*
David sat by the long window of his nursery, wrestling with paper and pencil. Finally, he stopped writing and began to roll the pencil up and down the slope of the desk-lid.
“Teddy!” he said.
Teddy lay on the bed against the wall, under a book with moving pictures and a giant plastic soldier. The speech-pattern of his master’s voice activated him and he sat up.
“Teddy, I can’t think what to say!”
Climbing off the bed, the bear walked stiffly over to cling to the boy’s leg. David lifted him and set him on the desk.
“What have you said so far?”
“I’ve said —” He picked up his letter and stared hard at it.
“I’ve said, ‘Dear Mummy, I hope you’re well just now. I love you….’”
There was a long silence, until the bear said, “That sounds fine.
Go downstairs and give it to her.”
Another long silence.
“It isn’t quite right. She won’t understand.”
Inside the bear, a small computer worked through its program of possibilities. “Why not do it again in crayon?”
When David did not answer, the bear repeated his suggestion. “Why not do it again in crayon?”
David was staring out of the window. “Teddy, you know what I was thinking? How do you tell what are real things from what aren’t real things?”
The bear shuffled its alternatives. “Real things are good.”
“I wonder if time is good. I don’t think Mummy likes time very much. The other day, lots of days ago, she said that time went by her. Is time real, Teddy?”
“Clocks tell the time. Clocks are real. Mummy has clocks so she must like them. She has a clock on her wrist next to her dial.”
David started to draw a jumbo jet on the back of his letter. “You and I are real, Teddy, aren’t we?”
The bear’s eyes regarded the boy unflinchingly. “You and I are real David.” It specialized in comfort.
*
Monica walked slowly about the house. It was almost time for the afternoon post to come over the wire. She punched the Post Office number on the dial on her wrist, but nothing came through. A few minutes more.
She could take up her painting. Or she could dial her friends. Or she could wait till Henry came home. Or she could go up and play with David….
She walked out into the hall and to the bottom of the stairs.
“David!”
No answer. She called again and a third time.
“Teddy!” she called, in sharper tones.
“Yes, Mummy!” After a moment’s pause, Teddy’s head of golden fur appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Is David in his room,Teddy?”
“David went into the garden, Mummy.”
“Come down here, Teddy!”
She stood impassively, watching the little furry figure as it climbed down from step to step on its stubby limbs. When it reached the bottom, she picked it up and carried it into the living room. It lay unmoving in her arms, staring up at her. She could feel just the slightest vibration from its motor.
“Stand there, Teddy. I want to talk to you.” She set him down on a tabletop, and he stood as she requested, arms set forward and open in the eternal gesture of embrace.
“Teddy, did David tell you to tell me he had gone into the garden?”
The circuits of the bear’s brain were too simple for artifice.
“Yes, Mummy.”
“So you lied to me.”
“Yes. Mummy.”
“Stop calling me Mummy! Why is David avoiding me? He’s not afraid of me, is he?”
“No. He loves you.”
“Why can’t we communicate?”
“David’s upstairs.”
The answer stopped her dead. Why waste time talking to this machine? Why not simply go upstairs and scoop David into her arms and talk to him, as a loving mother should to a loving son? She heard the sheer weight of silence in the house, with a different quality of silence pouring out of every room. On the upper landing, something was moving very silently — David, trying to hide away from her….
*
He was nearing the end of his speech now. The guests were attentive; so was the Press, lining two walls of the banqueting chamber, recording Henry’s words and occasionally photographing him.