and vitamin breakdown.

Perfection knows what you’re eating! said a card on my tray.

I let hands take food, then went to the bathroom, locked myself into a cubicle and changed. Dress by… someone… I’d stopped caring. Shoes by… someone else. I’d had to skim six credit cards, grab as much cash as I could before the accounts were closed, and even then fashion had nearly broken my budget.

Perfection was not for the poor.

I stepped back into the party, a beautiful woman who’d always been there. I drank champagne, ate sashimi, nodded at anecdotes about fashion, film, technology, power, and in this manner made my way towards my mark.

There she was, standing where she always stood, Filipa, just behind her brother. Her bracelet, silver, a mathematical challenge in metal form, still around my wrist. I hadn’t taken it off since she gave it to me. I looked, and saw that, like me, she was imperfect. The only imperfect woman in the room, though she tried so hard to fit in. Her smile was not dazzling; her wit was not razor-edged. Her nails were not perfectly lacquered, her dress was — such a sin — the same dress she’d worn last time, and out of season. And more, something else, a thing I’d seen before.

Sorrow, in her eyes, sorrow in her lips, closed and tight, as she watched the room turning.

You cannot be sad and be perfect.

I slipped into position beside her, watched in silence the perfect people with their perfect lives turn, turn and turn again, before I spoke.

“Thought is feedback,” I said, and her eyes rose to me, though her head did not turn. “Social anxiety triggers a physiological alarm. The physical reinforces the social. Through very few cycles, we may become convinced of fallacies. That we are afraid of people. That we are worthless. You and I could be perfect, if only we could tame that weakest part of ourselves — our thoughts. Do you not agree, Dr Pereyra-Conroy?”

Her eyes turned to me, and I thought I saw the glimmering of tears in them. “Yes,” she said, at last. “I do.”

“You do not have Perfection,” I said.

She answered without hesitation, eyes still on mine, studying my face. “No.”

“In the 106 Club, you may receive treatments. What do they do?”

“They make you happy.”

“Perfect?”

“Better.”

“Define better.”

Her lips sealed, a physical pressing together, her eyes flickered to her brother, chatting idly away. “Smarter? Sharper? Wiser?” I suggested. “Confident. Ambitious. Sexy. Sensuous. Just like they are in Hollywood.”

Her eyes, back to my face, a slight tilt of her head. “I make the technology,” she breathed at last. “My brother designed the parameters of what it should achieve.”

Now I looked at him, Rafe Pereyra-Conroy, back straight, smile bright, shaking the hand of a stranger. Smooth as a millpond, hard as marble, bright as moonlight in a starless sky.

“How does it work?” I asked.

She spoke fast, blank, staring at thoughts only she could see. “High-speed reinforcement learning. Neuroplasticity is on your side. Positive values are extolled. Positive behaviours are reinforced. Dopamine released on the mimicking of positive actions. Electrical stimulation activates axon terminals. Visual and auditory aids. In early testing, we inserted electrodes into the heart of the brain. All thought is feedback, social anxiety triggers a physiological response, fear, terror, sweat glands, capillaries dilate, blood pressure, respiration—”

I put a hand on her arm, stopping her. Her eyes flashed up fast, body turned, she was short of breath. She stopped, forced herself to slow, exhaled with a shudder, half closed her eyes. Then, slower, “A new reinforcement. Ideas of success reinforced by persistent ideation. I will be successful. I am successful. I can achieve success. I am happy. I am happy. I am happy. We stick electrodes in the human brain and repeat this idea until it is true.”

Silence a while, my hand still on her arm, holding her tight. She swayed a little. For a moment I thought she might fall, freed by speaking. Then she let out another breath, and said, “I designed treatments to make people better. I thought I could use it to make me brave. But people don’t want to be brave, Rafe said. People want to be perfect. That’s what they do now, the treatments. They erase your soul, and make you someone new.”

She closed her eyes, let out a final breath, opened them again, seemed to see me for the very first time.

“It must have been hard,” I said at last, “to see your idea turned into a monstrosity.”

“Yes,” she replied, still not turning her head to face me directly, “it is.”

We stood together a while, in silence, ignored, not worth the attention of the room. Then her hand was on my arm, gripping too tight, and she’d seen the bracelet around my wrist, held so tight her fingers might bend into bone, and whispered, just in my ear, just for me, “Is it you? Are you the one we forget?”

I pulled my arm away hard, stumbled a little, shook myself free, stared now into her eyes. I saw no hostility, merely curiosity, enraptured, enthralled. “Matisse showed me CCTV footage of my meeting you, in Dubai, and again, here, eating noodles. I said I had eaten alone that night, but there you were, talking to me for hours. I thought I’d remember you, after they showed me your picture, but I don’t. I held your picture and saw your face, and closed my eyes and couldn’t see it any more. Rafe said I was mad but security didn’t remember you either and Matisse proved it, he proved it was the truth — is it you?”

I had no words, I had no breath, I am my breath, I am breath, I am my breath

too fast though it runs.

Fascinated, and perhaps another word, as she studied my features, ran her eyes along my body, looked for some sign of what I was, how I worked, written on my skin. “They said you might come back. Is it something chemical, or electrical, that you do?”

I stepped away, turned, looking for the exit, panic

pure panic

can’t control my breath

can’t control my legs

my legs are not my own

my eyes are not my own

my world, as I move for the door, turn, press, push against the crowd

not my own

cannot smile

cannot be the thief

professional

I am

out of control

stumbling for the way out and it is only because fear is a physical reaction

because adrenaline heightens all sense

that I see Gauguin before it is too late.

He stands there, in a smart black suit, earpiece in his right ear, hands folded in front, surveying the crowd. He doesn’t seem to have a picture of me to hand; but no — there, a phone, he checks it every minute or two, and he’s not looking at text messages.

Gauguin has followed me to Japan.

I cannot control my own body.

I cannot control my mind.

I turn without direction, looking for another way out, and

a man says, “Excuse me, are you all right?”

He is…

… perfect.

Of course he’s fucking perfect.

Perfect teeth, perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect suit, perfect smile, perfect poise, perfect perfect perfect, and my make-up is smudged. Something more too, some sense of the familiar that passes as soon as it comes.

“Shall I call for some assistance?” he offers, American accent, dressed in black, a robe crossed right to left — cross your kimono the other way for the dead; a white boy somehow pulling off looking good in formal Japanese clothes.

“Would you like to borrow my handkerchief, your mascara appears to be a little…”

Perfect: to be superficial to your very core.

Bright blond hair, perfectly smooth skin, not a wrinkle in sight. I feel my hand move to slap him and physically jerk it down to the side, hard enough to catch his eye, my body contorting like a dropped puppet. I dig my nails into the palm of my hand, break the skin, feels good, focused.

Gauguin’s eyes are still drifting round the room. I will not run; not while he has my picture in his hand, a square of light shining from his phone. He will look for the woman who runs.

“Thank you,” a voice says, charming, rich, a cliché of English wealth, inexplicably mine. “That’s very kind.”

With his handkerchief I dab very gently at the rim of my eyes, a gesture which explains in its delicate motion that no, of course no, I wasn’t crying, merely had something in the corner of my eye…

The nails dig deep in the palm of my left hand.

I am my pain.

“Did someone say…?” The beginning of a chivalrous gesture, perhaps? Did someone slight my honour, is there a battle to be fought here? Manly perfection: to be in perfect accord with what society deems to be the quality of masculine.

Words associated with masculine: logic, confidence, authority, discipline, independence, responsibility.

He was watching me, head slightly on one side, letting me wriggle in his gaze, a half smile on his lips, and again, I held back the temptation to slap him and said instead, “Do you know what a Möbius strip is?”

Words, happening for words’ sake, Gauguin by the door.

“Yes,” he said, and I was so surprised that for a moment, my field of perception narrowed back down to his face. “Yes I do. What a curious question.”

A flare of irritation; I was prepared to actively dislike this man already, and his expression of amusement was not diminishing this instinct. “Can you express its qualities mathematically?” I snapped.

Words associated with the quality of feminine: sensual, demure, nurturing, compassionate, emotive.

“… golf?”

He had been saying something banal, listing things more interesting than maths, perhaps. Sailing, sake, sumo… golf.

I grabbed a canapé off a passing tray, allowed the motion to turn my body, angling myself so that Gauguin can only see the back of my head, and surely even he cannot identify me by that. “Golf, how interesting,” I intoned, rolling the battered vegetable between my fingers before biting it in half.

At this motion, he flinched, and it took a moment for me to conclude that it was the indelicate sight of a woman eating with relish, teeth churning, lips pushing, half an eaten-thing still between her greasy fingers, that caused him so much distaste. I licked my lips, smiled deep into his concerned eyes, and very slowly, very deliberately, wiped my fingers clean on my sleeve. His eyes widened, and I wrapped my arm in his and said, staring deep into his pale grey eyes, “Have you played Cypress Point?”

A moment, in which he wavered between a medley of thoughts. The secret to the con is always to offer the thing that the mark most desires; and every golf-loving mark desired Cypress Point. “No,” he breathed. “But I know there are some here who have membership.”

“I got in at nine hundred and fifty thousand points,” I replied, fingers dallying in the hook of his elbow. “You haven’t seen perfection until you’ve seen Cypress Point.”

“How?!” Envy now, bringing his attention right back to me. “I’ve been trying to get in for years!”

“I played the game.” I shrugged. “I achieved perfection.”

“So have I,” he replied, “but my life won’t be complete until I’ve played that course.”

“You’ll see it; you can be anything you want to, now.”

Still, my fingers, his arm, keeping that contact, Gauguin behind me, but I was confident now, I knew what I was doing, back in control, controlling my environment, this man, myself, hell yes, bring it, world. Fucking bring it.

Perfect: to be inhuman in your perfection.

Then he said, “My name is Parker,” and for a moment, I lost my breath again, and had to catch it, pull it in deep, count backwards from ten. “You’ve heard of me?” he asked, when my silence stretched.

“I knew a Parker once,” I replied, “in New York.”

“Impossible!” he chuckled. “I’m the one and only Parker of New York.”

“Except Spider-Man.” Words — I remember reading them, not hearing them, but still… “I’m sure if we’d met, I’d remember you.”

A flicker, perhaps, in the corner of his eyes, but the smile didn’t waver. “I’m sure you would too.”

“What do you do, Parker?” Turning him again, using him to shield me from Gauguin, manipulating his body, easier now, easy.

“Casinos. I had a lot of luck on the tables a few years back; now I own the tables where I used to win.”

“And how long have you had Perfection?”

“Three years.”

“How did you find the treatments?”

“I can honestly say they changed my life.”

“In what way?”

“They made me who I am.”

“And who is that?”

“Someone worth remembering.”

My fingers still in his arm, he wanted to be physically closer. It was not me he lusted after, I decided, but rather he was aroused by himself. Seducing me gave him an outlet to express his brilliance. Easy to manipulate someone that vain. His body, a half shuffle closer, his hip bumping against mine.

I let it play, I was my smile, I was my skin, I was a woman as aroused by him as he was by himself.

Gauguin by the door, watching. I kept my back to him.

“And why are you here, the one-and-only Parker from New York?”

Who is this person who speaks?

A tinkling laugh, a little smile, practically a bob of the knees, a caress of his arm under its sleeve, who is this woman who wears my face?

She is the creature I have created, the default position I retreat to when I am under threat. She is whoever she needs to be to get the job done.

“I was presented with an opportunity. There’s a club in Macau, looking to do more business. You always know you can do business with the 106, with people like us.”

I looked to his face for a flicker of something, anything, which might be called doubt, humour, and saw nothing. The crowd turned and we turned with it, and there was Filipa again, her eyes elsewhere, I had already vanished from her memory, but this man, this stranger with a familiar name, watched me, enjoyed watching me and I felt…

My fingers tightened round his arm.

With my other hand I reached up, touched the corner of his jaw, turned his head this way and that, feeling the skin around his face. What could I remember about Parker, the man I’d met in New York? Not him, only a list of characteristics that I had written down, words without meaning. Mousy hair (that could be dyed), grey eyes (he had those), a mole on his chin (missing — not my Parker then, clearly not)

my fingers brushed his chin, felt the tiny change in texture, a place where a surgeon with inestimable skill had carefully excised the offending growth. I probed that spot in fascination, invisible to sight but just palpable to touch, a slight scaling of the scar tissue, and he caught my wrist, pulled it away, the smile never wavering (perfect people always smile), curiosity in his eyes.

“Your surgeon was incredible,” I stammered. “Did you have anything else done?”

“A little. My nose; a few lines in my forehead, a little work elsewhere, you know how it is. I thought why not? Why not be better? Now people see who I really am,” he mused. “They envy me.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yes — of course. We set an example for how people should be.”

“And do they remember you now?” I asked, and there it was again, the slightest flickering in his eyes. “Do they remember who you are?”

“Everyone remembers me,” he replied softly. “I’m the one and only Parker from New York.”

“And before your treatments? Before Perfection? Who were you then?”

A glib answer rises quickly to his lips, it is Perfection about to speak, about to brush off anything that might be frightening, that might threaten the mask he wears, but no.

Perhaps no.

Perhaps there is a tiny shard of hope left, for in that moment, Parker from New York stopped, and reined in his glib, charming reply, and instead looked me in the eye and held my wrist hard and said, “Who are you?”

And it was him.

Of course it was.

Of course.

I pulled my hand away, turned my back, stepped into the crowd, pushed through it fast, Gauguin’s eyes rose to me but that was fine, that was absolutely fine, let him look, I just need to break his line of sight for a moment, let him forget again, turn and turn and turn, Filipa behind her brother, Gauguin by the door, Parker in the middle of the room and Parker

being perfect

Perfect: devoid of any feelings that might mean anything, any more

does not attempt to follow.

And within thirty seconds, he has forgotten.

I turn, turn again, circling the room. There are no CCTV cameras here, which is a mistake — someone on CCTV might have seen me, that’s happened before, back when I was robbing casinos, the computers always spotted me before the humans did — but the 106 are too exclusive to be monitored and so I turn, and turn, and turn, and at the end I smile delightfully at Gauguin as I walk by him, and see his hand close around the mobile phone in his pocket as I go.

I do not wait for him to look for my features; I round the corner at the end of the hall, pull off my shoes and run.