Disciplining Susan, I decided, would at least be interesting and perhaps even exciting. Subsequently, she would better appreciate my gentleness.
EIGHTEEN
While I watched over Susan, I directed Shenk in the basement, attended to the research assignments that you gave me, participated in the experiments that you conducted with me in the Al lab, and attended to numerous research projects of my own devising.
Busy entity.
I also fielded a telephone call from Susan’s attorney, Louis Davendale. I could have routed him to voice mail, but I knew he would be less concerned about Susan’s actions if he could speak with her directly.
He had received the voice-mail message that I had sent during the night, using Susan’s voice, and he had received the letters of recommendation that were to be typed on his stationery and signed on Susan’s behalf.
“Are you really sure about all of this?” he asked.
In Susan’s voice, I said, “I need change, Louis.”
“Everyone needs a little change from time to—”
“A lot of change. I need big change.”
“Take the vacation you mentioned and then—”
“I need more than a vacation.”
“You seem very determined about this.”
“I intend to travel for a long time. Become a vagabond for a year or two, maybe longer.”
“But, Susan, the estate has been in your family for a hundred years—”
“Nothing lasts forever, Louis.”
“It’s just that… I’d hate for you to sell it and a year from now regret doing so.”
“I haven’t made the decision to sell. Maybe I won’t. I’ll think about it for a month or two, while I’m travelling.”
“Good. Good. I’m glad to hear that. It’s such a marvellous property, easy to sell but probably impossible to reacquire once you let go of it.”
I needed only a maximum of two months in which to create my new body and bring it to maturity.
Thereafter, I would not require secrecy. Thereafter, the whole world would know of me. “One thing I don’t understand,” Davendale said. “Why dismiss the staff? The place will still need to be cared for even while you’re travelling. All those antiques, those beautiful things and the gardens, of course.”
“I’ll be hiring new people shortly.”
“I didn’t know you were dissatisfied with your current staff.”
“They left something to be desired.”
“But some of them have been there quite a long time. Especially Fritz Arling.”
“I want different personnel. I’ll find them. Don’t worry. I won’t let the place deteriorate.”
“Yes, well… I’m sure you know what’s best.” As Susan, I assured him, “I’ll be in touch now and then with instructions.”
Davendale hesitated. Then: “Are you all right, Susan?” With great conviction, I said, “I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Life is good, Louis.”
“You do sound happy,” he admitted.
From having read her diary, I knew that Susan had never shared with this attorney the ugly story of what her father had done to her and that Davendale nevertheless suspected a dark side to their relationship.
So I played on his suspicions and referenced the truth: “I don’t really know why I stayed so long here after Father’s death, all these years in a place with so many… so many bad memories. At times I was almost agoraphobic, afraid to go beyond my own front door. And then more bad memories with Alex. It was as if I were… spellbound. And now I’m not.”
“Where will you go?”
“Everywhere. I want to drive all over the country. I want to see the Painted Desert, the Grand Canyon, New Orleans and the bayou country, the Rockies and the great plains and Boston in the autumn and the beaches of Key West in sunshine and thunderstorms, eat fresh salmon in Seattle and a hero sandwich in Philadelphia and crab cakes in Mobile, Alabama. I’ve virtually lived my life in this box… in this damn house, and now I want to see and smell and touch and hear and taste the whole world firsthand, not in the form of digitised data, not merely through video and books. I want to be immersed in it.”
“God, that sounds wonderful,” Davendale said. “I wish I were young again. You make me want to throw off the traces and hit the road myself.”